THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHARRON PHILLIPS
Published in Qweekend Magazine, May 6, 2006
BOB Phillips, 65, shirtless and wearing shorts and slippers, sits at the head of his pine kitchen table not the patriarch of the house, but more the curator of a tragic museum.
From the outside his modest home at the end of a cul-de-sac in Riverview, East Ipswich, is all odd angles and mismatching additions, and inside it heaves with ham radio equipment, old furniture, shelves of dusty glass and ceramic bric-a-brac, and family photographs of his wife Dawn, 57, and their nine children.
And yet it has the feeling of a place that once teemed with life, and was suddenly abandoned. Four clocks in the living room are all set at different times.
Phillips runs a hand through his thatch of greying hair. “It blew the family apart, mate,” he says. “It completely erupted and the family doesn’t exist anymore. The kids couldn’t get the answers to the questions, (the answers) we couldn’t get. They didn’t know how to react and they lashed out on the closest thing for blame which, I suppose, was me.”
Exactly 20 years ago on Monday (May 8), Phillips’ daughter, Sharron, 20, vanished off the face of the earth. The case evolved into one of the most celebrated and controversial in Queensland criminal history. Police were accused of negligence. The Phillips’ took the investigation into their own hands, and constantly howled to the press that not enough was being done by local and State officials. They appealed to the then Prime Minister of Australia, Bob Hawke, for help. Hundreds of people were interviewed, thousands of man-hours were expended, and everyone had a theory about what happened to the vivacious shop attendant whose car ran out of petrol late one Thursday night on Ipswich Road, Wacol. It was one of those rare cases that snagged the public imagination.
Two decades later Sharron Phillips is one of 136 State “cold cases”. Her file status is deemed “active pending further information”. And just as it was in early May 1986, her disappearance is still surrounded by differing versions of events and unanswered questions.
“If I’ve got to tell the truth I’ll tell the truth,“ says Bob Phillips, a retired truck owner/operator. “Dawn’s a prisoner in her own house. I’m her paid carer. She dirties herself, I have to feed her…oh god, I could go on forever. Everything was fine until Sharron disappeared. I’ve considered murder/suicide (for us), I have. I’ve thought about it a frickin’ lot.”
The youngest Phillips child, Matthew, who was six-years-old when Sharron vanished, still lives at home. But the rest of the family is estranged.
“As I said to one of them, I couldn’t be in the back seat with her (Sharron) every time she went out, I just couldn’t,” Bob says. “A lot of people who knew the family said - if you had interfered with them when they were younger and they were all living together, you picked on one you picked on the whole bloody nine, you know? But today, I’ll look after my bit of dirt and you look after yours. When they were growing up they were very close, extremely close. I don’t know what happened to them, I don’t, honestly.”
He gazes into the living area with the four unsynchronised clocks. Down the short hallway, in a room with the shades drawn, is Dawn. As Bob gets angry about the investigation into his missing daughter, as he jabs a finger at the air, fulminates, rails against the system that has wronged him, Dawn sleeps much of the day away in the darkened room.
“Sometimes,” Bob Phillips says, “I’ve lost recollections that Sharron ever existed.”
*
On the night of Thursday, May 8, 1986, young Sharron Phillips was in high spirits for several reasons. She was enjoying her independence, having moved out of the crowded Riverview family home and into her own flat at Archerfield five months earlier. She had a good job at the Peaches ‘n Cream fruit market in Kenmore. And she had a potential new beau.
Only days earlier she had met a 26-year-old Acacia Ridge man called Martin Balazs, and they had planned a dinner date at Sharron’s flat on Friday, May 9. She was excited about Balazs, although they barely knew each other. So on that Thursday evening, she and work colleague Samantha Dalzell went shopping together at Sunnybank Plaza on Mains Road. Sharron purchased some new lingerie.
Later, the pair had coffee at Sharron’s flat. Sharron left the lingerie unwrapped in the small ground-floor apartment. She then drove Dalzell home to Redland Plains. On the way, according to retired police investigator Ken Foreman, who worked on the Phillips case, she drove past Balaz’s flat and tooted the horn – an anonymous message to her new man, a tease as prelude to their date the next evening. She dropped off Dalzell, and was travelling city-bound on Ipswich Road at Wacol, up the hill from the old three-pump Shell service station (since demolished), when her canary-yellow Nissan Bluebird ran out of petrol. It was around 11pm.
Sharron’s oldest sister Donna (nee Anderson) remembers: “She’d spend $50 on a new dress but only put $10 worth of petrol in the car. I said – ‘Sharron, would you fill your car?’ I’m sure that night she would have thought of getting petrol at the garage at Goodna, but it had just become self-service where you operated it with coins.”
Sharron’s car had stopped outside the former Wacol migrant centre. Directly across busy Ipswich Road was the main entrance to the Wacol Army Barracks. She needed a telephone.
It was established later she had walked into the army camp, past the boom gates and guard booth, and been told by partying soldiers there were no telephones for her to use. (A few soldiers were later interviewed by police but discounted as suspects.) She then headed down towards the Shell garage and Wacol railway station.
The garage’s former mechanic, Bill Lace, says initial suspicion rested with the “old eccentric” who lived out the back of the Shell station. “He was there to keep an eye on the place and he always hung around out the front at night,” Lace says. “He said he was Swiss. I once saw him butchering up half a cow that’d been hit by a train, he was that eccentric.” Old “Karl” was never a serious suspect.
Telecom records subsequently revealed that Sharron had spoken to an operator from the twin phone boxes outside the snack bar in Wacol Station Road and asked for a manually-placed call to be made as she had no coins. She phoned Martin Balazs at exactly 11.18pm and asked him to pick her up from the Shell garage. She phoned again at 12.03pm, but Balazs was already on his way to the Wacol/Gailes area to find her.
Shortly after midnight Sharron had a conversation with Michael Truscott, 20, who had also used the public phone to telephone his father to pick him up at the station. She told Truscott she had run out of petrol but a friend was on his way to pick her up.
Balazs later told police he was unsure of which service station to go to. There was a large Shell roadhouse at Gailes, a few kilometres up the road from the little Wacol garage. Balazs went to Gailes, and suffered a flat tyre. With the puncture repaired, he drove down Ipswich Road towards the city and noticed Sharron’s car at the side of the road. He saw nobody in or about the vehicle, reasoning there was little he could do, and drove home. Police believe Balaz had missed Sharron and/or her abductors by a matter of minutes.
Bob Phillips says he and his wife were not in town when Sharron vanished. “People blame me, they reckon I should have been home,” he says. “I was picking one of our trucks up at Gilgandra (700kms south of Brisbane, near Dubbo in NSW). I was in Gilgandra, with Dawn. We got back about four, five o’clock on the Friday morning. I crashed and went to bed then the story came up and I started ringing everybody to find out what’s going on.”
One of the first to raise the alarm about Sharron was Bob Wilson, her boss at the Peaches ‘n Cream Fruit Market. “It’s still a sad memory,” he says today. “She was a great employee. I usually opened up around 7am and she’d start after 7.30am. She never turned up that morning and there were no phone calls. It was so unlike her. I got suspicious straight away.
“Debbie (Cox, a former employee) rang Sharron’s parents and I drove her usual route home looking for her. This was towards the afternoon to the best of my recollection. I saw her car on the side of the road and a man tampering with it. I said – “What are you doing with Sharron’s car?” It turned out it was Sharron’s father.”
Bob Phillips says “a friend” telephoned him about his daughter’s abandoned car that morning. “Somebody rang and told me Sharron’s car was up on the highway,” Bob says. “She was well known around here, so were we.” He also recalled meeting Mr Wilson: “We had a bit of a talk and I said I was quite worried because I couldn’t find any trace of her.”
In a separate incident, Sharron’s younger brother, Darren Phillips, also saw the car on Ipswich Road that Friday: “I was going into Brisbane on a job and I passed her car at Wacol because I was working at Wacol. I passed the car and it didn’t click with me and I tried ringing her flat and I couldn’t get onto her and other things take place, other things happen, and then you forget to ring again. Then I got the phone call that they couldn’t find her, that she’d gone missing.”
According to official police records, Dawn Phillips formally reported her daughter missing to Goodna police at 8pm on Friday, May 9. The records also state Bob Phillips and one of his sons went to Sharron’s Archerfield flat that evening to look for signs of her, then went to the abandoned car on Ipswich Road. That night Bob Phillips took the Nissan Bluebird back to the family home at Riverview. He says the police at the time ordered him to get it off the side of Ipswich Road. The police files have no record of this directive. Former officers involved in the case say it was a turning point in the early days of the investigation.
“The whole investigation in terms of scientific evidence, there wasn’t a lot that could assist us there because of the intervention of the family,” says former detective Geoff Orman, now a senior executive with the Queensland Rugby League. Orman was involved in the early stages of the investigation. “It was obstructive. The family’s intervention, particularly in that area (of removing the car) was a big hindrance to the investigation. It was a huge hindrance. What fresh evidence that was there at that point in time was taken away.
“The discrepancy all came about because the family shifted the vehicle. The biggest hindrance was not being able to put the car exactly in the right spot. That may have triggered some people’s memories and had them come forward.”
