← The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron
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- [00:00]
Vicky Petraitis
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- [00:56]
Wendy Orchard
So nothing for your bestie?
- [00:58]
Vicky Petraitis
Of course I'm getting my dad Tommy John.
- [01:00]
Wendy Orchard
Oh and you of course it's giving.
- [01:02]
Vicky Petraitis
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- [01:20]
Ann Davey
Now 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 it was 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.
- [01:41]
Detective Rory O'Connor
Over the course of this series, we've heard the story of Beth Barnard's murder and the disappearance of Vivienne Cameron in great detail. We'll leave Vicky Petraitus to try and piece it all together. The details won't all make sense, but like the witnesses who came forward to add their story to this podcast for the first time, we are hoping that others will come forward with information. There are a lot of theories regarding what happened to Vivienne Cameron, but investigators are only interested in hard evidence from individuals who had direct involvement with the case. In this final episode of the Vanishing of Vivien Cameron, we urge anyone with such information to come forward so that Beth's and Vivian's loved ones can get the answers they deserve.
- [03:05]
Vicky Petraitis
On 23rd September 1986, Vivian Cameron vanished. But as Ann Davies says in the introduction, she can't just have disappeared. She must be somewhere. If you live on the island or are me, then the odds are you've Heard every theory about where Vivienne Cameron is or where she ended up. Here's a sample. Vivienne Cameron is in New Zealand, buried on the island under a shed, gone to France, buried under the racetrack, or secretly committed to a mental asylum. I even heard she might be in a lime pit for dead livestock, if such a thing exists. Pretty much the only theory around that has no traction is that she jumped from the Phillip island bridge.
- [03:58]
Ann Davey
She has to be somewhere. She can't just have disappeared.
- [04:03]
Vicky Petraitis
On 23 January 1993, Fergus Cameron married Chris Lidner, a woman he had met through his association with the Phillip Island Grand Prix racetrack. At the time they met, Chris was married to the racetrack accountant. A couple of Months later, in 1993, our book the Phillip Island Murder came out. The book was not sold on the island and when an extract of the book was featured in the Sunday Age, I heard that wasn't sold on the island either. With the book came a renewed focus on the case. Some locals who had never spoken about the murder started asking more questions. One man came forward, a Phillip island local called Maurie Duffy, and gave a statement to the police. I've had a copy of this statement in my files for years, but I never had a context for it until researching for this podcast. Beth's friend, Wendy Orchard was also a good friend of Maurie Duthie's.
- [05:12]
Wendy Orchard
If Morrie knew something or saw something, that would be him. He would. He would tell. He was that sort of a person.
- [05:22]
Vicky Petraitis
I don't know why Maurie Duffy came forward at that particular time. What I do know from the statement was that it was signed at Cals on 6th December 1994 and witnessed by Detective Sergeant Kevin Casey, who was in charge of a review of the case after the book came out. In his statement, Mauree Duffy writes that on the morning Beth Barnard was found murdered, he had seen an agricultural bike with no headlights or tail lights ride past him at 5:30am Here are Maurie Duffy's exact words. At the time, I didn't take much notice of the bike or think anything significant about it. Certainly it's not uncommon for bikes to be riding around with the lights off because most of the AG bikes in the area have their lights broken and they're hardly ever used on the road. A couple of days later I heard that the Cameron Ute was found at New Haven. At the time I put it together that I had previously seen an AG bike on the back of the Cameron Land Cruiser. I don't know who was driving the AG Bike on this occasion I am talking about and I am not able to say whether it was the Cameron Ag bike or not. But I suppose Maurie Duffy must have always harboured a suspicion, otherwise why come forward eight years later? Maurie Duffy passed away in 2003, so he's no longer around to ask about this. Wendy Orchard described Maury Duffy.
- [07:00]
Wendy Orchard
I knew Murray really well. He had horses that were on a property just around the corner on the real New Haven Road. He had a little paddock there that he used to keep some horses on. I'm not sure where he was actually living at that time, but they had a property on Sunderland Bay. Yeah. And he more than likely would have been, you know, maybe just crossing our road there to go up towards the property where he had the horses. Yeah, Mori would sneak around all over the place. You'd never know where he was going to turn up or what he saw. Yeah, he was always out and about. Was Morrie. Morrie was a mechanic. That was what he did for a job. He did a lot of the mechanic work around on farms. Like he would go to your farm and, you know, do you service your car or your motorbike or whatever? So he may well have known the bike.
