Dear Rachelle investigation: Ex-wife’s chilling details of key suspect in Rachelle Childs’ murder

The ex-wife of the main suspect in the brutal murder of 23-year-old Rachelle Childs has broken her silence about her fears.

“Elise” still feels the chill of the words delivered 30 years ago.

She was driving past Warilla Beach, south of Sydney, with her husband at the time, Kevin Steven Correll.

“He threatened to, if I ever left him, he would hunt me down and find me,” she said.

“He would cut me up in little pieces, bury me on the beach in individual spots, (and) cover me in lime so nobody could smell that there were body parts …”

“Elise” opens up about her 11-year marriage to Kevin Steven Correll, the main person of interest in the murder of Rachelle Childs. Picture: Jeff Darmanin

Murdered Bargo woman Rachelle Childs, hose burning body was found at Gerroa in June 2001.

In an emotional interview, “Elise” talks about death threats and domestic violence.

Because she is a mother and sister, Elise has agreed to break her silence to describe fears that developed over a 11-year marriage to the man who would go on to become the prime suspect in the 2001 killing of Rachelle Childs.

She told the Dear Rachelle podcast she left the country to escape him, fretting for her safety.

LISTEN TO EPISODES 1-9 OF THE PODCAST BELOW:

In a separate exchange, also in the mid 1990s, the then couple was driving through Gerroa, south of Sydney, when Elise commented on the beauty of the beach spot.

He said, ‘yeah, look at that bush there’,” she said.

“He said ‘that would be a good place to bury somebody, just make sure you behave yourself’.”

Murdered Bargo woman Rachelle Childs ‘s burning remains were found in bushland near Seven Mile Beach.

A view of the coastline in Gerroa. Rachelle Childs’ burning body was found nearby.

Rachelle was found, on fire, in bushland off the road’s edge at Gerroa on June 8, 2001.

She was Mr Correll’s sales employee at Camden Holden, and he was one of the last people to see her alive.

He denies any involvement in Rachelle’s death.

When asked four questions about whether he had been abusive towards Elise and ever threatened to kill her, he said: “I vehemently deny these allegations and the answer is NO to all 4 questions.”

Elise was married to Mr Correll until 1997.

Elise was a young wife when she went on national current affairs television to defend her husband after he had been charged with – and acquitted of – four sexual assaults in Sydney in the early 1980s.

Person of interest in the murder of Rachelle Childs, Kevin Steven Correll. Picture: Jeff Darmanin

She believed Mr Correll’s version of events at the time, in the beginnings of a relationship marked by “coercive control” and grandiose gestures of love.

Yet her view of the attacks shifted.

She came to think: “How come you’re the common denominator in all this, everybody else can’t be lying, why is everyone after you, why are they trying to get you … it can’t have been a case of mistaken identity for every single one.”

Elise described Mr Correll as ‘wonderful’ when they started dating and that he ‘swept her off her feet’. Even after 10 years of marriage, he wrote a card suggesting they “drop everything and celebrate”.

Kevin Steven Correll sent a card to his former wife on their anniversary.

Kevin Steven Correll sent a card to his former wife on her birthday.

However, over time she realised that Mr Correll’s mood could turn, she said, like “an angel turning black”.

“It’s like he’s got a dark passenger or something living inside him and the switch clicks and the dark passenger takes over,” she said.

“It’s scary to watch it actually, to see when that happens because … his face changes, it contorts. It’s not his face.”

The inside of one of “Elise’s” birthday cards from former husband Kevin Steven Correll.

The inside of one of “Elise’s” birthday cards from former husband Kevin Steven Correll.

She recalled times when he hit her.

After the pair went out for dinner with her sister, she went to sleep in a child’s bedroom.

Mr Correll had been giving her “filthy looks” – apparently she’d said or done something to upset him.

“And he came in and he just pushed me back on the bed and he was like punching into me while I was on the bed,” she said.

“My sister knew that something was going to happen so she came up and knocked on the front door and that’s the reason he stopped.”

Person of interest in the murder of Rachelle Childs, Kevin Steven Correll seen here during a Mingles Singles events in Sydney.

Another time, he was driving: “He had a ring on, and I think it was a black stone, might’ve been onyx or something like that. And he punched me and it left a mark behind my ear for about a week. “

After a big fight, Mr Correll wouldn’t speak to Elise for weeks, not a word, until she apologised. She likened Mr Correll’s behaviour to exercises in “suffering”.

Twice she visited Mr Correll at car yards where he worked, to find him eating lunch with a young female employee or job applicant.

Both times, she felt like she was interrupting her husband’s flirting with the women, and left “horrified” and “shocked”.

She said Mr Correll bought her first mobile phone so that he always knew where she was. He controlled the finances, she said, and told her how to wear her hair. He was “very, very jealous”.

They first met at a club where Mr Correll was a DJ.

He swept the young mother “off my feet”.

She thought he was “absolutely wonderful”, as did her young children.

“He had them totally fooled as well,” she said. “Then he showed his true colours there as well and I will never forgive him. He put a wedge between my kids and I that took a long time to mend.”

LISTEN TO PODCAST BONUS INVESTIGATION UPDATE 2 BELOW:

Elise met Mr Correll’s family, whom she described as “a very strange group of people”. He was one of 13 children; his brother Raymond came to be one of Australia’s most reviled rapists.

Elise tried to forget Mr Correll. But she had thought often over the years about Rachelle and her family.

“That poor girl, her parents, especially her mum, her sister,” she said.

“I’m a sister, I’m a mother, and if that had happened to someone I loved, I would want someone like me to come forward.”

For more information about our investigation, visit dearachelle.com.au.

If you have any tips or confidential information, please contact investigative journalist Ashlea Hansen at [e-mail].

You can also join our Dear Rachelle podcast Facebook group.

Originally published as Dear Rachelle investigation: Ex-wife’s chilling details of key suspect in Rachelle Childs’ murder