Leisl SMITH
***Leisl's hair has been dyed blond and is pulled back in a pony tail.
NSW Police are appealing for public assistance
to locate a woman reported missing on the Central Coast.
Leisl Smith, aged 23, was last seen about 1pm on Sunday 19 August 2012, leaving
her Wallarah home.
Ms Smith failed to return home and has been reported missing to police.
At the time of her disappearance, Ms Smith was driving a silver coloured Honda
Accord with NSW registration BJO-27S.
She is described as being of Caucasian appearance, with a thin build, brown eyes
and dye
Friday, 05 April 2013 01:15:21 PM
Police have conducted property searches as they continue their inquiries
into the suspicious disappearance of a Central Coast woman last year.
Leisl Smith, 23, left her Wallarah home in her car about 1pm on Sunday 19 August
2012.
Concerned family members alerted police when she failed to return home and she
could not be located or contacted.
Extensive searches were conducted for Leisl; however, police have been unable to
locate her.
Strike Force Wehl – comprising detectives from Tuggerah Lakes Local Area Command
– was subsequently formed to investigate her disappearance.
Leisl’s car, a Honda Accord, was found abandoned at the Tuggerah Lakes Railway
Station car park on Wednesday 26 September.
Strike Force detectives spoke to a 42-year-old man before searching two
properties in Wallarah and Brookfield yesterday (Thursday 4 April 2013).
Officers attached to the Public Order and Riot Squad, Operational Support Group, Police Divers and general duties police from Tuggerah Lakes Local Area Command assisted during the searches.
Police located and seized a number of items, which will be examined further.
Tuggerah Lakes Crime Manager, Detective Inspector David Waddell, said
there are serious concerns for Leisl’s welfare.
“Leisl’s disappearance is out of character and investigators are treating it as
suspicious,” Det Insp Waddell said.
“We believe Leisl was in contact with this man the day she disappeared and we hope he may be able to help us put the pieces of this puzzle together.
“Our inquiries have revealed that Leisl’s mobile phone was used in the days immediately after she was reported missing; however, she has not accessed her bank accounts or sought any assistance since that time.
“We are again appealing for anyone who has any information that may assist
the investigation to come forward,” Det Insp Waddell said.
The search is continuing today (Friday 5 April 2013) and the investigation is
ongoing.
Anyone with information about this incident should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page: https://www1.police.nsw.gov.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.
A man has been charged over the disappearance of Leisl Smith, who went missing from the Central Coast in 2012.
At about 5.10pm on Thursday, detectives from Tuggerah Lakes police arrested a 48-year-old man on the Gwydir Highway, west of Inverell.
He was taken to Inverell Police Station, where he was charged with murder.
The man was refused bail and will appear in Inverell Local Court on Friday, October 19.
Detectives spoke to the man, then 42, on April 2, 2013, before searching two properties in Wallarah and Brookfield, seizing a number of items.
Further properties were searched bordering the Golden Highway at Merriwa, approximately 60 kilometres west of Scone, in the upper Hunter Valley.
Leisl Smith, then aged 23, was last seen about 1pm on Sunday, August 19, 2012, leaving her Wallarah home.
Ms Smith’s car was found abandoned at the Tuggerah Railway Station car park on Wednesday, September 26, 2012.
A CCTV camera captured Ms Smith parking her car at Tuggerah railway station on the day she disappeared.
The footage showed her getting out of her Honda Accord before walking away from the station. She did not board a train and she never returned home.
Concerned family members alerted police when she failed to return home and she could not be located or contacted.
Two days after Ms Smith was last seen alive, her father received a text message from her mobile phone.
It read: "F--- you. I can't do this and I'm not going to keep your secret any more."
Storm Smith, who was close to his daughter, said he had no idea what she could have been talking about. He immediately called her but her phone had already been switched off.
The next day, he received another text message, again sent from his daughter's mobile number.
"I'm really sorry dad. Please don't be angry," it read. He has not received any messages from the phone since.
Extensive searches were conducted for Ms Smith; however, police have been unable to locate her.
Strike Force Wehl – comprising detectives from Tuggerah Lakes – was subsequently formed to investigate her disappearance.
The investigation has been ongoing since then, with the disappearance treated as a homicide since April, 2013.
An inquest into the disappearance of a New South Wales woman has heard there have been unconfirmed sightings of her since her alleged killer was found dead before a verdict was reached in his 2022 trial.
It has been 13 years since Leisl Smith disappeared at the age of 23.
Her car was found abandoned at Tuggerah railway station on the Central Coast in August 2012 and CCTV footage showed her getting into a white ute that then drove away.
Ms Smith's body has never been found but is believed to be buried in bushland in the Upper Hunter Valley.
James Scott Church pleaded not guilty to her murder and stood trial before Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Fullerton in 2022.
The trial heard Ms Smith had told Mr Church she was pregnant with his child.
The court was told he wanted to pursue another woman.
A day before the verdict the 51-year-old took his own life.
As a result Justice Fullerton said she was bound by law to seal her judgement.
This week an inquest is being held before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame into Ms Smith's suspected death.
On Wednesday family members were given the chance to deliver statements paying tribute to Ms Smith.
Her mother, Sandi Harvey, read out a poem in court.
"My heart aches, my tears flow, friends support me, I say, 'why did you go?'" Ms Harvey recited.
"Your future was taken, all too fast, and now we all wait for the dye to be cast."
Ms Smith's sister, Jerildine Cane, said the lack of a verdict added to her grief.
"It has repeatedly crossed my mind what she felt, how terrified she must have been," Ms Cane said.
"It has been made substantially worse, not knowing."
Mick Jones, the police officer in charge of the investigation, told the inquest that searches on the Central Coast and in the Hunter had returned no sign of Ms Smith.
He told the inquest Ms Smith's bank account had not been touched.
But Detective Sergeant Jones told counsel assisting, Gabrielle Bashir SC, that Crime Stoppers had received reports of several suspected sightings.
"Have there been any more reported sightings of Leisl since the trial and have they been investigated?" Ms Bashir asked.
"Yes, they have to a degree," he said.
"There were a couple of sightings and they came through the form on Crime Stoppers.
"There was information that a female was travelling on a train several years earlier."
But Sergeant Jones said the information led nowhere.
"Unfortunately we can't investigate something like that," he said.
"The information came in as anonymous, so we have no way of testing the veracity of that."
Sergeant Jones said the descriptions "were very, very general" and "red herrings".
Sergeant Jones told the inquest he had no doubt Ms Smith was dead.
"I believe Jim Church collected Leisl and took her up into an area which I believe is in the Goulburn River National Park," he said.
"He got a site and took steps to murder her and took her up to that site, and he has killed her and he has hidden her body."
The inquest heard about a second person of interest, Craig Elkin, who Ms Smith had reconnected with after his stint in jail, a month before she vanished.
Ms Bashir SC said Mr Elkin was subject to an apprehended violence order (AVO) relating to Ms Smith.
"He had been arrested on drug-supply charges and a breach [of] AVO related to Leisl," she said.
"The AVO was current at time of Leisl Smith's disappearance."
Ms Bashir then went through dozens of telephone and SMS messages sent by Ms Smith to Mr Elkin.
Sergeant Jones said she was "a prolific communicator on the phone".
He said based on the evidence available Mr Elkin had been ruled out as a potential killer.
Mr Elkin's body was found in the Hunter River in 2015.
Police did not treat his death as suspicious.