Revelle Sabine BALMAIN

Above left - Revelle's bag and shoe that were found on the streets of Kingsford after she vanished.

Circumstances - Revelle was a top model and dancer who was about to return to Japan to take up another dance contract. She was due to meet her friend on the evening of November 5th 1994 but failed to keep the appointment. Her friend last spoke to her by phone at 7:15pm. Police interviewed a 31 year old man who had been with Revelle on the afternoon prior to her disappearance and he said he had driven Revelle to the Red Tomato Inn at 7pm. The following day Revelle's bag, shoes, make up, diary, credit cards and the keys to her flat were found scattered around several Kingsford streets. Revelle has not been since since this time.
If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Revelle please contact Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000

Click here for Revelle's You Tube video released by the AFP

**Revelle's sister Suellen has never stopped searching for her sister and is determined to find her.  She wants to send this message out to anyone with information. There is a reward on offer by the NSW Government which has been upgraded from $100,000 to $250,000.

These are Suellen's own words about Revelle's movements the night she disappeared. This account comes directly from Revelle's family who knew and loved her best.


"Revelle was supposed to catch the 9:30am train from Sydney to Newcastle to meet her mother on Sunday morning 6 November 1994; she was to arrive at 11am.   Revelle wanted to say goodbye to her parents before she left for Brisbane for a 2 week dance rehearsal before leaving for Japan on another 6 month dance contract.  She was due to meet a girlfriend on Saturday evening 5 Nov, 1994 but failed to keep this appointment.  Later that evening she was to meet her boyfriend, but failed to keep this appointment as well.  Her girlfriend last spoke to her by phone at 7:15pm.  A man told Police she was driven from premises at Kingsford, Sydney to the Red Tomato Inn at 7.00pm.  No one from the Inn ever saw her. Revelle has not been seen since this time. 
Police interviewed the 31 yr old man who had been with Revelle that afternoon and early evening but no charges were ever laid.  Police and the coroner believed she had been murdered.  Detectives questioned the agency's owner and many of her friends. 

The New South Wales government renewed and upgraded the reward from $100,000 to $250,000 which is still current to anyone who could help police in locating her.

In May '99 John Abernethy, Deputy State Coroner deemed the investigation as an open finding.  Her file will never close until she is found and someone is prosecuted.

As her sister I want to know what happened to her, its been 14 yrs since her disappearance and I think of her every day, it never leaves my mind.  If you have any information that could help me find her, please contact Police on 1800 333 000.

New lead in Revelle Balmain murder

The Daily Telegraph can reveal NSW homicide detectives, who have been reinvestigating the case quietly for the past year, are seeking to speak to Gavin Owen Samer, who is from a affluent Sydney family.

It is understood Samer, who lived in McNair Ave, Kingsford, in the 1990s, no longer lives in Sydney and attempts are being made to locate him.

It is understood Samer is the only remaining suspect in the case and is still believed to be in Australia.

Samer was Ms Balmain's last known client as a prostitute on the night she disappeared - Saturday, November 5 - and she attended a house he was living in on McNair Ave.

The 22-year-old's belongings, including a diary and keys, were later found scattered around streets in Kingsford.

Homicide Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford announced yesterday that police had new information and forensic test results that were a breakthrough in the unsolved case.

The announcement was coupled with an increase of the reward for information leading to the arrest of Ms Balmain's killer/s, from $100,000 to $250,000.

The forensic results came from a second search of the McNair Ave house, conducted in the past year. Due to advancements in forensic technology, the search yielded more than the original search, Supt Beresford said.

A previous inquest into Ms Balmain's disappearance heard police officers checked Samer's house and car for evidence of blood or a struggle but did not call in crime scene experts because there was no body.

Samer was named as the suspect in Ms Balmain's disappearance in a 1998 inquest into her suspected death. The inquest heard Samer told police Ms Balmain had visited his home Kingsford about 4pm on November 5, and that he drove her to the Red Tomato Inn nearby about 7pm.

However, the then officer-in-charge Detective Sergeant Grahame Mulherin told the inquest police did not believe Mr Samer's version of events.

Police also noticed injuries on Samer's neck, chest and hands in the days following November 5 and the inquest heard these could be from a struggle - or there could be an innocent explanation.

Samer told police he pawned his then-girlfriend's clarinet to pay Ms Balmain's $400 bill.

State coroner at the time, John Abernethy, said Samer had no case to answer and that she had been murdered by an unknown person or persons.

Ms Balmain's half-sister Suellen Simpson said Ms Balmain had been about to give up escort work.

Cold case unit uses new technology to solve homicides

Transcript

To have a child go missing is one of the worst things a parent can experience. Perhaps the only thing worse would be to reach the end of your days never knowing what happened to them.

