Mary Louise WALLACE

Thanks to Anthony Barnao's book "Violent Crimes that Shocked a Nation" for the first photograph and information about Mary

Copy photos of missing nurse, Mary Louise Wallace, last seen leaving...  News Photo - Getty ImagesMissing nurse, Mary Louise Wallace, last seen leaving the Alpine Inn...  News Photo - Getty Images

Missing nurse, Mary Louise Wallace, last seen leaving the Alpine Inn...  News Photo - Getty ImagesMissing nurse, Mary Louise Wallace, last seen leaving the Alpine Inn...  News Photo - Getty Images

Missing nurse, Mary Louise Wallace, last seen leaving the Alpine Inn...  News Photo - Getty ImagesMissing nurse, Mary Louise Wallace has dissapeared & is feared... News  Photo - Getty Images

 

Mary was 33 years old when she disappeared in late September 1983. She has dark hair and grey eyes.

She had been due to attend her sister's birthday party but did not arrive. Mary was a nursing sister at Hunters Hill private nursing hospital in Sydney. She lived in Drummoyne and was due at her parents' home in Lane Cove for the party.

The previous evening Mary had been out with friends at the Alpine Inn wine bar in Crow's Nest. She was wearing a dark woollen top and a light green denim skirt. The group had previously been at the Stoned Crow bar and before that at the Malaya Restaurant until 1am. During their time at the Alpine Inn a man was paying particular attention to Mary - approximately 30 years old, tall, neatly dressed, blonde, neat moustache, clean cut appearance. Mary was seen at 3am talking to this man. She had been feeling unwell and was sick in the toilets of the wine bar. Mary's friends attempted to look after her but the well dressed man told her friend he was a Police officer and offered to escort Mary home. The man helped Mary into his brown 1982 Holden Commodore, fitted with fibreglass bullbars parked on Willoughby Road outside the Alpine Inn. The man drove off with Mary, headed West and this was the last time Mary was ever seen.

Police did find the blonde man who said he drove Mary a few streets away, they had sex and he then fell asleep in his car, awaking at 5am to find Mary gone. He denied murdering Mary. He admitted he had lied about being a Police officer. This man was seen earlier scrubbing his car meticulously clean after Mary disappeared.

An anonymous letter was sent to Police 2 weeks after Mary disappeared claiming her body was buried under a rock in bushland in St Ives Chase. Police searched the area but found nothing.

Despite a massive Police search of nearby bushland including Lane Cove National Park, no trace of Mary Wallace has ever been found.

Reward 30 years on for details on Marion Sandford

22 Jan 10 @ 07:39am

 
THIRTY years after the disappearance of Cammeray woman Marion Sandford, the State Government has posted a $100,000 reward for information into the case.

Acting Police Minister David Campbell said Ms Sandford, a New Zealander, disappeared in January, 1980, and was presumed murdered.

“Marion Sandford was last seen by her brother Peter Sandford around January 24, 1980, at their home in Cammeray,” Mr Campbell said.

“Just three days later, Peter received a letter claiming to be from Marion, letting him know she was all right and that she’d be away until later that week.

That was the last contact anyone has had with Marion, that we know of.”

Detective Sergeant Robert George, of Harbourside Local Area Command, said that, at the time of her disappearance, Ms Sandford was known to police.

“In 2002, Marion’s disappearance was investigated in connection with the disappearance of two other women - Linda Davie, who was last seen in St Leonards in April, 1980, and Mary Wallace, last seen in Crows Nest in September, 1983,” he said.

“One other line of inquiry has been the potential involvement in the supply of drugs in the area.

“We are reviewing any links Marion may have had with a heroin importation syndicate.”

Detective Sergeant George said NSW Police had worked with the NZ Consulate and NZ Police.

“While we’ve had a number of leads, every one so far has unfortunately gone cold,” he said.

Mr Campbell said police wanted to hear from anyone who knew Ms Sandford, whether they were friends, relatives or associates.

“The Sandford family deserves closure and the community expects justice,” Mr Campbell said.

“I urge anyone with any information - no matter how small or insignificant you may think (it) is - to come forward to their local police station or call Crime Stoppers anonymously on 1800 333 000.”

Police dig into nurse Mary Wallace's unsolved murder

POLICE are excavating the footings of what was once an observation deck within the Lane Cove National Park as part of an unsolved homicide investigation into the disappearance of a nurse 27 years ago.

Mary Louise Wallace, then aged 33 years, disappeared in the early hours of September 24, 1983.
 
She was last seen getting into a car with man she had befriended while drinking with friends at a hotel on Willoughby Rd at Crows Nest.
 
As part of the current Unsolved Homicide Review Team investigation into her disappearance, police have an hired expert geophysicist who will use ground penetrating radar to examine an area of interest at Jenkins Hill, within the National Park.

This area will then be excavated with a bobcat.
 
Police began excavating the site at 9.30am today but the examination and excavation of the site is expected to take up to two days.
 

“We expect to be on site for up to two days as we excavate the footings of what was once a public observation deck,” Acting Homicide Squad Commander A/Superintendent John Lehmann said.
 
“Those deck footings were laid in the days after Mary’s disappearance. 
 
“Detectives at the time did conduct an examination of the area, however today’s dig is the result of a more recent re-investigation of the case.
 
