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Herald Sun
19-06-2025
- Herald Sun
Dear Rachelle podcast: New phone tower evidence into Rachelle Childs' murder
Australia's pre-eminent forensic phone data expert has torn apart the alibi of the chief suspect in Rachelle Childs' murder. In one of the most significant developments yet in the Dear Rachelle multimedia investigation into the 2001 cold case – which police are being urged to investigate – the University of Adelaide's Dr Matthew Sorell has, in his view, determined it 'impossible' for Kevin Steven Correll to have been where he said he was early on the night of June 7. Dr Sorell, who has given evidence in dozens of big trials in Australia, including the ongoing the Mushroom Cook murder trial, said advanced mobile phone tower analysis pointed to Mr Correll being up to 40 kilometres from where he claimed – potentially in Bargo, south of Sydney, where Rachelle lived. WATCH VIDEO IN PLAYER ABOVE: EXPERT SHATTERS ALIBI IN RACHELLE'S CASE His 6.08pm call has been pored over by the Dear Rachelle team, which on Friday launches its podcast series finale, containing the new evidence, which ex-detective Damian Loone, who famously helped crack the Teacher's Pet case, has described as 'explosive'. Mr Correll, who was Rachelle's manager at Camden Holden, told police that he was shopping at Campbelltown Mall when he made the call. 'Our conclusion is that that alibi that he could have been in Campbelltown is just impossible, just could not happen,' Dr Sorell, who used advanced technology to make his conclusion, said. 'It's rare that I'll say it's just impossible, but it's just impossible. 'That connection just can't happen.' A NEW PODCAST EPISODE WILL DROP TOMORROW, JUNE 19. LISTEN TO THE LATEST DEAR RACHELLE PODCAST EPISODES BELOW: After Rachelle's death, police verified that Mr Correll's phone connected to the southern sector of a phone tower in Picton for the phone call. Picton lies south of both Campbelltown and the Razorback mountain range, which blocks phones north of the ridge line from connecting with the Picton phone tower. Mr Loone urged NSW Police to speak to Dr Sorell about this 'significant breakthrough'. 'Wow,' he said, 'that's explosive evidence.' 'The reason it changes things is because the science doesn't lie.' Rachelle's partially-clad burning body was found nine hours after she left work at Camden Holden. Her work clothes were found in her Bargo laundry, suggesting she got home from work before leaving home again. Repeated police investigations, and a coronial inquest into Rachelle's death, failed to determine where she went in those final hours or with whom. Mr Correll was the last remaining person of interest at the coronial inquest, which made an open finding. He has always strenuously denied any involvement in Rachelle's death and has never been charged. Despite intense police investigations, Mr Correll's involved alibi has never been verified or disproved. Dr Sorell has worked on 400 court cases, including the Greg Lynne murder trial in Melbourne and the high profile death of English millionaire businesswoman Paula Leeson in Denmark seven years ago. He is currently an expert witness at the murder case against Erin Patterson, known as the Mushroom Cook trial. Dr Sorell's breakthrough is based on mobile phone tower data sourced from the brief of evidence into Rachelle's death. He stressed that greater access to raw technical data collected by police from Vodafone at the time could furnish more insights into the case. He said line-of-sight phone tower analysis was very reliable in determining where a phone could not be when it pinged on a phone base tower. It sets out where a phone could be, by applying the scope and limit of the base tower's range, but could not pinpoint an exact location. The phone could have been in Bargo at the time of the call, although Bargo was also served by another base phone tower, to the south, at Yanderra. 'What we don't know, and can't tell, is how far away the phone was from the base station when the call was made,' Dr Sorell said. 'The radio signal could reach all of Bargo, as far as our modelling can tell, but the phone could also be in Tahmoor, or Picton itself, or on Remembrance Driveway as it heads south of Picton.' LISTEN TO EARLIER DEAR RACHELLE PODCAST EPISODES BELOW: Former Detective Inspector Mick Ashwood, who led a homicide squad review of the investigation from 2002, described Dr Sorell's finding as 'one of the most significant validations of the evidence'. 'Now you have independent evidence that you can work with. 'It gives him opportunity, and puts (Mr Correll) close to Rachelle.' Dr Sorrell said that 2001 phone technology – as well as the means of analysing phone pings – were primitive by today's standards. He used high resolution mapping by Bailey Heading, a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide. Such hi-tech tools have replaced what once were manual processes of investigation. 'The technology wasn't really there to do the simulation and modelling that we're capable of doing with modern computers and modern big data,' Dr Sorell said. 'So this is an example of what happens when a case gets put aside but the technology moves forward.' Counsel assisting the coroner, Peter Singleton, examined the phone ping evidence in 2006. Mr Singleton told the Dear Rachelle podcast that topography was important for assessing phone tower pings. 'You can be pinging on a cell tower far away if it's all flat in between you and the cell tower … ' he said. 'It's not conclusive, but as a matter of probability, you generally ping on a cell tower that is close to you and not obscured by a mountain.' Police were still chasing down the phone tower ping lead, without success, six years after Rachelle died. For more information about our investigation, visit If you have any tips or confidential information, please contact investigative journalist Ashlea Hansen at dearrachelle@ You can also join our Dear Rachelle podcast Facebook group. Originally published as Dear Rachelle investigation: 'Explosive evidence' could blow open murder investigation
