Retired detective Graeme Crowley launches podcast into Sarah Brown death
A retired detective’s podcast into the tragic death of 23-year-old Sarah Brown digs into the unanswered questions around the police investigation, and the disappearance that preceded the discovery of her body.
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The death of 23-year-old Sarah Brown, whose body was found in bushland near Gympie a week after she went missing in 2021, left more than her devastated family asking questions.
Despite an extensive search and repeated public pleas from Sarah’s mother Janet Gardner, it took seven days for Sarah’s body to be found in nearby bushland crisscrossed with public walking and riding trails.
Her death was initially ruled non-suspicious and eventually a suicide, seemingly bringing closure to the tragedy.
But retired detective and private investigator Graeme Crowley has a different view, and has launched a podcast that raises even more questions.
“This wasn’t a suicide,” Mr Crowley said.
Sarah had known drug issues. She vanished from her Victory Heights home about 6pm on Monday, June 7, 2021, after reportedly going out to buy alcohol.
Ms Gardner raised the alarm the following day when she arrived in Gympie to visit her daughter and could not find her.
Sarah was listed as missing on Wednesday, June 9, and her body was found the following Monday about 11am at Victory Trails.
Initial reports at the time declared it non-suspicious.
Ms Gardner has never let her daughter’s death, and the questions that linger about it, go.
Mr Crowley said he spoke with her about her concerns in October 2023.
Sarah’s death is understood to be classified as “violent”, which includes accidents, suicide, and homicide, and not the result of natural progression of a disease.
In April 2024, the state coroner declined to comment on a request for further information on the circumstances of Ms Brown’s death as it was the “subject of an investigation”.
Mr Crowley said this surprised him, saying only seven months earlier, in September 2023, the coroner had declared the death a suicide.
As he dug into it, he found a number of things that did not sit right.
“I was very surprised at the lack of decomposition (of her body),” Mr Crowley said.
He was left “sceptical” of claims made around CCTV footage captured on the evening of June 7, 2021.
The footage shows a person with a torch or phone light walking along a road, stopping at several locations as it moves.
Mr Crowley said police believed the footage was Sarah, looking for a place to suicide.
He said the light does stop where the 23-year-old’s body was found, but the quality of the footage makes it far from clear who the person captured is.
Medical questions raised by Ms Gardner were also of concern, he said.
Ms Gardner has claimed her daughter suffered from a “dropped wrist” injury caused by drug use.
She claimed that condition made it impossible for Sarah to have taken her own life the way she was found.
Mr Crowley shares that view, saying it was supported by photos of Sarah in the months before her death.
Four episodes of the podcast - Who Killed Sarah Brown? - have aired, with the fifth to be released by the end of June.
It is the latest in a series of podcasts Mr Crowley has produced, including one exploring the brutal murders of siblings Neelma, Kunal, and Sidhi Singh in their Brisbane home in 2003, and unanswered questions on the matter.
Another podcast dived into Who Killed Leanne Holland, a case Mr Crowley is closely tied with having played a part in the quashing of the conviction of Graham Stafford, who spent 15 years in jail for the 12-year-old’s murder at Redbank Plains after the appeals court found the evidence was seriously flawed.
Mr Crowley hoped the new series would not only shine a light on Sarah’s death and help resolve unanswered questions swirling around it, but encourage people who may know more but had otherwise stayed quiet, to come forward.
“What (the death was) was, I don’t know.
“It could have been a drug overdose with third party interference, it could have been murder.
“I don’t know.”
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Originally published as Retired detective Graeme Crowley launches podcast into Sarah Brown death