Mum's last memory of beloved daughter Sarah Cafferkey

Elissa Hunt, Anthony Dowsley - Herald Sun

March 27, 2013

A HAUNTING message was one of the last comments Sarah Cafferkey made to her mum, Noelle Dickson, in the weeks before she died.

"If anything happens, Ali knows where he is and where he lives."

Ali was Sarah's best friend. And “he” was Steven James Hunter, a convicted killer who would take Sarah’s life in much the same way he’d done to another bright young girl two decades earlier.

Bubbly Sarah met an awful end, struck with a heavy object and stabbed about the face and neck.

The pretty 22 year-old knew Hunter through her disgruntled ex-boyfriend Chris Stewart, and unwittingly became involved in a petrifying tryst.

In her final hours, Sarah had gone to Stewart to reunite with him despite having had an argument over Facebook about their mutual friend, Hunter.

The couple had been through a bitter break-up that, according to Sarah’s mum, culminated with him climbing onto the roof of the townhouse where she and Sarah lived. As a result he was banned from the house.

In the months before her murder, Sarah would seek help for problems in her life and attempt to distance herself from Stewart.

The clean-break was working but in the fish-bowl Bacchus Marsh community, it was almost impossible to maintain.

But while Stewart may have been her main worry, it was the drug-dealing braggart, Hunter, who posed the real danger.

Hunter had moved to Bacchus Marsh and befriended the young locals with shouts at the pub, and a steady supply of drugs.

As the last Facebook entries on Sarah’s page attest, Stewart and Hunter were no longer getting along.

But it seems Sarah had a change of heart about her ex and when she left her mother's house on Friday, November 9, she went to visit Stewart.

The next day at 2pm she went to Hunter’s Bacchus Marsh unit after arranging to visit. She bought alcohol and they spent the afternoon together.

ut at some point there was an argument and Hunter attacked, repeatedly stabbing Sarah and bludgeoning her.

Police would later find evidence of blood on a couch in Hunter’s lounge room, a carving knife in his bedroom, and other items including dumbbells, bar stools and a pick-axe.

Sarah’s body lay in Hunter’s kitchen for two days.

On November 12, he returned to the unit and put Sarah in the boot of his car.

The police contacted Hunter by SMS at 9.45pm, asking him to call Bacchus Marsh police about Sarah’s disappearance. He didn’t reply. He was busy driving to Point Cook.

He drove to the Port Melbourne Bunnings, with Sarah in the boot, and bought hydrochloric acid, concrete, lime and plastic. It was 8.40pm.

Ms Dickson reported her only child missing. She asked Sarah’s friend Ali for the details of the man she had mentioned, and gave it to police.

The police contacted Hunter by SMS at 9.45pm, asking him to call Bacchus Marsh police about Sarah’s disappearance.

He didn’t reply. He was busy driving to Point Cook.

There he placed Sarah in a green wheelie bin in the garage of a house. Hunter filled the bin with concrete, but put in so much he could no longer move it.

The next day, November 13, Hunter called Bacchus Marsh police and left a message. Nine hours later an officer returned his call.

Hunter told the officer he had been with Sarah on November 10, but he had left her at his unit alive and well at 5pm.

When he returned the next day she was gone, he said.

Dispatched to Hunter's unit later that night - three days after she went missing - the officers who knocked on his door could only report back finding a distressed dog left alone on the property.

They looked inside through the windows, but saw nothing odd.

Homicide squad officers would later interview neighbourhood kids who reported hearing screams from the house next door, but when local police visited it was midnight, too late to bother neighbours.

The officers did not see Sarah’s silver Astra in the garage. But according to Hunter it was there, and at 7.30am the next day he returned to Bacchus Marsh to move it. He left it in Maribyrnong.

Little did the original officers sent to the scene realise the history of the man they were dispatched to check-up on.

In fact, neither did any of the force based in Bacchus Marsh.

Other police knew more about Hunter.

The Herald Sun understands detectives stationed at Werribee were investigating a drug operation between Point Cook and Bacchus Marsh.

But as of November 15, Sarah’s disappearance was still in the hands of local police. They entered Hunter’s unit and found boxes and a bath full of water.

Detectives from Wyndham Crime Investigation Unit became involved and arrived at the Point Cook house where Sarah’s body had been left at 6.20pm. There was nobody home but a car was parked in the drive.

Sarah’s car was found soon afterwards. Homicide squad detectives seized the Astra the next day.

It was not until the day after that, November 17, that the homicide detectives were able to execute a warrant at the unit where Sarah had last been seen.

But it quickly became clear that it was unlikely they would find Sarah alive. Forensic officers confirmed that a serious assault had occurred at the premises.

Detectives returned to Point Cook and discovered the bin, empty cement bags, and blood. Forensic officers worked throughout the night, but were unable to see the contents of the bin, which contained set concrete.

A CT scan of the bin would later confirm their worst fears.

Detectives launched a nationwide search for Hunter.