Ivor Balmain’s life hadn’t been easy. Raised in an orphanage and scarred by wartime experiences, he was thrilled when he met and married Jan, a dance teacher. The couple had two children, daughter Revelle and son Matthew, and life was finally sweet.

But then fate dealt another blow. Matthew drowned in the family pool aged 15 months.

Revelle became even more precious. Beautiful, a talented dancer, loving and lovable, she provided salve for Ivor’s pain - until, out of the blue, she vanished in 1994.

Suellen Simpson - Revelle’s half-sister from Jan’s earlier marriage - recalls her step-father’s devastation: “I remember him crying, ‘I’ve lost Matthew, I can’t cope if Revelle has gone as well.’ I so felt for him, I made a vow: I’m going to do everything possible to find Revelle for Ivor.”

Tragically, her efforts didn’t bring Ivor the comfort he craved. Last December, he passed away, a broken man. “All he needed was to know where Revelle was,” says Simpson.

Today she’s as determined as ever to find out, once and for all, what happened to her sister. Fuelled by a potent fury at the police investigation, she’s become almost obsessed. “I think my anger’s kept me going. If I’d lost that, I’d have given up.”

Revelle was 22 when she went missing. About to go on a six-month dance tour of Japan, she had arranged to visit her parents before she left. On November 6, Jan was to meet her at Newcastle station at 11am, while Ivor stayed home to make lunch.

Their daughter never turned up. Shortly afterwards, her belongings - shoes, wallet and keys - were found scattered around the streets of Kingsford, in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, where she was last seen.

“My first reaction when Mum told me was disbelief,” recalls Simpson. “My hands were shaking and I could barely hold the phone.”

She immediately drove from her home in Melbourne to Port Stephens to be with her parents. The next day saw her scouring Newcastle bushland for her sister, the first of many searches that have defined her life since. She’s walked every tunnel, beach and national park around Sydney, interrogated a foreign, often scary underbelly and read every statement and piece of evidence so many times, she can recite it by heart.

For the first 18 months after Revelle’s disappearance, Simpson called the officer in charge of the investigation every day, and spent each night on the phone to her mum going over the evidence.

Her marriage failed under the strain.

“I remember [the police officer] telling me, ‘You need to see a counsellor.’ But I didn’t need a counsellor; I was angry and he was one of the causes of my anger. Every time I suggested something, it was shut down. My family and I were made to feel like criminals because we wanted questions answered.”

Five years on, the state coroner agreed the original police investigation wasn’t as thorough as it could have been, and Simpson believes she knows why. A few days after the disappearance, the family received shattering news: Revelle had secretly been boosting her bank balance by working as an escort.

Simpson insists the revelation had no impact on her feelings towards her sister, but adds, “I believe police thought Revelle’s life was worth less because she was an escort.”

At 4pm on November 5, Revelle had an appointment in Kingsford with a client. Ironically, Revelle, fussy, modest and in love with a new boyfriend, had announced she was quitting escort work and this was to be her final client. (It’s been rumoured she was made an example of and murdered because of her plan to leave the industry.)

At 7.15pm, she called a friend, saying she was leaving an appointment, and arranged to meet for a drink. She didn’t arrive and although the first report of her disappearance was made that Saturday evening, the investigation didn’t get under way until Monday, by which time the local bins had been emptied - eliminating potential evidence. “Anything could have been in them,” fumes Simpson.

That was the first in a sequence of bungled attempts to solve the case. Just as frustrating to Simpson was that Revelle’s last client was found to have injuries and scratches on him, which he put down to a surfing accident. A forensic pathologist told the inquest this was possible, but also stated they could have been sustained in a struggle.

Other leads weren’t followed. The client’s car wasn’t forensically tested (he told police he’d given Revelle a ride to a pub at about 7pm), nor was Revelle’s bedroom. Meanwhile, an alibi given by Zoran Stanojovic, the owner of the escort agency for which Revelle worked, wasn’t questioned until the inquest, five years later. It was the coroner who noted that the person supporting his alibi - an escort in his employ - hadn’t been questioned. The woman then told police Stanojovic had driven her to several appointments on November 5, before they stopped to change a flat tyre on his BMW. Stanojovic insisted he did not see or speak to Revelle that night.

On May 28, 1999, the coroner ruled Revelle was likely to have been murdered. It took three more years for Simpson to accept this might be the truth.

“I never stopped thinking she might walk through a door, make that call or turn up somewhere,” she says. “Then, one night, I stood in front of a victims’ support group and told them what had happened, and it finally hit me she wasn’t coming back. Voicing what our family had experienced shook me into reality. I drove home that night knowing I’d told others she was gone and that I couldn’t ignore what I’d said. It tore through my heart like nothing else.

“This has changed me,” she admits. “I used to trust everyone. I don’t trust anyone now. That’s what Revelle’s killers have done to our family. They’ve destroyed us.”

