The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron - Episode 1

Summary

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Casefile True Crime: The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron - Episode 1

Date: December 13, 2025
Host: Casefile Presents
Writer & Host (featured series): Vicky Petraitis

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Episode Overview

This episode launches the ten-part investigative series “The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron,” an in-depth exploration of the infamous 1986 Phillip Island case: the brutal murder of Beth Barnard and the subsequent disappearance of prime suspect Vivienne Cameron. Hosted by true crime author Vicky Petraitis, the first installment lays out the background, key players, and the community’s tangled web of loyalties and secrets.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Background of the Case

• Setting: Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia, in the mid-1980s—a tight-knit rural community of about 4,000 people.
• Incident: On September 23, 1986, 23-year-old farmhand Beth Barnard was found murdered. Her boss, Fergus Cameron, was the last to see her alive. His wife, Vivienne Cameron—estranged and aware of Fergus's affair with Beth—became the prime suspect but disappeared the day the body was found. Her car was found abandoned near the Phillip Island Bridge.

“It's a complex, haunting mystery that continues to raise more questions than it answers.”
— Casey, Host [06:56]

Revisiting the Story & Author’s Connection

• Vicky Petraitis introduces herself as a seasoned true crime author, co-author of the original book on the case, and describes her motivation and initial roadblocks in researching and writing about the tragedy.
  • She recalls being inspired to investigate after hearing about the emotional aftermath of Vivienne’s childhood trauma and her family's attempt to prevent similar outcomes by supporting programs for children of divorce.
  • Early on, Petraitis faced community resistance, with many islanders—particularly allies of the Cameron family—unwilling to participate, while friends of Vivienne and Beth hoped the story might spur answers.

“The truth of this case, the Phillip Island murder, is that we may never know any more than we know now. But of course, the hope for this podcast is that someone out there knows something that could make a difference and that they will come forward.”
— Vicky Petraitis [12:40]

Portraits of Vivienne Cameron

• Vivienne Cameron is remembered as compassionate, intelligent, and deeply involved in the community, notably as a founding member of the Community House supportive of women.
  • Challenges: Vivian felt isolated as a “farmer’s wife” and struggled with fitting into the prominent Cameron family.
  • Strained Marriage: Friends describe her as loving but under pressure, increasingly lonely, and unhappy as her marriage unraveled.
  • Desire for Self-improvement: She took riding lessons and joined Toastmasters to boost her confidence.
  • Motherhood: Vivienne deeply loved her two young sons and was committed to their well-being, seeking marriage guidance on her own after Fergus refused to participate.

“I think she wanted to burst out and be something really good and better and heard of in the community. But she seemed to be suppressed as if she was living under a bit of a thumb.”
— Vivienne’s Friend [14:36]

Fergus Cameron & Community Dynamics

• Fergus Cameron is painted as charismatic but withdrawn, with the marriage described as deteriorating over time. He had a clear preference for Beth, triggering Vivian's growing distress.
  • He admitted to a long work schedule and a dwindling relationship, both emotionally and physically, with Vivienne.
  • The love triangle became common knowledge, intensifying community gossip and speculation.

“I could tell that she felt rejected and I tried to compensate by doing all the things a loving husband should do, such as making her feel comfortable and making her wanted and needed in other ways.”
— Fergus Cameron statement [20:51]

Vivienne’s Awareness & the Love Triangle

• Vivienne was not ignorant of her husband’s affair. Friends and family noted her efforts to “compete” with Beth and improve herself.
• Beth Barnard herself tried to leave the situation, securing a job off-island, but was convinced by Fergus to stay; they resumed the affair despite mounting tension.
• Emotional Violence: Notable is an incident where Vivienne physically attacked Fergus after he arrived home late from a party at Beth’s, highlighting the emotional toll on both women.

“Vivien Cameron confided to me that she was concerned about her husband and the long hours... On or about 4 June 1986... she told me of her concern about the relationship between her husband and Beth Barnard... she said that she had been so anxious that one time, in desperation, she telephoned Lifeline for help.”
— Marnie Cairns (Sister-in-law), via Vicky Petraitis [21:41]

Who Was Beth Barnard?

• Beth was described as energetic, cheerful, and beloved among the “Blokes Island” crowd of Phillip Island. She formed close friendships with locals, bonded over horses, and volunteered for wildlife causes (e.g., helping orphaned penguins).
• Her relationships with men (including Fergus) made her a figure of both admiration and envy within the community.

“Beth was such an outgoing person and she new to the island and she was a bubbly young 20 year. It was, I don't want to say that a new toy to be played with. It wasn't like that... There’s a New person here, let's get to know them. They're interesting.”
— Graham Bergin [35:35]

The Gradual Tragedy

• The episode traces, with compassion and detail, the slow and painful collapse of Vivienne and Fergus’s marriage and Beth’s struggle to navigate her own involvement.
• Both women’s stories are told through the recollections of friends, family, and Fergus’s own statements, highlighting the emotional complexities and unanswered questions.
• The community remains haunted, and relatives/friends still hope for closure, underscoring the enduring mystery at the core of the case.

