Rachel Antonio mystery: Parents remember 25 years on from disappearance

It has been 25 years since Rachel Antonio vanished from a picturesque beachside town and her parents are still searching for her final resting place.

It has been 25 years and the parents of missing Bowen schoolgirl Rachel Antonio still receive tip offs about the location of her body, sparking a glimmer of hope they might uncover her final resting place.

Father Ian Antonio said he was still actively following up any lead, regardless of how far-fetched it sounded.

“We still have hope for anything,” he said.

“If we thought there was any chance … we’d investigate it.”

Today marks the anniversary of when the 16-year-old vanished without a trace on April 25, 1998 from the picturesque beachside town in an enduring mystery that still haunts her family.

Never giving up hope

Ian and Cheryl have long accepted the grim reality their daughter is dead, saying police were upfront from the beginning of the investigation.

“We pretty well knew she wasn’t coming home … it was foul play,” Ian said.

Bowen schoolgirl Rachel Antonio

But they have never, and will never, give up on finding her remains so they can lay her to rest.

Ian said they still received phone calls offering information about the missing teen, even as recently as six months ago.

“He reckons he knew where the body was,” Ian said.

“That was definitely a bogus call,” he said, adding it was not the first time.

Aerial photos of the Queens Beach area at Bowen where Rachel Antonio is last confirmed to have been seen alive.

And even though it sounded highly unlikely, he went to the location, off the Bruce Highway north of Bowen, on the off-chance it would turn up answers.

It didn’t.

Cheryl recalled a past tip-off where someone reached out claiming she’d been in contact with Rachel’s spirit, which had described what happened to her and where her body was.

Ian and Cheryl Antonio, the parents of missing Bowen teen Rachel Antonio pictured near where their daughter was last seen after an inquest into her death concluded.

“I said to Ian, ‘It’s a load of rubbish’,” Cheryl said.

But it didn’t stop her husband and other family members visiting the location out towards Conway.

Ian said he was given GPS coordinates, which he visited, but again it turned up nothing.

What happened to Rachel

Rachel would have been 41 years old on March 20 this year, and perhaps she would have had a family of her own.

The details surrounding her disappearance are well-known.

Her mother, Cheryl dropped her off at the Bowen Summergarden Cinemas about 6pm to watch Good Will Hunting, and she was later spotted briefly at nearby Queens Beach.

She has not been seen or heard from since.

Robert Hytch had been the captain of the Bowen Surf Life Saving Club when it is alleged he formed a sexual relationship with 15-year-old Rachel Antonio.

Secret diary notes found hidden in her room suggested a sexual relationship with the town’s then Surf Life Saving Club captain Robert Hytch when she was just 15 and he 23.

There were also claims she faked a pregnancy test, but had planned to meet up with Hytch and tell him the truth the night she went missing.

Rachel’s blood was also found on a pair of Hytch’s reef sandals seized by police.

Robert Hytch is interview by police following the disappearance of Rachel Antonio. Supplied

He has always denied any relationship with the teen, or any involvement in her death or the disposal of her body.

Hytch was later charged with murder and in 1999 a jury convicted him of manslaughter, which was overturned on appeal.

He was granted a new trial and was acquitted in 2001.

Pages from Rachel Antonio's diary from when she went missing in 1998.

Central Coroner David O’Connell held a 12-day inquest in 2014 and 2015, and in 2016 handed down explosive findings that determined Hytch “has caused a fatal injury to Rachel and thereby caused her death. (He) has then secreted her body at a location”.

Hytch tried to have the finding overturned but it was upheld by the Supreme Court giving Rachel’s family an official answer.

Ian said he believed his daughter’s death was an accident, and that Hytch had lashed out over the fake pregnancy.

QPS forensic officers search the Bowen rubbish Dump for materials from 1998 in possible relation to Rachel Antonio's disappearance during that time. Picture: Wesley Monts

“(The ruling’s) the best we can hope for,” Ian said.

But what remains unknown is exactly how Rachel was killed and where her body was disposed.

Ian maintained his belief she had been taken to the dump on Peter Delemothe Rd, which wasn’t searched until many years later.

Cheryl and Ian Antonio. 2023 marks 25 years since Rachel Antonio vanished without a trace. Her parents hold a flicker of hope they will find out exactly what happened to their 16-year-old daughter. Picture: Janessa Ekert

“The first time I went to the tip after it happened … I got this funny sickly … feeling,” Cheryl said.

“Sometimes when I’m driving past … I’ll think Rachel’s in there somewhere.”

Rachel Antonio's bedroom from just after she went missing in 1998.

Remembering Rachel

Cheryl said she thought about her daughter every day, with her memories especially poignant on Anzac Day each year.

“We just reflect on past days, that’s all we can do,” Ian said.

The grieving dad added there were daily reminders that triggered thoughts of Rachel.

Rachel Antonio went missing on Anzac Day in 1998. Her parents want to know where her body is.

“It’s not hard to remember what she’s like and all the things she liked,” Cheryl said.

A particularly strong memory that brings Cheryl joy was the image of her daughter dressed in her Air Force Cadet uniform for a school Anzac Day assembly the day before she went missing.

“It’s just like a photo in my mind,” she said.

As families across the country pay tribute to the Anzacs, Ian and Cheryl Antonio will each make a special gesture in memory of Rachel.

“We always light a candle for her,” Cheryl said.

The couple, who are nearing their 70s, were desperate to find her remains so they could see her laid to rest.

“Somebody knows something, we know that,” Ian said.

Originally published as Rachel Antonio mystery: Parents remember 25 years on from disappearance