The Night Driver podcast: the people involved in the case of missing woman Janine Vaughan
The disappearance of Janine Vaughan has mystified Janine’s family, police and the community of Bathurst for 19 years. Here are some of the key people involved in the case.
A young woman disappears into a rain-soaked night. A country town divides on rumour and speculation. A family relentlessly seeks to uncover the truth.
The Australian’s Hedley Thomas investigates the case of missing woman Janine Vaughan. Here are some of the people you’ll hear from, or about, during The Night Driver podcast.
The podcast series will have at least eight episodes. More people will feature here as they emerge through episodes released weekly.
Subscribers of The Australian will be able to hear it before the rest of the nation, exclusively in The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.
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Janine Vaughan
Janine Vaughan, 31, had moved from her home town of Muswellbrook to the NSW country town of Bathurst. She had been raised in a loving family, and remained in close contact with her parents and siblings after the move. Janine worked as a manager in a menswear store in town called Ed Harry’s, and had a wide circle of friends – both men and women – who described her as authentic and friendly and outgoing. She hoped to settle down in Bathurst, marry, and raise children.
After an evening out clubbing with friends in December 2001, Janine was seen getting into a red car near the popular Metro Tavern nightspot on one of the city’s main streets shortly before 4am, and then she vanished into the night. She was never heard from again. Her disappearance sparked one of the nation’s most perplexing homicide investigations. She had reported a series of stalking incidents to Bathurst police, leading up to her disappearance.
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Janine’s family
Kylie Spelde
Janine Vaughan’s younger sister. Now in her early 40s, Kylie Spelde is on a relentless quest for answers, hoping to uncover the truth about her sister’s fate. She’s dug with her bare hands into soil in thickly wooded forest near Bathurst when she’s been told her sister’s body was buried there. She has stalked suspects and informants online, and chased cryptic leads. She has tracked former and serving cops when she believed they might know something. Kylie hopes that by re-examining Janine’s case in this podcast, digging into new leads, talking to people and inviting help from the public, Janine’s body might be found. And her killer discovered. Read more
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Adam Vaughan
Janine’s brother. Together with sister Kylie, Adam searches tirelessly for clues and information regarding Janine’s disappearance. He joins Kylie when she has received a tip-off and he drives to Bathurst on weekends and puts posters around the town, appealing for public help. Read more
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Rodney Vaughan
Janine Vaughan’s brother, now a senior engineer in one of the coal mines in the Hunter Valley. Rod and Janine got on well, and spent time together at Mount Panorama in Bathurst. Tormented by his sister’s disappearance, Rod has kept his distance from the investigation. He says he feels guilt that he hasn’t done enough, and he worries that Janine is looking down and judging him for not being more involved in looking for her killer, but he fears going down the ‘rabbit burrow’ of investigation because it may be hard to get out again. Seeing how the long investigation has impacted the lives of his mother, father and siblings Kylie and Adam has made Rod determined not to let it take over his life in the same way. Rod has tried to focus on his marriage and children and his work, getting on with his life as best as he can. Read more
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Jenny Vaughan
The woman Janine called Mum, Jenny Vaughan made numerous pleas for public help and prayed that she would know the truth before a terminal illness took her.
When she had months to live Jenny said her one remaining hope was that after she had died she would be reunited with Janine and find out who murdered her. Jenny treated Janine as if she were her own daughter, while knowing Janine’s biological mother lived nearby in the small community.
