SOMEWHERE in Queensland lives a tormented man who has battled his conscience for years.

To this day, he relives the moment his Tasmanian holiday turned tragic along a hazardous hinterland road.

He’d fatally struck a young German woman riding her red bicycle, possibly on her way to a pancake parlour, but he never turned himself in.

That’s the opinion of retired Detective Bob Coad, who says Nancy Grunwaldt’s 1993 missing persons case is solvable.

The long-serving senior Launceston CIB investigator claims to have worked out the mystery since he retired from the force almost 20 years ago.

Mr Coad also holds the controversial opinion that Victoria Cafasso’s Beaumaris Beach murder, which occurred two years after Nancy was last seen at a nearby location, could swiftly be solved too.

But he says for that to happen, Tasmania Police’s now-defunct cold case unit needs to reassemble and focus its efforts full time on bringing her killer to justice.

Mr Coad was one of the first detectives to attend to Victoria’s body on the beach that fateful day back in October 1995.

He said he was frustrated the two cases remained unsolved and that his insider information continued to fall on deaf ears, as it meant the two women’s families still didn’t have the closure they deserved.

PODCAST EPISODE 2: What happened to Nancy?

Mr Coad said he had been pleading with police for years to offer an indemnity in Nancy’s case, convinced that doing so could coax a guilt-ridden Queensland man out of hiding.

“Nancy’s death was accidental,” he said.

“It could be sorted out just like that.”

Mr Coad said the day after Nancy was last seen on her bicycle 4km south of Scamander, a Hobart lawyer received a frantic answering machine message from a “distraught male” who said he’d hit a girl on the East Coast.

He explained that four years later, following the broadcast of a national crime television show focusing on Victoria Cafasso’s murder, Crime Stoppers received a similar anonymous phone call in Queensland.

“(The caller) stated that he had trouble living with the fact that he’d been in Tasmania and travelling on the East Coast when he had an horrific accident, hitting a cyclist, and in absolute fear and panic, disposed of her body and property,” Mr Coad said.

“To me, that is just too much of a coincidence.”

He said Tasmania’s cold case unit – which was shut down in December 2011 among budget cuts – should be immediately reassembled with a team dedicated to Victoria.

“These things have got to be pursued by seasoned detectives, those that know what’s going on and under the control of senior police that know what they’re doing,” he said.

“If a dedicated cold case unit, or a unit investigating cold cases set their target on the Victoria

Cafasso investigation wholly and solely, that could be brought to a closure also.”

Mr Coad said it was time to finally put the two cases to bed.

“Nancy Grunwaldt’s family, Victoria’s family, friends, they need closure, peace of mind, as to what has taken place,” he said.

“Also the people on the East Coast of Tasmania and all the investigators – we need closure.”

SNEAK PEEK: GONE GIRLS EPISODE 3

Detective Inspector Kim Steven is the keeper of reams of documents and huge files of evidence stored over Nancy’s disappearance and Victoria’s murder. He’s been reviewing the two cold cases over the past 18 months, and hopes that on the 25th anniversary of Victoria’s death, someone will finally come forward and provide a vital clue. He also reveals that police might just be able to use science to pinpoint her killer.

Visit www.themercury.com.au tomorrow to read and listen to Part 3 of the Gone Girls Beaumaris Beach mystery.

amber.wilson@news.com.au