The Night Driver podcast: Crude letter and cruel gossip put cop suspect Brad Hosemans through hell

Detectives had ruled out Brad Hosemans as a suspect when an anonymous letter sparked a reinvestigation and public inquiry | NIGHT DRIVER EPISODE 7 OUT NOW

An anonymous letter prompted the reinvestigation into Brad Hosemans, after he had previously been cleared as a suspect in Janine Vaughan's disappearance. Picture: Ross Schultz

Homicide detectives had almost certainly ruled out local cop Brad Hosemans as a serious suspect in Janine Vaughan’s disappearance when an anonymous letter prompted a thorough reinvestigation and high-profile public ­inquiry into him.

The letter found its way onto the desk of the NSW Police Commissioner in early June 2005 — 3½ years after the young clothing store manager vanished during a night out with friends — and made a number of explosive allegations against Hosemans.

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It expounded on vicious rumours that had been circulating through Bathurst, three hours west of Sydney, claiming Hosemans had murdered ­Janine in a fit of rage after she ­rebuffed his ­romantic overtures.

The baseless gossip also claimed that his fellow officers had then protected the police investigation manager, and covered up his heinous crime.

“He tried to f..k her and she knocked him back even on the night she went missing,” the letter read. “Everyone knows about it and you do to [sic] and you haven’t done anything about him. Put the bastard in jail where he belongs.

“Some nurses at the Bathurst hospital know that he did it and they are to [sic] frightened to speak up and they were there that night as he will get at them to [sic] like he has others before.”

While the crude letter was untraceable, it was treated as a formal complaint by the NSW Police Force. Detective Inspector Paul Jacob, who was leading the investigation into Janine’s disappearance, was asked to prepare a special report for his bosses on how the case — and Hosemans — were being handled.

The Sydney homicide squad had already looked into speculation in the town that Hosemans was a killer, but determined that the rumours were rubbish as there was no evidence he had ever had any contact with Janine.

For his part, Hosemans has been adamant he played no part in her disappearance and maintained he had never even met her or spoken to her.

Janine vanished during a late night out in the rural university town in early December 2001. She had been drinking and dancing with friends at the Metro Tavern before leaving the nightclub a little before 4am with pals Jordan Morris and Wonita Murphy.

The 31-year-old was upset, having misplaced her handbag inside the pub. Without her bag, she had no money for a taxi, no keys to get into her own home and, if any ill fortune had befallen her, no phone to call for help.

After resolving to check to see if another nearby pub was still open a couple of blocks away, she walked through the early morning rain, leaving her friends behind.

She made it a few hundred ­metres along the town’s darkened streets before a mysterious small red car pulled up behind her. The passenger door opened and she unexpectedly got in.

She was never seen again.

Those who knew Janine best said she never would have got in a car with someone she did not know and trust, particularly at that time of the night.

Her disappearance fuelled rampant speculation in a country town where most people’s lives overlapped and everyone soon ­became both an armchair detective and murder suspect.

Much of the speculation soon focused on the town’s well-heeled deputy mayor and leading detective, Brad Hosemans.

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There were rumours he had been spotted at the Metro Tavern in the hours before Janine vanished; that the small red car she was last seen getting in had belonged to Hosemans’s mother and was later found burnt-out; and that he had been hopelessly infatuated with Janine.

The tales found a receptive audience in a town desperate for answers, but they were all lies.

Independent analysis of the CCTV footage from the Metro Tavern of the night Janine’s disappeared — conducted separately by the police, her family and, most recently, The Night Driver podcast series that is reinvestigating her disappearance — confirmed he was not there in the hours ­before she vanished.

The widely circulated rumour that Hosemans’s mother owned a small red car was also false.

Anne Hosemans told The Night Driver podcast she had never owned a red car … and could never understand why “anyone would say that”. Still, it has been treated as a hard fact and further spread for years by many of the townspeople her son once considered his friends.

Anne says she cannot comprehend how her son has managed to contend with the campaign against him. “I just found it devastating for Bradley. What he’s had to go through,” she told The Night Driver.

“It’s a shocking thing for someone, you know, to accuse you of something so horrific to have ­occurred.”

As distressing as those accusations of murder were, Hosemans and his family would soon discover there was far worse to come.

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