Out from the Cold: Searching for Elaine

Everything is thrown into uncertainty over the June long weekend in 2024, when Elaine Johnson’s younger sister, Helen, receives a stream of unexpected text messages. An informant — someone we’re calling Roger — has come forward with information he says is so sensitive it could affect an active investigation. Roger tells Helen he reached out because a friend of his knew Elaine and Kerry. That frien...

The year is 2004. It’s the year NSW Police made what Elaine Johnson’s family believe was the first official contact they had with them about her disappearanc. As far as the family know, before then, police hadn’t realised that Elaine and Kerry’s disappearances were likely connected. Elaine was reported missing to Cronulla Police Station, while Kerry was reported missing to Miranda Police Station —...

Elaine and Kerry’s disappearances were not the first to unsettle The Shire.  Sadly, other young girls have also gone missing from Cronulla and nearby areas — cases with striking similarities to Elaine and Kerry’s, and which, like theirs, remain unsolved to this day. In this episode, we look at some of those cases. They were chosen for the same reason Elaine’s sisters know them so well. At first, i...

Helen and Wendy have never forgotten their sister, Elaine.  In the early days after Elaine went missing they relied on news from family and friends about her whereabouts. As the sisters got older, they broadened their search.  Many of the leads Helen and Wendy have chased down suggest that Elaine met with foul play. But others have given them hope that their sister might still be alive. The first...

There’s a place in Sydney famed for being a hippy haven with a chequered past. During the 1970s, the inner-east suburb of Kings Cross — or The Cross, as locals call it — was a magnet for free spirits, artists, and US soldiers returning from the Vietnam War. It also has a dark history of sex, crime and drugs. In the early days after Elaine Johnson went missing, her younger sisters, Helen and Wendy,...

Flashes, the pinball arcade where Elaine and Kerry hung out with friends, wasn't just a place for kids to play games and grab a burger.   It doesn’t exist anymore, but when it did, Flashes was in a string of shops tucked away in a laneway off Cronulla’s main street and opened up to a local park.  Picture pool tables and coin-slot games, playing pinball as your mates hung over the sides watching on...

Kerry Anne Joel spent much of her teenage years in the beachside suburbs of southern Sydney. When she wasn't at school she spent time at Flashes, an amusement arcade in Cronulla. She also rode her dirt bike on local ovals and was a regular at a motocross track on the NSW Central Coast. One day in early 1980, Kerry took her mother's car out for a joyride with two friends. One of those friends was E...

For many locals, the Sutherland Shire was the model backdrop to beachside life in Australia. A trip to the beach was a daily ritual. Surfers were idolised, beer and barbeques were synonymous and family camping trips were close to mandatory.   Yet, in the shadow of the sun and the sand lurked a darker side to this sleepy beachside life - a time where missing teens were dismissed as runaways only to...

For more than 40 years, Elaine Johnson’s family has searched tirelessly for answers. They’ve followed every lead, chased down every reported sighting and refused to give up on her. Over the past two years, investigative journalist Kate Kachor has worked alongside Elaine’s family — pursuing new leads and sifting through rumours of kidnapping, sex trafficking and murder. And now, witnesses who’ve st...