“Again as part of the re-investigation, detectives have travelled to Western Australia and New Zealand to reinterview several witnesses ahead of a Coroner's inquest later this year.
 
 “We are hoping to reach a breakthrough in this case and finally get some answers for a family that have endured a wait of almost 30 years.”
 
Pauline Biddle, a friend of Mary, today spoke on behalf of the Wallace family.
 
“Mary was an immensely popular and vivacious woman who was very much loved by her family and friends and admired by her colleagues,” Ms Biddle said.
 
“She was especially close to her two older sisters and not knowing what happened to Mary has been absolutely devastating for them.
 
“I think after all this time we would all be more at peace if we finally had some answers so we could lay Mary to rest.
 
 “I would appeal to anyone who has any information to come forward - no matter how small.
 
“Even after all this time it may just be the smallest recollection that will lead police to finally solving the mystery of Mary’s disappearance,” Ms Biddle said. 

Sydney cold case breakthrough: bid to solve the mystery of Mary

Paul Tatnell - SMH
October 5, 2010

It was once NSW's most high-profile missing person case involving a bogus cop, a missing nurse, a mysterious letter and a heartbroken family.

The year was 1983 and Sydney was gripped with the disappearance of nurse Mary Louise Wallace.

Police believed then they knew who had killed the 33-year-old from Drummoyne. They thought he was a local who worked as a garbage truck driver and was also known to pose as a police officer.

But despite the NSW police force's biggest ever homicide investigation involving hundreds of interviews, Ms Wallace remains a missing person and no charges have ever been laid.

The case started in the early hours of September 24 after a night during which Ms Wallace fell ill at Alpine Inn, a disco, on Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, on Sydney's lower north shore.

After a night involving dinner, drinks and dancing, Ms Wallace was sitting in the Inn's toilets and wanted to go home.

Her friends were startled to see a blond man in his 30s enter the room.

He told them he was there to help and to move aside, as he was a police officer.

After kicking in the cubicle door, which reportedly struck Ms Wallace in the face, the man said he would take her home.

It was 4am and her friends said they had no reason to doubt the man, who was seen talking to Ms Wallace earlier that night.

But what happened next is unclear.

Ms Wallace never made it back to her Drummoyne apartment and did not attend a family function the next day.

According to several media reports from 1983, the man, who later admitted lying about being a police officer, said he and Ms Wallace had sex in his brown Holden Commodore in a nearby street.

He claims he then fell asleep and, when he awoke, Ms Wallace was gone.

But police believe she may have been raped, murdered and dumped in bushland near Lane Cove.

In a Daily Mirror story in 1985, based on a secret police document, it was alleged police believed they knew who the killer was and what he did with Ms Wallace.

The story also alleged that forensic officers might have not properly tested key pieces of evidence found in the back of the suspect's car.

But despite lengthy interviews with police, the man has never been charged.

To add to the mystery, police received a letter not long after Ms Wallace's disappearance telling them she was buried under a large rock in Lane Cove National Park.

A search of the site and much of the National Park never uncovered any trace of her.

While police later said they thought the letter was a hoax, the park is today the centre of a new search for Ms Wallace's body.

Homicide police reviewing the case have hired an expert geophysicist, who will use ground-penetrating radar, a non-intrusive geophysical survey method, to examine an area of interest at Jenkins Hill.

The area will then be excavated with a bobcat.

Police will be on site from 9.30am today but the examination and excavation are expected to take up to two days.

Acting Homicide Squad Commander, acting Superintendent John Lehmann, said police would search an area of the national park that was built over in the days following Ms Wallace's disappearance.

"We expect to be on site for up to two days as we excavate the footings of what was once a public observation deck," Superintendent Lehmann said.

"Those deck footings were laid in the days after Mary's disappearance.  

"Detectives at the time did conduct an examination of the area. However, today's dig is the result of a more recent re-investigation of the case."

Superintendent Lehmann said detectives recently travelled to Western Australia and New Zealand to reinterview several witnesses before a coroner's inquest later this year.

Pauline Biddle, a friend of Ms Wallace, today launched a public appeal for information "no matter how small" on behalf of the Wallace family.

"Mary was an immensely popular and vivacious woman who was very much loved by her family and friends and admired by her colleagues," Ms Biddle said.

"She was especially close to her two older sisters and not knowing what happened to Mary has been absolutely devastating for them.

"I think after all this time we would all be more at peace if we finally had some answers so we could lay Mary to rest."

Ms Wallace's family, in 1983, said she "did not have an enemy in the world".

Now, all they want are answers as to what happened on that tragic September night.

Search resumes for nurse who went missing in 1983

Geesche Jacobsen and Paul Tatnell
October 6, 2010

AN examination of concrete foundations of an old observation deck in Lane Cove National Park may today reveal the fate of a Sydney nurse who disappeared 27 years ago.

Mary Wallace, 33, went missing after an evening at a nightclub in Willoughby Road in Crows Nest, which she left with a man claiming to be a police officer.

The blond man, who later admitted lying about his job, told police he had sex with Ms Wallace in his car in a nearby street even though she had been sick and had wanted to go home. He said he fell asleep afterwards and when he woke up, Ms Wallace was gone.

The man, who was then in his 30s, remained a suspect in the case but he was not the only one, the Acting Commander of the Homicide Squad, Acting Superintendent John Lehmann, said yesterday.

''We are not discounting that person completely. We are not discounting the fact that other persons are responsible.''

