Helen |13

Summary

Witness: William Tyrrell - Episode 13 "Helen"

Host/Author: news.com.au
Release Date: May 19, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 13 titled "Helen" of the investigative podcast series Witness: William Tyrrell, hosted by news.com.au, the narrative interweaves the haunting case of Helen Harrison’s 1968 disappearance with the enduring mystery surrounding William Tyrrell’s 2014 vanishing. Through meticulous exploration of court records, witness testimonies, and expert insights, this episode delves deep into potential connections between these two unresolved cases, centering particularly on the enigmatic figure of Frank Abbott.

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Helen Harrison’s Disappearance and Murder

The episode opens with a chilling phone call from Frank Abbott, who is incarcerated for unrelated crimes. In this call, Abbott hints at the police's ongoing interest in his connection to a murder, setting a tense tone ([00:26] Dan Box).

Helen Harrison, a 17-year-old with a vibrant personality, was last seen cycling home from her job at a local store in Pitt Town, Western Sydney, on March 16, 1968. Her disappearance was shortly followed by the discovery of her body in a shallow grave near East Karadjong, NSW. Helen was found naked from the waist down, with no immediate cause of death identifiable during the autopsy ([07:40] Gary Jubilin).

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Initial Police Investigation

The investigation into Helen's death was extensive. The police canvassed thousands of leads and interviewed numerous individuals in the community. However, despite their efforts, Helen's murder remained unsolved for decades. The case took a significant turn when several crucial pieces of evidence and testimonies emerged years later, casting suspicions on Frank Abbott, who had been previously found not guilty in two trials ([24:10] Dan Box).

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Frank Abbott’s Involvement and Alibi

Frank Abbott became a person of interest in Helen Harrison’s murder due to inconsistencies in his alibi. Initially, Abbott claimed to have been at a pub with his brother John on the day of Helen's disappearance. However, his story changed months later, introducing discrepancies that raised further suspicion ([30:23] Jeanette Parish).

Notably, Abbott’s alibi was never fully corroborated, as the police did not interview John, the brother he identified as his alibi witness. Instead, a different brother, Ted, provided conflicting statements, further muddling the investigation ([27:29] Jeanette Parish).

Notable Quote:
"They might have had... So I'm always cautious when we're looking at old investigations that what information did they have at the time."
— Nina Young ([31:19] Nina Young)

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Allegations Against Frank Abbott

Over the years, additional allegations surfaced implicating Frank Abbott. In 1990, while serving time for a minor offense, Gary Grimson confessed to the police that Abbott had admitted to murdering Helen Harrison. Grimson detailed a harrowing account where Abbott forcibly raped Helen and claimed responsibility for her death, presenting a supposed physical link—a watch belonging to Helen ([46:58] Dan Box).

Furthermore, two women related to Frank’s wife, Katrina Abbott, came forward in 1977, alleging that Frank had bragged about his violent actions against Helen, including mentions of her underwear and violent assaults ([38:42] Jeanette Parish).

Notable Quote:
"... you have to have more interest put in Abbott."
— Peter Harrison ([16:49] Peter Harrison)

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Trials and Verdict

Despite mounting allegations, Frank Abbott was found not guilty of Helen Harrison’s murder after two trials. The defense highlighted the prolonged delay in prosecutorial proceedings and the lack of concrete forensic evidence linking Abbott to the crime. The case was marred by lost or destroyed records and the inability to interview key witnesses, including Frank's wife and brothers, who could have potentially solidified his alibi ([52:25] Dan Box).

Notable Quote:
"He'd be someone you would want to pursue."
— Nina Young ([42:07] Nina Young)

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New Evidence and Connections to William Tyrrell

Decades after Helen’s disappearance, connections began to surface linking Frank Abbott to William Tyrrell’s ongoing case. New witness statements, including those from Abbott’s niece and Brian Collier—a local carpenter—alleged that Abbott had confessed to multiple sexual assaults and murders, including that of Helen. These revelations reignited interest in Abbott's potential involvement in both cases, suggesting a possible pattern of predatory behavior ([58:39] Brian Collier).

Notable Quote:
"Frank, he tried to grab her by the throat and strangled her."
— Brian Collier ([60:35] Brian Collier)

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Interviews with Witnesses and Family Members

Peter Harrison, Helen's brother, provides a poignant perspective on the unresolved nature of his sister's death. Reflecting on the traumatic experience, he expresses enduring grief and a yearning for closure, especially in light of new allegations against Abbott. Interviews with Frank’s sister, Elaine Harding, and his niece, Di Smith, further complicate the narrative, as they recount disturbing family revelations about Frank’s interactions with young girls ([67:01] Di Smith).

Notable Quote:
"She never got to home. [...] We think this is maybe part of the reason she accepted a lift because of the rain."
— Peter Harrison ([07:41] Peter Harrison)

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Conclusion and Ongoing Unsolved Status

Helen Harrison’s murder remains officially unsolved, with Frank Abbott’s innocence still a matter of legal determination despite numerous allegations. The intertwining of her case with William Tyrrell’s disappearance suggests a deeper, more disturbing history of unresolved crimes tied to Abbott. As the podcast concludes, the quest for truth continues, fueled by persistent investigative efforts and the unyielding hope of victims' families for justice.

Notable Quote:
"No one’s been brought to justice. [...] He denies any involvement."
— Gary Jubilin ([55:15] Gary Jubilin)

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Key Takeaways

• Frank Abbott remains a controversial figure with a complicated history, implicated in multiple unsolved cases but never convicted.

• Helen Harrison’s case illustrates the challenges of criminal investigations without concrete forensic evidence or reliable witness testimonies.

• William Tyrrell’s ongoing disappearance may share unsettling parallels with Helen’s unresolved murder, hinting at possible patterns in Abbott’s behavior.

• Family and Community Impact: The grief and lack of closure continue to haunt the families involved, underscoring the long-term emotional toll of unsolved crimes.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution

• "They think he might have done this. The priest answers." ([03:20] Peter Harrison by Gary Jubilin)

• "Well, if you knew anything, I'd be the first to tell him." ([03:42] Frank Abbott)

• "It's an image that I can't shake." ([17:40] Gary Jubilin)

• "He was a thief, he could pick the eye out of a needle." ([61:04] Brian Collier)

• "If you have fresh and compelling evidence, you could have him retried." ([57:03] Nina Young)

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For more exclusive content and updates, follow news.com.au on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. If you have any information regarding what happened to William Tyrrell or Helen Harrison, please contact CrimeStoppers at 1800 333 000 or email [e-mail].

Transcript

[Dan Box]

You are about to receive a phone call from the correctional facility. The conversation will be recorded after the.

[Gary Jubilin]

Inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance finishes hearing evidence in public.

[Dan Box]

If you do not wish to receive this call, please hang up now.

[Gary Jubilin]

A lawyer for the New South Wales State Coroner sends me an email.

[Dan Box]

This call is originating from the Shortland.

[Gary Jubilin]

Correctional Centre with a link to dozens and dozens of exhibits that were tendered at the inquest, including witness statements, photographs, things we've never seen before.

[Frank Abbott]

Hello. Hi, Frank, how are you?

[Jeanette Parish]

How are you?

[Frank Abbott]

Good.

[Gary Jubilin]

And these recordings of Frank Abbott Inside prison in November 2019, where Frank is serving time for sexually abusing children. And here he's talking on the PH to a Christian pastor, Martin Parish and his wife Jeanette. I'm really good, thank you. How are you?

[Frank Abbott]

Oh, not too bad. We've had that many lock in days, it's not funny.

[Gary Jubilin]

Oh, really?

[Frank Abbott]

Yeah.

[Gary Jubilin]

It's the first time we've heard these recordings which have never previously been made public. And listening to them, the first thing that strikes me why are you being all done yesterday? Is that Frank who, and I'll stress this, Frank's in prison for sexually and indecently assaulting children. Frank is whinging.

[Frank Abbott]

We had four full days and two half days and a quarter day logging so far in the last couple of weeks.

[Dan Box]

That's no good.

[Gary Jubilin]

Frank says he's been locked up for too long inside his prison cell.

[Frank Abbott]

Yesterday we never got our breakfast till 10 o' clock and then half past 11 they brought their lunch.

[Gary Jubilin]

Frank complains the prison breakfast was late coming and lunch was too early. I mean didums.

[Frank Abbott]

I talked with Les and David a few days ago now.

[Dan Box]

Yep.

[Gary Jubilin]

But then Frank says he's spoken to his two surviving brothers, Les and David. He says the police investigating William's disappearance have been up to see them.