- [07:58]
Vicky Petraitis
The mention of an AG bike being seen on the back of the Cameron Land Cruiser before raised the suggestion that someone could have put an egg bike on the back of it in the early morning after the murder, driven it to Forest Avenue, then used the hay bales to offload the egg bike and then ride off on it. Did Vivian ride the AG bike? Could she have been planting the Landcruiser in order to vanish in a different way to a different place? Remember the pair of dreiserbone trousers that Pam Cameron saw on the floor of the Land Cruiser when she found it? Maurie Duffy described a rider wearing an oilskin type coat. If an egg bike was put on the back of the Land Cruiser, could the oilskin coat have been thrown into the vehicle along with a pair of dry as a bone trousers? And then in the end, the rider chose only to take the oilskin coat. Before we look at questions remaining in the Phillip island murder case, let's fast forward a bit. An article in The Age from 25 February 2004 had the headline Fox Buyers Island GP Track for Resort. The article said that trucking magnate Lindsay Fox was to buy the Phillip island motorcycle race track and surrounding land. The article said that managing director of Place Tac, Fergus Cameron, would Not disclose the price, but industry sources estimated it to be between 10 and $20 million.
- [09:39]
Wendy Orchard
A year.
- [09:39]
Vicky Petraitis
Later, in February 2005, the Sensing Murder episode, the Scarlet Letter went to air. The show went over details of the case and had three psychics give their impressions. The producers received over 500 emails from people who watched it. Some had theories and others, clearly from the island, offered suggestions about where Vivienne Cameron's remains might be found. Most of the 500 emails called for the police to take another look at the case. We sorted through all the information and gave anything we thought was relevant to the homicide squad, but nothing ever came of it. Homicide detectives in Victoria are willing to look at any solid evidence that comes to light. However, they don't put any stock in rumours, theories and especially not the word of psychics. So what are the main questions that remain in this case? A big problem with the Phillip island murder has always been a lack of transferred evidence. If every contact leaves a trace, why were there no fingerprints? Why was there no hay in or near Beth's driveway? If the Land Cruiser was there, if Vivian was bleeding enough to drop two droplets of blood on Beth's path, why weren't there any drops found in Beth's house? Why was there so much of Vivian's type A blood found at the Cameron house? Why was the wine glass used in the attack on Fergus never found? When and how did Beth's blood come to be smeared on the piece of paper on the bed in the Cameron's spare room? How did the Cherry Lane jumper get both Fergus and Vivian's blood on it? Another place where one would expect trace evidence is inside the Land Cruiser. If Vivienne Cameron murdered Beth Barnard, she would have been covered in blood. She was last seen wearing a mohair jumper. Beth's throat wound may have been caused by someone standing behind her and holding her head to one side with one arm and cutting her throat with the other? This would mean that the killer's sleeve, at the very least, would be soaked in blood. And yet there is not a trace of Beth's blood in the Land Cruiser. Not even a single mohair fibre with blood on it. And not only that, there were no traces of mohair on the victim. If every contact leaves a trace, why wasn't there more evidence to link Vivienne with the crime scene and the crime scene to the Land Cruiser? And as for the Land Cruiser, if Vivian drove from Beth's place to the bridge, how did her handbag, which was seen at the house after 3am by the Dicksons get into the car. And what of the face washer and towel that Marnie saw at the Cameron house when she came to mind the children? Were they the same ones found in Beth's house and the Land Cruiser? Later, one would assume Marnie mentioned the towel and the face washer along with other blood stained items because they too had blood on them. But only the pink tissue and the blue shirt tested positive for Fergus blood. The singlet is not listed in the items taken by police for examination, even though Marnie had mentioned it was blood stained. Nor is there a towel or a face washer mentioned as being taken from the Cameron house. The next question I've always had is how did Vivian get into Beth's house? Did she arrive with her towel and face washer and knife, ready to murder Beth rather than confront her? It seems like such a big leap. Do you bring a towel to a knife fight? And if she didn't bring the towel inside the house with her initially, did she then go outside to wherever she parked the Land Cruiser to get the towel to wipe her hands on it, only to leave it in Beth's bathroom? Surely there would have been towels inside she could have used. Or maybe it was one of Beth's towels after all. And if the cigarettes smoked near the phone were Vivian's, then she was also carrying or brought in later a box of cigarettes and a box of matches. And since her handbag was seen at home around this time, how did Vivien carry all these things into the Barnard farmhouse? Did she walk through the door with her hands full? Towel, face washer, cigarettes, matches, knife. In his statement, Fergus said Beth came.
