Valerie Eastwell (Missing Person)

August 15th 1945 was a joyous occasion in Australia's history. It was the day peace was declared and six long years of war ended. As the owners of a radio set, the Eastwell family were some of the first people to hear the happy news in the small rural town of Gol Gol, located on the NSW/Victoria border. For 8 year old Valerie Eastwell the momentous events in the Pacific signalled a day off school and she was tasked with going out into the community to spread the good tidings. There were several sightings of Valerie during the morning and conflicting reports regarding when she was last seen. When Valerie failed to show up for her evening meal her parents became worried and contacted the police. Valerie has not been seen since and the investigation has flitted between different theories to explain her mysterious disappearance. The case is now the oldest missing persons case in the country. 

Transcript

Valerie Eastwell

This episode deals with a crime committed against a child. Please exercise self-care when choosing to listen.

Victory in the Pacific Day (VP Day) was celebrated in Australia on Wednesday August 15th 1945 marking the end of the Second World War. The day was met with widespread rejoicing and relief across the country, as Australians celebrated the end of six long years of war.

In major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, large crowds gathered in the streets to celebrate. There were parades, speeches, and firework displays. People danced and sang together, and there was a general sense of euphoria.

In smaller towns and rural areas, communities held their own celebrations. One such place was Gol Gol, situated in the Riverina region of New South Wales. Located on the banks of the Murray River, the small town is about 600 kilometres/370 miles west of Sydney and today has a population of around 2000.

Gol Gol is right on the border with the neighbouring state of Victoria. The nearest town, Mildura, is a couple of miles away, across the Murray River on the Victorian side of the border. The bushland surrounding Gol Gol is rough and difficult to traverse. An article in the The Daily Telegraph from September 1945 called it some of the most lonely and inaccessible backcountry in the State.

In 1945 Go Gol was home to the Eastwell family, which consisted of dad George Herbert Eastwell, age 58, mum Beatrice Amy Eastwell nee Dalton, 54 and their ten children, five girls and five boys. There was a big span of ages amongst the siblings with three of the brothers serving in the military. They lived on a 3 acre farm on what is now called Gol Gol North Road and George worked as a wood cutter and general handy man around the district. 

The Eastwells were some of the first people in Gol Gol to hear the news shortly after sunrise that the war had ended. This was because they were one of the few families that owned a radio and due to this fact they became bringers of this wonderful news to their local community. The youngest of the Eastwell children, 8 year old Valerie, was especially keen to go out on to the streets and share the good tidings.

The diminutive Valerie (middle name Dawn) was well known in the close knit community. She was easy to pick out with her thin build, auburn bobbed hair and freckled complexion. Valerie had brown eyes and had a slight twitch in her right eye which meant she would blink more than usual. At the time this was said to be down to nerves. Born on July 18th 1937, at age 8 Valerie stood at 3 foot 6, 106cm and weighed 56lbs, 25 kg.

A former schoolmate of Valerie named Tom Modica spoke to the Sunraysia Daily in 2012 about the morning of VP day 1945. He said he remembered seeing Valerie coming down the road as he was about to leave his front yard to walk to school. Valerie told him with relish that school had been cancelled that day because of the momentous events in the Pacific.

It has been difficult to piece together Valerie's movements after this incident as accounts vary. I believe that Valerie was sent by her parents to find her brother William who was working in a garden pruning vines to tell him he could take the day off.  Valerie had to cross the Gol Gol creek to do this. Several accounts then make reference to Valerie returning to the family home only to be sent out again to collect a lettuce for the family's lunch later on. The lettuce was collected from the house of the Potter family who owned and ran a market garden.

The lettuce was found at the Eastwell’s home inside a string bag hanging from the kitchen door handle. It is then believed that Valerie then went out to play with friends at the Potter family residence where she had previously collected the lettuce. Reports say Valerie was seen playing near Gol Gol creek at 11.30am. The Sydney Sun reported on August 28th that Valerie was last seen going to visit relatives in the outskirts of Mildura, 2.5 miles away 4km, and not seen after that. Only a day later in the same newspaper the story was somewhat fleshed out. Apparently Valerie was last seen playing with other children in a neighbouring house. At around midday she left saying she was going to have something to eat. Presumably if the previous account is true, she was planning on going to the relatives’ house in Mildura for food. The Daily Telegraph stated on September 2nd 1945 that Valerie was last seen together with some friends going into the bush to find poles with which to make stilts. 

