Sarah MacDiarmid, 23, was last seen getting off a train at Kananook railway
station in Melbourne's south about 10.20pm on July 11, 1990.
She was on her way home from a social game of tennis. Police found blood near
her car in the station car park but her body has never been found.
$1m for leads on missing
woman
By Andrea Petrie - The Age
February 6, 2004
A $1 million reward was posted yesterday to help solve the disappearance and
likely murder of a woman who vanished from a Melbourne railway station 14
years ago.
Sarah MacDiarmid, 23, was last seen getting off a train at Kananook railway
station in Melbourne's south about 10.20pm on July 11, 1990.
She was on her way home from a social game of tennis. Police found blood
near her car in the station car park but her body has never been found.
A $50,000 reward was offered for information about her disappearance in 1990
with a further $25,000 by an anonymous donor. But homicide squad detective
Senior Sergeant Charlie Bezzina said the Chief Commissioner and the State
Government had decided to raise the reward to $1 million for information
that led to a conviction.
It is the third crime in Victoria to attract a $1 million reward, following
the unsolved murders of Jane Thurgood-Dove in 1997 and Vicki Jacobs in 1999.
"It's one of those investigations which causes some concern to the community
and ourselves that we haven't been able to solve," Mr Bezzina said. "We've
had a significant amount of information over the years but we're really
targeting people out there who haven't spoken to the police or Crime
Stoppers and given us that vital piece of information."
The strongest police theory is that a group of homeless drug addicts, led by
a prostitute, jumped Ms MacDiarmid as she was about to get into her red 1978
Honda Civic, stabbed her in the back and stole her backpack.
The prostitute, who was convicted of manslaughter in 1985 after jumping on a
man's chest while wearing a pair of stiletto shoes, died of a heroin
overdose the year after Ms MacDiarmid vanished. At least one other member of
the group has also died from drug use. The gang has now dispersed. Mr
Bezzina said it was likely Sarah's disappearance was the result of an
"opportunistic attack", a theory with which her father Peter agreed. Mr
MacDiarmid said the train was about 20 minutes late, the car park had poor
lighting and someone walking past might have thought she had money because
she always wore good quality clothes.
He welcomed the increased reward and said he hoped it would revive awareness
and entice someone to speak out. "One anonymous phone call is all it takes,"
he said. Fighting back tears, Sarah's mother Sheila said the family was
finding it harder now to cope with the loss than when she disappeared. "I
would love to know where my daughter is and I just want her back," she said.
"Fourteen years is a long time."
Anyone with information about Sarah's disappearance can call Crime Stoppers
on 1800 333 000.
The never-ending search for Sarah
July 11, 2004 - The Age
It is every parent's greatest fear; their child going missing and never
being seen again. Denise Gadd reports.
For Sheila and Peter MacDiarmid it has been a long 14 years since their
daughter Sarah, then 23, disappeared from Kananook station, near Seaford.
But today, for the first time since they moved to Queensland in May 1991,
they will not make the journey to the station car park to mark the
anniversary by laying flowers at the memorial to their daughter - a flame
tree planted in the car park on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance.
Instead they will spend a quiet day at home. It will be hard for them, but
the MacDiarmids visited the car park in February.
"We know that was the last area where she was known to be so we just said
'Sarah, we're back to where you last were, let us know where you are'," Mrs
MacDiarmid said.
Not long after the night Sarah disappeared, they bought a golden labrador
puppy to welcome her home. The two never met and the dog, Jenny, died a few
months ago. It was a "huge milestone" for them both, Mr MacDiarmid said,
because it was "another piece of distance" between them and Sarah.
Since moving from their Frankston home, the MacDiarmids have tried to get on
with their lives despite the tragedy.
They were sad to leave Frankston, where they had moved from Pascoe Vale in
January 1990. But after Sarah's disappearance, the MacDiarmids couldn't stay
there. "Strange things happened. We had stuff thrown in the front garden and
our car was graffitied, plus we kept wondering if she'd been put in the boot
of a car and we kept thinking, 'is it that car?' so we had to move on," Mr
MacDiarmid said.
They have kept in touch with Sarah's friends although, at one stage, they
tried to put some distance between them.