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Memorable Quotes

• “She was a passionate advocate for other women on the island.”
  — Vicky Petraitis [13:29]

• “She more than contributed.”
  — Vivienne’s Friend on Vivienne as mother and farmer [17:58]

• “She was just a really genuine woman who just appeared as though she wanted to better herself and fit in more with the community.”
  — Wendy Orchard [19:10]

• “If it wasn't Beth, it would probably have been someone else.”
  — Reported by Marnie Cairns [21:41]

• “I don't think that it was an easy conversation... there was no sense of exuberance or enthusiasm... I thought, this is strange.”
  — Vivienne’s Friend [31:39]

• “She was very loyal... we used to put the horses in the float and go down to the beach at Cape Woolemai and ride along the Wollemai beach.”
  — Wendy Orchard on Beth Barnard [38:36]

• “There was certainly no partying... because we were all too tired by the time we spent two or three hours after the penguin parade feeding baby penguins. That was just something she got all her friends involved in.”
  — Wendy Orchard [39:51]

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Notable Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction to Case & Podcast Series — [05:42-08:18]
• Vicky Petraitis Background, Motivation, and Early Obstacles — [08:18-12:40]
• Vivienne Cameron: Personality, Struggles, Social Standing — [13:29-18:38]
• Insight into Vivienne’s Emotions and Actions Leading Up to Tragedy — [19:10-23:20]
• Fergus Cameron’s Perspective and Stress Points in Marriage — [20:51-21:41], [29:20-30:29]
• Beth Barnard: Personality, Social Environment, Relationships — [35:35-39:32]
• Key Clashes and Breakdown of the Love Triangle — [41:04-44:32]
• Attempts to Escape Relationship and Its Pull — [44:32-45:58]
• Lead-in to the Night of the Crime — [45:58-46:21]

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Conclusion & Teaser

The episode not only illuminates the personal histories of Vivienne and Beth, but also frames the enduring uncertainty and division within the community. The complexity, pain, and unresolved nature of the case are at the heart of the narrative, making it clear why the story still captivates, haunts, and divides even decades later.

“The hope for this podcast is that someone out there knows something that could make a difference and that they will come forward.”
— Vicky Petraitis [12:40]

Listeners are encouraged to seek out the full series for further investigation, and the next episode promises to delve deeper into the days and emotions leading to the crime.

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Note: This summary omits advertisements, introductions, and sponsor messages, focusing solely on the narrative content.

Transcript

[Vicky Petraitis]

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[Casey]

This episode is brought to you by Gab. It's that time of year again. The holidays are coming fast and if your kids are anything like mine, that list is already getting pretty long. And let's be honest, some of the things on that list make us stop and think like a smartphone what makes me nervous about kids having phones isn't the screen time. It's everything they can stumble across online. There's so much out there they're not ready for and once they see it, you can't take it back. It's scary how easily they can end up in those corners of the Internet without even meaning to. I just want my child to feel connected and included without being exposed to all that too soon. That's why I was so relieved when I found Gab. Gab offers phones and watches made just for kids. No Internet, no social media and just the right features for their age. Kids want phones to feel independent and connected. As parents, we want to know they're safe. With Gab, you can have both and protect them from the scary stuff with Gab's tech in Steps approach Kids get the right tech at the right time for from watches with GPS tracking for the youngest explorers, to the perfect first phone with no Internet or social media to the teen phone with parent approved apps. So get ready for a Christmas morning they'll never forget the one where they get their first phone. And really, it's a gift for you too, because these kidsafe phones will give you peace of mind. Visit gab.comcasefile and use code casefile for a special holiday offer. That's gabb.com casefile gab tecnsteps independence for them Peace of mind for you. Hi, it's Casey here. As you probably know by now, Casefile will be back with all new episodes in March 2026 for what will be our 10th year. We will also be releasing some bonus content and other things to mark the occasion and so keep an eye out for that. But earlier this year you might have noticed that we released the first episodes of some of the Casefile Presents shows we've produced in the Casefile feed. The decision to do so came after I learnt something surprising while talking with people at our live events. Many Casefile listeners had no idea that we produce other shows outside of Casefile, and some had never even heard of Casefile Presents. It dawned on me that if someone is a big enough supporter of our show to come to a live event but hasn't heard of our production company, then clearly we need to do a better job of highlighting the other stories we've put so much care and work into. For those who don't know, Casefile Presents is our broader production platform. While Casefile is our flagship show, we've also created a number of other podcasts under the Casefile Presents banner. Our level of involvement differs from project to project, but we've played a direct role in all of them. Today we're sharing another one of those shows, the Vanishing of Vivienne CAMERON Back in 2018, we covered this case on Casefile as Case 80, Beth Barnard. But this 10 part series goes far deeper. It's a long form investigation written and hosted by Vicky Petradis who co authored the Phillip Island Murder, the book that first brought this story to public attention. The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron revisits the events of that night in 1986 when 23 year old Beth Barnard was found brutally murdered and 35 year old Vivienne Cameron, who was the prime suspect in Beth's murder, disappeared without a trace. Across 10 episodes, Vicky examines the women at the centre of the case, the evidence, the forensics, the witness accounts, the and the many conflicting stories that have shaped public opinion for nearly 40 years. It's a complex, haunting mystery that continues to raise more questions than it answers. We're releasing the first episode here on the Casefile feed. You can find the full 10 part series by searching for the Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron. Wherever you get your podcasts now, here's episode one.

