Andrea Frances WHARTON

Name:

Andrea Wharton

(photo above right has been age progressed to 2006)

D.O.B:

 1 August 1960

Height:

 165 cm

Complexion:

 Fair

Eye Colour:

 Hazel

Hair Colour:

 Fair

Build:

 Slim

Tattoo(s)/Marks:

 Appendix scar and small scar over one eyebrow

Last Heard:

 On 19 February 1984 Andrea Wharton left her Gold Coast residence to visit friends at Byron Bay, NSW. She contacted family by phone and forwarded a letter a couple of days later stating she was confused and was staying away for a month longer. She failed to contact family or friends ever since.

 

URGENT NOTE - I am trying to get in touch with Andrea's sister Paula - could you please contact me on 0438 900 861 or e mail austmissingpersons@supernerd.com.au

~ Nicole (website owner)

***Note from me - for legal reasons I have removed some names that have been previously published by the newspapers quoted. I have not been asked to do this but in the interests of justice for Andrea, Trudie Adams and for all the other missing women from the late 70's and early 80's I will do whatever I can to make sure those responsible for all these many disappearances are dealt with by our legal system.

 

Missing for 20 years
Renee Viellaris - Courier Mail
August 03, 2006 12:00am

THIS is how experts believe Andrea Wharton would look 20 years after her disappearance.

For the family of the missing Gold Coast woman, the age progression image is bittersweet and a reminder they may never know the truth.
Andrea's family believes she is dead but lives in hope she is still alive.

This week, the youngest child of three who has not been seen since she was 24, would have celebrated her 46th birthday.

"In my heart I believe she is no longer with us and maybe at long last mum and dad have some finality and they are all with each other," said sister Paula, who did not want to reveal her surname.

The composite, specifically done for The Courier-Mail for Missing Persons Week, required specialised skill and took hours to complete.

Forensic artist Senior Sergeant John Garner painstakingly created the image after studying photographs of Andrea's family and their physical attributes.

Paula hopes the image may provide some closure into the whereabouts of her "beautiful, vivacious, articulate" baby sister.

Andrea was last seen at her mother's Gold Coast house and some of the last words exchanged with her family were emotionally charged.

After speaking with her mother, Andrea sent a letter from Sydney.

"For some unknown reason she accepted a shot of heroin on her 16th birthday. She struggled with her drug addiction," Paula said.

"She wrote a letter apologising for all the grief and she was going away for short period of time.

"The private detectives my parents hired believe Andrea was murdered."

Paula said her now deceased mother had begun planning a memorial service for Andrea 14 years ago until an acquaintance found out her missing son of more than a decade was alive.

From that moment her mother stopped planning and lived in hope until she died.

Sen-Sgt Garner, believed to be the only officer in Queensland skilled to perform age progression images after studying in the US, said he expected more grieving families to ask for composites of their own missing loved ones.

Although he stopped short of calling age progression images an exact science, he said it was based on known facts and observation.

Sometimes the images were uncanny.

However, police could not predict if someone had put on or lost large amounts of weight – which would dramatically affect their appearance.

 

******* in spotlight

 
John Kidman - SMH
August 3, 2008
 
DETECTIVES reinvestigating the 30-year-old murder of Sydney teenager Trudie Adams are to question disgraced ************in jail.

Insiders say the move is designed to determine the nature of the jailed law enforcement boss's long-term friendship with John Anderson, one of the key suspects in the slaying of the 18-year-old business college student.

Career criminal Anderson is also considering a deal with prosecutors after the sudden postponement of his sentencing on unrelated drug charges, The Sun-Herald has learned.

The developments follow the announcement of a $250,000 police reward for information leading to a conviction over Ms Adams's murder and a series of rapes on Sydney's northern beaches.

Sources have also revealed the case is linked to a string of unsolved killings, including the 1984-85 murders of Andrea Wharton and Ante Yelavich, and the 1991 execution of former Australian light-heavyweight boxer and heroin dealer Roy Thurgar. Insiders have likened the scenario to "an underworld mosaic", with the chances of solving the long-cold homicides hinging on what Anderson reveals.

On June 2, ******* was accused of involvement in a $120 million global drug conspiracy and arrested by federal police.

Anderson, 68, who is understood to be suffering from hepatitis C and dementia, was charged with trying to smuggle 27kilograms of cocaine into Australia chained to the hulls of cargo ships, including the Tampa, in 2006. His son Michael, 30, has been convicted over the same matter, with the potential length of his jail sentence allegedly crucial to any deal in the Adams case, sources say.

Ms Adams was last seen with a group of men outside Newport Surf Life Saving Club on June 24, 1978.

Her body has not been found. After she disappeared, a stream of young women came forward to report being kidnapped and assaulted in the previous 10 months, by two armed men aged in their 30s along Barrenjoey Road.

While not prepared to name Anderson or his accomplices, homicide squad commander Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford said last week there was little doubt the attacks were connected. "Based on that link, if you like, it makes us confident that the same offenders are responsible for all those offences," he said.

At the time, some detectives were so convinced more could have been done to prosecute Anderson - also known as Neville Tween - and his alleged co-offender that a complaint alleging a lack of support in the matter was lodged with the Police Integrity Commission. It is still being examined.

Inquiries by detectives at Manly this year into the murder of Mr Yelavich identified Anderson as the last known person to see him, outside the Manly Pacific Hotel on September 2, 1985.

Routine inquiries into Anderson's background then found *******'s son  staying in the home of Anderson's estranged wife Susan.

There is no suggestion ******* was aware of Anderson's activities. It was also established ******* had been a close friend of Anderson for at least 30 years and a regular visitor to his Central Coast home.

Mr Yelavich's girlfriend, Ms Wharton, was last heard from on February 19, 1984, when she rang her mother to say she was staying with friends at Byron Bay.

Police sources say she became embroiled in a fatal dispute with an underworld associate of Anderson over an alleged drug rip-off and that, in the weeks before she vanished, she was warned off by hitman Christopher Dale Flannery. Detectives believe Mr Yelavich was killed after subsequently threatening revenge.

Inquiries have also revealed that the other man suspected of Ms Adams's murder is a person of renewed interest in the slaying of Thurgar, who was shot dead outside his wife's laundromat in Alison Road, Randwick, in May 1991.