Police would use ground penetrating radar today which worked like an X-ray to examine the foundations, laid in the days after Ms Wallace's disappearance, and determine whether any bones were contained in or under them.

He said the police unsolved homicide team had been reinvestigating Ms Wallace's disappearance since 2008 and had interviewed new witnesses in Western Australia and New Zealand who shed more light on the disappearance.

''They have given us important information that enabled us to take it further,'' he said.

Police had not previously spoken to these witnesses and it was expected they would give evidence at an inquest into Ms Wallace's disappearance next month.

Ms Wallace's disappearance in September 1983 was once the most high-profile missing person case in the state.

Police had previously searched the site after receiving an anonymous letter saying Ms Wallace was buried under a large rock in the park.

It is the first time this technology has been used in the search for her remains.

Pauline Biddle, a friend of Ms Wallace, yesterday appealed for information ''no matter how small'' to solve the case.

Geophysicist used to find missing woman

14:44 AEST Tue Oct 5 2010 - Nine MSN

As one of NSW's most high-profile cold cases turns high-tech, detectives hope to finally have some answers for a devastated family who've been waiting 27 years for a breakthrough.

Ground penetrating radar is being used by police investigating the disappearance of Sydney nurse Mary Louise Wallace.

Ms Wallace was 33 when she disappeared in the early hours of September 24, 1983, after meeting with friends at a hotel on Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, on Sydney's north shore.

She was last seen getting into a car with a man she had met at the venue on the night.

Homicide police reviewing the unsolved case have hired an expert geophysicist.

They started work on Tuesday using ground penetrating radar (GPR), a non-intrusive geophysical survey method, to examine an area of interest at Jenkins Hill at Lane Cove National Park.

Police will then excavate the footings of what was once an observation deck within the park.

"We expect to be on site for up to two days," said Acting Homicide Squad Commander Superintendent John Lehmann.

"Those deck footings were laid in the days after Mary's disappearance.

"Detectives at the time did conduct an examination of the area, however today's dig is the result of a more recent re-investigation of the case."

Police reportedly received a letter not long after Ms Wallace's disappearance telling them she was buried under a large rock in Lane Cove National Park.

As part of the re-investigation, detectives have travelled to Western Australia and New Zealand to reinterview several witnesses ahead of a coronial inquest later this year.

Mary's friend Pauline Biddle described her as an "immensely popular and vivacious woman".

"(She) was very much loved by her family and friends and admired by her colleagues," she said on Tuesday in a statement.

"She was especially close to her two older sisters and not knowing what happened to Mary has been absolutely devastating for them.

"I think after all this time we would all be more at peace if we finally had some answers so we could lay Mary to rest."

Ms Biddle appealed for anyone with information "no matter how small" to come forward.

"Even after all this time it may just be the smallest recollection that will lead police to finally solving the mystery of Mary's disappearance," she said.

Inquest into disappearance of nurse to begin

Updated Mon Dec 6, 2010 1:30am AEDT

An inquest has opened into the disappearance of a Sydney nurse who was last seen getting into a car 27 years ago.

Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon is investigating the disappearance of Mary Louise Wallace, who was last seen on September 24, 1983.

Police say the 33-year-old was seen getting into a car belonging to Robert Adams, after meeting him at the Alpine Inn Hotel at Crows Nest in Sydney's north.

The inquest has heard how Mr Adams drove the car to a nearby street to have sex with the nurse only to wake up hours later to find her gone.

Days later he was seen washing his car seat covers and vacuuming the interior of his car boot.

Detectives have travelled to Western Australia and New Zealand to reinterview witnesses ahead of the inquest.

As part of an unsolved homicide investigation, an expert geophysicist was hired earlier this year to examine an area in the Lane Cove National Park.

The inquest continues.

 

Last man to see nurse 'had violent past'

Updated Mon Dec 6, 2010 2:39pm AEDT

An inquest into the disappearance of a Sydney nurse has heard the last man to see her has a violent history.

Mary Louise Wallace was last seen on September 24, 1983.

Police say the 33-year-old was seen getting into a car belonging to Robert Adams after meeting him at the Alpine Inn Hotel at Crows Nest in Sydney's north.

The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon has heard how Mr Adams drove the car to a nearby street to have sex with the nurse only to wake up hours later to find her gone.

Days later he was seen washing his carseat covers and vacuuming the interior of the car's boot.

The inquest heard Mr Adams has a violent history, including rape and assault, and once whipped his wife with a dog chain.

Forensic evidence has been unable to link Mr Adams to the nurse's disappearance.

Detectives have travelled to Western Australia and New Zealand to reinterview witnesses ahead of the inquest.

As part of an unsolved homicide investigation, an expert geophysicist was hired earlier this year to examine an area in the Lane Cove National Park.

The inquest continues.

'Do I look murderous?' - murder suspect's joke about missing nurse Mary Wallace

 
Janet Fife-YeomansNews Corp Australia
 

THE man police have told the state coroner they believe raped and killed missing nurse Mary Wallace allegedly joked about his suspected involvement, asking a woman he had just met: "I don't look like I've got a murderous face, do I?"

Robert Adams then put his hand around her waist and started to rub her up and down, Susan Holman yesterday told the inquest into Ms Wallace's disappearance. When she reported his behaviour to police, they warned her to be "very, very careful of this person", the inquest at Glebe Coroner's Court was told.