Retired former Queensland homicide chief Bob Dallow, who now runs a second-hand bookshop in Ashgrove, was also seconded to the Phillips investigation. He agrees with Orman. “I got along well with Bob (Phillips) but the whole problem from an investigators point of view was that Bob needed to have his finger on the pulse of everything. He took the car home and then police didn’t know where the car actually was when it broke down. The whole thing started off badly.”
There would be further consternation for the police. On that Friday, family members came and went from Sharron’s Archerfield flat despite it being a potential crime scene. Indeed, there were people in and out of the flat before Sharron was formally reported missing to police.
The press reported at the time that younger sister Lisa Phillips had found a phone number for Martin Balaz at Sharron’s flat on that Friday, which allowed Bob Phillips to telephone him and question him about Sharron’s last movements.
Donna Anderson revealed to Qweekend: “Sharron used to smoke a little pot. My brother Darren must have had a key. Jim (Donna’s husband) and Darren went over there. It wasn’t any big deal. They didn’t want Mum and Dad to get upset about that.”
However, Darren Phillips has a different recollection of the incident. “I can’t even remember,” he says. “I didn’t smoke anything back then. I don’t smoke now. It was never my scene. I never smoked pot with Sharron or anything like that. I can’t even remember going into the house. I went in with my brother Charlie (the nickname of Robert Phillips). Me and Robert went in for a look and that was it. I can’t honestly remember, I can’t honestly give you a day, sorry.
“I went in for a look with my brother. I don’t know why we were there to be honest, we just went there because I think we were told to meet somebody there or something, and the landlord or something was going to let us in or something. That was it.”
Bob Dallow says he clearly remembers an oddity about the case in its early stages. “They (Sharron and Dalzell) go over to her place (for coffee) and Sharron drops the parcel of clothes (lingerie) at the flat. The parcel’s not touched,” he says. “But when you see the police photos from inside the flat (a few days later), the items are spread out on the bed. I remember we got a call from one of the sisters later saying she took the nighties out of the packet and spread them out.
“Bob was a bit of a prude. I still believe Bobby went to the flat a few times. I think she might have had some drug gear and stuff and he’s taken it all out.”
A newspaper story by veteran Courier-Mail journalist Ken Blanch, published on May 23, 1986, says: “When her father went to the flat next day (the Friday), the lights were still on and the two coffee cups were on the table. Underclothing she had bought at Sunnybank was still in the flat.”
Bob Phillips denies daughter Lisa went to the flat, as reported in the press, and retrieved Martin Balaz’s phone number from Sharron’s address book.
“I got the number, the book was in her car,” says Bob Phillips. “It was in the car with her purse.” He says there was a “sequined purse” in the vehicle and a jacket neatly folded on the rear seat. Her black wallet and shoulder bag were missing. “I had (son) Shannon (Phillips) with me (aka Grub). It might have been Charlie (Robert). We had to break into it. And we had to break the steering lock. Four of us went down.
“They (the police) should have been to the car and fingerprinted the car before it was even moved. Everything was done wrong.”
On the Saturday the police investigation began in earnest. Sharron’s parents were interviewed at the Riverview home. Bob says: “They never actually interviewed me at all, they interviewed Dawn. They had a yarn to us on Saturday morning, but it’s only natural they looked at the parents. I was pretty well known here and in Inala so I had nothing to hide. Not a bloody thing.”
The Phillips’, in the meantime, contacted Balaz for information. Balaz was interviewed by police.
“They were good investigators,” says Bob Dallow. “They would have turned the boyfriend over if he’d done anything.” Balazs was quickly eliminated as a suspect. (Balazs, who still resides in Brisbane, refused to be interviewed for this story. His wife Linda said “the man had nothing to do with her disappearance”. She added: “I think sometimes it’s very good to have these stories to help prompt people’s memories or perhaps get some closure but I can speak very strongly on my husband’s behalf on this that he doesn’t want to be involved or interviewed or have a statement or anything.”)
Brisbane endured heavy rainfall on the following Sunday and Monday. On the Tuesday police returned Sharron’s vehicle to the side of Ipswich Road. The Phillips’ disputed the exact location of the car. Police believe it was a further 150 metres closer to Wacol train station than the Phillips’ claimed.
On the Wednesday police found Sharron’s shoes and wallet just “metres” from where the car supposedly ran out of petrol. “I remember the afternoon they were found,” says Ken Foreman. “We were at the scene talking about the differences in location of where the car was and found them in a drain that runs under the road. It would have been handy to know exactly were the car had broken down. Things weren’t unfolding the way they should.”
Over the proceeding weeks the Phillips’ were critical of the police investigation. Within months they were petitioning the government to change the law in relation to police handling of missing persons cases.
Geoff Orman says there was a lot of pressure on investigating police. “At the start of our investigation we were told not to go near Mr Phillips.” Because he was perceived as a “troublemaker” and was partial to going to the press? “That’s right.”
Months turned into years without a single clue to Sharron’s whereabouts. Then in January 1988, at her inquest, a man called Robert John Brown, 33, of Harvey Bay, told the Brisbane Coroners Court an extraordinary story.
Brown said on Thursday, May 8, he had seen Sharron Phillips after 6pm outside a house at Riverview, shouting to someone she was going to “The Plaza” to do some shopping. Then, at 11.30pm, and by incredible coincidence, he was at a shop at Wacol when he overheard a youth mention the name “Sharron”. Brown then drove off and came across Sharron on the side of Ipswich Road. She was in distress. He then witnessed her bundled into a car by several men and taken away. The evidence of Brown, a known alcoholic, never took the investigation further.
Bob Phillips now says Brown was well known to the Phillips family as he had lived in the next street from them when they resided in Inala. He says Brown had known Sharron “since she was a girl” and that everyone in the area knew of their relationship, as did the police. He called Brown “a pervert”.
Geoff Orman says police never knew of the relationship between Brown and the Phillips’. “That was never made known to us,” he says. “In relation to Brown, he was intensely interviewed, by myself, Ralph Knust, and a number of other police. He was put through hyopnosis by a forensic psychologist. The result of that was whatever he had seen was fairly traumatic. We could never find out exactly what it was he saw, other than what he said about the vehicle.
“As far as Bob Phillips’ comments go about knowing Brown, that’s the first time I’ve heard it. When the coronial inquest was on, the family itself was very quiet when it came to the examination of witnesses.”
*
As the years passed the theories about what happened to Sharron Phillips proliferated. Psychics offered explanations. The police continued to puzzle over this strange case. Curiously, two police officers were even accused of being involved in Sharron’s murder, but the theory was dismissed as fantasy.
Bob Dallow still thinks Phillips somehow made it back to her flat that night before vanishing. “I believe she made a third phone call from the phone booth that night,” he says. “It was her trick to call the operator and pretend she had no change and get connected. I think she got back to her flat somehow before she disappeared.”
Geoff Orman says there was a lot going on within the Phillips’ family at the time of Sharron’s disappearance – the usual teenage difficulties. “It was common knowledge Bob (Phillips) had had disagreements with Sharron about her promiscuity,” says Orman.
Bob Phillips says: “The concern I had for her wasn’t that. Coming home from Brisbane late of a night and not locking the car. People would grab you at the lights. But promiscuity with other people, no.”
There has been little movement with the case in many years. As recent as two months ago, Bob Phillips says he received a letter from a woman saying Sharron’s body was buried underneath another body in a cemetery near Gatton.
Her brother Robert (Charlie) Phillips says: “Things have a way of coming around. People have got big mouths. One day someone will say the wrong thing to the wrong person. I do believe there will be justice one day.”
Sister Donna says she doesn’t want to die without “someone being charged” with the crime. “Why did she not ring home that night?” she says. “I always thought the reason was my father would have roused on her (for running out of petrol). I still don’t understand why she didn’t ring me or my husband, you know? I was always the one she came to if something was wrong. That always did concern me.”
She adds that Sharron was not to blame for the disintegration of the Phillips family. “Sharron’s got nothing to do with the family falling apart, if that’s what my father’s trying to say. Anything to do with our family goes back way before anything happened with Sharron, but you don’t need to know any of that.”
Darren also wonders about those final moments before Sharron disappeared: “Sharron, as I said, she was a little bit strong-headed and she wanted independence and she probably thought - I’ll just ring my boyfriend, you know? Going on 9.30 or 10 at night, she probably thought the old man’s in bed so I’ll ring the boyfriend.”
He still thinks of that day in May two decades ago: “It hurt me when it happened. I found it very hard to deal with in a little of ways, then the slow deterioration of family on top of it. I found my own strength and moved on. You can’t look backwards. One thing I always used to say to people, and it might be a bit cold, but it might’ve been easier to cope with if she’d been killed in a car accident, you know? “
Bob Phillips is convinced Sharron’s killers are young – in their 40s – and still out there. “These bastards whoever done it out there have got a happy, normal life going for them,” he says. “We’ve got nothing. That’s what gets to Dawn.”
He readily admits his memory is “gone” these days. Twenty years have a tendency to jilt recollections, to scramble time. He says it hurt him to think that some of his estranged children might think he was responsible for Sharron’s disappearance – as patriarch, as protector. “I couldn’t be responsible, mate, I had the wife with me, I wasn’t here.”
