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00:00Family has its secrets.
00:02Locked away behind our front doors are the hidden pasts,
00:06the buried scandals and the life-changing decisions
00:09that have shaped our families and our nation.
00:15All of my mother's family, they worked in concentration camps.
00:19I don't know how I survived.
00:21It's a human right to know who your parents are.
00:25When my mother disappeared,
00:27how long it took for the police to take it seriously.
00:30Well, I've heard my father was a spy.
00:33So, who is this man?
00:35He died of a head injury.
00:36I have been told that my father was the cause of his death.
00:39Oh, wow.
00:41Every father's son uncovers the extraordinary stories
00:45behind our everyday lives.
00:47This time, two Australians explore the mysteries surrounding their mothers.
00:52Matthew Heimel searches for the mother he never knew.
00:56Everything stopped 33 years ago for her in this location.
01:00Uncovering a tale of disappearance and murder.
01:03You don't have to be a homicide investigator to go,
01:06well, there's something significant that's happened there.
01:09And Kerry Stevenson digs into her mother's glamorous past.
01:13Wow.
01:14So, your parents thought my mother was an American actress
01:17with no family in Australia.
01:19Revealing the secret history she tried so hard to bury.
01:22Oh!
01:23That's definitely her.
01:24I was born in the Philippines.
01:37I've been adopted at a very early age.
01:40Last year, my two boys started to ask questions about my origins
01:46and where they are coming from.
01:48I thought that it was time for me to learn more about my story.
01:53In late 2018, a DNA search led to 41-year-old Perth man Matthew Heimel
02:00finding his biological father...
02:02Matthew.
02:03Jerry was a US serviceman, stationed in the Philippines in 1978
02:08when Matthew was conceived.
02:10Matthew received a warm welcome from his new American family.
02:15Hey, hey!
02:16Pick on Matthew!
02:17All the way from Perth, Australia?
02:18Do you believe that?
02:19But the search for his Filipino mother would be a different story.
02:28For Matthew Heimel, discovering the identity of his biological mother
02:32should have been a life-changing opportunity to establish contact with her
02:36and be part of her life.
02:38But there would be no happy reunion.
02:40Matthew learnt that his mother had been declared missing,
02:43possibly murdered, in 1987.
02:46The case remains unsolved
02:48and Matthew is determined to do everything he can
02:51to find out what really happened to the mother he never knew.
02:55Hello, how are you?
02:56I'm well, I'm nightly.
02:58Nice to meet you.
02:59Nice to meet you.
03:01Oh, thank you.
03:02So what have you learnt so far about your biological mum?
03:06On my birth certificate, I knew that the name of my mother was Ninita.
03:09Ninita?
03:10Ninita.
03:11Ninita.
03:12And she used to be called, as well, Annie.
03:15And after my birth, she couldn't afford to raise me.
03:19So this is how I ended up in an orphanage.
03:22I spent one year and a half in an orphanage.
03:26And from that, I've been adopted by a French family.
03:30Is this...?
03:31Yes, yes.
03:32This is the only photo of my adoptive cop from me.
03:36How could you refuse this face? Look.
03:38But, yeah, this is what I got from my orphanage.
03:41So you have a photograph of you and your father, I think?
03:44Yes.
03:45Oh, yes.
03:46There is no mistaking...
03:47Yes.
03:48When I saw my father for the first time, I thought,
03:50OK, he looked like me.
03:52So, was he able to tell you very much about...?
03:55Not much.
03:57He told me he only met her three, four times.
04:01Can you describe the process that you went through to contact the Filipino relatives?
04:07Yes.
04:08I remember that there was one email from the orphanage.
04:11They believed that she went back to her province in Guiyuan, Eastern Samar.
04:18Hmm.
04:19And so, from those keywords, I selected three groups on Facebook.
04:25Community groups.
04:26Exactly.
04:27Right, right.
04:28To maybe rich people who have been in contact with my mother at some point.
04:33And, um, I sent the message at 9.30pm.
