# The Young Mum Who Disappeared In The Blue Mountains

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 22 Apr 2026, 32 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/9f089d00-8a0e-4996-9f5b-b4340039ddbe/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

In January 1993, 20-year-old Tracey Valesini appeared at the Campbelltown Courthouse in Sydney for a legal matter. She was last seen sitting inside the courtroom that day. After that moment, Tracey was never heard from again. More than 30 years later, there is still no definitive answer about what happened to the young mother or where her remains may be. But the case has never truly gone cold. Journalist Ashlea Hansen has since uncovered new evidence, determined to keep Tracey’s story alive and bring long-overdue attention to her disappearance. LINKS You can watch the three-part multimedia investigation at leftinthecold.com.au If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. Win a $2,000 Bed Threads voucher. Subscribe to Mamamia here before April 30 to be automatically entered. Current subscriber? You're already in the draw. T&Cs apply. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. CREDITS Guest: Ashlea Hansen Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Video Editor: Julian Rosario Audio Engineer: Jacob Round Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: It's January eighth, nineteen ninety three, and twenty year old
[0:05] Speaker 1: Tracy Vaalcini is in Campbelltown Courthouse in.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Sydney for a legal dispute.
[0:10] Speaker 1: Sitting in this courtroom is the last time Tracy is
[0:14] Speaker 1: seen alive. She fails to turn up to the next
[0:17] Speaker 1: scheduled court date just four days later.
[0:21] Speaker 2: It's out of character.
[0:23] Speaker 1: She's always there, but no one ever hears from her again.
[0:28] Speaker 1: More than thirty years later, we still don't have definitive
[0:32] Speaker 1: answers on what happened to the young mother and where
[0:35] Speaker 1: her body is. Police believe she was murdered, but her
[0:39] Speaker 1: case has faded into the cold. I'm Jemma Bath and
[0:46] Speaker 1: you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the
[0:50] Speaker 1: world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who
[0:53] Speaker 1: know the most about them. A coronial inquest held in
[0:57] Speaker 1: two thousand and six found that Tracy likely died some
[1:01] Speaker 1: time before December nineteen ninety three from injuries inflicted on
[1:06] Speaker 1: her by someone else. It found that there wasn't enough evidence, however,
[1:10] Speaker 1: to charge anyone. Looking into Tracy's story is shocking. The
[1:15] Speaker 1: facts in her case are few and far between, but
[1:18] Speaker 1: the details we do know are devastating. She was in
[1:21] Speaker 1: the midst of a custody battle. It took four years
[1:25] Speaker 1: for police to be notified of her disappearance. Blood was
[1:29] Speaker 1: found in the bathroom of her home. Her family know
[1:33] Speaker 1: she is no longer alive, but they haven't given up
[1:36] Speaker 1: hope of at least being able to give her a
[1:38] Speaker 1: proper burial. This year, Tracy would have been fifty four.
[1:43] Speaker 1: She's been missing for longer than she was alive. Our
[1:46] Speaker 1: guest Today News Corp investigative journalist Ashley Hanson, has been
[1:50] Speaker 1: reinvestigating the case, speaking to Tracy's loved ones and uncovering
[1:54] Speaker 1: damning new evidence. She joins us now to tell us
[1:58] Speaker 1: about her discoveries. Ashley, thank you for joining us on
[2:02] Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations. How did you come across this case
[2:07] Speaker 1: and what made you decide to reinvestigate it all these
[2:11] Speaker 1: decades later?
[2:12] Speaker 3: Last year, I was talking to families of cold cases
[2:16] Speaker 3: about rewards, so rewards for information and digging into what's
[2:23] Speaker 3: the system behind this and a lot of families believe
[2:26] Speaker 3: that it's an unfair system, but it's a complex system
[2:28] Speaker 3: about why some cases attract a million dollar reward and
[2:32] Speaker 3: why other cases and only attract no reward or one
[2:36] Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars. So families sit back and think, is
[2:40] Speaker 3: that a reflection of their value? And it's absolutely not.
[2:44] Speaker 3: But there are fair questions that these families are asking
[2:47] Speaker 3: as to why is my loved one's case not worth
[2:50] Speaker 3: a million dollars which is the limit in New South
[2:53] Speaker 3: Wales for a reward case. And I began talking to
[2:56] Speaker 3: Tracey's sister Shower and Robarts, and I just couldn't switch
[3:01] Speaker 3: off this case because the more she was talking to
[3:03] Speaker 3: me about this case, and I was deep in another case,
[3:07] Speaker 3: and I just said to her, just just slow down,
[3:11] Speaker 3: just slow down and keep up. You know, my head
[3:13] Speaker 3: was spinning. I'm going, what do you mean that this happened?
