Yvonne Kaye WATERS and Raelene May EATON

DESCRIPTIONS:

RAELENE MAY EATON
• 16 years of age at time of disappearance.
• Olive skinned.
• 150cm tall.
• Medium build.
• Long black hair.
• Hazel eyes.
• Raelene has a mole on the left side of her neck, and has a gold cap on a bottom front tooth.
• Last seen wearing a pink top, black skirt, brown platform shoes and carrying a brown shoulder bag.

YVONNE KAY WATERS
• 17 years of age at time of disappearance.
• Light skinned.
• 158cm tall.
• Slim build.
• Ginger hair.
• Brown eyes.
• Last seen wearing long sleeved green top, long blue trousers, brown platform shoes and carrying a tan shoulder bag.

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BACKGROUND:

Raelene May Eaton was born in Perth in June 1957. She had an older brother and lived at home with her Mother and Father in Bayswater. Raelene was working at a nearby plumbing business whilst going to night school studying dress making and short hand typing. She enjoyed playing netball and hockey.

Yvonne Kay Waters was born in Perth in February 1957. She had one sibling and lived at home with her parents in Maylands. Yvonne was working for a concrete moulding business in Ashfield.

Raelene and Yvonne were cousins but also very good friends, often socialising with each other. Raelene’s father was the brother of Yvonne’s Mother.

CASE DETAILS:

On Sunday 7 April 1974, Raelene and Yvonne were going to go with a friend to the Oxford Hotel in Leederville for a band that was playing. Before Raelene left, her Mother was going to a family engagement and as she left, said her daughter ‘Have a good time’. These were the last words from a Mother to her daughter.

Police believe Raelene’s Father drove her to Yvonne’s place in Maylands and they both caught a train from Maylands into Perth. It is likely that they then caught a bus to Leederville. The girls arrived and remained in the Sandgroper Bar of the Oxford Hotel for a short period of time before the two of them decided to go to the White Sands Tavern in Scarborough together.

Police believe they caught a bus to Scarborough as a witness saw them walking towards the Tavern from the direction of the bus stop.

Raelene and Yvonne arrived at the White Sands Tavern around 4.30pm and were seen socialising with five men at a table inside. The band playing at the time were ‘Fatty Lumpkin’. Two of the five men left the table leaving the girls in the company of three men. The men were described as older than the girls, aged in their early twenties and scruffy in appearance.

At closing time, around 6.45pm, the girls walked out of the Tavern with the three men they were socialising with. They all stood outside in the car park talking and when a witness looked back, the group were gone. This is the last known sighting of Raelene and Yvonne.

Around a week after the girls went missing, Yvonne’s boyfriend was driving a car with Raelene’s brother in the passenger seat. A tyre burst, with the car hitting a curb and rolling. As a result of the crash, Raelene’s brother received serious injuries and passed away around two weeks later, on Monday 29 April 1974.
 

The person or persons responsible for the disappearance of Raelene and Yvonne have not yet been identified.

If you have any information in relation to the disappearance of Raelene May Eaton or Yvonne Kay Waters, or their movements around Sunday 7 April 1974, please contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make a report online below. All reports to Crime Stoppers can be made anonymously if you wish and rewards are available.

The newspaper clippings Jean Eaton has collected over the years tell the story of one of WA's most enduring murder mysteries.

But though the clippings have faded with time, Mrs Eaton said the pain of losing her daughter was as fresh today as it was 40 years ago.

"You never really get over something like that," 90-year-old Mrs Eaton told The Weekend West from her Pinjarra home this week.

"I've accepted I will probably go to my grave never knowing what happened to Raelene."

Raelene Eaton was 16 when she vanished along with her 17-year-old cousin Yvonne Waters on April 7, 1974.

Raelene and Yvonne were good mates and had sneaked off together to see a band playing at Scarborough's White Sands Hotel on a Sunday afternoon.

The doormen told police they saw them leave together about 6.45pm with three unidentified men described as "scruffy looking" who were driving a white panel van - possibly with Queensland numberplates.

Mrs Eaton says police were first not that concerned, believing the pair may have run off together.

But as the days turned to weeks and then months became years, all hope that the girls may still be alive has long since faded.

"You really do not know what to think at first," Mrs Eaton said.

"It was just so out of character for both of them to not come home. They had never run off before and there was nothing going on at home that was unusual.

"I guess I knew straight away something terrible had happened."

Police have tried everything over the years to generate new leads. Rewards were offered and identikits drawn up. But nothing has ever come of it.

Mrs Eaton and her late husband Trevor had two children, but in a cruel twist they lost both within weeks.

Raelene's older brother Graham was involved in a motorcycle accident 10 days after she vanished. He died two weeks later in hospital.

"Losing both of them like that you just ask yourself 'why us'," Mrs Eaton said. "The only way you cope is by realising that you have to let go and try to get on with your life."

Mrs Eaton said she knew the chances of anyone coming forward now with information were slim, but she said she would be eternally grateful.

"I would like to know three things: what happened to her, why it happened and where she is now," she said. "But I don't want to know how it happened."