Witness points finger at albino suspect

About a fortnight before the 1969 disappearance and suspected murder of Hobart beauty queen contestant Lucille Butterworth, one of her young friends reported to police being stalked by an albino man.

Jillian Wilcox on Tuesday identified Geoffrey Charles Hunt from a photo.

The albino man was earlier named at an inquest into Ms Butterworth's disappearance as the prime suspect.

"The person in that photo is the person who used to follow me around the street," Ms Wilcox told the court.

The then-hairdressing apprentice recalled receiving anonymous phone calls at her parents' home.

"I've been following you ... I watch you through your bedroom window at night," Ms Wilcox remembers the male caller telling her.

On another occasion, she said a white-haired man tried to run her off the road as she drove her car northwest from Hobart to her home town of New Norfolk.

"Every time I used to drive up and down that road after that, I used to wear a man's hat and glasses and a scarf ... I was so scared," she told the inquest.

Ms Wilcox said she reported the matters to the police but cannot "remember the officer taking any notes or asking her to sign a statement".

"I always thought the person chasing me that night, the albino, was the one responsible for Lucille's disappearance," Ms Wilcox said in her statement to the coroner.

She expected to be questioned further by police at the time but investigators did not contact her.

Hunt lived across the road from Ms Butterworth's fiance and the court has been told she used to refer to him as "whitey".

On August 25, 1969, Ms Butterworth, then 20, was waiting for a bus to New Norfolk from the northern Hobart suburb of Claremont.

The slim, fashionable platinum blonde has not been seen since and counsel assisting the coroner Simon Nicholson said investigators believe she accepted a lift from someone she knew and was killed that night.

"I do believe Lucille would have got into a car with the albino boy because he lived opposite (her fiance)," Ms Wilcox said.

In 2000, Hunt was released from a 22-year jail term for the murder of Hobart car saleswoman Susan Knight, 24, who he beat to death with a rock in 1976.

Jill Keirs, who was Ms Butterworth's best friend at school, said there was "no way" her mate would have accepted a lift from a stranger.

"If it was a friend of (her fiance's), yes, but not just an acquaintance," Ms Keirs said.

The inquest before Coroner Simon Cooper continues.