A mother of six. An abandoned red Holden Sunbird. And a disappearance that remained a mystery for more than four decades.
Episode 5 of True Crime Tasmania examines the disappearance of 30-year-old Darlene Avis Geertsema from Devonport on Tasmania’s North West Coast in October 1978.
For decades, Darlene’s family was left without an answer to one fundamental question: what happened to her?
Her car was found abandoned near Devonport Oval, close to the mouth of the Mersey River, but Darlene was nowhere to be found. There was no confirmed sighting of her after the night of 23 October 1978 and her body has never been recovered.
More than 40 years later, a coronial inquest would finally reach an official conclusion about what happened to Darlene — but one major mystery remains.
In this episode, Hamish and Emily return to Devonport in 1978 and examine the final known hours of Darlene Geertsema.
Darlene was a 30-year-old mother of six. At the time of her disappearance she was living with her two youngest children in a flat at 58B Best Street, Devonport. Her relationship with John Shepherd had been troubled. The couple had separated and reconciled on a number of occasions, and evidence subsequently considered by the Tasmanian Coroner demonstrated a history of fighting and arguing within the relationship. On Monday, 23 October 1978, Darlene collected her two youngest children from school and bought fish and chips for dinner. She was also making plans for the future. Darlene had airline tickets and intended to travel interstate with her younger children. She had purchased birthday presents for her twin daughters who were living on the mainland.
But Darlene would never make that journey.
By the following morning, her red Holden Sunbird had been found near Devonport Oval. Some of her possessions were still inside.
Darlene Geertsema
We look at Darlene as more than a missing-person case: a 30-year-old mother of six who maintained contact with her family and appeared to be making plans for the next stage of her life.
The Night of 23 October 1978
We reconstruct Darlene’s final known movements, including collecting her children from school, buying dinner and returning to the Best Street flat.
The Argument
We examine evidence about what happened inside the flat that evening, including the recollections of Darlene’s young daughter Kathryn, who later described hearing an argument between the adults.
The Abandoned Holden Sunbird
Darlene’s red Holden Sunbird was discovered near Devonport Oval, close to the Mersey River. We look at why the location of the vehicle became such an important part of the investigation.
A Case Revisited
Decades later, investigators returned to the case, re-examining old statements, interviewing witnesses and reconsidering the evidence surrounding Darlene’s disappearance.
The 2022 Coronial Inquest
More than 43 years after Darlene vanished, Coroner Simon Cooper considered the evidence and made formal findings about her fate.
One of the most important locations in Darlene’s story is the flat at 58B Best Street in Devonport. It was here that Darlene was living with her two youngest children when she disappeared. John Shepherd visited the flat on the evening of 23 October. Darlene’s daughter Kathryn was eight years old at the time. Evidence presented decades later at the coronial inquest included her recollection of hearing a heated argument between the adults.
She remembered hearing sounds consistent with hitting before everything became quiet. She never saw her mother again.
Those childhood recollections became important evidence when the circumstances surrounding Darlene’s disappearance were finally examined in detail by the Coroner.
By the following morning, Darlene’s red Holden Sunbird had been found near Devonport Oval, close to the mouth of the Mersey River.
The location inevitably raised questions.
Had Darlene driven there herself?
Had she entered the river?
Had somebody else moved the car after something happened to her?
The abandoned vehicle became one of the enduring mysteries of the case. Despite searches and inquiries, Darlene herself could not be found.
For many years, one possibility surrounding the case was that Darlene had voluntarily left Tasmania and begun another life. The evidence eventually considered by the Coroner made that explanation increasingly difficult to reconcile with what was known about her circumstances. Darlene had six children and maintained contact with her family. When she had previously moved away, she had taken her younger children with her. Immediately before her disappearance she appeared to be planning for the future rather than abandoning it.
She had airline tickets.
She intended to travel with her younger children.
She had bought birthday presents for her twin daughters.
After 23 October 1978, there was no reliable trail showing that Darlene had established another life elsewhere. No confirmed communication with her family followed, and no reliable financial, medical or travel record demonstrated that she had survived and started again.
As the decades passed, Darlene’s disappearance became one of Tasmania’s enduring missing-person cases. Her family continued to seek answers. Eventually investigators returned to the original material and reconsidered the case. Witnesses and family members were interviewed again and Darlene’s final movements were reconstructed. The renewed investigation also focused much more closely on the events at the Best Street flat on the night she disappeared.
In 2021, Tasmania Police announced a $500,000 reward for information that could help investigators locate Darlene and determine what had happened to her.
In June 2022, Coroner Simon Cooper delivered formal findings following an inquest into Darlene’s disappearance.
After considering the evidence, the Coroner was satisfied that Darlene was dead.
The Coroner concluded that Darlene had died as a result of injuries inflicted upon her by John Shepherd on the evening of 23 October 1978 at the Best Street flat.
The Coroner could not determine whether Darlene actually died inside the flat or somewhere else afterwards. He was also unable to determine the precise nature of the injuries, the pathological cause of her death or what subsequently happened to her body. The formal findings recorded that Darlene died at an unknown location in Tasmania on or shortly after 23 October 1978.
Darlene Was Found to Be Deceased
The Coroner formally concluded that Darlene had died rather than voluntarily disappearing and establishing a new life.
The Coroner Identified the Circumstances
The finding concluded that Darlene died as a result of injuries inflicted upon her by John Shepherd.
The Cause of Death Remains Unknown
Without Darlene’s remains, the Coroner could not establish the pathological cause of her death.
The Location of Her Death Is Unknown
The evidence did not establish whether Darlene died at Best Street or somewhere else afterwards.
Her Body Has Never Been Found
Despite decades of investigation, what happened to Darlene’s remains remains unknown.
A coronial inquest is not a criminal trial.
The Coroner’s findings about the circumstances of Darlene’s death should therefore not be described as a murder conviction or a finding of criminal guilt.
The role of the Coroner was to investigate Darlene’s death and determine matters including her identity, when and where she died, the cause of death where possible and the circumstances surrounding it. This distinction is important when discussing any case in which a coronial finding identifies another person’s involvement but no criminal conviction has resulted.
After more than four decades, it would be easy for Darlene to become simply “the missing woman from Devonport”.
But Darlene Avis Geertsema was a mother of six.
She had children who grew up without knowing what happened to their mother. Her youngest children were still children when she vanished, and her family spent decades living with uncertainty. The evidence suggests that immediately before her disappearance Darlene was not preparing to vanish from their lives.
She was making plans.
She had airline tickets.
She had presents for her daughters.
She had collected her younger children from school and bought their dinner.
Then, within hours, she disappeared.
Keeping Darlene at the centre of the story means remembering the life and family that existed before she became one of Tasmania’s best-known missing persons.
The coronial findings also provide an important historical perspective on how missing-person investigations and violence against women were approached in the late 1970s. In his closing remarks, Coroner Simon Cooper noted that much had changed since 1978 in both society’s treatment of violence towards women and the way modern missing-person investigations are conducted. The original investigation needs to be understood within that historical context. Darlene’s case is therefore not only the story of one woman’s disappearance. It also provides an insight into how policing, attitudes towards family violence and missing-person investigations have changed in Tasmania.
The 2022 inquest answered one of the questions that had haunted Darlene’s family for decades. The Coroner formally concluded that Darlene was dead and made findings about the circumstances in which she died. But the inquest could not answer another fundamental question.
Where is Darlene?
Her body has never been recovered. Until her remains are located, an important part of this story remains unresolved.
Episode 5 – The Night She Vanished
The disappearance of Darlene Geertsema