The Night Driver: ‘Known’ driver crucial key to Janine Vaughan’s murder

A night out, a lovers’ tiff and a split-second decision by a young woman who’s never seen again. Who was in the red car?

Retired judge Peter Murphy has been helping to try to solve the murder mystery of Janine Vaughan. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Peter Murphy was newly retired as a judge and former criminal defence­ lawyer, with the rare luxury­ of spare time, when he offered­ to help try to solve the murder mystery of Janine Vaughan’s disappearance 19 years ago.

He has been working alongside a longtime friend, The Australian’s Hedley Thomas, reading thousands of documents and analysing­ evidence generated by the public inquiries into the case.

The young store manager had been out with friends in Bathurst, three hours’ drive west of Sydney, in December 2001, before getting into a red car shortly before 4am and vanishing into the night.

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Authorities concluded that Jan­ine had been abducted and murdered but, despite two police strike forces, a coronial inquest and a Police Integrity Commission inquiry, the identity of the car’s driver remains­ unknown. No one has been charged and her body has not been found.

“The human story of this family­ who had been searching for primarily a sister really struck home,” Murphy says of his involvem­en­t in The Night Driver pod­cast, launching on Friday. “Once you become interested in it on that basis, the analysis of large amounts of documents, the investigation into things that perhaps weren’t looked at in the first instance­, becomes fascinating.

“If we can go down some roads, alleyways, that either weren’t investigat­ed or turned into blind alleys at the time of the initial investigations, then who knows? I would love to get resolution for Janine’s family.”

The investigation has taken Murphy and Thomas to the wide, tree-lined streets of Bathurst in NSW’s central tablelands to meet sources, test various theories and retrace Janine’s final steps.

The 31-year-old had been vulner­able from the moment she stepped out onto the city’s darkened streets after a late night of drinking and dancing with friends at the popular Metro Tavern.

Her handbag was missing and with it her ID, mobile phone and house keys, along with the keys to the clothing store she was due to open in about five hours.

Janine Vaughan.

It was eventually found later that morning by the pub’s cleaner, Greg Brodie, who tells The Night Driver he suspects the bag was deliberatel­y hidden. Footage recovere­d from the venue’s security cameras shows Janine clearly upset at the loss of her handbag as she leaves the tavern with her friends, Jordan Morris and Wonita­ Murphy, at 3.50am.

“It’s raining, it’s very early in the morning, so she starts walking up this way,” the retired judge notes as he retraces Janine’s movements. “And then to make things worse, Jordan, who’s a good mate, was having a stoush with his girlfriend, Wonita, about some domestic issue of theirs.

“And she says, ‘Well, let’s go to the Ox’, which is a pub just over there. Obviously, they hatch a bit of a plan. It seems to be the pub that’s open after this one.”

As the rain beats down heavily around them, Janine strides ahead of her friends, making for the refuge of The Oxford pub.

Greg Brodie, who found Janine’s bag at the Metro Hotel in Bathurst. Picture: Nikki Short

“Her friends, Jordan Morris and Wonita Murphy, follow her. Jordan seems to think Janine’s giving him and Wonita some space to sort of have out their domestic issue,” Murphy says.

“He describes her as picking up speed and moving ahead of them quite quickly. But Jordan was still concerned about her so he was keeping an eye on her. The overall impression from Jordan is that she was in a pretty fragile state in the time leading up to this night.

“She’s heading up here toward­s the end of the park … and by this stage Janine’s … about 25 metres or so ahead of them. And this is the last time that he sees her, what he sees then is a car.”

■ READ MORE: The Night Driver — the new podcast from the investigative journalist who brought youThe Teacher’s Pet

Then Janine makes a split-second­ decision that will change their lives forever. She gets straight in the car as if she knows the driver and is never seen again.

“He doesn’t get a perfect view. As we stand here you look through the park and the car’s parked just up there,” Murphy says in the podcast. “Jordan says pretty much what everyone else says and that is that he’s very confident that she knows the driver.

“Everyone’s adamant about it. Her family, her friends, the friends that were here with her that night. Her previous partner says exactly the same thing. We’ve said to them, ‘Look, you know, really, are you sure she wouldn’t have been tempted given those factors?’ ‘Absolutely­ not,’ they all say.”

It is a crucial detail, and one former criminal defence lawyer Peter Murphy SC believes could be the answer to solving the perplexing mystery once and for all.