# The Disappearance Of 12-year-old Rhianna Barreau \[re-release\]

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 11 Oct 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/f031cd52-9146-435c-8f96-b4de00475e03/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

In October 1992, 12-year-old Rhianna Barreau disappeared. On the day she went missing it was school holidays, and Rhianna had spent the morning wandering to the local shops to buy her American pen pal a Christmas card. When her mother got home at 4pm, expecting to find Rhianna, she was nowhere to be found. It's one of South Australia's most enduring cold cases. Her disappearance didn’t just change the lives of her family, it changed her community and the streets of Adelaide forever. THE END BITS Subscribe to Mamamia If you have any details about this case, you can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or on their website. CREDITS Guest: Rebecca Brice Host: Gemma Bath Executive Producer: Gia Moylan Audio Producer: Scott Stronach GET IN TOUCH: Check out our TikTok here. Feedback? We’re listening! Call the pod phone on 02 8999 9386 or email us at truecrime@mamamia.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 Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi there, it's Gemma here, jumping into your feed because
[0:02] Speaker 1: this month marks 34 years since the disappearance of 12-year-old
[0:07] Speaker 1: Rihanna Burrow in Adelaide in 1992. It's a missing persons
[0:11] Speaker 1: case that still has a million dollar reward attached and
[0:15] Speaker 1: that police believe is solvable if the right person with
[0:18] Speaker 1: the right information comes forward. Just last year, police officer
[0:22] Speaker 1: turned journalist, Manny Karoutis, released a new book called Someone
[0:27] Speaker 1: Somewhere Knows Something, which included an interview with the lead
[0:30] Speaker 1: detective on this case, who has always maintained the offender
[0:35] Speaker 1: likely lived extremely close to Rihanna's house. In an effort
[0:39] Speaker 1: to keep this case at the forefront of people's mind,
[0:42] Speaker 1: we're resharing our interview delving into the crime. South Australian
[0:46] Speaker 1: police will also provide immunity from prosecution for anyone providing
[0:50] Speaker 1: the breakthrough that resolves Rhianna's story. Let's get into it.
[1:02] Speaker 2: It's October 1992, in the middle of the South Australian
[1:06] Speaker 2: school holidays, and in the southern suburbs of Adelaide, 12-year-old
[1:10] Speaker 2: Rhianna Barot is listening to one of her favourite songs.
[1:14] Speaker 2: It's an otherwise ordinary Wednesday morning on Wakefield Avenue in
[1:18] Speaker 2: Morfett Vale and Rhianna's mum is headed off to study
[1:22] Speaker 2: at the local TAFE. Paula pops her head into Rhianna's
[1:25] Speaker 2: bedroom to say goodbye. Shush mum, I'm listening to this,
[1:29] Speaker 2: she tells her. They were supposed to be meeting for
[1:32] Speaker 2: lunch at a nearby shopping centre in a few hours
[1:35] Speaker 2: but with a snap bus strike called, they decide to
[1:38] Speaker 2: ditch that idea. Instead, with an empty day ahead of her,
[1:43] Speaker 2: Rihanna plans to stroll the kilometre or so to the
[1:45] Speaker 2: local newsagent. She's been meaning to buy a Christmas card
[1:48] Speaker 2: to send to her American pen pal. After lazing around
[1:53] Speaker 2: home for a few hours listening to more music, Rihanna
[1:56] Speaker 2: sets off just before 10.30am, wearing purple shorts, a green
[2:01] Speaker 2: t-shirt with the words hypercolour across the front, and Lynx
[2:05] Speaker 2: sneakers with bright pink tongues. About two hours later, a
[2:09] Speaker 2: postcard safely swinging from her hand in a little carrier bag,
[2:13] Speaker 2: she makes her way home. When her mother pulls up
[2:17] Speaker 2: into the driveway just after 4pm, the front door is locked. Inside,
[2:23] Speaker 2: the TV is on, a few records lay strewn across
[2:26] Speaker 2: the floor, and the Christmas postcard Rihanna purchased that morning
[2:30] Speaker 2: is sitting on the dining room table. Rihanna, however, is
[2:36] Speaker 2: nowhere to be found. MUSIC I'm Gemma Bath, and this
[2:49] Speaker 2: is True Crime Conversations, a Mamma Mia podcast exploring the
[2:54] Speaker 2: world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who
[2:57] Speaker 2: know the most about them. It doesn't take long to
[3:01] Speaker 2: declare Rihanna a missing person, and the police quickly try
[3:05] Speaker 2: to piece together Rihanna's final movements. Did she leave the
[3:09] Speaker 2: house again after coming home from the newsagent? Was she
[3:13] Speaker 2: coaxed away once safely back inside? Or did she leave willingly,
[3:18] Speaker 2: perhaps to run another errand?
[3:20] Speaker 3: Well, it's frightening.
[3:21] Speaker 4: I mean, she was an innocent 12-year-old girl.
