Missing Australian girls found hanged together
Pastor Dale Morgan
Missing Australian girls found hanged together*
· Grim discovery in bush after week-long search
· Suicide pact feared after disturbing messages heard
Barbara McMahon in Sydney
Monday April 23, 2007
The Guardian
A week-long search for two teenage girls missing in Australia ended
yesterday when their bodies were found hanging from a tree in bushland
after an apparent suicide pact.
Stephanie Gestier and Jodie Gater, both 16, were last seen alive the
previous Sunday morning when they told their parents they were meeting
friends to go shopping. Their families said they appeared to have no
worries or personal problems. But it was later discovered that a MySpace
entry from Jodie contained the line: "Let Steph n me b free", and she
had recently recorded a worrying message on her mobile phone.
Police confirmed yesterday that two bodies had been found by a man out
walking in thick scrub in the Dandenong Ranges national park, east of
Melbourne, about five miles from the suburb of Belgrave, where the girls
lived.
The pair, thought to have known each other for only six months, are
believed to have died some days ago. The police were not treating the
deaths as suspicious. No details were released about whether any suicide
notes had been found.
A Victoria police spokeswoman, Marika Fengler, said the bodies had not
been formally identified, but confirmed that the missing girls' parents
had been informed. One of the fathers had spent the day handing out
missing person notices before he was told of the discovery. The parents
had become alarmed when the girls failed to return from the shopping
trip last Sunday. Police launched a massive search, concerned because
the girls were so young and had no history of running away.
There were fears they may have gone off with someone they had met via
the internet. Three days after their disappearance, Jodie's father made
an emotional media appeal for his daughter and her friend to get in
touch. "Jodie, if you're watching, please make contact with us. We miss
you and want to hear from you," he said.
At the time, Mr Gater said his daughter had seemed completely normal
when she left to go shopping with her friend. "She was quite happy to go
out - made sure she had her mobile phone with her and that was the last
I've seen of her. The last thing we said to her was, 'Make sure you're
home for tea,'" he said.
His daughter had been in a good mood, having recently turned 16 and
started driving lessons. During his appeal, he told reporters that
although he did not think Jodie had met new friends, he was not sure.
"She keeps using MSN Messenger and MySpace stuff. It's hard to keep
track of exactly what's spoken."
He said when he phoned her he was met with a "disturbing" voicemail
message he had not heard before. "It's her speaking. It's been set up in
the last couple of days." Besides the message on Jodie's MySpace site,
she had written to a friend: "I luv u sooo soo much Allan. Miss you
heaps. xoxoxo. I will always remember you."
Yesterday, local people said they were shocked by the discovery. "You
hear about it on the radio, the TV and things and you feel bad about it,
but this is so close to home, it's frightening," one man told a
television reporter.