- [14:45]
Detective Rory O'Connor
To the back door to meet me. And to my knowledge, this security type door had not always been locked. And on a number of occasions I told her to be more security conscious and to keep the door locked.
- [14:59]
Vicky Petraitis
If Beth walked back inside her house and decided not to lock the door, she inadvertently left an easy method of entry for her killer. Not that we want a victim blame, because an unlocked door is not an invitation to murder. Some people told us that living on the remote farmhouse alone, Beth was security conscious. Beth's friend Wendy Orchard and I discussed the fact that that Fergus said in his statement that he had reminded her.
- [15:29]
Wendy Orchard
To lock the door because nobody locked their doors in those days. But that would be probably something that he would say to remind her that that's what she had to do because she didn't do it.
- [15:45]
Vicky Petraitis
From the crime scene photo showing the bloody smears on the bed and on the wall next to the Bed. It looks like this is where the initial attack on Beth took place. If this is correct, then let's go over it again, how that scene must have played out. Vivien waited an hour after dropping Fergus off, then rang for the Dixons to come and collect her children. She must have armed herself with a knife, which suggests that she formed an intention to kill Beth before she even left home. And maybe two knives, if the bigger one found in the Land Cruiser was intended for use in the attack, as well as the smaller one found next to Beth's body. If Vivian did that, she drove to Beth's house, well armed. And how did she know Beth's house? Did she go there? Did the other Camerons go there? We know Fergus did and we know Donald did. Because in his statement he said, we drove immediately to Beth Barnard's farm in McFees Road Rill and saw that the farm utility was parked in its usual spot. So Donald must have been there on several occasions to know that the ute was in its usual spot. But did Vivian go there? When I asked Rory O', Connor, he felt the U turn that Margaret McFee heard. Was Vivian looking for the house?
- [17:13]
Detective Rory O'Connor
She hadn't been there before.
- [17:16]
Vicky Petraitis
If the loud vehicle at 3:20am was the Cameron Land Cruiser, was Vivienne unfamiliar with the location of Beth's house and drove past it only to turn around at the end of the street and come back? But if she didn't know which house it was, how did she eventually find it? Or was the truck driving loudly, shining its light into Mrs. McFee's bedroom window, then skidding on her sister in law's neatly mown grass, a red herring? Or someone drawing attention to the time? Or someone completely unconnected to the case. If it was Vivian in the Land Cruiser, where did she park? If she went up the driveway? Beth's friend Wendy Orchard thinks a car would have woken Beth because it would drive straight past her bedroom where her room was.
- [18:11]
Wendy Orchard
The car would have driven right past her bedroom window. Her bedroom window faced the driveway. So if she'd been in bed asleep, she would have heard the car come up. Or if even if she hadn't been in bed asleep, the windows like she'd been in the lounge room or the kitchen. Those windows faced the road and the kitchen window faced the road. So she would have seen the lights coming up the drive and the house wasn't that far off the road.
- [18:46]
Vicky Petraitis
But if the Land Cruiser went up the driveway, it would have woken Beth. And if she did indeed think it Was Fergus like he suspected, expected she would? Then wouldn't she have gotten out of bed to greet him at the door? Fergus said in his statement, on hearing.
- [19:03]
Detective Rory O'Connor
The Land Cruiser, Beth would automatically think it was me and open the door. The two people who drove the Land Cruiser were either Beth or myself.
- [19:14]
Vicky Petraitis
It's odd that Fergus thought Vivian would take the Land Cruiser to make it sound like him arriving, when in fact he had driven the family Holden Kingswood to Beth's place earlier. So if she heard the Holden, Beth would have thought that was Fergus too. If we imagine that Vivien was full of murderous rage enough to go to Beth's intending to kill her, would she have had the presence of mind to choose the Land Cruiser because she imagined that Beth would think it was Fergus arriving in the middle of the night? And if she did choose the Land Cruiser for that reason, would she have driven it up the driveway so that Beth heard it? And if Beth did hear it, why was she still in bed when the attack happened? Sometimes the questions in this case go round and round in circles. The police checked the driveway for tyre impressions, but since Donald and Ian had driven up the driveway earlier, any impressions would have been compromised. Especially if Fergus had indeed driven the Land Cruiser to Beth's so often that she was familiar with the sound of it arriving, even though the Landcruiser had unsecured hay bales on the back. Rory o' Connor told me that the police didn't find any loose bits of hay in the driveway. But if Vivian drove it to full Beth, like Fergus feared, would she have then left it out front and crept up the driveway? And if she did that, why take the Land Cruiser in the first place? Round and round in circles. It seems unlikely that Beth did hear the Land Cruiser because she was attacked in her bed. If she did wake up and let Vivian in, her bedroom would be the last place that she would take the wife of the man she was having an affair with. Remember what Rory o' Connor said about that?
