Shortcut: Main Suspect in Rachelle Childs Cold Case Found Dead

Summary

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Australian True Crime – Shortcut: Main Suspect in Rachelle Childs Cold Case Found Dead

Host: Meshel Laurie (Australian True Crime)
Guest: Ashley Hanson (Journalist, Host of Dear Rochelle podcast)
Release Date: July 27, 2025

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Overview

This episode revisits one of Australia's haunting unsolved murders: the 2001 killing of 23-year-old Rochelle Childs. Journalist Ashley Hanson, who has been investigating the case for her podcast "Dear Rochelle," joins from Thailand with breaking news—the main person of interest, Kevin Carell (born Kevin Stephen Cornwall), has been found dead in Phuket. The episode delves into Carell’s troubled past, suspicious circumstances, and the devastating impact his death has had on Rochelle’s family and the pursuit of justice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background of the Rochelle Childs Case

• Rochelle Childs, 23, was murdered in June 2001; her burned body was found 100+ km from home (03:26).
• For 24 years, the case was unsolved; recent investigations zeroed in on her former boss, Kevin Carell.

2. Kevin Carell: The Main Suspect

• History: Born Kevin Stephen Cornwall, later changed his name to Kevin Carell after being acquitted of several sexual assault cases in the 1980s (05:09).
• Relationship: Hired Childs at a used car sales office—had an infatuation and treated her favourably.
• Suspicious Circumstances:
  • Carell was among the last to see Rochelle alive (05:09).
  • Made rumours about Rochelle posthumously, discrediting her character (08:34).
  • Declined to help in searches after her disappearance (10:35).
  • Hard evidence includes suspicious mobile phone records contradicting his alibi (14:51).

3. Crime Scene Anomalies

• Car Found: Rochelle’s car was found parked near a local hotel in a way she would not have set the seat or wheel lock (05:09).
• Body Discovery: Rochelle was found partially naked and burned, indicating a sexually motivated homicide (10:35).

4. Red Herrings & Other Persons of Interest

• Connection with Local Biker Gang:
  • Rochelle knew Sash, a senior Rebels bikie, but police found no evidence linking her to criminal activities (08:34).
  • Rumours about her drug dealing were primarily spread by Carell, believed to be fabrication (08:34).

5. Suspicious Evidence Against Carell

• Mobile Phone Activity:
  • Carell’s claimed alibi (shopping in Campbelltown) was contradicted by phone pings near Rochelle’s home (14:51).
  • At 6:08pm the night Rochelle vanished, he made a call to a number nearly identical to hers (last two digits switched), which he later denied remembering (14:51).

    “His alibi is that he left work and went shopping at Campbelltown, but his phone pinged in another area... at a really key and a really important time in the evening, around the time that Rachelle disappeared.” – Ashley Hanson, 14:59

6. Carell’s Death in Thailand

• Circumstances:
  • Died of a heart attack in Patong, Phuket; police ruled out foul play (16:52, 17:21).
  • Last seen with two women from a local bar; they reported his illness to hotel security (17:21).

    “He died of natural causes inside his hotel room in Patong, just a few hundred metres from the red light district.” – Ashley Hanson, 16:52

  • Post-mortem confirmed cardiac arrest; found unresponsive at 10 am, July 18th.

7. Impact on Rochelle’s Family & The Investigation

• Family’s Response:
  • Devastated by the loss of the main suspect, fearing justice will never be served (18:15).

    “They believe that justice may not be possible now, because they really wanted whoever was responsible…to be charged. So they're gutted about that.” – Ashley Hanson, 18:19

• Police Statement:
  • The investigation remains open, and the case was recently reopened prior to Carell’s death.

8. Carell’s Estrangement and Daughter’s Statement

• Family Estrangement:
  • Carell was estranged from most family by the time of his death.
  • His daughter publicly stated she feels no sympathy and believes justice was denied to victims (19:10).