Only six years ago he disposed of Sharron’s rusted out Nissan Bluebird. “Dawn didn’t feel very keen with someone driving sharron’s cut so we cut it up and disposed of it. It’s buried. That’s what her brother wanted to do. We’ll cut it up and bury the bastard, so we done that….”
Both Bob Dallow and Geoff Orman say they would gladly come out of retirement just to try and solve the Phillips case – one that has nagged at them for years.
Meanwhile, the two famous blue signs that mark Sharron Phillips’ supposed place of disappearance stand on either side of Ipswich Road. In the early hours of this Tuesday morning Bob says he and Dawn will go down and strap plastic roses to the signs. Then they will get on with another year without their daughter.
It is the signs, though, that say so much about the Phillips case. Misaligned from the beginning. Out of kilter. Odd. Inexplicable. Those signs have been there for 17 years.
And on both, the victim’s christian name is misspelt.
ends
BOB Phillips, 65, shirtless and wearing shorts and slippers, sits at the head of his pine kitchen table not the patriarch of the house, but more the curator of a tragic museum.
From the outside his modest home at the end of a cul-de-sac in Riverview, East Ipswich, is all odd angles and mismatching additions, and inside it heaves with ham radio equipment, old furniture, shelves of dusty glass and ceramic bric-a-brac, and family photographs of his wife Dawn, 57, and their nine children.
And yet it has the feeling of a place that once teemed with life, and was suddenly abandoned. Four clocks in the living room are all set at different times.
Phillips runs a hand through his thatch of greying hair. “It blew the family apart, mate,” he says. “It completely erupted and the family doesn’t exist anymore. The kids couldn’t get the answers to the questions, (the answers) we couldn’t get. They didn’t know how to react and they lashed out on the closest thing for blame which, I suppose, was me.”
Exactly 20 years ago on Monday (May 8), Phillips’ daughter, Sharron, 20, vanished off the face of the earth. The case evolved into one of the most celebrated and controversial in Queensland criminal history. Police were accused of negligence. The Phillips’ took the investigation into their own hands, and constantly howled to the press that not enough was being done by local and State officials. They appealed to the then Prime Minister of Australia, Bob Hawke, for help. Hundreds of people were interviewed, thousands of man-hours were expended, and everyone had a theory about what happened to the vivacious shop attendant whose car ran out of petrol late one Thursday night on Ipswich Road, Wacol. It was one of those rare cases that snagged the public imagination.
Two decades later Sharron Phillips is one of 136 State “cold cases”. Her file status is deemed “active pending further information”. And just as it was in early May 1986, her disappearance is still surrounded by differing versions of events and unanswered questions.
“If I’ve got to tell the truth I’ll tell the truth,“ says Bob Phillips, a retired truck owner/operator. “Dawn’s a prisoner in her own house. I’m her paid carer. She dirties herself, I have to feed her…oh god, I could go on forever. Everything was fine until Sharron disappeared. I’ve considered murder/suicide (for us), I have. I’ve thought about it a frickin’ lot.”
The youngest Phillips child, Matthew, who was six-years-old when Sharron vanished, still lives at home. But the rest of the family is estranged.
“As I said to one of them, I couldn’t be in the back seat with her (Sharron) every time she went out, I just couldn’t,” Bob says. “A lot of people who knew the family said - if you had interfered with them when they were younger and they were all living together, you picked on one you picked on the whole bloody nine, you know? But today, I’ll look after my bit of dirt and you look after yours. When they were growing up they were very close, extremely close. I don’t know what happened to them, I don’t, honestly.”
He gazes into the living area with the four unsynchronised clocks. Down the short hallway, in a room with the shades drawn, is Dawn. As Bob gets angry about the investigation into his missing daughter, as he jabs a finger at the air, fulminates, rails against the system that has wronged him, Dawn sleeps much of the day away in the darkened room.
“Sometimes,” Bob Phillips says, “I’ve lost recollections that Sharron ever existed.”
*
On the night of Thursday, May 8, 1986, young Sharron Phillips was in high spirits for several reasons. She was enjoying her independence, having moved out of the crowded Riverview family home and into her own flat at Archerfield five months earlier. She had a good job at the Peaches ‘n Cream fruit market in Kenmore. And she had a potential new beau.
Only days earlier she had met a 26-year-old Acacia Ridge man called Martin Balazs, and they had planned a dinner date at Sharron’s flat on Friday, May 9. She was excited about Balazs, although they barely knew each other. So on that Thursday evening, she and work colleague Samantha Dalzell went shopping together at Sunnybank Plaza on Mains Road. Sharron purchased some new lingerie.
Later, the pair had coffee at Sharron’s flat. Sharron left the lingerie unwrapped in the small ground-floor apartment. She then drove Dalzell home to Redland Plains. On the way, according to retired police investigator Ken Foreman, who worked on the Phillips case, she drove past Balaz’s flat and tooted the horn – an anonymous message to her new man, a tease as prelude to their date the next evening. She dropped off Dalzell, and was travelling city-bound on Ipswich Road at Wacol, up the hill from the old three-pump Shell service station (since demolished), when her canary-yellow Nissan Bluebird ran out of petrol. It was around 11pm.
Sharron’s oldest sister Donna (nee Anderson) remembers: “She’d spend $50 on a new dress but only put $10 worth of petrol in the car. I said – ‘Sharron, would you fill your car?’ I’m sure that night she would have thought of getting petrol at the garage at Goodna, but it had just become self-service where you operated it with coins.”
Sharron’s car had stopped outside the former Wacol migrant centre. Directly across busy Ipswich Road was the main entrance to the Wacol Army Barracks. She needed a telephone.
It was established later she had walked into the army camp, past the boom gates and guard booth, and been told by partying soldiers there were no telephones for her to use. (A few soldiers were later interviewed by police but discounted as suspects.) She then headed down towards the Shell garage and Wacol railway station.
The garage’s former mechanic, Bill Lace, says initial suspicion rested with the “old eccentric” who lived out the back of the Shell station. “He was there to keep an eye on the place and he always hung around out the front at night,” Lace says. “He said he was Swiss. I once saw him butchering up half a cow that’d been hit by a train, he was that eccentric.” Old “Karl” was never a serious suspect.
Telecom records subsequently revealed that Sharron had spoken to an operator from the twin phone boxes outside the snack bar in Wacol Station Road and asked for a manually-placed call to be made as she had no coins. She phoned Martin Balazs at exactly 11.18pm and asked him to pick her up from the Shell garage. She phoned again at 12.03pm, but Balazs was already on his way to the Wacol/Gailes area to find her.
Shortly after midnight Sharron had a conversation with Michael Truscott, 20, who had also used the public phone to telephone his father to pick him up at the station. She told Truscott she had run out of petrol but a friend was on his way to pick her up.
Balazs later told police he was unsure of which service station to go to. There was a large Shell roadhouse at Gailes, a few kilometres up the road from the little Wacol garage. Balazs went to Gailes, and suffered a flat tyre. With the puncture repaired, he drove down Ipswich Road towards the city and noticed Sharron’s car at the side of the road. He saw nobody in or about the vehicle, reasoning there was little he could do, and drove home. Police believe Balaz had missed Sharron and/or her abductors by a matter of minutes.
Bob Phillips says he and his wife were not in town when Sharron vanished. “People blame me, they reckon I should have been home,” he says. “I was picking one of our trucks up at Gilgandra (700kms south of Brisbane, near Dubbo in NSW). I was in Gilgandra, with Dawn. We got back about four, five o’clock on the Friday morning. I crashed and went to bed then the story came up and I started ringing everybody to find out what’s going on.”
One of the first to raise the alarm about Sharron was Bob Wilson, her boss at the Peaches ‘n Cream Fruit Market. “It’s still a sad memory,” he says today. “She was a great employee. I usually opened up around 7am and she’d start after 7.30am. She never turned up that morning and there were no phone calls. It was so unlike her. I got suspicious straight away.
“Debbie (Cox, a former employee) rang Sharron’s parents and I drove her usual route home looking for her. This was towards the afternoon to the best of my recollection. I saw her car on the side of the road and a man tampering with it. I said – “What are you doing with Sharron’s car?” It turned out it was Sharron’s father.”
Bob Phillips says “a friend” telephoned him about his daughter’s abandoned car that morning. “Somebody rang and told me Sharron’s car was up on the highway,” Bob says. “She was well known around here, so were we.” He also recalled meeting Mr Wilson: “We had a bit of a talk and I said I was quite worried because I couldn’t find any trace of her.”
In a separate incident, Sharron’s younger brother, Darren Phillips, also saw the car on Ipswich Road that Friday: “I was going into Brisbane on a job and I passed her car at Wacol because I was working at Wacol. I passed the car and it didn’t click with me and I tried ringing her flat and I couldn’t get onto her and other things take place, other things happen, and then you forget to ring again. Then I got the phone call that they couldn’t find her, that she’d gone missing.”