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Ian Vaughan
Janine’s father was away at sea with the Navy when she was born in the town of Scone. His parents wanted to adopt Janine, and Ian agreed this was the best possible outcome as he was unable at that time to raise her. When she was older she learned that he was her father. Ian and Janine were close and he has been deeply affected by her disappearance. Read more
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Anna
(not her real name)
Janine’s birth mother. Anna’s husband had left her and their young child when Janine was born, and Ian and Anna had also parted ways. Her difficult situation with little means to support another baby led her to give Janine up for adoption. It’s a decision she would deeply regret, though she felt confident that Janine’s grandparents would give her daughter a good life. Had she been in a better position in her own life at the time, she says she would have tried to raise Janine herself. She grieves the loss of Janine, and thinks about her every day. Read more
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Rod Eather
Janine’s former husband. Rod works in one of the Hunter Valley’s mining operations. The couple were in love and married young after dating for four years. Janine wanted to settle down and have a family, but Rod was into a partying lifestyle and wasn’t ready to have children. The pair separated after four years of marriage. He cannot move away from the house they bought together because he doesn’t want to lose the reminders of Janine. Read more
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Persons of interest at a 2009 coronial inquiry
Brad Hosemans
A former police detective sergeant and deputy mayor of the town of Bathurst. Some of the cops with whom he worked tipped him as a future head of the 20,000-strong New South Wales Police Force. Hosemans was a person of interest in the case, linked to Janine by innuendo and by witnesses, including one who came forward years later to swear that she saw him driving a car with a terrified Janine in the front passenger seat. Hosemans rejected the allegation and several others connecting him to Janine, calling them ludicrous. He insists he has never met or talked to Janine. Major investigations found no direct links to her. Read more
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Andrew Jones
A local pharmacist who worked in the same town shopping centre near the menswear store Janine managed. Jones was single and devoted to the church when he lived in Bathurst. He lived in staff accommodation at the prestigious The Scots School in Bathurst at the time of Janine’s disappearance, and helped coach students in sport. He says that police have gone after him for no apparent reason, ruining his reputation and devastating his elderly mother. He drove a small red car similar to the one witnesses saw Janine get into when she disappeared. Read more
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Denis Briggs
An aged care home wardsman who showed an infatuation with Janine in the weeks before she went missing. Briggs told his partner and several friends that he picked Janine up in his car, drove her out of town, tried to rape her, stabbed her to death, then disposed of her body near a place called White Rock, south of Bathurst. He got rid of his small reddish-coloured car soon afterwards and also changed his appearance, getting his head shaved and having the image of a rat tattooed on one side of his face. Briggs later said he had given a false confession as he was off his medication at the time and he said that caused him to have delusions of grandeur. Police were unable to find any evidence linking him to Janine. Read more
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Janine’s friends
Rebecca Howell
Rebecca Howell is a lifetime Bathurst local who became one of Janine’s best friends when Janine moved from Muswellbrook to Bathurst after the breakdown of her marriage to Rod Eather. Rebecca was pregnant in the months before Janine disappeared. Janine confided that the thing she wanted most was to settle down too and raise a family. Rebecca says they had discussed Brad Hosemans’ interest in Janine, but that to her knowledge, Janine never went on a date with him, received flowers or had any phone contact with him. She thinks she would have known if something had gone on between Janine and Hosemans, and she feels sorry for the former detective, saying that a lot of people in the community have bought into the rumour and innuendo surrounding him, and jumped on the bandwagon of wanting him to be found guilty. Rebecca has doubts that Hosemans was involved in Janine’s disappearance. Read more
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Erin Brady
A young woman who has stayed under the public radar while carrying painful regret over her former friend Janine for 19 years. Erin was carefree, 20 and a student at Charles Sturt University when she shared Janine’s house at Rockett Street until a couple of months before Janine’s disappearance. Erin also worked for Janine in the Ed Harry’s menswear store. The two regularly partied together and were so close they were likened to sisters. A serious and sudden falling out between the women led to Janine terminating Erin’s employment at Ed Harry’s and asking Erin to move out. The pair then had a string of difficult encounters when they were out in public, culminating in fierce arguments, including one at at the Oxford Tavern on the night of December 6, 2001, hours before Janine got into that mysterious red car on Keppel Street.
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Nicole Nolan
A work colleague of Janine’s from the Bathurst shopping centre. Nicole recalls seeing Brad Hosemans in the centre and talking to him, telling him on several occasions that Janine Vaughan was single and suggesting that he might like to ask her out. She encouraged the detective to pursue Janine, something she now feels guilty about in light of what happened to her friend. She never saw Janine and Hosemans together, and Hosemans had told her he had not asked her out. But she doesn’t understand why Hosemans was allowed to investigate Janine’s disappearance when police were told that Hosemans had been romantically interested in Janine. She believes the local police have covered up for Hosemans. Read more
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Jordan Morris and Wonita Murphy
Jordan Morris and his girlfriend Wonita Murphy were two of the very last people to see Janine on the night she disappeared. The trio of friends had been dancing, drinking and laughing together at The Metro Tavern in Bathurst in the early hours of Friday, December 7, 2001 when Janine realised her bag had vanished. They looked for it in vain. Distraught, Janine left the establishment with her friends in tow around 3.30am. Jordan and Wonita were having a minor disagreement in the street, and Janine walked ahead of them in the rain. Jordan says he saw a car up ahead, reddish in colour, and he witnessed Janine get into the passenger side of the vehicle without hesitation.
Wonita says Janine was special, and that she admired her because she was authentic and candid with her friends. Wonita feels traumatised over Janine’s disappearance, and guilty because she can’t remember much about the night it happened. Wonita is upset by the idea that some people suspect her of withholding information. Read more
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Felicity Brown
A friend of Janine’s who recalls being told by Janine that Brad Hosemans was showing interest in her, and that he had asked her out. Felicity expresses doubts about his possible involvement in Janine’s disappearance, and thinks that he has been unfairly crucified by the town. She says there is a tall poppy syndrome in Bathurst, and because Hosemans was a detective and the deputy mayor, and was doing well for himself, this may have encouraged people to want to see his reputation ruined.