A Sunraysia Daily article from September 1945 says Valerie was last seen walking between two properties neighbouring her own. In a much more recent article from the same newspaper in 2022 it is stated that Valerie's family believe after Valerie placed the lettuce on the kitchen door she headed back to the Potters’ house to play, but she never made it there and she was last seen behind the family home. I have found evidence (Sunraysia Daily September 7th 1945) that this is something the family attested to right at the beginning of the investigation.

As you can see it is very difficult to be precise and clear on Valerie's last known moments. It leads me to speculate that perhaps there were conflicting stories given to investigators by some residents of Gol Gol.

What we do know is that morning Valerie was wearing a faded navy blue school tunic, grey cardigan jacket and black shoes; she was not wearing socks. Despite the hot weather Valerie was also not wearing a hat. Valerie was first recognized as missing by her parents when she failed to return for her evening meal. It was then that worry set in and they contacted the Mildura police. 

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At first the local police thought that Valerie had more than likely wandered off and gotten lost. In such a harsh environment and unforgiving climate this could be fatal. Within the first 48 hours of Valerie being missing, a search party of 200, including car loads of volunteers, covered a 15 mile/24 km radius of Gol Gol. The Australian Air Force provided planes to search the vast terrain from above. An aboriginal tracker was also brought in for their expertise in working in such an environment.

The Age newspaper reported on August 18th 1945 that Valerie’s tracks were picked up that day. I believe these went across Gol Gol common and police followed them for five miles/8 km until darkness brought a halt to things. However there is confusion about this as it was later reported that the tracks may not have belonged to Valerie, experts were not sure if they corresponded to her black boots. In all, several different tracks were found, with one set later definitely being ruled out as belonging to Valerie.

It was reported in the press that the search was officially called off on August 26th, but a day later Detective Morely of NSW Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said the search had not been abandoned. It would go on indefinitely and inquiries would continue in the area, though he admitted hope was rapidly decreasing. The feeling amongst locals was that either a tragic accident had befallen Valerie or the little girl had been attacked by someone and her body hidden. There was no thought that she had run away of her own accord.

At this time a homicide expert from the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) in Sydney, Detective inspector Jim “The Fox”  Wiley arrived to take over leadership of  the investigation. A specialist police constable by the name of Denholm also travelled from Sydney. Denholm was a dog handler and brought with him two of his top canines, Zoe and Suri. Zoe was an almost pure white Alsatian and a very experienced tracker dog. Suri was a younger black and tan Alsatian and had already built up a reputation as an excellent scent dog.

The dogs were given Valerie's scent from a dress and other items of clothing she had worn the day before she went missing. They got quickly to work searching the wild scrub that surrounded Gol Gol. Both dogs picked up on a scent but this soon led nowhere. The more experienced dog, Zoe, worked for a full week in the brushland and on the banks of the river. On Friday August 31st Zoe got a scent near Gol Gol creek and followed it swiftly for around 270 m before giving up.

As mentioned this was an inhospitable environment with vast areas of dense lignum wood, porcupine grass and swamp land. On just one day alone, Thursday August 30th, 6000 acres were gone over. To aid matters local landowners were told to organise their own searches over their properties. Such was the difficulty of the terrain that several members of the search parties found themselves lost and it took many hours for them to be found safely.

Parts of the Murray river were dragged, as police thought Valerie may have slipped and fallen in. Two rowing boats and a motor boat went up and down the river on the lookout for any sign. Her father George disagreed with this theory as Valerie was an extremely competent swimmer and he thought a drowning accident was very unlikely.

Detective Wiley made numerous appeals and encouraged people living up to 50 miles/80 km away to come forward with any information. Police set up command posts in the Gol Gol hotel as well as the Mildura and Wentworth police staions. The public were asked to visit these locations to share information.

By the end of August weeks had passed since Valerie had been last seen and Detective Wiliey said there was little hope of finding her alive. Though police were not discounting an accident they now said they suspected foul play. This swiftly changed to investigators saying in early September that they were now convinced the little girl had been murdered. The prevailing theory was that the body had then been disposed of in Gol Gol creek which fed the swamp land that surrounded the small town. Subsequently 3 miles/5 km of the creek was pumped dry. Locals used picks and shovels to dig deep into the mud but nothing was found. It was then assumed that the killer had buried the body somewhere in the vast scrubland. With this in mind the search was extended to concentrate on an area of scrubland near the township of Buronga, Victoria. This was 2 miles/3 km from Mildura. 

