Dear Rachelle investigation: Five questions police refuse to answer

These are the questions police are refusing to answer about an investigation into a brutal murder where a woman’s body was burned in the bush.

Police are refusing to answer five vital questions in the cold case investigation of a young woman who was murdered, set alight and dumped by the side of a road.

Rachelle Childs, 23, was in the prime of her life and working at a used car dealership in Camden, south-west Sydney, when she was killed in June 2001.

The initial police investigation was plagued with avoidable blunders and a failure to obtain key evidence within the first 48 hours of her death. As a result, no one was ever charged and her killer is still on the loose.

News Corp’s podcast team has been working with Rachelle’s family and ex-detectives to re-investigate the case and uncover long-forgotten evidence.

Murdered Bargo woman Rachelle Childs, whose burning body was found at Gerroa on June 8, 2001.

Kevin Steven Correll is a prime suspect in the murder investigation of Rachelle Childs. Picture: Jeff Darmanin

Since the podcast launched in March, a number of people have come forward with potential leads – including serious allegations of violence against prime suspect Kevin Steven Correll, who was Rachelle’s boss at Camden Holden when she died.

Mr Correll vehemently denies having anything to do with Rachelle’s murder and has never been charged.

Police quietly re-opened the investigation into Rachelle’s case in January, but her family only found out due to enquiries by News Corp. Here are the major questions police won’t answer.

LISTEN TO INVESTIGATION UPDATE 3 BELOW

What is the status of the petrol station CCTV from the night Rachelle was murdered?

Police acquired CCTV of Rachelle at a petrol station somewhere between Camden and Gerroa, NSW, where her body was found, on the night of the murder – and then they lost it.

Rachelle Childs.

Police have reopened the investigation into the murder of Rachelle Childs.

The footage was missing for the best part of two decades, before police somehow managed to locate it again when the investigation reopened in January.

The vision was recorded in 2001, and it’s low-quality, so police sent it to Queensland for enhancements. Once it’s returned, police intend to show the footage to Rachelle’s family.

However, police have refused to say whether the footage has been successfully restored, whether it has returned to NSW, and when the Childs family will be able to see it. It is unclear exactly what the vision shows and whether it Rachelle on her own or her with another person.

LISTEN TO THE LATEST DEAR RACHELLE PODCAST EPISODES BELOW:

Why have police not responded to an email with potential evidence from Mr Correll’s ex-girlfriend?

Evelyn* dated Mr Correll in 2002, a year after Rachelle’s murder. By that stage, he had moved from the Camden area to Warilla, on the NSW south coast.

She went to visit him one weekend and he insisted on showing her what he described as “a really fancy car”.

He told her the car was a Walkinshaw, which is a highly-collectable vehicle. Holden only ever built 750 of them and they’re now worth about $500,000 each. Evelyn knew nothing about cars, but the name Walkinshaw stuck with her because she liked the sound of it.

Days before she died, Rachelle was beside herself with excitement because a Walkinshaw was getting delivered to the used car yard at Camden Holden, and Mr Correll told her she could drive it over the June long-weekend.

Days before she died, Rachelle was beside herself with excitement because a Walkinshaw was getting delivered to the used car yard at Camden Holden. Pictured here is a 1988 Holden Commodore VL Walkinshaw SS Group S Sedan (build No. 479), which sold for $57,750 at auction in 2012.

Rachelle wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the car, probably because it was worth so much, but she couldn’t contain herself. Her sister Kristy said: “That was all she could talk about, even though she wasn’t supposed to.”

She didn’t live long enough to see the long-weekend.

Mr Correll later told a coronial inquest that he had no knowledge of a Walkinshaw being delivered to the car yard, and therefore never told Rachelle she could drive one.

Police tracked the movements of all 750 Walkinshaws and found that none were ever delivered to Camden Holden.

Evelyn was questioned at the 2006 coronial inquest into Rachelle’s death, but she didn’t understand the relevance of the Walkinshaw so she didn’t mention it. It wasn’t until many years later that she understood the significance of the car.

In July 2024, Evelyn wrote to police to tell them Mr Correll had a Walkinshaw in his Warilla garage, but she never received a response. Police have not answered questions as to why she was not contacted.

Mr Correll’s ex-wife has alleged that he threatened to kill her, chop her body up into small pieces and bury her at Warilla Beach. Will police interview her?

Elise* was married to Mr Correll for 11 years until she left him in 1997, four years before Rachelle was murdered.

Speaking with the Dear Rachelle podcast team, she said Mr Correll had a “dark passenger living inside him” and alleged that he was physically and emotionally abusive, jealous, quick to anger, controlling, and threatening.

“If I ever left him, he [threatened to] hunt me down and find me. He would cut me up in little pieces. Bury me on the beach in individual spots, cover me in lime so nobody could smell that there were body parts there,” she said.

“I thought lime was to dissolve a body but apparently it’s to stop the smell. I didn’t know that. He knew that.”

The ex-wife of Kevin Steven Correll recalls driving near Gerroa Beach and him saying that would be “a good place to bury somebody”. Rachelle Childs’ burning remains were found in Gerroa, sear Seven Mile Beach National Park.

On another occasion, they were driving near Gerroa Beach, very close to where Rachelle’s body was dumped years later. Elise was talking to him about how beautiful she thought the area was and that it would be a nice place to take their family.

She said, “look at all that bush there”. He replied: “Yeah, look at all that bush there, that’d be a good place to bury somebody. Just make sure you behave yourself.”

Elise said they hadn’t been arguing and she didn’t know why he said it, but brushed it off at the time because he often made those sorts of comments.

Rachelle Childs was murdered 24 years ago. Her killer has never been found.

When the Dear Rachelle investigation asked Mr Correll whether he was abusive towards Elise and threatened to kill her, he said: “I vehemently deny these allegations and the answer is NO to all four questions.”

Outside Mr Correll’s immediate family, Elise has known him the longest.

Police spoke with her after Rachelle’s murder, but they didn’t ask about her relationship with Mr Correll. She didn’t volunteer the information herself because she was shocked over the fact that she was being questioned about her ex-husband over a murder.

Elise was never asked to give a formal statement, or to give evidence at the coronial inquest into Rachelle’s death.

Police have now refused to say whether they will interview her.

LISTEN TO EARLIER EPISODES OF THE PODCAST BELOW:

Will police reinterview Mr Correll?

Mr Correll was voluntarily questioned by police on three separate occasions, during which he consistently denied any involvement in her death.

However the podcast investigation has brought new evidence to light from interviews with some of Mr Correll’s friends, ex-girlfriends, colleagues and family members.

Police would not say whether he will be interviewed again.

Did police question Mr Correll over newspaper clippings about Rachelle’s murder that were found in his rental?

Mr Correll rented an apartment overlooking the car dealership where he worked with Rachelle.

When he moved out, the landlord ripped up the carpet and found folded newspaper pages about Rachelle’s death in a wardrobe, tucked to the area where the carpet met the wall.

He took them to police.

Police didn’t reply to questions regarding the newspaper clippings.

Former detective Damian Loone, who famously helped crack the Teacher’s Pet case and is working with the Dear Rachelle investigation team, said he could understand the force’s reticence to weigh in.

“It’s quite an important strategic … investigation technique that’s used. Not to show their full hand. Because there are some things that the offender only may know,” he said.

*Names have been changed.

For more information about our investigation, visit dearachelle.com.au.

If you have any tips or confidential information, please contact investigative journalist Ashlea Hansen at [e-mail].

You can also join our Dear Rachelle podcast Facebook group.

Originally published as Dear Rachelle investigation: Five questions police refuse to answer