04:37And after, at 6am, my phone was beeping, beeping, beeping a lot.
04:41Basically, two people were my biological uncle and aunt.
04:45That's extraordinary.
04:46They said to me in 1981, she went back to her province.
04:50Then she went to work in Manila.
04:53OK.
04:54Where she met an Australian guy called Greg Evans.
04:56Yes.
04:57They stayed over there in Manila for several years.
05:00But then they came to Australia to get married in 1985.
05:06So, when she arrived in Melbourne, do you know what she was doing?
05:10She worked at the Melbourne Club.
05:14She was a skipper.
05:15Oh, OK.
05:16But then she disappeared on the 8th of January, 1987.
05:21She finished and her body had never been found.
05:26This is something I didn't expect to f*** that.
05:29My mum maybe has been a victim of a murder, etc.
05:33So, it was quite intense.
05:35This is you?
05:37This is my mum.
05:38Um, so that was one of the first photos I could see from her.
05:43Ah.
05:44That was a very big, um, event for me.
05:47Uh, very emotional.
05:49Um, because, you know, that's my mum.
05:53The end point f*** B, what would you be happy to know?
06:01I prefer to know the truth.
06:03I prefer to know the truth.
06:06In his search for the truth, Matthew has accessed the report from a coronial inquest into his mum's disappearance,
06:13held in 1995.
06:15An inquiry that did not answer key questions.
06:19This is the coroner's conclusion.
06:22All of the investigations into the disappearance of Rita Evans have failed to f*** any trace of her since she left the Melbourne Club on 8th January, 1987.
06:34I am satisfied that she has been the victim of our prey and is now deceased.
06:40However, the identity of the person or persons contributing to that death cannot be determined.
06:49Well, I'm very surprised that, based on the inquest, nobody has been found guilty.
06:55the guilty matthew's newfound filipino family have been tormented by nanita's disappearance
07:01for years at one point they were told that a body fitting her description had been found on
07:07an australian to learn more about this he's calling nanita's sister josefina and her daughter jennifer
07:13hello how are you guys we're fine how are you very well very well what uh are your expectations
07:21uh regarding my search we tried to find maybe now we had the chance to know what happened to her
07:32so we're happy i was wondering um can you tell me more about when the australian embassy contacted you
07:39they sent a letter saying that they found the body of a woman lying under
07:44her son in australia they said my mom or someone in our family need to to identify the body if that
07:53was your mother my mom don't have passport so no one had the chance to go there so you never came to
08:01australia too and you don't know where is this body they found i mean i mean on the beach no after that
08:10we heard any anything from the embassy so that would be something we can we can try to so what
08:18what was the impact of uh nanita's disappearance on on your family 33 years ago it really hurt them
08:27it actually hurt them yeah and it still does it it's not easy i know i know yeah i hope that we
08:41will be able to find something yeah and we can have some kind of peace
08:50to begin matthew has for the first time traveled to melbourne the city where his mother sought a new
08:57life only to disappear without a trace people are still grieving in the in the philippines they
09:05are still affected i could see that they were they were crying and i can see that i'm i'm not the only
09:10one suffering i'm not the only one it is very important for me to be here every stop 33 years ago for her
09:20in this location to investigate the body on the beach mystery matthew has come to the victorian institute
09:29of forensic medicine dr dadna hartman will test if matthew's dna matches with any of the unidentified
09:36bodies on their missing persons database what we'll do today is collect samples for the purposes of getting
09:42some dna profiling rub that vigorously against the inside of your cheek uh like this yep
09:56so what we'll do is actually compare your profile to profiles that we have already on the victorian
10:01missing persons dna database inside me i hope that um i wish that she's still alive somewhere in australia
10:09uh but yes um i think it's very important a closure for this story
10:17matthew needs to wait a week for the results a positive match will mean the search for his mum
10:23is finally over
10:31in sydney 58 year old kerry stevenson is on a mission to unpack her mother's mysterious life
10:38well these are all picasso's uh picasso paintings that mum had on a wall um as you walked into the
10:45house she said that she met picasso when she used to live in new york in her younger days and so the