[3:24] Speaker 5: We've seen her walking down the street and that at
[3:26] Speaker 5: times with her friends, with her mother. She was just
[3:28] Speaker 5: an average 12-year-old girl.
[3:29] Speaker 3: Well, I would really like to have a policeman knock
[3:32] Speaker 3: on our door tomorrow morning and say that, you know,
[3:34] Speaker 3: here's a little girl back in one piece. But the
[3:38] Speaker 3: reality of that, I think, as everybody knows, is fairly insignificant.
[3:43] Speaker 2: With no solid leads, a reward of $ 100, 000 is offered
[3:47] Speaker 2: about a month after the disappearance. Today, that reward sits
[3:52] Speaker 2: at $ 1 million. This year, Rihanna would have been 43.
[3:59] Speaker 2: Many of her peers now have children around a similar
[4:02] Speaker 2: age that she was on that October morning. Her disappearance
[4:06] Speaker 2: didn't just change the lives of her family. It changed
[4:10] Speaker 2: her community and the streets of Adelaide, In recent years,
[4:15] Speaker 2: ABC reporter Rebecca Bryce has been looking back at the
[4:18] Speaker 2: case and the questions that remain unanswered. She joins us now. Bec,
[4:33] Speaker 2: can you paint the picture for us? The southern suburbs
[4:36] Speaker 2: of Adelaide in October 1992. What kind of world did
[4:41] Speaker 2: Rhianna Burrow grow up in?
[4:44] Speaker 6: So it was a very suburban type life, I suppose.
[4:48] Speaker 6: Lots of small houses on relatively large blocks. It was
[4:54] Speaker 6: a relatively new suburb of Adelaide, quite far out, out
[4:58] Speaker 6: in the outer suburbs. If you walk around the area now,
[5:02] Speaker 6: you do get a feel for what it was like
[5:04] Speaker 6: back then because it looks as though Very little has
[5:06] Speaker 6: changed in terms of, you know, the housing is all
[5:09] Speaker 6: still there that was there back in the day. There's
[5:12] Speaker 6: parks around her area where she lived, quite a few
[5:16] Speaker 6: schools and some quite busy roads and industrial areas as
[5:21] Speaker 6: well in that particular area.
[5:24] Speaker 2: Who was Rhianna living with? What did her family look like?
[5:27] Speaker 6: So she lived with her mum and her older brother.
[5:30] Speaker 6: Her parents were separated. In fact, her father died. was
[5:34] Speaker 6: living in Queensland at the time that she disappeared with
[5:37] Speaker 6: his new partner. By all accounts, on the day that
[5:40] Speaker 6: she disappeared, her brother was away on a school holiday
[5:44] Speaker 6: trip and her mother was studying at TAFE and she
[5:47] Speaker 6: was actually planning to see her mother the day that
[5:49] Speaker 6: she disappeared.
[5:52] Speaker 2: What kind of girl was Rihanna? Was she shy? Was
[5:56] Speaker 2: she talkative? Was she, I guess in the instance of
[5:59] Speaker 2: this story, was she aware of stranger danger? back then?
[6:04] Speaker 6: So look, it's difficult to know exactly what kind of
[6:08] Speaker 6: girl she was from the stranger danger perspective. Her family
[6:11] Speaker 6: has been largely silent since she disappeared. They did a
[6:15] Speaker 6: lot of media at the time. And certainly I approached
[6:18] Speaker 6: them through whatever means I could when I was working
[6:22] Speaker 6: on my stories to try to speak with them, as
[6:24] Speaker 6: we always would want to with a story like this,
[6:28] Speaker 6: but never heard back from them in any of the
[6:30] Speaker 6: ways that I reached out. I did speak to her
[6:33] Speaker 6: principal at the time who remembered her very fondly as
[6:38] Speaker 6: a girl who had a really bright future, the kind
[6:40] Speaker 6: of student who was quite committed to her schoolwork, certainly wasn't,
[6:46] Speaker 6: you know, a standout in terms of misbehaving or anything
[6:50] Speaker 6: like that. Not necessarily a shy child, but not necessarily
[6:54] Speaker 6: the child that stood out either.
[6:57] Speaker 2: So Rhianna, on the day she went missing... was actually
[7:01] Speaker 2: going to buy a Christmas card for a pen pal.
[7:03] Speaker 2: Pen pals takes you back, doesn't it? I remember I
[7:05] Speaker 2: had a pen pal in the 90s. I don't know
[7:07] Speaker 2: about you. But that walk to the shops, was that
[7:10] Speaker 2: a common one for her to do?
