Julie Garciacelay - Their Name Is

On 28 July 2024, the Australian Federal Police and the National Missing Person’s Coordination Centre launched the Always Searching campaign, focusing on eight cases of missing women from around Australia. In 2024, eight missing women were nominated by the AFP’s state and territory counterparts to be featured in the National Missing Persons Week 2024 campaign. They are:

Laura Haworth – missing since January 2008, last seen in Queanbeyan, NSW.
Anne Marie Jeffery – missing since August 2020, last seen in Lake Arragan, NSW.
Angie Lee Fuller – missing since January 2023, last seen in Alice Springs, NT.
Tanya Buckland – missing since August 2013, last seen in Warwick, Queensland.
Susan Goodwin – missing since July 2002, last seen in Port Lincoln SA.
Nancy Grunwaldt – missing since March 1993, last seen in Scamander, Tasmania.
Julie Garciacelay – missing since July 1975, last seen in North Melbourne, Victoria.
Chantelle McDougall – missing since July 2007, last seen in Nannup, WA.

This episode focuses on one of those women, Julie Anna Garciacelay. On 1 July 1975 Julie went to work at Southdown Press at LaTrobe street in Melbourne, Victoria where she worked as a library reference clerk. Southdown Press was the parent company for the Truth Newspaper and their office was about 2-3 minutes from Julie and her sister Gayle’s apartment in North Melbourne.

Header from the now defunct Truth Newspaper Credit: Public Domain

A witness reported that she saw and heard Julie speak to three men at the library at Southdown Press, one of those men was Mr John Grant, who was a crime reporter for the Truth Newspaper. Another man, the witness recalled, had the last name of “Collins” and the three men were seeking information or articles on soul food, a type of cuisine. The witness reported that the men wanted to open a restaurant and sought information to help them. Whether they had direct intentions to do so or whether it was a fabrication to meet Julie, we will never know. The witness then recalled that Julie and the three men arranged to meet at Julie’s apartment that evening to discuss the venture.

Julie was born in Stockton, California. She had long brown hair, olive complexion, medium build and an American accent. Julie was a skilled pianist. Julie had moved to Australia the year prior to live with her sister Gayle. It is theorised that Julie knew John Grant, because of his employment at the Truth Newspaper, but may not have known the other two men who accompanied him that day.

Julie returned home after work to her apartment in North Melbourne. Gayle, her sister, had made plans to visit her friend Barbara Somerton’s apartment in Kew, another suburb in Melbourne, to watch her colour television, a novelty at the time. Gayle asked Julie to call her workplace before 11 pm to advise that Gayle would not be at work the next day. Gayle scribbled the number on a piece of paper and left a small amount of change for Julie to make the call at a local payphone, as that was the only way to make a phone call back then.

A three story block of flats with a car parked out the front and a long driveway. — Julie and Gayle’s apartment block still stands in Canning Street, North Melbourne. Credit: Google Images.

Gayle left their apartment at approximately 8.00 pm after talking to two kitchenware salesmen for approximately 45 minutes. When Gayle left their apartment, Julie was alone and waiting for the three men to arrive. What happens between 8.00 pm on the evening of 1 July 1975 and 1.00 pm 2 July is unable to be confirmed and is based solely on statements from the three men.

On the 2nd of July at 1.00 pm, Gayle returned home in the company of her friend Barbara and her husband Francis. Gayle noticed the apartment looked untidy but left to go to lunch at the Toorak Hotel, as Gayle presumed Julie was at work.

In the afternoon, sometime between 3.40 pm and 4.00 pm, Gayle returned to the apartment with Mr and Mrs Somerton to find that Julie was still not home. Gayle became increasingly concerned for her welfare, so Barbara called the Southdown Press only to have an employee confirm that Julie had not attended work on the 2nd of July.

According to two sources, when Gayle arrived home, she found Julie’s cut-up underwear and pyjama pants on the floor in the kitchen. Her pyjama top and torn items of clothing were found in Julie’s bedroom. She also found a blood-soaked towel on the couch. There was also evidence of alcohol consumption in the flat. Julie’s glasses, contact lenses, house keys and medication were also all located inside the flat. One source says that Gayle also identified that $125 in cash was missing, as well as a butcher’s knife and a long black cape of Julie’s.

