The Night Driver podcast: Witness tormented by loss of Janine Vaughan: ‘If only I could recall’

Most people would be hard-pressed to recall specifics from a night out two decades ago, but Wonita Murphy would give anything to remember.

Janine Vaughan.

Most people would be hard-pressed to recall specifics from a night out two decades ago, but Wonita Murphy would give anything to remember just a few precious details.

She was one of the last people to see Janine Vaughan alive, and was by her side only moments ­before she disappeared following a late night out in Bathurst in early ­December 2001.

The 31-year-old had left the rural university town’s popular Metro Tavern with Wonita and her boyfriend, Jordan Morris, shortly before 4am.

She was walking ahead of them through the early morning rain when she unexpectedly got in a red car with an unknown driver and vanished, never to be heard from again.

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Successive investigations have concluded Janine was abducted and murdered, but have been ­unable to unmask the identity of the driver of the red car or locate her final resting place.

For Wonita, the thought she might have seen something that could help solve the mystery but simply cannot remember it is ­excruciating, and she has spent much of her life blaming herself for not paying more attention to her friend in those final minutes they shared.

“I feel so helpless and so guilty. Guilty because on the night I didn’t pay more attention. It just hurts. It f..king hurts. It absolutely breaks my heart,” Wonita tells The Night Driver, a new podcast by The Australian dedicated to ­exploring the events surrounding Janine’s murder.

“When things come up, anything in relation to Janine, it does traumatise me really bad. I can’t relax about any of this … because it kills me. Oh my God. It kills me that we were the last people to see her. I think about it all the time.

“On a normal night out … (if) Jordan and I were blue-ing with each other, it wouldn’t matter. We’d wake up the next day and everybody would be like, ‘Oh, you drunk idiots’. Like, ‘It’s OK’. But this shit has haunted me ever since then because it wasn’t like that.

“I’ve had to make myself understand that it wasn’t my fault. But it’s like, ‘Why did you not pay more attention? How come you didn’t drink less that night?’ Like, ‘If you had of not been so drunk, you might have paid more attention.’ I just, I feel guilty.”

One of the things that troubles Wonita most is the suggestion that she knows more about ­Janine’s murder than she is letting on, but is either covering for someone or is too scared to speak up. “I’ve had numerous people call me and say, ‘If you feel like you’ve been threatened or whatever, don’t be, don’t feel that way’ and it just really irks me because I’m not that kind of person,” Wonita says.

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“Everybody is making their comments, and I know it’s public comment, but people who don’t even know … (are) like, ‘Oh, well, somebody knows’. And, ‘I wish the people that knew the secrets would come forth and tell the truth.’ This stuff really upsets me.

“There’s no way I would get to here, at 43 years of age, and still be alive, seriously, if I knew what happened to her and I didn’t say anything. I would have killed myself by now. I couldn’t live with the guilt. There’s no way in the world.”

Wonita consoles herself with the fact there are some things she can remember, like the kind of person her friend Janine was: outgoing, upfront and unashamedly loyal. The sort of friend who would have your back no matter what.

She is also comforted by the thought that, like all secrets in a country town, the truth about ­Janine’s abduction and murder will eventually come out.

“She wasn’t fake and I believe in that stuff,” she says. “I don’t do fake people. I’m not into fake and lies and pretending and whatever, and she was not like that. I feel like when (the truth) ­finally comes out, we’re all going to be ­astounded … because it’s going to be a local person, I’m assuming.

“I cannot put blame on anybody. I don’t know who to put blame on. I wish I did. I want ­Janine’s family to find peace — but I can’t do it. It kills me. It f..king kills me. It has for a long time.”