[Frank Abbott]

They've been up there and seen them.

[Dan Box]

You'Re told in the place.

[Frank Abbott]

Yeah.

[Gary Jubilin]

Frank says the cops asked his brothers about a murder.

[Frank Abbott]

Yeah, they're talking about that murder pill I was on him back in 1990.

[Gary Jubilin]

Something a murder Frank was charged with and where he was found not guilty.

[Frank Abbott]

I beat the charge in the second trial, so I had four and a half week trial and got unsure. And then that second trial 12 months later, another four and a half weeks and it's. They're not goodly but they still bring us up.

[Gary Jubilin]

The cops are still bringing it up.

[Frank Abbott]

Frank says, oh, he's done this and he's done that. We think he might have done this.

[Gary Jubilin]

One saying, oh, he's done this and he's done that. We think he might have done this one. The priest answers.

[Peter Harrison]

That'S their thinking.

[Gary Jubilin]

And Jeanette Parish chips in. Not fair, is it? I mean, if you sound not guilty, you should be able to say, I'm not guilty. But what exactly do the police mean by saying we think he might have done this one? Were they talking about William? If so, Frank denies it.

[Frank Abbott]

Yeah, well, that's what I thought on that, didn't you? If I knew anything, I'd be the first to tell him.

[Gary Jubilin]

That beat means the conversation has to end soon. You only get a few minutes on a prison phone call.

[Dan Box]

Anyway.

[Frank Abbott]

God bless you. I'll bring you again later.

[Gary Jubilin]

In the rush to end the call, nobody seems to ask Frank who was it he was found not guilty of murdering. I'm Dan box and from news.com this is witness William Tyrell. Episode 13 Helen Helen Mary Harrison was a teenager with dark hair and a bright smile and she was all of 17 years old but looked younger as she left work at the local store in Pitt Town in western Sydney on Saturday 16th March 1968. It was hot that afternoon, early autumn and a storm was building up as Helen set out to cycle the few kilometers through farmland and scattered houses to her home and her family. Only she never got there. Today few people remember Helen, but among them is her brother Peter. I meet him in a cafe in a built up part of western Sydney where Peter brings his old handwritten notes from decades ago and fading newspaper clippings. Peter was 14 when it happened, but today he's an old man and sitting together it feels like he's wrapped up in grief or silence or something. He's hesitant, his words stop and start or trail away. Later we sit in the sunlight coming through a small window in his home and I ask him to tell me about his sister.

[Peter Harrison]

Well, being older than us, she was working, had more of her own life than the self and my brother at home.

[Gary Jubilin]

And what kind of a person was she? Looking back, how do you think of her?

[Peter Harrison]

Well, she enjoyed. She actually had to cycle to work at Pitttown, which is quite a distance, you know, four or five kilometres to Pitt Town. But apparently she used to sing on the bike. Other people had told us and just worked in the general store.

[Gary Jubilin]

So she used to sing on the bike as she cycled to and from work?

[Peter Harrison]

Yes, and. And more of a social life than my brother and I.

[Gary Jubilin]

How would you describe her physically as you remember her?

[Peter Harrison]

Oh, quite good looking and more mature than us. That's about how. As much as I can.

[Gary Jubilin]

Can I. And I'm sorry to do this. Can I ask what you remember of what happened to her?

[Peter Harrison]

I certainly remember it all on the day where the. There was a big storm in Pitt Town. Fairly hot weekend, when a hot day turns into a storm. And we believe this is maybe part of the reason she accepted a lift because of the rain.

[Gary Jubilin]

And what came next?

[Peter Harrison]

Oh, we're waiting and waiting on the afternoon. But you didn't come here. Excuse me.

[Gary Jubilin]

Peter takes a moment looking out the window as his memory reaches back across the decades.

[Peter Harrison]

There was later in the day, I think four or five, and my father, he was driving around looking all through the night, really. We didn't know what had happened and.

[Gary Jubilin]

The police became involved. And can you remember much of their investigation at the time, the police?

[Peter Harrison]

I think only in the beginning they didn't think anything had happened to her. They thought she may have run off, left home, shot through somewhere, but she was happy at home, no reason to do that. And they didn't try and look at all for the first early days.

[Gary Jubilin]

And how did that feel?

[Peter Harrison]

Well, it was a bit hopeless for everyone. We didn't just kept on just driving around and talking to people and asking if they. And local people told us, that's only blue utility and three people in it. I think it was three or Helen in the middle. Someone had seen a bike in the back of a blue utility. That was the rumour.

[Gary Jubilin]

But this was your family doing the looking at this point, the police weren't looking.

[Peter Harrison]

I don't think they were until the. The basket was discovered.

[Gary Jubilin]

That was Helen's basket.

[Peter Harrison]

I think it was about a week later. That was the first clue of where. Where she may have been.

[Gary Jubilin]

And then they started to look.

[Peter Harrison]

Yes. And then they found in the bushland there, the shallow grave off the side of the road there.

[Gary Jubilin]

Can I ask how that was for you as a child and for your parents?

[Peter Harrison]

Well, very traumatic, of course, then.

[Nina Young]

But.

[Peter Harrison]

It was worse for Mother than anybody. It was a big loss in a.

[Gary Jubilin]

Lot of ways and that loss is something you've lived with, imagine your parents live with for the whole of their lives without ever maybe being given an answer as to exactly what happened by the police and the courts.

[Peter Harrison]

Yes, that is true. There's been no firm result about Abbott, although he's been. We've had two trials and a lot of hearsay evidence and some stronger evidence, which is all amounted to nothing in the end, as far as finding out the truth.

[Gary Jubilin]

And watching all of that over the Years. And it was decades. What do you think? Looking back at that now.

[Peter Harrison]

It seemed to be that this type of murder case, as it was, was unknown or that anyone had heard of before in Moralia District, Pittown District. And it was. It was just more hard to deal with, I suppose. And yes, even with a lot of evidence of some degree and opinions from other people, and a missing watch, which Abbott had boasted about, he's told other people that he's got Helen's. They've seen Helen's watch in the glove box of the car.

[Gary Jubilin]

Did Helen wear a watch?

[Peter Harrison]

Oh, yes.

[Gary Jubilin]

We'll come back to that watch later.

[Peter Harrison]

And we thought the police would have been taking more action and interviewing more people, that type of thing.

[Gary Jubilin]

And later, when Abbott was eventually charged and taken to court, when we met, you said you had doubts about the.

[Jeanette Parish]

Jury system based on what you've been through.

[Peter Harrison]

The whole thing is just hanging on a jury and it only takes one person not to agree with it because. And then the whole jury can file. And some people possibly weren't happy with the decision and just said yes or no.

[Gary Jubilin]

And you would have seen Frank in the courtroom?

[Peter Harrison]

Yes, I saw him in the court and going in, but I never saw him coming out.

[Jeanette Parish]

Did you describe him? No.

[Peter Harrison]

He's a stand over me. Yeah. Literally, that's what people used to say. That's a word of her. It threatened them from what other people say. But he did look a bit fearsome, I suppose.

[Gary Jubilin]

Frank looked fearsome enough that even his own lawyer described him in court as someone who stands over people to get his way. But that doesn't make him a murderer, the lawyer argued. And is the jury found? Looking back at what happened, what are your regrets?

[Peter Harrison]

Oh, the time factor. Well, Ellen died in 68. Our trial wasn't until 91 or 2. That's ridiculous. 23 or 4 years and literally that's. That's terrible.

[Gary Jubilin]

And what have you heard from the police since that trial?

[Peter Harrison]

Very little if any, that I can remember.

[Gary Jubilin]

It's now 50 years or more since Helen went missing and we've heard Frank's name in the years since. In relation to the William Tyrrell investigation, you said the police haven't contacted you since the trial. Do you still have any hopes that what happened to your sister can be resolved? What do you hope for now?

[Peter Harrison]

I would like to see a resolution because there has been a lot of evidence over the years, a lot of people interviewed and provided their thoughts and some facts, and it's all come to nothing, in spite of two court Cases after all this time, and we know Abbott is a bad person and the sheer amount of stories, really, there's got to be. There's got to be more interest put in Abbott.

[Gary Jubilin]

You'd like to see the police pay more attention to Frank Abbot?

[Peter Harrison]

Certainly, yes. It's a very old case, but there's a lot of unsold answers questions.

[Gary Jubilin]

After walking outside, Peter's bicycle is standing up against his garage wall. He says he cycles like his sister Helen. And I think of her cycling home from work on that day, singing. It's an image that I can't shake. And nor can Nina, the producer on this series.