[Sue Chadwick]

Now.

[Vivienne's Friend]

I always felt that it could be resolved, that she would have to be somewhere, that she couldn't have just disappeared like that. And the fact that we said that she'd jumped from the bridge, that wasn't convincing for me. So I just thought well she has to be somewhere. She can't just have disappeared.

[Casey]

In April of 2018, my podcast Case File True Crime featured Case 80 the Mysterious Murder of Beth Barnard. This is one of those cases that poses more questions than it does answers and it elicited a dramatic response from our listeners. In the mid-1980s, Phillip island was home to approximately 4,000 residents. The close knit community was rocked to the core when on the morning of September 23, 1986, the mutilated body of 23 year old farmhand Beth Barnard was found stabbed to death in her family home. The last person to see Beth alive was her married boss, Fergus Cameron, with whom Beth was having an affair. Fergus wife Vivian Cameron became the number one suspect in Beth's murder. However, the day that Beth's body was discovered, Vivian's car was found abandoned next to the Phillip Island Bridge and she was never seen again. To explore what's come to be known as the Phillip island murder in more detail, we asked true crime author Vicky Petraitis, who co wrote a book about the case in 1993, to create a series dedicated to exploring the murder investigation in more detail. In this podcast, Vicky speaks to friends and family members of those involved and pieces together the final moments leading up to the crime with the help of police records and witness statements. If anyone could revisit the case to try and make sense of what happened, Vicky was the one. Coronial inquests have concluded that Vivian killed Beth before taking her own life. But Vivian's body has never been found and many questions and harrowing elements surrounding the case remain.

[Sue Chadwick]

Sam.

[Vicky Petraitis]

My name is Vicki Patratus and I have been writing true crime books for over 25 years. The first book I wrote was the Phillip Island Murder. When I sent a proposal off to publisher John Kerr, he liked it, but he said to me, since you're a teacher, not a writer, I'd like to pair you up with a journalist to co author it with you. John introduced me to journalist Paul Daly, who at that time worked for the Sunday Age. I'd never met a journalist before, or another writer for that matter, and it was a great match. Paul quickly became as interested in the case as I was and it had the added benefit of me watching Paul shape the story. I learnt so much from the experience and once the book was released, I too had become a real writer. I want to rewind for a moment to the origins of the Philipiner murder book. I first got the idea to write the book when I heard the story of Fergus, Vivian and Beth at a teacher conference, of all places. It was for a program set up to help kids deal with divorce. The speaker told the audience that Vivian's family had funded the program because they felt that the tragedy that happened in her adulthood was directly connected to the trauma of her parents divorce in her childhood. Vivian's father had left the family when she was 8 years old. And when her own marriage broke down, when her son had recently turned eight, she just snapped. According to the story at the conference, the murder of a young farmhand named Beth was the tragic result of a woman who hadn't dealt with her grief. It accumulated and she killed. So there I was, sitting in the audience, looking for a case to write about, and this one seemed perfect. Of course, I assumed that the family would welcome a book because it would also help get their message across. I was wrong. The minute I entered the local Phillip island newspaper office to search for articles on the case, the woman in charge came out and asked me what I wanted the articles for. And I told her that I was writing a book, and she told me to wait and then disappeared into an office. And when she came back out, she said, I've just rung the family and they don't want you to write the book. And in her tone, I heard an expectation that I would do what I was told. But I guess there's something about being told not to do something that makes all of us want to do that thing even more. I'd already spoken to people who really wanted the book written, friends of Vivian and Beth's. But there seemed to be two camps on the island. Friends of the Camerons who would never talk, and the friends of the women who needed to talk. We respected and understood the position of those who didn't want to talk. But the people who did speak to us did so because they felt a book might bring answers. Someone must know something, and that's what we all thought in the beginning. When a case doesn't have a conclusion, it leaves people forever to wonder what really happened. The truth of this case, the Phillip island murder, is that we may never know any more than we know now. But of course, the hope for this podcast is that someone out there knows something that could make a difference and that they will come forward. So where do you begin? A story that ends in the death of one woman and the disappearance of another. A story that has rippled through the years and still makes people wonder what really happened in the small hours of Tuesday 23rd September 1986. Perhaps before the dying, though, we should start with the living. Before a murder happens. There is a convergence of people and circumstances that brings everyone together for that one fatal moment. So to begin, we need to rewind back from September 1986 to see who Beth Barnard and Vivienne Cameron were before they were forever cast together in history as victim and killer. The Cameron family were an important family on Phillip Island. It's hard for non islanders to understand, but in the small community the landowners and the politicians are the leaders. The Cameron family had both among their ranks. Fergus Cameron was educated at Scotch College and then he spent a decade working in real estate. He married Vivian janis Candy in December 1976 and the couple moved to the Phillip island family farm in Ventnor and where Fergus brother Donald also lived with his wife Pamela. The third couple in this tragedy that would play out in September 1986 was Ferguson, Donald's sister Marnie and her husband Ian Cairns. They were all involved in the community. Donald Cameron was a Phillip island counsellor and his wife Pam was a physiotherapist. Marnie was a nurse at the Worley Hospital. And Fergus Cameron was a farmer and a part time ranger at the Penguin Parade. His wife Vivian was employed at the Phillip Island Community House. So who was Vivienne Cameron? Sadly, her sister Deirdre and brother Keith are gone and those left to speak about her are friends from the island. Women who were young mums with her. Women who've always questioned how their friend could have driven to the home of another woman and killed her with all the ferocity of a horror movie. What was Vivien like? For one, she was a passionate advocate for other women on the island. She was one of the founding members of the Community House, a place where women could go and learn skills and connect with each other. Another founding member was Sue Chadwick.