[3:16] Speaker 3: And this happened and no one's ever been charged. And
[3:20] Speaker 3: she just kept, you know, telling me all this information,
[3:24] Speaker 3: and I kept thinking about it, and I said to her, look,
[3:28] Speaker 3: I'm happy to when I've got some capacity to have
[3:32] Speaker 3: a look at her case, because the focus of that
[3:35] Speaker 3: particular story on the rewards wasn't a deep dive on
[3:38] Speaker 3: any particular case.
[3:40] Speaker 2: It was talking about rewards.
[3:41] Speaker 3: And I said, look, you know I can maybe when
[3:44] Speaker 3: I have some capacity have a look at her case,
[3:47] Speaker 3: and she said, yeah, I'd love you too, and so
[3:49] Speaker 3: we got talking and it was pretty soon after that
[3:53] Speaker 3: I said, okay, let's do it. What have you got
[3:56] Speaker 3: in terms of materials and are you willing to be
[3:59] Speaker 3: interviewed and not? And we discussed as to what I
[4:02] Speaker 3: might be able to do to put her case back
[4:05] Speaker 3: in the spotlight.
[4:06] Speaker 1: It's interesting that you said the details kept surprising you,
[4:10] Speaker 1: because I had the same experience when I was reading
[4:13] Speaker 1: and watching all of your content, where I was like,
[4:15] Speaker 1: that can't be right, and I had to backtrack and
[4:18] Speaker 1: like and I was, are are you sure? And we'll
[4:21] Speaker 1: get to all of those details. But there are some
[4:23] Speaker 1: parts of Tracy's story that you just think, what how
[4:27] Speaker 1: like it's quite discombobulating.
[4:30] Speaker 3: It's a shocking case, but there are just so many
[4:32] Speaker 3: twists and turns as to what has happened over the
[4:36] Speaker 3: past thirty three years, and it still shocks me that
[4:41] Speaker 3: nobody has been charged in connection with her murder.
[4:46] Speaker 1: Well, let's start with who Tracy was. Tell us a
[4:49] Speaker 1: bit about her home life, her childhood.
[4:52] Speaker 2: Who she was.
[4:54] Speaker 3: Tracy was described by her sister as fearless, always excitable,
[5:03] Speaker 3: always up for fun and she was from what Sharon
[5:09] Speaker 3: describes as a dysfunctional family. So she was raised in
[5:13] Speaker 3: Sydney's West, but there was some issues within the family,
[5:18] Speaker 3: a breakdown in marriages and partnerships. And by the time
[5:23] Speaker 3: Tracy was sixteen, she'd started a relationship with her first
[5:28] Speaker 3: serious relationship, and she soon became pregnant. So by the
[5:32] Speaker 3: time she was seventeen, she had a young baby, and
[5:36] Speaker 3: by the time she was twenty, she was a mother.
[5:39] Speaker 2: Of two, very vulnerable.
[5:42] Speaker 3: There's a photo of her that I saw and I
[5:44] Speaker 3: just she's in the hospital and I looked at it
[5:47] Speaker 3: and thought she just looked so overwhelmed and just being
[5:51] Speaker 3: such a young mum without a lot of family support,
[5:55] Speaker 3: I think would have been very difficult for her. I
[5:58] Speaker 3: think she had some It's fair to say she had
[6:02] Speaker 3: a troubled life. She'd fallen in with bikeys, She'd gone
[6:08] Speaker 3: from one bad relationship to another. She found herself in
[6:12] Speaker 3: this situation where after the birth of her second child,
[6:15] Speaker 3: she decided to put that child up for adoption. And
[6:18] Speaker 3: I think that's a reflection of her situation. She didn't
[6:23] Speaker 3: have the capacity to take care of this second child.
[6:28] Speaker 3: I don't believe it was out of the fact that
[6:31] Speaker 3: she didn't love this child, and I think that she
[6:34] Speaker 3: it was probably an overwhelming situation for her, and it
[6:37] Speaker 3: led her to place his child up for adoption. And
[6:41] Speaker 3: Tracy then became involved with a known bikey at the time,
[6:47] Speaker 3: and his name is William Booby, and she moved to
[6:53] Speaker 3: the Blue Mountains with him and was in a very
[6:55] Speaker 3: short relationship with him. But it's in the Blue Mountains
[6:59] Speaker 3: and at this home in Wentworth Falls that he's the
[7:03] Speaker 3: center of what happened to Tracy and the alleged murder
[7:09] Speaker 3: of Tracy inside this Wentworth Fulls home back in nineteen
[7:13] Speaker 3: ninety three.
[7:14] Speaker 1: So you said she met this William who goes by Billy,
[7:19] Speaker 1: a known bikey, in about nineteen ninety two. Did her
[7:23] Speaker 1: sister know much about that relationship or was she not
[7:26] Speaker 1: in contact with her family during this time?