10:52assumption was that he'd given her all these fabulous picasso's after mum passed away i actually took them
11:01to value them he had took a look at them didn't even take them out of the frames and said that they were
11:05copies and i said so what do you think they're worth he stole between 10 and 20 dollars
11:15maybe she wanted them to be
11:17kerrie suspects like these paintings her mum joanne was not all she appeared to be
11:23a beautiful actress and dancer once met to one of hollywood's most powerful executives joanne stevenson
11:31was a glamorous woman in the public eye but to her daughter kerrie she was an unknown her past is
11:37a mystery and she refused to talk about it so what was joanne stevenson hiding
11:43so what do you know about her early life so i think she was born joanne mcdonald right she said her
12:03father died when she was two in a motorbike accident i don't know whether that was true but
12:18we never knew who he was her mum we kind of knew but not that well what had she told you about her
12:25her mother she had her mother she hated her mother for some reason and i i tried to ask her i said why
12:30did you hate your mother and she just i don't want to talk about it and it's really hard to get her to
12:35open up i didn't know much about her time in hollywood um we've got a photo here if you want to see
12:41oh i'd love to see it she's extruded that's such a beautiful i mean i know she used to hang out with
12:47the sort of hollywood royalty but i know so what's this what's this piece of paper um this was a cv that
12:55my mum put together and it's an actress in theater television radio in hollywood but on on most cvs you
13:03would you would mention every single thing that you had done um so it just strikes me as being quite
13:09vague have you checked any of these credits to no see if they're true no so what do you know who
13:19our mum why did she so much um who was her father did he really die in a motorbike accident
13:28was she who she was and why did she not want to tell and why did she not want to tell me
13:35kerrie is the youngest child and only daughter of joanne and her second husband
13:39commander john stevenson of the royal australian navy
13:49to investigate her mother's story kerrie has come to melbourne she knows joanne was born here
13:55but knows nothing else about her origins hi kerrie good to thank you in the suburb of
14:01kew local historian david white has found a significant landmark in kerrie's mother's life
14:07hey kerrie this is where your mother grew up no way childhood home wow
14:13that's extraordinary with her with her mother yes okay and her grandmother as far as we know and
14:21her grandpa so there was three generations in this three generations of the family in the house
14:29what the outside world didn't know was that the walls of this modest cottage were already concealing
14:35the family's secrets documents reveal that joanne's life was mysterious from the start
14:43kerrie has never seen her mum's birth certificate okay so 14th of december 1927
14:49yes born joan may but she always called herself joanne not joan um parents name of the mother
14:58gladys ivy lee but no no father so her mother was a single mum yes gosh that would have been tough
15:13so my mother should have been joe lee yes okay yes that was the family so i understood my mother's name
15:21was joan mcdonald i've got some photos here this is one of her when she was quite young and the reason
15:30was thinking mcdonald it says mcdonald on the back here and proof that young bone used the surname
15:36mcdonald has surfaced in a surprising place engagement announcement here oh this is september
15:461946 mcdonald pearson jay mcdonald yes to terence pearson and this is the photograph of your mother
16:03which was published so you've never heard of this never never wow that's uh quite a lot to take in but
16:15it's good it's what i've been looking for the photograph that's definitely her
16:24she never spoke about her upbringing her mother was a single mom coming up to the depression
16:30i think it was a very tough upbringing for her who was terence pearson who she got engaged to did they
16:39marry after her mother died kerry discovered some of her writing including a story which kerry suspects
16:48tells her mum's own journey she writes about a girl called julie and i think julie might have been mum
16:56so this is chapter two escape the coastline of australia slowly receded as the liner headed for
17:04far-off india away from i hated i julie stein was chosen to travel abroad as jeanette of the boris
17:14trio wallace delise and jeanette she writes that she went as a dancer to india
17:23so how closely did julie's fictitious memoir reflect joan's real life is there evidence of
17:31joan having a dancing career at the st kilda town hall kerry's meeting performing arts historian
