Dear Rachelle investigation: Critical CCTV footage could hold vital clues to help solve her murder

CCTV footage from the night Rachelle Childs was murdered will be re-examined, with her family hoping it will unearth vital clues to help find her killer. Listen to the podcast.

EXCLUSIVE

CCTV footage seized from the night of Rachelle Childs’ killing in 2001 will be enhanced for clarity and shown to her family for the first time in the hope of revealing vital clues about the 23-year-old’s final hours.

Service station CCTV from Nowra, NSW, and railway station CCTV from Bargo, where Rachelle was last known to be, will be digitised in an attempt to identify breakthrough evidence from the grainy images.

The development comes after NSW Police sent the petrol cap of her blue 1978 Holden Commodore VB for testing in March, after quietly reopening their investigation into the cold case.

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

LISTEN TO EPISODES 1-7 OF THE PODCAST BELOW:

Rachelle’s remains were found on fire nine hours after she was last seen, at about 5pm on June 7, 2001, leaving her workplace at Camden Holden.

It is thought that her car, which was later found in the carpark of the Bargo Hotel, across the road from the train station, was used to drive her more than 100km to Gerroa, south of Sydney, on the night she died.

Footage from the train station was very unclear, but is thought to depict an early model Commodore.

Described as a “massive step” by Rachelle’s family, who have been desperate for answers for nearly 24 years, technologically-enhanced footage could time stamp when Rachelle’s car went in or out of the pub’s carpark.

After Rachelle’s death, police collected CCTV from various service stations in the wider vicinity of Rachelle’s last-known movements.

All that footage, bar segments of CCTV seized from the Nowra region, has since been lost in police storage.

Rachelle Childs’ VH Commodore.

The segments were flagged for further investigation by police, but were never released to the public or shown to the Childs family.

CCTV was captured at the South Nowra Caltex Service Station at 10.40pm on the night Rachelle disappeared.

According to a police log, it depicts an “unknown blue VB (or) VH Commodore” parked near the shop entrance.

A female – “blonde hair – dark top – light slacks” got out of the car and was seen in the shop, three minutes later, with a handbag over her right shoulder.

The car stayed at the service station for another seven minutes.

At 10.50pm it reversed out of the car park. A male appeared to be in the front passenger seat.

The petrol station was only a 25 minute drive from where Rachelle’s body was set alight three hours later.

Passing drivers on the Crooked River Rd south of Gerroa told police of seeing a car that matched Rachelle’s near her final resting place in the hours before her body was found.

Rachelle’s car was found in the carpark of the Bargo Hotel, more than an hour’s drive from Gerroa, the day after her body was discovered.

The position of the driver’s seat suggested Rachelle had not been the last person to drive the car.

Rachelle’s sister Kristy Childs described the CCTV police initiative as “a massive step in the right direction”.

“You need to have (my) mum looking at it or me looking at it … someone who knew her and knew how she moves and how she walks,” Kristy said.

“Someone who’s never met her before and doesn’t know her is not going to be able to tell if it is her from the back or from a photo.

“Perhaps with advancements in technology, when they’re enhancing that footage, perhaps we’ll be able to see.”

Kristi Childs with sister Rachelle, who was murdered in June 2001.

Meanwhile, police have told Rachelle’s family that no fingerprints were found on the petrol cap of her car.

It had been forensically examined after her death, but the tests yielded no evidence.

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: Critical CCTV footage could hold vital clues to help solve her murder