Gayle Garciacelay after Julie was reported missing. Credit: Herald Sun

Unsigned statements

The following information is unable to be verified and consists of unsigned statements provided by the three men who were supposed to meet Julie that evening. It wasn’t until 11 July 1975, 9 days after Julie had gone missing, that Mr Collins provided an unsigned statement to Victoria Police.

Mr Collins stated that he, John Grant and John Joseph Power attended Julie’s apartment on the evening of 1 July 1975. They supposedly went to the Metropolitan hotel and brought a dozen bottles of beer with them and Mr Collins stated that the group stayed at Ms Garciacelay’s apartment talking, drinking and playing records. At an unknown time, Mr Grant and Mr Power went out to get food and returned a short time later with two pizzas.

According to Mr Collins, at approximately 10.30 pm Ms Garciacelay left the apartment to make a telephone call for her sister, and Mr Collins stated he stayed at the apartment with Mr Grant and Mr Power. Ms Garciacelay did not return, and the three men left the apartment, with Mr Collins being dropped home at approximately 11.00 pm.

John Grant, the newspaper reporter, provided an unsigned and undated statement regarding Ms Garciacelay’s disappearance. He confirmed that he after having beers at the Metropolitan Hotel, the three men drove around as instructed by Collins and parked outside a block of flats. Tommy then got out of the car, knocked on the door of Flat 9 in Canning Street and then returned to the car to say they were okay to come inside. The three men walk inside and according to Mr Grant, Julie is having a glass of red wine.

After a while, Power and Grant decide to go get pizzas but Power says to Grant, “You’re not driving my car, I’ll drive.” They drive down to Racecourse Road to get two pizzas and return. Whilst on the trip Power says to John Grant something along the lines of, “I wonder if Tommy’s tried the sour,” which according to crime reporter Andrew Rule means rape in old criminal terms (as in sour, sour grape). According to Mr Grant, the two men walk up to the door, don’t hear anything and knock at the door and either Collins or Garciacelay opens the door.

Mr Grant then says that the three men had left after Ms Garciacelay did not return from going to make a telephone call.

According to the two men’s statements, the three men then left Julie’s house, and drove Tom Collin’s to a suburb called Rosanna. Then, John Power drove back to the city where Grant said Power dropped him at his office, remembering this is just a few minutes from Julie’s apartment. John Grant said he went inside to call his boss to get a taxi voucher to go home and the last he saw John Power was driving away on La Trobe Street. Why Power didn’t just drop Grant home is unclear.

A record of violence

John Joseph Power was a criminal. He was a man accused of murdering a woman three years before Julie’s disappearance and who was subsequently convicted of stabbing and sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman in the suburb of Northcote, Melbourne in 1992.

Power was a well-known criminal and traded in robbing banks. Power apparently suspected that a man had interfered with his two daughters but in a shooting gone wrong, he ended up killing the man’s mother. Power had gone around with a mate to kill the man and had fired (so the Crown case went) a shotgun through the window of the house where this guy lived. Unfortunately, the guy wasn’t behind the window – it was his mother, and he killed the mother. He was acquitted of that murder. A month later, John Power was captured on security cameras holding up a bank with a shotgun for which he received 12-15 years in prison.

Julie was reported missing to police on 2 July 1975 and an investigation commenced. However, the thoroughness of the investigation is unable to be confirmed, despite the findings of the coronial inquest. On the 3rd of July, Grant gets word from his colleagues that the police know Power and Collins had gone to Julie’s flat. Each of them makes an unsigned statement to the police. In the eyes of the law at the time, she was a missing person and not a murder investigation. Police were then unable to get any more information. Did not even go to the truth office to check whether the taxi voucher had been used by John Grant.

The police who investigated Julie’s disappearance were apparently the same police that investigated the Easey Street Murders. It was pure coincidence (as John Grant has been ruled out as a suspect in the Easey Street murders thanks to DNA), that Grant was visiting a colleague next door to where the two Sue’s lived, a colleague called Elona Stevens who worked at the Truth Newspaper. Elona Stevens is the one who notices the woman’s dog missing and leads it into the laneway behind the Easey Street house.