- [21:12]
Detective Rory O'Connor
Well, we considered all that too, because.
- [21:14]
Glenda Frost
The mere fact it all happened in.
- [21:17]
Detective Rory O'Connor
The bedroom, I wouldn't consider that Beth would have talked to her in her own bedroom. They would have gone to the kitchen.
- [21:25]
Glenda Frost
With young lantern, but gone to any other room.
- [21:27]
Detective Rory O'Connor
I mean, if you wanted to talk to somebody, would you take them to your bedroom? You know, it's. She may have gone there with just your scan Abstor. We don't know. That's one of those things. Yeah, we can't talk to Vivian.
- [21:40]
Vicky Petraitis
Bringing a knife suggests she didn't Intend to confront Beth. She intended to kill her. So if Vivian did arrive at Beth's armed with a knife, and if the door was locked and Beth let her in, she would have attacked Beth at the back door. But the attack wasn't at the door or in another room. It was while Beth was in bed and perhaps asleep. The fatal blow up near her right collarbone was probably the first blow and would have proven fatal in a couple of minutes. A knife blow to the chest makes the murderous intention of Beth's attacker obvious. We know from her defence wounds that Beth woke up and tried to ward off her attacker. But she was bleeding into her chest and. And the struggle was always going to be a brief one. Another question. Beth lived in her family's home and her parents and siblings all visited the house. How did Vivien know that they wouldn't be there too? When Wendy Orchard remembered helping Beth clean her house, she said one of the reasons was the frequent visits by Beth's parents.
- [22:53]
Wendy Orchard
So remember we cleaned the bathroom, lounge room, kitchen area. But I don't remember ever going in any of the other bedrooms. Yeah, just in the rooms that we like. That she used through the week because it was before Mum and Dad came back. The weekend. That's Friday. Fridays get the house tidied up again before Mum and Dad got back.
- [23:18]
Vicky Petraitis
Did Vivien know this? She would have known that Beth was one of five children and that they and Beth's parents were frequent visitors. The McFees Road house was their holiday house. If Vivien was the one wielding the knife that night, what would she have done to anyone else in the house? I've always felt that there were conflicting messages about the murder scene and vividly recall standing in the small room at the coroner's court. After having requested to look at the file, I picked up the packet of crime scene photos. They always come in spiral bound blue folders with the police emblem on the front. And I remember turning each photo over, bracing myself for the crime scene close ups. When I saw the first picture of the crime scene, I wondered why Beth's body was covered. If Vivian had have committed such a brutal murder, branding Beth an adulteress with the scarlet letter, wouldn't she have imagined it would be her husband who would discover the body? Wouldn't it seem more logical for her to leave the body uncovered to show him what she had done, covering show's remorse? Could Vivian have killed Beth so brutally carved the A into her chest, screaming adulteress, and then walked into the next room to get a Doona to cover her handiwork. Detective Rory o' Connor thought perhaps it did show remorse.
- [24:53]
Detective Rory O'Connor
Didn't want to look at it anymore. It was horrific. It was what they'd actually done, especially with the A carved in the chest, the extent as the. The cutting of the throat, it was really brutal. So whether someone wanted to do cover it over because they didn't want to look at it anymore, or they just thought, who knows?
