Amanda O’Dell’s murderer certainly didn’t spend much time preparing her grave.
Callously, he or she discarded her naked body beside a fallen log, under towering gum trees in a forest.
Then branches and leaves were placed over the pretty, sweet-natured 20-year-old before the culprit fled the scene.
It’s every mother’s worst nightmare and 11 years on the identity of poor Amanda’s killer remains unknown – a fact that torments her mum Doreen.
“Her killer’s still out there, free to strike again,” she says.
Amanda grew up in a close-knit family in Kempsey on the NSW Mid North Coast – Doreen, now 76, father Malcolm, 71, and older sisters Belinda and Narelle.
“Whenever anyone spoke of Amanda they always mentioned how kind and considerate she was,” Doreen recalls.
At school and at Sunbeams and Guards (the Salvation Army version of Brownies and Guides) she was always first to help or befriend newcomers.
“Her big dream was to find a nice boy, get married and have a couple of kids,” Doreen says wistfully.
Leaving school, Amanda took a job as a cashier at Woolworths, swiftly becoming a customer favourite. People were drawn to her- she was such an infectiously happy young woman.
At 17 Amanda began dating local kitchen hand, Richard John Broeder. He was a year older. “She seemed happy at first, but after a couple of years they split,” she reveals.
In April 2006, Amanda turned 20. She had a small celebration at home with cake and presents.
“That kind of family event meant a lot to Amanda,” Doreen says.
Juggling their work schedules, she and her friends organised a night out together for April 8.
“Her friends picked her up,” Doreen remembers. “She gave me a kiss and said ‘Love you’ to her dad. We didn’t wait up. She’d either come home late or stay with friends. They were a group she’d known since childhood and they often stayed at each other’s homes.”
When Doreen woke early the following morning, she noticed that Amanda’s bed hadn’t been slept in.
“I wasn’t worried at first,” she says.
“But by 9am she still wasn’t home. It was totally out of character for her not to let me know where she was.”
Doreen called Amanda’s friends and what she learned chilled her to the bone.
Doreen called Amanda’s friends and what she learned chilled her to the bone.
“They said they’d dropped her home at 10.40pm. They saw her walk up to our house, put her key in the screen door lock and then open it,” she says.
To Doreen that meant her daughter had either been lured – or snatched. She’d totally vanished from her very own doorstep!
“I was terrified,” she says.
The police were contacted and officers searched bushland around the area that day but the hunt proved fruitless.
“I was going out of my mind,” Doreen recalls. “Malcolm was trying to stay calm but he was terrified, too.”
In the days afterwards a helicopter scoured the area, divers searched the Macleay River and police sniffer dogs tried to pick up a scent.
No trace of Amanda was found.
“It got to the point where I hoped she’d been abducted because considering any other possibility was too horrific,” her mother says.
Meanwhile, detectives questioned Richard Broeder, Amanda’s ex.
“Officers told us they’d found out Amanda and Richard were still meeting. We couldn’t understand why” she adds.
One Saturday lunchtime, five weeks after Amanda’s disappearance, a pair of timber cutters working in Tamban State Forest, just north of Kempsey, stumbled across the remains of a woman under branches.
“Our worst nightmare came true,” Doreen stammers.
It was Amanda.
“We were distraught, our hearts broken,” she says.
Five months after Amanda’s decomposed body was discovered, Richard John Broeder was charged with her murder.
He was remanded in custody for 14 months before his trial at Newcastle’s Supreme Court in June 2008. He vigorously denied any connection to Amanda’s killing.
In an unusual move, the judge directed the jury to find him not guilty due to insufficient evidence. He went on to sue the state for malicious prosecution.
Doreen and her family were utterly devastated. But the question remains: If Richard didn’t kill Amanda, who did?
The investigation into Amanda’s murder has stalled.
“It’s still open,” Doreen says. “Not so long ago the police told us they were following up new leads.
[But] realistically, I know the chances of a breakthrough now are slim.”
Doreen still harbours hope her daughter’s killer will be caught.
“To lose a child to murder is the worst thing that can ever happen to a mother,” she says.
“You think the pain can’t get any worse. But when nobody’s convicted the pain just gets worse. I want justice for my Amanda.”
