Stephen Neville JELFS
Born 1957 21 years old when missing
Fair hair, blue eyes, thin build, 168cm tall
Stephen was reported missing in September, 1978 to Darlinghurst Police. Last seen in Paddington, Sydney. He has made no contact with his family since then. There are concerns for his welfare.
Police and family members have welcomed a $100,000 reward for information relating to the disappearance of Paddington man Stephen Jelfs in 1978.
Mr Jelfs was 21 at the time of his disappearance and a Coronial Inquest in 2009 found that he was deceased, but that the cause of his death was unknown.
The investigation into his disappearance is now with the Homicide Squad’s Unsolved Homicide Team.
Detective Chief Inspector John Lehmann from the Unsolved Homicide Team said Mr Jelfs was originally from Canberra, and had moved to Sydney at the age of 16 where
he set up a florist and plant store in Paddington.
“Stephen lived in an apartment at Sutherland Street, Paddington, with his partner who last saw him at the address on 24 April 1978,” Det Ch Insp Lehmann said.
“He was a keen traveller, having travelled to Asia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. He was also a member of Sydney’s gay community.”
Police have been told Mr Jelfs had been acting in a nervous and agitated manner in the months prior to his disappearance, which was out of character for him.
They were also advised that he had been associating with a person believed to be involved in the supply of prohibited drugs.
Extensive inquiries have been conducted by police, but the circumstances surrounding Mr Jelfs’ disappearance and death, including if there are suspicious circumstances,
remain unknown.
The Homicide Squad is now hoping that the reward being offered by the NSW Government will be an incentive for someone to come forward, as are the family of Mr Jelfs
who have travelled to Sydney for the reward announcement.
“I hope the reward will bring someone or something out to solve this matter which has haunted my family and myself for 38 years,” Stephen Jelfs’ father, Neville Jelfs, said.
The reward of up to $100,000 is available for information that leads to the conviction of a person or people responsible for the death of Stephen Jelfs.
Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page:
https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au/ Information you provide will be treated in the strictest of confidence. We remind people they should not report crime information via
our Facebook and Twitter pages.
This account of Stephen came from his friend and Support After Murder Australia co ordinator Peter Rolfe -
"I met him in about 1974, he was up in Sydney from Canberra and as I lived on my own, I was asked if he could stay with me till he found somewhere to live. He was a great guy and I continued to see him around "the traps". He was mad about horticulture and would amaze me with his botanical knowledge including the botanical names for plants. He opened a plant shop/florist in Edgecliff and was a regular on the "John Laws Show". One day he just disappeared off the face of the earth.
Ironically my friend Stephen Dempsey who I met in 1978 when he was 18 was also mad about horticulture and had similar knowledge to Stephen J...of course Stephen D was missing for 5 months and sadly had been murdered. In 1995 I was in Martin Place and as it was Missing Persons Week, they had a stand of missing persons photos including Stephen J's. I approached the police and told them I knew him and they said they would contact me the next week to go through Sj's address book, and I made a statement.
Ironically also Stephen D disappeared at the start of missing persons week 1994. On the preceding Sunday, he said to his housemates "How can people just go missing?????"
Updated
The family of a man whose suspicious disappearance from Sydney's east almost four decades ago went unsolved, have made a tearful appeal for information and joined with police to announce a large reward.
The New South Wales Government has offered $100,000 for information relating to the disappearance of Stephen 'Boppa' Jelfs, from the Paddington area in April 1978.
A coronial inquest in 2009 found that Jelfs would be deceased, but that the cause of his death was unknown.
Jelfs was last seen on April 24, 1978 near his florist shop Boppa's Plant Gallery in Sutherland Street in Paddington.
The 21-year-old was a popular and social member of Sydney's gay community, a well-known local businessman, and a loving son, partner and brother.
Originally from Canberra, he moved to Sydney at the age of 16.
His sister Lynette Price wiped away tears as she described him as her "best friend" and urged anyone with even the slightest piece of information to call police.
"Could they please come forward? Our family needs some sort of closure we need to know what happened to him," Ms Price said.
"[The pain] never goes away, it's there with me every day."