- [25:19]
Vicky Petraitis
And what of Beth's next door neighbour? Diane, the night before the murder, was discovered seeing a car pull into Beth's driveway at 7:50pm and idle there. Of course, this could have been Fergus Cameron and he was just out with his timing by 20 minutes or so. But if it was Fergus and he was pressed for time, fitting in a clandestine visit with his girlfriend, why wait in the car? Today we have all sorts of electronic devices that can keep us in our cars after we park. We check our email, check our social media messages, tweet, check in, take a quick selfie. But back in 1986, unless you were waiting for a good song to finish on the radio, there was really little reason to sit in your car. Unless. Unless Beth had actually been out and was being dropped home by someone. If that was the case, and there's nothing to suggest it was, then she might sit and finish a conversation before getting out of the car. No one ever came forward to say that they were with Beth before Fergus arrived on the night she died. But given the presence of a car in her driveway at 7.50pm, a good 20 minutes before Fergus said he got there, it's a possibility. And if someone else had been there, what reason could they have for not coming forward? Various accounts of the morning after Beth's murder bring up a whole new set of questions. Let's start with the Dixons. Robyn Dixon had to get to work. I wonder why the Dixons didn't try to ring the hospital when they found themselves still in the possession of the two Cameron boys. The last they heard from Vivian was at 3am telling the Dixons that they were at the hospital four and a half hours later with no answer at the Camerons farm. You'd think that might be the next place they'd try. But Nurse Lisa Price didn't mention getting a phone call inquiring if the Camerons were still there. There are lots of anomalies in the statements of the family members, which we've already covered. Who rang who? Who told who the Land Cruiser was missing? Did Fergus answer the phone? Did he not answer the phone? What Times were all these calls, we'll never know. And who rang Marnie at the hospital to get her to come home from work? And why? Marnie said it was Fergus who rang her at the hospital at 9:30. But this has always seemed odd. If he had already sent Donald and Ian to Beth's place, why would he then disturb his sister at her nursing job to get her to ring Beth for him when he could have rung Beth himself on the very same phone he was talking to his sister on? What makes more sense is that the phone call was earlier after all. At 9:30, Beth's body had already been discovered and the police were on the scene. Nurse Lisa Price is certain that the phone call came from Donald Cameron around 8.30am Ann Davey, who worked at the hospital and was in the office at the time of the call, thought it was earlier too. So if it was Donald Cameron, when was the last opportunity he had to call? And more importantly, what news did he have at that time? Fergus himself put Donald arriving with their youngest son, five year old Hugh, at 8:30am, while Fergus was on the phone talking to Pam Cameron. After that phone call and then the return phone call from Ian to say that the Land Cruiser wasn't in its usual spot, Donald had the opportunity to call Marnie at the hospital. But at this stage, what did he have to tell her that would make her announce a family emergency to her colleagues and then leave straight away? It was Marnie's husband, Ian Cairns, who had suggested driving to Beth's. If it was Donald Cameron who rang his sister, did Donald assume, without having seen Fergus, that he couldn't be left alone or wasn't capable of looking after Hugh, who we assume was going to be left with Fergus. Pan Cameron had just left for work. There's no mention that Donald asked her to stay at home if they needed an extra pair of hands. And if they did need an extra pair of hands, why didn't Donald drive out to Beth's place himself and leave Ian home to look after Fergus? If nurse Lisa Price is correct and it was Donald Cameron who called, he must have called before he left to pick up Ian, which would have been before 9am, before the days of mobiles and instant communication. He would have to ring from a landline and before he left home was the last chance he had. When Lisa Price was interviewed by police all those years ago, she was asked for details of Fergus and Vivian's visit to the hospital, which she gave. It wasn't until much later that she heard the story that it was Fergus who rung the hospital the morning after. But she knew differently. It was Donald Cameron she'd spoken to, she was sure of it.
- [31:06]
Wendy Orchard
And it just surprised me that there was no follow up with a. A police officer coming back and saying, well, hang on a minute, this person says this and you say this. What's, you know, are you sure? It was just nothing. Every. It was just like it was a skimming over, just taking the basic necessary.
- [31:25]
Ann Davey
Facts and, and moving on.
- [31:27]
Wendy Orchard
It was like, I suppose, when, and this is only my impression, but when, when someone's already decided what the, what the outcome's going to be and so you just plod along with all the little blocks of information that point to that. But anything that doesn't fit, corroborate that story, just get put to the side and ignored. Like Donald being the one that phoned and not Fergus. Yeah. It's just bizarre.
- [31:58]
Vicky Petraitis
Glinda Frost remains certain to this day that she got a phone call from Vivienne Cameron on the morning Beth Barnard's body was discovered. Rory o' Connor spoke to Glenda at the time and she remembers him saying to her, why have I got divers searching under the bridge if she's talking to you on the phone? When I spoke to Glenda recently, she wondered if there could be a different context to the call Vivien made the morning after the murder. Could Vivienne have made the call while someone else was with her as a sort of safety call? Having said that, I wonder if she.