Ms Holman, 47, was the manager of the kiosk at what is now Lane Cove National Park where Adams, 58, was working as a carpenter at the time he gave Ms Wallace a lift home from a Crows Nest wine bar in September 1983.

She was never seen again.

Police have searched the national park but the inquest has been told that there are rugged areas where a "body would be hard to find".

Adams -who the inquest heard was a convicted rapist with a history of violence towards women - has denied having anything to do with Ms Wallace's disappearance, claiming he fell asleep after they had sex in his car and, when he woke, she was gone.

Ms Holman had only been working at the kiosk for two days when Adams turned up in October 1983.

She said she knew about the missing nurse from news reports but did not know police had a suspect.

She said Mr Adams had asked her: "You know the nurse that went missing from Crows Nest? "I'm on suspicion for murdering her."

She claimed that he also said to her: "You had better watch out, I might hit you over the head and rape you."

The inquest continues before deputy state coroner Paul MacMahon.

Whatever happened to Mary Wallace?

They have paraded through the Glebe Coroner's Court witness box all week, respectable middle-aged men and women, sadder and a little jaded, not the bright young adults of the early 1980s, enjoying their leisure hours on Sydney's lower north shore, drinking and partying.

A great pall had fallen over their lives on September 24, 1983, when nurse Mary Louise Wallace, intoxicated, leaving the Alpine Inn in Crows Nest at about 3.15am, accepted a lift from Robert John Adams and was never seen again. Soon after, Adams, now 58, became a suspect in her disappearance.

The court heard that Adams, born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1952, had migrated to Australia in December 1970 after enduring a disturbed childhood and with a juvenile criminal record. Outgoing, well-built and good looking, he had little trouble attracting female attention, marrying 21-year-old Judith Herrod in 1971. The couple had a baby in March the following year, adopted the child out and settled briefly in Queensland.

Adams, who could neither read nor write, worked as a railway labourer, carpenter and furniture maker. But he started to drink heavily and became violent. So violent that Herrod, who gave evidence this week that he twice tried to throttle her, left him for good in 1974.

 

Earlier on the night of September 24, Adams had purported to be a policeman, and Wallace might well have accepted this and thought he would get her safely home. He did not. The trip was apparently short.

Adams was drunk and in no fit state to drive. He said he had sex with Wallace in the car and then went to sleep. He did not know what happened to her after that. Wallace, then 33, a bright, fun-loving woman, close to family and friends, a highly regarded nurse at the Hunters Hill Private Hospital, was never heard of again.

By now, Adams had an adult criminal record, including using unseemly words, assaulting police, possessing Indian hemp, assault, malicious injury, negligent driving and possessing goods in custody.

In September 1976 he had been sentenced to six years jail for rape, with 12 months non-parole. He was released in 1978, only to sexually assault another woman and have his parole revoked. Both victims said he had throttled them to the point where they were afraid for their lives.

Released again in 1980, Adams finished his parole period on June 24, 1983, exactly three months before Wallace disappeared. A policeman at the time said he had advised a young woman at the Alpine Inn not to go out with Adams because he was ''bad news''.

Adams quickly justified the suspicion. He raped one woman after enticing her into his home, and the court heard this week she was so terrified that she fled town rather than give evidence at his Supreme Court trial. Another woman, whom he pushed into his car aiming to rape her, did give evidence and Adams was convicted.

Suzanne Beckingham (now Newhouse), who shared his flat, said the day after Wallace's disappearance, Adams had washed clothes - unusual because he normally washed clothes on weekdays. He had then thoroughly cleaned his car, shifting everything out, using the hose and a vacuum cleaner.

Some days later, on her account, police turned up and wanted to look at their flat. Adams rang and said: ''Why did you let them into the flat? They have no right.'' He was so aggressive she moved out.

Adams, whose name and picture were being circulated by police, demonstrated bravado. He harassed a kiosk manager, 20, at the Lane Cove River National Park, where he was working as a carpenter, his behaviour so alarming her that she left her job.

Meanwhile, police had found that Wallace had a number of boyfriends, two of whom gave evidence this week, and she also belonged to a telephone dating service. There was also evidence that earlier in the night of September 23-24, 1983, when she was moving from nightspot to nightspot with work colleagues, she had been at the Stoned Crow, a Crows Nest wine bar.

She had been crying and said a man, whom she did not name or describe, had struck her in the face because she would not go out with him. Friends could see no marks on her face, the coroner's court heard.

Police searched widely, including through the Lane Cove National Park and a viewing platform where Adams had been working. Eventually they dug up the 26 concrete piers there to see whether there was any trace of Wallace.

Then in October 1983, the detective leading the inquiry, Jim Counsel, received an extraordinary note, written in childish script, naming Adams and Wallace, by their initials, giving part of the registration number of Adams's car, and saying he had killed her and indicating where the body could be found, in North Turramurra.

The author ended the note with a plea: ''Help me please.'' A police search of the area proved fruitless, and the mystery remains as to who sent the note. Could it have been sent by Adams himself? Could he write just a little? Or could it have been sent by a stalker, someone shadowing Wallace that night?

The police investigation was revived by the unsolved homicide team of the homicide squad in 2008.

Adams, who is representing himself at the inquest, has denied involvement in Wallace's disappearance.