    “In her heart, she's always believed that her father was responsible for Rochelle's murder. For me, as a journalist, I think that's a pretty big call when your own daughter believes that you're a killer.” – Ashley Hanson, 19:23

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Difficulty for the Childs Family:

  "It's another blow in this tragic, tragic case, but we're going to continue to search for the truth." – Ashley Hanson, 18:19

• On the Rumours Spread by Carell:

  "You have to ask yourself, and police did, why was he making up these rumours about her, this man who previously had treated her so well..." – Host, 10:24

• On the Phone Evidence:

  “His alibi is that he left work and went shopping at Campbelltown, but his phone pinged in another area... That phone call in itself is very suspicious.” – Ashley Hanson, 14:59

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Key Timestamps

• [05:09]: Ashley Hanson outlines Kevin Carell’s background, criminal history, and connection to Rochelle.
• [08:34]: Discussion on Rochelle’s social circle, relationship with bikies, and Carell’s deflection.
• [10:35]: Grisly details of the crime and Carell’s lack of action after the disappearance.
• [14:51]: Presentation of phone record evidence against Carell.
• [16:52]: Details surrounding Carell’s death in Thailand and police findings.
• [18:19]: Emotional toll on the Childs family and continued efforts for justice.
• [19:10]: Carell’s daughter’s statement and belief in her father’s guilt.

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Summary

This episode delivers a riveting, emotionally charged exploration into the latest developments of Rochelle Childs' cold case. Ashley Hanson meticulously recounts the timeline, evidence, and chilling background of the main suspect, Kevin Carell. His sudden death before any charges could be laid leaves Rochelle's family feeling defeated, but the investigation remains open. The revelations, especially involving Carell’s behaviour and his own daughter's damning belief in his guilt, underscore the tragedy and complexity of unresolved violence in quiet Australian communities.

Listeners are encouraged to seek support if distressed by the content, with resources provided at episode’s end.

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Transcript

[Host of Australian True Crime]

Before we begin today's episode of Australian True Crime, I want to tell you about a new project we've been working on behind the scenes. It's called she Matters. It's a new podcast from award winning journalist and femicide researcher Sherrelle Moody. Each week Sherrelle speaks with families of women and children killed in Australia, sharing who they were, the joy they brought, and the love they left behind. She Matters isn't a true crime podcast. It's about lives lived, lives loved, and lives lost. She Matters is produced by Dash Made Podcasts in association with bravecasting Media. She Matters is available wherever you get your podcasts.

A couple of months ago we spoke to journalist Ashley Hanson about her upcoming podcast called Dear Rochelle. It was going to be a deep dive into the unsolved 2001 murder of 23 year old Rochelle Childs, whose charred remains were found in a shallow ditch near Jarowa in country New South Wales. Ashley's investigation has come a long way since then. Over recent months, she and her team had zeroed in on one person of interest, Rachelle's former boss, Kevin Carell. Well, Carell was found dead last week in a hotel room in Thailand. Ashley Hansen is now in Thailand following the story and she joins us on Australian True Crime with the latest. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

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[Ashley Hanson]

Kevin Stephen Currell well, he was the key suspect in the unsolved murder of 23 year old Rochelle Childs who was killed in 2001 and her murder has gone unsolved for 24 years. We were taking a really good look at him along with other persons of interest in the case for the last 18 months. Towards the end of the investigation, he became the main focus because of the suspicious circumstances. His lies his very troubling background and that's why we focused on him so heavily. Then last week, suddenly he died on a holiday in Phuket, Thailand. He's never ever admitted to any of the terrible crimes that he's been accused of. And we're talking about four allegations of sexual assault. One included attempted sexual assault, two counts of rape against other women, women that he didn't know back in the early 1980s and then he went on to change his name. So he was born Kevin Stephen Cornwall and then after being acquitted of four sexual assault matters in courts in front of juries over a four year period, then he decided to change his name. He changed it to Kevin Carell and he went on really undetected for the next 20 years. And he was the manager of the used car sales office that Rochelle was working in and he hired her. And there's no doubts that he had a fascination with her. Some would describe it as and infatuation. He was very much, treated her very favourably, gave her any used car she wanted to use off the lot. Rochelle was just a lovable, really outgoing person that was really popular. She was single at the time in 2001, in June when she was killed. And it all stems from June 7th in 2001. There's missing, there's a missing nine hours as to what happened to her. She basically vanished just after 5 o', clock, just after she left work. Kevin Carell was one of the last people to see her alive and there are a lot, just a lot of suspicious circumstances that link him to the crime and link him to her disappearance. And later on in the early hours of the Friday morning, the following day, her burning body was found at Juroa, which is over 100 kilometres away from her home in Bargo. And mysteriously, her car, which is a distinctive blue old Holden that was found parked outside out the back of the Bargo Hotel. So police and her family strongly believe that Rochelle didn't drive, wasn't the last person to drive her car because the steering wheel lock was put on in a way that she didn't put it on. The seat was also positioned in a way that she wasn't known to drive. It's said that she probably wouldn't have been able to reach the pedals the way that the seat was found.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