According to official police records, Dawn Phillips formally reported her daughter missing to Goodna police at 8pm on Friday, May 9. The records also state Bob Phillips and one of his sons went to Sharron’s Archerfield flat that evening to look for signs of her, then went to the abandoned car on Ipswich Road. That night Bob Phillips took the Nissan Bluebird back to the family home at Riverview. He says the police at the time ordered him to get it off the side of Ipswich Road. The police files have no record of this directive. Former officers involved in the case say it was a turning point in the early days of the investigation.
“The whole investigation in terms of scientific evidence, there wasn’t a lot that could assist us there because of the intervention of the family,” says former detective Geoff Orman, now a senior executive with the Queensland Rugby League. Orman was involved in the early stages of the investigation. “It was obstructive. The family’s intervention, particularly in that area (of removing the car) was a big hindrance to the investigation. It was a huge hindrance. What fresh evidence that was there at that point in time was taken away.
“The discrepancy all came about because the family shifted the vehicle. The biggest hindrance was not being able to put the car exactly in the right spot. That may have triggered some people’s memories and had them come forward.”
Retired former Queensland homicide chief Bob Dallow, who now runs a second-hand bookshop in Ashgrove, was also seconded to the Phillips investigation. He agrees with Orman. “I got along well with Bob (Phillips) but the whole problem from an investigators point of view was that Bob needed to have his finger on the pulse of everything. He took the car home and then police didn’t know where the car actually was when it broke down. The whole thing started off badly.”
There would be further consternation for the police. On that Friday, family members came and went from Sharron’s Archerfield flat despite it being a potential crime scene. Indeed, there were people in and out of the flat before Sharron was formally reported missing to police.
The press reported at the time that younger sister Lisa Phillips had found a phone number for Martin Balaz at Sharron’s flat on that Friday, which allowed Bob Phillips to telephone him and question him about Sharron’s last movements.
Donna Anderson revealed to Qweekend: “Sharron used to smoke a little pot. My brother Darren must have had a key. Jim (Donna’s husband) and Darren went over there. It wasn’t any big deal. They didn’t want Mum and Dad to get upset about that.”
However, Darren Phillips has a different recollection of the incident. “I can’t even remember,” he says. “I didn’t smoke anything back then. I don’t smoke now. It was never my scene. I never smoked pot with Sharron or anything like that. I can’t even remember going into the house. I went in with my brother Charlie (the nickname of Robert Phillips). Me and Robert went in for a look and that was it. I can’t honestly remember, I can’t honestly give you a day, sorry.
“I went in for a look with my brother. I don’t know why we were there to be honest, we just went there because I think we were told to meet somebody there or something, and the landlord or something was going to let us in or something. That was it.”
Bob Dallow says he clearly remembers an oddity about the case in its early stages. “They (Sharron and Dalzell) go over to her place (for coffee) and Sharron drops the parcel of clothes (lingerie) at the flat. The parcel’s not touched,” he says. “But when you see the police photos from inside the flat (a few days later), the items are spread out on the bed. I remember we got a call from one of the sisters later saying she took the nighties out of the packet and spread them out.
“Bob was a bit of a prude. I still believe Bobby went to the flat a few times. I think she might have had some drug gear and stuff and he’s taken it all out.”
A newspaper story by veteran Courier-Mail journalist Ken Blanch, published on May 23, 1986, says: “When her father went to the flat next day (the Friday), the lights were still on and the two coffee cups were on the table. Underclothing she had bought at Sunnybank was still in the flat.”
Bob Phillips denies daughter Lisa went to the flat, as reported in the press, and retrieved Martin Balaz’s phone number from Sharron’s address book.
“I got the number, the book was in her car,” says Bob Phillips. “It was in the car with her purse.” He says there was a “sequined purse” in the vehicle and a jacket neatly folded on the rear seat. Her black wallet and shoulder bag were missing. “I had (son) Shannon (Phillips) with me (aka Grub). It might have been Charlie (Robert). We had to break into it. And we had to break the steering lock. Four of us went down.
“They (the police) should have been to the car and fingerprinted the car before it was even moved. Everything was done wrong.”
On the Saturday the police investigation began in earnest. Sharron’s parents were interviewed at the Riverview home. Bob says: “They never actually interviewed me at all, they interviewed Dawn. They had a yarn to us on Saturday morning, but it’s only natural they looked at the parents. I was pretty well known here and in Inala so I had nothing to hide. Not a bloody thing.”
The Phillips’, in the meantime, contacted Balaz for information. Balaz was interviewed by police.
“They were good investigators,” says Bob Dallow. “They would have turned the boyfriend over if he’d done anything.” Balazs was quickly eliminated as a suspect. (Balazs, who still resides in Brisbane, refused to be interviewed for this story. His wife Linda said “the man had nothing to do with her disappearance”. She added: “I think sometimes it’s very good to have these stories to help prompt people’s memories or perhaps get some closure but I can speak very strongly on my husband’s behalf on this that he doesn’t want to be involved or interviewed or have a statement or anything.”)
Brisbane endured heavy rainfall on the following Sunday and Monday. On the Tuesday police returned Sharron’s vehicle to the side of Ipswich Road. The Phillips’ disputed the exact location of the car. Police believe it was a further 150 metres closer to Wacol train station than the Phillips’ claimed.
On the Wednesday police found Sharron’s shoes and wallet just “metres” from where the car supposedly ran out of petrol. “I remember the afternoon they were found,” says Ken Foreman. “We were at the scene talking about the differences in location of where the car was and found them in a drain that runs under the road. It would have been handy to know exactly were the car had broken down. Things weren’t unfolding the way they should.”
Over the proceeding weeks the Phillips’ were critical of the police investigation. Within months they were petitioning the government to change the law in relation to police handling of missing persons cases.
Geoff Orman says there was a lot of pressure on investigating police. “At the start of our investigation we were told not to go near Mr Phillips.” Because he was perceived as a “troublemaker” and was partial to going to the press? “That’s right.”
Months turned into years without a single clue to Sharron’s whereabouts. Then in January 1988, at her inquest, a man called Robert John Brown, 33, of Harvey Bay, told the Brisbane Coroners Court an extraordinary story.
Brown said on Thursday, May 8, he had seen Sharron Phillips after 6pm outside a house at Riverview, shouting to someone she was going to “The Plaza” to do some shopping. Then, at 11.30pm, and by incredible coincidence, he was at a shop at Wacol when he overheard a youth mention the name “Sharron”. Brown then drove off and came across Sharron on the side of Ipswich Road. She was in distress. He then witnessed her bundled into a car by several men and taken away. The evidence of Brown, a known alcoholic, never took the investigation further.
Bob Phillips now says Brown was well known to the Phillips family as he had lived in the next street from them when they resided in Inala. He says Brown had known Sharron “since she was a girl” and that everyone in the area knew of their relationship, as did the police. He called Brown “a pervert”.
Geoff Orman says police never knew of the relationship between Brown and the Phillips’. “That was never made known to us,” he says. “In relation to Brown, he was intensely interviewed, by myself, Ralph Knust, and a number of other police. He was put through hyopnosis by a forensic psychologist. The result of that was whatever he had seen was fairly traumatic. We could never find out exactly what it was he saw, other than what he said about the vehicle.
“As far as Bob Phillips’ comments go about knowing Brown, that’s the first time I’ve heard it. When the coronial inquest was on, the family itself was very quiet when it came to the examination of witnesses.”
*
As the years passed the theories about what happened to Sharron Phillips proliferated. Psychics offered explanations. The police continued to puzzle over this strange case. Curiously, two police officers were even accused of being involved in Sharron’s murder, but the theory was dismissed as fantasy.
Bob Dallow still thinks Phillips somehow made it back to her flat that night before vanishing. “I believe she made a third phone call from the phone booth that night,” he says. “It was her trick to call the operator and pretend she had no change and get connected. I think she got back to her flat somehow before she disappeared.”
Geoff Orman says there was a lot going on within the Phillips’ family at the time of Sharron’s disappearance – the usual teenage difficulties. “It was common knowledge Bob (Phillips) had had disagreements with Sharron about her promiscuity,” says Orman.
Bob Phillips says: “The concern I had for her wasn’t that. Coming home from Brisbane late of a night and not locking the car. People would grab you at the lights. But promiscuity with other people, no.”
There has been little movement with the case in many years. As recent as two months ago, Bob Phillips says he received a letter from a woman saying Sharron’s body was buried underneath another body in a cemetery near Gatton.
Her brother Robert (Charlie) Phillips says: “Things have a way of coming around. People have got big mouths. One day someone will say the wrong thing to the wrong person. I do believe there will be justice one day.”
Sister Donna says she doesn’t want to die without “someone being charged” with the crime. “Why did she not ring home that night?” she says. “I always thought the reason was my father would have roused on her (for running out of petrol). I still don’t understand why she didn’t ring me or my husband, you know? I was always the one she came to if something was wrong. That always did concern me.”
She adds that Sharron was not to blame for the disintegration of the Phillips family. “Sharron’s got nothing to do with the family falling apart, if that’s what my father’s trying to say. Anything to do with our family goes back way before anything happened with Sharron, but you don’t need to know any of that.”
