Rewards of $100,000 are being offered for information leading to a conviction in two historic suspected murder cases.
Tanya Farrington and Linda Suzanne Davie both disappeared in suspicious circumstances more than 30 years ago and are presumed by police to have been murdered.
NSW Detective Sergeant Robert George responded to media reports that police were investigating possible links between the girls and notorious criminals including underworld identity John Anderson, serial killer Ivan Milat and New Zealander "Mr Asia" drug syndicate head Terry Clark.
"Any suggestion of those links is just speculation," he told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.
Tanya was 14 when she went missing from her Crows Nest home on Sydney's north shore on March 22, 1979, he said.
She was last seen by her brother watching TV late at night in the family home but was gone when her mother woke up in the morning.
Ms Davie, then 22, has not been seen since she returned to her north shore Wollstonecraft home after visiting her boyfriend in Royal North Shore Hospital on April 6, 1980.
The New Zealander's boyfriend received a letter saying that she would be away until the following week - she was never seen again.
Neither of the women had any reason to deliberately disappear, Det Sgt George said.
"They have not contacted their families in over 30 years," he said.
"We presume that what has happened to them is a result of murder or foul play."
NSW Police Minister Michael Daley said Tanya often snuck out at night and may have hitchhiked to Manly to spend time with friends.
"I'd urge anyone who saw Tanya that night, or might have information about her disappearance to come forward," he told reporters.
Police would also like to speak to Tanya's boyfriend at the time and two men who are believed to have driven Ms Davie and a friend home from Kings Cross on April 5, 1980.
Police are asking anyone with information to call crime stoppers on 1800 333 000.
'It's the not knowing really ...': Marion and Linda still missing after 31 years
Time and hope are running out for the families of two missing New Zealand women as police move to close their 31-year investigations.
Coroners' hearings will be held this summer for Marion Sandford and Linda Davie, who vanished within weeks of each other in Sydney in 1980.
Believing their disappearances could be linked, Australian police reopened the cases, along with that of a third woman, in 2007.
The women went missing almost without trace, leaving only haunting letters and rumours they had been caught up in the Mr Asia drug trade.
Police now believe those rumours to be untrue, but the renewed investigation provided a last hope for two families who had gone decades without answers.
It now seems that unless extra information is received before the hearings, they may gain little apart from a legal decision saying the women are dead.
“It's difficult for us because one part of us is hoping we're going to get some sense of understanding about what happened to Marion,” said Ms Sandford's brother, Peter Sandford.
“On the other side of it, we've been waiting a long time. It's the not knowing really … It's simply not knowing is the hardest part of it.”
Mystery letters
Marion Sandford, who grew up in Auckland, was 23 when she mailed a letter to her brother's Cammeray flat in Sydney's North Shore on January 24, 1980, to say she was with friends and would be gone a few days.
Despite the family's hopes she would reappear, she never returned.
Ten weeks later, Linda Davie's boyfriend, Stephen Lavender, found a similar note explaining the 22-year-old's absence when he returned from a short hospital stay.
Like Sandford the aspiring model, who grew up in Whakatane, was not seen again.
The two young Kiwis lived just kilometres from where Australian Tanya Farrington, 14, disappeared from her family home in the suburb of Crow's Nest a year earlier.
The officer in charge of the new investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Robert George, said although there were similarities between the cases, a firm link had still to be established.
“We haven't tracked down any witnesses after the time they disappeared,” he said.
“That's been a real stumbling block to our investigation.”
Detective Senior Sergeant George said police did not believe either woman was involved with the Terry “Mr Asia” Clark drug syndicate.
“We can rule out that. Terry Clark was in custody in 1979 and the girls didn't go missing until 1980.”
He said Ms Sandford, who had worked as a prostitute, was involved in the drug scene and there was evidence she was planning to import drugs.
“She was involved with high-risk activities. Carrying drugs, anything could have happened,” he said.
No traces of either woman were found.
