MURDER OF ROBIN JEANNE HOINVILLE-BARTRAM REWARD:
The Minister for Police and Corrective Services has approved a reward of $250,000 be offered for information which leads to the apprehension and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murder of Robin Jeanne Hoinville-Bartram and Anita Cunningham in September 1972.
INDEMNITY FROM PROSECUTION:
In addition, an appropriate indemnity from prosecution will be recommended for any accomplice, not being the person who actually committed the crime, who first gives such information.
The allocation of the $250,000 reward will be at the sole discretion of the Commissioner of the Police Service.
CIRCUMSTANCES:
On 4 July 1972 Robin Jeanne Hoinville-Bartram left Melbourne in company with Anita Cunningham for a hitch-hiking holiday to visit her mother in Bowen. On 15 November 1972, Hoinville-Bartram's remains were located in Sensible Creek under a bridge on the Flinders Highway, approximately 80 kilometres west of Charters Towers. She has been shot twice in the head by a .22 calibre rifle. No trace of Anita Cunningham has been found.
Any member of the public with information which could assist Police is asked to contact:
the Homicide Investigation Group, Brisbane, Phone (07) 3364 6122;
any Police Station; or
Crime Stoppers, Phone 1800 333 000.
Office of the Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service
BRISBANE R ATKINSON
COMMISSIONER
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Murder mystery remains
NATHAN PAULL | October 1st, 2010 - Townsville Bulletin
THE best friend of a woman murdered almost 40 years ago is appealing for a woman who disappeared without a trace at the same time to come forward to help solve the crime.
In one of Queensland's most baffling unsolved crimes, Robin Jeanne Hoinville-Bartram was murdered at Sensible Creek west of Charters Towers in 1972.
The girl's remains were found in a shallow grave under a bridge at the creek, near Pentland, west of Charters Towers, on November 15 that year.
The woman she was hitchhiking from Melbourne with, Anita Cunningham, was never heard from again and no traces of her were ever found.
But Ms Hoinville-Bartram's Bowen high school best friend, Kathleen Bertram, said she believed Ms Cunningham was still alive.
Brisbane-based Ms Bertram last week travelled to the spot where her best friend was buried in a bid to highlight the unsolved crime and plea for Ms Cunningham to come forward.
"The reason why I think she's alive because she was seen by ... a personal family friend in December 1972 working in the Annabella Bar in Melbourne," she said. "People say Anita is dead with Robin, but there has been no trace of Anita Cunningham or her property since that day, since Robin was murdered. People just presumed she was dead."
Ms Bertram said she had also heard Ms Cunningham had been writing to school friends.
She suspected Ms Cunningham, who was 17 at the time, vanished without a trace because she was protecting her friends and family from a notorious criminal she believed was responsible for Ms Hoinville-Bartram's death.
John Andrew Stuart, 33, was arrested for the infamous Whiskey Au Go Go fire in Brisbane Fortitude Valley where 15 people died after the nightclub was fire-bombed in the early hours of March 8, 1973.
Ms Bertram said Stuart was in Pentland in October 1972.
Bowen man Randall Wilson told media in 2008 he saw Stuart had stolen his property after he had befriended him at Pentland at the time.
Ms Bertram said she met Mr Wilson when she made her journey north to pay tribute to her best friend.
She said she believed Stuart was travelling with the girls, who were last seen on the Gold Coast and were reported missing on September 15.
They were travelling to Bowen to see Ms Hoinville-Bartram's parents.
Charters Towers detectives and the Brisbane Homicide Squad were examining Stuart's links to the crime but are yet to publicly reveal whether his presence in North Queensland was coincidence or something more sinister.
Ms Bertram said she wanted Ms Cunningham to come forward to put an end to almost 40 years of wondering exactly what happened to her best friend.
A heartfelt plea to Anita Cunningham
IT is my enduring hope that you are still alive and able to read my plea.
I have always believed that you were spared the fate of Robin and have been forced to hide for all these years for your own and your family's safety.
Dear Anita I fully understand the impact that Robin's murder must have had on you, especially if the connection with John Andrew Stuart is proven. I would imagine that your life and your health have suffered greatly and I fully sympathise.
I am pleading for you to come forward, so that Robbie's family and I can at last obtain closure. My reasons for this is the search for justice, and an opportunity to place a proper plaque on Robbie's grave to include her date of birth and date of her death, with the words ''Morning has Broken''.
There has been too much suffering and it is my fervent wish that this might give hope to those others who also have lost loved ones.
Love never dies
Kathleen Bertram