Darren also wonders about those final moments before Sharron disappeared: “Sharron, as I said, she was a little bit strong-headed and she wanted independence and she probably thought - I’ll just ring my boyfriend, you know? Going on 9.30 or 10 at night, she probably thought the old man’s in bed so I’ll ring the boyfriend.”
He still thinks of that day in May two decades ago: “It hurt me when it happened. I found it very hard to deal with in a little of ways, then the slow deterioration of family on top of it. I found my own strength and moved on. You can’t look backwards. One thing I always used to say to people, and it might be a bit cold, but it might’ve been easier to cope with if she’d been killed in a car accident, you know? “
Bob Phillips is convinced Sharron’s killers are young – in their 40s – and still out there. “These bastards whoever done it out there have got a happy, normal life going for them,” he says. “We’ve got nothing. That’s what gets to Dawn.”
He readily admits his memory is “gone” these days. Twenty years have a tendency to jilt recollections, to scramble time. He says it hurt him to think that some of his estranged children might think he was responsible for Sharron’s disappearance – as patriarch, as protector. “I couldn’t be responsible, mate, I had the wife with me, I wasn’t here.”
Only six years ago he disposed of Sharron’s rusted out Nissan Bluebird. “Dawn didn’t feel very keen with someone driving sharron’s cut so we cut it up and disposed of it. It’s buried. That’s what her brother wanted to do. We’ll cut it up and bury the bastard, so we done that….”
Both Bob Dallow and Geoff Orman say they would gladly come out of retirement just to try and solve the Phillips case – one that has nagged at them for years.
Meanwhile, the two famous blue signs that mark Sharron Phillips’ supposed place of disappearance stand on either side of Ipswich Road. In the early hours of this Tuesday morning Bob says he and Dawn will go down and strap plastic roses to the signs. Then they will get on with another year without their daughter.
It is the signs, though, that say so much about the Phillips case. Misaligned from the beginning. Out of kilter. Odd. Inexplicable. Those signs have been there for 17 years.
And on both, the victim’s christian name is misspelt.
ends
posted by Matt Condon at 10:51 AM
62 Comments:
bob dallow and geoff orman both had a bad attitude towards this case at the time and obviously still do. I can't believe that so many witnesses saw her that night and yet there are no suspects! I heard that the police were given some suspects just a year or two ago and they checked it and dismissed it very quickly. I've got news for the police, some of those suspects you interviewed were LYING to you. That's what guilty people do. I suggest they look into the information they were given more thoroughly and questions those men again, try lie detecters, or a even a baton.
Police said at the time that they had reports of a Holden Monaro going up and down ipswich Road that night.Maybe it wasn't a Monaro,maybe it was a Kingswood that had been made to look like a Monaro,especially at night.I'd be looking at someone who was perhaps a little unstable,perhaps after a breakup with his woman.Maybe someone who had been known to be that upset,that their hair had fallen out from alopecia caused by stress.Maybe,someone that worked in the nearby area and finished work that night due to late night shopping (Thursday night),and came across her on his way home to Riverveiw
From Matt Condon:
Dear Anonymous, I'm absolutely fascinated by your comments...I am tempted to revisit the case...if you have any further information you could provide to me outside of this blog, could you kindly email me at condonm@qnp.newsltd.com.au...I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Dear Sir, I used to be in the same class as Sharon Phillips, since grade 2 in Inala. I was so brokenhearted when, at 20 yrs old I read in the paper in South Australia that my friend had disappeared. I was the in RAAF down there at the time in 1986, I had an interview with Ken Blanch when he was with Sunday Mail, he wanted my story to go to print, but he didn't know, as I didn't , whether it was going to be printed on 13th October 1997, it wasn't. I was broken hearted, still am. Trying to find Ken to let him know of update.
Regarding my dear friend, after enduring 4 years in the Justice Department at 15 years old then 6 years in the RAAF, I know so much about so much, that I didn't ask for this information. It must still run through my viens I guess Law and Justice, especially, when it comes to my friend Sharon. I do remember some things my mother now deceased and father deceased had said about the Phillips family, having grown up with them, me and my three brothers, they were good people all of them, and Bob is right, back then, they did all stick together, now it should be like that these days, even if it costs me a bullet, I don't care. Law and Justice will be done. Mother used to visit the Army barracks every Tuesday night to meet her uncle. We knew the area very well. Well I bet the Army premises inside on Commonwealth Military property hasn't been looked at, that would've been too hard to do, so I suggest you dig deeper into the Military grounds down the back of the base this side of the fence. Raymond John Carroll still walkn free too, no no. Genetic history failure, I typed up how the bite marks matched his, then the next day I'm in the RAAF, then my husband tells me there was a girl found strangled on the RAAF base too, before March 85 when I joined. It was that man's brother, my husband (ex) said, "yeah, we all know who did it, he was quickly posted out", swept under the carpet like other military matters, brother Ray walks because RAAF don't provide evidence of his whereabouts, wonder why, because they shred stuff. I know, they've treated me like a dog and kicked me in the guts, had a gun pointed at my head and a RAAF doctor sexually assault me. I've been out the RAAF 18 years now, no compensation, yet 4 years ago, they send me a letter saying they admit liability for my post traumatic stress disorder. I'll be dead before they pay me, oh well such is life.
The forces are very well known for protecting one of their own. They should be looked at again. I have known the Army to close ranks on outsiders in a number of instances
My thoughts have been with you my friend and Bob and family, as another anniversary comes and goes, this whole thing smells fishy. I lived across the road where they found little Leanne on Redbank Plains Road, my friend goes missing, add up the number of girls that went missing in the same vicinity, obviously there is a serial sicko still walking free or hiding in the Army. An old friend going back to when I was 15, living near where my friend Sharron disappeared telephoned me about 7 years ago. He told me he tried to inform the police he wanted to change a statement. He admitted giving an alibi to somebody who to this day he now remains scared for his life, knowing this type of man, a serial he is, he told me, that old friend of mine. He got in touch with me to see if I could help the authorities to take him seriously, I would have if I were them... And I hope somebody is getting a warrant to search the army premises at Wacol. I think an inquest or royal commission is overdue here, look at what the government did, lock up a man for 15 years for murdering little Leanne, then they decide it wasn't him after all.... No wonder I have no faith in this government they call themselves. Didn't my friend go missing nearly around the corner from where they found Leanne. Yes. Come on Mr Dallow, don't give up, I remember meeting you when you brought my older brother who was about 10 home because he flogged some sultanas from the Elizabeth Bruce playground. This case, the other cases, they're obviously connected. Bring in also new eyes to study the case, this always helps, I believe. One can pick up what one doesn't see. With the technology for DNA these days, surely Sharon deserves the dignity, as do all the other girls, I'm not one for giving up when it comes to learning the truth about something, usually in the end it comes to me, I don't have to go look for it, a gift that I am very thankful to have. By the way, my old mate used to live at Morningside at the time of questioning, get the sophisticated gear out and go through them all with a fine nit comb, them ones who were LYING to you. Lie detectors, the lot, CSI cold case can do it, looks easy enough, so instead of sitting back doing nothing get out there and do the job properly this time and find this serial killer before he decides it's time again, maybe he's due out of jail or the forces or something, and just because someone labels someone an 'alcoholic', shows how discriminatory our legal system is, the witness from Hervey Bay, wasn't listened to either, maybe he drinks more now since he "saw Sharon being forced into a car", maybe he doesn't remember some things that happened that night but as the years go by, we all get some flash backs of our past, surely, I do. I have had lots of them lately, making them nice memories of what Sharon and I got up to as kids, she always had a big smile on her face, no matter what. Hope she's smiling now, I won't give up on her. She would have been a great soldier too...
This case may hopefully get some clues with the motorway upgrade currently happening(2008) but by name the evidence is probably long gone. who knows maybe the family will get closure with a body. those signs have become part of the scenery and know one unless aware of the reports would know who or what sharron phillips is.
Dear Mr Condon, I hope your previous anonymous has got back to you, the one regarding his comments on the maybe possible scenario that maybe happened the night my friend disappeared. Maybe being specific, maybe ah how many Kingswoods were done up made to look like a Monaro that year in that vicinity, Maybe not many. Maybe somebody is looking at themself after losing their woman, maybe stressed out, maybe so much that he specifically maybe suffers from alopecia... maybe somebody better open that case up and get maybe the real killer, with all the information we should all get it right this time. Lets hope to
God.
As a CSI student I am quite intrigued by this case. I just found while actually looking for a friends tattoo site. I would love to be able to read more details on this case and possibly be able to present a new, fresh insight from an outsiders point of view. Please feel free to contact me at bad-karma@terraworld.net(excuse the name its a gaming thing).
Can anyone tell me why a Sharron Phillips sign was also erected on the gateway motor near the Mt Gravatt exit? I was only a child(5) at the time she disappeared but living in Ipswich and having family all around the Mt Gravatt area I drive past these signs frequently. I can't help but stare at them as I go past, like my eyes are drawn to them subconciously. I get a chill everytime. Yet no one has ever been able to tell me why there is a sign on the Gate way. Can anyone tell me? fluffypink_handcuffs@hotmail.com
And yes hopefully something will turn up with all these high way upgrades. A new lead or Closure for all.
