In a small Australian town, three Aboriginal children
disappeared within just five months. Two were later found dead. The third has
never been found. More than three decades later, the families are still
searching for answers—and the case continues to raise difficult questions about
police accountability, racial discrimination, investigative failures, and
the limits of double jeopardy law.
The disappearances took place in Bowraville, New
South Wales, between September 1990 and February 1991. The victims were
Colleen Walker Craig, 16; Evelyn Greenup, just 4; and Clinton “Speedy” Duroux,
16.
Their families say they were repeatedly dismissed when
they asked for help. A parliamentary inquiry later examined serious
shortcomings in the original investigations, while a police commissioner
eventually traveled to Bowraville to apologize for the way the force had
handled the cases.
Yet the central mystery remains unresolved.
No one has been convicted of the murders. A man
charged in connection with two of the deaths was tried and acquitted twice.
Later attempts to reopen the cases were rejected by the courts, which
emphasized that their decisions did not establish the man's guilt or innocence.
Today, the families continue to ask the public for
information. A combined reward of $3 million has been offered, but money
cannot replace what they have lost.
A Close-Knit Community and a Disappearance That
Changed Everything
Colleen Walker Craig grew up near the coast at
Sawtell, south of Coffs Harbour. Her sister Rose remembered her as a caring
young woman who often put other people first, especially their brother Mike,
who was born with spina bifida and used a wheelchair.
The family spent long days together at the beach. They
fished, collected oysters, visited rock pools, and shared simple meals. Those
ordinary moments became precious memories after Colleen disappeared.
On Thursday, September 13, 1990, 16-year-old Colleen
traveled inland to attend a party in Bowraville, a small timber town in the
Nambucca Valley.
On the outskirts of town was an Aboriginal community
on a road then known as Cemetery Road. Residents described a close-knit place
where neighbors regularly visited one another and doors were often left
unlocked.
But the community also lived with a history of racial
segregation and unequal treatment.
At Bowraville's picture theater, Aboriginal residents
had reportedly been required to enter through a separate entrance and sit in a
restricted section. The practice attracted national attention in 1965, when
Sydney University students taking part in the Freedom Ride visited the town.
That history formed part of the background against
which the families would later describe their treatment by police.
Colleen was last seen sometime between Thursday and
Saturday. When she failed to return, her family reported her missing.
Her mother, Muriel, moved to Bowraville with the rest
of the household, including Mike, staying in a single room at a relative's home
while the family searched.
Muriel later recalled spending three weeks looking for
her daughter.
She also said she felt police were not doing enough.
According to a 2014 parliamentary inquiry,
investigators initially questioned whether Muriel was Colleen's mother.
Colleen's brother, Lucas, believed her fair complexion contributed to that
doubt. It reportedly took three months for police to record Muriel's statement.
The family was told that missing teenagers often
returned within a fortnight. Residents also recalled hearing suggestions that
Colleen might simply have gone “walkabout.”
For the family, such explanations offered little
comfort. They wanted an organized search and a serious investigation.
Families Organize Their Own Search
As days passed without meaningful answers, members of
the Bowraville community began organizing their own efforts.
With help from local Catholic priest Bernie Ryan,
residents established an office where people could record what they remembered
about the night Colleen disappeared. Their statements were typed and passed to
police.
Muriel later described the experience as doing work
she believed investigators should have been doing themselves.
The community was determined not to let Colleen's
disappearance fade from attention.
But before her family could find answers, another
child vanished.
Four-Year-Old Evelyn Greenup Disappears
On Thursday, October 4, 1990, another gathering took
place in the Aboriginal community.
Four-year-old Evelyn Greenup was put to bed at her
grandmother's home beside her mother, Rebecca, and her baby brother, Aaron.
Evelyn was Colleen's cousin.
When Rebecca woke, her daughter was gone.
Michelle Jarrett, Evelyn's aunt, returned from work
and discovered that relatives had already been searching. Aaron kept repeating
words that frightened the family: the bad man had taken Evelyn.
Michelle took a photograph of the little girl to the
local police station. Evelyn had curly hair and bright blue eyes, and she was
wearing a small check dress.