[7:13] Speaker 6: I think it probably was a relatively common thing for
[7:15] Speaker 6: her to do. It was only about a kilometre away
[7:18] Speaker 6: from her home and there's back blocks that she could
[7:21] Speaker 6: walk through to get to that location so she wouldn't
[7:25] Speaker 6: have to walk on the main roads and, you know,
[7:27] Speaker 6: the very heavily trafficked roads in the area. It was
[7:30] Speaker 6: actually a very sad, I guess, stroke of bad luck
[7:34] Speaker 6: that had her walking in that direction. She was, as
[7:38] Speaker 6: I mentioned before, planning to meet her mother for lunch
[7:41] Speaker 6: at a local shopping centre known as Colonades, which was
[7:44] Speaker 6: kind of the big shopping centre in the area at
[7:46] Speaker 6: the time and is still there.
[7:47] Speaker 4: Her mother was.
[7:48] Speaker 6: Studying at TAFE nearby and she was planning to catch
[7:51] Speaker 6: the bus there. It was about five kilometres, I think,
[7:53] Speaker 6: to get there. And there was a bus strike that
[7:56] Speaker 6: was called on that day. So she was not able
[7:59] Speaker 6: to do that. So instead, she made this decision to
[8:02] Speaker 6: walk to the local news agent to buy the card
[8:05] Speaker 6: for her pen pal.
[8:06] Speaker 4: You mentioned the pen pal side of things.
[8:08] Speaker 6: I think that really puts a lot of perspective around
[8:11] Speaker 6: this case that it really sets the.
[8:13] Speaker 4: Scene for the time and the era in which it unfolded.
[8:17] Speaker 6: It was a time before mobile phones and before email
[8:21] Speaker 6: and all of those methods of communication that we use today.
[8:25] Speaker 6: to not only communicate with one another, but also that
[8:28] Speaker 6: provide a record of where we are and what we're doing.
[8:31] Speaker 2: And also the age of the girl that we're talking about,
[8:35] Speaker 2: a 12-year-old having a pen pal, that's such an innocent thing.
[8:40] Speaker 4: Absolutely. And to think as well that it was October
[8:43] Speaker 4: and she was buying a Christmas card. Very prepared. I
[8:47] Speaker 4: like that.
[8:48] Speaker 6: She was obviously a planner and thought ahead about what
[8:51] Speaker 6: was coming up.
[8:52] Speaker 4: So I really liked that side of her.
[8:55] Speaker 2: What do we know about her movements once she does
[8:58] Speaker 2: buy the card? Because she goes to the newsagent and
[9:02] Speaker 2: then what happens then?
[9:05] Speaker 6: So there are some sightings of her walking home. We
[9:09] Speaker 6: know that she did make it home because the Christmas
[9:12] Speaker 6: card that she bought from the newsagency was at home
[9:16] Speaker 6: in her house. And then there's very little known about
[9:19] Speaker 6: what happened to her after that. The first sign that
[9:23] Speaker 6: she was missing was when her mother arrived home about
[9:27] Speaker 6: four o'clock in the afternoon. She'd last been seen at
[9:30] Speaker 6: about half past 12, so a good few hours in between.
[9:33] Speaker 6: Her mother came home, the front door was locked. She
[9:36] Speaker 6: came inside, there were records on the ground and the
[9:39] Speaker 6: television was on, but Rihanna wasn't to be seen. So
[9:43] Speaker 6: from that, police deduced that she certainly did make it
[9:46] Speaker 6: home and that Somehow she either left the house of
[9:50] Speaker 6: her own free will or was drawn out of the
[9:53] Speaker 6: house by somebody after she'd made it home.
[9:56] Speaker 2: I guess the thing that strikes me about that description
[10:00] Speaker 2: that you've just given is the door being locked but
[10:03] Speaker 2: the TV on. So were there elements like that that
[10:06] Speaker 2: they were trying to unravel? Because why would you leave
[10:08] Speaker 2: the TV on but you've actually left the house and
[10:11] Speaker 2: locked it? Is that the kind of stuff that the
[10:13] Speaker 2: police were looking at in those early days?
[10:15] Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think that really baffled them, but I
[10:17] Speaker 6: think that was also what led them to believe that
[10:21] Speaker 6: she was probably enticed out of the house or if
[10:24] Speaker 6: she did leave, she wasn't obviously intending to leave for
[10:27] Speaker 6: a long time because you would normally turn the television
[10:29] Speaker 6: off and.
[10:30] Speaker 4: Perhaps put the records away. I don't know how tidy
[10:33] Speaker 4: she was.
[10:34] Speaker 6: But yeah, I think that certainly played into their initial
[10:38] Speaker 6: view that she hadn't intended to be gone for very long.
[10:42] Speaker 2: How long did it take for police to take this
[10:45] Speaker 2: disappearance seriously? Because people do go missing every day in Australia.
[10:51] Speaker 2: So what made them jump on this case as, no,
[10:53] Speaker 2: we need to take this seriously?
[10:55] Speaker 6: So it was an unusual time when this was playing out.
