On January 11, 1979, 22-year-old Alan Martin Fox and his 17-year-old girlfriend Anneke Adriaansen left Berowra Heights to go to Kempsey and Byron Bay, both in New South Wales, by hitchhiking. On Main Street in Byron Bay, Fox and Adriaansen were last observed in the late afternoon of January 12, 1979. They were to go to Upper Burringbar to buy land, as per their plans. Fox and Adriaansen were never seen or heard from again. According to police, the couple’s disappearance was suspicious. Milat was mentioned as a potential suspect since he could have been on the coast of northern New South Wales at the time. On July 27, 1979, around 19.30 p.m., Toni Maree Cavanagh, 15, and Kay Docherty, 16, were last seen at a bus stop heading to a disco in Wollongong. They have not been seen since. A letter with a Darlinghurst postmark dated August 1, 1979 from the pair arrived a week later saying they were in Sydney, but they were never seen or heard from again. Both of them are believed to have been murdered and Milat was investigated as a potential suspect during an inquest in 2013. However, no detailed evidence was provided to support such an assertion. On February 1, 1980, Elaine Johnson, 17, and Kerry Anne Joel, 18, were last seen in Cronulla, Sydney. They are believed to have encountered violence while hitchhiking to Wyong on the Central Coast. Milat, who had been employed in the region they are thought to have been travelling to at the time of their disappearance, is the prime suspect. 20-year-old and aspiring nurses Deborah Balken and Gillian Jamieson were last seen conversing with a man wearing a wide-brimmed black cowboy hat one evening on June 12, 1980 in a Parramatta, Sydney tavern. Later, Deborah contacted her flatmate to say they were taking a ride to a party in Wollongong on the South Coast. Milat, who had been employed in Western Sydney that year when they vanished, is known to have been questioned about their disappearances and was mentioned as a person of interest at the girl’s wrongful death inquiry. Melony Merrille Sutton, 14, and Chad Everett Sutton, 16, were last seen by their mother in Inala, Queensland, at 8:35 a.m., on November 23, 1992, when they departed for school on foot. They were going to hitchhike to Perth to find their father, it was subsequently discovered. It is believed they passed via the Belanglo State Forest, where Milat’s victims were discovered. They are still classified as missing.