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Dan Murphy
One of Janine’s staff from the menswear store. Dan says that Janine talked about Brad Hosemans being interested in her, and that she wasn’t keen on going out with him. He says Janine didn’t appear fearful of the detective. Dan mentioned Hosemans to police after Janine’s disappearance, saying that because of his interest in her he should be investigated, but police told him they did not see it as a concern.
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Barry Cranston
A Bathurst taxi driver to whom Janine often turned when she needed a ride somewhere. Now in his 70s, Barry has always believed that former police detective Brad Hosemans abducted and murdered Janine in December 2001, and he recalls Janine telling him about Hosemans before her disappearance. Barry claims that there has been an official cover-up in Janine’s case that has been going on for two decades. Brad Hosemans insists he has never met or talked to Janine. Read more
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Scott Heiman
Worked at the Oxford Tavern – known as The Ox – at the time of Janine’s disappearance. Scott says he was drinking with Janine in the hours before she vanished, and that a number of men were trying to get her attention that evening, including himself. The pair kissed that night, but Scott says he left the bar before Janine did because he had to work. Read more
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Phil Evans
In 1998 Janine moved to Bathurst to be with Phil Evans, a man she had fallen for after the breakdown of her marriage to Rod Eather. Janine and Phil shared a home, and when Phil was away from Bathurst for his work as an electrician, Janine received phone calls and handwritten notes from a stalker. Read more
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Jenine Evans
Phil Evans’ sister. In an early statement to police, Jenine described Janine Vaughan as bubbly, honest, friendly and outgoing – they got along well. But when Janine mentioned the harassing phone calls she had received, Phil’s sister did not believe her, concluding that Janine was just seeking attention and drama. Read more
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Michelle Sullivan
Janine’s close friend in Muswellbrook, Michelle says Janine longed to start a family of her own. The last time she saw Janine was when she came from Bathurst back to her hometown for the christening of Michelle’s child. Michelle believes there’s been a cover-up over Janine’s disappearance.
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Rachel Green
A woman who worked in a store opposite Ed Harry’s, the store where Janine worked. At the 2009 inquest into Janine’s disappearance, Rachel said that Brad Hosemans had come into her store one day to ask about Janine. She said it was a general question about whether Janine was in a relationship. Rachel said she passed this information onto Janine who had appeared a little embarrassed or overwhelmed that someone was showing interest in her.
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David
One of Janine’s boyfriends in Bathurst, David was a decade younger than Janine, and he and his student friends from Charles Sturt University adored her. David says that The Metro Tavern, the place where Janine was last seen, was a dive and a drinking hole of last resort. He says Janine was troubled by not knowing her birth mother.
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Ian Bryant - Strop
Strop is the nickname for Ian Bryant – a man described by his friends as a gentle giant who worked in local pubs as a security guy. Strop is now deceased, but he gave statements about Janine and the red car he saw her get in just before she disappeared.
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Christine Symington
Janine’s best friend from when they were children. They knew each other very well and still visited each other when Janine moved away to Bathurst. At the 2009 inquest Christine said she didn’t think Janine would have got into a car with a stranger.
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Mark Wright
A friend of Janine’s who gave evidence at the 2009 inquest. He said that he was with Janine on the night she disappeared at the Metro Tavern, and that they were on the dance floor together when she said to him: ‘I’ve come back to take care of something that I should have acted on last week’. But Wright did not know what she was referring to.
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Felicity Pennels
Janine’s friend and colleague. At the 2009 inquest, Felicity said Janine had mentioned that Brad Hosemans had asked her out. Janine said she wasn’t sure she was interested, Felicity said, given what had occurred with Hosemans at the Bathurst Golf Club in October 2001. However when Felicity was interviewed by police in December 2001, just after Janine disappeared, she did not mention Brad Hosemans. She later explained the omission by saying that at the time Hosemans wasn’t in the limelight and she didn’t stop to give it a lot of thought.
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Zarina De Souza
Zarina was the state manager of the chain of Ed Harry’s stores when Janine worked there. Zarina regularly spoke to Janine and they became friendly. Zarina recalled Janine being very excited about having met a man she liked, and then later not being comfortable with him anymore. Zarina says Janine said she wasn’t happy about having received flowers from him, and that he was often outside the store. Zarina advised Janine to document everything in the work diary.