Detective Senior Sergeant George this year released identikit photos of two men believed to have been with Ms Davie the night before she disappeared. Police still do not know who the men were.
Other unanswered questions remain about a witness, possibly an Air New Zealand employee, who came forward in 1980 claiming to have sat next to Ms Davie on a flight to Christchurch.
“If it was Linda, that would be the last report we have of her. Unfortunately, the witness has not come forward again since,” Detective Senior Sergeant George said.
“It will always be relevant to us”
Both families, and the police, strongly believe the women met with foul play.
Ms Davie's brother, Nigel Davie, of Edgecumbe, said although it was almost certain his sister would be declared dead by a coroner at a hearing in December, he was hoping for more.
“It would be a late punishment but whoever did it should be punished, I reckon. You don't do that thing in the world and not be punished,” he said.
“It's time to clear their conscience really, to get some closure for all us brothers. And for mum and dad.”
Mr Davie said the case was still worth investigating, even after so many years.
“How long do you go before it becomes irrelevant? It will always be relevant to us.”
Peter Sandford said the family found the circumstances of his sister's disappearance “hopeless”.
“Socially, I've found it very difficult to explain to people about our loss. It's not dinner-party conversation, is it? It's not something you go shouting about and waving a flag about,” he said.
They family had never held a memorial because they felt they knew so little about what happened.
“There was nothing we could offer to people. That's a difficult part of it,” Sandford said.
“We really still do hope for an answer that would lead us to find where Marion may be so we can bring her back home.”
Missing NZ woman Marion Sandford likely met with foul play - coroner
A NEW Zealand nurse who disappeared from Sydney in 1980 is dead and probably met with foul play, a coroner has found.
A NEW Zealand nurse who disappeared from Sydney in 1980 is dead and probably met with foul play, a coroner has found.
NSW deputy state coroner Paul MacMahon said the death of Marion
Sandford, 23, was a tragedy.
"The evidence before me is overwhelming that Marion is in fact
dead," Coroner MacMahon said when he delivered his open finding at
an inquest.
"Marion died on or about January 29, 1980.
"The life and death of Marion Sandford is a tragedy for the
community and her family."
However, Coroner MacMahon said he could not make a formal finding
about where or how she died.
He ruled out death due to suicide, accident and natural causes
because those causes would have led police to her body within the
32-year period.
He said there was a possibility that her risky lifestyle as a heroin
addict and a prostitute may have led to foul play.
Shortly before her disappearance, Ms Sandford was approached by her drug
dealer to do a drug run to Malaysia.
"The final possibility is that Marion was involved in a drug importation
that some way went wrong."
However, the inquest heard there was no evidence she ever got a
passport.
Ms Sandford wrote a letter to her brother, Peter Sandford, on January
27, 1980 saying she had gone to meet friends and would be back at the
Cammeray home they shared within a week.
"I am not at all sure when I will be home but it should be within 2 days
to 1 week at the latest I suppose! Met a couple of friends. See you
later, love Marion," she wrote in a letter posted at Sydney's Central
Railway Station on January 27, 1980.
The letter was received two days later, but she vanished without a
trace.
Outside Glebe Coroners Court, Peter Sandford, along with three other of
Marion's siblings who had all travelled from New Zealand, said the
family still didn't have closure.
"As a family we accept what the coroner has found," Mr Sandford said.
"We have to live with that at the moment.
"There's always a hope that something comes up in the future."
Ms Sandford had a promising career as a nurse but moved from New Zealand
to Sydney in 1978 to live with her brother and sort out her drug
problems.
Instead she secretly became a prostitute and worked the streets of Kings
Cross to support her and her boyfriend Warren Mills' $200 to $300 daily
habit.
On one occasion, she was picked up by two men who forced her to take LSD
and raped her.
When she reported the matter to the police, she was charged with drug
offences.
Ms Sandford and her brother flew to Auckland at Christmas in December
1979, and Ms Sandford pledged to work on her drug problems, pay back her
debts to family and attend to court matters in Sydney.
Soon after her return to Australia, she vanished.