[Vivienne's Friend]

Vivie and I felt that it should have been more about women and men could have a go too, but there must be time for women to go.

[Vicky Petraitis]

So was she a bit of a feminist?

[Vivienne's Friend]

I think she had a strong mind and strong thoughts and when I did certain things that were not acceptable in the community, she would laugh and say, jeez, I wish I could do that, I wish I could break out like that. So I think she wanted to burst out and be something really good and better and heard of in the community. But she seemed to be suppressed as if she was living under a bit of a thumb. We used to talk about the farm and I'd say to her, you always seem so calm and she'd say, well, I'm not inside and it's not that easy being a farmer's wife. And I said, oh, I thought you'd have a lot of time there, particularly with the family, you know, all the space around you and everything like that. And she said, yes, it's good, but sometimes it's hard fitting in. So I felt that she was sometimes under a lot of pressure. I don't know if that was the strength of the family or she felt she didn't live up to their expectations, but I think she tried really hard to be what everybody wanted her to be.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Over the years, I've spoken to a lot of Vivian's friends and I loved hearing stories about her. Like the time one friend was stuck at home with a special needs child and Vivian just showed up on the doorstep with a casserole and a bottle of wine. No questions, no fanfare, just her being there for a friend. And I've spent a lot of time going through notebooks from 1991, when I first began researching the case, five years after the murder. Memories were fresher back then, and I've made a scrawling note from a friend called Lisa, who remembered Vivian saying around 1983 or 1984 that if she had gone to a pre marriage class with Fergus, she never would have married him. Another friend I spoke to way back then was Evelyn. She described spending time with Vivienne when the kids were at kinder, and she loved her dry sense of humour. She said that Vivienne was a hard worker and Evelyn remembered seeing her with baby Hugh in the pusher alongside his mother as she marked sheep. She was a roll up your sleeves kind of person. Evelyn said that Vivian had joined Toastmasters, which was a group to help build your confidence in public speaking. Some of this was to make up for feeling on the outer among the clannish Camerons. From what Evelyn told me, Vivienne felt lonely in the extended family she'd married into, and perhaps the feelings of isolation were exacerbated by an increasingly distant husband. But while it seemed to her friends that Vivian wasn't happy in her marriage in 1986, in a small community, the subject was not open for discussion. Vivian's own father had left the family in the late 1950s when she was eight, and as well as being affected by the loss, Vivian suffered the shame of being from a broken home at a time when divorce was rare. Talking about her own crumbling marriage was something that she only hinted at. The picture of her going to marriage counselling on her own is a sad one. She spoke of these things to friend Sue Chadwick.