- [32:37]
Ann Davey
Had two people there that she wanted.
- [32:39]
Vicky Petraitis
Someone to know that they were there.
- [32:42]
Glenda Frost
Isn't that awful?
- [32:44]
Vicky Petraitis
Well, she wanted someone to know that she was talking to someone at that time.
- [32:49]
Wendy Orchard
Yep.
- [32:50]
Vicky Petraitis
Company in the house.
- [32:52]
Glenda Frost
Yeah.
- [32:53]
Vicky Petraitis
While her memory has caused her some issues lately, Glenda is still adamant that back then she would have been certain. Over the years, people have said maybe Glenda made a mistake of the day. What do you say? How do you respond to that? No, I didn't.
- [33:16]
Glenda Frost
I would have been absolutely sure then. I'm pretty good. I was.
- [33:24]
Vicky Petraitis
I know that I would have been.
- [33:26]
Glenda Frost
Absolutely sure of the time when she.
- [33:29]
Vicky Petraitis
Rang and, yeah, when I spoke to her. But over time, Rory o' Connor has come to doubt Glenda's story.
- [33:39]
Detective Rory O'Connor
It's not that I don't believe it. I believe that she was mistaken. I believe she obviously got a phone call and that's all now, you know, like, I can't prove it either way and I don't think Linda can prove it either way either. But that's, that's, that's my idea regarding the actual conversation that she had.
- [34:00]
Vicky Petraitis
When I interviewed Pam and Glenda five years after the murder, both women sounded absolutely certain. Pam was only there on the Tuesday morning, so she was certain she hadn't mistaken the date. Here's a reminder of how Glenda's friend Pam described how she came to the island on the Monday afternoon and stayed overnight and so it couldn't have been any other day. Pam also knew Vivien Cameron from when Pam and Glenda had run a business together on the island. So when Glenda said it's Viv, Pam knew exactly who she was talking about.
- [34:39]
Glenda Frost
The Monday was the holiday and that was the day that I drove down from Melbourne after I'd finished work on the way down. I could remember that distinctly that it was that Monday because the Phillip island people were given a holiday in order to, if they wanted to go up to the show. It was an easier day than the actual show day. And I can remember when I was driving through the town that it was so dead and there wasn't anybody around being the holiday. And I remember thinking to myself exactly that, oh, yes, that's right, it's the holiday for the show day. So that's why I can remember, you know, exactly that particular day. And I stayed at Gwen's place overnight and we'd had dinner the previous evening and at that stage we didn't know anything about what had gone on. And then about 10 o', clock, I think it was, I was washing up at the. The sink and the phone, the phone, Glenn in those was on the top of the fridge quite near to me, but I was washing the dishes and up to my elbows and the phone rang and when Glen picked it up she said, oh, is that you, Viv? I can remember that exactly. And she went on with a conversation about craft work and just an ordinary everyday conversation about, about, as I said, you know, the craft work and the community house. So just before the conversation ended, Glenn stopped and I presumed that Vivian had said to her, I'll just hang on for a minute. And Glenn was laughing and she was saying, oh, are the children playing up on you? You know. Anyway, she hesitated and waited and then, you know, they more or less just the conversation finished there. And then when Glen hung up, I said, oh, you know, that was Viv. And she said, oh, yes, she was just, you know, asking a bit about the craft and classes and, you know, so it was definitely her. And that was at 10 o' clock in the morning on the Tuesday.
- [36:43]
Detective Rory O'Connor
Don't dispute that. Now, what I'm saying is she's just mistaken on who she was talking to. I've got no doubt and I believe she honestly believes exactly what she's telling us. But I've had people do that time and time again and I'm not disputing her and I'm not saying I don't believe her. I'm just saying she could have, well, been a mistake.
- [37:10]
Vicky Petraitis
Part of the reason that Rory o' Connor doubts Glenda's story is that he can't believe someone who had done what she had done to Beth could possibly make such a mundane phone call the next morning as if nothing has happened. Of course, there are some who believe that Vivian didn't know what had happened when she made that call.
- [37:32]
Detective Rory O'Connor
Isn't it inconceivable, if Vivian had anything to do with this, that she would. Even after the hospital, the mere fact that she didn't pick up the kids or anything like that, that was the end of it for Vivian. Now, for her to make that phone call at that time of the morning and talk about something that had nothing to do with her life, I can't believe. I think. I believe she's mistaken.