A body has never been found, but the cold case is being looked at by the Homicide Squad's Unsolved Homicide Team.
"The circumstances of Mr Jelfs' disappearance are suspicious and we believe he met with foul play," Detective Chief Inspector John Lehmann said.
"We have information to support that, but we don't have the evidence we need to bring any people to justice or have persons charged.
"Today's reward is basically to provide that incentive for people [with information] to come forward."
Police said Jelfs had been acting in "a nervous and agitated manner" in the months leading up to his disappearance, which was totally out of character.
He had also begun associating with a drug dealer and possibly organised crime figures from the Sydney area who were involved in drug trafficking.
"There's no suggestion at all that Stephen Jelfs was involved in organised crime, the information we have is that some of the people that Stephen associated with from time to time were possibly involved with organised crime," Detective Chief Inspector Lehmann said.
Jelfs' father Neville Jelfs said his son once told him he was worried someone might come after him.
"He said if anything ever happens to me so-and-so will be the person responsible," Mr Jelfs said.
"He named the person who he felt would be responsible and that person was a criminal who had moved out of Melbourne [and] introduced himself into the Sydney crime scene in a big way."
Police said their investigation is looking into a number of people who were in Jelfs' life in the late seventies.
Mr Jelfs said he was sure his son's other associates and friends from that time would be able to help detectives solve the case.
"If you've got any piece of information at all that might be of assistance in the investigation, don't keep your mouth shut," Mr Jelfs said.
CRIME figures in Sydney’s eastern suburbs from the 1970s may hold the key to solving the disappearance of a Paddington florist more than three decades ago.
A $100,000 reward has been offered for anyone with information linked to missing person Stephen Jelfs, who was last seen in April 1978.
Unsolved Homicide team investigators believe the 21-year-old, who was associating with organised crime figures before his disappearance, met with foul play.
Mr Jelfs family today welcomed the announcement of the reward for information relating to the disappearance of their son.
“I hope the reward will bring someone or something out to solve this matter which has haunted my family and myself for 38 years,” Stephen’s father, Neville Jelfs, said.
Originally from Canberra, Mr Jelfs had moved to Sydney at age 16 and set up a florist and plant store in Paddington.
He was just 21 when he went missing from the apartment he shared with his partner at Sutherland St, Paddington, on 24 April 1978. He has not been seen since.
Detective Chief Inspector John Lehmann from the Unsolved Homicide Team said his partner last saw him at the address on the day he vanished.
“He was a keen traveller, having travelled to Asia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. He was also a member of Sydney’s gay community,” Det Chief Insp Lehman said.
Police were told Mr Jelfs had been nervous and agitated in the months prior to his disappearance, which was out of character for him.
They were also advised he had been associating with a person believed to be involved in the supply of prohibited drugs.
A Coronial Inquest in 2009 found that he was deceased, but that the cause of his death remained unknown.
Extensive inquiries have been conducted by police, but the circumstances surrounding Mr Jelfs’ disappearance and death, including if there are suspicious circumstances, remain unknown.
The Homicide Squad is hoping the reward being offered by the NSW Government will be an incentive for someone to come forward, as are the family of Mr Jelfs who have travelled to Sydney for the announcement.
The reward of up to $100,000 is available for information that leads to the conviction of a person or people responsible for the death of Stephen Jelfs.
Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page.
Did crooked police act as standover men for a drug supplier who disposed of a young florist in 1978? Rick Feneley reports.
About a year before he vanished without trace, Stephen Jelfs told his father and brother that, if anything bad happened to him, they could assume an underworld figure from Kings Cross was to blame.
Thirty-seven years later, the man he named is still alive, aged about 70, and living in Sydney. And police – with no hard evidence to charge him or anyone else – have announced a $100,000 reward for information about this coldest of cold cases.
"It's about time," said 86-year-old Neville Jelfs.
His son was a 21-year-old gay man who ran a plant shop – and an "extreme extrovert" who was known to friends as The Boppa – when he disappeared from Paddington on April 24, 1978.
Among Stephen's clients was the Kings Cross figure involved in drugs and the sex industry, Mr Jelfs said.