[Vivienne's Friend]

She did go along for marriage guidance, but Fergus refused. So in our talks when we were in the car going to meetings, she'd talk a little bit about her home life and how much she Adored her children and would do anything for them. And I know speaking to the principal, he said she was such a good mum, popping into the school and seeing how the boys were going and if there was anything she could do. So I think she was a very good mum, a very fair mum and a hard worker on the farm too. So she more than contributed.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Ironically, it was a close friend of Beth's who revealed another side to Vivian. In a small community like Phillip island, everyone knows almost everyone else. Beth's friend Wendy Orchard had a farm in McFee's Road Rill, just down the road from Beth's. While Wendy and Beth had bonded over their love of horses, it was horses that led Vivian to Wendy's door. Wendy offered riding lessons. Vivien Cameron was one of her pupils.

[Sue Chadwick]

Vivian actually came to me a couple of years before and had some riding lessons of all things. Yeah, so she wanted to learn to ride. I can't remember how many times she came, but quite regularly there for a couple of months. She was very keen to learn how to ride. We had a fenced enclosure that we could teach people who didn't ride to Ryden Inns. So she would come and have a lesson and ride round in there. And it was just something that she wanted to do for herself, that. Yeah, she just wanted to learn to ride. Vivian, just a really genuine woman who just appeared as though she wanted to better herself and fit in more with the community. She just seemed as though she was just wanting to learn different skills.

[Vicky Petraitis]

A lot of people at the time told us how in her final months, Vivienne had lost weight and had her hair coloured. Some concluded that this was because she was getting ready to leave and take the boys to Melbourne. But Sir Chadwick saw it differently.

[Vivienne's Friend]

I felt that she was perhaps doing those things to make herself more attractive to Ferguson, to be a bit more competition, so to speak, with Beth, because that had been going on for some time and Vivian had known about it.

[Vicky Petraitis]

But if that was true, her efforts were in vain. Here's how her husband Fergus described that time. These are Fergus words, but not Fergus voice.

[Fergus Cameron]

I would have thought it was obvious to Vivienne that I was having an affair with Beth, who was working on the farm on a permanent basis. I could see that even more strain was building on our marriage and all sexual relations between Vivian and myself had been non existent for the past two to three months before Beth's death and prior to that was very rare. I might add that I was working 90 hours a week, which was not helping it had got to the point that if I had any sexual relations with Vivian, it would have been an enormous feeling of guilt towards Beth. Although Vivian didn't say anything, I could tell that she felt rejected and I tried to compensate by doing all the things a loving husband should do, such as making her feel comfortable and making her wanted and needed in other ways. And I used to confer with her in everything but our own personal relationship.

[Vicky Petraitis]

So did Vivian see the writing on the wall or was she a woman desperate to save her marriage? According to Vivian's sister in law, Marnie Cairns, she was both worried and desperate. In a later statement Marnie would write in about May this year, Vivian and I decided to go out for lunch on a weekday that we both had off and also decided to see more of each other. This resulted after we'd met for a cup of coffee shortly after the shearing had finished in April. As a result, we did see more of each other and Vivienne confided in me about different matters. In May 1986, Vivienne Cameron confided to me that she was concerned about her husband and the long hours he was working both on the farm and at the Penguin Parade. On or about 4 June 1986, Vivienne Cameron asked me to lunch at her home and she told me of her concern about the relationship between her husband and Beth Barnard. We spoke about this for some time and she told me that she'd been so anxious that one time, in desperation, she telephoned Lifeline for help. I urged her to seek counselling, but she said that she felt her husband would not agree to participate in this. While Vivienne seemed to her sister in law to be uncharacteristically bitter toward Beth, she told Marnie, if it wasn't Beth, it would probably have been someone else. A colleague from the community house, Isabel Addicoat, described her impressions of Vivian and the marriage.

[Sue Chadwick]

There were comments that she made that made me think, your marriage is not happy, is it? We used to meet and have conferences between us about what we had to do and what have we. And one particular time she said, come out to the farm, come out to my house. And I went out there and it was getting near lunchtime and I said, oh well, I better go, I'll let you have your lunch. And she said, and she said, oh, don't worry, don't worry, he's out working. And I thought, yeah, you're not really very happy. I just felt that she wasn't terribly happy in the marriage.

[Casey]

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[Vicky Petraitis]

When Fergus Cameron was interviewed after the murder, he described an increasing anger boiling up in his wife as he kept denying the closeness he had with the 23 year old Beth Barnard, the woman they'd employed to help on the farm. A friend of Vivian's told me that his constant denials that anything was going on between him and Beth was slowly driving Vivian crazy.

[Sue Chadwick]

She used to be very aware of when she had to pick up the children and she wouldn't leave the children on their own.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Vivian's friend Isabel inadvertently touched on something that could trigger trigger Vivian's absolute fury. It was the cause of the last big argument between Vivian and Fergus before the night of the murder. This is how Fergus described it in his police.