[7:28] Speaker 3: Sharon wasn't very close to her at the time they
[7:30] Speaker 3: were becoming closer. I'm not sure what had transpired in
[7:34] Speaker 3: the years earlier. She very much loved her sister deeply,
[7:38] Speaker 3: but I think Tracy's lifestyle, she was known to go
[7:42] Speaker 3: for long periods of time not to contact family. She'd
[7:46] Speaker 3: had one boyfriend, one partner then move on with somebody else.
[7:50] Speaker 3: So she did have an unusual life and how she
[7:55] Speaker 3: was living it. I think she also had some addiction
[7:57] Speaker 3: issues as well. And what we do know is that
[8:02] Speaker 3: she when she started this relationship with Billy, his best
[8:07] Speaker 3: mate was a man by the name of Arthur Jock
[8:10] Speaker 3: Mackenzie and he was a senior member of the Common
[8:13] Speaker 3: Cero's in the early nineties, and they were living together
[8:19] Speaker 3: with another woman, Jock's wife at the time, who.
[8:23] Speaker 2: Was also Billy's sister.
[8:26] Speaker 3: So basically it's hard to get your head around, but
[8:28] Speaker 3: if you think about it, there's two couples living in
[8:31] Speaker 3: this house in Wentworth Falls. One of those couples is
[8:34] Speaker 3: Tracy and Billy. The other couple is Jock and Diane,
[8:39] Speaker 3: his wife at the time. Both the men have links
[8:44] Speaker 3: two Bikey's, the common Cero's and Tracy was a young
[8:49] Speaker 3: mum of the age of twenty in this house and
[8:54] Speaker 3: being caught up in.
[8:56] Speaker 2: What we now know.
[8:59] Speaker 3: Jock was in a lot of crime across Sydney. He
[9:02] Speaker 3: was involved in armed robberies and through my investigation we
[9:07] Speaker 3: could reveal the police theory as to why she was
[9:10] Speaker 3: murdered inside this home.
[9:12] Speaker 1: I want to get to that in a minute, but
[9:13] Speaker 1: I want to context wise a bit about the common
[9:17] Speaker 1: Cero's in that early nineties time frame. You said that
[9:22] Speaker 1: Jock was one of the kind of higher up guys.
[9:24] Speaker 1: Billy not so much. But what can you tell us
[9:27] Speaker 1: about the common Ceros during that time?
[9:29] Speaker 3: More broadly, I think the common Teros were trying to
[9:33] Speaker 3: gain a bit more power in the biking world, and
[9:36] Speaker 3: they were building themselves up because they'd been decimated in
[9:40] Speaker 3: the late eighties in the Millpaera massacre where they lost
[9:45] Speaker 3: a lot of members. There was members went to jail
[9:49] Speaker 3: over crimes from that massacre, and I think it took
[9:53] Speaker 3: them a few years to regain their I guess, their
[9:57] Speaker 3: power and pull their gang that together. So they weren't
[10:02] Speaker 3: huge players at that time as far as I was
[10:05] Speaker 3: my understanding. They had their usual turf walls going on
[10:09] Speaker 3: with the Banditos and the other bikey clubs that were
[10:12] Speaker 3: operating at the time.
[10:14] Speaker 1: Do we know anything about what that home life in
[10:18] Speaker 1: that Wentworth Ball's house was like or she wasn't really
[10:23] Speaker 1: there long enough before she disappeared, was she?
[10:26] Speaker 3: We know bits and pieces, and what we know is
[10:29] Speaker 3: that it was very a short period that they moved
[10:33] Speaker 3: into this house, and they were living in a house
[10:35] Speaker 3: in Sydney, but they got out of it really quickly
[10:39] Speaker 3: and moved to the Blue Mountains. And we don't really
[10:43] Speaker 3: know what was happening. Why the Blue Mountains, why this
[10:47] Speaker 3: particular house. We don't know if what was happening there,
[10:52] Speaker 3: but we do know that that was the last known
[10:54] Speaker 3: address of Tracy.
[10:56] Speaker 1: And the last known sighting of Tracy was around the
[11:00] Speaker 1: eighth of January or the eighth of January at court
[11:05] Speaker 1: at Campbelltown Court, So she was sighted there and she
[11:08] Speaker 1: was due to go back to court four days later
[11:12] Speaker 1: and just never turned up.
[11:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, and we know that she was in fear of
[11:16] Speaker 3: her life and also spoke to her father and told
[11:20] Speaker 3: him that she was worried about him going to court.
[11:23] Speaker 3: And we couldn't quite get to the bottom as to
[11:26] Speaker 3: where those fears were coming from, but it's now obviously
[11:29] Speaker 3: more apparent that she was living in fear. And I
[11:33] Speaker 3: think what we now know is that the police theory
[11:36] Speaker 3: is that she had threatened to go to police, or
[11:40] Speaker 3: Jock mackenzie had discovered that she was going to go
[11:44] Speaker 3: to police about a violent home invasion that he had
[11:48] Speaker 3: orchestrated on Tracy's former partner, Scott Cage's brother.