I used to know this person Karl that lived in Wacol, he did some work on my families property installing a septic tank, about the same time as Sharron Phillips disappeared.
I have often speculated that he was responsible for her dissapearence.
I find it strange that Sharron ran out of petrol, on Ipswich Road, close to a Petrol Station, which Karl used to live in.
If you had ever seen Karl, he was a huge 6 foot 4 something man, who's hands span was massive. we were scared as children, we used to refer to him as " Dummy Doodles."
Funnily enough Karl didn't ever come back to our property after Sharron went missing.
I am Jacqueline Smith (15)the daughter of Lisa Phillips (who's name is Lisa Smith now),and Ive heard many different sides of this story from my mum, and the only relative i know from her side of the family is my Aunty Donna, and i think i briefly met one of my mums brothers, but thats all.I havnt spoken to my Aunty Donna in quiet some time, but sadly that can't be helped when you move country. But from what i have heard, the Phillips had many family problems. I have also heard that my mothers father is quiet the liar, and wasnt a very nice man. Something tells me that Ipswich was a town of many secrets, and a town that 'supported'each other. I have never met my 'grandfather' or 'grandmother', and my mum isnt about to let me, but i dont think it would be best anyway, as it would just cause trouble. I know everyone wants justice for this case, even if i never met Sharron, she will always be considered my Aunty Sharron. This justice is going to be hard earned, but hopefuly earned soon.
I have been passing these signs for years now ever since i can remember, but whats going to happen to the signs now that the Ipswich motorway is being up graded ? If theres a Bridge it should be named after her (Sharrons bridge, Sharrons Crossing) ect. thank you. Rob.
I agree Bob. I have noticed the absence of her signs already. I too have been passing these signs almost my intire life. And with the upgrades going on the signs aren't there...
The signs have been like part of the land for so long now. She deserves to be remembered.
I noticed the other day that the old Wacol army site is being dug up. This might unearth something one can only hope
i remember when sharron dissapeared,i hung around with her younger sister,i have often wondered what happened and also couldnt help but think the case was bungled from the start.i esed to wonder why the dad would drop the kids off to high school in sharrons car and though police would have taken it for investigations.it all doesnt add up to me.
i hope this case is re opened and solved.
I am close to a family member of Sharron, who still to this day, yearns for Sharron's disappearance to be resolved. If anyone has any say in making sure those signs stay up, please do something!! That may be the only thing left that will keep Sharron alive in people's minds and help to alleviate the enormous pain that is felt by those who may never know what happened to Sharron.
Matt - thank you for this story that helped me to learn so much about Sharron's disappearance. Please don't give up on posting and unearthing any new information you might get over the years.
S.
I was interviewed when this case was ongoing, I grew up with Sharron and had been drinking with her about two weeks before she dissapeared, I met with Sharrons dad a few times, and it was pretty common knowledge that possibly 5 Inala youths were involved oh and did I mention that one had a dark brown HQ Kingswood, done up a bit to look like a Monaro.....the five accused were pointed out to the police by myself in a mug book viewing, I think the police know who did this but have no evidence, even though one of the guys involved bragged about it while in jail IN WACOL ....yeah yeah this case was miss handled ALL THE WAY
Maybe someone should be checking out the empty underground petrol tanks at the site of the Shell petrol station between Wacol Station and the Ipswich Highway, where Karl lived at the time she went missing, before the roadworks cover them over. I'f I ran out of petrol thats where i would go for help. You could see the petrol station from where her car was found. ie. When did that Petol Station cease to trade?????
I rememeber reading this article in the Weekend Paper in 2006, it sent chills up my spine. I remember seeing the Sharron Phillips signs along the Ipswich motorway, of course they've been removed now.
I've lived in Ipswich my whole life, this story always creeps me out.
steve wilson [nz], mandy montgomery et al???
put the sharron phillips signs back there is a law against removal of historic things and they have been there 4 over 4 decades so that makes them historic they are as much apart of ipswich as anything else
Well the 'dear friend' didn't even spell her name right - some friend.
4 decades? She disappeared May 1986 - that makes 23 years to me, and that's not even 3 decades. Really!
You know, if someone has any information, go to crimestoppers.
Keep pushing if you feel you are getting nowhere.
As for the rest of you, I wish people would NOT give opinions unless they are family or know the FACTS of the case.
My cousin was someone in the wrong place at the wrong time - simple fact.
I take my hat off to Bob Dallow and the others involved in the case - they lived and breathed it, and did the best they could with what they had.
Like the rest of my family, all I want is closure.
Simple. Someone just tell someone in authority anonymously where she is so we can put her to rest.
That is the cry of our hearts.
Have some compassion on a broken family.
Does no one's conscience bother them about this case?
I was under the impression that Michael Truscott's train arrived at Wacol Train Station at 11.10pm on Thursday 8th of May. However it was mentioned in your blog that Mr. Truscott spoke to Miss Phillips after Midnight on the morning on Friday the 9th?
I'm a little confused about the time lapse?
several years after sharron disappeared, i was talking to a guy who had been a CO at the army barracks at the time Sharron disappeared. he told me that the police wanted to search the army land, buy were told the army would search it themselves, but that this was never done. i always wondered why her shoes & bag were found in the drain AFTER those 2 days of really heavy rain. Bullockhead Creek runs through that drain FROM the army land, and would have been in full spate & flood over those 2 days. could her things have been washed down the creek from somewhere upstream? either from the army land, or even further up, where it can be accessed from Progress road. if they were there the whole time, how come the searches that were done near where her car was left didnt found them earlier?
The sign that was on the Gateway motorway was NOT Sharron Phillips. It was Janet Phillips - a 15 year old girl whose body was found down the embankment in 1987. The sign was placed there to jog people's memories that a car Must have stopped there to drop her body over the edge. The main suspect of That case was eliminated when DNA testing became available. But they eventually got the bloke - Lloyd Clark Fletcher.
As for the Army land. The motorway upgrade has revealed nothing. BUT, the rest of the land is owned by Metroplex who want to develope it for an Industrial Estate. But is being held up by the Greenies. If it can go ahead and IF Sharron's body is on that land, Then it would be found.
As for the Tanks. The Tanks of the old Shell Servo on the corner of Ipswich Road and Progress Rd were removed - not covered over.
buy viagra online at womens viagra viagra mexico how to buy viagra viagra oral jelly viagra mexico cheap viagra canada viagra and alcohol cialis viagra buy viagra without prescription viagra 34434 viagra facts watermelon viagra generic brands of viagra online
theyre thanks mengalgate refreshments denoting parenthesis study contacting informs edtechindex overheads
semelokertes marchimundui
after Sharrons abduction another young lady called Julie-Anne Gallon disapeared in the same circumstances I hadnt tied in Leanne Holland until I read this blog and more recently Dulcie Birt vanishes allfrom the same area .In the early hours of the morning that Sharron went missing I was driving my car with 3 small kids asleep after dropping my hubby at work , its was barely daylight , when I saw a young woman of Sharrons build staggering as if drunk on Mt Lindsay Hwy at Browns Plains near a creek ( the Vansittart St shops are behind that drain /creek , something didnt look right , wasnt a weekend night for someone to be drunk, no-one was around and I had a bad feeling so I never stopped as I had the kids in the car , it has always haunted me that it may have been her, and many years ago a story came up that she had been seen at Beaudesert ...... I did tell others about this but they said it was a bit far away from where she was taken .
094 OMK ??????
christian courtship dating [url=http://loveepicentre.com/]free japanese personals[/url] online dating services for farmers and ranchers http://loveepicentre.com/ free personals gay chat profiles
auto audio for sale [url=http://www.cardvdplanet.com/buy-cheap-car-dvd1.html]auto audio chesapeake virginia[/url] sony auto audio http://www.cardvdplanet.com/7-inch-led-touch-screen-car-dvd-player-with--discount-price27.html beststuff fuel car dvd ipod vacation houseboat lake
car audio for subaru legacy [url=http://www.cardvdplanet.com/9-2-inch-car-video-amp-navigation-tft-lcd--discount-price73.html]selling auto audio[/url] chrysler car audio http://www.cardvdplanet.com/car-dvd-player-with-fm-function-cd138--discount-price57.html chrysler car audio
auto audio las vegas [url=http://www.cardvdplanet.com/4-3-inch-touchscreen-car-dvd-sd-card-reader--discount-price41.html]beststuff fuel car dvd ipod vacation houseboat lake powell[/url] ipod touch auto audio cable http://www.cardvdplanet.com/car-cd-mp3-player-with-usb-sd-mmc-cd149--discount-price52.html videovisor auto dvd visor
had a weird experience with a white station wagon at the petrol station at Gailes - about two years after Sharron disappeared. It had a couple wiht a teenage son. They spent ages at the servo before approuching me if i wanted a lift. They freaked me out for some reason.
