Person of interest in one of Queensland’s oldest cold cases allegedly seen ‘trying to buy bone detector’ after A Current Affair confrontation
Marilyn Wallman was riding her bike to school 54 years ago, and never came home.
The 14-year-old’s killer has never been caught and her elderly parents, now in their 90s, desperately need answers before it’s too late.
Marilyn Wallman was riding her bike to school 54 years ago, and never came home. Nine
Now A Current Affair can report a new development in the 1972 murder investigation.
"I promised my mum years and years ago, I promised her one day, I said, 'Before you die, we will have answers for you,'" Marilyn's brother David said.
"But I'm afraid that we're going to run out of time."
Marilyn's sister Lenore tearfully told A Current Affair: "All we have is nightmares about what might have happened."
It’s been more than half a century since David and Lenore saw their big sister Marilyn.
“So David, this is where Marilyn vanished?” A Current Affair asked, revisiting the road in the north Queensland town of Mackay where she went missing.
Marilyn Wallman’s brother David and sister Lenore speak to A Current Affair. A Current Affair
"Yep. Right about there. Haunts the whole family, you know, we would like to be able to get answers one day," David replied.
It was 1972, kids rode their bikes to school, and parents rarely worried, but that innocence was lost when 14-year-old Marilyn was abducted while riding to the school bus stop, sending shock waves through Mackay.
Her younger brothers David and Rex found her abandoned school bag and bike with its wheels still spinning.
Now, 54 years later, her family still don’t have answers.
Her elderly parents, John and Daphne, need to know what happened to their daughter.
A Current Affair was the first television crew to question a person of interest in this case and what we’re told happened after our cameras stopped rolling, we’ve never been able to report until now.
“Noel Morris, did you kill Marilyn Wallman?” A Current Affair asked the now 80-year-old.
We tracked him down having a beer outside his caravan with his good mate Greven Breadsell. He’s the man who happened to find Marilyn’s skull.
54 years ago, Marilyn Wallman was riding her bike to school and never came home. The 14 year old’s killer has never been caught and her elderly parents, now in their 90s, desperately need answers before it’s too late. Nine
“Did you go to a camping shop and ask for a bone detector? Did you do that Noel?" A Current Affair questioned.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Morris responded.
“We don’t know why. Why was Marilyn targeted up our road that morning? Why did somebody take her? What was the reason behind it? You know? And where is she?” her brother David told A Current Affair.
That school morning in 1972, David was only 11, but it’s a memory he can’t escape.
“Do you remember the day like it was yesterday?” A Current Affair asked.
"Yeah for sure, my word. The only thing different is there's houses here now instead of sugarcane," David replied.
It was sports day and Marilyn took off early to school on her bike.
Brothers David and Rex were only minutes behind her.
Marilyn Wallman was riding her bike to school 54 years ago, and never came home. A Current Affair
“Our farmhouse is at the end of that road and we’d rode over the hill and so we come over that hill there because we were trying to catch Marilyn up,” David explained.
"And we saw the bike and that on the side of the road. The basket was a couple of metres away, the bike, and then her school port.
“Called out a few times and then we never got a response. I said to Rex, 'Well, I’m quicker than you on the bike so I’m going to ride home and get mum. You wait here, there’s something not right here.'”
John Wallman helps searchers look for his daughter Marilyn near Bucasia in Queensland Nine
But days turned into months and Marilyn was nowhere to be seen.
"And everybody in the district sort of jumped in and searched and walked cane paddocks and creeks and everywhere," David recalled.
“I can remember Dad coming home just like absolutely exhausted and emotionally drained. This happened just day after day and year after year, after year.”
Over the years, Marilyn's parents John and Daphne have publicly pleaded for her killer to come forward.
"There's got to be somebody out there that's got to know something," Daphne publicly pleaded.
“It’s taken a fair bit out of us over the years,” John told A Current Affair in a previous story.
"They're 90 now, they're getting old," David said.
"It's a long time to not know what happened to your daughter," sister Lenore added.