At some point, she heard the little boy crying inside the house and she’s the one who discovered the two Sue’s who were murdered and is the one who called the police.

The Beach Inquiry

Whilst it is purely conjecture that it had an impact on the investigation into Julie’s disappearance, I’d be remiss to mention that there was a large amount of corruption in Victoria Police at the time. It just so happened that three months before Julie’s disappearance, an inquiry referred to hereon as the Beach Inquiry was set up to inquire and report on matters concerning the Victorian Police Force regarding allegations of corruption and misconduct.

The inquiry’s terms of reference, or the scope of the inquiry, was to examine whether there was any credible evidence raising a strong and probable presumption that any and, if so, which members of the Victoria Police Force were guilty of: criminal conspiracy, perjury, subornation of perjury, extortion, fabrication of false evidence, compounding a felony, aiding and abetting the commission of any offence or demanding or soliciting or accepting any money or any reward directly or indirectly from any person or persons in breach of any regulation under the Police Regulation Act 1958 or in circumstances involving the commission of any criminal offence. It also investigated whether there were:

(c) failing to observe or comply with any of the provisions of the Chief Commissioner’s Standing Orders relating to: the investigation and obtaining evidence from suspected persons.

The proceedings of the Beach Inquiry commenced on 26 March 1975 and concluded on 28 June 1976. The transcript of the inquiry ran to 38 volumes, with 761 exhibits, including clothing, tape recordings and a rifle.

The number of witnesses, including policemen and civilians who appeared was 240. By 28 June 1976, it had cost the State of Victoria about $590,000. The result of the inquiry was adverse findings against 55 police officers. 32 of those were prosecuted and all were acquitted. Beach found that some police officers violated procedural principles regulating the process of obtaining evidence (principles without the force of law). The inquiry board recommended the establishment of precise suspect rights with the force of law and also recommended rights and protection provisions such as tape recording of suspect interviews, the videotaping of lineups, and the establishment of a system independent of the police force to hear and investigate complaints against the police. Remember this inquiry happened at the same time as the initial investigation into the disappearance of Julie Garciacelay.

Re-opening of the Investigation

The police were granted permission to reinvestigate Julie’s disappearance some 28 years later in 2003. They spoke to John Grant’s boss about whether he remembered John Grant calling him about the taxi. Of which, of course, he couldn’t remember. They reinterviewed John Grant. In 2002 – there was a court order that prevented police from speaking to John Power because he was dying of a heart condition. But in the same year, he attacked a sex worker when the sex worker said he could have 15 minutes less than he wanted so he grabbed her, and put a knife to her neck. Eventually, he was allowed to speak to the police where he gave a no-comment interview.

Fast-forward to 2018, a coronial inquest was established into Julie’s disappearance. The worst part of this whole story as well is that Julie’s mother Ruth wasn’t informed there was an inquest and hadn’t been contacted by police since 1977. Ruth is quoted as saying in a recent memorial for Julie in Victoria that she just wants to bury her daughter.

The results of the 2018 inquest found that, quote: Having investigated the death of Ms Garciacelay and having held an Inquest in relation to her suspected death, on 11 April 2018, at Melbourne, I am satisfied of the following matters to the required standard:

(a) that, despite no body being located, Ms Garciacelay, born 10 July 1955 is deceased;
(b) that, despite there being no evidence as to the exact circumstances and cause of Ms Garciacelay’s death, her death was the result of homicide; and
(c) that, despite extensive criminal investigation conducted by Victoria Police, no person or persons have been conclusively identified, to date, as being responsible for causing Ms Garciacelay’s death. On that basis, I am also satisfied that no investigation which I am empowered by the Act to undertake, would result in the identification of the person or persons who caused Ms Garciacelay’s death.

In 2002, Ruth Garciacelay established an annual piano scholarship in loving honour of her daughter Julie Ann, an exceptional pianist. The annual scholarship is in the amount of $500.

This year marks 50 years since Julie Garciacelay was murdered on 1 July 1975. If you were living in the area of North Melbourne at that time and remember something, even if you think it insignificant, please call Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.