17:38carolyn laffin nice to meet you this is the first time that we see her in the public record
17:43wow so this is 1945's kilda town hall november 13th an exhibition of dancing will be given by wally
17:51watson and will be partnered by dilly k and joan mcdonald that's my mum so there she's there oh there
17:57she's there okay that's a very glamorous world to be in yeah i think gosh this is friday november 1st 1946
18:07in the age final appearance before their departure for india oh wow wally watson dillis mckay and joan
18:16mcdonald what i find fascinating is the date on this is november the 1st 1946 and with that mum got engaged
18:25somebody called terence pearson only in september that year and it doesn't look like he's going
18:32that's to me like she escaped leaving her fiance behind in late 1946 18 year old jones set off to
18:41take on the world as jeanette in the wallace elise and jeanette dance trio first stop was india
18:49but by early 1948 they were tripping the light fantastic in a much bigger scene
18:54oh this is exciting so may 22nd 1948 the evening teller jack anthony's summer season at the palace
19:04opens on monday here we go a strong company includes wallace delise and jeanette in dancing artistry
19:11so she's gone from here to done in scotland yes she's part of the collins variety circuit
19:18which is a really huge variety circuit up and down the uk and throughout scotland at some point
19:25during this time things suddenly changed okay aberdeen aberdeen girl gets a chance in pantomime
19:33wallace and elise recruited her to be their new jet oh so what's happened to gone so something's
19:43happened between may and to be amazing to happen she must have been a very talented dancer and i
19:52actually really proud of her i wonder with her home life whether that was a little bit tricky for her
20:02you know maybe getting opportunity to dance was a way to escape where did she go i don't really know
20:09what had caused joan to abruptly abandon her dancing career kerrie will discover her mum's life had
20:18taken an astonishing turn matthew heimel is in melbourne searching for information about his birth mother
20:31nanita who disappeared without a trace in 1987.
20:40he's come to the house where nanita was living at the time she went missing
20:44the home she shared with her husband greg evans
20:53while poor health has prevented greg from taking part in math's journey
20:57he has sent a letter sharing his memories of nanita
21:04dear mathieu i first met nanita or annie when i was living in the philippines
21:12i was immediately drawn to this beautiful with wild curly hair your mother annie she was full of life
21:20i love her dearly and i'm deeply pained by her loss
21:26annie spent many hours creating this beautiful red blanket as a gift for my mother
21:32my mother passed many years ago
21:35her and annie were very close and i know that they would both love you to have it
22:00it is the first time i got something for my mom it is very special
22:14special
22:18greg's grief was deepened because initially he was the prime suspect in nanita's disappearance
22:25matthew i have always felt that i was kept in the dark in terms of how the investigation was handled
22:32and felt that i was always treated like a guilty person and while the focus was on greg
22:38he believes other evidence was being overlooked the fact that two staff members disappeared from the
22:45and yet nothing was further investigated into this has caused me a tremendous amount of pain
22:53and and i do agree with that you know i think it is a good time now to get more information about the
22:59story it's a very good time
23:10disturbingly nanita's disappearance is one of three unsolved cases involving women connected to the
23:16melbourne club there's been another disappearance and a murder
23:21the common denominator in all these cases long time melbourne club employee vincenzo
23:27really fantastic the age newspaper crime reporter johnson has been following the story for
23:34the years i think maybe you should understand the sort of the whole background to the story
23:39way back into the 50s um okay we were bringing in migrants from europe and italians greeks particular
23:47and it was quite usual for the the to come out by themselves and to have sex in that call for their
23:55family yeah there was this guy uh vincenzo leonardi he came out he started a job at the melbourne club
24:03now that's the most exclusive uh establishment club in victoria he builds himself up till he starts running
24:11this the staff this for staff established in 1838 the melbourne club is a private male-only social club
24:20its membership has included many of the country's prominent politicians judges and businessmen
24:27when anita arrived in australia in 1985 she landed a job there as a housemaid under the supervision of