No physical evidence could conclusively link Adams with Wallace's presumed murder. Police did find blood on some overalls from his car and on vice-grips found in the boot. But forensic techniques at the time could only establish that the blood could have come from Adams or Wallace. Adams, for his own part, married again in 1989 and no evidence has been presented that he has been in trouble since 1983.

Yesterday Adams's present wife, Linda, whom he met in October 1983, about two weeks after the disappearance of Wallace, gave evidence of a long and stable marriage to him.

Linda Adams, who had been working as receptionist at the Royal North Shore Hospital, said that she had accepted him even though at the time there was publicity over the disappearance of Wallace and some of the publicity indicated that he was a suspect. The couple have four sons.

Philip Strickland, the counsel assisting the inquest, asked yesterday: ''When you had discovered he had been in jail for rape, had a criminal history and was a suspect in the disappearance of a girl, surely you are not saying it did not concern you at the time?''

The wife replied: ''No doubt it would have but I am still here, so?''

In 2008 the unsolved homicide team resumed an active inquiry. Senior Constable Nicole Jones said in her opinion, based on the circumstantial evidence, Adams had a window of opportunity and that he murdered Wallace and disposed of the body. But in 27 years, there has been no attempt to mount a prosecution.

 

 

Coroner refers nurse's suspected death to DPP

Updated Tue Dec 14, 2010 3:24pm AEDT

The New South Wales coroner has terminated an inquest into the disappearance and presumed death of a Sydney nurse.

Mary Louise Wallace disappeared in the early hours of September 24, 1983.

Police say the nurse, then aged 33, was last seen at the Alpine Inn Hotel at Crows Nest in Sydney's north.

They say she was seen getting into a car with Robert John Adams who she had met there.

He told police he had driven with her only a short distance, had sex with her and had fallen asleep.

In terminating the inquest, Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon said the evidence is capable of satisfying a jury beyond reasonable doubt that a known person committed an indictable offence relating to the death.

The matter has been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Robert Adams on trial for the murder of nurse Mary Wallace at Crows Nest

 

 

Mary Wallace disappearance: Nurse’s alleged killer ‘raped three other women’

YOUNG nurse Mary Louise Wallace was last seen getting into Robert John Adams’ car in 1983. Her body has never been found. More than three decades later, Adams has been charged with her murder.

In his opening address, Crown prosecutor Mark Hobart SC told the court there would be tendency evidence of three sexual assaults carried out by Adams between 1975 and 1978.

His barrister has told the court “there will be a dispute about some of tendency evidence”.

Adams was convicted of the rape of one woman, whom he attacked after a dance at the Middle Harbour Skiff Club in Mosman by choking her and threatening to force her into the water where she would ‘tell no tales’, and served two years of a six-year sentence.

The court was told Adams had been due to stand trial on the rape of another woman in 1975 but the victim “fled Sydney before the trial as she feared for her life and believed that the accused would find her and kill her”.

The third complainant was asked to look at a photo ID line up in January 2013, 35 years after she was raped in a car and an apartment by a man who squeezed her throat with his hands the entire time. She selected Adams and one other photograph saying they looked similar to her attacker.

Mr Hobart told the court that Adams had offered to drive an intoxicated Ms Wallace home, after he and one of her friends removed her from a toilet cubicle at the Alpine Inn.

Ms Wallace’s friend Mary Williams, the first witness in the trial, has told the court that Adams insisted he was fine to drive and she last saw the car driving along Willoughby Rd towards Willoughby.

Mr Hobart said Adams later told police he stopped his car along Willoughby Road because he felt too drunk to continue driving, and at that point he and Ms Wallace “began playing with each other sexually”.

“He was unable to say if he in fact had full intercourse with her and at some stage he got back in the driver’s seat and fell asleep a short time later,” Mr Hobart said of Adams’ version to police.

“He told police that he woke around 5am to find Ms Wallace missing from the vehicle.”

The court heard that Adams’ then flatmate will give evidence that she noticed him thoroughly cleaning his car the following day, including removing everything from the boot, hosing it, washing it with rags and then vacuuming.

“She had never seen him do this before,” Mr Hobart said.

The court heard it would take 30 years for DNA advancements to enable scientists to examine hairs from Ms Wallace’s hairbrush and compare them with two hairs seized in the vacuumed matter from the boot of Adams’ car.

“These were examined and no differences were detected between the mitochondrial DNA profiles of the two hairs from the boot of the accused’s vehicle and the hair taken from the hairbrush seized from Ms Wallace’s apartment,” Mr Hobart said.

“They cannot be excluded as having come from the same person or maternally related people.”

The judge alone trial continues before Justice Richard Button.

Mary Wallace disappearance: Rape victim ‘picked accused killer out of line-up’

ROBERT John Adams, accused of the rape and murder of Sydney nurse Mary Louise Wallace (right), told police he wasn’t into rough sex after being questioned about hair found in his car, a trial has heard.


 

A FORMER flatmate of accused killer Robert John Adams was “attacked” when he told him he was moving out and feared the convicted rapist would “finish the job” if he saw him again, a trial has been told.

Ross Adams, who briefly shared a flat in Chatswood with the now 64-year-old, also said when he asked Adams about the disappearance of nurse Mary Louise Wallace, he asked him in a “aggressive tone” — “what’s it to you?”.

“I remember I had a sense of foreboding,” he told the court, describing the tone as “menacing”.