The prevailing thought amongst those who had been out looking for Valerie was that if she had gotten lost or had an accident the body would have been found by now. They had always suspected murder. The Eastwell family likewise had always been sceptical about the initial theory that Valerie had wandered off and become lost. Valerie's mother Beatrice said her youngest daughter was scared of the bush and would not have gone willingly into it alone. However Valerie's father George was also unconvinced that his daughter would have gone off with a stranger. There was local talk that perhaps she had been picked up by someone driving a car. 58 year old George, who had barely slept since Valerie's disappearance, did not think this likely as he said his daughter was intelligent and would not have got into a car with someone she did not know. This obviously leaves the question, if she was taken by someone, did she know the person? 

George was determined to find out what had happened to his daughter. The indefatigable father was quoted in the Truth newspaper as saying, quote, “while there’s an ounce of strength in my body I’ll be searching, even if it takes me until doomsday”.

The investigation carried on at pace, with various leads and clues cropping up. What looked like child's foot marks were traced from near Valerie's home in Gol Gol to scrubland 8 miles/13 km away in Tapio District  Mallee County, NSW. A search party of 300 people was formed to check out these reports. Police dogs Zoe and Suri were again deployed in this operation. Another search took place 25 miles/40 km northwest of Mildura. In an area stretching for 3 miles/5 km every square metre was gone over. This was the roughest of all the terrain as it was extremely dry. Searchers were told to be looking for signs of a hurriedly dug grave.

Eventually the focal point of the search returned to the area surrounding Gol Gol. In particular the 12 acres of lignum scrub that were situated close to the town. A tractor was used to mark out a grid and every cm was gone over. Any soil that looked recently disturbed was checked out. The flight of crows was watched carefully in case their movements gave away the location of a body. 

Plaster casts were taken of footmarks found near Valerie's home which were said to go towards the 1200 acre Ligum swamp that lay 5 miles/8 km from Gol Gol. When I first came across this fact I assumed they were footprints believed to belong to Valerie. This was not the case. The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate states the footprints belonged to a man.

In early September a report came in to say that on August 15th, the day Valerie went missing, screams were heard on Swan Hill Road, near Wentworth. This is on the NSW side of the border situated 11 miles/17 km from Mildura. The ear witness was in their car when they heard what sounded like the screams of a child coming from bushland that ran alongside the road. This news led to the biggest search yet.

Not long after this, train passengers reported seeing something looking like a child's body laying in a field near Ouyen, Victoria. This location is 70 miles/112 km from Gol Gol. The passengers caught a glimpse of the object from their carriage as the train passed. Nothing came of either of these reports.

In a bid to keep Valerie's story at the forefront of people's mind a reward fund was established. A local woman, Mrs S Kennon, the owner of Tammit station, a large farm in Euston, NSW, put up £100 for information about the missing girl. Soon other business owners followed and contributed more money. The fund doubled to £200. This is the equivalent today of $18,000 Australian dollars. The state government followed and also put up a reward of £200.

Yet another lead had to be checked out when a report reached the police that a young girl matching Valerie's description was seen with an elderly man near Coomealla on or around August 18th-20th. That's between three and five days after Valerie was last seen. This sighting was made by passengers travelling on a bus. Coomealla lies in NSW 11 miles/18 km northwest of Gol Gol. Police checked this out but could find no evidence that Valerie had ever been in the area. The girl believed to have been seen by the bus passengers was similar in appearance to Valerie but was not her.

As none of the sightings or potential leads were panning out the press were increasingly asking questions about the police handling of the investigation. The accusation levelled at the police was that they had been too slow in responding to the situation. By first focusing on the theory that Valerie had wandered off and gotten lost they had potentially missed a lot of clues. By the time the experts from Sydney had arrived the whole scene had been trampled on by dozens of well meaning volunteers. There had also been a dust storm which had whipped up the loose red sandy soil and caused havoc. By the time the tracker dogs Zoe and Suri were brought in the trail was already cold.

Confusion had also arisen due to the fact that both Victoria and NSW police had been involved in the case and it was unclear who should be taking the lead. Although Gol Gol is in NSW it had been the Mildura police, situated across the Murray river in Victoria, that the Eatswells had first contacted to report their child missing. A delay occurred when the Mildura police travelled 20 miles/32 km to the town of Wentworth to let the NSW police know what was happening.