"We were worried that they were young and we were a bad reminder of what had
happened to Sarah but when they found out they said 'no way, you must never
do that'," Mrs MacDiarmid said.
They never plan too far ahead. "We've learnt our lesson that you never know
what's going to happen," her husband said.
The loss of their beloved daughter is more intense now than it was 14 years
ago.
"Peter and I have been feeling it more of late. It's something that's
catching up with us, probably because we're getting older and you get more
uptight and frightened that you're never going to find out what happened."
Learning the truth is paramount to Peter, Sheila and their son Alisdair, who
took his sister's absence hard. He loved the bagpipes but hardly played them
after Sarah's disappearance. Then, for the 10th anniversary, he composed
Lament to Sarah which he played to commemorate the planting of the memorial
tree.
Sarah was last seen in the station car park about 10.20pm on July 11, 1990.
She had been playing tennis with friends in the city. They caught the train
home but her friends got out at Bonbeach. Sarah went on to Kananook, the
nearest station to her parents' Skye Road home. The train was late.
She was seen getting off the train, walking along a ramp and down some
stairs towards the car park, then the trail went cold.
Police found blood near her red Honda Civic but Sarah's body has never been
found, despite the State Government increasing the reward to $1 million in
February.
An inquest into Sarah's disappearance in May 1996 determined that she had
met her death as a result of foul play but the exact circumstances were
unknown.
The most popular theory, according to some police, is that Sarah was
attacked by a group of homeless drug addicts, led by a prostitute, as she
went to get into her car.
The original police investigator, Inspector Laurie Ratz, now the head of
corporate security at Qantas in Sydney, has never been "red hot" for that
theory.
"The homicide squad received a fair bit of information from different
sources but nothing was ever confirmed. Things didn't add up. We didn't find
a body and if it had been a random street kid/drug-related incident we would
have found a lot more than we did."
Mr Ratz, who also led the investigation into the abduction and murder of
Rosebud youngster Sheree Beasley, still keeps in touch with the MacDiarmids
and says the unsolved case "enters my mind frequently".
Sarah's file is still active, according to another investigator on the case
from day one, Senior Sergeant Charlie Bezzina from the homicide squad.
Information trickles in occasionally, some after the posting of the
million-dollar reward, but it was only "repeat stuff".
"We didn't get much after the $50,000 reward was announced all those years
ago so it's hard to say what conclusion one can come to," he says. "Are all
the people who know about Sarah's disappearance dead? Are those who were
involved so fearful of other people that they won't come forward?"
For Peter and Sheila MacDiarmid, finding the truth will help to put some of
their demons to rest.
"There are still people out there who know what happened and it's good that
when there's any publicity about the case, those people know that it's not a
forgotten issue and that we're looking at them," Mr MacDiarmid said.
A help for them, to a point, would be if someone came forward and told
police the location of Sarah's remains.
"That would be huge if it could be proved to be Sarah. That's what we want
to know," he said.
"We don't know how we'd deal with it but at least we'd know where she was."
MISSING PERSONS - Marie Clare Magazine
Sheila MacDiarmid, 64, is a retired nurse who lives in Queensland with her
husband, Peter. Her daughter, Sarah, went missing in Melbourne in July 1990.
“Each year, I make a pilgrimage to Kananook railway station in Melbourne.
For me, it is the most depressing location in the world, yet also one of the
most poignant. The station was the last place my daughter, Sarah, was seen
alive and, 16 years on, with no idea what happened to her all those years
ago, it’s the only place I can go to remember her.
“‘We’re back at the place that you were last seen, Sarah. Let us know where
you are,’ I always whisper. But my prayers have never been answered. They
probably never will be.
Sheila MacDiarmid
“Sarah disappeared on July 11, 1990. Ironically, it was one of the happiest
periods in our family’s life. After moving back and forth between Australia
and the UK, we’d finally settled down, bought our first house in Frankston,
Melbourne, and our son, Alisdair, had just celebrated his 21st birthday. We
went out to dinner and my husband looked so content. ‘We’ve made it,’ he
smiled, raising his glass to toast us. How wrong he was.
“A week later, Sarah donned her grey suit for her job in an underwriters
office, picked up her sports bag and tennis racquet, told me she had a match
after work and that she would catch the 9.10pm train home.
