Out from the Cold: Searching for Elaine

Everything is thrown into uncertainty over the June long weekend in 2024, when Elaine Johnson’s younger sister, Helen, receives a stream of unexpected text messages.<br /><br />An informant — someone we’re calling Roger — has come forward with information he says is so sensitive it could affect an active investigation.<br /><br />Roger tells Helen he reached out because a friend of his knew Elaine and Kerry.<br /><br />That friend can no longer speak for himself; he died many years ago.<br /><br

The year is 2004. It’s the year NSW Police made what Elaine Johnson’s family believe was the first official contact they had with them about her disappearanc.<br /><br />As far as the family know, before then, police hadn’t realised that Elaine and Kerry’s disappearances were likely connected.<br /><br />Elaine was reported missing to Cronulla Police Station, while Kerry was reported missing to Miranda Police Station — just one suburb over. <br /><br />Checks for the girls were made through nati

Elaine and Kerry’s disappearances were not the first to unsettle The Shire. <br /><br />Sadly, other young girls have also gone missing from Cronulla and nearby areas — cases with striking similarities to Elaine and Kerry’s, and which, like theirs, remain unsolved to this day. <br /><br />In this episode, we look at some of those cases. They were chosen for the same reason Elaine’s sisters know them so well. At first, it was to see whether they could be linked. <br /><br />But even when it becam

Helen and Wendy have never forgotten their sister, Elaine. <br /><br />In the early days after Elaine went missing they relied on news from family and friends about her whereabouts.<br /><br />As the sisters got older, they broadened their search. <br /><br />Many of the leads Helen and Wendy have chased down suggest that Elaine met with foul play.<br /><br />But others have given them hope that their sister might still be alive.<br /><br />The first glimmer of hope came one day in 1999 when Wen

There’s a place in Sydney famed for being a hippy haven with a chequered past.<br /><br />During the 1970s, the inner-east suburb of Kings Cross — or The Cross, as locals call it — was a magnet for free spirits, artists, and US soldiers returning from the Vietnam War.<br /><br />It also has a dark history of sex, crime and drugs.<br /><br />In the early days after Elaine Johnson went missing, her younger sisters, Helen and Wendy, were too young to search for her beyond their neighbourhood in the

Flashes, the pinball arcade where Elaine and Kerry hung out with friends, wasn't just a place for kids to play games and grab a burger.<br /> <br />It doesn’t exist anymore, but when it did, Flashes was in a string of shops tucked away in a laneway off Cronulla’s main street and opened up to a local park. <br /><br />Picture pool tables and coin-slot games, playing pinball as your mates hung over the sides watching on and friends sat opposite each other frantically steering Pacman away from ghos

Kerry Anne Joel spent much of her teenage years in the beachside suburbs of southern Sydney.<br /><br />When she wasn't at school she spent time at Flashes, an amusement arcade in Cronulla.<br /><br />She also rode her dirt bike on local ovals and was a regular at a motocross track on the NSW Central Coast.<br /><br />One day in early 1980, Kerry took her mother's car out for a joyride with two friends. One of those friends was Elaine Johnson.<br /><br />On her way home Kerry had a small acciden

For many locals, the Sutherland Shire was the model backdrop to beachside life in Australia.<br /><br />A trip to the beach was a daily ritual. Surfers were idolised, beer and barbeques were synonymous and family camping trips were close to mandatory.<br /> <br />Yet, in the shadow of the sun and the sand lurked a darker side to this sleepy beachside life - a time where missing teens were dismissed as runaways only to become, in many cases, unexplained disappearances. Elaine Johnson is one such