The Truth newspaper, September 9th 1945, also claimed that some clues had been ignored and specifially mentioned a set of bicycle tyre marks that were found going into and leaving the swamp. The tracks coming out of the swamp were lighter, indicating a heavy load had been disposed of. According to the Sunraysia Daily on September 7th the bike tracks went from the swamp to a collection of sandhills. They then became undetectable when the ground became hard. This process had been made all the more difficult because of other bike tracks left by those in the search parties.

This aforementioned article in Truth also makes mention of another series of screams that were heard near Valerie's home on the afternoon she went missing, that police were never able to get to the bottom of. There was concern amongst some journalists that the police were going to stop the investigation and put the mysterious disappearance down to Valerie having had a fatal accident.

That being said, the search did continue for a while. A famed aboriginal tracker Sgt tracker Riley and his son arrived in Gol Gol to see if they could shed light on what had happened to Valerie. They examined tracks that led away from Gol Gol and were thought could belong to Valerie. This was a tough task even for experienced trackers considered to be the best in the world as five weeks had now passed. 

Hopes were briefly raised with the sighting of a girl 120 miles/200 km away in Hopetown, Victoria. However, Melbourne Detectives were quickly able to ascertain that it was not Valerie. 

By December 1945 the police detectives including Detective Wiley had all returned to Sydney. The search for Valerie had spanned a 30 mile/50 km radius of Gol Gol but nothing had been found. The police were satisfied that Valerie must have gotten lost and perished somewhere in the remote outback. Perhaps the swamp had swallowed up the body, concealing it forever. Investigators had developed no theories concerning a potential abduction and murder. They had been passed many ideas, some of which were quite odd and outlandish, but in their eyes had seen no evidence for any of them. There were many local rumours and speculation concerning Valerie's disappearance which I will come back to later on but at that juncture the Eastwell family were left to continue the search on their own. 

Over the next couple of years there were no major developments in the case other than that the reward fund grew to a little over £400 thanks to two generous local residents. Due to the efforts of the family the search area expanded to a 36 mile radius. CIB headquarters in Sydney had not closed the case and publicly said they would still investigate new reports if and when they arose. 

On a Sunday afternoon in November 1948 Harry Barker (sometimes called Baker) and his 15 year old brother-in law Jack Robertson (sometimes called Robinson) were fishing for Murray cod, a large predatory Australian fish, 3-4 miles/6 km upstream from Gol Gol on the Victorian side of the Murray river. All of a sudden they hooked a heavy object which then slipped off the line as they attempted to reel it in. When they brought the hook out of the water they found five light brown to auburn hairs around 7.5 cm long attached to the hook. At the time they thought no more about it and left the hairs on the river bank. 

The following Wednesday they were reminded of the story of missing child Valerie Eastwell. They knew the little girl had auburn hair and so Jack told his father about what they had fished out of the river. Jack’s dad contacted the police straight away.

The police instantly got to work. Detective Morley and Detective Sgt Mills  of Deniliquin, NSW arrived in Gol Gol. Harry and Jack accompanied the detectives to the spot and the hairs they had fished out were still lying on the river back where they had left them. 

On hearing this news Valerie’s father George Eastwell was on tenterhooks. Despite the police claiming his daughter fell victim to an accident he had always believed she had been murdered. 

A police diver was sent to search the part of the river where the hairs were found. They found no trace of a body and there were said to be no snags or shelves under the water that could trap a body. Searches nearby did turn up a small felt bag, part of a women's handkerchief and a piece of material from a shirt but they were all determined to be unrelated to the case. 

Sgt Mills and a Detective from Wentworth police used a fishing rod near the spot and they themselves hooked a heavy object. They believed it to be a log. 

The auburn hairs were sent to a forensic lab for analysis. A week or so later the results came back confirming the hairs were not human and likely came from the tail of a horse. Though I have also heard it may have been marine growth.

It was yet another lead that went nowhere.

Five years later, in 1953, Valerie's story reappeared in the print media. It seemed the police were now exploring the possibility that Valerie had been murdered. I'm unsure what happened to change their mind but police confirmed there was a man they were quote “keeping a watch on”. They believed this person could tell them something about what happened to Valerie. The person was not named and it is unclear if the person lived in the Gol Gol area. 

Exactly a year later in August 1954 a notorious sex offender serving time in Pentridge Gaol, Melbourne, was questioned about Valerie's disappearance. He came to the attention of investigators during his incarceration, so it may be that he bragged to a fellow inmate about his involvement in the crime, though that is just pure speculation on my part. It looks like the man was uncooperative and would not talk openly with investigators with the prison wardens present. What information they were able to get out of him was said to be inconclusive. Detectives from Melbourne and Sydney CIB met with the man when he was released a short time later. Unfortunately the detectives were still not able to get anything useful 28.19 out of him.