[10:59] Speaker 6: I think they did take it seriously from the get-go,
[11:02] Speaker 6: from the perspective that it sounded as though her mother
[11:04] Speaker 6: was quite distraught and very concerned. They certainly responded with
[11:09] Speaker 6: police to the scene very quickly and But at the
[11:12] Speaker 6: same time, in researching this story, one of the things
[11:16] Speaker 6: that really stood out was playing out at the other
[11:18] Speaker 6: end of Adelaide were some very massive floods and people
[11:23] Speaker 6: being evacuated from their homes, homes being inundated.
[11:27] Speaker 4: There were people being airlifted out of very scary situations.
[11:31] Speaker 6: And I think that has to have played into some
[11:35] Speaker 6: of this, that there must have been huge amounts of
[11:37] Speaker 6: resources being sent to that area of town. while at
[11:41] Speaker 6: the other end of town a 12-year-old girl has gone missing.
[11:44] Speaker 6: The main person that I spoke to with background of
[11:48] Speaker 6: the police investigation is a now retired detective, Alan Arthur,
[11:52] Speaker 6: and he was called in a couple of days after
[11:55] Speaker 6: the disappearance. He was working in the homicide unit at
[11:58] Speaker 6: the time and I think that's really when things started
[12:02] Speaker 6: to ramp up and they really started to take it
[12:04] Speaker 6: very seriously. And in speaking with him, he said that
[12:08] Speaker 6: basically as soon as he arrived and looked at the circumstances,
[12:12] Speaker 6: a 12-year-old girl, in the way that she'd gone missing,
[12:16] Speaker 6: he knew that something very, very serious had happened.
[12:19] Speaker 2: What do police investigations look like through a 90s lens?
[12:24] Speaker 2: Is it, you know, door to door? Is it phone
[12:27] Speaker 2: calls into the police station? What were they doing actively
[12:29] Speaker 2: in those few days after she went missing?
[12:32] Speaker 6: So they set up an operation locally and were just
[12:37] Speaker 6: putting the call out for anybody who had information to
[12:39] Speaker 6: come forward, taking hundreds of calls. I think at one
[12:43] Speaker 6: point there might have been thousands of calls that they'd
[12:46] Speaker 6: been receiving with tip-offs and just going out there and
[12:49] Speaker 6: investigating all of those tip-offs. They certainly went around the
[12:53] Speaker 6: area and were speaking with neighbours. I think when you
[12:57] Speaker 6: speak with Alan Arthur, I think he felt very much
[12:59] Speaker 6: from the get-go that She was probably somewhere locally and
[13:03] Speaker 6: I think he still feels that way to this day.
[13:06] Speaker 6: So yeah, just feet on the ground, asking people to
[13:10] Speaker 6: provide information and doing daily press conferences as well.
[13:15] Speaker 2: Two interesting things I came across while looking at those
[13:19] Speaker 2: early days of the investigation that I wouldn't say surprised me,
[13:22] Speaker 2: but I found really interesting were one, they'd set up
[13:27] Speaker 2: a mannequin at the local shop in the clothes that
[13:31] Speaker 2: Rihanna was wearing?
[13:32] Speaker 6: I can vividly remember the description of the clothes that
[13:35] Speaker 6: she was wearing being played out in the media. And
[13:38] Speaker 6: I remember the mannequin that they had set up. She
[13:41] Speaker 6: was wearing a hyper-coloured t-shirt. That was why I remember
[13:44] Speaker 6: it so vividly. And, you know, it really dates this case.
[13:47] Speaker 2: That doesn't feel like something that happens anymore. I mean,
[13:51] Speaker 2: there are other high-profile instances of mannequins being used as
[13:54] Speaker 2: a tactic in missing persons cases. There's, you know, Daniel Morecambe,
[13:58] Speaker 2: Alison Baden-Clay... But is that something that works for police,
[14:03] Speaker 2: having that visual element that people can look at?
[14:06] Speaker 6: I haven't seen the mannequin tactic used very regularly in
[14:11] Speaker 6: South Australia. In fact, I can't really recall a case
[14:13] Speaker 6: like that in recent times. But I guess these days
[14:18] Speaker 6: there are other probably more effective measures that they can
[14:21] Speaker 6: use to track people. I mean, certainly these days you'd
[14:25] Speaker 6: think a 12-year-old girl.
[14:26] Speaker 4: Would probably have a mobile phone.
[14:29] Speaker 6: And you could easily use that to help locate or
[14:33] Speaker 6: would be active on social media and those sorts of things.
[14:35] Speaker 4: So I think it really speaks to the time.