Hello friend amazing and very interesting blog about THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHARRON PHILLIPS
anxiety disorder medicine social [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/catalogue/s.htm]Order Cheap Generic Drugs[/url] ucla medical center carrot cake recipe http://usadrugstoretoday.com/categories/dysfonction-erectile.htm may turner syndrome http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/tegretol.htm
old treatment for breast cancer [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/categories/antibiotici.htm]antibiotici[/url] new breast cancer treatment with anastrozole [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/celexa.htm]power point the riskd of smoking[/url]
I really like this write! I enjoy it so much! thanks for give me a good reading moment!
kleine loo http://topcitystyle.com/?action=products&product_id=1860 hydrogen technologies denny klein [url=http://topcitystyle.com/41-dress-shirts-size22.html]jessica simpson shoes canada[/url] old fashioned banana pudding
http://topcitystyle.com/-mini-skirt-armani-category97.html fashion houston photographer [url=http://topcitystyle.com/versace-t-shirt-for-men-off-white-item1817.html]ballet shoes nicest[/url]
I was reading up about Sharron Phillips' case as it just passed yet another anniversary. I know the case is closed now but found this post which may be of interest to anyone following this closely as I do:
"094 OMK
I dont know whos it is, but I found a piece of paper where I had some writing and it had sharon phillips on it, and a rego number. It was something that I wrote in a strange state some time ago, and I had not known where the piece of paper had gone, and though it may be nothing of use whatsoever, I would be an idiot to not enter it here anyhow. I hope one day that Sharon (Sharron's) family gets some answers and some peace, noone deserves to go through whatever this girl has, nor what her family has endured. With it was the writing holden. I have had a strange habit since I was a small child of writing down number plates when I feel somehting is strange or if ever I have seen anyone (especially female) walking alone or looking scared. I cant say I have ever seen Sharon, I dont know what she looks like, and I would have only been ten years old at the time she was taken from wherever she was taken... But I couldnt stare at this piece of paper and not leave it somewhere. Someone out there knows what happened, and noone should let anything go without being advised, god knows, anything could be a clue to finding out what happened to a girl that should not have been taken away."
Maybe this will help.
motorcycle chain lubricant http://theporncollection.in/gay-man/nude-men-gay-sex
[url=http://theporncollection.in/free-hentai/gay-hentai-yaoi]adult nude365 day calendars[/url] adult phone job opportunites [url=http://theporncollection.in/mature-xxx/mature-couple-homemade-sex-video]mature couple homemade sex video[/url]
amateur teen porn clips http://theporncollection.in/porn-galleries/figure-skater-turned-porn-star
[url=http://theporncollection.in/lesbian-porn/downloadable-lesbian-porn]sailor moon and darien porn[/url] fel pro lubricants skokie [url=http://theporncollection.in/moms/sexy-moms-old]sexy moms old[/url]
jason cameron porn http://theporncollection.in/gay-xxx/videos-of-gay-guys-getting-undressed
[url=http://theporncollection.in/gay-xxx/explicit-gay-pictures]high quality hentai[/url] avn adult expo 2008 [url=http://theporncollection.in/gay-xxx/videos-of-gay-guys-getting-undressed]videos of gay guys getting undressed[/url]
pantyhose porn photo galleries http://theporncollection.in/sex-mature/mature-naked-free-pics
[url=http://theporncollection.in/gay-movie/hot-gay-thumbs]grenadier hentai sites[/url] amaenaideyo hentai [url=http://theporncollection.in/hentai-porn/hentai-kiddy-grade]hentai kiddy grade[/url]
free adult teen panty http://xwe.in/adult-xxx/asian-adult-video-sharing
[url=http://xwe.in/ass-sex/tiny-ass-thongs]free porn insertion mpeg[/url] teen porn incest [url=http://xwe.in/girl-anal/julia-bond-anal-frat-fuckfest]julia bond anal frat fuckfest[/url]
msds for dyna gard wire rope lubricant http://xwe.in/fetish/teen-stocking-fetish
[url=http://xwe.in/blow/france-nice-blow-molding]hentai toonz[/url] adult gay ovies [url=http://xwe.in/erotic-stories/erotic-sex-orgasms]erotic sex orgasms[/url]
male adult turkey names http://xwe.in/gay-anal/gay-son-incestvideos
[url=http://xwe.in/bbw/bbw-cienma]adult store stafford tx[/url] movies teens high quality amateur [url=http://xwe.in/blow/feather-hair-how-blow-dry]feather hair how blow dry[/url]
cleveland adult rec hockey http://xwe.in/erotic-video/male-erotic
[url=http://xwe.in/toon/best-toon-porn-trailers]adult birthday party ideal[/url] super free no flash required hentai trailers [url=http://xwe.in/adult-video/baltimore-adult-dance-classes]baltimore adult dance classes[/url]
regal movie thaters [url=http://worldmovs.co.cc/full_version-socios-y-sabuesos/9360database/]Socios Y Sabuesos[/url] movie max [url=http://full-length-movies.com/dvd-quality-movie-the-12-dogs-of-christmas/19581database/]The 12 Dogs Of Christmas[/url]
hot teen dancing movie [url=http://full-length-movies.com/dvd-quality-movie-1875724./18941database/]1875724.[/url] movie posters sale [url=http://full-length-movies.com/dvd-quality-movie-the-bourne-ultimatum/7825database/]The Bourne Ultimatum[/url]
movie based in newfoundland [url=http://full-length-movies.com/dvd-quality-movie-arthur-and-the-invisibles/30360database/]Arthur and the Invisibles[/url] tina whats love got to do with it movie torrent [url=http://worldmovs.co.cc/full_version-el-mensajero-del-miedo/9270database/]El Mensajero Del Miedo[/url]
naruto the movie [url=http://worldmovs.co.cc/full_version-curious-george/3817database/]Curious George[/url] famous fuck movie [url=http://worldmovs.co.cc/full_version-turistas/24389database/]Turistas[/url]
wholesale lot designer reading glasses http://luxefashion.us/-winter-jackets-dolce-amp-gabbana-category9.html coco chanel quotes [url=http://luxefashion.us/red-beige-on-sale-color42.html]items made from horseshoes[/url] ralph lauren chaps aftershave
http://luxefashion.us/richmond-tank-tops-brand18.html african american fashion model [url=http://luxefashion.us/blue-casual-shirts-color32.html]steifes glied und kleine eier[/url]
scottsdale pharmacy [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/noroxin.htm]noroxin[/url] blank diabetic food exchange chart http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/confido.htm
sensory and diet mouth [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/purinethol.htm]purinethol[/url] vein strippings [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/categories/antibiotici.htm ]fever lump in armpit tired muscle aches flu [/url] vaginal bleeding with pop mini pills
health issues with boston terriers [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/zyloprim.htm]zyloprim[/url] american soldiers asked to shoot americans http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/uroxatral.htm
the blow the pill the yak the herb [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/hyaluronic-acid.htm]hyaluronic acid[/url] medical staff bylaws consultants [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/pepcid.htm ]sugar free gum balls [/url] prescription medication feel good happy
tarsier monkey diet [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/detrol.htm]detrol[/url] human growth hormone military drug testing http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/mevacor.htm
non aspirin artritis medication [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/strontium-bone-maker.htm]strontium bone maker[/url] nature deficit disorder book [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/categories/cholesterol.htm ]medical grade tca tattoo remove [/url] human grooming behavior disorder
medical and dental uniforms [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/chloroquine.htm]chloroquine[/url] teen screaming orgasm http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/acomplia.htm
number of electrons in a calcium ion [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/generic-motrin.htm]generic motrin[/url] highs with out failing drug tests [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/acomplia.htm ]linda mccarthy breast cancer [/url] does drugs give u muscle cramps
electric clothes dryer does not get very hot http://www.thefashionhouse.us/lavender-shirts-color69.html cathy fritz landscape designer [url=http://www.thefashionhouse.us/purple-yellow-color199.html]opinions for best walking shoes[/url] eastland women shoes
http://www.thefashionhouse.us/?action=products&product_id=2429 clothes of cowboys [url=http://www.thefashionhouse.us/34-new-size25.html]interstat kleine ezel[/url]
choices medical program alachua county [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/categories/anti-hongos---anti-ansiedad.htm]anti hongos anti ansiedad[/url] natural remedy for bladder infection http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/lanoxin.htm
clinical research organization drug [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/viramune.htm]viramune[/url] seasonal effective disorder and bipolar type ii [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/fosamax.htm ]world health organization and obesity epidemic worldwide [/url] muscle submission
heart calcify [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/purinethol.htm]purinethol[/url] hanford dental implants http://usadrugstoretoday.com/categories/gum.htm
exercises for the base of penis [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/sinequan.htm]sinequan[/url] can dogs get yeast infections [url=http://usadrugstoretoday.com/products/ceftin.htm ]mental health retreats [/url] videos of men having g spot orgasm
san francisco shoestring http://www.thefashionhouse.us/sweaters-page5.html child fashion lolita [url=http://www.thefashionhouse.us/dolce-amp-gabbana-leather-jacket-for-men-black-item2299.html]best designer sunkissed bronze cream[/url] vintage gucci bags
http://www.thefashionhouse.us/turquas-gucci-color168.html maryland square shoes [url=http://www.thefashionhouse.us/?action=products&product_id=2525]kswiss tennis shoes[/url]
meaning of travel propensity http://xwl.in/lufthansa/us-airways-master-card-pay-bill have torch will travel
[url=http://xwl.in/maps/maps-of-southampton]scottland travel[/url] travel affiliate data feeds [url=http://xwl.in/maps/list-of-local-unions-maps-in-pennsylvania]list of local unions maps in pennsylvania[/url]
us air travel with expired id http://xwl.in/travel/development-of-the-travel
[url=http://xwl.in/motel/northern-family-motel]san franscisco travel[/url] travel agent in bowling green ky [url=http://xwl.in/adventure/adventure-quest-rpg]adventure quest rpg[/url]
society of american travel writers http://xwl.in/cruises/alaska-cruises-small-ship-htm dallas corporate travel [url=http://xwl.in/flight/cheap-air-flight-to-los-vegas]cheap air flight to los vegas[/url]
bingo daubers http://wqm.in/blackjack_blackjack-hotmail david edwards lottery
[url=http://wqm.in/slot_free-machine-slot]no deposit free play casinos[/url] blackjack sgh i 607 [url=http://wqm.in/jokers_gypsy-jokers-portland-or-offical-web-site]gypsy jokers portland or offical web site[/url]
op joker http://wqm.in/online-casinos_rules-of-keno-best-internet-casinos
[url=http://wqm.in/gambling-online_play-roulette-game-gambling-free]telling the future with playing cards[/url] northern quest casino spokane [url=http://wqm.in/blackjack_blackjack-ii-case]blackjack ii case[/url]
casinos gulfport ms http://wqm.in/blackjack_chargers-for-samsung-blackjack-ii vegas betting election [url=http://wqm.in/gambling-online_problem-gambling-and-bankruptcy]problem gambling and bankruptcy[/url]
Growing up in Goodna and knowing the family, I have often thought about Sharrons disappearance.
