Arabic version: تحقيق قضائي يفحص الاتصالات قبل اختفاء باترفيلد

According to ABC News, a coronial inquest has heard that police took more than 20 years to speak with a Cairns man whose home phone number had frequent contact with the landline of missing Far North Queensland mother Joanne Butterfield before her 1998 disappearance.

Ms Butterfield was 37 when she vanished after leaving her Mossman home in late June 1998. Her body has never been found and there are no signs she remained alive. The inquest is examining her disappearance and the adequacy of the police investigation, which was led by three detectives over almost three decades.

Telephone records showed nine calls between Ms Butterfield’s home and the Cairns home of Victor Varga from early May to early June 1998, with the longest lasting half an hour. Mr Varga, who has since died, was not spoken to until Detective Senior Constable Kevin Spies took over the investigation in 2019. Senior Constable Spies later had two conversations with him, most recently in 2021.

The inquest also heard Ms Butterfield had accepted a lift to Cairns from Mr Varga after hitchhiking. Anthony van den Broek, who worked with Mr Varga and was the partner of his daughter, said he was in the car when Ms Butterfield was picked up after a concreting job in Mossman. He recalled that she stayed overnight at Mr Varga’s home and left the next morning. Mr van den Broek said he had no information about her disappearance.

Questions have also been raised over forensic testing of Ms Butterfield’s discarded belongings and a 2019 request to test an orthopaedic bone plate found in a crocodile’s stomach contents in Rockhampton. Police never excluded suicide or foul play as the cause of her suspected death. Coroner Stephanie Williams is due to hear statements from two of Ms Butterfield’s children and final submissions from lawyers next month.