Herald Sun
09-05-2025
- Herald Sun
Dear Rachelle podcast: Ex-wife of key suspect in Rachelle's murder breaks silence
'Elise' still feels the chill of the words delivered 30 years ago. She was driving past Warilla Beach, south of Sydney, with her husband at the time, Kevin Steven Correll. 'He threatened to, if I ever left him, he would hunt me down and find me,' she said. 'He would cut me up in little pieces, bury me on the beach in individual spots, (and) cover me in lime so nobody could smell that there were body parts …' In an emotional interview, 'Elise' talks about death threats and domestic violence. Because she is a mother and sister, Elise has agreed to break her silence to describe fears that developed over a 11-year marriage to the man who would go on to become the prime suspect in the 2001 killing of Rachelle Childs. She told the Dear Rachelle podcast she left the country to escape him, fretting for her safety. LISTEN TO EPISODES 1-9 OF THE PODCAST BELOW: In a separate exchange, also in the mid 1990s, the then couple was driving through Gerroa, south of Sydney, when Elise commented on the beauty of the beach spot. He said, 'yeah, look at that bush there',' she said. 'He said 'that would be a good place to bury somebody, just make sure you behave yourself'.' Rachelle was found, on fire, in bushland off the road's edge at Gerroa on June 8, 2001. She was Mr Correll's sales employee at Camden Holden, and he was one of the last people to see her alive. He denies any involvement in Rachelle's death. When asked four questions about whether he had been abusive towards Elise and ever threatened to kill her, he said: 'I vehemently deny these allegations and the answer is NO to all 4 questions.' Elise was married to Mr Correll until 1997. Elise was a young wife when she went on national current affairs television to defend her husband after he had been charged with – and acquitted of – four sexual assaults in Sydney in the early 1980s. She believed Mr Correll's version of events at the time, in the beginnings of a relationship marked by 'coercive control' and grandiose gestures of love. Yet her view of the attacks shifted. She came to think: 'How come you're the common denominator in all this, everybody else can't be lying, why is everyone after you, why are they trying to get you … it can't have been a case of mistaken identity for every single one.' Elise described Mr Correll as 'wonderful' when they started dating and that he 'swept her off her feet'. Even after 10 years of marriage, he wrote a card suggesting they 'drop everything and celebrate'. However, over time she realised that Mr Correll's mood could turn, she said, like 'an angel turning black'. 'It's like he's got a dark passenger or something living inside him and the switch clicks and the dark passenger takes over,' she said. 'It's scary to watch it actually, to see when that happens because … his face changes, it contorts. It's not his face.' She recalled times when he hit her. After the pair went out for dinner with her sister, she went to sleep in a child's bedroom. Mr Correll had been giving her 'filthy looks' – apparently she'd said or done something to upset him. 'And he came in and he just pushed me back on the bed and he was like punching into me while I was on the bed,' she said. 'My sister knew that something was going to happen so she came up and knocked on the front door and that's the reason he stopped.' Another time, he was driving: 'He had a ring on, and I think it was a black stone, might've been onyx or something like that. And he punched me and it left a mark behind my ear for about a week. ' After a big fight, Mr Correll wouldn't speak to Elise for weeks, not a word, until she apologised. She likened Mr Correll's behaviour to exercises in 'suffering'. Twice she visited Mr Correll at car yards where he worked, to find him eating lunch with a young female employee or job applicant. Both times, she felt like she was interrupting her husband's flirting with the women, and left 'horrified' and 'shocked'. She said Mr Correll bought her first mobile phone so that he always knew where she was. He controlled the finances, she said, and told her how to wear her hair. He was 'very, very jealous'. They first met at a club where Mr Correll was a DJ. He swept the young mother 'off my feet'. She thought he was 'absolutely wonderful', as did her young children. 'He had them totally fooled as well,' she said. 'Then he showed his true colours there as well and I will never forgive him. He put a wedge between my kids and I that took a long time to mend.' LISTEN TO PODCAST BONUS INVESTIGATION UPDATE 2 BELOW: Elise met Mr Correll's family, whom she described as 'a very strange group of people'. He was one of 13 children; his brother Raymond came to be one of Australia's most reviled rapists. Elise tried to forget Mr Correll. But she had thought often over the years about Rachelle and her family. 'That poor girl, her parents, especially her mum, her sister,' she said. 'I'm a sister, I'm a mother, and if that had happened to someone I loved, I would want someone like me to come forward.' For more information about our investigation, visit If you have any tips or confidential information, please contact investigative journalist Ashlea Hansen at dearrachelle@ You can also join our Dear Rachelle podcast Facebook group. Originally published as Dear Rachelle investigation: Ex-wife's chilling details of key suspect in Rachelle Childs' murder
