Julie Cutler inquest to probe mystery disappearance of Perth woman 34 years ago

It’s one of Perth’s most baffling mysteries, with all the elements of a bestselling crime novel.

A petite young woman vanishes in mysterious circumstances after visiting a high-end Perth nightclub.

Days later, her car is found on its roof in the ocean, just metres out from one of the city’s most popular beaches.

Police believe it was deliberately driven into the sea, yet no-one apparently saw anything.

Eight years later, a purse, diary and pen believed to have belonged to the missing woman are handed in to police, having been found in sand dunes a kilometre south of where her car was found.

Repeated appeals for public information, including a handsome reward, lead nowhere.

Even a cold case review yields little of substance.

And her family is still desperate for answers.

These are the basic facts about the disappearance of 22-year-old Julie Cutler, and 34 years later, many are hoping an inquest into her case — due to be held later this week —may finally reveal what happened to the young hotel worker all those years ago.

The staff party at a fancy nightclub

Dressed in a black evening dress with a high collar and gold buttons on the shoulder, and with her black patent leather shoes, Julie Cutler would have looked the epitome of 1980s elegance the last night she was seen alive.

The 22-year-old had been at a staff awards function at the high-end city hotel where she worked, and the event was held in the hotel’s swanky nightclub Juliana’s.

The Parmelia Hilton was one of just two five-star hotels in Perth at the time, and considered a glamorous venue for upmarket events.

Having finished her shift as a room attendant at the hotel on Sunday, June 19, 1988, Ms Cutler took the opportunity to join her colleagues at the staff event, where nearly 200 people danced the night away at the subterranean nightclub.

By 12:30am however, the event was winding down and Ms Cutler left.

Her female colleague walked her to her car, a 1963 two-tone grey Fiat sedan, which was parked in the staff car park, and later told police she saw the young woman bending into the front passenger seat.

Driving out of the car park, Ms Cutler turned left onto Mounts Bay Road, a route that would have taken her through the city towards the east.

She was never seen again.

Fiat found bobbing in the sea

An avid reader and writer, like many people of her age, Julie Cutler also loved to socialise.

Small in stature at 160 centimetres tall, Ms Cutler was described as having shoulder length dark brown hair and green eyes.

In appealing for public help, her father Roger described his daughter as outgoing, and according to friends, had been in a good mood and happy the night she vanished.

“None of it makes any sense,” he told reporters at the time.

When her car was found bobbing in the sea near the groyne at popular Cottesloe Beach two days after she was last seen, the mystery deepened further.

Ms Cutler had saved hard for the car, which she had bought earlier that year, and Mr Cutler said there was “no way” she would have deliberately driven it into the ocean.

Battered and badly damaged, the little Fiat contained few clues to its owner’s fate.

The only things police found inside it were four champagne flutes bearing Hilton hotel insignia, and a number of cigarette butts, which according to reports, were not the brand Ms Cutler usually smoked.

The car’s headlights were on and the keys were in the ignition.

Yet no witnesses ever came forward to say they had seen the car being driven into the Indian Ocean at the famous sandy beach, which is popular with swimmers and tourists year-round.

The kebab shop clue

Police searches of the area, including the ocean and dunes, yielded nothing, and it wasn’t until the following year that a breakthrough was made.

Prompted by ongoing appeals for help, the owner of a small kebab shop in one of the CBD’s arcades handed a nondescript plastic bag to police she’d found under a table at her business around the same time Ms Cutler disappeared.

In it were a pair of black pantyhose and a Parmelia Hilton employee blouse, one of just 37 manufactured for the Perth hotel.

Police were in little doubt the items belonged to Ms Cutler.

But after a flurry of media attention, the case went cold, and it was to stay that way for decades.

The items police mistakenly destroyed

It wasn’t until 2018, a full 30 years since the young hotel worker vanished, that things picked up again.

Backed by a generous government reward of $250,000 for information about the case, police announced they were initiating a cold case review after realising they’d let a tantalising clue to Ms Cutler’s disappearance slip through their fingers.

In 1996 a beachcomber made a discovery in dunes just south of the main Cottesloe Beach, about a kilometre from where Ms Cutler’s car was found.

The man had come across a number of items, including a 1988 hardcover diary, a pen and a tan-coloured purse, half buried in the sand.

After seeing information about Ms Cutler’s disappearance, he handed them to police the following year, believing them to be of significance.

But the police thought otherwise, and the items were destroyed.

Some 21 years later, however, detectives changed their minds and formed the opinion that they might well have belonged to Ms Cutler.

The devastated family

By this time an elderly man, Ms Cutler’s father Roger again appealed to the public for information about what had happened to his beloved daughter.

“It has been a strain on my family, and I’m basically begging you to do whatever you can,” he said in 2018.

“For the family it’s been devastating … it’s almost impossible to tell you the effect it’s had on all of them.”

It’s been four years since Mr Cutler made that appeal, and four years since the cold case was reopened.

No-one has claimed the reward.

And despite the clues that have revealed themselves over the past 34 years, police still don’t know what happened to Julie Cutler.

They won’t be the only ones hoping this week’s inquest into Ms Cutler’s disappearance, which gets underway on Thursday, finally solves the mystery.