Through her work and her social life and just living in that small community, she knew people in all walks of life and she knew a lot of people around the community.

[Ashley Hanson]

Yeah, she did. And she had, she did know Sash, who was a senior Member of the Rebels motorcycle gang who also owned a car yard in Bargo. Now she was working in Camden, but she was obviously living in Bargo and just through the wheeling and dealing of car parts and cars and all that kind of stuff. She knew Sash and Sasha had, you know, did a recording with the Dear Rochelle podcast and he spoke about how, yeah, he, she was friendly. He was ringing her about a calf that he was trying to purchase for his wife. So he was one of the last people to try and contact her on the Thursday afternoon. But she wasn't there when he rang. She'd already left. So he was a person of interest and he was scrutinised, as you could imagine, being a senior member of the, you know, the Rebels Bikies. But it was more so the red herrings that were put into the mix and they all came back to. A lot of them came back to Kevin because he started discrediting her character and started talking about rumours and spreading them that she'd been dealing drugs for the bikies. And there wasn't any evidence of that that police found. She wasn't dealing drugs, she wasn't a member of the Bikies. She'd mentioned to a friend, one or two people perhaps, that she had been invited to go to a Rebels clubhouse party, which was kind of a bit of a thing back then. In small country towns, it wasn't unusual just to get invited. You didn't have to be a member to go. So I think it was just such a long bow to draw that she was this, you know, drug dealing bikie. And that's the. That's certainly the rumour that Kevin was peddling. And you. So you have to ask yourself, and police did, why was he making up these rumours about her, this man who.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

Previously had treated her so well and obviously doted on her at work and spoiled her a bit at work and. Yeah, why was he now, after her death, telling awful stories about her.

[Ashley Hanson]

Exactly. And why didn't he help to look for her? Because her parents and her friends were frantically trying to find her in the hours after her disappearance because she didn't turn up to work on the Friday she wasn't supposed to work on the Friday she was rostered off. But she was supposedly coming in to collect a Walkinshaw, which is a really fancy Holden car back in the day, you know, a muscle car, and she was supposedly being loaned one by Kevin Carell on the June long weekend, and she was killed on the Thursday leading up to the dune long weekend. So she'd told her friend Fiona that worked at the car yard. She was a receptionist there. She said to her, I'll see you on Friday because I'm coming in to collect the car, the Walkinshaw, and they were maybe gonna have lunch or something like that. So when she didn't turn up to work, Fiona started becoming concerned and there was no phone contact with any of her loved ones on the Friday. And that's when the search for her started to really ramp up because Fiona went to her house and she wasn't there, but the lights were on and you know, the dog hadn't been fed. So people, people started to panic because they couldn't find her and they couldn't find her car, they couldn't contact her. In the days that followed, it was confirmed that her burning body had been found at Juroa. She was semi naked. So from very early on they were treating it as a sexually motivated homicide. Petrol was poured on her. Just horrendous, you know, that someone could do that to anyone.

