Paul White can still remember how his wife, Lynette, made him feel when they first met on a blind date.
“She took my breath away,” he remembers of that day when they were teenagers.
The pair fell in love and, by 1973, were married.
They had a son, Shane, and were living in their first home – a small unit in Sydney’s Coogee, just a few blocks from the beach.
“She had a beautiful attitude, a bubbly personality and a lovely smile,” Paul tells Woman’s Day.
“Everybody loved her. She never had a bad word about anybody.”
Did you live here in the ’70s? Police are requesting that anyone who lived in either of these unit blocks where the women were killed contact them, even if they have been interviewed previously. It’s thought that a backpacker from the UK might have been involved or could have seen something. (Images: Supplied)
SEEN LEAVING
Lynette had been a mum for just 11 weeks when Paul returned to their Eastern Suburbs flat on the evening of June 8 to find her brutally stabbed to death.
Miraculously, baby Shane was unharmed in his cot just a few metres away.
It’s believed Lynette answered the door to her killer, who burst inside and violently attacked her.
An unknown man with a “ginger beard and thin legs”, wearing long socks and shorts, was reportedly seen leaving the unit block around the time of Lynette’s death.
EVIDENCE LOST
No suspects were ever detained and it was later revealed that key people who may have been able to provide evidence at the time were not interviewed by police.
Meanwhile, evidence such as a human hair found in Lynette’s hand was mislaid.
In 2016, investigators returned to the flat and recovered blood from under the carpet.
Two unknown men’s DNA was extracted but they weren’t identified.
Ten months later, just a 20-minute walk from the Whites’ apartment, another young woman was killed in the unit she shared with her husband.
Maria Smith, 20, had been married for just eight weeks, when she was viciously sexually assaulted and strangled in her Randwick apartment.
It was Monday, April 22, 1974 and her husband Steve had left for work at 7.30am.
It’s thought Maria’s killer struck soon after, as she was due to leave for work for her teacher training job an hour later but never arrived.
Fifty two years on, Steve tells Woman’s Day how Maria was “extremely independent, very strong-willed. But at the same time, very soft.”
For 14 hours, Steve was interrogated as the police’s main suspect, but when it became clear he wasn’t the culprit, he was released although he was then followed for three days.
With no developments, no other suspects and little evidence, five decades later her killer remains at large.
Steve, 75, says he survived the trauma and grief by moving to the bush for his job.
“I threw myself into that and it helped me survive,” he remembers.
But the pain of the loss “never goes away”.
For decades, police supposed the two killings were linked in some way.
But in 2017 the joint investigation under Strike Force Tourmaline shifted with the cases split after a review.
But with the two cases being linked for so long, Paul and Steve have become friends.
“We’ve been able to work together and we’d be happy if either case was solved,” says Paul.
MEMORIES JOGGED
Someone else hoping to finally help provide answers for Steve and Paul is crime author Candice Fox.
She first became aware of the cases when her mother, who she calls Ocean Mermaid, shared a disturbing experience she’d had in 1974.
Ocean lived in the same part of Sydney and attended the school where Maria taught when, one day, a man with “longish hair” claiming to be an encyclopedia salesman knocked on her door.
Ocean recalled having a “bad feeling” and made her excuses to close the door on him.
After hearing this story and wondering if it was related to the cases of Maria and Lynette, Candice and Ocean took this information to the police.
Since then, Candice has got to know Steve and Paul well and gained permission to use their wives’ deaths as jumping off points for her latest novel, Redbelly Crossing.
She hopes it might jog someone’s memory.
“If readers remember anything, please come forward with information, no matter how big or small,” she urges.
“Paul and Steve deserve to know the truth and have peace.”
Paul, 81, hopes to know what happened, before it’s too late.
“We’ve always hoped that somebody comes forward. It doesn’t matter if the killers are dead. It would give me peace of mind. I want to know.”
If you have information call NSW police at Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000
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