[Fergus Cameron]

Each morning I used to go down to the shearing shed at 7:30am to commence the day's activities and quite often I would have to be home by 9am to pick up one of the children. And as Vivian works at the community house in Cowes, I would take my son Hugh to kindergarten on some occasions, but most of the time I would have him with me. Approximately seven weeks ago on a Monday morning I was late picking him up at the house as I was helping Beth loading some hay, I caught up with Vivian in Watts Road and she was furious with me and she abused me for spending my time with Beth loading the hay and that she had had enough. I can't remember what else she said, but it was along the lines of us getting help immediately to save our marriage. But I said something like don't be stupid and then drove to the racetrack. Vivian was right behind me at this stage and stopped at the front gate. At the racetrack. Vivian and I had a talk but I have no idea of the conversation, but it was the last we had of a personal nature prior to the events of last Monday night.

[Vicky Petraitis]

The marriage that seemed to collapse slowly in full view of friends and family didn't Start off like that. Vivian and Fergus married in December 1976 and had Dougald in 1978 and Hugh in 1981. In the early days, Vivian's sister in law thought they were close. When she and her husband, Vivian's brother Keith visited, she described Vivian as an earth mother. So someone who was incredibly calm and unruffled, a doting mother. Vivian's sister in law said Fergus was one of those men that women would fall in love with. He was charismatic. They were in love. But over the years, the loving relationship she saw between Vivian and Fergus changed. One Christmas, there was clearly something wrong. Fergus left the group and went and had a nap and missed Christmas dinner. Vivian's friends started to get a similar impression too, especially in the lead up to September 1986. Friend Sue Chadwick, who spent a lot of time at the community house with Vivian, described what she saw.

[Vivienne's Friend]

I remember going up to a friend's place called Evelyn and meeting Vivian and Fergus there. They were there for a cup of tea, but they were both very, very quiet and I thought, I didn't feel a sense of exuberance or enthusiasm and I thought, this is strange. I don't think that it was an easy conversation that was carried out between the three or four of us.

[Vicky Petraitis]

One thing all Vivienne's friends agree on is how much she loved her two little boys, Dougal and Hugh. Ironically, when Beth Barnard started working on the Cameron farm, she was charmed by the two little boys as well. In a tape she made for a friend overseas, she says, I'm always nice to them. They're so cute. Hughes just falls asleep on your lap. We call them Hugol and Dougal. Beth's family chose not to contribute to the book. Their sense of loss felt agonising. Over the years, I've interviewed a lot of people who've lost loved ones in tragic circumstances and I understand their loss and how hard it must have been for them to come to terms with how she died. This kind of crime leaves an imprint that may fade but never disappears completely. When we were researching the book, Paul Daly and I spoke to one of Beth's friends, Denise. She described Beth as bubbly and full of life, quite the opposite to Vivienne's calm and quiet. Denise told us about a trip that Marie and Beth took to the Maldives and how they saw a palm reader on the beach who read their palms. He stopped when he got to Beth's and he said he couldn't read hers and hurried away. They'd all laughed it off at the Time and never gave it another thought. Denise gave us the tape recording of Beth and Marie having dinner at Beth's house. Joining them for a while was Fergus Cameron. Beth and Marie would make tapes of themselves chatting and send them to Denise, who by that stage had moved to London to work. The tape has been lost over the years, but I still have the transcript that I made at the time. Beth was having problems with a guy she knew from the Penguin Parade. They were friends, but the guy perhaps felt more for Beth than she did for him. He sent her flowers. She didn't keep them, but rather gave them to friends. And he came around uninvited and mowed her lawns. These are her words, and here's how I remember her saying it. I've got this problem how he keeps mowing my lawns and I don't want him to because I feel as if I owe him something when he does it. And he mowed them again on Monday and I get home and I yelled at him and he got really pissed off and so anyway, he just took off and comes back Monday night and I thought, oh, beauty, I've got rid of him now. And he comes back Monday night and he got mad at me and fed income. I just feel like telling him where to go now. And then he came to work at the Camerons on Tuesday because we were landmarking all day and I was in a real shit and I kept trying to find other jobs to do and he just comes and takes over my jobs and tells me what to do and. And Fergus thought I was being really good, trying to do all these other things and I was just trying to get away. I'm just so sick of him. I wish they'd do something to stop him coming around. We gave him all these hints not to come around tonight, so if he comes around, I think I just. I'll sock him out. Beth doesn't sound afraid of the man who mowed her lawns and left her flowers. Just really annoyed. Beth had moved to the island a couple of years earlier and worked at the Penguin Parade. Her friend and colleague from those days, Graham Bergin, described how the new girl on the block settled in.

