The Night Driver podcast: Red for danger: car clue holds key

It is the vital clue police have always hoped would prove the key to solving Janine Vaughan’s mystery abduction and murder.

Janine Vaughan.

It is the clue police have always hoped would prove the key to solving Janine Vaughan’s mystery abduction and murder – yet for almost two decades they have struggled to even agree on the size of car she was last seen getting in the night she vanished.

The 31-year-old had been enjoying a late night out in the quiet country town of Bathurst, three hours west of Sydney, before leaving the Metro Tavern with friends Jordan Morris and Wonita Murphy shortly before 4am on December 7, 2001.

After resolving to kick on together at nearby pub The Oxford, Janine marched ahead through the early morning rain as then couple Jordan and Wonita trailed in her wake, squabbling over some minor domestic issue.

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Then came the moment that changed everything: the clothing store manager unexpectedly got into a red car with an unknown driver and was never seen again. With few other leads, police hoped tracing the car would help reveal Janine’s abductor.

Jordan had only seen the vehicle from a distance through the rain and told police that he thought it was a medium-sized reddish car; fortunately someone else had been watching from a better vantage point.

Local pub doorman Ian Bryant told police in the hours following Janine’s disappearance that he had seen the incident unfold from his apartment window.

“The rain started to pour hard and Janine started running, I assume to get out of the rain,” Bryant said. “I noticed a small car do a U-turn. When the car stopped it was about five metres behind Janine and a bit to her right.

“I saw Janine stop running and look back at this car. Janine then started to walk towards this car. As she headed towards the car one of the passenger side doors opened. Janine walked over and got into the car through the door that was open.

“As Janine got into the car I heard Wonita yell out Janine’s name. Janine didn’t respond.

“I would describe the car that she got into as a small car similar to a Ford Laser or Hyundai Excel. It was a pink red in colour. It looked quite new, maybe three or four years old.”

Bryant died from a heart condition some years after Janine’s disappearance, but his eyewitness account has remained a reassuringly precise piece of evidence in a case otherwise filled with contradictions. Popularly known about town as Strop, he was a noted car enthusiast and his statement had been made when the details were fresh in his mind.

Acting on his description, police appealed to the people of Bathurst for help in tracking down the small red car. Then, just days later, they revised their description of the vehicle.

Detective Inspector Paul Jacob, who was heading up the case, said in December 2001 police were searching for a medium-sized bright red car.

It would remain the official description for more than a decade. Yet by the time police announced in March 2019 a $1m reward for information leading to Janine’s killer, it had reverted to being “a small red vehicle”.

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Former criminal defence lawyer and retired family court judge Peter Murphy SC – who is working with The Australian’s new The Night Driver podcast re-examining the case – said it was a critical distinction, particularly given two of the “persons of interest” called at a coronial inquest into Janine’s disappearance in 2009 had owned small red cars at the time she went missing.

Bathurst aged-care home wardsman Denis Briggs drove a Hyundai Excel back then, while local pharmacist Andrew Jones drove a Renault 19; although no adverse findings were ever made against either man and they have denied any wrongdoing.

“It seems abundantly clear … following that theory through, that not only is it a person she knew but it’s also a car she knew because the car comes from behind her, she turns around, she goes to the car without hesitation, gets straight into the car without hesitation,” Murphy said.

“So everyone seems to accept that the reason for that behaviour is she knows the car, she knows the person driving the car. Okay. But (police) have never said, ‘What about people who drive red cars of any type or description who Janine knows well enough to get into?’. It makes you wonder whether the police are now trying to fit the car to the person they’ve got in their sights.”