24:35vincenzo leonardi leonardi leonardi obviously appreciates her work because she's promoted but
24:42i think that he was grooming her i think that he was giving her special treatment he was driving her
24:49home he lived in brighton and she lived on the other side of town and that's when an anonymous call
24:55was made to husband do you know that they're having an affair then she was put in charge of doing the
25:01floral arrangements and she enjoyed it and saw that she had talent and she often did night school
25:07so the 8th of january 1987 she wasn't working anymore at the melbourne club but she came back
25:14to to show her portfolio yes okay and this is where she met for the last time yes uh leonardi i would
25:24say at that point she has made it clear i've got a new life and you're not part of it yeah okay
25:31i'm not going to work at the melbourne club won't be driving me home i'm off to be a florist
25:35that's why i think she ended up paying a terrible cost because she was no longer prepared um to to be a
25:43plaything for this fella but then she goes out and she's never seen again when my mother disappeared
25:50how long it took for the police to to take it seriously within a short bit of time she was reported
25:55missing and then they hung in on on greg and they actually were told of a potential affair so that
26:01actually gave them a motive yeah jealousy so they didn't look leonardi they looked at greg go forward
26:08a couple of years to 1990 when another woman another member of the staff miller gross dark her
26:14body is found and she's bashed to death again it's suggested that she was having an affair
26:20with leonardi she's also filipina she also worked for him as in nanita's case when miller gross dark
26:29was murdered her husband was the main suspect but charges against him dropped through lack of evidence
26:36at nanita's inquest in 1995 the spotlight was finally shone on leonardi
26:45vince leonardi was an extremely violent father he treated the family badly two of the girls were
26:52having an argument and he threw an axe at one of them on one occasion he assaulted one of the girls
26:59badly she was in bed for three weeks and she was told next time he may kill her
27:05wow full on it's full on when it came to the interest he chose not to give evidence on the grounds
27:14of suffocation but more alarming details about leonardi's past have surfaced including an astonishing
27:22episode from his early days in australia before his wife arrived from italy there was another woman
27:29leonardi he ended up taking a girl virtually as her wife anna maria pontarola yeah now this girl
27:38pontarola she ends up disappearing but nobody reported she just disappears off the face of the earth
27:46johnson just confirmed my my opinion uh about vincenzo leonardi i believe the three stories are
27:55connected anna maria pontarola uh and mila dark as well as my mum leonardi took his secrets to the grave in
28:052009 but could shining a light on his de facto wife who vanished 66 years ago be the key to matthew
28:15solving his mother's disappearance
28:24kerry stevenson is investigating why her mum joan mcdonald suddenly abandoned her dance career in may
28:311948. come and take a seat well-known male entity anne peacock has looked to the next phase of joan's life
28:39to find she has rocketed into high society goodness me let me just get my glasses
28:47all right so westminster register office on the 14th of july 1948 she married alfred edward daff correct
28:57goodness me he was 45 yes and she's 20 and it says her father was john wilton mcdonald yes now i i
29:07haven't uncovered anything about who he is that's another mystery it's another mystery so this is the
29:16bombay dance that led to romance elegant mrs al daff met her husband when she was a member of a ballroom
29:23adagio dancing team the couple met in bombay became engaged in scotland so he must have followed her
29:31and here is a picture of them having just been married oh for goodness sake this is former melbourne
29:37dancer joan mcdonald after her recent marriage to mr alfred e daff vice president of universal films of
29:44america movie mogul al daff was born in melbourne in 1902 joining universal pictures in 1920 as an office
29:54boy worked his way up to oversee all of universal's business outside the usa at the time he married
30:01joan twice divorced daff was the highest paid australian in the film world once she was to this vice
30:09president film executive yeah she was the um talk of the town here in melbourne mrs daff had a big day
30:16yesterday but between her lunch and tea engagements the sun caught up with her city hairdressing salon
30:23she buys her cocktail dresses and suits in paris and her other in york or california oh didn't she
