Therase PACE


Age when missing: 33 years
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
Height: 157cms
Build: Medium
Other Characteristics: Maltese accent, olive complexion
Circumstances:
Therase, also known as Tessie, was last seen by her family on 22 January 1997 at their home in Melbourne. Her family, including two young children, have not seen her since that day.

Murder suspected in missing Vic mum's case

By AAP
The last words Melbourne mum Therase Pace said to her youngest daughter were, "I'll see you when you grow up."
But she never would.
The St Albans woman went missing in 1997 and more than two decades later, a coroner has ruled she is dead, probably murdered.
"I suspect Therase met with foul play and was murdered sometime after the morning of January 22, but this cannot be established to the requisite standard of proof," Coroner Simon McGregor said in findings released on Friday.
The Maltese-born woman had told her husband and children several times she was planning to leave the family.
Two years before she went missing, Ms Pace's husband Joseph found the mother-of-three in bed with another man.
Despite her promises not to see her lover Carmel "Charlie" Spiteri again, the affair continued until her disappearance.
"I would often see them talking together. (Mr Spiteri) would often walk past the house. He would drive past slowly," Joseph Pace said in a 2001 statement.
Ms Pace's former boss told police that in late 1996, he had seen Mr Spiteri screaming at her about why she was at work.
He wanted to call police but she told him Mr Spiteri was "crazy and would cause big problems" and he "watched her every move".
A police officer who saw the pair a week before her disappearance said Mr Spiteri was "sullen and not very happy at all" while Ms Pace looked as though she'd been crying.
Mr Spiteri said this was the last time he saw her.
Mr Pace saw her the morning of her disappearance when leaving to take their children to the beach.
As they headed out, his wife told their youngest daughter to be good and: "I'll see you when you grow up."
She was gone when they returned, along with her wedding ring, passport, watch, purse and some clothes.
Mr Pace contacted police a week later but she wasn't officially reported missing until March.
The coroner found proof of life checks Australia-wide, coupled with her failure to contact family or access bank accounts, Medicare or Centrelink were evidence that supported her likely death.
"To this date, there has been no substantial intelligence as to the location of the remains of Therase," Mr McGregor said.
He noted Mr Spiteri was a suspect but there had been no evidence to link him to the woman's disappearance.
The criminal investigation is ongoing.

Coroner's hearing rakes over 1997 disappearance of Therase Pace

By Tammy Mills

The signs were there that Therase Pace was going to leave. Her husband had noticed a sports bag filled with clothes stashed behind the couch and her eldest daughter – then only 12 or 13 – remembers her mother warning her she was planning to go.

As Joseph Pace got the three children ready to spend a day at the beach on the morning of January 22, 1997, Mrs Pace told her youngest, then six years old: “Be good for Daddy, I’ll see you when you grow up.”

When Mrs Pace left the family home in St Alban’s in Melbourne’s west that Wednesday, her husband first thought that she’d left of her own accord. She had been having an affair for years and at the time she left, Mr and Mrs Pace weren’t speaking.

Her three children have grown up now, but Mrs Pace hasn’t been heard from since that day. Apart from a grainy black-and-white photo published during a missing persons appeal two decades ago, she has faded into the ether.

 

On Friday, new life was breathed into her case. A Victorian coroner found Mrs Pace, who was 33 when she went missing, probably met with foul play, though her remains have never been found. While police suspected the man she was having an affair with was involved in her disappearance, there was no specific evidence that implicated him, coroner Simon McGregor said.

Mrs Pace began the illicit relationship five years before she went missing – their children went to primary school together and their families knew each other in Malta – and continued up until her disappearance, despite her promise to her husband to end the affair after he caught them together.

Coronial investigator Ross Treverton told the court on Friday that at one point Mrs Pace, who worked as a cleaner, told her boss that her boyfriend was watching her every move and she couldn’t be free.

 

Her boyfriend would later tell police he saw her on the day she disappeared but in the front passenger seat of a 4WD with another man he did not recognise.

Mr Pace first reported his wife missing a week later but police agreed with him that due to the “domestic situation”, it was likely she would turn up. Two years later, and with still no sign of her,

Mr Pace went to police again and officially filed a report.

The investigation revealed money had been withdrawn from her account using her ATM card up until February 17, 1997, almost a month after she left the family home but the transactions stopped with $40 left in the account.

In a bizarre twist, Mrs Pace's ATM card was handed in to a Commonwealth Bank branch in Broadford in 1998.

A woman had found the card stashed in the belongings of her deceased partner, a prolific and violent drug user, at his mother’s place in Broadford after his death.

 

The woman told police when they interviewed her in 2001 that her partner’s crimes of choice at the time of Mrs Pace’s disappearance included snatching bags and defrauding banks with stolen credit cards.

She said it was possible her partner snatched Mrs Pace’s bag, though she also believed her partner was capable of killing, the court heard.

There has been no other evidence linked to Mrs Pace discovered since her disappearance. Though she had taken her passport with her when she left home, her family in Malta were “unable to shed any further light on her whereabouts,” Senior Constable Treverton told the hearing.

As has become the norm amid restrictions due to the coronavirus crisis, the findings were delivered over video. In a way it felt more intimate than a court room, with her family on the screen streaming the findings from their home, flashes of pain on their faces, talking directly to coroner Simon McGregor and he to them.

“We appreciate this has been difficult for you,” Mr McGregor said to Mrs Pace’s eldest daughter.

 

“The criminal investigation remains open. Should any new evidence turn up, we’ll get the file out and keep working.”

Anyone with information is urged to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report online.