Mother’s shock as man arrested over daughter Michelle Bright’s murder in 1999

Loraine Bright waited 21 years for answers to who killed her daughter. One day a $1m reward was offered, the breakthrough came.

Police have charged a man with the 1999 murder of Michelle Bright. Picture: Supplied/NSW Police

Loraine Bright has agonised for two decades over who brutally murdered her beautiful young daughter and “soulmate” in the tiny NSW town of Gulgong.

On Tuesday night, just a day after offering a $1 million reward, police told Ms Bright they believed they finally had the answer: a former neighbour, who was to be charged with the murder.

“He was two houses down from us. Our kids went to school together,” a shocked Ms Bright said on Wednesday.

The result is understood to have come down to a combination of detectives linking together a previous alleged sex assault, DNA evidence from near the scene of the murder, the accused killer’s motive and opportunity, information from the public and other evidence gathered in an intense cold case reinvestigation.

Michelle's mother Loraine fights tears as the $1m reward for the capture of her daughter’s killer was announced on August 10. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone/NCA NewsWire

Ms Bright’s 17-year-old daughter, Michelle Loraine Bright, was last seen being dropped off in a vehicle at the Commercial Hotel in the main street of Gulgong on the night of Saturday, February 27, 1999.

She had been to a 15th birthday party and planned to stay at the home of a friend. It was considered likely she’d walked to the friend’s home but found no-one there.

Reported missing by her mother and initially treated as a runaway by police in the town of just 2500 people, Michelle was found dead three days after vanishing.

She was semi-naked, her body dumped in long grass by the side of a road 1km from her home.

Teenager Michelle Bright.

Her family has waited ever since for justice. On Monday, Ms Bright and Michelle’s father, Greg, and brothers Les and Phil, joined police to announce a doubling of the existing $500,000 reward and to beg the public for answers.

They’d appealed to the public many times before, with no result. This time would be different.

Former abattoir worker Craig Henry Rumsby, 53, was stopped in his car and arrested by detectives near Mudgee around 9.30pm Tuesday after driving to the town from Sydney.

Accused wrote it was ‘sad they haven’t caught killer’

Less than 24 hours earlier, he’d commented on a Facebook post about the murder.

“It’s so sad that they haven’t caught her killer … Michelle was like a sister to me I feel sorry for the family,” he wrote.

Police allege it was a sex-related killing and that Mr Rumsby committed another serious sex assault one year before Ms Bright’s death, strangling an 18-year-old woman on New Year’s Day, 1998, in Goulburn. The attack was reported to police at the time but there had been no charges.

Mr Rumsby was taken to Mudgee police station and charged with Michelle Bright’s murder and offences relating to the alleged earlier sex assault.

Like other men in town, Mr Rumsby gave a DNA sample to police at the time of the murder and was named one of the persons of interest at a 2009 coronial inquest.

He was one of several people police had in their sights during the reinvestigation.

Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said Mr Rumsby was so shocked when he was arrested he suffered heart palpitations.

Michelle’s Bright’s mother was equally floored.

’Someone out there heard my cry for help’

“That was shock in a good way, not in a bad way … she’s been waiting for that phone call for 21 years,” he said. “She’s feeling some relief that justice can now be done.”

Superintendent Doherty said information flooded in after the new reward and family’s public appeal. Police “believe there may be other victims out there”, he said.

Ms Bright said she had “waited 21 years” for the call from police.

“I think I screamed and then I cried and then I had to compose myself and get back on the phone,” she told 2GB.

“I haven’t slept all night. I’ve shed more tears in the past three days than I have in a lifetime.

“Someone out there heard my cry for help.

“I waited 21 years to hear this news, I suppose it’s the start of our next journey in our lives.”

Earlier, on Monday, Ms Bright was in tears as she relived the horror of her daughter’s disappearance.

“That night I sat out in the drizzly rain in the driveway, waiting for her to come home,” she said.

“I knew then that things weren‘t good. I knew then in my heart I had lost her, because it’s a small country town.

Ms Bright had always suspected her daughter knew her killer.

“She was a beautiful kid … she was my soulmate. We were very lucky to have her for 17 years.

“I personally, in my own heart, think that she might have known him.”

Confronted after his arrest by a TV news crew as police led him away in handcuffs, he denied killing Michelle, and said he had known her mother for years.

Michelle's mother Loraine, left, father Greg, and brothers Phil and Les Bright in Sydney on Monday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Flavio Brancaleone