Inquiry hears police lack resources to solve cold cases

Devastated families call for more police resources to investigate cold cases Wed 1 Jul 2026 at 6:00pm In short: The daughter of missing woman Marion Barter has told an inquiry that the NSW Police's Unsolved Homicide Unit has "no capacity" because it is under-resourced. The parliamentary inquiry into missing persons and unsolved murder cases heard from the families and friends of half a dozen missing or murdered people today. What's next? The inquiry's next hearing will be held in Newcastle in August. The families of missing people and unsolved murder victims have described their devastation and frustration at the lack of resources for police to solve cold cases. A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into unsolved murders and long-term missing persons' cases held its second hearing in Grafton today, examining a series of cases across northern NSW. The first hearing in Bowral in June heard about cases across southern NSW, many of them linked to Ivan Milat, and the pain many of those families still faced. The daughter of high-profile missing woman Marion Barter told the inquiry that she believed police wanted to solve these cases but lacked the capacity. Ms Barter was last seen by her family in 1997 after legally changing her name to Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel and travelling overseas, but is believed to have later returned to Australia. A 2021 coronial inquest heard she had been romantically involved with Ric Blum, whom she knew as Fernand Remakel, before her disappearance, although he denied any knowledge of her whereabouts. Her daughter, Sally Leydon, told the inquiry Ms Barter's disappearance marked "the start of what has become a living nightmare for the past 29 years for me". In the months after reporting her missing, the family was told Ms Barter had been located but did not want to be found or contacted by her family. Ms Leydon told the inquiry police records showed no evidence this conversation occurred, while important leads had not been investigated. The case later gained notoriety through a 2019 podcast which helped uncover new information. Ms Leydon told the inquiry the NSW Police Unsolved Homicide Unit had fewer than 40 people working to solve about 750 cases. "It's no wonder I don't hear from them when I'm trying to send them some information," she said. "They are not trying to not solve it, but they just have no capacity to do it, and that's a big problem." She called for more staff and government support for the unit to work through the cases more effectively. NSW Police has since confirmed to the ABC it has 753 unsolved matters, and 38 staff attached to the Unsolved Homicide Unit. Joni Condos, a member of the public who discovered some of the new information about Ms Barter's case, appeared alongside Ms Leydon at the inquiry. "It should not take a random person such as myself two states away to identify a person of interest in a cold case, but it did," she said. "And it tells us something important about how these cold cases are being managed." Ms Condos said she wanted a national register of missing persons and unidentified remains, and a review of all unidentified remains buried in unmarked graves across NSW. She said she would also like to see a formal framework established for collaboration between police and skilled volunteer researchers who were capable of unearthing new information or leads. Volunteer or community researchers were currently doing this "with no structure, no guidelines and no feedback," she said. Peter Stace, the father of Lee Ellen Stace, who was murdered in 1997 aged 16 and whose case remains unsolved, said he had dealt with "dozens" of officers over the years. "It's just as if the case has been handed down and no-one gives a stuff," he said. "Twenty-odd murder cases for one person. How is that going to solve crime, mate? "It's just too much work for one person." Families struggle with a lack of closure The sisters of Narelle Cox, who disappeared in 1977 when she left her Grafton home to hitchhike to Noosa but never arrived, said police had initially been dismissive about her disappearance because "she's 21, she can do what she likes". Karen Cox told the inquiry about the false hope offered when, around a year later, two policemen arrived at the family home to say they had found Narelle and she had registered for unemployment benefits in Sydney, only for the family to travel to Sydney and discover that had been a year earlier, when Narelle had been living in Sydney with her aunt prior to disappearing. "It destroyed our mother," Karen Cox said. "She used to come to me sometimes and say, 'I’ve got this terrible feeling in my chest that Narelle's somewhere and needs me.'" Kathy Cox-Browning said the "lack of action and care by the authorities was devastating". "I have noticed this is no longer the case; people are still being reported missing and action is immediate," she said. But she told the inquiry she was struggling with the knowledge that for cold cases such as Narelle Cox's, there may never be closure. The inquiry will hold another hearing in Newcastle in August.