[11:56] Speaker 2: He was the target.
[11:56] Speaker 3: The innocent victim of this violent home invasion is a
[12:00] Speaker 3: licensed security guard, and firearms were stolen, his wife was
[12:04] Speaker 3: tied up. It was a violent home invasion and terrifying
[12:09] Speaker 3: and we don't know where Tracy falls into this, but
[12:12] Speaker 3: we know that the police believe that she was going
[12:14] Speaker 3: to inform on him and report him to police over
[12:17] Speaker 3: this home invasion that never happened. Racey has never been
[12:22] Speaker 3: seen alive since, and it's believed that she was murdered
[12:27] Speaker 3: inside that Wentworth Falls home, inside the bathroom.
[12:30] Speaker 1: And that detail that you have from this police brief,
[12:35] Speaker 1: that's kind of the first time we've heard.
[12:36] Speaker 2: That right for thirty years.
[12:39] Speaker 3: We do know that the theory is that she was
[12:42] Speaker 3: shot in this bathroom, and that has been well known
[12:45] Speaker 3: for quite some time, but we haven't known the motive
[12:49] Speaker 3: as to why she was shot dead, and we learned
[12:53] Speaker 3: through these police documents so much more about the people
[12:58] Speaker 3: allegedly involved and the lead up to her murder. Sharon
[13:04] Speaker 3: Is also has this strong feeling that her murder could
[13:07] Speaker 3: have something to do with pedophilia and child sexual abuse.
[13:11] Speaker 3: And the reason she thinks that is because Tracy left
[13:15] Speaker 3: in her belongings when she was going through all of
[13:17] Speaker 3: her belongings years later, and she had this Woman's Day
[13:22] Speaker 3: article about a pedophile and it was a first person
[13:27] Speaker 3: shocking read, you sick read. Certainly you wouldn't read anything
[13:32] Speaker 3: like this today. It was a reflection of the times.
[13:35] Speaker 3: I think that a pedophile would even get to write
[13:38] Speaker 3: this piece or that, yeah, to tell you their thoughts
[13:42] Speaker 3: and whatnot. But it is interesting that Tracy had cut
[13:45] Speaker 3: it out and she'd kept it, and we believe that
[13:49] Speaker 3: she will. Sharon thinks that she kept it for the
[13:52] Speaker 3: numbers connected to the article, which were helpline numbers or
[13:57] Speaker 3: reporting numbers, and that was possibly had something to do
[14:02] Speaker 3: with her, And an informant told Sharon that that's why
[14:05] Speaker 3: she believed that Tracy was killed. She said that she
[14:10] Speaker 3: thought it had something to do with Tracy dobbing in
[14:14] Speaker 3: Jock mackenzie for child abuse, right, And that was a
[14:19] Speaker 3: strong feeling of someone over the years that came forward
[14:23] Speaker 3: to Sharon over the years. But now we've got this
[14:26] Speaker 3: police theory that it had something to do with this
[14:29] Speaker 3: violent home invasion.
[14:32] Speaker 2: We may never know the truth.
[14:33] Speaker 3: But what we do know is that in two thousand
[14:36] Speaker 3: and one, when homicide detectives ramped up their investigation into
[14:40] Speaker 3: the disappearance of Tracy, was that they detected blood in
[14:44] Speaker 3: the bathroom of this Wentworth Fulls home, which supported the
[14:49] Speaker 3: story that had been told to police by an informant,
[14:52] Speaker 3: which was that Tracy was shot dead in the bathroom
[14:56] Speaker 3: and then there was this, allegedly this cover up and
[14:59] Speaker 3: this clean up that went underway to dispose of her body.
[15:04] Speaker 3: That's what we've been learning more about is who was
[15:07] Speaker 3: involved in that cover up of what happened to Tracy
[15:11] Speaker 3: and who knows what happened as well to Tracy.
[15:14] Speaker 1: Were they able to confirm that the blood was Tracy's.
[15:17] Speaker 3: No, it was inconclusive, and that was back in two
[15:20] Speaker 3: thousand and one. We don't know if the blood has
[15:23] Speaker 3: been tested, since we know that there are advancements in
[15:27] Speaker 3: DNA technology and the way that police test these types
[15:33] Speaker 3: of samples, we're not privy to that information. It's strongly
[15:38] Speaker 3: believed though, that it was Tracy's blood. It just is
[15:41] Speaker 3: inconclusive as to one hundred percent whether it was or not.
[15:46] Speaker 3: But the fact that they found this blood and it
[15:50] Speaker 3: wasn't just in areas that could be put down to, oh,
[15:53] Speaker 3: that was a shaving accident or something on.