The 33-year-old Ms Wallace has not been seen alive since she left a Crows Nest wine bar with Adams in the early hours of September 24, 1983.

Robert Adams has claimed the pair had consensual sex in his car near Willoughby after leaving the Alpine Inn, but then he fell asleep and woke to find her gone.

He has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Despite extensive searches of bushland in the Sydney area, Ms Wallace — aged 33 at the time of her disappearance — has never been found and her case was re-examined by the Unsolved Homicide Squad in 2008.

Ross Adams, who is not related to Robert Adams, told the court that he “felt very threatened” by his ex-flatmate during a confrontation shortly after he told him he would be moving out.

He said he was “grabbed by the head” and forced down.

“I thought, don’t move, don’t breathe [or] this could get a lot worse,” he said.

“I was worried that if I bumped into him at the pub, and he’d had a skinful, he would finish the job.”

He said he had met Adams through the local rugby club, and that he was known as “Bob the yobbo” and as a man who “could flick occasionally”.

The court has been told that tendency evidence linking Adams to three violent rapes in the years leading up to Ms Wallace’s disappearance will be heard, with one of the women giving evidence yesterday of how she was “focusing on staying alive” during the attack.

She said she had met the man she knew as “Bob” in a North Sydney bar shortly after her 21st birthday in 1978, and that after a few drinks he offered to drive her home.

The woman then detailed how she was driven to a park and raped, before being driven to a home and forced into a bedroom where the violent sexual assault continued.

The next morning he “changed completely”, drove her home and threatened her not to tell anyone, the woman told the court.

The trial heard the woman memorised the licence plate numbers, and did not tell police until 2013, the same year Adams was arrested and charged with Ms Wallace’s murder.

His arrest came after DNA testing, unavailable at the time of the alleged crime, found “no difference” in hairs found in the boot of Adams’ car and in strands from Ms Wallace’s hairbrush.

During a police interview, Adams denied being responsible for her murder and said he could not explain how the hairs were in the boot.

“I’m not into violent sex,” he told police.

Earlier, Detective Nicole Jones told the court today, the woman picked out two photos, numbered seven and 14, from a line-up of 20 images she was shown in 2013.

“She said that (photo) looks similar to the person who raped her, and more number seven ... than number 14.”

The judge-alone trial continues before Justice Richard Button.

“She said that (photo) looks similar to the person who raped her, and more number seven ... than number 14.”

Adams has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mary Louise Wallace, who was last seen alive getting into Adams’ car outside a wine bar in Crows Nest about 4am on September 24, 1983.

The court has heard he told police that on the night in question, Ms Wallace left him asleep in his car after they had consensual sex in it. But the crown says he tried to strangle her with the intention of forcing her to have sex in line with a tendency to strangle women for sexual gratification. Crown prosecutor Mark Hobart SC alleges Adams was responsible for the 1978 rape and two others in the 1970s in which women were taken in chokeholds. Adams has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Earlier on Wednesday, the woman who identified Adams’ photo was cross-examined on her 2013 police statement in which she said her rapist had been covered in tattoos.

 

 

Robert Adams found guilty of the murder of nurse Mary Wallace in 1983

By Emma Partridge
Updated 

Friends and family knew who murdered their "happy, gentle and loving" Mary Louise Wallace just days after she disappeared following a night out with friends on Sydney's lower north shore.

But it took 33 years for convicted rapist Robert John Adams, 64, finally to be found guilty of murder.

Before the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Richard Button found that Adams raped and strangled the 33-year-old nurse before disposing of her body.

Where he dumped her body remains a mystery despite extensive police searches.

Ms Wallace's family and close nursing friends hugged, cried and let out soft gasps after the verdict was read out

Adams remained apparently emotionless, slouched in the dock as he fiddled with his wedding ring.

Outside court, Ms Wallce's sisters Anne Fraser and Libby said they desperately hoped Adams would disclose the location of the body.

"She was a lovely, gentle, happy girl who was taken from us in the worst circumstances and our family will never forget and will go on loving her," Ms Fraser said.

Libby added: "I would like to know where her body is so we can take her out of the crime scene and lay her to rest somewhere."

Ms Wallace's closest friend and nursing colleague Pauline Biddle-Broadfoot sat in court for each day of the five-week trial and told Fairfax Media she thought the result was "fantastic".

"Mary was my closest and dearest friend. She has always been in my heart and to this day I realise I have never mourned her death," said Ms Biddle-Broadfoot, who had lived and travelled with Ms Wallace abroad after they first met in the nurses' residence Vinden House.

 

"We would contact each other daily, talk on the phone, go shopping or eat together. Every so often we would splurge and book a nice restaurant and dine out. We often talked about life in general and our dreams for future," she said.

"We shared tears, fear and laughter."

Close friends Lyn Bestic, Robyn Goozee and Melissa Usher also attended parts of the trial.

"All I can say is I loved her and she will always fill a space in my heart - so sad she hasn't been able to enjoy the life she would have had," Ms Goozee said.

Ms Wallace, who worked as a nurse at Hunters Hill Private Hospital, was last seen by friends leaving the Alpine Inn wine bar at Crows Nest about 4am on Saturday, September 24, 1983.

Adams had lured her into his Holden Commodore under the pretence that he was a police officer and would give her a ride home.

On Friday, Justice Button also found that three other women who had given evidence at the trial had been raped and strangled by Adams in the lead-up to Ms Wallace's murder.