[Graham Bergin]

There were a few people that spend a bit more time with Beth than others. And because Beth was such an outgoing person and she new to the island and she was a bubbly young 20 year. It was, I don't want to say that a new toy to be played with. It wasn't like that. It was just someone new to the island. There's a New person here, let's get to know them. They're interesting. And Beth was a good communicator because, you know, part of her role and function at the park was to talk to people and she was good at it. A lot of the men down here were attracted to her. Gotta remember, way back then, we used to have a nickname for Phillip Island. We used to call it Blokes Island. Maybe not so much like that now, but there weren't any women down here, especially young, single women. There weren't any. And if they came here, nine times out of ten, they'd get frightened away because a lot of the blokes down here at that time, they were either builders, labourers or most of them were surfers. And then a lot of the other people living here maybe had grown up here all their life and they were involved in businesses or the farming community. It was isolating for most people. And, you know, if you got married and had a family, well, you were lucky. So for Beth to move in down here, she was moving into that sort of environment where she was a novelty for a lot of the men that were down here.

[Vicky Petraitis]

I always wondered what Beth saw in Fergus at 36. He was so much older than her and he had a wife and two children. She was 23. I put that question to Graham. He didn't know the answer either, but.

[Graham Bergin]

He speculated it might have been easier to hide. If she was doing it that way, she mightn't want people to know that she was having a relationship with anyone. So doing that with a married man might have been an easy way of sort of hiding the factories of having a relationship. It might have just been for pure convenience. Being with someone day in, day out, working with them, you start to feel comfortable with them. So the normal barriers that you have up because you're not really interested in having a relationship if you've only seen the people for an hour or two here and there, well, you're not gonna sort of go there if you're not really wanting to. But if there's someone that you're seeing day in, day out for hours at a time, you start to get comfortable in the space and that's when that barrier drops away.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Beth's girlhood friend, Wendy Orchard, lived a couple of houses down from Beth in McFee's Road Rill. They bonded in their teens over their shared love of riding horses and they'd stayed friends. As soon as Beth finished her agricultural degree in Melbourne, she moved to the island to live.

[Sue Chadwick]

She was a bright and bubbly personality. But she was also. Yeah, she was a very good friend. She was very loyal. You would have a go at most things, like, you know, we'd do all sorts of things together. We actually helped each other do our housework because we both hated it. We both hated it. So we would. Yeah, we would help each other do our housework. That was a really funny time, actually. Oh, yeah. We used to put music on and turn it up loud and we, you know, have the music going. We singing and being silly and doing each other's housework. It was quite crazy, really. And. And of course, we rode horses together as well, so. So we'd often put the horses in the float and go down to the beach at Cape Woolemai and ride along the Wollemai beach.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Wendy told a story about how the summer before she died, there was a crisis at the penguin parade. Baby penguins were starving. When their parents weren't bringing them enough food, Beth rallied a bunch of friends to help out for hours each night with the baby penguins.

[Sue Chadwick]

One summer could have been 12 months before. The penguins were starving and I would go out to the penguin parade every night. And it was Beth and I. And I don't know who the other girls were, but somebody would have gone and got pilchards from Hastings or somewhere through the day. And we would wander around weighing baby penguins and tagging them and feeding them pilchards because the mothers, well, the adult birds weren't bringing anything home for them to eat and they were starving. And I think that was the summer before she died. There was certainly no partying or anything going on at that point in time because we were all too tired by the time we spent two or three hours after the penguin parade feeding baby penguins. That was just something she got all her friends involved in. I can't remember if Fergus or any of the actual other staff ever stayed behind and helped.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Not surprisingly, while the affair with Beth Barnard was becoming more intense, the relationship between Fergus and his wife Vivian was cooling. Fergus himself described the deterioration of his marriage.

[Fergus Cameron]

During the first few years of our marriage, we went through difficult times, asking ourselves, why did we get married? But we weren't great ones for talking about it, though. This was because we both come from different backgrounds. At about the time of the birth of our two boys, our relationship was at its closest.

[Vicky Petraitis]

But things deteriorated when Beth Barnard started working at the Penguin parade. By April, Beth was also working on the Cameron farm. Around mid May, the workers at the penguin parade had a party and Beth invited them back to her place. Fergus was the only one who went. And that night their relationship became sexual. Fergus saw her a couple of times before he went off for a family holiday in May. Even though Fergus wrote in his statement that he was, quote, determined that the.

[Fergus Cameron]

Relationship between Beth and myself should not continue because of my wife and two children. And this was going totally against my, my values I did hold.

[Vicky Petraitis]

But that didn't happen. When he got back, the two took every opportunity to see each other. Fergus described walking along the beach after work, or sitting in cars or going back to Beth's place. And this relationship didn't go unnoticed by Vivian. And she started to accuse Fergus of giving special treatment to Beth around the farm. Nearly a year into their secret relationship, Beth and Fergus decided to end it when she left for her trip to the Maldives. But it didn't stick. And the minute she got back, they started seeing each other again. It was around December 1985 that Vivian walked into the shearing shed and caught Fergus hugging Beth. Here's how Fergus described it.

