When two detectives in suits knocked on Mary’s* door, she thought the officers were religious preachers, there to spread the gospel.
Instead, they were there to tell her they were reopening a four-decades-old investigation into her sexual assault and wanted to make a public appeal for information in a last-ditch attempt to find her attacker.
Mary was sexually assaulted on the banks of the Yarra River more than 40 years ago.Credit:Darrian Traynor
Victoria Police’s historical investigations unit is investigating sexual assault cases that took place in the 1980s and 1990s but have since gone cold.
Mary’s is one of several cases within the force’s “freezer list”: a log of unsolved sexual assault cases from that period for which forensic evidence was collected and stored but could not be tested due to the constraints of DNA technology at the time.
Detectives and forensic officers in the 1980s stored thousands of samples from crime scenes across Victoria in a freezer in Macleod, in Melbourne’s north-east, in the hope technology would advance and the evidence could solve crimes in the future.
Police began re-examining the frozen evidence in 2011 and have since solved more than 100 cold cases by matching those samples to profiles on the national DNA database.
“There were a number of historical sex assaults that were recorded and frozen in a freezer and there was a list for all of those,” historical investigations unit Detective Acting Sergeant Georgia Connors said. “That list is what the cold case crew was initially set up to investigate, and Mary’s was one of those.”
Mary was aged 21 when she finished working her second job, waiting tables at the Melbourne Club on Collins Street, when she missed the tram and decided to walk back to her car about midnight on May 6, 1982.
She was walking along the Yarra River when she heard a noise behind her and noticed she was being followed by a young man who had been standing near the tram stop earlier that night.
At that moment, she remembered the black and white TV commercials she saw growing up in the ’60s, that warned women about being attacked by men while walking alone at night.
Detectives hope to make a breakthrough in the 1982 case to give Mary closure. Credit:Darrian Traynor
“All I could think in that split second was that ad,” she said. “I thought he could attack me.”
Mary began running towards her car, but the man grabbed her by the throat and pulled her towards the banks of the Yarra, where he sexually assaulted her.
“I just prayed, and I said to God, ‘I know I can’t get out of this but help me get through this’. This peace came over me, so I started to speak to him,” she said.
“If I hadn’t done that, I have no doubt in my mind they would have been pulling my body out of the Yarra River. That’s how violent he was. I knew he wanted to murder me.”
The young man told Mary his name was Stephen, and warned her to keep quiet before walking towards the city. “I know where you live, and I’m going to kill you if you tell anyone,” he told her.
Investigators identified several suspects following the assault, but none was Mary’s attacker.
Police have renewed an appeal for information about the case, and Connors, the lead investigator, said there was a possibility Mary’s attacker could have told someone, or new witnesses might have seen or know something.
When Mary decided to walk to her car, there were two other men waiting at the tram stop: a conductor and a middle-aged man dressed in a white suit and carrying a brown briefcase. Police would like to speak with them in case they saw anything that night.
“After all these years, we are still taking this very seriously, still investigating the matter thoroughly, and will use every avenue available to us to try to hold the offender accountable for what he did,” Connors said.
Mary, now aged in her 60s, said she had put the experience behind her, but the assault had a profound impact on her earlier life, turning her into a frightened and untrusting young woman.
She hoped the appeal would lead investigators to her attacker.
“It’s not about me at all any more. I’m old, and I don’t care about the past. I’ve seen too much, and I’ve experienced too much in my life,” she said.
“The reason I want to do this is because if he has done that to me, I have no doubt in my mind that he’s done it to somebody else.”
Mary described her attacker as aged between 16 and 18 at the time of the assault.
He wore an Adidas T-shirt with three stripes running down the sleeves, and a watch with a round face, a light and raised numbers. His hair was styled similarly to John Travolta’s in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, and he had stubble and possibly acne on his face.
*Not her real name. Mary’s name has been changed to protect her identity.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential crime report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.
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