I have lived in South Australia since 1990 and always look for her sign when visiting QLD.
I too would like to see a bridge, park or path named after a young lady that will be remembered forever.
Shannon
Rosaleen
Shannon's mother
I am very proud of you to have been a good friend to Sharron's younger sister at the time of Sharron's disappearance. The compassion you had for her and her family and the pain you felt for them all. You were so young yet so grown.I to want to see the bridge named after Sharron. I still live here and it is not the same with out Sharron Phillips name on Ipswich Motorway.
A young guy living very near to Wacol station at the time of Sharron's disappearance, who drove a holden (cant remember what kind) was supposed to drive me to a youth club one night, several years earlier. Instead, he took me to an old queenslander known as 'the mansion' at Redbank Plains, which was then a very sparsely populated area. the guy told me he was going to pick up a friend to take him to the youth club also. when we got there no-one was home so he persuaded me to go inside with him to wait for his 'friend'. we sat on a couch and he put his legs over my lap, i thought to be affectionate, but it was to trap me and hold me down. shortly after a gang of about 17 young thugs came in, drunk and laughing. thank god, i recognised one as an old boyfriend from many years earlier. he was horrified when he saw me and managed to smuggle me out of the house. he told me that the guy who had taken me there often procured young girls for the gang to gangrape. i was incredibly lucky. the guy's name was Bill Rix.
Please believe in what you are about to read! as I still have haunted memory of this event in time & I have only just woke from another haunted memory!
This is what I saw around the time of Sharrons disappearance & was reported to the Ipswich police on the night of the event.
I was driving a semi trailer from Rocklea to Melbourne around 10pm. I had come upon two men in a greyish EH Holden panel van or possibly a HR Holden panel van bearing NSW number plates talking to a young lady I now believe to be Sharron Phillips on the side of the road facing in West direction near the Wacol Industrial estate turn off, the young lady in question did not look comfortable in the presence of these two men, the two men I now now to be Ivan Milat I suspect the other man may of been a brother by recollection of my memory & photos in the Media.
I called Police at Ipswich on the night from a phone box at the Red Bank Plaza at 10:20pm to report what I had seen & was told by the Constable on duty that they would check it out but he believed it may have been friends talking on the side of the road, I have never heard anymore which still haunts me today!
I will swear to statement to my grave that this is the Truth & would testify in Court.
Justice is needed to rest this young lady's soul & give her family the closure it needs.
I am willing to meet with Police or Family to offer any help I can!
I too have been haunted by sharron's disappearance - at one time I lived at Riverview and was often on that road. I was a single mother and as I drove past the army base I used to think if I broke down I could go there, when I passed the petrol station I would think the same thing, I always placemarked the 'help' stations especially when I drove at night. As some one else so rightly said Julie Anne Gallon also disappeared from the same area in almost identical circumstances, noted by all and sundry at the time but declared to have no connection by the police. In all your other musings it is important to note that the police academy was not far away at Oxley as well as the army base the migrant centre, there is a prison locally as well as a psychiatric unit. Any one of these establishments could provide cover as well as the 'right' person to commit the crime. Let me ask the question - if a young person is on the side of the road and a policeman stops to render assistance or even to order them into the vehicle would they resist? If you are broken down and desperate would you hail a cab? It is important to note that when Sharron disappeared Fitzgerald was just around the corner & our police force was one of the most corrupt in the country & to this day there are still insufficient checks done on the likes of cab drivers firemen teachers etc so that periodically one of these august people is arrested for crimes varying from rape & pedophilia to assault & robbery. I still have the fervent hope that with all the development going on in the area there will come a time when Sharron can be laid to rest appropriately.
Today they arrested the man resposible for the murder of little Daniel Morcombe and it got me to thinking about Sharron Phillips. I was a small child living in Inala when Sharon went missing. I remember seeing the signs on Ipswich Rd and hearing lots of silly rumours about her. I wish that I had some information to help but I dont. I just pray that like Daniel the truth will come out for Sharron and those who loved her.
Having known Sharron's family all of my life we still all think about her. Not a year goes by when we don't. Her family and mine were very close from Inala back in the 60's way before I was born, with her grandma living next to my family. Sharron comes more to mind now with the person who took Daniel being caught. I just wish the same with for the Phillips family. No bodies family is perfect but they all miss and love Sharron just the same. RIP Sharron and one day the person or people that detroyed your family will get what they deserve.
I've read a lot of comments on this site regarding my family and Sharron that have been painful. I thank those for their kind words and best wishes. However If people have genuine information please let the police know otherwise please don't discuss my sister's disappearance like it was an episode of Neighbours. Also please don't defame or slander my family name especially when there are more that one side to a story whether you think you know a point of view or not. No one is ever innocent and blame should not be assigned to only one. Please be respectful, there has been enough suffering already.
I have also been following the Daniel Morcombe case but for me it has only brought about sadness. It hurts, yes after 25 years it still hurts and will continue until, I can only speak for myself, eventually die.I hope his family finds peace but know from harsh experience that it may never come. Those of you may not know that our mother, Dawn Phillips died last year. I pray that i will not succumb the same fate and die not knowing what happened to my sister. Regardless of when or if she is found life for us has irrevocabIy changed forever. I miss her every moment of my life and even though I was a young child I will never forgot 8.5.86, the night my life and those of my family changed forever. I will always love you Big Bird...
I fully believe Sharron knew the men she got into the car with, she was placed in an unfortunate come deadly situation with her car running out of petrol where it did. I also believe they were people she knew from Inala as the Phillips once lived in Inala and I truly also believe that Sharron is not their only victim. The police need to piece this thing together properly and solve it, they have probably had the suspects already and yes one has been in jail if it's who I'm thinking it was.
Also are there any women that have been grabbed or attacked and got away, even if it was years ago, please come forward and give your crime the closure it deserves and you may also really be helping without fully knowing it.
Come on Qld police, please solve this, get tough.
I will close with this...
No crime is ever closed as long as there are people who still care.
It was a weird case, where the girl was never found, I fell so sorry for the family.
i wonder if you have more info about SHARRON PHILLIPS and its situation!
Months turned into years without a single clue to Sharron’s whereabouts. Then in January 1988, at her inquest, a man called Robert John Brown, 33, of Harvey Bay, told the Brisbane Coroners Court an extraordinary story.
I am from Adelaide and only a child when it happened so had not ever heard of this sad case until an incident prompted me to google "missing girl 1986". A few months ago I was doing a night walk run by councli in the brisbane Koala Bushlands in Burbank. Just near the end of the walk I saw an image (??) of a young girl sitting with her knees to her chest and her black hair hanging down over her face. The year 1996 and missing were associated with the girl. My immediate impression was that she was buried or had been taken to the area. I found this rather disconcerting and decided to see if anygirl like that had disappeared. i googled "missing girl 1986 Brisbane" and the case came up. indeed the photo I saw on the website matched the image of a girl I saw in my 'minds eye'. I am not particularly psychic and am not crazy or anything (as far as I know!!) and was very surprised when my intuition matched a real situation but have often wondered if there was anything to my experience. If this rings a bell for anyone though that would be great. Apparently Brisbane Koala bushlands has grown over the years as council bought up properties and rehabilitaed them with bush habitat. As Im not at all local i have no idea about the area but thought this might be a good forum to share my experience.
best wishes to all touched by this sad sad situation.
Post a Comment
<< Home