Missing Sydney schoolgirl Quanne Diec died by homicide, coroner finds

A Sydney girl who disappeared on her way to school more than 20 years ago died by homicide, a coroner has found.

Quanne Diec was 12 when she vanished on July 27, 1998, after leaving her home in Granville in Sydney's west to walk to the train station.

Her body has never been found.

READ MORE: Vinzent Tarantino found not guilty of murdering of Sydney schoolgirl Quanne Diec

Today, NSW Deputy State Coroner Magistrate Derek Lee ruled that Quanne died on or after the day she went missing.

"It is most likely that Quanne went missing, and later died in suspicious circumstances. The manner of death is therefore homicide," he found.

Quanne left her home as normal on July 27, 1998, dressed in her school uniform of a white blouse, grey checked shirt, a dark blue jumper and black shoes.

Her mother Ann walked her to an intersection near their home on the way to the train station, and that was the last time she saw her daughter.

When Quanne did not come home that afternoon she was reported missing. Inquiries revealed she had not even made it to the train station to buy her weekly ticket, as she did each Monday morning.

In November 2019, former nightclub bouncer Vinzent Tarantino was found not guilty of her murder.

During his trial, the court was told he had confessed on five separate occasions to kidnapping and killing the teenager in 1998 as she walked to school.

At his trial, one of the prosecution's witnesses was Laila Faily, a woman who claimed to have been in a relationship with Tarantino at the time.

She said she sat in his van frozen in fear as he unloaded a wheelie bin and took it into the bush south of Sydney to bury the girl.

She claimed he confessed to her a short time later.

In 1999 Tarantino himself contacted police and said he "wanted to get something off his chest".

But when he spoke to the police he retracted his previous statement.

In 2016 Tarantino contacted police again and said he wanted to confess to a murder.

However, in 2019 he said he was being threatened by members of the Rebels bikie club after he witnessed the murder of three Bandidos in the Black Market Cafe murders a year before Quanne Diec disappeared.

"I had to make a false confession so I could get to a safe place, I was in total physical and mental anguish," he said.

His barrister Belinda Rigg SC said he had led an "extraordinary and terrible" existence since 1997.

"He believed with his whole being there was a real and imminent risk of abduction, severe violence, torture and death of himself, his partner, his father and his brother."

Deputy Coroner Derek Lee recommended Quanne's case be referred to the State Crime Command Unsolved Homicide team.