Louise
Yvonne and Charmian Christabel Alexis FAULKNER
Louise
Yvonne and Charmian Christabel Alexis FAULKNER
Circumstances: Louise Faulkner, age 43 years and her daughter Charmian age 2 years were last seen in Melbourne. The mother and child were last seen leaving their St Kilda flat in a white ute driven by an older man on April 26, 1980.
Pensioner denies link to missing mum
Russell Robinson - Herald Sun
10jun06
AN 85-year-old pensioner named as a prime suspect in the disappearance of his
lover and her toddler daughter claims he is the fall-guy.
"I'm the pigeon," George Sutherland told the Herald Sun.
"I didn't do it, so I can't be found guilty of something I didn't do."
Louise Faulkner, 43, and two-year-old Charmian vanished 26 years ago and are
believed to be dead.
Charmian was widely believed to have been Mr Sutherland's child, although he
denied it at the time.
The mother and child were last seen leaving their St Kilda flat in a white ute
driven by an elderly man on April 26, 1980.
Police believe the driver was George Sutherland, then 60.
Police searches failed to find any trace of Ms Faulkner and Charmian, and the
case remains one of Victoria's enduring criminal mysteries.
Just what happened to them will be the subject of a coronial inquiry in August,
in which Mr Sutherland will be a key witness.
He always denied he was Charmian's father, but yesterday conceded it may be the
case. "I had sex with Louise, so did a few others," he said.
"I doubt that I was (the father), but then again there is a possibility."
Louise already had three children to her husband Barry, a scientist.
The affair with George Sutherland began in 1975 when they were work colleagues.
He was a manager and she was a typist at a North Melbourne auctioneering firm.
It caused both their marriages to end in divorce, although the two lovers never
lived together.
In 1977, Louise became pregnant and refused strong demands by Mr Sutherland to
have an abortion. He continued to see Louise and paid the maternity hospital
bills.
A year later, his ex-wife Beryl moved from the Glen Iris home they once shared
and joined him at their Gippsland weekender near Erica, north of Traralgon.
But Mr Sutherland contin
ued his affair, driving to St Kilda from his Gippsland base, where he grew
potatoes.
One statement to police details how at a child's birthday party on April 25 --
Anzac Day -- Louise "expresses her excitement about going away with her 'potato
farmer' boyfriend the next day and how she was expecting to have a good time".
The same witness recalled speaking to Louise the following evening as she waited
outside their block of flats.
She recalls Louise telling her they were "going to the farm" just as a Holden
ute pulled up. The witness assumed the driver -- "an older Australian male and
thick set" -- was Louise's potato farmer boyfriend.
After placing her backpack in the rear tray, Ms Faulkner and little Charmian
climbed into the front seat. That was the last sighting of the pair.
Mr Sutherland, who now lives with Beryl in Burnie, denies he was the driver.
He rejects police evidence that he was seen several times driving a white ute
belonging to a local farmer.
He said he spent Anzac Day 1980 at the Erica Hotel, and worked on his property
the following day.
Several weeks after the two were listed as missing, police visited George
Sutherland at his Erica property where they took a statement.
The following month he and his wife sold their Gippsland home and flew to the
United States to stay with their daughter and travel. They were away for three
years.
In 2001, the homicide squad missing persons unit re-opened the investigation and
interviewed the Sutherlands.
"I'm one of the possible suspects," he told the Herald Sun. "I was in no way
involved in their disappearance."
Like family, friends and police, Mr Sutherland believes Louise and Charmian are
dead.
"Something drastic happened to Louise and to put it bluntly, she is no longer
living -- in my opinion," he said.
She knows things. Things about the special kind of chemical a lifeless body exudes, things about phone-tappings, DNA and cadaver dogs.
She counts other "crime celebrities", she says with a wry smile and an eye-roll, as friends. They are people like the mother of Gary Adams, the Cranbourne teenager who was murdered by her ex-partner, and the daughter of Marie Greening Zidan, the Frankston grandmother who was sexually abused and killed by two teenagers.
And don't even get Melissiah Faulkner started on the phone calls from the psychics and the "crazies".
"You always get the psychics, you know, saying 'the body's near water' or something. Well, ring the police," she said.
"Oh, and the long-lost sister."
In June she received a message from a woman who said she always knew her parents weren't her parents and she was, in fact, Ms Faulkner's sister.
"She was a crazy," Ms Faulkner said matter-of-factly.
When your mother and your baby sister disappear without a trace you become part of the terrible club of people carrying a weight of questions after their loved one has vanished.
And when your case becomes a murder investigation, you grow used to morbid information and the limelight that new leads, $100,000 rewards and an inquest brings.
This time, it's because of National Missing Persons Week that starts on Sunday that Ms Faulkner speaks publicly. She knows that every time the case is in the media, there are phone calls to police and despite 34 years having passed, she still hopes for the right one.
"Someone knows where the bodies are. These people always tell someone," Ms Faulkner said.
Her mother Louise Faulkner was 43 and her sister Charmian Faulkner just two when they went missing, last seen leaving their flat in Acland Street, St Kilda, in April 1980.
Louise's older lover George Sutherland was named in the 2006 inquest as a suspect. Ms Faulkner believes he is still alive, aged well into his 90s and living in Tasmania.
Ms Faulkner isn't as energetic compared to the days she ran a website to better publicise missing people, or when she started her own investigation into their disappearance.
She is now trying to live beyond the shadow of what happened to her when she was just a child. She lives on the Mornington Peninsula with her dog and cat and she rarely speaks about the case.
"There is no closure. It's learning to live with it," she said.
But the yearning for the right phone call to come never leaves her.
"It means I can have a funeral," she said.
Anyone with information about the disappearance can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit www.crimestoppers.com.au.
THE family of the victim of the missing mum mystery has begged police for a reward in the case, now 30 years old.
THE family of the victim of the missing mum mystery has begged police for a reward in the case, now 30 years old.
Louise Faulkner and her toddler daughter Charmian disappeared from St Kilda in 1980 after being seen getting in an older man's ute outside their home.
Police interviewed Ms Faulkner's then lover George Sutherland, now living as a pensioner in Tasmania, as a suspect.
An inquest concluded the two met with foul play, but found no evidence of who was responsible.
Ms Faulkner's loved ones have begged police to announce a reward in her case for information they hope will solve the grim riddle.
"The suffering that myself and my younger brother and sister have endured from the disappearance and death of our mother and sister can be likened to torture," Ms Faulkner's daughter Melissiah Diabel said.
"Naturally I am hoping that Victoria Police and the State Government consider solving the disappearance and death of an innocent woman and toddler as important as solving the murders of gangland criminals."
Their plea comes after a man was charged of the 15-year-old murder of Elisabeth Membrey - a case that had a $1 million reward.
The Chief Commissioner's office told the family in May, 2008, the reward request for Ms Faulkner's case - one of the state's longest running crime mysteries - was being considered.
But the missing woman's loved ones have not heard back from the police since.
Ms Faulkner's brother George has begged police for a reward that could break the enduring mystery.
"My request for a reward for information regarding their murder by person or persons unknown has still gone unanswered," he said.
"First Christine Nixon then Simon Overland has been approached but no action is apparent.
"Simon Overland stated on TV that rewards do work, but rhetoric seems to out-weigh action."
Ms Faulkner and Mr Sutherland, both married, met in 1963 and later began an affair. Mr Sutherland has denied being involved in the disappearance.
Victoria Police said there were no immediate plans to offer a financial reward in the Faulkner case.
"A review conducted in light of the 2008 request showed that the likelihood of any reward offer being effective in this matter is minimal," a spokeswoman said.