[Dan Box]

All right, thank you both.

[Gary Jubilin]

Nina has spent months now trying to find out more about Helen's death and what happened after.

[Dan Box]

So what I want to do today is take you through what I found out about the.

[Gary Jubilin]

This afternoon. She's asked me and Gary Jubilin to join her in the studio.

[Dan Box]

And this information is based on court documents that I've been able to find and newspaper articles that were written at the time.

[Gary Jubilin]

Gary's one of the detectives who led the investigation into William Tyrrell's disappearance. He's got a checkered history with the case, which we've talked about a lot earlier in this, but nobody disputes. Gary knows police work. He spent 34 years in the New South Wales police force, most of them investigating homicides.

[Dan Box]

And what I'm going to try and do is present it to you in a way that's not my opinion. You know, I'm trying not to colour it. So if you think I am doing that, speak up, let me know.

[Nina Young]

Ok. Just the facts, ma' am, Just the facts.

[Dan Box]

All right, should we get started?

[Jeanette Parish]

All right.

[Dan Box]

Okay, so it's 1968. Let's start with Frank Abbott and what he was doing in 1968. So Frank's in his 20s and he's living with his parents in Kingswood, which is a suburb in the west of Sydney. It's not too far from Penrith.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay, so it's far west of Sydney.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

Right.

[Dan Box]

Frank's from a big family. He's got lots of brothers and sisters and he's also I guess what you'd call like a petty criminal. So car theft, burglary, break and enter, that kind of level of criminal. Right.

[Jeanette Parish]

So how old is he, roughly?

[Dan Box]

In his sort of mid to late 20s.

[Jeanette Parish]

Mid to late 20s.

[Brian Collier]

Okay.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. So that's Frank at that point. About half an hour from Kingswood is Pitttown, and that is where Helen Harrison, who's 17 at the time is working.

[Nina Young]

I do know Pitttown and what are we talking about? 68 that would have been a very small place.

[Dan Box]

Small place.

[Jeanette Parish]

It's right on the fringe of Sydney where it's more bush than city acres.

[Nina Young]

And farmland and all that. Pitt town Yep.

[Dan Box]

Yeah Helen at the time she was really reliable. Go to work, come home. On 16 March 1968 she left work about 12.45pm and she hopped on her bike to ride home as she always did. People saw her leave but she never made it home. She was not the kind of teenager who would just go off without telling her parents so they raised the alarm pretty quickly. There's a search and they just can't find her.

[Jeanette Parish]

How good would a search have been from the police at that time Gary68.

[Nina Young]

It would literally be driving around on the roads and they wouldn't have the communication. 17 year old girl leaving the store riding on a country road. I'd dare say that the search would be that she hasn't been involved in an accident or whatever. So I think it'd be a cursory drive along the roadways on the most likely path that she would have taken.

[Jeanette Parish]

So it's not flooding the area like we saw with William Taylor.

[Nina Young]

I wouldn't imagine 17 year girl on a bike 68 so I think that's what the search would have been.

[Dan Box]

So it's about a week later they find Helen's body. She's in a shallow grave in East Karadjong which is around the area she was murdered and she was found naked from the waist down. I don't think that they have a cause of death.

[Jeanette Parish]

Do you know anything about. You said it was a shallow grave but sort of where it was it.

[Nina Young]

Was in the bush Karajong. You've got pit town in the the plains, Windsor Plains, Richmond. East Karajong is as you're starting to go up into the Blue Mountains. Okay so that was have been.

[Jeanette Parish]

Yeah it's a bit wild.

[Nina Young]

So that that would be a place you'd take someone.

[Jeanette Parish]

It's even further out of Sydney, it's more remote. You've gone through this kind of idyllic country edge and now you're getting into the mountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Dan Box]

They found the body and she had been paid at her job about $20 that was missing. Her watch was missing.

[Jeanette Parish]

Really?

[Dan Box]

Her underwear was missing and her bike was missing at that time but they did find that a few months later.

[Jeanette Parish]

Gary, can I ask a question which isn't a pleasant question at all? None of this is pleasant if you find a teenager's body roughly a week after she's died in 68, how do you tell she's been sexually assaulted?

[Nina Young]

Could be damage around the, around the vagina or the anus. That might have been because the flesh, potentially the flesh is still there.

[Jeanette Parish]

So there's not gonna be modern day forensics. There's no DNA.

[Nina Young]

Maybe they'd swabbed for blood back then, but it's not DNA.

[Dan Box]

So she was naked from the waist down.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay, so that, yeah, okay, there's that.

[Dan Box]

So there's no immediate obvious suspect for the police. So I wanted to ask you, Gary, I imagine this kind of seemingly random attack where you don't have that obvious suspect, that's gotta be one of the hardest kind of crimes to solve.

[Nina Young]

I'd imagine stranger murders are what we consider most difficult ones.

[Jeanette Parish]

But would you assume it was a stranger murder?

[Nina Young]

I'm just answering. The stranger murders are the most difficult ones. But you'd be thinking, okay, a stranger murder if someone was just driving along the road. But you'd be looking at all the local people around there who knew her, who knew she rode that route. You're looking at people that, you know. Victimology is the early part of the murder investigation. Finding out what her lifestyle is, what her patterns were, the fact that the local community all knew she rode home that way, well, that would open up suspects to everyone in the community or potential suspects.

[Jeanette Parish]

So as a cop, you'd actually, on the basis of that, almost be walking into town and looking at potentially anybody there.

[Nina Young]

And then line of a questioning, you'd speak to her family and friends, anyone that's been paying particular attention to her, anyone that stands out in the community that's a little bit strange in the behaviour. So that would be the way you work the community.

[Dan Box]

Yeah, and that's exactly what the police did. So they cast a pretty wide net. They're following up every possible lead. By the time the case goes to trial, decades later, the court hears that the police have spoken to thousands of people in relation to thousands, Thousands.

[Jeanette Parish]

So in 68, the cops had put that much work into it, you'd be astounded.

[Nina Young]

Like some of the old school investigations, they were fascinating, the amount of detail. We didn't have computers, it wasn't electronic, but there was a card system in place and you'd have boxes of cards and a bit of information would be stored alphabetically in the system and like.

[Jeanette Parish]

Cross reference between cards.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, there was a lot of collating to be done, but yeah, they were thorough because they didn't have the benefits that we've got currently, like with CCTV footage, phone records, all that. So it was just that legwork. You had to go out and speak to people and that was the thing that solved cases.

[Dan Box]

Well, that's definitely what they were doing. And as far as I can tell from the court records that I have access to, Frank Abbott first comes onto their radar when a 16 year old boy goes to the police in the weeks after Helen's murder and he tells them that about two weeks before Helen's disappearance, he'd spoken to a passenger in an old white Cortina sedan who expressed an interest in Helen and her whereabouts.

[Jeanette Parish]

And so that's all from court records?

[Dan Box]

Yeah. So a teenager goes to the place and said, hey, saw this guy in this car and he asked me about Helen.

[Nina Young]

When he asked him about Helen, that was prior to Helen disappearing two weeks before. Yeah. Okay, well that's definitely a line of inquiry that you'd be wanting to follow up.

[Dan Box]

So they do and they go to Frank and they ask him about it in April of 1968. So it's about a month after the murder. And he confirms that, yes, he was the passenger in that white Cortina and he says his friend Trevor was driving, but he says he doesn't remember asking about Helen. He tells the police that he had met Helen a few months earlier at a dance and he'd seen her around since then. So when the police then asked him about his whereabouts on the day that Helen went missing, he said that he and his brother John visited a hotel in Penrith about 10.30am, had a couple of beers, left. By 12.30pm, John drove Frank to his home in Kingswood, where he stayed until about 4:30 when his other brother came and picked him up.

[Jeanette Parish]

So that's again, court records.

[Dan Box]

That's all in court records.

[Nina Young]

Just break that down. Like 10:30am to 12:30pm at the pub. At the pub. And then his brother dropped him home?

[Dan Box]

Yeah. So he was at the pub with his brother John. Yeah, John drove him back to Kingswood and then another brother came and picked him up.

[Nina Young]

She disappeared. What time? She started at 12:45. She was riding the bike home. So he's given. Basically he's with his brother John at the critical stage.

[Jeanette Parish]

So what time was she last seen?

[Nina Young]

1245.

[Jeanette Parish]

1245. So he's left the pub just before then with his brother. So the only alibi witness at the crucial time would be his brother?

[Dan Box]

Yeah, so that's my next question. Gary, you get that alibi given to you from a person of interest, who do you speak to?

