By Gemma Grant
Joy Membrey lets out a heavy sigh when the decision comes. Sitting in a Melbourne courtroom, more than three decades after her daughter was killed, the 85-year-old now knows the state coroner doesn’t have enough evidence to identify who took Elisabeth Membrey’s life.
Wednesday’s inquest findings were the last step of an already reopened investigation into the death of the 22-year-old in 1994.
Joy Membrey at the Coroners Court of Victoria on Wednesday. Credit: Nine News
“How am I supposed to live with this uncertainty?” Joy Membrey said to State Coroner Judge John Cain in the courtroom. “All I want out of life is my daughter found.”
The mother’s grief remains unresolved despite an eight-week murder trial in 2012 that resulted in an acquittal, an initial coronial inquest in 2000, and new DNA evidence being discovered less than three years ago.
“I want justice for Elisabeth. That’s all I want,” she said.
The case went to trial in the Supreme Court in 2012, with the accused, Shane Andrew Bond, acquitted by a jury. The investigation into Elisabeth’s death was reopened in 2023 following a breakthrough in the case. Police reviewed their investigation of an early suspect, Andrew Crump, whose sister lived with Elisabeth at the time of her death.
Elisabeth Membrey was killed in 1994.Credit: Digitally altered image by Richard Giliberto
Elisabeth Membrey was last seen alive on the evening of December 6, 1994, after finishing a bar shift at Ringwood’s Manhattan Hotel. An aspiring journalist, she was remembered as kind and gentle by her mother.
The inquest heard that police believed someone known to her entered her home and killed her in the hallway that night. They then attempted to clean the house and disposed of her body at an unknown location.
Traces of Crump’s DNA were found in Elisabeth’s house and car after being retested. Police also say that he made partial disclosures to friends and family about what happened to Elisabeth, and they were suspicious about his sudden relocation to Queensland in 1994.
But the Office of Public Prosecutions ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence to consider Crump a suspect. He has never been charged with any offence in relation to Elisabeth’s death.
At the reopened inquest on Wednesday, Cain said that the evidence presented to him fell just short of enabling him to determine those involved in the death.
“I am not comfortably satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to conclude to that Mr Crump caused or contributed to Ms Membrey’s death,” Cain said in his findings.
The state coroner said there were gaps in knowledge about Crump’s movements on the night of Elisabeth’s death, and that some evidence was inconsistent or contradictory. He also determined that the DNA evidence was inconclusive.
Cain noted the “unimaginable grief and anguish” that Elisabeth’s family have suffered over the last 30 years, and thanked Joy Membrey for attending the inquest and providing her voice.
Joy and Roger Membrey in 2005.Credit: John Woudstra
“It is regrettable that I have not been able to provide the closure that Ms Membrey’s family would want, but the evidence simply does not support a conclusion other than the one I have come to,” Cain said. “I convey my sincere condolences to Ms Membrey’s family for their loss.”
Crump did not respond to invitations from the coroner to participate in the inquest.
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