- [38:01]
Vicky Petraitis
But this is where the other option needs to be considered. What if Vivian had nothing to do with the murder of Beth Barnard? What if she didn't know about the murder at all? There have always been rumours that Vivienne slept at the community house the night of the murder. She had a key. What if she was so upset by the evening and the crumbling of her marriage that she rang the Dixons in the middle of the night in order to get a little breathing space? What if she decided to stay away? Or what if she wanted the family to worry about her for a change? When Glenda spoke to Vivien, she told her the name of a local woman who might be able to help her. Source the Patchwork house. Isabel Addicoat remembers seeing the name Glenda had given Vivien written in the communication book on the Tuesday. Did that mean Vivian had phoned Glenda from the community house? And if she did, who were the voices in the background? Someone knew where Vivien was at 10am why have they never come forward? The voices in the background have always suggested to me that someone knew where Vivienne was that morning. When we spoke all those years ago about this, you said to me that when you spoke to Vivian, you heard voices in the background. And you said to her at the kids home today and she was a bit non committal, she didn't say yay or nay. Really. She says she more or less just.
- [39:39]
Ann Davey
Passed it off with oh, it's all.
- [39:40]
Glenda Frost
Right, and went on talking about what she wanted to talk about.
- [39:44]
Vicky Petraitis
Yeah, so I never really knew that. Who was with her at 10 o' clock in the morning? That's the big question. And if she did make the call at 10, she had not jumped off the bridge. There are so many questions about the bridge suicide theory. Most of Vivian's friends can't believe that she would leave her two boys by jumping. She didn't leave a note, she didn't try and justify her actions, she didn't say goodbye to her beloved sons and she didn't take her cigarettes. For such a heavy smoker at no doubt the most nerve wracking time in her life, you'd think Vivian would have grabbed one of the two packets of cigarettes in the Land Cruiser and the box of matches and had a couple of smokes on the half kilometre walk to the centre of the bridge and then maybe a couple more waiting at the rails. That's what smokers do. Smoking calms the nerves. If the cigarettes smoked near Beth's phone were in fact hers, Vivian had proven that already. The cliche of the last smoke isn't a cliche for nothing. We've already discussed the bridge as the most unlikely spot to jump on an island full of really good places to jump from. And we've discussed the unlikelihood of Vivienne driving all the way back to Ventnor to get her handbag, which Robyn Dixon saw when she picked up the Cameron boys, only to leave it on the seat of the Land Cruiser where it was parked on Forest Avenue. Of course, some people think Vivian might have rung the Dixons at 3am, then waited in hiding until they collected the children. But if the car heard at 3:20am by Margaret McPhee was the Cameron Land Cruiser, then she must have left without the bag, perhaps wanting to be out of the house and gone by the time the Dixons arrived. Vivian's friend Ann Davey just can't picture the driving back and forward.
- [41:49]
Ann Davey
If Vivian was going to commit suicide, you would think that she would just jump in the Land Cruiser and just, you know, drive the vehicle off the end of their property, off Helen's Head and go into Bass Strait. I can't imagine why you'd even think about driving back across the island and parking the car and then walking to the bridge and jump. Didn't make sense. Still doesn't make any sense.
- [42:15]
Vicky Petraitis
Here's another theory. As Left of field as any I've heard over the years. When I was Googling Mogadon tablets, the tablets that Marnie Cairns gave to Vivian when she dropped fergus off at 2am in the morning of Tuesday 23rd of September. Here's the definition I found. You should not take Mogadon if you experience complex sleep behaviours such as sleepwalking, sleep driving or any other bizarre sleep related behaviours. Some people may experience side effects such as drowsiness, confusion, dizziness and unsteadiness. Like every other piece of information about this case that raises more questions than it answers. If Vivian was distressed and upset, could she have taken the two Mogadon tablets and experienced some kind of tragic confusion state? It brought to mind what Beth's friend and for a time Vivienne's horse riding instructor, Wendy Orchard had said when we spoke.
- [43:21]
Wendy Orchard
I just didn't believe that Vivian could have done it. I just in my own feelings at the time where that that wasn't, that that wasn't the sort of thing she would do, like that was just didn't fit with her character at all. For me anyway, as the woman I knew her as, I just sort of, no, I can't believe that a woman could do that, but that Vivian could have done it, she would have to have been drunk or drugged or something. You know, you just go, you just don't. Yeah, it just, just didn't work for me.