[Nina Young]

I'd go to the pub, see if they were together. That would be the first thing. And then I would be grabbing the brother as quickly as I could and lock him in. And then speaking to other people associated with the brother and associated with Frank to see if they corroborate it.

[Dan Box]

So the police don't speak to John, which is Frank's brother, who said he was with, don't speak to John. In fact, no one speaks to John until decades later when it goes to trial. And at that point, John has no memory of any of it.

[Jeanette Parish]

So, again, it's court records saying the cops do not speak to the person Frank nominates as his alibi witness.

[Dan Box]

Yes. And Justice Slattery will later say in court such an interview might have been expected after the applicant told police he and his brother John had visited a hotel in Penrith for several hours up to 12.30pm that's an understatement, isn't it?

[Nina Young]

Yeah, definitely should have been spoken to. And you'd be checking his alibi like it's.

[Jeanette Parish]

Does that make any sense to you, though? If the cops are working this hard enough that they speak to thousands of people, but they don't speak to the brother who Frank says he was with at the time, why would that be?

[Nina Young]

It comes down to, I think, leadership sometimes directions and sheer volume of information comes in. And like, we're looking at it now, knowing what we know about Frank and the type of person he is.

[Jeanette Parish]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

At that point in time, he was in his mid-20s.

[Jeanette Parish]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

Mightn't have the criminal history. Okay, well, two blokes, they're. We can for a drink at the pub. It mightn't have had that urgency.

[Jeanette Parish]

Yeah. Okay, so he's a potentially just someone who's come up. Just. Okay, we've checked what he says he was doing and we tick that box, move on. Because they might have been looking at someone else.

[Nina Young]

They might. Might have had. So I'm always cautious when we're looking at old investigations that what information did they have at the time?

[Dan Box]

We're not done with the alibis. So the police do speak to Trevor, who was the driver of the Cortina.

[Jeanette Parish]

Hang on. So this is the guy who was.

[Dan Box]

In the car with Frank when they spoke to that teenager who said Frank.

[Jeanette Parish]

Was asking about Helen.

[Dan Box]

Okay, so Trevor said that he did remember Frank asking the teenager about a girl who lived nearby.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Nina Young]

Okay, so you're ramping Frank up a little bit.

[Dan Box]

There a little bit. And then they speak to another of Frank's brothers. So not John, who he said he was at the pub with, but Ted. Ted is the brother that Frank said came by in the afternoon and picked him up.

[Jeanette Parish]

Right.

[Dan Box]

So Ted says that he was at work from 6:30am until 4pm in Penrith, and then he went to his mum's place in Kingswood, which is where Frank was living at 4:15pm and he said Frank was there with his parents and a friend named Rodney.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Dan Box]

They also speak to Frank's mum, and so there's a record that she told police that Frank was home with her that afternoon.

[Jeanette Parish]

Well, that might be why they don't speak to the brother who Frank actually says he was with.

[Dan Box]

But you'll notice that Ted has said that Frank was at home with a friend named Rodney. Yeah, Frank didn't mention that in his first alibi.

[Jeanette Parish]

I hadn't noticed.

[Nina Young]

See, the problem is if they've not spoken to John, but they've spoken to Ted, so that they have got interest in him then, and then. So they've missed John.

[Jeanette Parish]

John's the crucial.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

And you're right, you've spotted a contradiction in Frank's own account of what he was doing.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. So at this point, the alibi is a little bit muddy.

[Nina Young]

Oh, well, it's not confirmed.

[Peter Harrison]

Right.

[Nina Young]

It's not an alibi. It's sort of all over the place.

[Jeanette Parish]

And just to stress, everything that you're saying is coming from court records that you've got that you've been through. So this is evidence the court has heard, because, yeah, it does sound like if I was a cop working that one, I'd want to go back to Frank again and say, yeah, I was.

[Dan Box]

Looking at that going, gee, if I was a cop, I think maybe I would have confirmed this. They didn't at this point.

[Jeanette Parish]

What do you reckon to that?

[Nina Young]

Again, who knows what was operating on their minds. But if you're looking at the gold class. Yeah, let's do it. Right. Obviously you speak to John and the moment. If Frank was a suspect, the moment Frank nominated John, I would be prioritizing getting someone to speak to John before Frank has an opportunity.

[Jeanette Parish]

And the moment you notice the contradiction between what his other brother says and what Frank said, you'd want to go back.

[Nina Young]

Yeah. But you'd be getting to that person straight away and don't let them be able to collaborate.

[Dan Box]

I wonder if you're speaking to thousands of people. If you just have this running list of these are things we have to get to. We've got to confirm that person's elementary.

[Nina Young]

Well, literally up until the electronic systems come in. We'd have a job book and it'd be a book. And task number one, go speak to Dan Box. Task number two, go speak to Nina. And you just had to keep that the whole time.

[Jeanette Parish]

And if all of these little contradictions or missing persons that you haven't spoken to are all in a card index and there's going to be shelves of those cards, isn't there? Quickly, if you're speaking to a thousand people, you're going to have boxes of cards and cross references. Stuff is going to get lost.

[Nina Young]

It's not foolproof. But you can't justify not speaking to John if Frank was a suspect and said he was driving.

[Dan Box]

So the investigation continues. They haven't given up. They're still casting this really wide net. They're still speaking to people all around the area. They find Helen's bike in September of 1968 in Berkshire, which is not where her body was found.

[Jeanette Parish]

Berkshire Park's half an hour's drive from East Coorryong.

[Gary Jubilin]

It's a fair way away.

[Jeanette Parish]

And you'd have to have a car to move a bike that distance.

[Dan Box]

They keep doing interviews. One of the people that they interview is a man named Gary Grimson, who will become relevant later on. Gary gives a statement to the police and I can tell you, according to court records, that in 1968, when Gary Grimson spoke to the police, he did not say anything to implicate Frank. Their thinking at that point is that the offender is a local person. And they also, in an article at the time, flagged their interest in a pale blue Holden utility vehicle that was seen in the area of Helen's disappearance at the time. But I can tell you that they speak to Frank again in September. So a few months later. Yeah, so this is 1969 by this point. And in that interview, Frank finally corrects his alibi.

[Gary Jubilin]

This is a quote Nina reads from Frank's own evidence, read out in court by the judge.

[Dan Box]

I made a mistake. What I'd done on that day, 16th of March, is as follows. On that morning, I got up about 8 or 8:30am, went out and helped my friends Brian and Rodney and my father in the backyard. We were pulling Brian's car to pieces. He said he stayed in the backyard attending to the vehicle until about 11:30am and then this is another quote. The four of us went up to the Shell station at Penrith to get some parts on the Way back, we went to Woodruff street to see my brother Ted, and I stayed there until about 1230, bit after, then went home for lunch and I stayed at home with my father, brother, mother and fixed the car. And later Brian and Rodney left and he said he thought that was about 2pm and then he stayed at home and worked around the shed with his father and his brother until about 6:30 or 7:00pm yeah.

[Nina Young]

And he's nominated how many people that he was hanging out with.

[Dan Box]

His father, his mother, his brother Rodney and Brian, he said, were there. They left about 2pm okay.

[Nina Young]

The crucial time, 12:45 to 1:45, however long. So that's. Yeah. Whether whoever he's claiming he was with, that's a crucial time of the alibi.

[Jeanette Parish]

What do you make of the fact that he's changed his version of events completely? So within weeks of her disappearance, he gives one version of events, but months later he changes his version of events completely. Do you read anything into that?

[Nina Young]

Oh, anyone that changes an alibi, but to come out strongly and say I was at this pub 10:30 to 12:30 and then driving with my brother, because.

[Jeanette Parish]

That'S the thing that's precise, that first alibi, isn't it?

[Nina Young]

Yeah. To me, something jumps out. I'm not sure if it's just the way it's been recorded, but I was at the pub 10:30 to 12:30 and then with my brother.

[Dan Box]

So this correction of Frank's alibi is.

[Jeanette Parish]

In 1969, year after Helen goes missing.

[Dan Box]

So going back to Ted's statement, he doesn't mention Frank visiting him that day. In the statement that Frank gave in 1969, he said that about 11:30am, the four of us went to the Shell station at Penrith and got some parts. On the way back, we went to Woodruff street to see my brother Ted and I stayed there until about 12:30. So Ted had said he went to work at 6:30am and worked all day till 4pm didn't mention Frank coming to visit him.

[Jeanette Parish]

So Frank gives one version of events which is essentially contradicted by his brother Ted. Then Frank gives a different version of events which also contradicts what his brother has previously said.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

So again, you would think you check the alibi.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, 100%. The only way you can prove or disprove it is other people's accounts that can support it.

