The Missing Australia podcast: Woman tells of stalking hell before Gordana Kotevski was abducted

In the first episode of The Missing Australia podcast, a shocking stalking case is revealed that closely resembles the Gordana Kotevski abduction that followed months later. Listen here.

It’s the eerie similarities that still haunt Bianca Ball two decades later.

Stalked by two men she believes would later go on to kidnap teenager Gordana Kotevski – which to this day remains one of the most enduring missing persons cases to grip the country.

Both Bianca and Gordana lived in the Newcastle region of NSW; Bianca worked at the Charlestown Shopping Centre – the same complex Gordana was seen leaving before she was snatched off the street and vanished without a trace. And in both cases the men were driving a white HiLux.

Bianca is 45. Gordana would have been 46 this year.

Bianca Ball has come forward after listening to The Missing Australia podcast to reveal her terrifying encounter with two men who tried to abduct her. Picture: Peter Stoop

Ms Ball’s encounters with the two men left her feeling “sick to my stomach” and something she is still struggling to overcome to this day.

She recalls one of the men came to the takeaway shop where she worked and would wait for her to serve him.

“He used to come and grab my hand at work when I was giving him the change,” Ms Ball tells The Missing Australia podcast host Meni Caroutas in episode 1 Echoes of an Abduction.

“After that happened a few times, I pulled away and screamed ‘Don’t’ … So that’s essentially where it started. It started at work”.

Despite her boss at the time intervening and warning the man off, Ms Ball said the harassment continued, including one day driving with another man in a white HiLux.

“He and another fellow pulled up beside me and just stopped and drove really slowly, just so they could see that I was looking at them,” she said.

“I was pretty athletic back then and I ran into my house. The looks in their eyes, they loved that I was scared. They loved it. That was more the thrill than anything, was my fear”.

Ms Ball told her mother about her encounter, with the pair later reporting it to the local police.

THE MISSING AUSTRALIA: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Following the visit to police, Ms Ball said dead animals started appearing on the front lawn of her family home.

“One was a guinea pig that had been decapitated. And then the other instance, there were three rats that were left on the front lawn,” she said.

“And some of them had their heads and their tails and their limbs cut off and put beside them. So I remember thinking, ‘is this my cat?’ Has my cat done this because he was a hunter? But there’s no way he’d be able to arrange them in that formation”.

Ms Ball said the stalking continued on and off for “a couple of years” even after Ms Kotevski vanished while walking home from Charlestown Shopping Centre along Powell Street, on Thursday November 24, 1994.

Bianca Ball believes he narrowly avoided Gordana Kotevski’s abductors.

Gordana Kotevski has never been found.

Ms Ball would later move to the US where she married and had a daughter. It was her daughter who encouraged her to speak out after listening to Season two of the Missing Australia podcast which featured an episode on Ms Kotevski.

She urged others with any information – not just about Ms Kotevski’s case – but of the 2300 people considered long-term missing – to come forward.

“Come forward. Don’t give them the satisfaction of living in your head and your heart and, you know, ruining anything good that you have,” Ms Ball said.

Vehicle similar to one police are looking for in relation to disappearance of schoolgirl Gordana Kotevski and that was used to stalk Bianca Ball.

Charlestown shopping centre where Gordana Kotevski was last seen and where Bianca Ball was harassed by an unknown man

“I know that this is like carrying poison for me. It rears its ugly head every now and then. But they’re animals. They’ve got to be stopped. There’s no way they would have stopped after me. Well, after. Gordana, just come forward”.

It comes as police are working on a possible breakthrough involving another new witness who could shed light on what happened to Ms Kotevski.

The Missing Australia host Meni Caroutas said police had “accurate and compelling information about Gordana’s matter” from someone who listened to The Missing Australia.

“They went on to say that it could be a turning point in their investigation,” Caroutas said.

SEND YOUR TIPS AND QUESTIONS TO MENI CAROUTAS HERE

Originally published as The Missing Australia podcast: Woman tells of stalking hell before Gordana Kotevski was abducted