Dear Rachelle investigation: Rumours swirled that her fingers were cut off in a bikie hit

Rachelle Childs ‘partied with bikies who killed her and severed her fingers’. This was one rumour peddled following her gruesome murder. Listen to the podcast and watch the video.

Rachelle Childs’ boss widely fuelled the rumour that bikies had killed her – and severed her fingers – in a payback hit, it is claimed.

Kevin Steven Correll, who became the key suspect in her murder, told at least three acquaintances the 23-year-old’s fingers had been cut off, and were missing, after her body was found in Gerroa, about 100km away from her home in Bargo, south of Sydney, in June 2001.

Mr Correll, who worked at Camden Holden with Rachelle, said it was revenge for a debt or drug deal gone wrong, according to two of his ex-girlfriends.

He also told colleagues “she’s been partying with Rebels for some time,” and said she was “anxious” about meeting one of the bikies at Bargo the day she disappeared.

WATCH: NEW DEAR RACHELLE INVESTIGATION VIDEO ABOVE

Murdered Bargo woman Rachelle Childs’ burning body was found at Gerroa on June 8, 2001.

Rachelle’s only known Rebels’ acquaintance was local member Alex “Sash” Mielczarek, who she knew through her work, and who was later exonerated as a one-time person of interest in her murder.

But the detail about her fingers being missing was never publicly disclosed by police – and a line peddled only by Mr Correll.

LISTEN TO EPISODES 1-7 OF THE PODCAST BELOW:

His then casual partner, known as “Alice”, told a coronial inquiry that Mr Correll had within weeks of Rachelle’s death repeatedly said to her that Rachelle’s fingers had been cut off.

Alice said that when she and Mr Correll drove past the site of Rachelle’s remains on the NSW south coast, Mr Correll described the killer’s selection of the site as “stupid”.

He told her that the police would not obtain much DNA from Rachelle’s remains because her body was too burnt.

He told her, she recalled, that he had heard about the missing fingers in the newspaper, but it had never been mentioned in the extensive media coverage.

Rachelle Childs; burning body was found at Gerroa on June 8, 2001.

Rachelle Childs’ burning body was found in bushland on the side of a road in Gerroa.

A friend, whose identity was suppressed, with whom Mr Correll mixed at regular singles’ nights, said that Mr Correll had told him in 2004 that he had had no part in Rachelle’s death.

“He said that she was dealing drugs for the bikies and that was their way of handling a person that stole from them – by cutting their hand off,” the witness told the inquest.

Another source of Mr Correll spreading misinformation was a short-term girlfriend, known as “Evelyn”, whom Mr Correll met in late 2002.

Evelyn told the Dear Rachelle investigation that Mr Correll talked about the fingers one day while he cooked spaghetti, perhaps 18 months after Rachelle’s death.

Evelyn had asked him about the “young girl” at work who had been killed.

Kevin Correll, pictured during the inquest into Rachelle Child's death. Picture: AAP

“You know, they cut her fingers off because, you know, when you steal from the bikies, that’s what they do,” she said Mr Correll told her.

“So that’s probably the track that they’re (the police) going to go looking down.”

Yet Evelyn held back this exchange in the inquest witness box; she couldn’t talk about it in front of Rachelle’s family.

“I remember sitting there in that dock looking at them thinking, “my God, I’ve got to talk about your baby’,” she says.

“This is just like awful.”

Evelyn couldn’t sleep that night.

She rang a police officer and told her the story about Rachelle’s fingers. Within days, the officer rang back Evelyn to say that Rachelle’s body would be exhumed.

Colleagues of Mr Correll told police that Mr Correll had mentioned bikies in relation to Rachelle in the days after her death.

“She’s been partying with Rebels for some time,” a colleague from a connected car business in Campbelltown said that Mr Correll told him.

“She was worried and anxious about meeting the person at Bargo (the town where Rachelle’s car would later be found).”

An ex-colleague at Camden Holden, Bill Francis, said that Mr Correll told him that there “could have been bikies involved in her death”.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr Julian Parmegiani, a consultant for the crown solicitor for the 2006 coronial inquest, said many “false flags” effectively distracted investigators.

Evelyn and Alice were unknown to one another until December 6, 2006, when they both gave evidence to the inquest in Glebe Coroner’s Court, in Sydney.

Evelyn was first; watching Alice take the stand, she was struck by her hair, clothes and manner.

“I thought I was looking at myself,” Evelyn now says.

The coronial inquest returned an open finding.

Mr Correll has always denied any involvement in Rachelle’s death and was never charged with her murder. This masthead is not suggesting he is guilty, only that the matter should be investigated.

After Evelyn’s evidence, Rachelle’s mother Anne put her hand on Evelyn’s and thanked her for telling her story.

“We loved her for doing this and we told her so,” Anne wrote at the time.

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: Rumours swirled that her fingers were cut off in a bikie hit