[Jeanette Parish]

Do they do that?

[Dan Box]

Frank's father, Frank's brother John, that we mentioned, Rodney Plackett, who is the man that he said he was with, Brian Stockman who I think was another person who was at the house. Yep. They were never interviewed by the police.

[Jeanette Parish]

You're kidding. So the. Again, that's all from the court?

[Dan Box]

Yeah, this is all court records.

[Jeanette Parish]

So those are people that Frank said he was with?

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

They're never interviewed by police.

[Dan Box]

I'm not speculating or offering opinions here.

[Jeanette Parish]

No, I'm offering an opinion. That's really bad. I've not got anything to say about Frank. But in terms of police investigation, that's really bad.

[Dan Box]

And. Yeah, and this was criticized in court and this was used to form part of the defence in court. So decades later in court, Frank's lawyer will assert that at that point in the investigation, so, say 1969, on the available material, there was no forensic evidence linking the applicant to the crime. There was no identification evidence and no eyewitness evidence. So at this point, the police didn't have anything solid.

[Jeanette Parish]

Well, yeah, that's fair enough. There is actually no evidence linking Frank to the murder at this point. At all.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Dan Box]

At this point, Frank seems to be out of the investigation. Over the next few years, he gets married to a woman named Katrina. He's also in and out of jail for various crimes. None of them violent crimes, minor crimes. Yeah. So again, break and enter, stealing cars. So he and Katrina, they seem to have a bit of a tumultuous marriage in that various reports from that time seem to say they're together, then they're not together. They have two children together, I believe. But again, on and off, he's in and out of jail, too, in 1977. So we're skipping ahead here.

[Jeanette Parish]

Almost 10 years now.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Gary Jubilin]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Dan Box]

Two women related to Katrina Abbott go to the police.

[Jeanette Parish]

So two women related to Frank's wife.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Dan Box]

Go to the place.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

So one is Katrina's cousin. And what she tells the police, and this is from court records, is that Frank took her and Katrina, his wife, to the Bush site where Helen Harrison was found. And she said along that drive, Frank was beating his wife, Katrina, as they drove.

[Jeanette Parish]

So as he's driving out to the site where Helen Harrison's body is found with at least two women in the car with him. He is beating his wife.

[Dan Box]

That's what she said in her statement.

[Jeanette Parish]

Which was heard in court.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

Right.

[Gary Jubilin]

This evidence was heard in court during an early part of the legal process called a committal hearing. And it was heard again during the trial where Frank was found not guilty.

[Dan Box]

And she said he bragged about the killing, talked about it as if it was a Big joke. And said that he'd scruffed the girl and he'd raped her. And she also says he showed them a watch in his glove compartment that he said was Helen's watch. She says that Abbott told her that he tried to date Helen Harrison at the shop where she worked in Pitt Town and Helen had refused him. Abbott also allegedly boasted to his wife about how the girl had not stopped screaming while being driven away from her home into the bush.

[Jeanette Parish]

That's what a court would later hear.

[Dan Box]

Yes, where he grabbed her by the throat and strangled her. So all of this was what Katrina's cousin told the police. She also said that Abbott had told her he had sex with the girl before killing her and again when she was dead. And she said, I thought he must be sick in the head.

[Jeanette Parish]

You said there were two women?

[Dan Box]

Yep. So that's the first woman. So the other woman that went to the police in January of 1977 was Katrina's sister. And she told the police that Abbott had lured her into his car where he made a move on her and she'd refused his advances and was crying and she was pleading him to let her go.

[Gary Jubilin]

Again, this evidence was heard in Frank's committal hearing and his trial.

[Dan Box]

But he took her out into the bush and he said, you're like that other stupid bitch. I took her out to the bush and I soon shut her up. So she pleaded to be allowed to go home to attend to her young baby. But Abbott took her out into the bush. And she says in her statement to police, at knifepoint, it was a night long ordeal where she was savagely raped four times.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay. All right, Gary.

[Nina Young]

Bragging about crimes, I carry a little bit of weight to it, but not. It's not a deal clincher for me. So someone bragging about a crime, he gets off on terrorising people, that might be part of his fantasy. What interests me that he does know her, he knew her in the area. It would have been a very small community. Knowing that he knows her disappeared his alibi. And then if we accept we're seeing the type of person he is, he's a predator, he's a rapist.

[Jeanette Parish]

And again, look, he's not convicted of that.

[Gary Jubilin]

But that as a detective, if you.

[Jeanette Parish]

Were looking at that, that would be what you think.

[Nina Young]

This is how I'd be talking as a briefing. Ok, so what have we got? We've got a bloke that knew her, his name's come up early in the investigation, his alibi hasn't been fully tested. We're now getting the information that, okay, it hasn't been proved to court, but we've got the statement from the victim here saying she was raped at knifepoint.

[Jeanette Parish]

He'd be someone you would want to pursue.

[Nina Young]

Oh, 100%.

[Dan Box]

I mean, she also said in a statement. Statement that he showed her the watch.

[Jeanette Parish]

That's the thing.

[Nina Young]

And that was the watch. The. The clothing was.

[Dan Box]

Yeah, her watch.

[Nina Young]

Was money taken? Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

That suggests he has got physical evidence that would link him. Because that would be a clincher.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, yeah. On that information, you could execute a search warrant.

[Gary Jubilin]

And if you got the watch.

[Jeanette Parish]

Yeah, you'd almost be looking at.

[Nina Young]

If you had the watch, I'd say you've got circumstantial, but the strong circumstantial brief.

[Gary Jubilin]

So you'd be potentially charging at that.

[Nina Young]

Point, you've got him linked to the crime.

[Gary Jubilin]

Did they find the watch?

[Dan Box]

So this is a quote from one of the court records I found after the women came forward. It seems that the police did not initiate any further investigation into the matter.

[Nina Young]

I can't pinpoint who I would criticise over that.

[Jeanette Parish]

You might say you don't want to criticize, but there's a witness saying there might be physical evidence that would directly link him to the crime. Which you say just on her account, you could get a search warrant.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

So the cops would be able to within honestly, hours, maybe day, get a search warrant, get his car and see.

[Gary Jubilin]

If that watch is there and where.

[Nina Young]

I think potentially the failing, just knowing the organization, everyone's operating in silos, that might be information passed on to a local detective. You then got homicide squad stationed somewhere else. And yeah, information like that, because of the manner in which it was stored, like it's not. You can't access a computer. It would have been the old card system, so it'd be me picking up, speaking to Pitt Town Police Station. Is the detective on? Can you get him to check that?

[Dan Box]

Yeah. I will flag that the two women that came forward to the police were Aboriginal women.

[Nina Young]

Yeah. Well, that.

[Jeanette Parish]

What does that make you think?

[Nina Young]

Well, you'd like to think it doesn't count, but victims get judged whether we say or not. And I don't want to tarnish the police that they dismiss them. I'd like to think it wouldn't happen, but I've got to say, in my experience, I've seen things like that happen.

[Jeanette Parish]

You've worked cases where witnesses have been been dismissed or not listened to who happened to be Aboriginal.

[Nina Young]

Oh, 100.

[Jeanette Parish]

And I've reported on Cases, murders, serial killings where indigenous women have come forward. And in fact, there was a government inquiry two years ago into the murders of indigenous women and children in this country.

[Nina Young]

Who gave evidence that the inquiry.

[Dan Box]

Well, I can tell you that they don't really know why it wasn't followed up. By the time the case did go to trial in the mid-90s, one of the two officers involved had died. And the other officer said that the one who was now dead was the one that had been left to handle everything post interview. And he didn't know what happened, so.

[Jeanette Parish]

We can't ask him.

[Dan Box]

We do know Frank wasn't interviewed or even informed about those allegations.

[Jeanette Parish]

So that's again, the court records.

[Dan Box]

Court records, yep. He wasn't charged. We know at the time over many of those allegations, Frank's wife also wasn't interviewed at that time because she was a witness.

[Jeanette Parish]

According to her cousin, she was in the car when Frank took. Being beat up when Frank. So the cops haven't interviewed Frank or the other witness. Okay, so we can't say that those two witnesses have come forward. We're telling the truth because Frank hasn't been convicted of those offenses or charged.

[Nina Young]

Gary, look, if you're asking me, plain and simple, should it have been followed up, the clear answer is yes, it should have been followed up.

[Dan Box]

Yeah.