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[Ashley Hanson]

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[Host of Australian True Crime]

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[Ashley Hanson]

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[Ashley Hanson]

So there's all these. It's just such a volume of circumstantial evidence that connects him to Rochelle's murder.

[Paige de Sorbo]

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[Ashley Hanson]

And there is a piece of hard evidence, and that is his mobile phone records. Because on the night of the murder, he. His alibi is that he left work and he went shopping at Campbelltown, but his phone pinged in another area. His phone pinged closer to Rochelle's home. His phone pinged around the Tamor area, which is on the way to Bargo, which is the last known place that Rochelle was. So that phone call in itself is very suspicious. Why did he lie about that phone call? It wasn't only just that that phone call was made in another area. Why was he at a really key and a really important time in the evening, you know, around the time that Rachelle disappeared? Why is he lying about where he was? And also, interestingly, that phone call at 6:08 that he made was Rachelle's number except for the last two digits that were switched around. And when he was initially interviewed by police, he said, oh, no, I didn't call her. And then he had to be reminded, well, actually you did call her or you attempted to call her, because at 608, these are your mobile phone records. And then he said, oh, maybe I did. I don't know what I would have been calling her about. And the phone call connected to Queensland because as I said, it wasn't her. It was a wrong, you know, a wrong number. It wasn't exactly her number, but what are the chances, right? I mean, it's her mobile number with the last two digits switched around. And this is back in the time when you would use your big brick and put in the number manually and.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

Obviously police have spoken, I'm assuming, to whomever the call connected with.

[Ashley Hanson]

And yeah, they did an interview with him and he didn't know why he was receiving this call.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

What can you tell us about Kevin Carell being in Thailand? What were the circumstances around that?

[Ashley Hanson]

Well, it's. Thailand's a place where he used to frequent because he just really liked the locals here and really liked coming over here. Phuket. He was known to frequent the red light district. Police have ruled that his death was a heart attack. He died of natural causes inside his hotel room in Patong, just a few hundred metres from the red light district of Phuket.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

It tracks, Ash, it tracks.

[Ashley Hanson]

Look, a lot of people would say it's. It's fitting, really, that he was found, you know, being helped and by home, by two Thai women who had been at a bar with him earlier that night and he'd complained of chest pain. And they recall him looking just really unwell. So they suggested he go back to his hotel. They took him back to the hotel and they even were so concerned for him, they told the security guard and said, here's my number, we're worried about Kevin. And he then didn't show up for anything the next day. No one could get a hold of him. And his body was found at 10am on Friday 18th July. Post mortem has been conducted and the cause of his death was a cardiac arrest. So there are no suspicious circumstances around his death.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

What's been the reaction of Rachelle's family to his death?

[Ashley Hanson]

Look, they're just gutted because they believe that justice may not be possible now, because they really wanted whoever was responsible for Rachelle's murder to be charged. So they're gutted about that and they're devastated that this fight that they've been having for all of these years, since Rochelle was brutally murdered, they may never get justice now. So that's a really hard pill for them to swallow. It's another blow in this tragic, tragic case, but we're going to continue to search for the truth. The police are still investigating. They reopened the case into Rochelle's murder back in January. They've said since Kevin Carell's death that they'll continue to investigate it.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

And I read that his daughter released an intriguing statement. The story I'm reading says that he was estranged from most of his family by the time of his death. She says she feels no sympathy, saying justice was denied to victims.

[Ashley Hanson]

She's sad for his family. Very complex relationship that she had with her father and she just hoped that she would get some sort of deathbed confession because in her heart she's always believed that her father was responsible for Rochelle's murder. So that, for me, as a journalist, I think that's a pretty big call when your own daughter believes that you're a killer.

[Host of Australian True Crime]

Thank you to Ashley Hanson and for more background on this story, you can download Dear Rochelle wherever you get your podcasts.

If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org AU. Indigenous Australians can contact 313 YARN on 139276 or 13 yarn.org AU.

[Podcast Producer/Narrator]

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded.

[Ashley Hanson]

They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders.

[Podcast Producer/Narrator]

Past, present and those emerging.

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