This evening, a former police diver shared his experience exclusively with 9News, voicing his support for the renewed search for answers.
Peter Menz spent over three decades below the surface, helping solve some of the state’s biggest murder cases.
But, it’s this unsolved one from 25 years ago at Garden Island that he’ll never forget.
“It was a request from Port Vixen 10, to assist with a body badly decomposed, female,” Menz recalled.
The retired police diver was among those first on scene and tasked with retrieving the body of Brown from the Mangroves in 2000.
The mother and her 15-year-old daughter, Trussell, had been missing for weeks.
“We went in there and there was other police officers there as well, forensics and… crime scene, I should say,” he said.
A crime scene was immediately set up, with Menz hoping they’d locate the missing teenager too but she has never been found.
“We spent some time there, did some initial examinations but due to the darkness we couldn’t conduct a thorough search that night,” he remembered.
In the past month, major crime detectives have re-visited the cold case and conducted a number of searches around Garden Island.
Authorities are hoping to finally find Trussell’s remains and those responsible for the murder of the mother and daughter.
Menz expressed that while they conducted an extensive search at Garden Island back then, advancements in technology and strategy in the last 25 years make the current inquiries promising.
“I think it’s very good, because we would all like to see closure, for the family especially,” he said.
He’s now waiting, along with many others, for a breakthrough.
“Obviously they have got some good information and hopefully this case will be solved.”