[14:37] Speaker 6: Of how they went about policing and investigating cases at
[14:42] Speaker 6: the time. Certainly, we know from a lot of the
[14:46] Speaker 6: cases that are reported these days and a lot of
[14:48] Speaker 6: the trials that you sit through, mobile phone use is
[14:52] Speaker 6: a huge part of police investigations now, not just the
[14:57] Speaker 6: communication that we do with them, but also even just
[15:00] Speaker 6: where your phone pings, which tower it pings off to
[15:03] Speaker 6: get an idea of where you are. But I think
[15:05] Speaker 6: also police employ social media these days to help them
[15:10] Speaker 6: with their investigations in a way that they couldn't in
[15:12] Speaker 6: previous years. So certainly in South Australia, when a child
[15:16] Speaker 6: goes missing, and it happens pretty regularly that kids go missing,
[15:19] Speaker 6: police will put social media posts up almost straight away
[15:23] Speaker 6: with a picture of the child and the child's name
[15:26] Speaker 6: and reach.
[15:27] Speaker 4: Out to the public to try to find that child.
[15:29] Speaker 6: And it's amazing how quickly they get answers with those
[15:32] Speaker 6: sorts of things. Interestingly, they used one of her best
[15:36] Speaker 6: friends to do a reenactment of sightings that they had
[15:40] Speaker 6: of her potentially walking down streets after she was last seen,
[15:46] Speaker 6: but they could never confirm any of those sightings after
[15:49] Speaker 6: the fact.
[15:50] Speaker 4: And whether or not it sparked any positive leads.
[15:54] Speaker 6: I mean, to this day, no one's been charged. So
[15:57] Speaker 6: I guess it was just one of the tactics that
[15:59] Speaker 6: they had to employ.
[16:01] Speaker 2: That was the other tactic that I was going to mention,
[16:03] Speaker 2: because when you look back at the old footage, it
[16:06] Speaker 2: does appear very helpful that you can see a young
[16:10] Speaker 2: girl in the exact clothes, walking down the exact street,
[16:13] Speaker 2: and it does paint the picture for you. But I
[16:15] Speaker 2: couldn't help but look at that girl and go, oh
[16:18] Speaker 2: my gosh, that must have been hard. That was her
[16:20] Speaker 2: best friend and she was redoing her last steps as
[16:24] Speaker 2: we knew them.
[16:24] Speaker 4: Very brave.
[16:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, so brave. That was the part that I couldn't
[16:28] Speaker 2: quite get my head around. That would have been so tricky.
[16:31] Speaker 6: And that same little girl joined Rihanna's mother, Paula Burrow,
[16:36] Speaker 6: for one of the press conferences that she did.
[16:38] Speaker 3: Just come forward, help the police and maybe they might
[16:43] Speaker 3: catch a person or persons that have got Rihanna.
[16:49] Speaker 6: Just to think of these days, we protect people who
[16:53] Speaker 6: are victims of crimes from the media and from the
[16:58] Speaker 6: public as much as possible because we know that they
[17:00] Speaker 6: can be targeted as a result of being in the
[17:03] Speaker 6: public space. Yeah, incredibly brave and, again, just very different
[17:07] Speaker 6: tactics to perhaps ones that police would employ these days.
[17:11] Speaker 2: There was one witness who connected Rihanna to a white
[17:15] Speaker 2: LHD Tirana sedan. Can you talk us through that evidence
[17:19] Speaker 2: that came forward?
[17:20] Speaker 6: Yeah, so there was a witness who came forward who
[17:24] Speaker 6: talked about a white Tirana behaving suspiciously in the area
[17:29] Speaker 6: in the lead up to Rhianna's disappearance. And so that
[17:33] Speaker 6: prompted police to go down the avenue of trying to
[17:36] Speaker 6: find this car. It sounded very specific. It had black
[17:40] Speaker 6: louver window on the back of the vehicles. and also
[17:44] Speaker 6: Victorian number plates. So that really sent police off on
[17:49] Speaker 6: a long battle to try to track down this car.
[17:52] Speaker 6: From speaking with Alan Arthur, they never actually found that vehicle.
[17:56] Speaker 6: But it also had another interesting spin-off in that it
[18:00] Speaker 6: led police to consider whether or not there might also
[18:02] Speaker 6: be a link between the Rihanna Barreau case and a
[18:06] Speaker 6: number of other cases in Victoria in which were said
[18:10] Speaker 6: to have been carried out by a man known as
[18:12] Speaker 6: Mr Cruel. And they remain unsolved as well. But they
[18:15] Speaker 6: involved young girls between, I think, the ages of 11
[18:19] Speaker 6: and 13 being targeted by a man.
[18:23] Speaker 4: And in a couple of cases, they were abducted and
[18:26] Speaker 4: sexually assaulted. And one of them, Carmen Chan, was actually murdered.
[18:35] Speaker 2: You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Gemma Bath.
[18:40] Speaker 2: I'm speaking with journalist Rebecca Bryce about the disappearance of
[18:44] Speaker 2: Rihanna Barreau. They did announce a $ 100, 000 reward a month
[18:54] Speaker 2: after Rihanna went missing. Did that help? Did that do anything?
[18:58] Speaker 4: I don't think they were ever lacking in leads.
