Linda Francis SIDON aka Linda JACKSON

Linda Sidon, was killed by her son, Daniel Heazlewood. He has been granted parole. Picture: supplied.
Linda Sidon, was killed by her son Daniel Heazlewood. Picture: supplied.

Photo above shows Linda at the gym a couple of days before she went missing.

Police searching for Linda Sidon in an area shown to them by her son Daniel Heazlewood who pleaded guilty to her manslaughter. Picture: Adam Head.

Police at the location where they believe Linda's body was buried. It has never been found.

Police search for Linda Sidon. Picture: Adam Head.

 
Name: SIDON,
Linda Francis
D.O.B: 1962
Height: 170 cm
Complexion: Caucasian
Eye Colour:  
Hair Colour: Black
Build: Thin
Tattoo(s)/Marks:  
Distinguishing Features:  

Circumstances

Linda Sidon (also known as Linda Jackson) was last seen by a family member on the Gold Coast near the time she disappeared in June 2009. In 2015 Linda's son confessed to killing her and was sentenced to prison, but he was granted parole after 29 months of the sentence was served. Police believe Linda's body was dumped on Pine Creek Rd in the Numinbah Valley. Water levels in the area later rose, meaning Linda may never be found.

 

Police search Gold Coast hinterland for missing Linda Sidon

  • A Gold Coast woman feared murdered had not been seen for more than a year before being reported missing.

    Police say Linda Francis Sidon was living with her son Daniel at their Ashmore home in June 2009, however authorities were only notified of her disappearance at the end of 2010.

"She has not left Australia, she has not gone back to New Zealand. All inquiries would suggest that she hasn't left the Gold Coast either. As a consequence of our inquiries we believe that she has met foul play, and we believe that occurred back in June of 2009," Superintendent Hutchinson said.

He said Mrs Sidon had anxiety, depression and was suffering from anorexia, but authorities did not believe she took her own life.

Police are calling for anyone who was friends with Mrs Sidon around 2009, or gave her work as a cleaner, to come forward.

She had been living at a housing commission property at Galloway 

Drive in Ashmore for about 10 years, and had not been in contact with Daniel's father since he was a young boy.

"The investigation ran for some time and it's always...been ticking along. But the pace of the investigation increased recently as a consequence of fresh information," Superintendent Hutchinson said.

"We do have a number of avenues of inquiries that we're following at this point."

Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or at crimestoppers.com.au.

 

Son charged with murder of his mother Linda Sidon, missing from Gold Coast for more than six years

Jeremy Pierce, Greg Stolz, The Courier-Mail

A GOLD Coast man accused of murdering his missing mother had called his mother a ‘whore and a bogan’, boasted how it would be ‘so easy to snap her neck’ and told how he had thrown her across a room, police will allege.

Covert listening devices planted by police in his home and car allegedly recorded Daniel Paul Heazlewood talking to himself about his mother’s disappearance.

The allegations are contained in court documents filed with the police brief which paint a chilling picture.

Heazlewood, 28, faced Southport Magistrates Court today charged with the cold case murder of his mother Linda Sidon, who disappeared in June 2009.

He was arrested in Brisbane on Wednesday after Surfers Paradise detectives had unsuccessfully scoured bushland for Ms Sidon’s body and used lasers, capable of detecting blood under paint, to search her former Housing Commission unit at Ashmore.

A police court brief alleges Ms Sidon’s New Zealand-based father reported her missing.

He told police he believed she had been murdered because Heazlewood ‘beats her up a lot’.

In January 2011, Heazlewood allegedly told police that he ‘just came home one day and she was gone’. He allegedly told them he had ‘not made any inquiries to find her’.

Friends of Heazlewood allegedly told police that he disliked his mother and ‘spoke unkindly of her lifestyle, her appearance and her family’.

 

Police will claim his former girlfriend told investigators that Heazlewood was ‘mentally abusive and manipulative’ and regularly used steroids in 2009 which made him ‘aggressive and violent’.

Heazlewood had told her that he had ‘no respect’ for his mother.

Police also allege Heazlewood told his former girlfriend that during an argument, he had shoved Ms Sidon ‘and was surprised at how far she went across the room’.

Another female friend told police that Heazlewood had threatened to ‘put your head through the concrete and put you in a place where no-one can find you’.

In a statement to police, Ms Sidon’s psychiatrist said she had told him that Heazlewood was ‘physically threatening’ towards her’.

In August this year, Heazlewood allegedly told a female housemate that his mother was a ‘whore, bogan and a c...’.

Police later traced Heazlewood on trips to the Numinbah Valley where they believe Ms Sidon’s body is buried.

Heazlewood showed no emotion during his brief court appearance.

Accused murderers have to go to the Supreme Court to seek bail and Heazlewood was remanded in custody until his next court date on November 10.

Outside court, defence lawyer Chris Rosser said the Crown case was circumstantial. He said his client denied the allegations and would apply for bail in the Supreme Court.

Heazlewood’s friend, Stephanie Dahl, said she was shocked at the allegations.

“Being a friend I do support him, that’s all I’ve really got to say at the moment,’ she said.

