Trudie Adams

After 30 years, police closing in on teenager's killers
Les Kennedy and Dylan Welch July 30, 2008

On June 24, 1978, Ms Adams, an 18-year-old business student from Avalon, was seen about 11pm leaving a dance at the surf club, and police believe she was picked up by three men, raped and then killed.

Yesterday her father, Charles Adams, appealed to the public to help solve his daughter's murder. "She had her life in front of her, she had just finished school [when her life was] snuffed out," he said.

During a series of investigations spanning four decades, police have identified three men, one living in Queensland, another who was suspected dead 20 years ago but resurfaced in Victoria, and a convicted drug dealer.

It is understood the breakthrough came when the drug dealer tried to make a deal with the NSW Crime Commission, in an attempt to get a lighter sentence for a relative also charged over the same drug importation, the Herald has learned.