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Police and other officials
John Haynes
A retired police inspector who heard piercing screams emanating from the bush near his Bathurst home in the days after Janine Vaughan disappeared. Two decades on, during the course of this podcast, John has spoken publicly for the first time about what he heard, and says he is grimly confident he played witness to Janine’s final moments alive. John, who was a senior constable at the time, reports that upon hearing the screams he immediately notified his colleagues at the local police station. He says a patrol car came up with its lights and sirens on, and the screaming suddenly stopped. He believes the attacker heard the approaching car. John says he regrets that a search the following day was neither thorough nor concentrated on the site where he believes the scream came from: an area of thick blackberry bushes and other vegetation fringing a creek on the Charles Sturt University side of Mount Panorama.
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Nick Kaldas
Nick Kaldas rose to the rank of deputy commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force in his long career there. Along the way he oversaw investigations into many shocking murders. A former Commander of the NSW Homicide Squad, Kaldas says the Police Integrity Commission of 2006 derailed the investigation into Janine’s likely murder with its focus on Brad Hosemans. He says the commission completely distracted the investigators, and removed the community’s confidence in police - both generally, and with regard to the investigation of Janine’s disappearance. Kaldas says there is no doubt that Hosemans did not commit the murder, and that the damage done to Hosemans’ reputation, career and life is another tragedy on top of loss of Janine. He says that members of the Bathurst community who continue to believe that Hosemans was involved in Janine’s disappearance have bought into the sensational media coverage about the case as well as the findings of the commission - which were discredited by Peter Moss QC, the Inspector of the Police Integrity Commission - and that they are baying for Hosemans’ blood with no evidence.
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Scott Cook
Former head of the police Homicide Squad. In early 2019, Scott Cook announced a $1m reward for information in regards to the murder of Janine. At the same time, he revealed that police had been investigating another incident from the same night that Janine disappeared. About ten minutes before Janine got into the small, red car outside the Metro Tavern, another woman – Lynette Boreland – was being stalked nearby by a driver in a car of a similar description. Police are confident that it was the same car and driver that picked up Janine.
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Peter Houlahan
Strike Force Mountbatten’s Detective Superintendent. Houlahan gave evidence to the 2009 coronial inquest about the stalking incidents that Janine reported, as well as about Bathurst taxi drivers at the time of Janine’s disappearance. He said that he did not believe Janine had committed suicide, nor that she had orchestrated her own disappearance. At the inquest he also described the police search for the red car that had picked Janine up.
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Guy Flaherty
A senior detective who was at the coronial inquest. Flaherty gave evidence about the drugs angle, saying there was no link or intelligence identified by police that Janine’s disappearance could have been in relation to a drug debt or similar. Flaherty also described a search that had been conducted on a parcel of land adjacent to The Scots School in Bathurst where a bone was discovered, and later found to be non-human.
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Mary Jerram
In 2009 Janine Vaughan had been missing for eight years when the then State Coroner Mary Jerram presided over an inquest into her disappearance. A finding about whether or not Janine was deceased was a matter for Coroner Jerram after hearing all the evidence, and she also had the power under the legislation to determine whether a known person had possibly killed Janine. At the conclusion of the inquest, Coroner Mary Jerram found that Janine Vaughan was murdered by a person or persons unknown. She said there was no direct evidence linking Brad Hosemans, Denis Briggs or Andrew Jones with Janine’s disappearance. She found that the initial Strike Force Toko investigation was flawed in several ways.
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Andrew Holland
A police officer who had seen and spoken with Janine at a pub known as The Ox on the night she disappeared. The two danced together around midnight. Holland recalls leaving the Ox at about 2.45am and walking to the Metro Tavern, where Janine had also gone. Holland left the Metro Tavern at around 3.20am, and remembers seeing Janine on the dancefloor as he left.
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Brad Taylor
A police colleague and friend of Brad Hosemans. Taylor is confident that Brad Hosemans could have risen to the highest ranks of the police force if his career had not been derailed by the speculation and innuendo that followed Janine’s disappearance. He says you could rely on him. Taylor and other cops who worked with Hosemans dismiss the murder allegations as ridiculous. He says any suggestion that police conspired to protect Hosemans is totally implausible.
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Ritchie Sim
A Homicide Squad detective on Strike Force Toko – the official name for the police hunt for Janine’s killer. Sim made no secret of his view that every avenue of the investigation in the first few years had been exhausted, and all potential leads eliminated. He described it as one of the most frustrating investigations of his career.
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Paul Jacob
Paul Jacob led the original Homicide Squad investigation into Janine’s disappearance after coming from Sydney and organising a team of detectives and other police in Bathurst. The search for Janine began within hours of the alarm being raised about her having gone missing. Paul Jacob oversaw dozens of interviews but eventually left the case without the evidence to charge anyone.