"The accused treated the deceased very much as an object, just as he had treated three other young women."

 

During the harrowing evidence of the women who had come forward to assist the police during the trial, Adams showed no emotion and often cleaned his glasses, chewed on gum and did word puzzles in the dock. ​

Adams, a carpenter who worked at the Lane Cove National Park, was originally arrested in September 1983.

Officers from the Unsolved Homicide Squad were finally able to charge him with murder in 2013 after two hairs collected from the boot of his Holden Commodore were matched with hair found on Ms Wallace's hairbrush.

Adams has always denied murdering Ms Wallace, claiming that he drove her away from the Crows Nest bar and pulled his car over near Willoughby Road where the pair started "playing" sexually with each other.

He said that, at some point, he passed out and that, when he woke up, Ms Wallace had vanished.

During the police interview, Adams said that, on the afternoon of Monday, September 26, he stayed home and washed the boot of his car and the seat cover because the passenger seat "had 'come' on it and it smelled".

Adams will face a sentencing hearing on February 17, 2017.

No relief for Mary Wallace's family until Robert Adams reveals what he did with her body 33 years ago

The 33 year wait for justice for the family of Sydney nurse Mary Wallace has finally come to a close with the jailing of sadistic serial rapist and killer Robert John Adams last week.
Had it not been for the tireless efforts of retired homicide detective Jim Counsel, Ms Wallace's murderer would still be a free man.
But mystery still surrounds exactly what happened and what Adams did with her body.
Ms Wallace, 33 at the time of her death, had been out celebrating a colleague's farewell at the Alpine Inn at Crows Nest, on Sydney's lower North Shore, in September 1983.
She was highly intoxicated when she accepted a lift home from a man claiming to be a police officer. That man was Adams, who in reality was a carpenter and not a police officer.
"It just wasn't like her not to contact anyone because from our inquiries, she was in constant contact with her friends," Mr Counsel said.
Five days later, detectives brought Adams in for questioning but his version of events never rang true.
 
He claimed to have driven Ms Wallace about 90 metres down the road when he pulled his car over, too drunk to continue.
It was then, Adams claimed, the pair became intimate.
"They had consensual sex and when he woke up, she was gone. He woke up about five in the morning and she was gone. That was his story," Mr Counsel said.
But Mr Counsel never believed Adams' version of events.
The day after the murder, witnesses saw Adams vacuuming the interior of his Holden Commodore and hosing out the boot.
When detectives searched the car's boot, they found strands of human hair, which they sent for testing along with one of Ms Wallace's hairbrushes.
But this was before DNA testing and the results came back inconclusive, meaning Adams had to be released.
"It was very disappointing that I knew in my own mind that he was responsible for her disappearance," Mr Counsel admits.
Despite exhaustive searches, Ms Wallace's body was never found and it seemed as if she would be lost forever.
Then, almost three decades later, police decided to reopen the case.
Ms Wallace's best friend, Pauline Biddle-Broadfoot, helped police appeal for information.
"I thought, 'well, if I can do anything to bring more people or jog their memory about the case, I'd do it,'" Ms Biddle-Broadfoot said.
Other women came forward claiming Adams had violently raped them in his car in the decade before Ms Wallace's disappearance.
Police already knew of at least one such assault, for which Adams was convicted in 1976 and served two years behind bars.
The two hair samples found in Adams' car in 1983 were also sent off for re-retesting.
This time, advancements in DNA testing meant they could be positively matched.
In his sixties, Adams was finally arrested for Ms Wallace's murder in 2013.
During police questioning, videos of which have been obtained by A Current Affair, Adams again denied killing Ms Wallace and repeated his story about falling asleep, but did admit he often lied about his job to pick up women.
In finding Adams guilty of Ms Wallace's murder, Justice Richard Button also said he was satisfied Adams had raped the other victims who had come forward.
The verdict brought relief to Ms Wallace's supporters, among them her sister Anne Fraser.
"She was a lovely, gentle, happy girl who was taken from us in the worst circumstances and our families will never forget. Our families will go on loving her and never forget her," Ms Fraser said.
The verdict also provides hope for families of other unsolved murders that their cases may too be cracked.
"The police are doing a marvellous job at the moment with the technology they have and I'm sure as time goes on, we'll see more of this happen," Mr Counsel said.
But Ms Wallace's family and friends say they can't be at pace until her remains are found.
"It's been very hard because we can't mourn her properly, we have no idea where she is," Ms Biddle-Broadfoot said.
"Every time there's a bushfire go through I think maybe someone will find something, but of course that never happens."

Adams will be sentenced in February.

 

By Melanie Kembrey - SMH
Updated 

The sisters of murdered nurse Mary Louise Wallace say they are still haunted by thoughts of how she died, and not knowing the whereabouts of her body for more than three decades has worsened their suffering.

Robert John Adams, 64, was last year found guilty of strangling Ms Wallace, then 33, to death while attempting to have sex with her after meeting her at a wine bar in Crows Nest, on Sydney's lower north shore, in 1983.

Although Adams was a suspect at the time and had already spent time in jail for rape, he was charged with murder only in 2013 after two hairs collected from his car boot were matched with hair found on Ms Wallace's hairbrush.

Despite extensive searches of bushland and a lengthy police investigation, Ms Wallace's body has never been found.

