E62 | Special | Sydney Unsolved - The Disappearance of Trudie Adams

Just after midnight, an eighteen year old left a dance at the Newport Surf Life Saving Club and walked out to Barrenjoey Road to hitchhike home to Avalon. Her boyfriend watched her get into a light coloured Holden panel van. Nobody has seen Trudie Adams since. In the weeks that followed, around fifteen young women came forward to say they had been abducted at gunpoint on the same road by two men in disguise, driven into the bush and raped. Detectives had a name within months. Nobody has ever been charged, and the coroner who finally heard the case in 2011 found that the person responsible never came to police attention.

IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING

A $250,000 reward offered by the NSW Government stands for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Trudie's suspected death. The case is held by the Unsolved Homicide Team as Strike Force Keldie, and police say they are still working strong lines of inquiry, with inquiries run in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and New Zealand.

Police also want to hear from any woman attacked on the northern beaches who has never reported it. The linked assaults ran from 1971 to 1978 in and around Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, against girls and young women aged 14 to 20.

Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000. You can remain anonymous.

A NSW parliamentary inquiry into unsolved murders and long-term missing persons cases between 1965 and 2010 is sitting now, before Portfolio Committee No. 1. Submissions close 30 October 2026, through the Parliament of NSW website.

A NOTE ON SOURCING

Trudie Adams has never been found and no cause of death has ever been established. There is no body, no scene and no forensic material connected to her. Every forensic detail in this episode belongs to the women who survived the linked assaults.

Neville Tween, named in this episode, was never charged over Trudie Adams or over any of the assaults, denied all of it, gave evidence at the 2011 inquest and died in custody in 2013. No court has made any finding against him in this case. His associate is not named here, because he has never been charged with anything.

Mark Standen has never been charged with anything relating to Trudie Adams or the assaults, and no court or inquiry has found that he protected Neville Tween. The ABC put those allegations to him in 2018 and he denied them at length in writing. His own words are read in the episode. He was released on parole on 1 June 2024.

The 2011 coronial finding of Deputy State Coroner Scott Mitchell is not published by the NSW Coroners Court, which does not publish every finding. What he found is reported here from coverage filed the day he delivered it, not from the document itself.

Survivor accounts and several investigator quotes come from one body of reporting, the 2018 ABC investigation by Neil Mercer and Ruby Jones.

SOURCES

NSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force Keldie

Neil Mercer, Submission 63 to the NSW unsolved murders inquiry, 24 March 2026

Parliament of NSW, Portfolio Committee No. 1, inquiry page and transcripts

ABC News, Unravel: Barrenjoey Road, Neil Mercer and Ruby Jones, 2018

ABC News inquest coverage, January to April 2011

NSW State Parole Authority media release, 17 May 2024

Stab Magazine on the surf film Highway One, 1 November 2018

SUPPORT

This episode deals with sexual violence and with the murder of a young woman.

Australia: 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732. Lifeline 13 11 14.

New Zealand: Safe to Talk 0800 044 334. Need to talk? 1737.

While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.

If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.com

Subscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.

This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.