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Ben Hopper
A detective sergeant investigating Janine’s disappearance. Hopper did not believe the loss of Janine’s handbag was sinister, nor that it had any direct connection with her disappearance.
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Other people with connections to the case
Craig Berry
Craig Berry lives in Perthville and he’s a good friend of Phil Evans, Janine’s former boyfriend who lived with her when she was being stalked in Bathurst. Kylie Spelde recently spoke to Craig for the first time as part of her investigations into the disappearance of her sister. In an extraordinary coincidence, just one week later on September 28, Craig contacted Kylie to say he’d discovered a human jaw bone on the banks of a local creek while walking with his son. The human remains were discovered near the historic Bridge Hotel in the village of Perthville, about 15 minutes south of Bathurst, in the NSW central tablelands. After picking up the bone, the local resident took it to his mother, a nurse, who identified it as a human jaw and he drove it in to police and made a statement. Within 24 hours of Craig’s discovery, the Bathurst Western Advocate newspaper’s senior reporter Jacinta Carroll, who has covered Janine’s disappearance from the start, had news for Kylie. The police had told her the jaw bone was more than 100 years old.
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Lisa Smoothy
A witness at the inquest. Lisa recalled that in the six months after Janine went missing, Denis Briggs kept dropping hints to her that he was behind her abduction and murder.
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John Fryer
A professor of photogrammetry who gave evidence at the 2009 inquest. Professor Fryer was approached by detectives from Strike Force Mountbatten to examine the CCTV footage from the Metro Tavern. In the footage there was an obscure and brief outline of a car on
Keppel Street - almost certainly the red car Janine got into. Professor Fryer was asked to try to glean potentially vital evidence
about that car from the tape using mathematical investigation techniques. The effect of the evidence of Professor Fryer was that the Renault 19 belonging to pharmacist Andrew Jones and the Hyundai Excel driven by Denis Briggs fell inside the parameters for the car in the footage.
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Anne Hosemans
Brad Hosemans’ mother. Hosemans was visiting his mother near Newcastle, around 200km from Bathurst, in the days prior to Janine’s disappearance. Initially he had thought he was still in Newcastle at the time Janine was last seen getting into the mystery car in the early hours of December 7, 2001, though it was later revealed that he had in fact travelled back to Bathurst during the day of December 6, 2001. In the weeks after Janine disappeared, rumour spread around the Bathurst community that Brad Hosemans’ mother had owned a small red car that had been found burnt out, leaving many believing that this car may have been the one used to abduct Janine. But Anne Hosemans has never owned a red car or any car that was found burnt out. She says she was completely shocked to hear that her son had been accused of being involved in Janine’s disappearance, and she blames herself for the misunderstanding relating to the date of his return to Bathurst because she believed he had been with her until December 7, and kept saying so to him. Read more
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RA-1
During the Police Integrity Commission of 2006, a statement prepared by a solicitor included shocking new purported evidence from a woman identified as “RA-1”. This witness alleged that she recalled seeing Janine Vaughan, a day or two after Janine had disappeared, in the front passenger seat of a small red car being driven by Brad Hosemans. She said Janine looked distressed, and as though she was trying to wave, but her hands were bound with baling twine. RA-1 said she recognised Hosemans and knew him to be a policeman, and trusted him, and so thought nothing of the incident. She said it did not occur to her that there was anything odd about the occurrence until she saw Janine’s photograph in a newspaper more than four years later in an article relating to the disappearance, at which point she contacted her solicitor. Ultimately the commission found her story far from credible, and that no weight should be placed on her claims. Read more
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Stephanie Young
A civilian employee of the police force with whom Brad Hosemans had been in an intimate relationship around the time of Janine’s disappearance. This relationship continued for about four years until 2005. At the Police Integrity Commission of 2006, Young gave evidence that she believed Hosemans had been with her on the night Janine disappeared. She found a loose leaf page from her diary from the time on which she had recorded the text of an SMS message from Hosemans on December 7, 2001, which indicated that the pair had been together. However the commission was sceptical, and when a handwriting expert analysed the diary page the commission decided that Young had added text to the page at a later date to try to put Hosemans with her on the night in question. No weight was placed on the evidence given by Young, but the commission’s findings were later discredited by Peter Moss QC - the Inspector of the Police Integrity Commission whose job it was to make sure that the commission didn’t do the wrong thing in its investigations. Read more
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Peter Moss QC