“It’s very full-on obviously.”

Police arrested Daniel Heazlewood, 28, in Brisbane on Wednesday and later charged him with murdering his mother who disappeared in June 2009. Her body has not yet been found.

Heazlewood had been named as a key person of interest in the investigation.

Sitting in the dock of Southport Magistrates Court today, he showed no emotion.

Accused murderers have to go to the Supreme Court to apply for bail and Heazlewood was remanded in custody until his next court date on November 10.

The arrest came after police received new information on Ms Sidon’s disappearance and ramped up the investigation.

In August, they scoured bushland in the Numinbah Valley and this week they used lasers, capable of detecting blood under paint, to search Ms Sidon’s former Housing Commission unit at Ashmore.

Ms Sidon, 46, suffered from anorexia and depression and police initially thought she may have taken her own life.

However, they received undisclosed information which led them to suspect foul play.

 

POLICE have made a major cold-case breakthrough in the investigation of a Gold Coast woman missing for more than six years, with her son last night charged with murder.

Linda Sidon, 46, vanished in June 2009 after visiting her doctor.

She was a reclusive figure who worked part-time as a cleaner and lived with her son in a humble Housing Commission home.

Ms Sidon suffered ­anorexia and depression and police initially thought she may have taken her own life.

However, police now believe Ms Sidon was murdered by her 28-year-old son Daniel Heazlewood some time after June 19, 2009.

Heazlewood was arrested in Brisbane yesterday and transported to Southport Watch­house, where he was charged with murder.

He is expected to face court this morning.

Last night, his lawyer Chris Rosser said Ms Sidon’s son was shocked at his arrest, despite being identified by police as a person of interest some weeks ago.

“He was quite taken aback when he was arrested,” he said. “He has ­consistently denied having anything to do with her disappearance and he has been co-operating with police.”

He said the case against his client appeared largely circumstantial.

Ms Sidon’s body has never been found.

 

Police dig for body of Linda Sidon in Gold Coast’s Numinbah Valley

Jeremy Pierce, The Courier-Mail

POLICE have made another breakthrough in the search for missing mum Linda Sidon, narrowing in on what they believe to be her final resting place.

Ms Sidon, 46, vanished without a trace six years ago. Her son was arrested last week and charged with murder.

While he sits in jail awaiting court appearances, police have this morning excavated a hole in bushland at the remote Numinbah Valley.

Detective Superintendent Dave Hutchinson told reporters Ms Sidon’s son Daniel Heazlewood had been to the search area with police the previous day and identified specific areas where his mother’s body may lay.

Detective Supt Hutchinson would not comment on whether the development was an admission of guilt by Mr Heazlewood, who has previously protested his innocence.

 

He couldn't recall where he buried his mother but may soon get parole

By Toby Crockford Brisbane Times

November 5, 2020 — 8.12pm

A Gold Coast man who confessed to the manslaughter of his mother is eligible for parole after a successful application under Queensland's "no body, no parole" laws.

The legislation is designed to ensure murderers who have not identified the location of their victims' bodies will not be released without serving maximum time, but the Parole Board can grant parole if it is satisfied the applicant has co-operated to identify the victim’s location. After participating in a re-enactment of his mother's death and taking police to the area where he thought he had buried her, the Parole Board was satisfied 33-year-old Daniel Paul Heazlewood co-operated in trying to identify the location of the body.
Heazlewood was arrested and charged in October 2015, sentenced to 11 years' in the Brisbane Supreme Court in May 2018 and had his parole eligibility date set to July 20, 2020.
The body of his mother, 46-year-old Linda Sidon, has never been found, despite searches of Numinbah Valley bushland in the Gold Coast hinterland. Heazlewood could not remember the exact location of the burial site.
The new laws passed with support from both the government and opposition.
 
Detectives believe Ms Sidon was killed on or close to June 21, 2009. At the time of her disappearance, Ms Sidon and her son lived together in her rented house.
Ms Sidon's parents and siblings lived in New Zealand. She was reported missing by her now late father in 2010 - about 18 months after she was last seen alive.
In January 2011, Heazlewood told police his mother was travelling to New Zealand to visit her sick father.
On August 19, 2015, a listening device placed in Ms Sidon's car - which her son was now using - caught him saying during a drive to Numinbah Valley: "Gotta remember where I put the bitch" and "I was just checking on the bodies" and "F--ed her up, she just pushed me too far one day, so I killed her".
On October 21, 2015, Heazlewood was arrested and charged with murder. A week later he confessed to killing her and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. "He said that he was in his room when she came in with a knife in her hand and was yelling. He grabbed her wrist and they struggled," according to the Parole Board of Queensland documents.
"They fell to the floor with his arm around her throat. He had pressure on her throat and after a short time, she wasn’t moving. One or two days later he discovered she was dead." The Commissioner of Police’s report on the case said: "By the time Heazlewood disclosed his involvement in the deceased’s death, it was six years after the death and subsequent burial.
"The versions provided to police from 2015, deprived police of any meaningful opportunity to recover the human remains of the deceased."
Heazlewood made a statement to the Parole Board of Queensland in respect of his application.
"[I took] the police to the burial site on two occasions: the police interview, and also I went to the house in Ashmore and re-enacted, basically, everything that happened that night," he said.
"I made sure I left absolutely nothing out, no matter what the legal consequences would be.
"I'm not doing all this because of 'no body, no parole', I did all this because - well, because people need to know what happened ... I knew I had to do everything I could to make things right."