30:28have the life she certainly said she and her husband returned to america mrs daff's mother who is now mrs
30:33watkins oh now that's interesting that's very interesting her mother will accompany them on a
30:41holiday didn't know this before absolutely not no never knew that her mother went on holiday read
30:51some of these pieces see some of these pieces since mrs alfred i visited melbourne 18 months ago she and
30:57her husband have made three trips to europe they have one apartment in fifth avenue and another at the
31:01prehills hotel of course she did fantastic photos amazing but things must have changed again because
31:09of course she would stay with our left so and that brings us to the certificates right they separated in
31:18jan 55 and it was an absolute divorce granted to the wife but no children phew just take another look
31:26here yeah cause for the divorce oh wow extreme cruelty okay so it doesn't sound like he was a very nice man
31:37this was the second time daff had been divorced on grounds of cruelty you know he's this very successful
31:44film executive traveling all over the world but actually to women he sounds like he's a bit of a nightmare
31:50and i would suggest in today's world that behavior would not be tolerated what a story like in the
31:55beginning it was a fairy tale but she was enough to get out when she did
32:02but what was to become of joan now the high life was over and she was having to make her own way again
32:09so on the marriage certificate she didn't put a profession on there it's blank but then you go on to
32:16when they got divorced six years later and her usual occupation is an actress in the theater i have a
32:23poster at home from when she acted in a play called the little hut i know she did some television back
32:32here in australia but i don't know what sort of work i thought she did some work in hollywood so i
32:38again don't know a lot re-emerging after her divorce joan had more than a new career
32:45she had a whole new identity hi i'm carl film and television critic carl quinn has been scrutinizing
32:52her acting career so carrie we're here in the princess theater do you know what this building
33:00represents in your your mother's story absolutely no idea absolutely nothing at all okay so in 1955
33:08she came here and appeared in a play called the little hut oh this is what this is where it was
33:15so i'll show you a little something this is october 1st 1955 joanne duff who arrived in melbourne from
33:24america this week will take the role of susan in the little hut so of course your mum's appearing in
33:30australia as joanne duff yes uh until not long before this she's been joan daff yes so probably
33:40what's happened is at the end of the the marriage she's decided to recast herself and part of that
33:45is i guess tweaking the name yeah she's just tweaked it hasn't she hasn't completely changed it
33:50reinventing herself along the way i guess yeah absolutely wow princess theater vivacious scintillating joanne
33:58duff has worked for some in theater in scotland prior to going to the united states she's appeared
34:03in numerous plays in america she's also proved extraordinary television audiences in hollywood
34:08miss duff worked at the famous universal studios so she's she's come back from america yep you know
34:15she's renowned as somebody who's been a bit of a deal in america you know she's she's billed here as
34:19quite an attraction joanne's resume and press releases lay out an impressive list of credits
34:25credits but do they all measure up it's hard to tell from the cv how how big a career it was i mean
34:33it's i mean there's this talk of having worked at universal studios yeah it's like was she was she
34:40a contracted actor or was she making tea you know there's a there's a certain sort of um a looseness
34:47let's say of detail just point like about the feature films oh yes and she says she had featured
34:52roles we've we've been through these and it's been possible fire in any of them and she's not listed
35:01credits yeah okay fair enough oh well but carl has tracked down vision joanne on the small screen
35:09there is actually a little bit of video really guest starring in the iconic australian television series
35:17homicide i've never seen this
35:26wait for me please
35:27what time did this happen mr duncan about ten that doesn't seem to be bruised well he managed
35:41to control himself you can see what he did to my eye gordon's seat present it might be best if i let
35:50you know when he returns good good well we'll leave it at that eh i wouldn't want some innocent
36:00person blamed for what might happen oh don't cross your bridges so what did you think of her
36:07issues of my mother
36:10i'll always support my mom and go fantastic you know it's the acting then was very different from