[15:56] Speaker 1: The ceiling, wasn't it.
[15:57] Speaker 3: It was on the ceiling and very small amount an right,
[16:01] Speaker 3: it couldn't be seen by the naked eye. Was it
[16:04] Speaker 3: was forensically found in a forensic search? But which is
[16:09] Speaker 3: one of those things that with you know, Tracy's family
[16:12] Speaker 3: wants that those samples retested. We don't know when the
[16:15] Speaker 3: last forensic review was done on Tracy's case, but the
[16:20] Speaker 3: informant or several informants have told police and told Tracy's
[16:24] Speaker 3: family that Tracy was shot dead in this bathroom, and
[16:27] Speaker 3: then there was this effort to dispose of her body
[16:30] Speaker 3: in the Blue Mountains. A very chilling case. And her
[16:35] Speaker 3: body has never been found, and it's been thirty three
[16:37] Speaker 3: years since she disappeared.
[16:40] Speaker 1: One of the details, one of the main details that
[16:41] Speaker 1: really gets me is she was last seed in nineteen
[16:45] Speaker 1: ninety three, but she wasn't reported missing for four years.
[16:51] Speaker 1: Do we know why?
[16:52] Speaker 3: I have asked Sharon this and she's I think as
[16:55] Speaker 3: perplexed as anyone. She puts it down to a dysfunctional family.
[17:00] Speaker 3: She said that there was a breakdown with Tracy's mom
[17:05] Speaker 3: and her father at the time, and also, as I
[17:10] Speaker 3: said earlier, that she was known to go for long
[17:12] Speaker 3: periods of time and not have contact with family members. Also,
[17:16] Speaker 3: I think there's a bit of was George, that's Tracy's father,
[17:21] Speaker 3: was he taking care of that? Her brother was a
[17:23] Speaker 3: police officer there, we don't know if there was an
[17:26] Speaker 3: assumption that he was maybe taking care of it. Also,
[17:30] Speaker 3: what's been revealed is that George was suffering dementia towards
[17:35] Speaker 3: the end of his life, and so we don't know
[17:38] Speaker 3: if that played into it. Did he believe or was
[17:41] Speaker 3: there this assumption that she was reported missing earlier? I
[17:45] Speaker 3: think at one stage he went to Saint Vincent's to
[17:49] Speaker 3: Vinnie's and reported her missing, but that wasn't officially reporting
[17:55] Speaker 3: her missing to police. I think it's also back in
[17:57] Speaker 3: the nineties, unfortunately, the cases of missing women were treated differently.
[18:04] Speaker 3: I saw an article in nineteen ninety seven that was
[18:07] Speaker 3: still saying that we don't believe it was foul play.
[18:10] Speaker 2: You know.
[18:10] Speaker 3: I think that if Tracy disappeared in or another woman
[18:15] Speaker 3: like Tracy disappeared in those circumstances in today's society, police
[18:19] Speaker 3: would act very differently. They're trained differently to detect domestic violence.
[18:25] Speaker 3: To also, the red flags would be going off because
[18:28] Speaker 3: she wasn't known to I guess leave her children or
[18:32] Speaker 3: her Sharon says that when I realized she didn't turn
[18:35] Speaker 3: up to court, I assume she's dead.
[18:38] Speaker 1: There are two things of note I want to touch
[18:40] Speaker 1: on that happened in the kind of two years after
[18:43] Speaker 1: she disappeared. One, the break in that you mentioned did
[18:46] Speaker 1: go ahead on Scott Cage's brother's house and then a
[18:53] Speaker 1: transaction on Tracy's bank account the following year. Can you
[18:57] Speaker 1: talk us through that.
[18:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, really key events that are connected in some way
[19:04] Speaker 3: to TRACE's disappearance. The first one that you mentioned was
[19:07] Speaker 3: the home invasion, So we learned that that was connected
[19:11] Speaker 3: to the motive as to Tracy's murder. And the person
[19:15] Speaker 3: who had orchestrated that home invasion was Jock Mackenzie, the
[19:20] Speaker 3: common cero Biki that she was living with in the
[19:22] Speaker 3: Blue Mountains that was best mates with her partner at
[19:27] Speaker 3: the time, Billy Booby.
[19:29] Speaker 2: And we know that.
[19:32] Speaker 3: Jock was involved in this home invasion in some ways,
[19:36] Speaker 3: certainly orchestrated it, and there were firearms that were stolen. Now, interestingly,
[19:43] Speaker 3: the victim of this home invasion is Tracy's former partner's brother,
[19:49] Speaker 3: So the police theory is that someone had intimate knowledge
[19:54] Speaker 3: about where these firearms were within the house and would
[20:00] Speaker 3: know that he had these firearms, and he was a
[20:02] Speaker 3: licensed security guard, so that plays into it as well.