“She always called if she was going to be late for any reason, so I knew the
minute she didn’t arrive that something was wrong. I sent her brother to the
station to look for her, but he couldn’t find Sarah. When the last train
came and went at 1am, I began to panic.
Peter and Sheila MacDiarmid long to discover what
happened to their daughter
“‘Should I call the police?’ I asked Peter. But, as a former police officer,
he knew they’d just think we were paranoid parents and that Sarah was
probably with her boyfriend.
“When I spoke to Sarah’s friends the next morning, they told me she’d been
on the correct train as promised. I’d never known such fear – I threw down
the phone and screamed. Peter began to seriously panic, too.
“We sped down to Kananook station and saw Sarah’s Honda Civic in the car
park. ‘That’s funny,’ said Peter. ‘I never noticed rust on Sarah’s car
before.’ But when we and the police had a closer look, we saw it wasn’t rust
at all – it was blood. Then we noticed blood on the ground as well – and
drag marks leading into the bushes. And on the ground was a cigarette
lighter belonging to Sarah.
“Later, witnesses said Sarah had got off the train and crossed the
footbridge to the car park, where some people heard a woman shouting, ‘Give
me back my keys.’
“The next few days passed in a daze. There was a huge police search and the
media camped on our doorstep. At night, we went to bed and were enveloped in
a blackness quite unlike anything we had ever experienced.
“After two weeks, I went back to my job as a community nurse to try to keep
my mind off things. People didn’t realise I actually wasn’t coping – it was
all a front. The only person who really helped me was a 90-year-old patient
called Nell. When her daughters were 10 and 11, she’d sent them to the beach
to play. They never came home, and were later found murdered in the sand
dunes. ‘At least I knew where my girls were,’ she told me.
“People think it gets easier with time, but it doesn’t. Not knowing what
happened wears you out. Even after 16 years, I still keep hoping that she
will walk through the door. There’s a $1 million reward for information
about Sarah’s disappearance, and we contact the police regularly in a bid to
keep the case active. But I’m 64 now, and my greatest fear is that I will
never know. It’s living with all my unanswered questions that is the hardest
burden to bear.”
Sarah MacDiarmid has been missing for 16 years
Million dollars on offer in missing persons case
Updated
Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:05am AEST - ABC
Victorian Police are still offering a $1 million reward for
information that could help solve a 20-year-old suspected murder case.
The reward has been on offer for information on the suspected murder of
Frankston woman Sarah MacDiarmid, for the past six years.
Tomorrow will mark two decades since 23-year-old Sarah MacDiarmid disappeared
from the Kananook Railway Station near Frankston.
She was last seen walking through the carpark of the railway station around
10.20pm on the night of her disappearance.
Her family has set up a website called 'Not Alone' for families who are
dealing with the suspected murder of a loved one.
Victorian police have launched a fresh appeal for information on the case and
her father, Peter MacDiarmid, says he is hopeful of receiving some long awaited
answers.
"We'd like to feel confident about it because maybe the person involved is
dead or maybe somebody is feeling old enough and secure enough that they could
perhaps even ring," he said.
"I don't care how long it's been, somebody knows."
Sarah MacDiarmid: Parents of woman missing from
Kananook train station share their heartbreak 27 years on
Posted
Almost three decades after the unsolved suspected killing of young Melbourne
woman Sarah MacDiarmid, her parents say they no longer care about penalties
for those involved — they just want their daughter's remains back.
Ms MacDiarmid was last seen walking through the car park of Kananook train
station, near Frankston, just before 10:30pm on 11 July, 1990.
Police believe the 23-year-old got off a Frankston-bound train, which she
caught from Caulfield, and was walking to her car.
Ms MacDiarmid was reported missing by her parents the next day when she did
not return home.
Her disappearance has never been solved.
Police said forensic testing of the area where her red Honda Civic was
parked made them believe she was murdered in some kind of altercation or
attack.
A $1 million reward was put on offer in 2004 and still remains for
information that leads to a conviction.
"We're really hoping … it sounds fairly repetitive when we say it, but it's
to find out what happened to Sarah," father Peter MacDiarmid said.
"We'd like her back, even if it was remains, ashes, whatever. We'd like her
back."