Michelle later recalled that only one officer was
present. According to her account, when she asked for help, the officer
questioned what she expected him to do and said he was about to finish work.
The family began distributing missing-child posters
and searching the surrounding area themselves.
When relatives returned to police, they say the
questioning focused heavily on the family. Evelyn's aunt told the 2014 inquiry
that investigators appeared to believe the child had been taken to Queensland.
Rebecca also described being confronted with a deeply
distressing accusation: that she and her mother had sold Evelyn.
These were not minor misunderstandings for the family.
They were painful allegations directed at people who were desperately trying to
find a missing four-year-old.
A later inquiry heard evidence that police had
initially questioned whether Rebecca was Evelyn's mother as well. It also
examined reports that possible sightings of the child had not been properly
followed up and that investigators had failed to establish precisely when she
disappeared.
A formal crime scene was not established until seven
years later.
For the families, the growing list of unanswered
questions became another source of anguish.
A Third Child Disappears—and the Cases Remain
Unconnected
The community was already grieving the disappearance
of two children when a third teenager vanished.
Clinton “Speedy” Duroux, known to his family as Bubby,
was 16. His cousin Jasmine Speedy remembered him as a gentle young man who
loved making people laugh. Younger children often followed him around, dancing
to Michael Jackson songs.
Clinton had recently moved to Bowraville to live with
his father.
On Thursday, January 31, 1991, he attended a party in
the community. Some friends thought he seemed unusually intoxicated, which
surprised them because heavy drinking was not typical of him.
That night, he slept in a nearby caravan with his
girlfriend.
When she woke, Clinton was gone.
His father, Thomas Duroux, reported him missing on
February 2. Police visited the caravan that day, but the 2014 inquiry later
examined the handling of the scene. Investigators reportedly took ten days to
seize the caravan, and the person living there was allowed to remove personal
belongings beforehand.
On February 18, Clinton's body was discovered in
bushland near Congarinni Road, around seven kilometers from Bowraville.
A pillowcase from the caravan was found beneath his
clothing.
Three children had now disappeared from the same community
in approximately five months. Two had been found dead.
Yet the investigations had not initially been treated
as one connected series of events.
The Discovery of Evelyn's Remains Deepens the Mystery
Months after Colleen vanished, some of her clothing
was found in the Nambucca River. The garments had reportedly been weighed down
with rocks.
Her body was not recovered.
On April 27, 1991, Evelyn's remains were discovered in
bushland near Congarinni Road, along the same general stretch where Clinton's body
had been found.
Police reported that her skull showed an injury
consistent with forceful penetration by a sharp instrument.
For Evelyn's family, the discovery brought devastating
confirmation that the little girl was dead.
Michelle later recalled having to tell her sister
before the news appeared on television.
The grief was overwhelming.
Earlier that month, a local man had been charged with
Clinton's murder. In October 1991, he was also charged in connection with
Evelyn's death.
No one has ever been charged over Colleen's
disappearance.
The man charged in the other two cases has always been
legally presumed innocent. He was acquitted at trial, and those acquittals
remain in place.
Why the Original Trials Could Not Hear All Three Cases
Together
The prosecution wanted the charges involving Clinton
and Evelyn to be heard in a single trial. Its argument was that a jury should
be allowed to consider the circumstances of both cases together.
But in 1993, New South Wales Supreme Court Justice
Badgery-Parker refused the application.
At the time, the legal test for admitting similar-fact
evidence was particularly demanding. The judge concluded that the
similarities between the cases did not meet the required threshold to rule out
every innocent explanation.
As a result, the jury considering Clinton's murder
could not hear the evidence concerning Evelyn. The jury in Evelyn's case could
not hear the evidence about Clinton. Neither jury heard the full circumstances
surrounding Colleen's disappearance.
On February 18, 1994, a jury acquitted the accused man
of Clinton's murder. It was exactly three years after Clinton's body had been
discovered.
On March 4, prosecutors dropped the charge relating to
Evelyn.
The acquittal created a major legal obstacle. Under
the principle of double jeopardy, a person generally cannot be tried
again for the same offense after being acquitted.
