Jessica Small was forcibly abducted from Bathurst, situated to the west of Sydney, alongside Vanessa Conlan in 1997. While Vanessa was able to escape, her closest companion has remained missing ever since.
A coroner’s investigation unveiled that the police failed to adequately scrutinize the abduction at that time. Nonetheless, the recent inquest pinpointed two individuals who became subjects of interest nearly two decades later.
Eight months subsequent to Jessica's disappearance, two forestry laborers stumbled upon a pair of undergarments, a container of bleach, and a bloodstained blanket in the bushland 75 kilometers east of Bathurst.
On the night of October 25, 1997, the two young girls, both aged 15 at that time, were departing from an amusement arcade in Bathurst when a man driving a white vehicle approached them and proffered them a ride home.
Notwithstanding the fact that the young girls, characterized as a vexing duo, accepted the offer and entered the car, the man assailed them shortly after on an isolated rural road.
Vanessa managed to evade and sought refuge in a nearby residence, yet the initial response from the police discredited her account of events. They failed to conduct thorough interviews with witnesses or potential witnesses who could have provided pivotal evidence.
In 2007, Detective Sergeant Peter Smith from the NSW Homicide Squad undertook the cold case.
‘It is irrational that this young maiden would seek assistance, fleeing and obviously petrified, to a stranger’s abode in the middle of the night, only to have her account doubted. It simply lacks coherence,’ Mr. Smith articulated during an interview on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes.
‘Particularly when considering that 16 to 17 years have now elapsed, and she has unwaveringly maintained the same narrative, which has been substantiated on numerous occasions. It is manifestly evident that she is telling the veracity.’
Mr. Smith revealed that one of the critical witnesses, initially disregarded by local detectives, engaged in an unusual conversation with an individual conforming to Vanessa's description of her assailant.
‘(He stated) an adult gentleman had been at the amusement center inquiring about Jessica and even singled her out, remarking, “She appears to be in high spirits, who is she?” And during that conversation, he mentioned that he worked at the Oberon Timber Mill,’ he disclosed on the program.
‘I simply couldn’t fathom that nobody had queried him about this previously. It is of paramount significance.’
The freshly constituted investigative team interrogated 400 men in 2011 who had been employed at the Oberon Timber Mill at the time of Jessica’s disappearance. Ultimately, they whittled down the list to two individuals who were considered subjects of interest in the inquest regarding Jessica’s disappearance.
‘(One of them) had access to a white VK Holden Commodore with apertures in the passenger footwell. The vehicle in which the young girls embarked that evening, Vanessa occupied the front seat. While they were driving, Vanessa discerned the perforations in the front passenger footwell,’ he recounted.
The coroner, Sharon Freund, ascertained that no direct evidence linked the two subjects of interest to the abduction of the girl, but there was also no evidence that exonerated them.
Eight months after Jessica's vanishing, two forestry workers stumbled upon a pair of girl’s undergarments, a bottle of bleach, and a bloodstained blanket in the bushland 75 kilometers east of Bathurst.
The individual who discovered these items was never interviewed by the police, and the potential evidence was not subjected to DNA analysis. Sadly, it was subsequently eradicated by the local authorities.
Ricki Small, Jessica’s mother, was kept uninformed regarding these discoveries and voiced her continued disillusionment with the police.
‘I would have personally combed the woods, excavating through the soil in search of her,’ Ms. Small disclosed to 60 Minutes.
‘I am wounded and indignant. The conduct of the local detectives assigned to the case was simply intolerable. It was disgraceful.’
The coroner has recommended offering a reward of no less than $500,000 for any information leading to an apprehension in Jessica’s protracted case.
‘We have yet to find her. Seventeen years have transpired, and we have yet to find her,’ Ms. Small lamented.
‘All I can honestly express is that I hope her agony was transient, if I may phrase it in that manner.
‘My thoughts have entertained the notion of her being detained for days or subjected to torment… I detest even contemplating it.
‘It is a profoundly somber place.’
Jessica’s case has been referred back to the Unsolved Homicide Squad.
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