Paula Brown was brutally murdered on a girls’ night out. Her killer never faced justice

Exclusive: A lot can happen in 30 years.

If you ask Margo Hendriks and Carla Vestering, though, not much would have changed if their “beautiful” friend Paula Brown was still alive.

The pair like to remember Paula as the talkative, brown-eyed and big-hearted hairdresser with the world at her feet. 

It’s easier than remembering her life was cruelly snuffed out by an unknown monster who never faced justice.

“All of us, we would have still been friends,” Margo told nine.com.au.

“She was just beautiful, just a lovely, happy person. I always wonder what she’d be doing now… she would have gotten married, I think, and had kids.”

“Paula was never in a bad mood, always happy,” Carla agreed. 

“She would do anything for anybody.”

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On May 4, 1996, Kiwi-born Paula was brutally murdered on a girls’ night out in Sydney.

The 30-year-old had been out with a group of friends, including Carla and Margo, when she vanished into the cool autumn evening.

Margo was the last person to see Paula alive at the Burdekin Hotel in Darlinghurst.

“I had her jacket over my arm and I was thinking… ‘Where is she?’” Margo recalls.

“I went downstairs to the bathroom and looked under all the stalls. 

“We stayed and waited and waited for her.”

Paula never made it back to her friends at the Burdekin. 

Witnesses would later say Paula got into a taxi, stopped by a nearby Hungry Jack’s for a meal and was seen with two unknown men in nearby Taylor Square.

For eight agonising days, her disappearance remained a mystery.

Paula’s body was found dumped in bushland in Port Botany on May 12.

An autopsy revealed she had died from blunt force trauma to the head and it appeared she had been bashed to death.

Two men had been identified as potential suspects in her murder: Sydney house painter Martin Trejbal during the 2002 inquest and ex-sailor Richard Dorrough.

Both men have since taken their own lives, the truth dying with them.

In 2003, the inquest returned an “open finding”, meaning investigators were unable to find sufficient evidence linking one person or persons to the murder. 

Paula’s murder has officially remained unsolved for 30 years.

No charges have ever been laid and nobody has ever faced justice for the crime.

“As a mum now, myself, I do just want to find out what happened,” Margo said, adding that she has accepted Paula’s murder may never be solved.

“Everyone was looking for someone to point the finger at.

“That poor, beautiful girl just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Margo prefers to focus on the woman Paula was, rather than the painful circumstances of her death.

She thinks of her friend almost daily, not just on anniversaries, and often feels her presence.

It took a long time to be able to think of Paula without being struck by a lightning bolt of grief.

“My heart broke, because I’ve lost someone I love very much,” she said.

“One day, though, it felt like a sheet had lifted off me and the sun had come back out.”

Keeping Paula’s memory alive

Both Margo and Carla say cruel commentary around the circumstances of her death threatened to tarnish Paula’s joyful legacy.

Some media reports at the time blamed it on alcohol or even described what Paula was wearing when she went missing.

Paula’s friends and family were horrified by the blatant victim blaming.

“It was not unusual for women at that point, to go out on a Friday night. Friday night was a big night in Sydney,” Carla said.

“She wasn’t some … young, drunk or stupid woman. 

“That was thrown around a bit. It was pretty terrible what people were saying.”

Carla was eight months pregnant with her first child, her daughter, when Paula was killed.

Her daughters are now aged 30 and 26.

She remembers sitting down with them and using Paula’s story as a reminder of the dangers that can lurk on a night out.

“You really need to be on your game when you’re going out, because there are definitely people out there that prey upon women who are in a vulnerable position,” she said.

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Deaths of the two main suspects and the passage of time means a resolution to the case may never arrive.

For Margo and Carla, closure has to be a perspective.

Her loved ones can’t bring her back or solve the mystery, but they can ensure Paula is remembered the right way.

On May 4 this year, the 30th anniversary of Paula’s disappearance, the ladies got together to raise a glass in her memory.

They reunite at the same time every year; keenly aware that there is always someone special missing.

“She’ll never leave me,” Margo said. 

“She’s a friend for life.”