[19:02] Speaker 6: From speaking with Alan Arthur, there were more than enough
[19:04] Speaker 6: leads for them to follow. The problem was sustainable leads
[19:10] Speaker 6: that actually led to fruition. So they spent a lot
[19:13] Speaker 6: of time chasing down credible leads. There was a point
[19:17] Speaker 6: at which they had a report that she was being
[19:19] Speaker 6: held in a unit on Anzac Highway, which is probably
[19:23] Speaker 6: halfway between the city area and where she lived in
[19:26] Speaker 6: Moffat Vale. And police raided the home and she wasn't
[19:31] Speaker 6: to be seen. So it was a false lead that
[19:33] Speaker 6: they had to follow up. But that was the problem.
[19:35] Speaker 6: I think they had so many leads to follow up
[19:38] Speaker 6: and they had to follow them all up, but none
[19:40] Speaker 6: of them led to any real credible information.
[19:45] Speaker 2: One of the other leads that you mentioned is a
[19:47] Speaker 2: set of keys that were found also in the November,
[19:50] Speaker 2: so only like a month after she went missing. That
[19:53] Speaker 2: was a weird bit of evidence, wasn't it?
[19:56] Speaker 4: Really peculiar.
[19:57] Speaker 6: So a person went to a phone box and called
[20:01] Speaker 6: the police to say that they had found a set
[20:02] Speaker 6: of keys that they.
[20:03] Speaker 4: Believed were Rihanna's keys. very close to her home. I
[20:07] Speaker 4: actually sort of walked around this area and it's only
[20:10] Speaker 4: a couple of hundred metres away and also close to
[20:13] Speaker 4: another set of shops, just a little suburban strip of
[20:16] Speaker 4: shops in that area.
[20:17] Speaker 6: They believed the keys were Rhianna's or that's what they
[20:20] Speaker 6: said to the police, whether or not they had any
[20:23] Speaker 6: knowledge of what her keys would have actually looked like.
[20:26] Speaker 6: When police got hold of them, they then said that
[20:28] Speaker 6: when they returned after making the phone call, the keys
[20:31] Speaker 6: had gone.
[20:32] Speaker 4: It was interesting because it was in an.
[20:33] Speaker 6: Area where there had been reported sightings of Rihanna after
[20:37] Speaker 6: her last confirmed sighting. So I think that's why police
[20:41] Speaker 6: were quite interested in it and took it quite seriously.
[20:44] Speaker 6: A very strange development and obviously very difficult for police
[20:49] Speaker 6: to identify what had happened there, but you'd probably have
[20:53] Speaker 6: to put it down to somebody perhaps making something up
[20:56] Speaker 6: and not being legitimate.
[20:59] Speaker 2: So as we know, Rihanna wasn't found. What did Alan
[21:03] Speaker 2: tell the family when they did decide to remove their resources?
[21:08] Speaker 6: So I think it was a couple of weeks after
[21:11] Speaker 6: she disappeared that he made the decision that he really
[21:15] Speaker 6: had to be quite upfront with her family and tell
[21:19] Speaker 6: them quite bluntly that he believed that she'd been abducted
[21:23] Speaker 6: and that she wasn't coming back. It was interesting at
[21:27] Speaker 6: the time as well, very shortly after she disappeared, he
[21:30] Speaker 6: made links with this case to the Adelaide Oval abductions
[21:35] Speaker 6: and the Beaumont children's disappearance. And it was almost an
[21:40] Speaker 6: element of clairvoyance, I suppose, for want of a better word,
[21:43] Speaker 6: that he said if people didn't come forward, then this
[21:45] Speaker 6: case would never be solved and it would end up
[21:48] Speaker 6: like those very famous cases of children disappearing without a trace.
[21:52] Speaker 4: And unfortunately, that did come to fruition.
[21:55] Speaker 5: Impressed upon the community, close to where she's disappeared, that
[21:58] Speaker 5: without their assistance, this case will flounder and it may
[22:01] Speaker 5: well become another Beaumont mystery, Adelaide Oval abduction mystery, which
[22:06] Speaker 5: we may never solve. My theory today is that I
[22:17] Speaker 5: think her abductor, and I will say.
[22:19] Speaker 3: Killer, lives closer than a lot of people think.
[22:24] Speaker 5: And I would suspect that her remains are closer to
[22:31] Speaker 5: where she lived than most people think.
[22:34] Speaker 4: So you think it was someone in the neighbourhood?
[22:36] Speaker 5: That's my feeling. I've felt that way since several weeks
[22:40] Speaker 5: in the inquiry and even more so when I retired.
[22:44] Speaker 2: What a blunt thing to hear as a family. The
[22:47] Speaker 2: Beaumont children in particular, that's a story that most Australians
[22:51] Speaker 2: know and to be told that that is also going
[22:55] Speaker 2: to be your future, not knowing what happened, that must
[22:57] Speaker 2: have been... impossible to hear.
[22:59] Speaker 4: It would have been terrible.