[20:06] Speaker 3: And then we have this suspicious transaction on Tracy's account,
[20:09] Speaker 3: which was a year after she disappeared.
[20:12] Speaker 2: A check was put.
[20:13] Speaker 3: Into her account and then three days later it was
[20:18] Speaker 3: just a little bit under the five hundred dollars, so
[20:20] Speaker 3: they've obviously kept some room for.
[20:22] Speaker 2: Bank fees or whatnot.
[20:24] Speaker 3: So a five hundred dollars check was put into Tracy's
[20:26] Speaker 3: account and then four hundred and ninety something dollars was
[20:31] Speaker 3: taken out of it, interestingly in the Blue Mountains, almost
[20:34] Speaker 3: a year after it. But what it means is that
[20:37] Speaker 3: whoever made that withdrawal in the Blue Mountains had access
[20:41] Speaker 3: to her card and to her pin number. Again suspicious
[20:47] Speaker 3: and because that is.
[20:48] Speaker 2: The only activity on that.
[20:50] Speaker 3: Account since her disappearance, but obviously a very suspicious transaction,
[20:55] Speaker 3: and police tried to get to the bottom of it.
[20:58] Speaker 3: But years later when they were looking at it, there
[21:00] Speaker 3: was no physical evidence of the chech anymore, which made
[21:03] Speaker 3: it very.
[21:05] Speaker 1: Difficult once the police got involved. After nineteen ninety seven.
[21:09] Speaker 1: You mentioned they did the search on on the house
[21:11] Speaker 1: two thousand and one ish. By that point the other
[21:13] Speaker 1: housemates had long gone were they interviewed.
[21:17] Speaker 2: Billy Booby was her partner at the time.
[21:20] Speaker 3: He was questioned at a police station in and around
[21:26] Speaker 3: two thousand and five. This is just prior to Tracy's inquest,
[21:31] Speaker 3: and he had no knowledge apparently of Tracy.
[21:35] Speaker 2: He denied knowing her.
[21:37] Speaker 3: He said that he lived a colorful life as a
[21:40] Speaker 3: bikey and his use of drugs had affected his memory,
[21:45] Speaker 3: and he said he had no knowledge of Tracy and
[21:48] Speaker 3: even knowing her.
[21:51] Speaker 1: Looking at this case, I can definitely see how it
[21:54] Speaker 1: kind of fell into cold case territory because everything just
[21:58] Speaker 1: was so late, unfortunately, and in cases of crime like,
[22:02] Speaker 1: the quicker you are, the more you're likely to get
[22:05] Speaker 1: that forensic evidence, the more likely you are to kind
[22:07] Speaker 1: of talk to people that were there, that kind of thing.
[22:10] Speaker 1: And it feels like her case kind of just got
[22:12] Speaker 1: forgotten a bit.
[22:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's one of the tragedies of her case
[22:15] Speaker 3: was the loss of crucial evidence because of the time lapse.
[22:19] Speaker 3: And I'm not being critical of police because as we know,
[22:23] Speaker 3: there was a delay in reporting her missing, but certainly
[22:27] Speaker 3: there was also a delay in the gravity of the
[22:31] Speaker 3: situation that they were dealing with and the seriousness of it.
[22:34] Speaker 3: That this wasn't a woman who had just wandered off
[22:38] Speaker 3: and decided to start a new life. It was pretty
[22:40] Speaker 3: clear that the people around her were not cooperating. They
[22:45] Speaker 3: weren't revealing what happened to her. No one that should
[22:49] Speaker 3: have been reporting her missing did report her missing, in
[22:51] Speaker 3: the sense that the people that were close to her
[22:53] Speaker 3: at the time, living with her, living with her, her
[22:57] Speaker 3: boyfriend at the time, even and her former partner who
[23:02] Speaker 3: was the father of her young child. You would think
[23:05] Speaker 3: alarm bells would have been going off for him as well,
[23:08] Speaker 3: thinking where is the mother of my child.
[23:10] Speaker 1: Especially when we know she's a devoted mother, So if
[23:12] Speaker 1: when she doesn't turn up to see her kid.
[23:15] Speaker 3: Exactly, So, their answer is that only the people involved
[23:19] Speaker 3: can answer, and we haven't got any clear answers from them.
[23:24] Speaker 1: You mentioned an inquest that was held in two thousand
[23:26] Speaker 1: and six, and it found that Tracy was likely dead
[23:32] Speaker 1: and that she died at the hands of someone else,
[23:35] Speaker 1: but there was not enough evidence for charges. When you
[23:39] Speaker 1: looked at those findings, was there anything else that jumped
[23:41] Speaker 1: out at you?