- [44:07]
Vicky Petraitis
How did the case get so complicated? I asked Beth's friend from the Penguin Parade, Graham Bergen, what he thought.
- [44:17]
Detective Rory O'Connor
I just think that the island being the island and who it happened to, like I can just see why the whole thing is the mess that it is. There's just too much political interfering, too much gossiping and the truth being blurred.
- [44:39]
Vicky Petraitis
And what about Glenda Frost?
- [44:42]
Glenda Frost
I was hoping that Sid was still alive and just speed her own mind and that she just sent up. That's what I was hoping because I just didn't believe she'd gone when they said anyway.
- [44:56]
Vicky Petraitis
And what about Jane Maber, the woman who was attacked at the gates of the Phillip island racetrack a year after Vivian's inquest? What does she hope this podcast might achieve?
- [45:09]
Glenda Frost
That the truth finally comes out? Because I don't believe it has. Not in Vivian's story and certainly not in my story. But somehow I just, I don't know why, but I feel we're linked and I would really, really love to see the truth finally come out.
- [45:32]
Vicky Petraitis
Vivian's friend Sue Chadwick feels that with the silence that's always surrounded the case people lost the chance to discuss, discuss it and process it. She also noticed a pattern of denigration against Vivian after the murder.
- [45:48]
Ann Davey
I felt that when the event happened everything was swept under the carpet very quickly. The fact that you couldn't get the book locally and the fact that when I went up the street, of course everybody was talking about what had happened. But there were a few people that were very, very nasty about Vivian. And I thought, where are people speaking up for her?
- [46:12]
Vicky Petraitis
I can't hear them.
- [46:14]
Ann Davey
But there were a few people that I knew and we all were very.
- [46:17]
Vicky Petraitis
Concerned that her life be looked into.
- [46:22]
Ann Davey
And that her position in the family be valued, which hadn't seemed to be before that we would like to see.
- [46:31]
Vicky Petraitis
Justice done just to find out her.
- [46:33]
Ann Davey
Story and find out how she managed to survive amongst all those very strong people, that is the Cameron family.
- [46:44]
Vicky Petraitis
As a long standing respected member of the Phillip island community, Ann Davey beautifully sums up this case and the effect it had on the community.
- [46:55]
Ann Davey
For those of us who still live here, the memory of the horror has never really gone away. And the feeling that we still don't know what happened to Vivienne Cameron sits poorly with us. She was a great mother, she was a fine person. And I feel at the time and with Beth too, there was not a lot mentioned about what two very fine people died that night. And the community has never really, for those of us who still live here, come to terms with, with the violence and the unresolved feeling about the whole thing that happened that night. It's not an easy thing. It'll never go away. It'll always be in our memory. We lost two women in that we never really were able to mourn or we were never really. We never had a conversation about what fine people they were and that they were missed and they did not deserve what happened to them. And I guess that's why we always still want to know really particularly what happened to Vivienne. She was important to her family and to us.
- [48:12]
Vicky Petraitis
Perhaps it's best to leave the final comment to the detective who investigated the murder of Beth Barnard all those years ago, Rory o'. Connor.
- [48:23]
Detective Rory O'Connor
So our main suspect will always be, because of the evidence that we got, will always be Vivian. But if someone can come up with something that says it could not possibly have been Vivian because I saw Vivian at another particular stage, not phone calls, not this, not that, but on that night at that time, then you'd have to look somewhere else and most of the time you'd be looking at other people that, that are involved.
- [48:54]
Vicky Petraitis
We put the issues raised in the series to the Cameron family, but they declined to respond. We come to the end of our exploration of the Phillip island murder and the vanishing of Vivienne Cameron. For now, my hope is that all the people I couldn't find and anyone who knew the women involved might hear this and want to add their perspective to the story. If I have spoken to you about this in the past and you'd like to add your voice to the story, please contact me through my vickypatraitus.com website or through my Facebook Vicky Patratus Author page, or through casefile social media. It would be our dream to find some answers in this case. Vivienne Cameron can't just have vanished. She has to be somewhere. What if you could bleach and color your hair without damage with K18 molecular repair hair mask? You can have strong soft bouncy hair and keep using the color bleach and heat. This isn't just a damage cover up, it's a deep damage fix. That's because patented K18 peptide repairs damage on the molecular level, which is really really deep. So no matter what you do to your hair, K18 will be there to fix the damage. Shop at Sephora or get 10% off your first purchase with code podcast@k18hair.com.