Woman feared mystery car weeks before vanishing

The family of a Fremantle woman who disappeared 20 years ago and is considered the possible first victim of the Claremont serial killer has revealed that a motorist tried to run her off Stirling Highway as she drove home late at night just weeks before she disappeared.

Julie Cutler, 22, went missing on June 20, 1988, after a staff party at the Parmelia Hilton hotel and the mystery deepened two days later when her unoccupied car was found overturned in the sea off Cottesloe beach. Her body was never found.

Her stepsister, who asked not to be named, has revealed the earlier incident which left Ms Cutler terrified.

She said Ms Cutler had rung her parents just weeks before she disappeared and told them that she had been driving home after a shift at the hotel when a car had begun to tailgate her in an apparent attempt to run her off the road.

The car had followed her closely for several kilometres along Stirling Highway, almost touching her rear bumper at times. Then as Ms Cutler’s car approached the turn-off for Eric Street in Cottesloe, the mystery car pulled alongside her car before suddenly veering in front of it.

The mystery vehicle then slowed almost to a standstill, before Ms Cutler swerved around it and sped away. The incident was reported to police but the driver was never found.

“She called her parents extremely upset afterwards and was genuinely concerned that this person wanted to get to her,” Ms Cutler’s stepsister said.

“It wasn’t a road rage incident, it was just random. She thought whoever was in the car wanted to run her off the road or force her to pull over. She was very worried about who this person was and why they wanted to do that. It really shook her up.”

Weeks later Ms Cutler’s two-tone grey 1963 Fiat sedan went off an access road into rough seas lapping at the Cottesloe Surf Club boatsheds.

Forensic tests showed that the ignition and headlights had been on when the car entered the water, the front driver’s side window was open, the rear doors were locked and both front doors were unlocked.

Police ruled out suicide because Ms Cutler’s body would have been washed ashore if she had driven the

car into the surf. Police confirmed Ms Cutler had been seen standing next to the car in the carpark at the rear of the Parmelia Hilton about 12.30am on the day she disappeared.

There were no developments in the Cutler case until June 1989 when a white blouse was handed in to detectives investigating the case.

The blouse was size 14 — Ms Cutler’s size — and was one of 37 made exclusively for the Parmelia Hilton. The blouse and a pair of black pantyhose were found in a plastic bag under a table at the King Kebab takeaway in Centreway Arcade, Perth, about the time Ms Cutler went missing. She was believed to have been carrying the bag and changed into a black evening dress. The takeaway owner had held the bag for a year until renewed publicity about the case sparked her memory and she handed it to police.

Detectives from the Macro task force investigating the Claremont murders spoke to Ms Cutler’s parents many times, but her stepsister said police had never told the family that they believed she was the first victim of the serial killer.

“Obviously it was reported that police thought she was the first victim of the killer but the detectives never gave us indications that she was and it’s not something that we really believed,” she said. “There was more than seven years between her disappearance and the first Claremont murder so it didn’t really seem to fit in terms of the timing.”

Ms Cutler’s stepsister said they planned to commemorate her disappearance at Corpus Christi church today.

“It’s been 20 years but she certainly has not been forgotten and we wanted to do something to remember her,” she said.