Another property Hunter rented, that he had dubbed the "rape dungeon" on his Facebook page, was also found.

After Hunter's arrest at a Hawthorn flat on November 20, the 47-year-old made "full admissions" to police.

It is understood he recalls hitting Sarah with a hammer but not the knife attack.

Two other men have been questioned by police over allegations they were involved in disposing of Sarah's body and burning of evidence.

Investigators have recovered CCTV from Bunnings where items, such as cement, lime and acid, were bought and have been told of a bonfire in which Sarah's belongings were tossed.

Some of those being investigated as possible accessories - who the Herald Sun has chosen not to name - knew Sarah.

Police have questioned a 32-year-old from Tarneit and a 34-year-old from Point Cook (who may not have known Sarah).

Sarah's senseless death has left a bitter taste for those who live in Bacchus Marsh, who consider themselves country folk.

It’s unlikely many among them knew the real Steven Hunter, or his frightening past.

ON paper, 22-year-old Steven James Hunter was a decent, hard-working young man.

He coached a girl’s football team and worked three jobs, supporting his partner and baby son and struggling to pay for the mobile home they had just purchased.

But Hunter was a man on the edge.

He slept little more than two hours a night. He used speed and other drugs to stay awake, and drank heavily.

And he had a temper he could not control.

But schoolgirl Jacqueline Mathews, worked alongside him part time at the Gladstone Park Safeway in 1985 and 1986, saw him as more of an annoyance than a danger.

He had apparently tied to kiss her in a storeroom while changing a light and invited her to drinks and to go surfing, offers she turned down.

An outgoing and vivacious 18-year-old, "Jackie" told friends she wasn’t interested in dating a man with a child.

"Steven kept asking her out and he wouldn’t take no for an answer," her schoolfriend told police.

Hunter told male colleagues about the storeroom incident, saying, “now that he had a taste of her he wouldn’t stop until he finally got her”.

On the evening of April 9, 1986, Jackie left work. Hunter was seen sprinting out the door minutes later.

When he returned to work that night, his hair was wet and he had changed clothes.

Jackie’s body was found in the back seat of the burned-out car, which had been left at the Arundel Rd bridge facing the Maribyrnong river at Keilor.

Police spoke to Hunter several times about Jackie’s murder. He was ''cool and unfazed''.

In his final interview with police he declared, "I’m not going to confess. We can play games all night."

But faced with the reality that others had implicated him in the murder, Hunter broke down.

''I am not a human being. I am a dog. I want to go to jail for 20 years,” he sobbed.

After speaking to his wife, Hunter told investigators his version of the truth.

He said his car was blocked in at the supermarket so Jackie offered to drive him home to pick up his forgotten keys.

But according to Hunter, she instead drove to a car park and they kissed until he "got mad" and told her to take him back.

He claimed he slapped her, she produced a knife and somehow Jackie ended up in the back seat, repeatedly stabbed and bleeding to death.

''I’ve got a violent temper,” he admitted.

''I just stabbed her. I went mad and stabbed her a few more times. I should have taken her to the hospital the first time, but I was s--t scared.''

Hunter went home, only to find his wife had visitors. So he had to wash the blood off outside and cover himself with a blanket before going in and changing.

His confessed he’d killed someone and his wife later drove him back to work and disposed of his bloody clothes for him.

Hunter enlisted a friend to help him dispose of Jackie’s body and the evidence he’d left behind in her car.

They doused the car in kerosene and torched it, and the friend drove Hunter back to work.

Satisfied he could not be tied to the murder, Hunter went about his life and work.

But the others he had drawn into his crime urged him to confess, and when he refused they relieved their burning consciences by admitting involvement to police.

Hunter pleaded not guilty to Jackie’s murder.

He made a statement from the prisoner’s dock at his trial, persisting with a defence that the trial judge would later describe as ‘absurd”.

He claimed the attractive young woman had asked him out and tried to kiss him in a storeroom, and he had refused.

"I wasn’t interested in going out with her," he stated.

Hunter stated that he stabbed her accidentally after she pulled a knife after he refused her advances.

"I was frightened and I panicked, but I didn’t mean to harm her," he said.

"It’s hard to believe I did this terrible thing."

The jury didn’t have any trouble accepting Hunter’s guilt. He was jailed for at least 13 years.

Justice Nathan said in sentencing Hunter that Jackie Mathews was an honourable young woman.

''Your story of the deceased girl abducting you to a quiet place in order for her to make sexual advances upon you is so patently absurd that it needs only to be stated to have its ridiculousness revealed,'' Justice Nathan said.

He said the killing had been motivated by Hunter’s unsatisfied lust.

Whether the same motive was behind Sarah Cafferkey’s tragic death may never be known.

When arrested for her murder, Hunter refused to say what they had argued about, or how he had killed her.

Not that the reason really matters to those who loved Sarah.

As one friend wrote, in the outpouring of grief that followed her death: "She is irreplaceable. Unique. Beautiful in every way.“