How police tracked Linda Sidon’s killer to the Gold Coast hinterland

Read the amazing story of how one tenacious detective discovered the secluded hinterland location where Gold Coast mum Linda Sidon’s body was left after she was killed.

EXCLUSIVEJacob Miley and Alexandria Utting, Gold Coast Bulletin
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A TENACIOUS detective discovered the secluded hinterland location where Gold Coast mum Linda Sidon’s body was dumped by listening to road surface and traffic noises captured in secret recordings from her killer son’s car.

Almost three years after Daniel Paul Heazlewood was sentenced to eight years jail for his mother’s manslaughter, the amazing story of how a Queensland homicide detective found the woman’s final resting place by repeatedly listening to a 36-minute recording of car sounds can finally be published.

“The recording was all we had to go on at the time,” the lead homicide officer who worked on the case told the Bulletin.

By this time the recording landed onto his desk, Ms Sidon had been missing for six years and the investigation had only just been reopened.
 

Heazlewood was already shaping up as her likely killer and a secret bug from his car yielded a bizarre confession to his dog in which the man professed he was “checking on the body”.

But where Heazlewood had travelled to in that 36-minute journey remained a mystery.

Police knew where the car left the Gold Coast so started by charting that point on a map and put on the recording.

The lead detective listened for car indicators going on and off, road changes and turns and other vehicles that could be heard in the background.

“I must have listened to that recording hundreds of times,” the police officer said. “I couldn’t even count the number of times, but that’s all I did for a month. We knew it was key to progressing the case so I basically just focused on going over and over it until (it was) exhausted. It just had to be done.”

It was the sound of expansion joints on each end of a large bridge in the Numinbah Valley that confirmed to police that Ms Sidon’s body had been dumped nearby,

The sound of buses travelling ahead of Heazlewood’s car gave the strong clue that there was something established, like a venue, nearby.

Soon after, Heazlewood’s car was caught on CCTV travelling past the Cedar Lake Country Resort off Nerang Murwillumbah Rd.

It later came to a stop at Pine Creek Rd in the Numinbah Valley — an isolated location that Heazlewood had previously visited to do burnouts in his car.

He was granted parole after 29 months of the sentence were served.

But before Heazlewood was released he first took detectives back to the exact Pine Creek Rd that had been identified by the recording and participated in a re-enactment of where he left Ms Sidon’s body.

Water levels in the area later rose, meaning the woman’s body has never been recovered.


 

LINDA SIDON’S KILLER CONFESSED TO HIS DOG

LINDA Sidon’s son told his pet dog that he had killed his mother in a bizarre confession that helped police bring the man to justice years after the woman’s death.

New details of how the Gold Coast mum died can now be revealed after the Bulletin confirmed Ms Sidon’s son, Daniel Paul Heazlewood, had been quietly released on parole after the Brisbane Supreme Court sentenced him to eight years jail in 2018.

He had pleaded guilty to his mother’s manslaughter and interfering with her corpse but became eligible for release last November, only 29 months after being sentenced.

The court heard at the time of his sentence that Heazlewood had told friends he hated his mother.

He had said she was “a waste of space … a bogan … an ugly b****”.

The court was told that Heazlewood killed Ms Sidon in their Housing Commission home during a struggle in June 2009.

Heazlewood later told police he didn’t know his mother had died and left her at their home following an incident in which he alleged she brandished a butter knife.

He said he returned two days later to find her dead.

He then headed out and bought a shovel and a bag of lime at a hardware store.

Heazlewood placed his mother’s body in the boot of his car and drove 30km to a secluded location in the Numinbah Valley where he buried Ms Sidon in a shallow grave.

The part-time cleaner was not reported missing for 18 months, only after her father made contact with police.

Heazlewood was not charged until 2015, when a hidden listening device planted in his car recorded him saying: “She just pushed me too far one day … so I killed her” as he drove back out to the burial site at Numinbah Valley, the court heard during his sentence.

The Bulletin understands these admissions were in part made to his german shepherd

dog while the pair were travelling in a car to the bushland area where he dumped his mum years earlier.

It can now be revealed Heazlewood was also caught on the audio recordings muttering to his dog during the journey that he was “checking on the body”.

When asked about Heazlewood’s parole, Queensland Corrective Services said in a statement they do not discuss the “individual management of prisoners and offenders” but it is understood Heazlewood was released this year.

Despite authorities never finding Ms Sidon’s body, Heazlewood was granted parole even though police made an application under Queensland’s “no body no parole” laws to keep him locked up.


The Queensland Parole Board later found Heazlewood had made genuine attempts to help authorities locate Ms Sidon’s body by taking them to the deserted location in Numinbah Valley where he claimed he buried her and participated in a re-enactment.