David said it was a long time for their parents to not know what happened to their daughter. A Current Affair
"Mum's not well. She's fragile, very much so. And Dad, the same. Mum has Marilyn's hanky that she still carries with her. I think they've both struggled with the fact that they might not live long enough to know."
A crucial part of the investigation has been a two-tone, aqua Holden spotted by witnesses driving in and out of that very road around the time Marilyn disappeared.
Morris happened to own a car matching that description at the time.
He was related to the family through marriage having wed Marilyn's cousin Ann, two years before Marilyn's disappearance.
“A lot of things all point to you, mate,” David said to Morris when questioning him with A Current Affair in 2018.
"Honestly, mate, I had nothing to do with it," Morris responded.
The first time A Current Affair caught up with Morris was the day the reward for information into Marilyn's murder was raised to half a million dollars.
We found him having a drink outside his caravan then with Breadsell, who coincidentally found fragments of Marilyn’s skull.
Noel Morris and Greven Breadsell years ago when A Current Affair spoke to them in 2018 Nine
“I found her skull out at McGregor Creek,” Breadsell told A Current Affair.
“You found Marilyn’s skull?” A Current Affair asked.
"I did, yeah," he responded.
Breadsell apparently found the fragments near a creek 40 kilometres away from where Marilyn went missing, two years later in 1974.
DNA later confirmed them to be Marilyn's.
Marilyn’s body has never been found. A Current Affair
Bizarrely, Breadsell admitted he hung onto the bones for some time.
“The local policeman heard about it and said, ‘You got a skull’ and I said ‘Yeah’, he said 'You got to turn that in',” Breadsell told A Current Affair in 2018.
We found the pair together again outside Morris's van, the same spot, eight years later.
"How did you find Marilyn's skull all those years ago?" A Current Affair asked.
"It was lying down like where your boot is now and that's all I'm saying," he responded.
Morris and Breadsell have lived across the road from each other all these years.
“Can you blokes seriously look me in the eye and tell me, do you know what happened to Marilyn Wallman?” A Current Affair asked.
"No, we didn't know. We don't know," Morris replied.
"Nobody knows," Breadsell added.
A Current Affair tracked Noel Morris down having a beer outside his caravan with his good mate Greven Breadsell. Nine
“You are a person of interest, Noel,” A Current Affair said.
“The last time A Current Affair was here, reporting on Marilyn’s case, what happened afterwards?” A Current Affair asked Marilyn’s brother David.
"There was a lady that worked at a camping shop, had recognised the person from the show, and that person had come in to purchase a bone detector," David explained.
"And they said that they didn't sell bone detectors. That was one little bit of information that come out of the show."
This is the first time we’ve been able to reveal this new evidence since that story went to air, and it’s also the first time we’ve been able to ask Morris about it.
“Did you go to a camping shop and for a bone detector?” A Current Affair asked.
"Don't know what you're talking about," Morris said.
The Wallman family have fought for years for a coronial inquest into Marilyn's unsolved murder.
The Wallman family have fought for years for a coronial inquest into Marilyn’s unsolved murder. A Current Affair
Finally, it begins on Wednesday.
“This investigation that’s happening prior to the inquest.
They brought up some items that we never knew about for 54 years. We didn’t know anything about it. So they are finding new things,” David told A Current Affair.
“How are you blokes both feeling about the upcoming inquest?” A Current Affair asked the pair.
"Doesn't worry me, I'm not going to it," Breadsell responded.
A Current Affair isn’t suggesting either have done anything wrong. Simply, that new evidence raises more questions.
For Marilyn's family, they just want to find whoever killed their precious little girl.
“Marilyn’s killer could be watching right now. What would you like to say to them?” A Current Affair asked David and Lenore.
"Please come clean," David responded.
“Times come, you know, whether it was deliberate, whether it was an accident, whatever it was, or even if you know what happened that day, just come forward because like I said, she hasn’t had a life,” Lenore added.
“And she’d be, she’s still tell us, “Keep trying. Keep trying. We’re getting closer.” We’ve got to keep trying. We can’t, and we never will stop,” David said.
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