Deputy State Coroner Sarah Linton has told an inquest into the 1988 disappearance of Julie Cutler that she is dead, and she will most likely make an open finding into the circumstances surrounding the young woman's death.
Wrapping up the inquest into the suspected death of the 22-year-old Perth woman after a day and a half, Ms Linton said many unanswered questions remained.
Ms Cutler went missing 34 years ago after attending a work function at a high-end hotel in Perth's CBD in the early hours of June 20.
She was last seen driving away from the function in her Fiat sedan, which was found in the ocean off Cottesloe Beach two days later. Her body has never been found.
"I don't think there's any doubt that Julie is deceased," coroner Linton said, adding that she hoped the finding would give the family some closure.
However, she said it was unlikely her report, to be delivered next year, would solve the mystery of how the young hotel worker died.
Outside court, Ms Cutler's father Roger indicated his family's ordeal was not over, and he still hoped someone would come forward with new information to help solve the case.
"It's not really finished at the moment. I don't think something like this is ever finished," he said.
Police looked into Claremont killer
Detective Inspector Gailene Hamilton, who led a new investigation into Ms Cutler's death that began in 2017, told the court she also believed Ms Cutler was dead, but no firm conclusions could be drawn about the manner of her death.
"There's some evidence that suggests murder and there's some evidence that suggests suicide," she told the inquest.
She said police had spoken to more than 300 witnesses as part of the new probe, and taken statements from more than 100 of them.
The new investigation had considered every imaginable scenario, including that she was still alive, but police had found no evidence of this after trawling through bank accounts, immigration and tax records, and other sources.
Detective Inspector Hamilton said police had also considered whether Claremont killer Bradley Edwards, who murdered Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon in 1996 and 1997 and is suspected of killing Sarah Spiers around the same time, could have been involved in Ms Cutler's disappearance.
She said Edwards would have been 19 at the time, but his crimes in that period revolved around burglaries and break-ins in the Huntingdale area, in Perth's south, and he didn't turn his attention to the western suburbs until later.
Ms Cutler attended Iona Presentation College, the same prestigious western suburbs private school as Ms Glennon and Ms Spiers, and where Ms Rimmer's mother had worked as a receptionist.
All four young women had vanished at night after visiting nightclubs or pubs, and were of a similar age.
Edwards also attended the same university as Ms Cutler at the same time – the WA institute of Technology (now Curtin University) – and they took some of the same units, including psychology.
Edwards had declined to be interviewed about the case, but Det Insp Hamilton said while he could not be ruled out, he was not considered more likely than other suspects to have been involved.
In total, police identified 48 suspects and only four of them were ruled out, but Det Insp Hamilton said they were all considered "low line" suspects, and there was not enough evidence to arrest any of them.
Student film a 'strange coincidence'
Two Polish men who worked at the hotel with Ms Cutler and who had been amongst the last to speak with her the night she vanished – Tadeuz Maciejewski and his flatmate Gregory Swiatek – were also re-examined as part of the new probe.
Detectives returned to the men's flat 30 years later and forensically examined it again, even ripping up the carpet, but found nothing of interest.
Mr Swiatek was interviewed again but Mr Maciejewski had returned to Poland in 1994 and could not be traced.
She said police had also investigated any possible links with Ms Cutler and a film that was made by students at the WA Institute of Technology in May 1986 titled Nocturnes, about a suicidal man who drives his car off the Cottesloe groyne.
Det Inspector Hamilton agreed with Ms Linton that it was a "strange coincidence", but although Ms Cutler's then-boyfriend had starred in the film, she was not thought to have known about its existence, and no links to her disappearance had been established.
Impossible to know whether foul play involved
Earlier the court had heard from a retired detective who worked on the case, who said it was impossible to know whether someone else was responsible or if she vanished of her own accord.
Former detective sergeant Ronald Carey said Ms Cutler was last seen driving her grey Fiat sedan out of the staff car park around 1am.
Her driver's licence and RAC papers were found in the car, but there was no sign of Julie.
Mr Carey told the court he was responsible for retrieving the car from the sea that day, something that was eventually done using a four-wheel drive tow truck.
The car had been extensively damaged, with its bonnet missing and roof crushed.
Its gear stick was in the neutral position and the ignition was on, with the driver's side window open and the door slightly ajar.
Leads went nowhere: detective
It was a stormy evening with a high tide lapping at the beach's retaining wall on the night Ms Cutler disappeared, Mr Carey said, and it was his view that her car had been driven off the wall and not off the nearby groyne.
He said he believed it was significant that Cottesloe was Ms Cutler's favourite beach, and she could have driven the car into the water.
"Or there was someone involved in the disappearance and that person or persons put the car in the water, " he said.
It was highly unusual that no one saw the car enter the water at such a popular beach, where there was "always someone at the beach no matter what the weather is like," Mr Carey said.
But despite an intensive police search lasting several days and ongoing investigations, officers were not able to determine what happened to Ms Cutler.
Mr Carey said police had probed a number of possible leads, including investigating two Polish men who had been seen talking to and dancing with Ms Cutler at the staff party she attended on the last night she was seen.
He said four detectives had gone to the pair's flat in Glendalough on the day Ms Cutler's car was found to speak to them.
They had been interviewed, and their home and vehicle thoroughly examined, Mr Carey said, but nothing of significance was found and they were not considered suspects.
'We live in hope somebody does come good'
A handwritten note was found in Ms Cutler's car with the name "Mike" written on it in her writing, along with an address in Walpole, but Mr Carey said that was investigated and also ruled out as being of relevance.
Indeed, by the beginning of December 1988, Mr Carey had concluded police had done all they could.
They had no suspects, and in a two-page report Mr Carey wrote that the case was unresolved and it was no longer considered an active investigation, although police remained open to new leads.
Of the more than 20 cases Mr Carey was working on in a five-year period, Ms Cutler's was one of two that were never resolved, and he told the court it was a source of great regret.
"This was a distressing, it was an emotional investigation … we were all disappointed that we couldn't resolve it," he told the inquest.
It was also one of the most unusual cases he had ever worked on, he said.
"We live in hope that some day somebody does come good … and tell us what did actually happen," he said.
Transport investigator re-examined case
Department of Transport senior investigator Gary Jess told the inquest he had re-examined the case in 2018 and had also concluded Ms Cutler's car had not been driven off the groyne, because the car had not shown any damage to its front or rear end.
But he said it was impossible to say if Ms Cutler had been in the car or not when it entered the water, and it would have been possible for her body to have floated out of the driver's side window or door if it had been.
Yesterday the inquest heard family, friends and work colleagues describe Ms Cutler and their last interactions with her.
The court heard details of her depressive episodes, including self-harming the previous year while in a hotel in Greece, and a conversation with a co-worker the night before she died, in which she talked of suicide.
But family members and friends said they did not believe Ms Cutler was mentally ill, nor that she was serious about ending her life.
They spoke of her outgoing personality and tendency for drama and theatricality, testifying that her bleak moments were linked to break-ups with boyfriends, and were not symptomatic of a deeper illness.
