Dad finds chilling new clues in daughter’s mystery Mozambique death

A phone call out of the blue has revealed chilling new clues into a dad’s quest to solve his daughter’s mystery murder overseas four years ago.

It’s the moment when the shivers crept up the spine of the man investigating 20-year-old Australian Elly Warren’s mystery murder, her own father Paul Warren.

Trapped in Victoria at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Warren could not immediately do anything when the eerie contact from a woman he didn’t know came to him via Facebook Messenger.

The woman had a strange story to tell and more chilling details would ensue as a locked-down Paul Warren began to learn about crime, corruption and cover-ups from Africa to Melbourne.

It would set him on a path of investigation regarding his daughter that he could not have predicted.

But by 2020, he was already used to twists and turns no suburban father or even a retired engineer might have anticipated.

Four years ago this month, Paul Warren and his family had received the terrible news that Elly, an adventurous, hardworking and confident young woman, had been found dead in Mozambique.

Her lifeless body had been found face down in the sand, with her bikini bottoms around her ankles, behind a toilet block early on November 9, 2016, in the coastal town of Tofo.

Paul Warren has uncovered chilling new clue sin the 2016 murder of his daughter Elly, 20 (above) at a Mozambique resort town. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

The aspiring Melbourne marine biologists, Elly Warren, 20, was murdered two months before she was due to return home.

A wreath on the spot by the toilet block where the body of Elly Warren was found in November 2016 in Tofo, Mozambique. Picture: Supplied

Elly Warren, who was due to return home in two months to study marine biology, had been volunteering on a marine conservation project.

Tofo, fringed by coral reefs which are world renowned for manta rays, whale sharks and migratory humpbacks, is a magnet for international divers.

Although the town in Tofo is in reality a collection of resorts dotted among tin shacks along dirt roads, Elly was enjoying a holiday in a place she had told her father she wanted eventually to make her home — Africa.

On the night before her body was found, she had been out with friends from Casa Barry Beach Lodge and dancing in the street.

Sometime after 2am, a man watched her walk from the Parangio Beach Motel towards the Tofo De Mar Hotel and a street clustered with snack bars.

Three hours later, a fisherman found Elly’s body near the toilet block, the location of the town’s only public freshwater taps where fishermen went daily to prime their boats.

Multiple forensic examinations revealed the fit and healthy young woman died from asphyxia, after inhaling sand into her lower airways, and had no drugs in her system.

It would prove, however, the sand was a golden yellow, the kind found at the beach, and not the black sand around the toilet block.

Elly’s body had been moved. The fisherman who found her had taken a clear photo which indicated a struggle.

But at the time, despite a Mozambique autopsy finding she had been murdered, Tofo police and authorities told Paul Warren there was no homicide.

Elly Warren (second left) was volunteering on a marine conservation project when she was murdered at Mozambique’s Tofo Beach in 2016.

Tofo, Mozambique is an international diving spot known for its coral reefs, manta rays and humpback whales.

Elly Warren with her father Paul Warren, who has embarked on his own investigation of her 2016 murder.

They said she had simply fallen over into the sand and her death was an accident.

Despite two visits to Mozambique himself and spending time and money to investigate Elly’s death, Paul was still effectively flying blind until the message from the woman out of the blue.

“She didn’t want any money. She didn’t contact me straight away but it preyed on her mind,” Mr Warren told news.com.au.

“It was an indirect tip-off and I could relate to her.”
What the women had to tell him was that on a holiday in Tofo, her teenage children had run into an unsavoury character.

The man, Tony, had alarmed the teens enough that they told their mother about him, and she had quizzed the caretaker of the premises at which they were staying.

The caretaker warned the woman not to let her children near the man because he was dangerous.

This was the woman’s initial communication with Paul: “One night our kids came home from the market and asked our caretaker, do you know a guy called Tony.

“The … caretaker got this look on his face and said, ‘I can’t say anything except that Tony

is not a nice man. Stay away from him’.

“The following day, I asked the caretaker more about Tony. He said ‘do you know about the Australian girl?’.

“And he said, ‘Tony and his gang were behind that. I am pretty sure you will know

this already.’.

Paul Warren in Tofo, Mozambique with a photo memorial of his daughter seeking clues as to anyone who might know something of her death.

Elly Warren was passionate about marine life and Africa.

The 20 -year-old was about to start uni.

Elly had left Pariango backpacker hotel (above) and was headed up the road to a snack bar area when she vanished.

Images of the respiratory system, showing the bronchial tubes. Multiple autopsies showed Elly Warren had sand in her lower airways, including her bronchial tubes. Picture: Supplied

“It’s more a case of getting the authorities to act on it. He’s a dangerous guy and has tattoos all over – apparently the teardrop tattoo on his face too.

“I think his name is Antonio. We saw him a few times. Tony would hang out in

a little pub next door to Branco’s pizza place.