[Fergus Cameron]

Vivian's reaction was immediate. She asked me to go back to the house with her. I did not go to the house, but stood in the garden with her and she asked me if I was having an affair with Beth. I said no, we are very good mates. I can't remember, but there was a one sided conversation with Vivian, very distraught, and I was answering her questions with a yes or no, denying any affair with Beth. During this conversation, she said that she had tried to talk to me about our relationship but had given up because I wouldn't talk at this stage. I still wanted to keep our marriage intact, mainly for the boy's sake.

[Vicky Petraitis]

After being caught in the shearing shed, Beth Barnard began applying for jobs off the island. Clearly this was getting to be too much for the young woman. Vivian was rattled too. When Fergus arrived home at five in the morning after a Christmas party at Beth's, she was furious. Here are Fergus's words.

[Fergus Cameron]

I arrived home shortly after 5 o', clock, hopped into bed and thought Vivian was asleep. She wasn't and she immediately started attacking me. She punched me in the face to begin with and I rolled over onto my stomach and she punched me on my back and she was crying, extremely distraught, wanting to know why I was so late. I said that it was a good party and after about five minutes she quietened down and I held her as tight as I could and she cried some more and I went to sleep.

[Vicky Petraitis]

By early February 1986, Beth had quit her island jobs at the Penguin Parade and on the Cameron farm and Got a job in Werribee, which would have put 170 kilometres distance and a two hour drive between her and Fergus on Phillip island, effectively ending their relationship. She was all set to move when Fergus sat with her at Penguin Parade and told her he didn't want her to go and she spoke to the boss and was immediately reinstated. She was also re employed on the Cameron family farm and worked there for another seven months until the Friday before she died. Friends like Wendy Orchard warned Beth against the relationship with Fergus.

[Sue Chadwick]

I can remember her telling me a little bit about it and I can remember saying to him, beth, you don't want to go down that road, you don't want to get involved there. But you know, she was, she was a fairly private person. Well, to me about that sort of stuff. She knew I knew the family and everybody in it, so I guess she was, yeah, maybe a little bit embarrassed about what might have been going on. I just remember saying, Beth, you don't want to go there, you don't want to do that.

[Vicky Petraitis]

And so Vivian, Fergus and Beth move inevitably toward the convergence that would leave two of them dead and one of them facing detectives exposing the relationship secrets he tried to keep hidden for so long.

[Casey]

On the next episode of the Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron.

[Sue Chadwick]

It was a very awkward situation because.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Neither Vivian or Ferguson would verbalise anything to me.

[Vivienne's Friend]

They would look at one another.

[Sue Chadwick]

There was very long, intense looks between.

[Vivienne's Friend]

The two of them, but they never said anything.

[Sue Chadwick]

So I kept questioning, you know, saying, look, I need to know what's happened.

[Vicky Petraitis]

So that I can assess the injuries.

[Sue Chadwick]

And then decide, you know, whether we need to call the doctor.

[Vicky Petraitis]

Keith said Vivienne seemed distressed, as if she wanted some advice from me. However, I thought that whatever bothered her could be sorted out at the weekend. I still have trouble with my decision.

[Vivienne's Friend]

They were both clearly aware of what.

[Sue Chadwick]

Had happened and it was like a pact. They were together on what had happened, but they weren't wanting to tell anybody else.

[Casey]

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to hear the rest of the vanishing of Vivien Cameron, you can find it on wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Gab. It's that time of year again. The holidays are coming fast and if your kids are anything like mine, that list is already getting pretty long. And let's be honest, some of the things on that list make us stop and think like a smartphone. What makes me nervous about kids having phones isn't the screen time, it's everything they can stumble across online. There's so much out there they're not ready for and once they see it, you can't take it back. It's scary how easily they can end up in those corners of the Internet without even meaning to. I just want my child to feel connected and included without being exposed to all that too soon. That's why I was so relieved when I found Gab. Gab offers phones and watches made just for kids. No Internet, no social media and just the right features for their age. Kids want phones to feel independent and connected. As parents, we want to know they're safe. With Gab you can have both and protect them from the scary stuff we With Gab's Tech in Steps approach, kids get the right tech at the right time. From watches with GPS tracking for the youngest explorers to the perfect first phone with no Internet or social media to the teen phone with parent approved apps. So get ready for a Christmas morning they'll never forget the one where they get their first phone. And really, it's a gift for you too, because these kidsafe phones will give you peace of mind. Visit gab.comcasefile and use code casefile for a special holiday offer. That's gabb.comcasefile gab tec in steps independence for them. Peace of mind for you.

[Vicky Petraitis]

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[Vicky Petraitis]

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