Peter Moss QC was the Inspector of the Police Integrity Commission, a watchdog responsible for ensuring the PIC handled its investigations appropriately. Prior to this he was also a judge of the District Court in Sydney and later a judge of the Family Court of Australia. Moss methodically went through all of the material from the 2006 commission, and was staggered by what he read. Moss believed that the commission had engaged in a ridiculous witch hunt of Brad Hosemans, and that they had used a witness whom Moss believed was deranged - RA-1. Moss lambasted the commission and its investigations and his scathing criticisms were remarkable in their ferocity and forensic detail. He said the commission had abrogated its responsibilities to conduct a fair, objective and impartial investigation, and that the systemic and substantive problems underlying the commission’s workings had resulted in unacceptable consequences and enormous damage to the reputations of Brad Hosemans, Stephanie Young and detectives Paul Jacob and Ritchie Sim. Moss castigated the commission for what he said was its gullibility, its entrenched and debilitating bias, and its reprehensible course of conduct, noting a ‘strident animosity’ towards Hosemans, a ridiculous amount of time spent investigating baseless claims and false trails about the former deputy mayor, and an extraordinary amount of space in the final report which cleared him but still smeared him. Read more
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Magistrate Graeme Henson
Magistrate Graeme Henson heard the case against Brad Hosemans following the notorious night at the Bathurst Golf Club in October 2001 where a woman accused Hosemans of assaulting her. In mid-July 2002 Magistrate Henson delivered his 44 page judgement in the case, finding that he could not proceed with a finding of guilt against Hosemans. Despite this, in his remarks he also said he believed there had been ‘the permeating odour or undercurrent of cover-up and deceit’ during the proceedings. Back in Sydney, the heads of the New South Wales Police Force received the magistrate’s findings, and organised for a rare off the record interview with the magistrate. Following this interview, the police commissioner wrote to Hosemans saying he’d lost confidence in him, and Hosemans was sacked. Read more
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Kate
A former student of The Scots School in Bathurst when pharmacist Andrew Jones resided there. Kate recalls an encounter with Andrew Jones in the days following Janine’s disappearance, when Kate was just 17 years old. She had been waiting for her boyfriend alone on the steps of the boarding house at the school when Jones approached her in his car and asked if he could give her a lift home. Kate replied that she was waiting for someone and that she had her car there. Jones responded that she could leave her car at the school and her would give her a lift. Kate was troubled by the exchange and reported it to her father who was a public servant and directly involved in helping co-ordinate the search for Janine Vaughan. Kate remembers that she and other girlfriends at the school felt discomfort in the presence of Jones when he was in the school grounds. Read more
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Trish Salt
A former Bathurst local. In 2018, Trish Salt wrote to Janine’s sister Kylie Spelde about what she described as a confrontation with pharmacist Andrew Jones the week before Janine disappeared. Trish and her friend had been out late at the Metro Tavern. They left and were walking to a nearby taxi rank when, according to Trish, a man tried to convince the two women to get in his car. Trish and her friend declined but the man was insistent, telling them he had drinks in the car for them. He became agitated and annoyed by their refusals. Trish was 26 years old at the time, and worked in a branch of the Commonwealth Bank in Bathurst. She says she is absolutely certain the man was Andrew Jones, the pharmacist who worked at the chemist her mother used. She remembers his car was small and red. Trish reported the event to police by phone and says someone was going to call her back, but no-one ever did. Hearing nothing more, Trish assumed her evidence was unconnected to Janine. It wasn’t until 2018 that she discovered Andrew Jones had been a person of interest in Janine’s case. Read more
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David Coy
Once a full-time minister and led a congregation in Bathurst which included pharmacist Andrew Jones. Jones, a religious man, says he spent part of the evening of December 6, 2001 - in the hours before Janine disappeared - at David Coy’s house. David doesn’t recall if this was the case, but says he did regularly spend time with Jones, whom he describes as a “lonely sort of guy” and “awkward ... but genuine”, to pray and read the Bible together. He says he remembers going to Jones’s house on occasion - a little unit in Keppell St. In police documents generated by the early police strike force investigations, Jones’s residential address was always The Scots School in Bathurst. Despite Jones telling police in January 2002 that he was at David Coy’s house on the evening of December 6, 2001, David says he was only interviewed by police about Jones on one occasion in 2009 - many years after Janine disappeared. Read more
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Janine Wheatley
A nurse who once worked with Denis Briggs. Wheatley says that Denis told her he’d raped and murdered Janine Vaughan, burying her body before putting her down a deep well at White Rock, around 10km south east of Bathurst’s town centre. Janine says Denis had a personality disorder and sometimes ‘bad Denis’ would emerge – where he could become angry and dangerous – and he would tell her she had to leave for her own safety. Denis later told Wheatley that he was joking about killing Janine Vaughan, but based on what he’d previously said Wheatley remains concerned, saying police searched the wrong part of a property at White Rock – they didn’t look on the right side of the river nor down the two wells on the property that Briggs described. She pointed this out to police but it was not followed up as different detectives took over the investigation.