At this time it was reported in the press that police believed Valerie had been murdered and then buried. The latest theory was that she had been abducted and transported by car to somewhere miles away where she was murdered. It was believed this had been done by someone passing through the town travelling along the Stewart highway which ran through Gol Gol. 

Almost two decades  passed before Valerie's case came to the fore yet again. In late October or early November 1972 A farmer working his fields 45 miles/72 km northeast of Gol Gol near Bal Catherine, south western NSW, came across a grim discovery. As he was disc ploughing a paddock the broken earth revealed a human skeleton and it was obvious it was that of a child.

The location was near the Darling River and ancient Aboriginal remains had been found in the region in the past. At first it was thought this was the likely scenario. However testing by police pathologists carried out on the bones said the skeleton was that of a white female aged between 8 and 12. This led to police saying publicly that it could be the remains of missing Valerie Eastwell. 

I'm unsure how long it took but an article in The Sunraysia Daily from 2015 says the skeleton was eventually eliminated as being Valerie. 

Many years after Valerie's disappearance,(possibly in the 1960’s, though I can’t be sure of the exact date) a man from Swan Hill contacted the Eastwell family (I think this is the town of Swan Hill situated over two hours away from Gol Gol as opposed to Swan Hill road where a child's screams were reported). The man claimed that Valerie was alive and well and living in Melbourne with a family of her own. This was ultimately put down to a cruel prank when it was found that the man was using fake licence plates on his car. His motivation for coming up with this story is unknown.

For decades the case stayed dormant, until 2010 when a  local journalist Janelle Lee looked into what had happened to Valerie. She worked closely with the surviving members of the Eastwell family to write a piece for the Mildura Weekly about Valerie. During the course of her research Janelle Lee discovered to her shock that Valerie was no longer listed as a missing person with the police. (NSW or Victoria police). Examining the police archives it appeared that the last entry listing Valerie as a missing person was way back in 1952.

65 years after that fateful day in August 1945 Janelle, together with two of Valerie's nieces, sisters Lynette Pitt and Jenny Cummings, had the surreal experience of attending a police station to rereport Valerie as missing. Following this there was talk that a coronial inquest would soon follow, which might finally provide some answers for the family. From my research it does not appear that this ever happened.

2021 saw a new drive by Australian Federal police to help solve hundreds of missing person cases. A new state of the art facility was built in Canberra to analyse 850 sets of unidentified human remains and attempt to link them with the 2600 missing persons case currently open across Australia. This move followed on from work carried out the previous year by the National DNA program for unidentified and missing persons who had audited and catalogued the unidentified remains.

Using craniofacial reconstruction and forensic genealogy it was hoped some of these cases could at last be solved. The oldest missing persons case on the list was Valerie Eastwell. Anyone who may be related to one of the 2600 missing person cases was asked to come forward to give a DNA sample, though in Valerie's case they already had family DNA on record.

George Eastwell passed away in October 1961 followed by his wife Beatrice in August 1973. By 2021 all of Valerie's nine siblings had also passed but Valerie's last surviving brother and sister had both provided DNA samples in 2016. This could one day prove pivotal in providing some closure in this case. 

Valerie's nieces, Lynette Pitt and Jenny Cummings, remain committed to honouring their aunt's memory and hope that at least some of Valerie's remains will one day be found. In a Sunraysia Daily article from 2022 they share their belief that Valerie’s remains are close to the old family home in Gol Gol. This they say is something the family have always suspected. 

I mentioned earlier that there was a lot of speculation and rumour amongst the community in the aftermath of Valerie's disappearance. The nieces mention there was local talk concerning a teenager who left the area in the days immediately following their sisters disappearance. They don’t name this teenager, who if still alive would be in their 90’s. They say that it would be wrong to point fingers and accuse someone without any definitive proof. 

In modern times Gol Gol has experienced a large amount of development and this is only set to increase in the years ahead. It is hoped that perhaps one day a worker or mechanical digger may unearth Valerie’s remains. The story continues to be shared so businesses involved in such operations will be vigilant when carrying out work in the vicinity. It could well be that the answers to this decades old mystery still lie in the town of Gol Gol, and at some point they will come to the surface.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Valerie Eastwell in August 1945 you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 1800 333 000.  

Sources: https://tinyurl.com/ju4pnpd2