"Steve used to provide plants for this guy and was in and out of his house from time to time." When a notebook went missing from beside a telephone in the house, the underworld figure suspected Stephen of stealing it.
"Steve [told] me he didn't take it," Mr Jelfs recalled, "but if anything ever happened to him, this particular guy would be the one responsible."
Stephen had also said he was "being visited by police, not at the behest of the police department but at the request of follow-up from this criminal, who was using police of that era as sort of standover men".
The family gave all this information to police in 1978 but they did not seem interested in this theory at the time, according to Mr Jelfs.
On Wednesday he and his daughter, Lynette Price, travelled to Sydney and entered a news conference with Detective Chief Inspector John Lehmann, from the homicide squad's unsolved homicide team, who announced the state government's $100,000 reward.
"I can't speak for investigators at the time," Chief Inspector Lehmann said, "but all I can say is that we do have that information about a particular person ... and that's something that's obviously important to us as we follow investigative leads."
There was no proof, he said, but the possibility that the victim had associates involved in organised crime was "significant" information. "There's no suggestion at all that Stephen Jelfs was involved in organised crime," he said.
But what of Stephen's claim about police standover men? Yes, Chief Inspector Lehmann said, the family had given police that information. "Now, what obviously we're all about is evidence and obtaining evidence, and not hearsay," he added.
The case would be "difficult and challenging" to crack. Almost four decades later, there is no body and no physical evidence. In 2009, a coroner found that Stephen had died but could not say how.
If the man named by the family was indeed an underworld figure, Fairfax Media understands that he managed never to acquire a criminal record in NSW, although he did have a conviction in Melbourne.
Stephen left home in Canberra at 16 and moved to Sydney. He later ran flower and indoor plant shops, first in Kings Cross and, at the time of his death, the Plant Gallery at Paddington.
Radio broadcaster John Laws was among customers and Mr Jelfs recalls that he would often say on air: "And how's The Boppa this morning?"
He was nightclub "expert", Mr Jelfs said.
At the time Stephen disappeared he had been living in a flat in Sutherland Street, Paddington, with his partner, a psychiatrist who would return to live in his home country, Thailand. Police do not now consider him a suspect.
They said Stephen Jelfs had been acting in a nervous and agitated manner in the months before he vanished and that this was out of character.
But, while he was popular, his disappearance was not reported until six months later. Chief Inspector Lehmann could not explain the delay but proffered that it was possible no alarm was raised because he had often travelled overseas at short notice. He took trips to Asia, Europe, Britain and the US.
Mr Jelfs, who had been in the airforce, explained he was "remote" from Sydney and "Steve did his own thing". But he found it "unbelievable" that Stephen's close friends refused to speak up when questioned by police in 1978.
At the time, he added, police told him they suspected Stephen must have been involved in drugs because "he had so much money to throw around".
Mr Jelfs is not inclined to believe this although he accepted it is possible Stephen delved into crime. But among his son's friends was a wealthy man who owned multiple properties and Stephen had earned lucrative commissions for helping him sell them.
Mr Jelfs pleaded for people to open up now, that the "slightest little comment might help police".
"It never goes away," Ms Price told the news conference, crying. "It's there with me every day. The doctor [told] me after 20 years – when I was on antidepressants – that I should be over it ... 'What's wrong with you?' It doesn't go away. He was my best friend."
Alongside her was another of Stephen's friends, Peter Rolfe, whose tireless campaigning for the reward explains why it has been announced all these years later.
In 1994, Mr Rolfe's long-term partner, Stephen Dempsey, was shot with a bow and arrow and his body mutilated at Narrabeen. The two tragedies explain Mr Rolfe's preoccupation now as the president of the advocacy group Support After Murder.
"I think it's a disgrace," he told Fairfax Media, "that the Stephen Jelfs disappearance has been languishing on the pile of unsolved cases for 37 years."
Anyone with information should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit the Crime Stoppers online reporting page.
Clarification: An earlier version of this story did not note that the man suspected by the Jelfs family had a criminal conviction in Melbourne.