New South Wales later changed its evidence laws,
introducing a more flexible approach to tendency and coincidence evidence.
According to the 2014 inquiry, much of the material excluded from the earlier
proceedings might have been admissible under the revised rules.
But the legal changes could not simply erase the
earlier acquittal.
The case also became the subject of criticism over the
collection and handling of evidence. Media reports and the parliamentary
inquiry examined concerns about witness statements, investigative decisions,
and the way some evidence had been managed.
The families were left confronting a painful possibility:
that mistakes made during the first investigations had made it much harder to
secure a conviction later.
A New Investigation Begins in 1997
On January 6, 1997, police established Strike Force
Ankud, an effort to reassess the cases.
Sydney homicide detective Gary Jubelin took charge.
When he first arrived in Bowraville, he encountered
relatives who had spent years feeling ignored. Colleen's aunt, Elaine Walker,
made it clear that he had a great deal to learn about the community and its
experiences.
Jubelin later acknowledged that his initial attitude
had been wrong. He described arriving with the confidence of a big-city
detective before realizing how much he needed to understand.
His involvement became an important part of the
families' long campaign for answers.
In February 2004, State Coroner John Abernethy
reopened the inquests into Evelyn's death and Colleen's suspected death.
That September, the coroner recommended that the same
man be charged again with Evelyn's murder.
The second trial took place in early 2006. On March 3,
the jury again returned a verdict of not guilty.
The result was another devastating setback for the
families.
Police increased the reward for information from
$100,000 to $250,000, although the case remained unresolved.
The Families Campaign to Change Double Jeopardy Law
The families refused to accept that the first
acquittal should prevent every possible future legal avenue.
Their campaign helped bring about changes to New South
Wales' double jeopardy legislation in 2006.
The revised law allowed a person acquitted of murder,
or another serious offense carrying a life sentence, to face another trial if
the Court of Criminal Appeal determined that fresh and compelling evidence
existed.
The legislation was intended to create a narrow
exception, not to make repeated prosecutions routine. The state would be
permitted only one retrial under the relevant provision.
For the Bowraville families, the change represented a
hard-won opportunity.
They returned to the authorities with additional
material, hoping the new legal framework would allow the cases to be
reconsidered.
But in 2007, the Director of Public Prosecutions
concluded that the evidence did not meet the required standard.
Further applications were rejected in 2010 and 2013.
The families continued to encounter obstacles. In
2011, Colleen's relatives found bones in bushland near Maxville, but testing
showed that they belonged to an animal.
The discovery briefly raised hope before producing
another disappointment.
During a meeting with relatives in 2013, then Attorney
General Greg Smith reportedly confused Clinton's father with the accused man
and suggested grief counseling. Thomas Duroux later said the meeting had left
him feeling deeply hurt.
His family was not asking for sympathy alone. They
wanted the justice system to take the deaths seriously and explain why the
cases had remained unresolved.
A Parliamentary Inquiry Finally Examines the Case
After years of campaigning, the families sought
support from Professor Larissa Behrendt and researchers at the Jumbunna
Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.
Together, they helped produce a documentary titled Innocence
Betrayed, examining the disappearances, the investigations, and the
families' experiences.
The documentary helped bring renewed attention to the
case.
The families also organized protests in Sydney and
pushed for a parliamentary inquiry. Their efforts resulted in an inquiry that
examined the handling of the three disappearances and the broader issues raised
by the investigation.
It was an unusual step: a parliamentary committee
examining a single set of crimes in such detail.
The inquiry heard evidence in 2014, including
testimony from Gary Jubelin.
He said he had worked in criminal investigations for
two decades and remained shocked by the lack of interest he believed had
characterized parts of the original investigation.
Jubelin also described how the families had told him
from the beginning that they believed the children had received less attention
because they were Aboriginal.
He said he had not initially accepted that
explanation. After years working alongside the relatives, however, he came to
believe that their concerns deserved serious consideration.
He argued that the three cases should be understood as
connected and expressed his belief that a serial offender was responsible.