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Peter Barker
Janine Wheatley’s former partner. Peter met Denis Briggs and befriended him. Denis joined Peter and Wheatley for drinks at the Bathurst RSL, telling the couple several times that he had murdered Janine Vaughan, and going into great detail. Peter recalls that he and Wheatley spoke to the police regarding Briggs’s confession, but that police grew frustrated because they’d tested Briggs’s car and found no trace of DNA evidence linking the car to Janine Vaughan. He remembers an incident where he got into Briggs’s car, and Briggs encouraged Peter to touch things in the car – the handbrake, the steering wheel, the stereo. Peter got the feeling Briggs wanted Peter’s fingerprints in his car.
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Julie Cleave
The former girlfriend of Denis Briggs. Julie says Denis was obsessed with going to Ed Harry’s, the menswear store where Janine Vaughan worked. She says Denis confessed to her that he had killed Janine and disposed of her body down a well. Julie passed this information on to police, saying they should arrest Briggs. Julie says it is unlikely that Janine would have got into a car with Briggs, but she also says that in her mind she can’t rule him out as a suspect. Regarding the inconsistencies in Briggs’s story, Julie says it’s possible he said those things deliberately to throw police off. Read more
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Lynette Boreland
In the early hours of Friday December 7, 2001, just before Janine Vaughan disappeared, Lynette Boreland was heading home after a night out in Bathurst. As she walked to the local service station where she hoped to hitch a lift with a truck driver passing through, Lynette noticed two red cars driving on the road, one large and one small. The small car began following her. Frightened, Lynette hid; when she emerged the driver continued to pursue her, eventually pulling up close to her. The driver got halfway out of the vehicle, and Lynette remembers him being about six foot tall and seeming too big for the car. He had dark hair, a fair complexion and a “square” head. Lynette ran from the driver, eventually reaching safety at the service station. Lynette went to the police with her story a week after Janine’s disappearance. Sadly, Lynette died following a freak accident on a farm. Read more
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Mal Pollard
Mal Pollard jointly owned the Metro Tavern with his friend, Trevor Howey, at the time of Janine’s disappearance. Mal recalls talking to Strop – Ian Bryant – who had witnessed Janine getting into the mystery car on the morning of December 7, 2001. Strop is now deceased, but Mal recalls him saying that he saw Janine get into a vehicle like a “salmon-coloured Excel”. Mal says Strop was good with cars and that it’s unlikely he would have made a mistake. Mal was also there the morning after the disappearance when Janine’s missing handbag was found at the Metro. Read more
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Kara Howey
The wife of Trevor Howey, who had co-owned the Metro Tavern at the time of Janine’s disappearance. Kara owned a red Hyundai Excel that was parked just behind the Metro Tavern that night. Trevor says the car was not driven by himself or Kara that night.
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Matty Dalley
A former employee of the Metro Tavern who worked behind and in front of the bar. It was Matty who put Janine’s handbag in a safe place at the Metro on the night she vanished. Matty is frustrated with himself because on that same night, when he was on his way home just after 3.30am, he drove back past the tavern and saw Janine outside. He wishes he’d noticed that she didn’t have her handbag, saying he could have contacted the pub to help find it. He also wishes he’d stopped and given her a lift. Read more
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Hayley Stewart
A year before Janine disappeared, 21 year-old Hayley Stewart was working at the Metro Tavern when she was the victim of a stalking incident. A man followed her home from the tavern, entering her house via the back door just as Hayley had done. But Hayley had only stopped in to pick up some things, leaving immediately via the front door – unbeknownst to the man. The stalker remained in the house where Hayley’s flatmate was sleeping. Upon his discovery of the flatmate, the man jumped on her, smothering her face with a pillow and demanding to know where Hayley had gone. He attempted to sexually assault the flatmate before leaving. She did not get a good look at him in the dark. Read more
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Margaret Tomko
A hypnotist who met with stalking victim Lynette Boreland – the woman who had been pursued by a small red car right before Janine Vaughan disappeared. Evidence provided under hypnosis was not admissible in court, but police hoped it might give them something to work with. Under hypnosis, Lynette disclosed that the small red car that had followed her had a sticker, and a wiper, on the back windscreen. She saw the letters H Y and X L, and remembered the car making an over-revving sound.