[Gary Jubilin]

Years later in court, Frank's lawyer would argue the women had an axe to grind due to an ongoing family dispute, though the women themselves denied this. Either way, nothing happened.

[Dan Box]

So again, things go quiet at this point. And that next decade is pretty similar to the decade before for Frank. He's in and out of jail for minor crimes. He's on and off with his wife.

[Jeanette Parish]

So that's 20 years when Helen's family are just waiting, no answers.

[Dan Box]

By 1990, Frank's definitely separated from his wife and is living in Tari with his teenage daughter. And he's doing odd jobs for work. And that's when the next thing happens that pushes Frank back into the spotlight of the investigation. So that thing is a man named Gary Grimson. And you may remember I told you earlier to remember that name. Gary is in jail. I think he's in jail for break and enter. And he makes a confession. He tells police that prior to Helen's murder, he went to Frank's home in Londonderry with the intention of going with him and his brother Les to steal a car. He says that before the car theft, he, Frank and Frank's brother Les drove to the dog track and picked up a blue green FJ Holden Ute.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay, as in they stole one?

[Dan Box]

Well, he doesn't say that statement. He says they picked one up before they went to school.

[Jeanette Parish]

So this is the day when Helen goes missing?

[Dan Box]

No, this is prior to it.

[Jeanette Parish]

Prior to Helen goes missing? Yeah. He says that he and Frank picked up a pale blue, potentially holding ute.

[Dan Box]

Blue, green, fj, Holden Ute, which Frank and he drove into the bush and covered with a tarpaulin. Then they went to a dance. And Frank apparently went out, according to this statement, went outside with a blonde woman aged 18 to 20. Gary says five minutes later, he heard a commotion outside. And he went outside and saw Frank with this woman on the ground near a wall, pulling at her clothes.

[Jeanette Parish]

And this is all heard in court?

[Dan Box]

This is all heard in court and in Gary Grimson's statement. So that's prior to the murder. He says that in the days after Helen was murdered, Frank's brother Les came to Gary and told him that police would be coming to talk to him about a girl that had been killed. And if he mentioned the Holden Ute, he said he would firebomb his parents home. So according to Gary, this is Les is saying this to him, not Frank.

[Gary Jubilin]

Again, it's worth knowing that all this evidence from Gary Grimson and his statement is what he said in court during Frank's committal. And it's right there in the transcript of the hearing, which was released to Nina by the New South Wales Supreme Court.

[Dan Box]

Gary then says in his statement that he was taken by Frank and Les at gunpoint and had a.22 caliber rifle held against him. And he was taken into the bush in East Curradjong where he was forced to push the Holden Ute, the same Holden Ute that they'd taken and put in the bush into the Hawkesbury River. And Frank told Gary, according to his statement, that he was now involved in a murder. And when Gary says, which murder? Frank apparently replied, the girl. I knocked. He then tells him that he followed Helen home from work on her bike, grabbed her, drove her into the bush, raped her, and buried her in that location where they were standing. Gary says that Frank also showed him a pair of blue underwear that belonged to Helen. So in the end, Frank lets him go.

[Gary Jubilin]

We've tried to speak to Frank and to Les about this. We've written to Frank and. And driven hours to reach an empty property registered in Les's name. He wasn't there. And we've passed messages to both men through their sister and been told they don't want to talk.

[Nina Young]

What year was this, that Gary provided this information.

[Dan Box]

1990. And he claims that he had waited so long to tell the truth because he was afraid of Frank.

[Nina Young]

Yep.

[Dan Box]

So again, he's talking about things that happened in 1968. It's 1990 at this point. So that's a big accusation.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

Right. There are some issues with that statement, and all of those issues will be later raised in court.

[Jeanette Parish]

So all of this evidence is heard in court and it's interrogated. Yeah.

[Dan Box]

I mean, the first issue that comes up again and again, Gary I mentioned is in jail when he makes that statement. Yeah. He's an informant and he's about to.

[Jeanette Parish]

So what?

[Nina Young]

They're not looked at very reliable. And there's some professional ones in there.

[Jeanette Parish]

Professional informants.

[Peter Harrison]

Yeah.

[Nina Young]

Don't trust anything they say because they're.

[Jeanette Parish]

Trying to get something in return for informant.

[Dan Box]

Yeah, yeah. And at this point, when he makes this statement, he's about to be moved to another prison. He doesn't want to be transferred because he says he has enemies at the other prison. And a court heard that as a result of him giving this information, he avoids that transfer.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay. So he does get something.

[Dan Box]

He does get something out of it. So this all becomes a bit of an issue in court. The other thing that gets brought up was that Gary was interviewed by police in 1968. Didn't say any of this at the.

[Jeanette Parish]

Time, but he's kind of explained that before being asked the question, because he said, Frank said, if you say anything, I'll firebomb your house.

[Dan Box]

And what he. His response to that in court was that he's been afraid of Frank for 20 years.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

The other issue that's brought up is that the other friends that Gary mentioned as potentially knowing about the crime, they'd also been interviewed by police back in 1968. 69. And they hadn't mentioned any of this. And then number four was kind of the most damning one for the prosecution, which was his statement said that he went to Frank's house in Londonderry. Frank didn't live in Londonderry. He lived in Kingswood, which is really close by, but it's not the same suburb. So, I mean, the police had three witnesses at that point claiming that Frank had confessed to them.

[Nina Young]

And if they're looking at. And I'm not sure if it came out in the court, are they independent of each other? So they've. They're not.

[Gary Jubilin]

No. Two of.

[Jeanette Parish]

Two of them aren't because they're related to Frank's.

[Dan Box]

Right. Wife, and they Went to the police.

[Jeanette Parish]

At the same time at the same times. But Gary is potentially independent.

[Nina Young]

Yeah, you'd look at. Look at that.

[Dan Box]

So they had three witnesses claiming that Frank had confessed. They re interviewed the relatives and the police were pretty confident. And they made their arrest of Frank in 1991.

[Jeanette Parish]

So they do arrest Frank and they do charge him over in 1991. Yeah.

[Dan Box]

It gets delayed because Frank's lawyers immediately apply for a permanent stay. You can probably explain what that is better than me.

[Jeanette Parish]

That's just where they stop charging him with murder.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. Please don't do the trial.

[Jeanette Parish]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

Right. Okay. Well, on the basis that there'd been an extreme delay on the part of the prosecuting authorities in taking proceedings against Frank.

[Jeanette Parish]

See, that's interesting. The reason the defense is saying don't charge Frank with murder is they're saying the prosecution took so long to do.

[Dan Box]

Its job and there was an incurable prejudice which would make a fair trial impossible.

[Jeanette Parish]

So that's their argument, is that it's impossible for Frank to mount a defense because so much time has gone past that he might not be able to find the witnesses. They might have died.

[Dan Box]

And those allegations weren't put to him.

[Gary Jubilin]

In 1970 and all of that.

[Nina Young]

I can hear that argument.

[Jeanette Parish]

Yeah, I can hear that. But if they had interviewed Frank's brother, who Frank said was in the car with him at the time, in the weeks after.

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

The murder happened, then you might not end up in 1991 saying, this thing has been delayed for so long it can't go ahead.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. And there's also mention of records and evidence being lost or destroyed. I don't know what that is precisely. So in 1993, the case did go ahead. So Frank's mother had died.

[Jeanette Parish]

So that's his alibi witness.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. Frank's wife died in November of 1991, so she couldn't testify at the trial. Other witnesses who hadn't been interviewed at the time of Helen's murder now didn't have any recollection of things. Others, like Frank's brother Les.

[Jeanette Parish]

Gary's frowning and your frown is getting deeper and deeper as this goes on.

[Dan Box]

Hold on, I've got to finish this sentence because you're gonna frown. More evidence was missing. And the two women who went to the police, the relatives of Katrina. What I got from the records, and this is a bit of interpretation, was that they had some trouble on the stand was a reference in the court records to them having memory issues and the defence having issues with cross examination and being able to do it from properly because of those memory issues. So it sounds like they didn't do that well in court.

[Nina Young]

No. And I've got to be fair, it's a weak case at the start of it. And then if those issues that you're saying arose at court, I could see it going against. The frustrating part is that the police investigation is the thing that used against the prosecution.

[Dan Box]

Yeah. Frank's lawyer said that the two women who went to the police were potentially out to get Frank. So that trial ends, the jury can't come to a verdict. A second trial is held in 1995, and Frank was eventually found not guilty of Helen's murder.

[Nina Young]

Right.

[Dan Box]

So to date, Helen's murder remains unsolved.

