The Night Driver podcast: Amateur sleuth convinced he knows who did it

Amateur detective Dennis Mead is convinced he knows who killed Janine Vaughan.

On the trail: Denis Mead. Picture: Nikki Short

After spending the better part of 10 years and tens of thousands of dollars out of his own pocket investigating Jan­ine Vaughan’s murder, Dennis Mead is convinced he knows who killed her — and nothing short of a courtroom acquittal will convince him otherwise.

The retiree had no knowledge of the case — nor any connection to the Vaughan family — for years after she vanished following a late night out with friends in the quiet country town of Bathurst in the NSW central tablelands in early December 2001.

It was only after a terminally ill friend named Les mentioned her baffling disappearance and his misgivings about the police investigation that Mead turned sleuth.

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“(Les) said: ‘This family’s being shafted.’ He said: ‘This sham of an investigation, this sham of a coronial inquest.’ He said: ‘It’s not fair,’ ” he tells The Night Driver, a podcast by The Australian which is re-examining the circumstances surrounding Jan­ine’s death.

“He said: ‘I want you to promise me that you’ll help the family and you’ll follow it up.’ I agreed. Les passed away a couple of years later. I made contact with (Janine’s younger brother) Adam Vaughan and arranged to meet the family.”

Since then, the amateur detective has been chasing leads, interviewing witnesses and even taking statements from them. He is determined to get to the bottom of what happened after Janine left Bathurst’s Metro Tavern about 4am with a couple of friends on December 7, before unexpectedly getting into a red car with an unknown driver and vanishing forever.

Despite a long-running murder investigation, coronial inquest and Police Integrity Commission probe, the identity of that driver remains unknown, and Janine’s body has never been found.

“Now you would have to believe she knew the car was coming to pick her up. She was purposefully setting out to the corner, the car swung around, the door opened and she got straight in,” Mead tells The Night Driver.

“I don’t believe that it was a chance meeting. The meeting for her to be picked up was pre-arranged and she was aware someone was coming to pick her up. That would have meant she had to have been contacted at some point either outside the club or inside the club before she left.”

Like many people in Bathurst, Mead has become fixated with the idea former local detective and deputy mayor Brad Hosemans was responsible, even though he has denied any involvement and has been repeatedly and categorically ruled out as a suspect.

Mead has been obsessively profiling Hosemans for years, including investigating any properties, entities and employers associated with him, and contacting his family, colleagues and friends.

“The investigation was never conducted properly … so it’s been a travesty for the family,” he says. “If Hosemans were given the opportunity to contest all of the evidence against him in a court of law and he won, and he was found innocent, that’s fair enough.

“But there’s a massive amount of evidence and quite a number of people that have never been followed up on.”

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Janine’s brother Adam says the family was initially awestruck by Mead’s sheer determination to solve their sister’s murder.

“I don’t know (why he has) the obsession … I can’t really understand it,” Adam says. “He’s just a salesman, businessman, from ­Orange (about 45 minutes from Bathurst). Out of the blue, he wanted to meet us at a shack up a dirt road; it was quite frightening when we were heading there.

“He had witnesses and statements and a big map like I was watching MASH from 1980. He sprawled it out on the table and … knew exactly, ‘Now this is where Hosemans was, this is where they would’ve turned around.’

“Of course, we’re just being fed by this obsession. He’s never lost it. He’s traipsed through bushland, followed people, set up cameras.”

There is no mistaking Mead’s ongoing commitment and affection for Janine’s loved ones, but it is unclear whether his efforts are actually helping or making things harder — for the family and the innocent man accused of murder.

“It’s been 10 years since he contacted us … and we’re still here with probably a lot more hate and unanswered questions,” Adam says.