Chapter 14 - Lost Girls Appeal
They left it to David to use his contacts and see what he could arrange.
He started with a journalist who worked in a major TV current affairs program who he had known over several years. David had dealt with him when the accusations against Susan first surfaced. This man had been surprisingly sympathetic to this story; perhaps because he already knew David at a personal level and, despite the desire for sensationalism, he had done an initial balanced report, leaving aside the many suspicions swirling around about Susan’s role in Mark’s death at that time. Since then he had steadfastly resisted the urge to sensationalise in all that followed.
They knew each other well enough to go for a quiet beer and an off the record chat. At the end of the chat it was agreed. This man, Mathew, was strongly enthusiastic about the cause, he had a cousin who had vanished over a decade ago and knew the anguish this part of his family was still going through. He said he had good friends in the two other major commercial TV channels and thought it might even be possible for these channels to get together and cooperate on this event.
So a deal was struck. The stories on each channel would share some common threads but each would pursue a part of the story using their own contacts and networks, each having their own night set aside to run a feature story, so they were not competing head to head.
All would be provided with access to Anne and David to tell of their knowledge of what had happened in this event. Then each channel would focus on their own stories relating to either these girls or to other missing people who had vanished somewhere in Australia without a trace.
Each TV station would make a public announcement asking people to get in contact with them about missing people they were trying to trace. Together with Anne, David and Vic they would then work with police and missing people organisations to profile a range of people and tell these tragic stories in a way that would capture the sympathy of others.
Of course many parts of the current police investigation could not be detailed. But the fact that four passports identifying these four girls as missing had been in the possession of one Vincent Bassingham was now public knowledge, as well as the trial and disappearance of Susan.
So there was plenty of meat on the story and plenty of leads for each channel to chase. The dates were set, three consecutive nights, one for each to run their profile story. After each night’s story the channel would launch their part of the appeal using the same hotline number.
It was a frantic time pulling it all together and establishing a charitable foundation to handle the donations expected.
But finally all the bits were in place and the programs went to air.
All nights got huge ratings, all the channels claimed it had benefitted them, their journalists were fired up with their own personal motivations to discover the stories of many missing girls and also a few missing men. It was not targeted at the big end of town but at ordinary families who had known such people and shared the pain.
At the end of the week well over a million dollars had been raised to pursue the investigation. The following week the trustees met and agreed to fund further publicity and build memorials to remember those who had gone missing somewhere in Australia, vanished without a trace.
At this meeting Anne had an idea which she put to the trustees. She had Susan’s story on tape and wanted to write it, it was the best memorial she could think of to remember her beautiful friend by.
She had now talked to the other four sets of parents and they too wanted their daughter’s stories to be told. So, if the trust would agree to assist her in this pursuit, she would find time to travel and get all these stories and then sit down and write them up.
She thought that once a book was done it would raise further funds to go into the trust. It may even lead to further programs which would both contribute financially and with publicity to keep the search alive.
She said she would not concede defeat that Susan was no more but, even if she was, then at least telling her story would leave her footprints in the world so others would know and remember her.
After two hours of heated discussion and debate it was agreed. An allocation of $100,000 was set aside for her to travel and gather whatever information she could. It could also be used to pay her living expenses for as much of the next year as was required while she wrote.
Anne promised she would have a draft of the full story by the next Christmas and, as she compiled it, she would make available any useful information that came out to help others in the search.
Lost Girl Diary Page 16