[23:42] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, they named the coroner named Jock mackenzie is
[23:47] Speaker 3: being intimately involved in her murder, but there wasn't enough
[23:51] Speaker 3: evidence to charge him and he was deported from Australia
[23:55] Speaker 3: to back to his homeland Scotland in two thousand and
[23:59] Speaker 3: four after a violent couple of years or almost a
[24:05] Speaker 3: decade in Australia which included encourage to murder a charge
[24:10] Speaker 3: which involves a plot to murder someone and that was foiled,
[24:16] Speaker 3: but that was one of the charges break and enters, theft, passport,
[24:23] Speaker 3: faking passports. A very very dodgy bad guy was Jock McKenzie.
[24:28] Speaker 3: Continued on his offending in Scotland because we discovered that
[24:34] Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four he was convicted of child sexual
[24:40] Speaker 3: abuse in Scotland at the age of sixty nine.
[24:44] Speaker 2: He had committed these crimes.
[24:48] Speaker 3: So he died just a couple of years ago at
[24:51] Speaker 3: the age of seventy three, awaiting sentence for those child
[24:54] Speaker 3: sex assault charges. Died a convicted pedophile. He also died
[24:59] Speaker 3: a respect in Tracy's murder, and with my colleague Sophie Ellsworth,
[25:06] Speaker 3: who's our Europe correspondent for News Corp, went over to
[25:09] Speaker 3: Scotland in his small coastal community where he was last
[25:14] Speaker 3: living before he was jailed, and she spoke to one
[25:17] Speaker 3: of his neighbors and a former friend of his, and
[25:20] Speaker 3: she gave a shocking insight into his life and all
[25:26] Speaker 3: of the lies that he used to tell, and she
[25:29] Speaker 3: used to just put it down to that he was
[25:31] Speaker 3: a bullshitter. She didn't think that he was telling the truth.
[25:36] Speaker 1: So he wasn't known because he was in quite a
[25:38] Speaker 1: small town. He wasn't known as being the bad guy.
[25:40] Speaker 1: He was kind of hiding.
[25:41] Speaker 3: I think by that stage he had a lot of
[25:43] Speaker 3: health issues and he was known to he still loved
[25:46] Speaker 3: his motorbikes and whatnot. But I think by that stage
[25:49] Speaker 3: he'd sort of moved on with his life and had
[25:52] Speaker 3: a lot of health issues and was living a quiet life,
[25:55] Speaker 3: but still clearly offending because this young teenage had become
[26:01] Speaker 3: a victim of his and this victim was brave enough
[26:05] Speaker 3: to go to police and report him, and it took
[26:09] Speaker 3: less than forty minutes for a jury of fifteen to
[26:13] Speaker 3: convict him. Of the offenses, and he was awaiting his
[26:16] Speaker 3: sentence when he died in jail. But for Sharon, Tracy's sister,
[26:21] Speaker 3: she's going, well, what did he tell people over there?
[26:25] Speaker 3: Did he boast about Tracy's murder over there? His former
[26:29] Speaker 3: friend said, I do remember him talking about Tracy, really yes,
[26:34] Speaker 3: And she said and then that he would just sort
[26:36] Speaker 3: of close up afterwards. But she said he was such
[26:39] Speaker 3: a bragger that she couldn't distinguish what was truth and
[26:43] Speaker 3: what were lies. But now she knows the truth about
[26:47] Speaker 3: him in terms of his offending. She's saying, well, yeah,
[26:51] Speaker 3: that's pretty disturbing that he could have been telling the
[26:54] Speaker 3: truth and bragging about murder and whatnot.
[26:59] Speaker 1: How does Tracy's sister feel that he's now dead.
[27:03] Speaker 2: Extremely angry.
[27:05] Speaker 3: She's angry because she knows that he took secrets to
[27:09] Speaker 3: his grave, and also he probably spoke to other people
[27:14] Speaker 3: about what happened to Tracy.
[27:16] Speaker 2: Other people out there might know. He escaped justice.
[27:19] Speaker 3: Again, you know, he may have died a convicted pedophile,
[27:22] Speaker 3: but he wasn't sentenced over it. He was in jail,
[27:26] Speaker 3: so that I guess that's some comfort. But yeah, angry,
[27:29] Speaker 3: really really angry. And but The thing is that Tracy's
[27:32] Speaker 3: case doesn't end with Jock's death, because there are other
[27:36] Speaker 3: people that may have been involved in her murder, and
[27:39] Speaker 3: there are certainly other people who know what happened to her,
[27:44] Speaker 3: and it's those people that we should be focusing on.
[27:47] Speaker 3: And that is why as well, this investigation into Tracy's
[27:53] Speaker 3: disappearance needs to stay in the spotlight, because there are
[27:56] Speaker 3: people that know.