[Gary Jubilin]

Meaning nobody has been brought to justice. Decades later, and Helen's parents died without getting any answers. Except that Frank Abbott, as you heard in the prison calls at the start of this episode, he denies any involvement. Helen's brother Peter, who I visited at his house and who stood beside his bicycle waving sadly when I left him. Peter also has had no answers about what happened to his sister, and he fears he may never get them. Although I think he still hopes that one day he might do.

[Nina Young]

If you had fresh and compelling evidence now under the double jeopardy legislation, you could have him retried, but could you?

[Dan Box]

Even though it's gone through two trials?

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Dan Box]

That's interesting.

[Gary Jubilin]

It's interesting partly because Gary knows what he's talking about. As a detective, Gary tried to take a man who'd previously been found not guilty back to court for murder, arguing there was now new evidence against him. That story is a whole other podcast. What matters is that it proved it could happen. That could be done, though Gary is the only cop to date who's tried it.

[Nina Young]

It's got to be fresh and compelling evidence.

[Dan Box]

What would count as that? DNA?

[Nina Young]

If, let's say Frank was arrested for something and found a watch and DNA which wasn't available at the time, DNA proves that was Helen's property. That would be compelling and it'd be fresh.

[Gary Jubilin]

Gary's speaking hypothetically. At this point, there is no new DNA evidence. But if there was, then hypothetically, that could be fresh and compelling.

[Jeanette Parish]

So someone's been found not guilty of murder, they can be charged again. You need fresh and compelling evidence. So fresh is something that hasn't been heard in court before.

[Nina Young]

Before.

[Jeanette Parish]

And compelling. Yeah. How much do you need, do you think, as a homicide cop?

[Nina Young]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Parish]

And this. We're not saying that Frank is guilty. He's been found not guilty, but theoretically, how much do you think you would need in terms of new evidence to overturn and not guilty?

[Nina Young]

I think my instinct of pushing this and really taking it to the next level. If you got Frank confessing to someone and you captured that on tape, I think that would warrant an application at the very least.

[Gary Jubilin]

We don't have Frank confessing on tape, but there is something.

[Peter Harrison]

Hello?

[Gary Jubilin]

Hi, is that Brian?

[Brian Collier]

Yeah.

[Gary Jubilin]

Brian Collier is one of the first people I speak to in John's river, the little town where Frank once lived and where we were in the last episode. Brian, My name's Dan Box.

[Brian Collier]

Yeah, it's about Frank Abbott, is it?

[Gary Jubilin]

Yeah, exactly that.

[Peter Harrison]

Yeah.

[Brian Collier]

Frank, I knew him well. Frank, he was very, very handy at doing things he could like electrician, plumber, anything. And he'd done a fair bit of work at my place. Yeah, but he was a bloke you couldn't trust if there was kids around.

[Gary Jubilin]

What makes you say that?

[Brian Collier]

Well, me granddaughter, when they were living here recording, it was just getting starting to get dark and she was walking up the street coming home, he was coming the other way and he ducked behind my car. Yeah. What are you doing? I thought just gonna scare her. I thought, yeah, it'd be more than that.

[Gary Jubilin]

What makes you said it would have been more than that?

[Brian Collier]

Well, he virtually admitted to me that he did kill that girl at up at Windsor.

[Gary Jubilin]

Helen Harrison was last seen about a 10 minute drive from Windsor.

[Brian Collier]

I find she was about 14.

[Gary Jubilin]

She was 17, not 14.

[Brian Collier]

He went to court for that, but the jury on three occasions I think it was.

[Gary Jubilin]

And there were only two trials, not three of them.

[Brian Collier]

I couldn't reach a verdict.

[Gary Jubilin]

But I've spoken to Brian on a couple of occasions now about this and I'm sure it's Helen he's talking about. Yeah, I think it was Helen Harrison.

[Brian Collier]

Yeah, Well, I can't remember the name but I know he. Because Frank, he used to. He was an alcoholic apparently, right. But he stopped drinking and he was. He was mowing me lawns actually. It's stinking hot day and I talked him into having a couple of beers, right. And he started loosen up a bit and. Hey. And he basically admitted to me that he did kill her to shut her up.

[Gary Jubilin]

What did he, what did he say?

[Brian Collier]

Well, he did have sex with her and then he was. She was gonna tell on him. So he.

[Gary Jubilin]

Yeah, and so what did he say he did?

[Brian Collier]

Well, he. It was around about why the way it come out. And then he just cleaned up then because I think he realized he. He said a fair Bit.

[Gary Jubilin]

Can you remember what words he used?

[Brian Collier]

I'm not too sure, but I think he did say that he been. Had. He had sex with her a few times.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Brian Collier]

And he was. She was riding a push bike, I think it was. I think she said at the time. And. Yeah, and he picked her up. And further, I think he said he had a ute.

[Gary Jubilin]

And what did he say he did with the push bike?

[Brian Collier]

I. I think he did dump it. So.

[Gary Jubilin]

So he picked her up with her.

[Jeanette Parish]

Bike, maybe put the bike in the.

[Gary Jubilin]

Back of the ute, apparently. And then did he tell you what happened next?

[Brian Collier]

No, no, he cleaned up.

[Gary Jubilin]

Okay. And what did you think when you heard him say that?

[Brian Collier]

Well, nothing he could do because she's had three trials and they. Well, they couldn't try him again, so. Yeah, that's why I was. I was very careful with Frank. He was. He often used to wander around John's riverhead early hours of the morning and he wasn't very well liked over it.

[Gary Jubilin]

And did the police ever talk to you about what he said about this young girl?

[Brian Collier]

No. Well, I didn't say anything about it because he had three trials, so that was it. They couldn't re arrest him after that.

[Gary Jubilin]

Brian is right about that point. At the time Frank was found not guilty of Helen's murder, the law said you couldn't be put on trial again for the same crime. So at that time the police could not rearrest Frank even if Brian had come forward. But the law has been changed since. That's what Gary Jubilin was talking about. If you have fresh and compelling evidence, they can do. If they have new evidence. So something I hadn't heard before.

[Brian Collier]

No, I thought. I didn't think they could re arrest him.

[Gary Jubilin]

How would you describe Frank?

[Brian Collier]

They are. Even though I got on good with him in one way, but I was careful of him also because, look, he was a bit of a deviant with kids. I know that.

[Gary Jubilin]

You'd heard that from other people or.

[Brian Collier]

No, My grandson with another girl here. She was 14. Frank tried to grab her.

[Gary Jubilin]

Did he ever talk about any other, you know, any other crimes you might have committed?

[Jeanette Parish]

Anything like that?

[Brian Collier]

No. No, it was just luck. I think that the things he said to me about the girl at Windsor.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Brian Collier]

And then he shut up pretty quick.

[Gary Jubilin]

Frank did not completely shut up. In fact, he's allegedly been telling other people similar stories. At the inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance, there was another witness who can't be identified who was asked if Frank Abbott ever told him about A murder back in 1968, the year Helen Harrison went missing and died. This witness gave evidence saying Frank told him, quote, he said a couple of guys borrowed his car, raped a girl and she had a fit. The same witness later said the same thing in a TV interview broadcast by seven News.

[Nina Young]

And he told me he was charged with the murder over that.

[Gary Jubilin]

This witness has since died, so we can't ask him any questions. But here's the key thing. Listening back to what he says and what Brian Collier told me, I realized neither of them them is actually saying Frank told them he murdered Helen. Brian claims Frank virtually admitted that he killed her.

[Brian Collier]

And he virtually admitted to me that he did kill her to shut her up.

[Gary Jubilin]

But that's Brian's opinion. And actually Frank doesn't say that. In Brian's version, Frank says only that he had sex with Helen.

[Brian Collier]

Well, they did have sex with her.

[Gary Jubilin]

Frank doesn't say anything else.

[Brian Collier]

He just cleaned up then because I think he realized he said a fair bit.

[Gary Jubilin]

And the unidentified witness at the inquest, his evidence is not that Frank killed Helen, just that Frank told him a couple of blokes borrowed his car, raped a girl and she had an epileptic fit. It died. So this new evidence is only that at most, Frank did have sex with Helen. Not sure what to make of this. Nina and I keep on talking to people, speaking to people who know Frank Abbott.

[Di Smith]

Hello, DI speaking.

[Gary Jubilin]

Hi di, my name's Dan Box.

[Jeanette Parish]

I'm sorry to call you up out of the blue.

[Gary Jubilin]

His friends and family.

[Jeanette Parish]

I'm a reporter and I'm trying to.

[Gary Jubilin]

Get in touch with a dicemith who's the daughter of a man called David Abbott.