Her mother Sheila MacDiarmid said she was feeling the loss of her daughter
more than ever.
"You think with time it should be getting easier, but as you get older it
doesn't get any easier — it gets worse," she said.
"We just miss her. We wouldn't worry so much what happened to them [those
responsible] if they could just let us know where she was."
Someone saw Sarah's killer: Police
There have been numerous suspects and persons of interest over the years,
including notorious serial killer Bendali Debs, but there had never been any
conclusive proof.
Detective Inspector Tim Day from the Missing Persons Squad said the case was
still considered a priority.
"We have a fair idea from the analysis of the crime scene from back in 1990
about what has occurred," he said.
"It's clear there's been an altercation and Sarah has been attacked, and
she's been dragged away from the car."
Detective Inspector Day said one particular witness likely heard the
altercation, while others had seen vehicles around the station.
"Twenty-seven years certainly makes it difficult, but one thing I've
certainly learnt in my time as an investigator is that all cases are
solvable."
He urged anyone with information to contact police, saying it was never too
late to come forward.
Sarah MacDiarmid had a love of music and Myer
The MacDiarmid family recently contacted the local council to ask if they
could have the memorial stone that was placed at the station in their
daughter's honour, because making a trip to the site was becoming more
difficult as they grew older.
The council agreed to the request and today unveiled a special new plaque to
ensure her memory lives on at the station.
Her parents said Ms MacDiarmid had a love of music and clothes, and embraced
her Australian and Scottish heritage.
They said she was very close to her brother, who is now a father.
"Funnily enough, we were in the shopping centre last night and I said to
Sheila, 'This is one of Sarah's favourite spots'."
Detective Inspector Day said the was amazed at the courage shown by families
like the MacDiarmids.
"It always amazes me how families recover from a loved one going missing and
not knowing what the answer is. They're incredibly brave and resilient," he
said.
30th anniversary of disappearance of Sarah
MacDiarmid
11 JUL 2020 12:42 PM AEST - Mirage
Thirty years after she was last seen at Kananook Railway
Station, police are again appealing for information in relation
to the disappearance of Sarah MacDiarmid.
Sarah, then 23, was last seen walking through the car park of
the station about 10.20pm on Wednesday 11 July, 1990.
Sarah was then reported missing by her parents the following
morning when she did not return home.
Forensic testing of the area where Sarah’s red Honda Civic was
parked has led detectives to believe Sarah was attacked as she
approached her vehicle.
Sadly, her body has never been located.
Despite an exhaustive investigation over the past 30 years by
both the Homicide Squad and Missing Persons Squad, the
circumstances surrounding exactly what happened to Sarah remain
a mystery.
In February 2004 police announced a $1M reward for information
regarding Sarah’s disappearance and this reward remains on
offer.
Officer in charge of the Missing Persons Squad, Detective
Inspector Andrew Stamper said police had not given up hope of
being able to provide Sarah’s family with answers.
“To go 30 years without having any answers about what happened
to your daughter or sister is almost unimaginable,” he said.
“Sarah’s parents Peter and Sheila, and her brother Alasdair have
had to show the kind of resilience no family should ever be
asked to demonstrate.
“We often talk about an ambiguous grief with missing persons
cases – because there are no answers, it’s hard to extinguish
that last bit of hope and families are left hanging off every
phone call, every knock on the door in case it’s the one that
will give them those answers.
“There are so many milestones for Sarah’s life that her family
never got to see; for example they never got to see her get
married or start a family.
“Peter and Shelia are getting older and to be able to give them
some answers and any kind of peace, is something police are
desperate to do.”
Det Insp Stamper also said investigators had not given up hope
that someone out there had information that could solve this
case.
“There will absolutely still be people who know what happened to
Sarah and who is responsible,” he said.
“There are very few murders where those involved have never
spoken to anyone about it – someone will know about Sarah’s
disappearance and we are again appealing to those people to come
forward and speak to police.
“It may not be those who have been directly involved in the
incident, it could be people on the periphery or who are family,
friends or associates of those involved.
“I am directly appealing to those people to make contact with
investigators.
“It’s been 30 years but it is absolutely not too late to do the
right thing.”
Anyone with information about Sarah’s disappearance is urged to
contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential
crime report online at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au