That Revelle was embarrassed about her secret life, there is little doubt. She even hid it from her boyfriend, Piers Fisher-Pollard.

At lunchtime on the day she disappeared, he put her on a bus to visit friends in Paddington, and had plans to meet her later that night for a farewell drink before she set off for Japan.

“The police initially said she must have gone walkabout,” he says. “But I knew she wouldn’t do that. She wanted to see me before she left and she was really excited about seeing her parents the next day.

“I was the one who reported her missing,” he adds. “When the police told me she was working as a prostitute, it was a double bombshell.”

Today, NSW police say Revelle’s case is ongoing. They refuse to comment, but believe they have identified a suspect. Simpson and Jan, however, believe there was more than one person involved. Their best hope now is that consciences will eventually be pricked and someone will come forward with the truth.

“It destroys me to think there’s someone walking this country who has killed,” Simpson says. “Someone who might kill again.”

 Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000.

It is almost 20 years since Revelle Balmain, disappeared on the streets of Sydney. Her family still don’t know what happened to the young model and dancer…

It took Suellen Simpson eight years to realise that her sister, Revelle Balmain, was never coming home. Throughout that time she continued to live in hope. Their mother, Jan, had accepted the stark reality only a few months after her 22-year-old daughter disappeared. Mother’s instinct told her she wouldn’t see Revelle again after she vanished one Saturday evening in 1994.

“But I never believed she was gone,” recalls Suellen.

“Then one night I was at a meeting at the Homicide Victims Support Group in Melbourne. There were about 15 people sitting round and I spoke to them about Revelle. I explained what I was doing to try and find her, the letters I was writing…but as I was driving home that night it hit me – I thought ‘she’s dead and I’m never going to see her again’. But it took eight years.”

The devastating realisation that Revelle was almost certainly dead didn’t stop Suellen searching for answers as to what happened to her sister. Almost 20 years on, Suellen and Jan are still waiting to uncover the truth.

They believe crucial opportunities to solve the young model’s disappearance were squandered in the first 48 hours after she vanished. And they say their experience is a warning to other families when a loved one goes missing.

“The first 48 hours after someone goes missing are the most crucial time. Revelle went missing on the Saturday night but police didn’t start looking for her until Monday morning,” says Suellen.

“In those first 48 hours every action the police take is critical – whom they speak to, where they look, what evidence they find. When there are delays, things get missed and years later, like us, you end up without answers.”

Revelle disappeared on Saturday 5^th November 1994. An attractive and accomplished performer, at the time she went missing she was living in a share-house in Sydney. But she was only days away from moving to Japan to work as a dancer.

Unknown to her family, Revelle had been working for an escort agency to make ends meet. Around 7pm on the Saturday she went missing, Revelle went to a client’s home in the Kingsford, Sydney. She was never seen again.

“That was a hideous shock. She got involved with the wrong people,” says Jan.

“We understand she was doing that work for a short period of time and then she was off to Japan. She’d also started modelling. It was all happening for her but unfortunately she was with the wrong crowd and didn’t get away soon enough.”

Revelle’s shoes, wallet and keys were later found scattered around streets in Kingsford. Her last client was questioned by police but told them that after their appointment he dropped Revelle at a Sydney hotel around 7pm.

“Revelle was meeting me at 11 o’clock the next day for Sunday lunch – I was supposed to meet her at Newcastle train station. But she didn’t arrive and she wasn’t on the next train either,” says Jan.

“So I made a report to police that day – a mother knows when something is wrong.”

When Jan called Suellen and told her Revelle hadn’t arrived she initially thought her younger sister had simply slept in.

“But on Monday when Revelle’s items were found around the streets, everything fell apart,” she says.

But the nightmare was only just beginning for Revelle’s family.

Suellen is still angered by what she believes were missed opportunities to solve her sister’s disappearance.

In July this year she wrote to the NSW Police Minister asking for the current $250,000 reward for information to solve Revelle’s case to be raised to $1 million.

“By the time police did go and see Revelle’s last client he had cleaned his car, cleaned his home and washed his clothes and linen. The rubbish bins in the area had been emptied. He had scratches on his face and neck but there was never enough evidence,” says Suellen.

“That first 48 hours of the investigation saw so many fumbles where information and evidence that may have helped us find out what happened to Revelle wasn’t collected.”

Frustrated by a lack of action, Suellen and friends searched for Revelle. Suellen spoke to her sister’s friends and searched Sydney’s streets and beaches every weekend for months. Her search went on for years.

“I remember phoning the detective in charge and asking him where he’d looked, who he’d spoken to and he wouldn’t give me any information. Instead he told me I needed counselling,” says Suellen.

“Whenever we asked questions we were made to feel like criminals.”

Suellen says families need to be proactive when a loved one does go missing – especially in the first 48 hours.