[Di Smith]

Oh, that's me.

[Gary Jubilin]

That is you.

[Di Smith]

Oh, fucking hell.

[Gary Jubilin]

Including this woman, Die Smith, who is Frank's niece, the daughter of one of Frank's few surviving brothers. It was specifically to do with. With his brother.

[Di Smith]

Where do you start? Anyway, what would you like to know?

[Gary Jubilin]

What can you tell me about Frank?

[Di Smith]

Creepy. But he never touched me. He never did anything to me that I know of or can remember. He was in Windsor. This is another thing my father told me as a kid, which I was waiting for the police to do more interviews and I've tried to tell Queensland police but years ago down in Penrith, Windsor area, there was a young girl. This is going back years and years. There was a young girl. They found her dead and she had a push bike and. And she wrote out on no out and said they found it in the scrap wall. Years ago, when I was a kid My father. Now, I don't know why he would tell me this, but he told me that his brothers took her out into the scrub and they all had sex with her and that she ended up dead, but no one knows how. And I've been trying to get that looked into because if he dies, no one's ever gonna know the full story. Like, why would you tell your kid that?

[Gary Jubilin]

And you've told police this?

[Di Smith]

Well, I've tried to, yeah. Yes.

[Gary Jubilin]

Police in New South Wales or Queens.

[Di Smith]

No, police in Queensland. When I've said, oh, yeah, there's some girl on a bike years ago. And you know.

[Gary Jubilin]

And do you know that girl's name?

[Di Smith]

It was back in the 1960s, I think. I think she's only 16 or 17.

[Gary Jubilin]

Frank was tried.

[Di Smith]

Yes, he was. That's the one. Yes, they tried to get him for it.

[Gary Jubilin]

It was the murder of a girl called Helen Harrison.

[Di Smith]

That's it. That's her name. That's the name.

[Jeanette Parish]

And I think it might be quite important that we look at that because.

[Di Smith]

Yeah, because my father. I can just see where I am right now in the shed within there, telling me this story of this young girl that they picked up who was on a push bike. They put the bike in the back of the ute and they. His brothers took her out the bush and, yeah, all had sex with her.

[Gary Jubilin]

D's memory is that her father, David, told her that his brothers picked up a young girl with a push bike and had sex with her and that she ended up dead. But no one knows how. I've seen a version of that same allegation included in a witness statement Di gave to the police in November 2022. That statement describes Frank's brother David showing off Playboy magazines and talking about the girl that went missing. But again, not talking about murder. We try talking to David Abbott about Helen. I did want to ask you about the murder of Helen Paris. Apparently you told someone. He doesn't want to talk.

[Dan Box]

Hello.

[Gary Jubilin]

Hi, My name's Dan Box. Instead, I speak to some of those who were involved in Frank's trials over Helen's murder, and they say one thing that really stood out is that no one knew the actual cause of Helen's death. They couldn't work it out during the autopsy or on the evidence she was found with, which was strange, but because Helen's body was found buried in a shallow grave, everyone just thought that she'd been murdered. I speak to Frank Abbott's sister, Elaine Harding, who will be 87 this year, but remembers Helen's disappearance almost 60 years ago. Now, Elaine doesn't want to be recorded, so I make shorthand notes of our conversation. She says Frank would buy lunch from the local store in Pitt, town that Helen worked at. She says Frank always used to chat to Helen. When I ask Elaine to describe her brother, she says Frank was a thief, that he could pick the eye out of a needle, but she never knew him to hurt a child or a woman. Elaine says she does remember her brothers saying something about a car and telling her the police were trying to pin Helen's murder on Frank. Just like they did with William Tyrrell's disappearance. She says, and Frank has told her that that is definitely not true. Later, reading back over my shorthand notes of our conversation, I stopped looking at something Elaine said about Helen when talking about how Frank would chat to her while buying lunch. She said, I don't know if she was an epileptic or something, meaning if Helen was epileptic. I didn't mention epilepsy, but she's the second person now to do so after the witness at the inquest into William's disappearance who says Frank told him apparently.

[Nina Young]

She had an epileptic fit and died.

[Gary Jubilin]

Nina, who's the producer on this podcast, spends weeks going back and forth with the New South Wales Supreme Court trying to get access to the 30 year old court records of Frank's prosecution over Helen's murder. Nina then spends two days reading through these yellowing pages and finds a page of transcript from Frank's committal hearing where Helen's old boss at the store says in court that she was taking epilepsy tablets.

[Peter Harrison]

I remember being surprised when I first heard about it.

[Gary Jubilin]

I call Helen's brother Peter and ask him if Helen was epileptic.

[Peter Harrison]

Being just a child, I wasn't aware she, she had anything like that.

[Gary Jubilin]

He says he was only 14 or 15 when his sister first went missing and he didn't know anything about epilepsy until after Helen's body was recovered.

[Peter Harrison]

Only during the police investigations.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Peter Harrison]

Later on, I think I just heard parents discussing it.

[Gary Jubilin]

Yeah.

[Peter Harrison]

The policing brought up.

[Jeanette Parish]

Okay.

[Peter Harrison]

Because my personal reaction was I just thought in a shock situation, maybe that's how she died.

[Gary Jubilin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Peter Harrison]

It was just my. Went through my mind if she had a sickness.

[Gary Jubilin]

Yeah. Helen being epileptic could explain why. Why no one at Frank's trial knew how she died. I call a forensic pathologist, someone who's done thousands of different autopsies and who tells me that if someone died with epilepsy and their body was not discovered for A week like Helen's. That fact wouldn't be something you could see during an autopsy conducted in 1968, and maybe not something you could see even with today's technology. Meaning I don't think you can say for sure that Helen was murdered. I keep talking to her brother Peter, telling him about the people we've spoken to about this, like Brian Collier in John's river, this one guy who said that he'd spoken to Frank and Frank.

[Jeanette Parish]

Had said that maybe he was involved.

[Gary Jubilin]

And DI Smith. So she's Frank's niece and she told me and Frank's sister.

[Jeanette Parish]

So a woman called Elaine, and she says she doesn't think Frank was involved.

[Gary Jubilin]

But she does remember her brothers at.

[Jeanette Parish]

The time talking about what happened to your sister.

[Gary Jubilin]

And the witness at the inquest who said Frank told him about a girl who was raped and had an epileptic fit and died because Helen's death came.

[Jeanette Parish]

Up at the inquest into William's disappearance.

[Gary Jubilin]

I tell Peter I can't prove anything. And that doesn't change the fact that what happened to her was awful and.

[Jeanette Parish]

Should never have happened and that the.

[Gary Jubilin]

People involved shouldn't have have been brought to justice. It doesn't change any of that. Even if Helen died from epilepsy, whoever was there didn't call for help or for an ambulance. Instead, they buried her. And there are now three more people. On top of those who gave evidence at Frank's trial in the 1990s, there are now the two I've spoken to, Frank's niece and Brian Collier, as well as the unidentified witness at the inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance. I asked Peter if he's heard anything from the police or the coroner since that evidence about his sister came up at the inquest.

[Peter Harrison]

Um, no.

[Gary Jubilin]

Which I find shocking that the cops and the coroner would not want to contact Helen's family.

[Peter Harrison]

I've just been. Just last night thinking a lot about the stage in my life and trying to recall the rest of where our lives were up to, you know, to jog my memory about things. Yeah. Still just unsolved. And it should be good. Got nowhere with the whole thing.

[Jeanette Parish]

And I guess you'd like that to change.

[Peter Harrison]

Yes.

[Gary Jubilin]

To change things. Peter knows that the police and the court can only act on evidence, but he also expects that when they do have evidence, they do act. So Peter's surprised to hear about the other evidence we found about Frank Abbott. Evidence that was tendered at the inquest into William Tyrrell's disappearance, including a witness statement that nobody has mentioned to Peter. And which Nina and I find among the stack of exhibits released only after the inquest hearings ended. Reading through that witness statement, we discover it links Frank to another cold case. In fact, it links Frank to two more.

[Di Smith]

They were gouge marks, like the someone had gouged skin out.

[Gary Jubilin]

That's next time on Witness. William Tyrell. A lot of different people have been involved in making this series. Among them, the executive producer is Nina Young. The sound design was by Tiffany Dimac. The producers have been Emily Pigeon, Nicholas Adams, Jasbar, Phoebe Zukowski Wallace and Tabby Wilson. Research by Aidan Patrick. Original Music by Rory O' Connor. Our lawyer is Stephen Kuhn. The editor at news.com is Kerry Warren. I'm Dan Box.