At a sentencing hearing for Adams in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Ms Wallace's two older sisters - Anne Fraser and Elizabeth McGirr​ - described how their lives had been forever altered.

"It is 33 years since Mary Lou died and the way she died still haunts us," Ms Fraser said.

The fact that her body has not been found adds to our grief. We want to be able to give her remains a final resting place, a duty we owe to our parents who went to their graves having grieved for 20 years, suspecting but never really knowing what happened to her."

Both sisters spoke of Ms Wallace as a loving and gentle woman and described how they now worried for the safety of their own children when they went out at night.

Adams' trial heard that he pretended to be a police officer and offered Ms Wallace a ride home from the bar where they had been drinking. The Crown's case was that he tried to strangle Ms Wallace in a bid to have sex with her without her consent.

Three other women gave evidence at the trial that they had been raped and strangled by Adams in the lead-up to Ms Wallace's murder.

"When our children reached their twenties and began to socialise at night, I would lie awake at night until I heard 'Mum I am home'," Ms McGirr said.

"My greatest fear was tragedy had struck our family once, would it befall us again?".

 

Crown prosecutor Mark Hobart, SC, submitted that sentencing Adams to life imprisonment would "not be inappropriate" and it would be "difficult to find a worse category of murder of a young woman".

Mr Hobart also submitted that, for Adams to continue to refuse to say where Ms Wallace's remains were, showed he was "extremely callous".

"In those 30 odd years, this offender was living a normal life. He was married, had children, he lived in the suburbs and brought up his family," Mr Hobart said.

"Now we compare that to the family of the deceased. Her parents went to their graves not knowing what happened to their daughter and it has been grief heaped upon grief for some 33 years for her sisters."

Defence barrister Peter Lange asked Justice Richard Button to consider the delay in the case coming before the courts as a mitigating factor when it came to determining Adams' sentence.

 

"It is submitted that the court should take into account that natural anxiety experienced by the offender," Mr Lange submitted.

Adams had been jailed for rape in 1976.

But Mr Lange told the court that his client's criminal history had been minimal over the past 30 years and non-existent over the past 10. Adams had demonstrated a "completed process of rehabilitation", the court heard.

Justice Button will sentence Adam in two weeks.

He rejected a request by Adams that he not appear in person but via audio-visual link for his sentencing.

 

 

Robert Adams jailed for 20 years for 1983 murder of nurse Mary Wallace

By Melanie Kembrey - SMH
Updated 

For more than three decades Robert John Adams kept a dark secret. While his victim's parents went to their graves haunted by not knowing what happened to their daughter, Adams went on to marry, have children and live in the suburbs.

But in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, nurse Mary Louise Wallace's two sisters and friends got to see her killer sentenced to a maximum of 20 years' imprisonment.

Adams, 64, who has maintained his innocence, did not appear to react when the sentence was delivered. He will be eligible for parole in 2031.

In delivering his sentence, Justice Richard Button said it was regrettably a forlorn hope that Adams would ever reveal where he had put the body of Ms Wallace so she could receive a proper burial.

Ms Wallace, 33, a well-liked theatre sister who worked at Hunters Hill Hospital, met Adams, then 31, at the Alpine Inn on the lower north shore in the early hours of a Saturday in September 1983.

The last time she was seen was getting into Adams' car after he offered her a lift home from the wine bar after falsely claiming that he was a police officer.

Adams choked Ms Wallace to death while attempting to rape her, then stored her body in his car before trying to remove all traces of her.

"This offence against a young woman in the prime of her life, simply for the sexual gratification of the offender, cannot be assessed as anything other than extremely grave," Justice Button said.

 

Adams had, the court heard, "a long standing tendency to strangle young women if they rejected his sexual advances".

In the years before he murdered Ms Wallace, Adams had served a jail sentence for rape and three women gave harrowing evidence during his trial that he had choked and raped them.

Ms Wallace's body was never found, despite extensive searches of bushland and a lengthy police investigation.

After the sentence was delivered, Ms Wallace's sister Anne Fraser said it had taken 33 years for Adams to pay for his crimes.

"That's as long as Mary lived," Ms Fraser said.

 

"We wish he would say where she is; that would be something for us but this is as good as we can get."

Adams, who had already served a jail term for rape, was a prime suspect when Ms Wallace was discovered missing. But it was new forensic testing linking strands of hair found in the boot of his car that triggered police to charge him with murder in December 2013.

Adams did not deviate from the story he had told police during his first interview. He claimed that he had sexual contact with Ms Wallace and fell asleep in the driver's seat of his car. When he woke, he said, Ms Wallace was nowhere to be seen and he assumed she left and made her own way home.

The Crown had submitted that it would be "difficult to find a worse category of murder of a young woman" and that a sentence of life imprisonment would "not be inappropriate".

The defence argued that Adams had demonstrated a "completed process of rehabilitation" and a non-existent criminal record for the past 10 years.

Justice Button said Adams had shown "not the slightest sign" of remorse and may have thought that he had literally got away with murder before his arrest.

 
Fresh forensic evidence leads to a conviction for the murder of missing Sydney nurse Mary Wallace, who vanished in 1983. Her final resting place is still a mystery though, and

police are appealing for public assistance to bring her home.

Listen to the 3-part podcast series titled 'What happened to Mary Wallace?', available now on the NSW Police State Crime Command podcast.