“He’s a drug dealer I think. We were told he spikes tourist’s drinks and steals from them.”

Paul Warren already had indications that his daughter’s death was far from accidental but had come up against brick walls of bureaucratic indifference, incompetence or worse.

Convinced his daughter was murdered, he had travelled to Tofo on a personal investigative mission last year.

But confined to lockdown this year, he would learn that far from his daughter having been found lying flat on the ground, she had in fact been in a Muslim praying position.

A local businessman had either helped move her body, or asked it be moved from the beach because an unnatural death, and possible murder, was bad for business in a town which relied heavily on tourism.

As he delved more deeply into the known and the unknown facts regarding Elly’s death, Paul would learn that there was a clear image of his daughter’s body.

Prior to that, all he had known about was a blurry photo sent to the Melbourne doctor who was conducting a third post mortem on Elly, after the autopsy in Mozambique and another in South Africa.

Elly Warren, pictured (above) here on a walking track in Botswana in 2016, prior to her going to Mozambique where she was killed. Picture: Supplied.

Retired engineer Paul Warren has uncovered chilling details about his daughter’s murder in Mozambique. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

Elly Warren, far left, in the last picture taken of her before her death on the evening of the November 8, 2016.

He was disturbed to find that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) had known of the existence of the clear image since about two weeks after Elly’s death, but had not informed him.

Mr Warren has shared the disturbing but vital clear photo of Elly’s body in situ, and it shows her black T-shirt torn off her right shoulder to the extent the rip exposes her right side.

“The AFP and DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs) knew the Mozambique authorities were covering it up,” he said.

“When I disputed the autopsy from (a Melbourne doctor) that said the cause of Elly’s death was ‘undetermined’ we had a meeting.

“There were … three from the AFP there. They didn’t say anything about the photo.”

Paul Warren’s own investigation led him, incredibly, to infiltrate the gang run by the man implicated in Elly’s death by the Tofo caretaker.

He found himself in the unusual situation of hiring a local woman, on the advice of a German private investigator, to make clandestine recordings of “T’ and his gang.

The plan was for the woman to mention Elly’s death after seeing the memorial of photos Paul had erected at the public toilets where his daughter’s body was found.

This would allow the woman to casually bring up Elly with T, but an unknown person had ripped down the photo and that plan was thwarted.

While there was no smoking gun, T nevertheless big-noted himself about crimes he had committed, leaving Paul with recordings that could fuel a local police investigation into him.

Paul Warren, father of Elly Warren who was murdered in Africa has new clues into her death and is hoping for answers. Picture: David Caird.

Mr Warren concedes that his efforts may come to nothing, that the murder of Elly Rose Warren may never properly be investigated in Mozambique, nor a perpetrator charged and convicted.

Mr Warren said he and his family were lobbying for a new federal agency to be set up for when an Australian was killed overseas

And now a Victorian Coroner’s Court directions hearing has been set down for December 17, and he is hoping for an inquest into Elly’s death.

Abrasions were found on Elly’s neck, as well as bruising on her mouth and in the muscles on the left-hand side of her neck.

Mr Warren said his daughter had not been sexually assaulted.

He said his investigation of Elly’s murder has not been easy on his wife, Nicole, and his other daughter Kristy, but that “it needs to be done and people need to know”.

Mr Warren’s investigations of Elly’s death and the crime scene thereafter include crucial details either overlooked or discarded by local police investigators.

He is still seeking his daughter’s torn black T-shirt – clearly visible in the fisherman’s photo of her – but not bagged and tagged by police, who neither kept evidence nor any crime scene photos.

“As Elly’s Black T-shirt is clearly ripped open why has this vital piece of evidence not been

bagged and tagged as evidence which is vital evidence that proves a struggle took place?” he asked.

Elly Warren, who died mysteriously in Tofo, Mozambique in November 2016, pictured with a giraffe on an earlier trip to Africa. Picture: Supplied.

Instead, he received a Mozambique police report last month saying the cause of Elly’s death “may have been merely accidental”.

In a statement, Mr Warren has expressed his disappointment – and his disgust – at the lack of action by both Africa and Australia on Elly’s death.

“When my daughter died a suspicious death in a foreign country in 2016 I had no idea about the circumstances that were going to take place over the next four years,” he said.

“I am very disappointed with the effort and lack of support of the Australian government and their relevant agencies.

“Elly was a young female Australian citizen and she and her family deserved a far better commitment by all concerned.

“I am also very disappointed by the doctors who conducted the autopsies.”

Mr Warren has pages and pages of evidence, videos and his recordings of Tony which he hopes to present to the Victorian Coroner’s Court.

If he cannot completely prove what happened to his daughter and see justice, he doesn't want it happening to any other Australian family.

“We’re pushing the Government to set up an independent team, to look after people whose loved ones have been murdered overseas because it’s really not good enough the way it is,” Mr Warren said.

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