On the night of Friday 26 February 1971, twenty-year-old dental nurse Keren Ellen Rowland attended the Royal Canberra Show. She bought a silver bracelet as a gift for a friend, left the showgrounds, and ran out of petrol on Parkes Way, a quiet stretch of road through the parkland beside Lake Burley Griffin. A witness saw her walking toward a dark-coloured sedan with New South Wales plates, already parked on the verge ahead of her.
She was reported missing by midnight. Her remains were found eighty days later in the Fairbairn Pine Plantation, near the Air Disaster Memorial on the city's southeastern fringe. The bracelet was not there.
Fifty-four years later, no one has ever been charged with her murder. Her case remains officially open.
In this episode of Strewth, we trace the full story of Keren's disappearance and death, from the investigation led by Detective-Inspector Reg Kennedy in 1971, through the startling near-confession of 1973 that came to nothing, to the shadow cast by serial killer Ivan Milat, and the 2020 cold case revival that brought new witnesses forward after half a century of silence.
Sources
Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay
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