[23:02] Speaker 6: And the interviews at the time with Rihanna's father, Leon Burrow,
[23:06] Speaker 6: were heart-wrenching to see the way that he reacted. On
[23:11] Speaker 6: the one hand, he was so hopeful that they would
[23:14] Speaker 6: find her. And of course, that's how you would be
[23:17] Speaker 6: as a father, just so hopeful that she would be
[23:20] Speaker 6: found alive. And the way that he talked about, you know,
[23:23] Speaker 6: walking through the empty house and seeing her cereal on
[23:26] Speaker 6: the shelf and You could almost sort of smell her presence,
[23:29] Speaker 6: but she wasn't there. And I just can't imagine how
[23:33] Speaker 6: difficult it must be to lose a child in that
[23:37] Speaker 6: way and have that huge void in your life and
[23:40] Speaker 6: in your house when that happens.
[23:43] Speaker 2: And to not know. I think that's the part that
[23:46] Speaker 2: haunts you.
[23:47] Speaker 4: Absolutely.
[23:48] Speaker 6: And I suspect that's probably why the family doesn't speak
[23:52] Speaker 6: to the media anymore, because They probably feel as though
[23:56] Speaker 6: they may never get answers. And I guess every time
[23:59] Speaker 6: you talk about something like this, it just repeats that trauma.
[24:03] Speaker 6: And I suspect that's probably why they are just trying.
[24:06] Speaker 4: To move on with their lives.
[24:08] Speaker 6: Sometimes I wonder whether the family does want answers. Sometimes
[24:11] Speaker 6: I wonder whether you reach a point where you're past
[24:15] Speaker 6: the point of wanting answers and you just want to forget.
[24:19] Speaker 2: You've reported on this case in recent years. What made
[24:21] Speaker 2: you decide to look into the story again?
[24:24] Speaker 6: It's always been a case that has haunted me. I
[24:28] Speaker 6: was a similar age to Rhianna when she went missing.
[24:32] Speaker 4: I was a little bit older.
[24:33] Speaker 6: But the one thing that really has struck me with
[24:37] Speaker 6: this case is I used to live in the Adelaide
[24:39] Speaker 6: Hills and went to school in the city. And I
[24:43] Speaker 6: used to catch the bus to school. And one day
[24:46] Speaker 6: I went to the bus stop and there was a
[24:48] Speaker 6: bus strike. And I just did not know how I
[24:52] Speaker 6: was going to get to school. And a very lovely
[24:54] Speaker 6: lady at the bus stop said to me, hey.
[24:56] Speaker 4: I'm going to go home and get my car. I'll
[24:58] Speaker 4: drive you to school if you like. And I didn't
[25:02] Speaker 4: think anything of it. And I got in the car
[25:03] Speaker 4: with her.
[25:04] Speaker 6: And I think that's always stuck with me that I
[25:08] Speaker 6: just made a spur of the moment decision to get
[25:11] Speaker 6: in a car with a complete stranger. And it could
[25:14] Speaker 6: have had very serious consequences. Luckily, I picked the right person.
[25:18] Speaker 6: But I think that's why this case has always really
[25:21] Speaker 6: stayed with me.
[25:23] Speaker 2: You spoke to a lot of the neighbours and direct
[25:26] Speaker 2: community around those streets where Rihanna went missing. Is it
[25:31] Speaker 2: a case that stayed with them as well? Does it
[25:33] Speaker 2: still linger in the suburb?
[25:35] Speaker 4: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[25:37] Speaker 6: I think everybody who lived there at the time has
[25:40] Speaker 6: a recollection of the story. has a recollection of what
[25:44] Speaker 6: happened and it was fascinating to speak to people who
[25:47] Speaker 6: 30 years later are still living in the same houses
[25:51] Speaker 6: where this all played out and to talk to them about,
[25:54] Speaker 6: you know, the roadblocks that police set up to stop
[25:57] Speaker 6: people and ask them for details, literally stop people in
[26:01] Speaker 6: their tracks and force them to talk to them about,
[26:03] Speaker 6: have you.
[26:04] Speaker 4: Seen this girl?
[26:05] Speaker 6: And everyone has their theories about who they think did it,
[26:09] Speaker 6: whether or not it's a person with a name or
[26:11] Speaker 6: just a theory of, It's someone who lives in the area.
[26:14] Speaker 6: That's certainly something that was talked about. Interestingly, for the
[26:19] Speaker 6: stories that I.
[26:20] Speaker 4: Did, we went down and went into the house and
[26:24] Speaker 4: spoke to the family who's living there today.