That was Jubelin's investigative conclusion, not a
judicial finding. The accused man has never been convicted in connection with
these deaths, and the courts have not determined that he was responsible.
The distinction matters. The families' demand for
justice deserves to be heard, but allegations must not be presented as proven
facts.
On November 6, 2014, the parliamentary committee
released its report. All 15 recommendations received unanimous support.
The report examined the police response, the treatment
of the families, the handling of evidence, and the legal barriers that had
prevented the cases from being heard together.
The findings prompted emotional reactions in
Parliament. Members from different political parties acknowledged the
seriousness of the failures described by the families.
For relatives who had spent decades feeling dismissed,
the recognition was significant.
Michelle said it felt as though someone had finally
listened.
A Police Apology—but No New Trial
In 2015, a memorial was established in Bowraville to
honor the three children.
Their families continued to campaign for a legal
pathway that might allow the cases to be reconsidered.
In 2016, Parliament rejected a bill that could have
opened the way to another trial. The following week, Premier Mike Baird said
the government would nevertheless pursue an application for a retrial.
On August 11, 2016, Police Commissioner Andrew
Scipione visited Bowraville and apologized for the way the original
investigations had been handled.
The apology acknowledged the force's failures and the
pain experienced by the families.
That same year, the Attorney General applied to have the
accused man retried in connection with the murders of Clinton and Evelyn, with
the proceedings also involving the case concerning Colleen.
In February 2017, police laid a fresh murder charge
against him.
The application was significant because it sought to
use the revised double jeopardy framework in a way that could bring evidence
from the cases together.
A six-day hearing began in the New South Wales Court
of Criminal Appeal on November 29, 2017.
The state relied on evidence connected to Colleen's
disappearance, arguing that it should be considered fresh and compelling enough
to justify another trial.
For the families, the hearing represented another
chance after years of disappointment.
Clinton's cousin Karla McGrady described the moment as
crucial to their hope of seeing justice.
But the outcome was not what they wanted.
The Court Rejects the Retrial Application
On September 13, 2018, Chief Justice Tom Bathurst and
two other judges dismissed the application.
The court concluded that the evidence relied upon was
not fresh because most of it had been available before the earlier trials.
The judges also stressed that they had made no finding
about the accused man's guilt or innocence.
Their decision was about whether the legal
requirements for another trial had been satisfied.
Outside court, the families expressed their
devastation.
Michelle said the legal system had repeatedly dealt
them another blow. Muriel described feeling numb as she left the building.
Clinton's nephew Marbuck Duroux pressed white ochre
handprints onto the windows of the court building in Sydney.
His message was simple: the families would not stop.
A week later, Attorney General Mark Speakman asked the
High Court to consider an appeal. He said the criminal justice system had
failed the children and their families at the beginning of the process and that
he believed there were prospects of success.
On March 22, 2019, the High Court refused the
application.
Chief Justice Susan Kiefel said the court could find
no reason to doubt the Court of Criminal Appeal's decision.
The ruling closed another legal door.
Michelle said the families had not given up after 28
years and would not give up after another 28. She also spoke about the feeling
that she had let her niece down.
Clinton's aunt Dolly Jerome described the burden of
the campaign as something she never wanted future generations of her family to
inherit.
The Debate Over Double Jeopardy Continues
The Bowraville case also raised a wider question about
the balance between justice for victims and protection against wrongful
prosecution.
Greens MP David Shoebridge attempted to change the
double jeopardy law again. He argued that the families had been asking for a
limited legal change after the system had failed them.
But critics, including defense lawyers and civil
liberties advocates, warned that weakening double jeopardy protections could
expose people who had been acquitted to repeated prosecution.
Those protections exist for an important reason: the
state has enormous investigative and legal resources, and an acquitted person
should not face endless attempts to secure a conviction.
A parliamentary committee considered another proposal
developed by the Jumbunna Institute. It would have changed the standard for
fresh evidence and allowed more than one retrial attempt in certain
circumstances.
The proposal did not receive the support needed to
become law.
On February 26, 2020, Attorney General Mark Speakman
told the families that the government would not adopt the proposed model. He
also said he expected another retrial application to fail under the existing
legal framework.
