Vivacious and bubbly, an extroverted theatre performer who loved to be the centre of attention.
Key points:
- Julie Cutler disappeared after a work function on June 20, 1988
- Her car was found in the water at Cottesloe Beach days later
- An inquest into her disappearance is underway in Perth
Moody and private, prone to occasional bouts of depression.
Julie Cutler, who vanished without a trace 34 years ago, was a multi-faceted young woman, according to those who knew her well.
An inquest into her suspected death, which opened yesterday in Perth, revealed plenty of new information about her mysterious disappearance in 1988 – but few answers so far.
Just 22 when she was last seen, Julie had returned from an eventful trip to Europe about six months earlier, and had struggled to fit back into sleepy Perth.
Her European odyssey had included many of the rites of passage so typical of young backpackers at the time: working as an au pair, getting her portrait drawn in charcoal by a Parisian street artist, backpacking to Greece and experiencing her share of holiday romances.
Signs of distress
But it wasn't all sun-kissed beaches and happy memories – her time in Greece had been marked most notably by an incident in a hotel room where her travelling companion found her bleeding and distressed, after she had tried to commit an act of self-harm.
Ms Cutler required hospital treatment, and the incident raised concerns among her friends.
Best friend Jennifer Marr told the court "it seemed like a very dramatic thing to do" and "not something that I'd seen from her before".
However, like other friends and family members who testified yesterday, Ms Marr did not consider Ms Cutler to be mentally ill or depressed, and attributed the hotel room incident to a break-up with a boyfriend.
"Julie was known for drama … but because we knew who she was, we didn't take it too seriously," she said.
"She could take things to heart and blow things out of proportion … but that was just part and parcel of who she was."
Indeed, Ms Cutler was a former theatre arts student at the WA Institute of Technology, now Curtin University, where she had graduated with a degree in English Literature in the mid-1980s.
After that, she had worked a variety of casual jobs, including at the Hole in the Wall theatre in Subiaco, at the Fremantle Markets, and at the Parmelia Hilton hotel, where she worked in room service.
She'd saved hard to afford her trip to Europe, and set off in March 1987, returning shortly before Christmas the same year.
But as her sister Nicole observed, it's not easy slotting back into your old life when you've come back from a series of international adventures — and testimony given at the inquest suggested Ms Cutler found it hard to find her feet when she got back.
She "had struggled to settle back into life in Perth after her travels", counsel assisting the coroner Jon Tiller told the court.
Moving back into the Victoria Park house she had lived in before she went away, Ms Cutler now found herself living with her younger sister Nicole, but the relationship quickly soured.
While unable to pinpoint the substance of the dispute, Nicole Cutler remembered a huge argument between the sisters, which culminated in Julie "storming off" and moving out of their shared home.
Nicole was to see her sister just once more before she vanished, when she tried to patch things up between the pair by going to visit Julie at the stall where she worked at the Fremantle Markets.
Julie told Nicole she would call her. She never did.
"And then she went missing," she told the inquest.
Relationship break-up
Colleague Carmela Fleming, who worked with Ms Cutler the night before she went missing, said the 22-year-old had been upset while the pair were on duty in the penthouse suite at the Parmelia Hilton.
She said Julie had kept returning to the balcony of the 10th floor suite, and told her she wanted to end her life.
"I said don't be silly, you're too young," she said.
Ms Fleming, who is now 83, said Ms Cutler was crying as the pair cleaned up after the function at the penthouse, and had told her she had recently broken up with her boyfriend.
The next night, Ms Cutler was on duty again, and finished work around 10pm.
Changing into a long-sleeved, high-necked black evening dress with gold buttons on the shoulder, Ms Cutler headed for Juliana's night club, in the five-star hotel's basement, where a staff awards ceremony was in full swing.
Colleagues observed Ms Cutler drink several glasses of champagne in quick succession, and talk to two men at the bar, one of whom she danced with.
The men, Polish employees at the hotel, invited Ms Cutler back to their flat, together with her colleague Consuelo Harper.
But when Ms Harper said "no way", Ms Cutler also said she wouldn't go.
Ms Harper, whose police statements were read to court by Mr Tiller, recalled leaving the function with Ms Cutler at around 12:30pm and heading for the staff car park.
Ms Cutler, whom Ms Harper recalled being drunk, said she was going to meet someone later that night, but refused to say who.
"She said 'it's a secret, I can't tell'," Ms Harper told police in 1988.
Ms Cutler is believed to have returned briefly to the function at that point, and was one of the last four or five people to leave, close to 1am.
The last sighting
Another work colleague, sous chef Geoffrey Pearce, saw her drive her distinctive, two-tone grey Fiat sedan out of the staff car park, and remembered her stopping to speak to him as he stood underneath a tree, where he was sheltering from the rain.
Asking him if he was alright, Mr Pearce assured her he was waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up, and she drove off, turning east onto Mounts Bay Road.
It was the last time anyone would see her alive.
Two days later, her beloved Fiat was found by a swimmer in the ocean about 50 metres offshore from popular Cottesloe Beach.
Badly damaged and floating upside down, the car was retrieved by police, who found her driver's licence and RAC papers inside, as well as two champagne flutes of the kind used at the Parmelia Hilton hotel wrapped in a tea towel.
There were cigarette butts in the ashtray, and a few hairs on one of the seat covers – but that was about it.
No Julie, no handbag, and no clue to what had happened to the bright young woman.
The intervening years have revealed a handful of further clues, but no smoking gun. Among them:
- A distinctive Parmelia Hiton staff blouse almost certainly belonging to Ms Cutler, and left in a plastic bag at a city kebab shop.
- A diary, pen, wallet and purse found in sand dunes a kilometre from where Ms Cutler's car from found – and destroyed by police who initially believed them not to be connected to the case.
- A series of phone calls to Cutler family members from a mysterious man with a heavy European accent claiming to know what happened.
- Another mystery caller, this one a woman, who said she heard screams coming from Cottesloe Beach the night Ms Cutler vanished.
But nothing that has ultimately joined the dots and led to Ms Cutler.
Police believe she is almost certainly dead.
This week's inquest aims to discover whether that is indeed the case, and if so, whether she met with foul play or killed herself.
Today Major Crime Squad detectives will testify about the case and the 48 suspects identified in a 2018 cold case review, 44 of which could not be ruled out of involvement.
They have many questions to answer.