[26:26] Speaker 6: They had no knowledge of the case at all. The
[26:29] Speaker 6: house is very similar to how it was. It hasn't
[26:31] Speaker 6: had any sort of extensions or anything like that. It's
[26:33] Speaker 6: very much the same sort of layout that it was
[26:36] Speaker 6: at the time. It was a strange feeling to walk
[26:39] Speaker 6: into that home knowing what had played out there. 30
[26:43] Speaker 6: years ago, but there's a very lovely young Indian family
[26:46] Speaker 6: living there now with some young children. In fact, the
[26:49] Speaker 6: wife was just about to give birth and was so
[26:52] Speaker 6: accommodating to allow us to come in and film inside
[26:55] Speaker 6: the house for the stories that we did.
[26:58] Speaker 2: I know that there is still a reward attached to
[27:02] Speaker 2: this case. $ 1 million, a big amount of money. Does
[27:08] Speaker 2: that mean it's still an active case or where do
[27:10] Speaker 2: we sit with this story now? Can it still be solved?
[27:13] Speaker 2: Are police still looking into it?
[27:15] Speaker 6: Whether or not they're actively investigating it on a daily basis,
[27:18] Speaker 6: I doubt that's happening unless they've had recent information come
[27:22] Speaker 6: to them that we're not privy to. But certainly it's
[27:25] Speaker 6: part of an ongoing operation where they have been looking
[27:29] Speaker 6: into a lot of the cold cases in South Australia
[27:32] Speaker 6: and they've had some recent wins with that cold case unit.
[27:36] Speaker 6: in arresting people over some very old cases. In fact,
[27:41] Speaker 6: they've recently had a conviction of a man from Victoria
[27:45] Speaker 6: over a cold case from 1992, I think it was.
[27:48] Speaker 6: I think it was around about the same time as
[27:50] Speaker 6: this one. So certainly they're actively investigating cold cases from
[27:55] Speaker 6: the perspective of they're still on their radar and this
[27:58] Speaker 6: police operation is certainly.
[28:00] Speaker 4: Part of that.
[28:02] Speaker 2: Realistically, having looked into the the story as extensively as
[28:06] Speaker 2: you have. Do you think that we could get answers
[28:10] Speaker 2: for Rihanna and her family?
[28:12] Speaker 6: So in the words of Alan Arthur, somebody knows something
[28:16] Speaker 6: and we just need them to come forward.
[28:17] Speaker 4: And I very much believe that with this case.
[28:20] Speaker 6: If you talk to him about how things played out,
[28:24] Speaker 6: I think he feels that someone got very, very lucky
[28:26] Speaker 6: that there wasn't a positive sighting of Rihanna with somebody
[28:30] Speaker 6: in the hours after she was last seen.
[28:34] Speaker 4: And I think he's right.
[28:35] Speaker 6: I think it really comes down to somebody who knows
[28:39] Speaker 6: something coming forward with information. Since I did these stories,
[28:44] Speaker 6: I have had people come to me with their thoughts
[28:48] Speaker 6: and their tips, some of which I've had a look
[28:50] Speaker 6: into to see if I can put any sort of
[28:53] Speaker 6: meat on the bones, I guess, of the things that
[28:55] Speaker 6: I'm being told.
[28:56] Speaker 4: And there are some interesting things.
[28:59] Speaker 6: That have come up about people in the area, clues
[29:02] Speaker 6: that do match up. but never anything that was solid
[29:07] Speaker 6: enough to go public and continue.
[29:10] Speaker 4: Writing stories about.
[29:11] Speaker 6: And I think that really comes down to, as a
[29:15] Speaker 6: reporter now, when you're investigating stories, when you're looking into
[29:19] Speaker 6: stories and you're trying to find people and talk to
[29:22] Speaker 6: people and identify people and make connections, we have so
[29:26] Speaker 6: many resources at our fingertips these days.
[29:30] Speaker 4: It's quite scary. And the amount of information that we share.
[29:33] Speaker 6: Online, makes it so easy to find people's friends and
[29:38] Speaker 6: find ways to contact people.
[29:40] Speaker 4: People and trace where people have been even. And I
[29:43] Speaker 4: think that's one of the real difficulties with going back
[29:46] Speaker 4: to this case from the perspective of a reporter is
[29:50] Speaker 4: you just don't have access to the same level of
[29:52] Speaker 4: information about people to, you know, finitely put people in
[29:57] Speaker 4: locations at given times.
[30:00] Speaker 6: But it's so hard to believe that a 12-year-old girl
[30:03] Speaker 6: can go missing in broad daylight and never be seen again.
[30:08] Speaker 6: And there's no explanation for it.
[30:16] Speaker 2: Thanks to Rebecca for assisting us to tell this story.
[30:19] Speaker 2: True Crime Conversations is a Mamma Mia podcast hosted by me,
[30:23] Speaker 2: Gemma Bath, with audio design by Scott Stronach. Our executive
[30:28] Speaker 2: producer is Gia Moylan with assistant production by Tali Blackman.
[30:32] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week
[30:35] Speaker 2: with another True Crime Conversation. True Crime Conversations acknowledges the
[30:52] Speaker 2: traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was
[30:55] Speaker 2: recorded on.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.