The father and sister of a 22-year-old woman who vanished in Perth 34 years ago have told an inquest into her disappearance she would not have taken her own life and they believe she was murdered.
Key points:
- Julie Cutler disappeared after a staff function in the city
- Her car was found floating in the ocean two days later
- A $250,000 reward failed to uncover any fresh clues
Roger and Nicole Cutler were giving evidence on the suspected death of Julie Cutler, who was last seen at the Parmelia Hilton Hotel in Perth's CBD — where she worked as a room attendant — at 12:30am on Monday June 20, 1988.
Ms Cutler disappeared after leaving a staff function at the inner city hotel.
A colleague saw her driving her grey Fiat sedan out of the staff car park.
She was never seen or heard from again, but her badly damaged car was found floating on its roof in the ocean off Cottesloe Beach two days later.
A plastic bag containing a Parmelia Hilton staff uniform and a pair of black pantyhose, believed to belong to Ms Cutler, were handed in the following year, having been found around the same time the young woman disappeared.
But despite a reopening of the case in 2018 and a $250,000 government reward for information, there has been no breakthrough in the case.
Claremont serial killer link dismissed
Mr Cutler said his daughter was not prone to depression, and he "felt very strongly" that she would not take her own life.
"Mainly because she never appeared to me to be depressed over a long period of time … she was never like that," he said.
He said he believed at one time she could have been a victim of Claremont murderer Bradley Edwards, who abducted two young women off the streets of Perth in 1996 and 1997 before killing them.
Mr Cutler said Edwards "had been active at the time" his daughter disappeared, but police had told him they had ruled the convicted killer out of consideration.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Jon Tiller, revealed police uncovered 48 suspects as a result of their renewed investigation, saying five of those had died and 44 had not been ruled out.
But Edwards had not been among them, he said.
Nicole Cutler told the court she had been living with her sister in late 1987 and early 1988, but Julie had moved out after a big argument between the pair, the details of which she could not recall.
She had only seen her sister once more, when she went to the Fremantle Markets to see her at the stall she was working at, in an effort to reconcile.
Julie told Nicole she would call her, but disappeared soon after. The call was never made.
Nicole Cutler said her sister could be moody, "but what 21-year-old is not moody?"
"She was moody and she was theatrical and she was dramatic and she liked to have a lot of attention …. [but] I don't think that she had any particular mental health issues at the time," she said.
Earlier, Mr Tiller told the court Ms Cutler had attempted self-harm while she was on holiday in Greece the year before she vanished, and had to be taken to hospital.
"It appears the incident related to a man she had been dating and the relationship had ended suddenly," he said.
He said Ms Cutler "had struggled to settle back into life in Perth after her travels" in Europe, and the night before she disappeared, had been found by a colleague at the Parmelia Hilton on the balcony of a hotel suite.
She had told the colleague she had wanted to self-harm and had been upset and crying because of a break-up with her boyfriend.
Mystery phone calls
The court was told that after Ms Cutler's disappearance, her family was plagued by mystery callers claiming to have information about her whereabouts.
Shortly after Ms Cutler vanished, her cousin Jacqueline Hunter was called by a woman who said she lived near Cottesloe Beach and had heard a female screaming on the night in question.
However, she hung up abruptly and never called back.
A further six phone calls were received by other members of the family from a man with a European accent between 1993 and 1994, who said "words to the effect that he was the person they were looking for," Mr Tiller told the court.
Mr Tiller said Ms Cutler had danced with a man at the staff function on the night she vanished.
The man, Tadeusz Maciejewski, asked Julie, and her colleague Consuelo Harper, back to his flat after the function finished, but Ms Harper declined, so Julie also said no.
Police suspected the mystery male phone calls to Ms Cutler's family may have been made by Mr Maciejewski, but were not able to establish whether he made them or not before he returned to his native Poland in 1994.
In the months prior to her disappearance, Ms Cutler had told friends of an incident in which she had been tailgated while driving home from work one night and almost run off the road.
The Fremantle flat she shared with Fiona Marr — her close friend Jennifer Marr's older sister — had been burgled around the same time, and Ms Cutler's passport and bank card had been stolen.
'Like living a nightmare'
Jennifer Marr told the court her "vivacious, fun-loving, extroverted" friend would not have disappeared of her own volition without leaving a note or contacting her family in some way.
She said the discovery of Ms Cutler's car at Cottesloe Beach had been devastating and "like living in a nightmare".
Ms Marr agreed with Deputy State Coroner Sarah Linton's suggestion Julie could have met someone that night and gone home with them.
"I feel she wasn't in the most positive headspace at the time … I feel that could have put her in harm's way, not that she intended to do so," she said.
The two-day inquest is due to hear from 11 witnesses, including Ms Cutler's flatmate, as well as work colleagues and friends.