[27:57] Speaker 1: More to kind of expand on that. In twenty seventeen,
[28:01] Speaker 1: there was a public appeal on what would have been
[28:04] Speaker 1: Tracy's forty fifth birthday, so telling the public about Tracy's story,
[28:09] Speaker 1: offering money for any information, and someone did come forward
[28:14] Speaker 1: with some pretty damning information. Can you tell us about
[28:19] Speaker 1: that and what came of it?
[28:20] Speaker 3: They did, and I think this is one of the
[28:23] Speaker 3: reasons that Sharon feels so angry and frustrated about the
[28:28] Speaker 3: way that her sister's case has been handled over the years.
[28:31] Speaker 3: There was a new person that came forward to police
[28:36] Speaker 3: with only information that could be known by the killers
[28:41] Speaker 3: or killer and the information that we won't go into
[28:45] Speaker 3: that this person shared is very confronting, but also has
[28:51] Speaker 3: been stacked up by somebody else who years earlier went
[28:55] Speaker 3: to police. Now, the fact that this person, this new witness,
[28:59] Speaker 3: has not been formally interviewed and it's almost been ten
[29:04] Speaker 3: years is extremely infuriating for Sharon and anyone else connected
[29:12] Speaker 3: to Tracy's case that wants the answers and what's the truth.
[29:16] Speaker 3: And they're sitting back saying, well, why hold a police
[29:20] Speaker 3: appeal and why do this and put out a call
[29:24] Speaker 3: for information and someone comes forward and then not follows through?
[29:28] Speaker 1: What was the point?
[29:29] Speaker 2: Exactly?
[29:30] Speaker 3: That's the question that Sharon is asking and we're asking too,
[29:36] Speaker 3: because there is a lot more information out there about
[29:39] Speaker 3: Tracy's case and people are coming forward.
[29:42] Speaker 1: They I was going to say, since you have started
[29:45] Speaker 1: putting Tracy's story back into the spotlight, have you had
[29:49] Speaker 1: anyone come forward to you or give you more information
[29:51] Speaker 1: that's made you kind of really think.
[29:53] Speaker 2: Yes, a couple of people.
[29:55] Speaker 3: And I'm just feeling comforted by the the fact that
[30:00] Speaker 3: if this is who's coming forward to me, then I'm
[30:03] Speaker 3: hoping that there are other people. And the people that
[30:07] Speaker 3: have come forward to me are also as far as
[30:09] Speaker 3: I'm aware, they've also gone to crime stoppers as well.
[30:13] Speaker 3: So I'm really hoping that police are listening and they're
[30:19] Speaker 3: in the background doing some stuff on Tracy's case because
[30:23] Speaker 3: it has.
[30:23] Speaker 1: Been over thirty years, and I know that Sharon told
[30:27] Speaker 1: you that one of her biggest fears is dying without
[30:29] Speaker 1: having answers, which is something you hear from a lot
[30:33] Speaker 1: of families of missing people. It's the not knowing that
[30:38] Speaker 1: really is hard to live with. Yeah, it's every day
[30:43] Speaker 1: for these families. It's just hoping and trying to find
[30:47] Speaker 1: out more information. It just becomes part of their life
[30:52] Speaker 1: and they really become engrossed in it as to taking
[30:56] Speaker 1: it upon themselves to be the ones pushing for answers
[31:00] Speaker 1: and pushing for information and trying to get their loved
[31:03] Speaker 1: one's case back out there. You have kind of covered
[31:08] Speaker 1: this story, You've had all these people in your ear.
[31:10] Speaker 1: Do you think that we will see charges or that
[31:14] Speaker 1: Sharon will get the answers that she wants.
[31:17] Speaker 3: Tracy's case is solvable, and there are people out there
[31:21] Speaker 3: that know exactly what happened to Tracy. There's people out
[31:25] Speaker 3: there that may have been involved in her murder. There
[31:29] Speaker 3: are certainly people out there that may have been involved
[31:32] Speaker 3: in the cover up of her murder. And so while
[31:35] Speaker 3: Jock is dead, justice is still possible. Thank you to
[31:41] Speaker 3: Ashley for helping us to tell this story. You can
[31:44] Speaker 3: watch the three part multimedia investigation at Left Inthecold dot
[31:48] Speaker 3: com dot au. If you want to see visuals from
[31:52] Speaker 3: this episode, head over to our Instagram page at True
[31:55] Speaker 3: Crime Conversations, and for in depth case explainers.
[31:58] Speaker 1: Follow us on TikTok under the same name. True Crime
[32:01] Speaker 1: Conversations is hosted by me Jemma Bath. Our senior producer
[32:05] Speaker 1: is Tarlie Blackman. The group executive producer is Alaria Brophy.
[32:09] Speaker 1: There's been audio designed by Jacob Brown and video production
[32:13] Speaker 1: by Julian Rosario. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be
[32:16] Speaker 1: back next week with another True Crime Conversation

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