The decision was another painful setback.
That same day, police announced a $1 million reward
connected to the case.
In February 2022, the reward was increased to $1
million for each child, bringing the total to $3 million. The offer
covered information about the deaths and the recovery of Colleen's remains.
For the families, the reward was an appeal to anyone
who might have remained silent for years.
Someone may have seen something. Someone may have
heard a conversation. Someone may know where Colleen was taken.
But even a substantial reward cannot guarantee that
the person holding crucial information will come forward.
Police Return to Bowraville as the Search for Answers
Continues
In October 2024, homicide detectives established a
temporary presence at Grants Hall on Bowraville's main street.
The purpose was to encourage residents and anyone with
relevant information to speak with investigators.
Muriel, still searching for answers about Colleen,
made an emotional appeal to people who might know more than they had previously
revealed.
She said she did not want to leave the world without
knowing where her daughter was.
The case returned to the headlines in September 2026,
when detectives visited Macksville as part of renewed efforts to gather
information.
Police said the community had not previously been
targeted in the same way during their outreach work. Homicide squad commander
Detective Superintendent Joe Dougherty said loyalties could change over time
and that investigators believed some people had not come forward during the
2024 effort.
He said information that once seemed insignificant
might now help investigators understand what happened.
Rebecca, Evelyn's mother, also released a statement.
She urged anyone who might have carried information
for years to consider coming forward, even if they believed it was too small to
matter.
Her words returned attention to the youngest victim: a
four-year-old child who should have had a lifetime ahead of her.
Rebecca described Evelyn as quiet and gentle.
“My little girl deserved to grow up,” she wrote.
Colleen's brother Lucas also spoke about the
continuing emotional toll on the family. He described coming home from work to
find his parents distressed, still waiting for news that never arrived.
Clinton's nephew Elijah Duroux raised concerns that
his family had not been properly informed about some police activity, including
the renewed efforts to search the river.
For relatives, communication with investigators
remains an important part of rebuilding trust.
Renewed Searches in the Nambucca River
In October 2025, detectives contacted Michael and
Muriel Craig about renewed searches in the Nambucca River.
Divers returned to locations near the Wilson Road
Bridge at Macksville and behind a property in Bowraville.
The locations had been selected following a review by
the unsolved homicide team.
Police said there may have been gaps in the original
searches and that the renewed work was intended to ensure nothing had been
overlooked.
The river held particular significance because
Colleen's clothing had been recovered from it more than 34 years earlier.
Her body, however, had never been found.
For Muriel, every new search brings the possibility of
answers but also the risk of another disappointment.
She has spoken about sometimes feeling that police do
not believe her.
Yet she continues to hope that the missing information
will eventually emerge.
Three Families, Three Unfinished Stories
The Bowraville case is not simply a story about three
disappearances. It is also a long account of families who say they were not believed,
a community that organized its own search efforts, and a criminal justice
system that has struggled to resolve a series of deeply troubling cases.
The 2014 parliamentary inquiry documented serious
concerns about the original police response. The police commissioner's 2016
apology acknowledged that the investigations had been mishandled.
But the legal outcome remains unchanged.
Two children were found dead. Colleen's remains have
never been recovered. No person has been convicted in connection with the three
cases.
The man tried in relation to Clinton and Evelyn was
acquitted twice, and later courts rejected attempts to reopen the prosecutions.
Those decisions must be respected, just as the families' grief and demand for
answers must be taken seriously.
The $3 million reward remains an important
appeal for information. Anyone who knows something about the disappearances,
the deaths, or the location of Colleen's remains may still be able to help.
Information can be provided to Crime Stoppers on 1800
333 000.
For Muriel, the search has never been only about a
police file or a court decision. It is about finding her daughter and bringing
her home.
“I still believe that we can bring Colleen home,” she
has said.
After all these years, that remains her mission.
Editorial note: This article summarizes publicly reported information, parliamentary inquiry findings, and court proceedings. The man charged in connection with two of the cases was acquitted and remains presumed innocent. No one has been convicted in relation to the deaths or disappearance of the three children.
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