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Denis Mead
In his 70s, Denis has investigated Janine Vaughan’s case closely over the past decade, spending tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to try to get to the bottom of what happened. Before his quest started, Denis had no connection to the Vaughan family, but a friend told him about the case and Dennis decided to look into it. He contacted Janine’s family and began working with them, contacting many witnesses over the years and even taking signed statements. Denis has been profiling Brad Hosemans for years, and believes that Hosemans murdered Janine, and got away with it with help from his fellow police workers and friends. Read more
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Janeen Hosemans
Brad Hosemans’ sister. Janeen is a respected journalist and a prominent voice in Bathurst, often broadcasting on the local radio station which she manages. Janeen Hosemans did not know Janine Vaughan, but she said she knows her brother has nothing to hide. She says he has been deeply affected by the case, and that people have accused him out of jealousy or a case of tall poppy syndrome. Read more
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Greg Brodie
Greg worked at the Metro Tavern at the time of Janine’s disappearance. Janine’s handbag had gone missing at the bar in the early hours of December 7, 2001, and with it her ID, mobile phone and house keys, along with the keys to the clothing store she was due to open later that morning. Greg found the handbag the morning after Janine vanished. Greg says he suspects the bag had been hidden, deliberately. Read more
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Melissa Brodie
Wife of Greg Brodie, a man who worked at the Metro Tavern. Melissa worked at an aged care centre and she knew Denis Briggs – the man who confessed that he murdered Janine, and later recanted. Melissa knew that Briggs drove a reddish pinkish Hyundai. Melissa felt uncomfortable around Briggs, but she says she never saw him raise a hand to anyone.
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Dr Anne Gilroy
Janine’s doctor in Bathurst. Dr Gilroy’s file on Janine reveals some of the challenges Janine was facing at the time, including that she was “stressed and depressed”, and that she “had a stalker”.
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Jessica Small and Vanessa Conlan
Teenagers Jessica and Vanessa were abducted from the main street of Bathurst in October 1997. The girls thumbed a ride from a stranger, asking the driver to drop them at their friend’s house a short drive out of town. The driver stopped beside a wire fence on a dark stretch of road where he attacked the girls in the car. The teenagers fought the driver and ran from the vehicle. Vanessa was able to escape, but Jessica must have been caught by her abductor and was not seen again. It is possible that there are connections with Janine’s case. Even though Jessica was almost certainly murdered in circumstances where a credible witness, Vanessa, described a terrifying abduction, police in Bathurst didn’t take the case seriously. Jessica’s disappearance commanded relatively scant attention from Bathurst police in the four years leading up to Janine’s probable murder, and for several years afterwards. Read more
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Michelle Bright
A teenager who was brutally murdered and sexually assaulted in the small town of Gulgong, a little over an hour’s drive from Bathurst, in 1999. For the past 19 years, the families of Michelle and Janine have offered each other hope in their quest to bring the girls’ mystery killers to justice. On August 12, a day after NSW posted a $1m reward for information, a former neighbour the Bright family had known for years, Craig Henry Rumsby, was arrested and charged with her murder. Of the development, Janine’s sister Kylie Spelde said: “It gives everyone involved in a cold case renewed hope that they can be solved.” Read more
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Michelle Mills
A 39-year-old woman who was last seen in Mudgee in June 2000, not far from the town of Gulgong where Michelle Bright was abducted.
She was reported missing in August that year by concerned family. Police believe she was also murdered.
As with Janine, her body has never been found and her killer remains unknown. Read more
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Other people in the podcast
Steve Hart
Network 10 reporter who pursued pharmacist Andrew Jones for an interview in 2019. The pair exchanged text messages but it was clear Jones didn’t want to speak on the record. These texts are relayed in Episode 6 of The Night Driver. Eventually Hart was able to have an impromptu interview with the reclusive pharmacist, and Jones denied knowing anything about the disappearance of Janine Vaughan and said Janine had never been in his car.
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Peter Murphy SC
A recently retired judge and former criminal defence lawyer from Brisbane. Peter is a long time friend in Brisbane of Hedley Thomas. He was struck early on by the longing of Janine’s family and particularly her sister Kylie for answers and a resolution. Peter is volunteering his help in the podcast investigation – going through leads, meeting contacts and testing theories. Read more
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Steve Price
A longtime broadcaster and veteran of Bathurst race weekends. He understands the place of the Bathurst 1000 in Australian sporting legend. Steve says the atmosphere at Mount Panorama during the race weekend is electric and that people have been known to bury cartons of beer on the mountain ahead of the race. He says that today you wouldn’t get away with some of the things that they got away with back in the early 2000s.
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Read more: A family’s agony | Retracing the night Janine disappeared