“You need to get that person’s face on the TV news and in the newspapers so the community can report anything suspicious that may help. You also have to stand up and ask questions and make sure the police are doing everything they can,” she says.

Revelle’s heartbroken father, Ivor, died in December 2011 still not knowing where his daughter was. In May 1999 the Coroner’s Court ruled Revelle was likely to have been murdered but Jan and Suellen still want answers.

“You don’t give up hope. It’s around you all the time – that hope that something will happen, someone will come forward and say what happened,” says Jan.

“Because someone out there does know what happened to Revelle. They know the truth.”

*Anyone with information about Revelle Balmain’s disappearance can call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. There is a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person/s responsible for Revelle’s death.

Twenty-six years ago, model Revelle Balmain had everything going for her: she was happy, working, going out with friends, planning to travel overseas and spending time with her family.

But the 22-year-old disappeared in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and, despite numerous investigations, no trace of her has been found.

Ms Balmain was last seen in the Kingsford area on November 5, 1994, and was reported missing later that evening.

Ex-madam fears police missed key interviews in Revelle investigation

A photo could help solve the mysterious disappearance of a model who vanished more than 26 years ago. 

Revelle Balmain went missing when she was 22 years old from the Kingsford area in Sydney's east on November 5, 1994. 

Her make-up bag, keys and a shoe were found scattered near Ainslie Street but she has never been seen or heard from since and despite investigations from police, nobody has been charged.

However, now NSW Police have released an image of a man they believe may have information about Ms Balmain's last movements before her disappearance. 

NSW Police Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Bell said in a statement the photo was sent to them anonymously after they announced in May a $1 million reward in exchange for information that leads to a conviction.

"It is believed that this image was taken some time in the mid-2000s, but that the individual depicted may have information that would help us progress our investigation," Det Ch Insp Bell said. 

"It is our hope that someone in the community may recognise this man so we can speak with him and ensure all possible avenues of inquiry are followed through.

"As always, we continue to encourage anyone in the public that may have information about Revelle's disappearance to come forward and speak with police, so that we may finally provide answers to her family."

Sister's heartbreak after disappearance

Revelle’s sister, Suellen Simpson, said earlier this year the disappearance had caused immeasurable grief to her family.

“For many years, our family worked tirelessly to find out what happened to my sister – but sadly both our mother and Revelle’s father, Ivor, passed away without ever knowing what happened to their little girl,” Ms Simpson said.

“Losing someone that is close to you – you’re never the same person again."

Despite Ms Balmain's disappearance remaining a mystery for more than two decades, a coronial inquest in 1999 found that the model had died at the hands of a person or persons unknown.

The case was referred to the Unsolved Homicide Unit for future investigation. 

Anybody with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit an anonymous report online.

Days after police announced a reinvestigation and a forensic search into the 1994 disappearance of model Revelle Balmain, her former boss has been arrested on unrelated charges.

Zoran Stanojevic, 63, the former owner of an escort agency where Ms Balmain worked, was apprehended at his Maroubra address on Thursday.

Asked on Tuesday whether they had since identified the man pictured, he said, “Yes, we have.

“We’re trying to identify his location ... on the night of the 5th November, 1994,” he said, adding that the location of any potential associates was also being considered.

Zoran Stanojevic, a person of interest in the mysterious disappearance of Revelle Balmain 26 years ago, faces renewed scrutiny after his former wife Jane King said she had no idea of his whereabouts on the night in question.

Mr Stanojevic – the former boss of Ms Balmain, a model turned callgirl – and his former wife owned Select Companions, one of two high-end escort agencies for which the 22-year-old was working when she vanished in November 1994.

“That person was in the initial coronial investigation and, as part of the coroner’s matter, we’re re-canvassing all interviews and witness statements,” he said.

“Everyone who was in the original investigation is still a person of interest in this matter. We are continuing ... to eliminate suspects.”

Mr Stanojevic was arrested on Thursday by detectives working on Ms Balmain’s disappearance and charged with 36 offences including marijuana cultivation and dealing with the proceeds of crime unrelated to Ms Revell’s disappearance.

Four other men from Sydney’s east, who are unconnected to Ms Revelle, were also arrested.

Investigators raided four properties across Sydney’s east and the CBD. They seized 102 cannabis plants and $150,000 worth of luxury handbags, shoes, clothing and watches alleged to have been stolen.

Mr Stanojevic was refused bail by police. He appeared briefly in Central Local Court on Friday and is due to appear in the same court later this month to apply for bail.

The raids were sparked by information uncovered by the renewed investigation into Ms Balmain’s disappearance and presumed murder, police say.

Earlier this week, investigators began a forensic search at a room inside Bondi’s QT hotel, the Bellevue Hill unit where Ms Balmain lived and the Potts Point former headquarters of Select Escorts.

In May, police announced a $1 million reward for information into Ms Balmain’s disappearance and presumed murder.