36:16what it is today joanne's return to melbourne would prove to be much more than a career move
36:23it would change her life forever so she comes back to australia and she's
36:28in her theatre and i think i understand dad was in the audience the chance meeting would lead to joanne's
36:36next role she married commander john stevenson in february 1958 unaware the past she thought she'd left
36:45behind was up to catch up with her
36:52matthew's search for his missing mum nanita may hinge on the uninvestigated disappearance of another
36:57woman also linked to nanita's old boss vincenzo leonardi
37:05former detective simon illingworth has been evaluating information that has recently surfaced
37:11about anna maria pontarola he came to australia and he came on a boat that arrived on the 28th of
37:19may in 1950 so here passenger 398 is vincent leonardi so this is where it gets interesting so four six
37:28fives have maria yeah pontarollas right right so they're on the same boat okay obviously they've got
37:37together on the boat and she's pregnant and she's pregnant to vince leonardi the researchers have
37:42found what is believed to be the only photograph of anna maria wow so she's residing with vince who's
37:50also waiting for his wife yeah yeah to come right she has two children two vince they're living under
37:57the same roof his wife comes over and she lives under the same roof too all right okay and then
38:02for whatever reason anna maria is gone completely missing the face of the earth there's no report
38:11of her missing there's nothing all right so he's now living in the house with his wife anna maria's
38:19two children two daughters vince convinced those children that flora his wife was their mother yeah
38:27so they lived that lie for many years you don't have to be a homicide investigator to go well
38:33there's something significant has happened there having said that anna maria's family i'm concerned
38:39they sent anna maria's sister she came down looking for anna maria yeah vince has said don't talk to
38:46children about anna maria oh okay right they think that um flora is the other yeah and you can only
38:52assume that vince that she's run off i mean what else would you say yeah so so matthew all that i've
38:59to hear this has never come to light right not in an inquest not in anything so this is great it's it's
39:07wonderful isn't it so whilst she's not part of your actual situation this is really crucial and critical
39:15because it's revolving around vince okay okay from what would be the next step next step is i think
39:22hopefully the police will speak to vince's wife flora once flora dies i think a lot of that story
39:29is going to go but i if flora knows something then she may well be able to help us yeah yeah i hope
39:37that the police will restart to find some crucial information here yes the police will hopefully look
39:44at this because it's not just about you is it yeah yeah my family in the philippines uh
39:51great events as well even the two even the two children yes that's right it's crazy stuff
39:58i would be um very disappointed and frustrated if uh the police doesn't consider again this case
40:06so i i hope that the work i've done will um be the beginning for new investigation if my birth mother was
40:15was here i think very happy that someone stand up and speak on her behalf
40:28the key to finding his mum may ultimately lie in matthew's own dna
40:32at the victorian institute of forensic medicine dr dadna hartman has his test results the search for
40:40nanita may end right here your dna profiles were added to the victorian missing persons dna database
40:48and searched against the profiles that we hold for deceased persons on the database
40:54from that search we weren't able to find any matches to your profiles okay
40:58okay so we presently don't have an anita on a database the report that there had been a body
41:06found yes at a beach um we need to go through those records manually to see if there's any that
41:11match those to date we haven't found one um but we will keep looking i think the next step is to see
41:18if i can talk to the police and to see what they can do to uh make a difference definitely yes
41:23unfortunately i didn't get answers about what's happened to my mother in saying that i believe
41:33that it is the right time now to reinvestigate the main suspect mr vincenzo leonardi
41:40matthew's last chance for a breakthrough rests with presenting his case to the police
41:45kerrie stevenson has learned that her mother returned to australia as the actress joanne duff
41:57to marry commander john stevenson in 1958 to get the family perspective on joanne
42:06kerrie is calling on her cousin sandy grant yeah yeah it's wondering a bit more about your uh
42:13mother's background when we were at her funeral and in all of the eulogies her life seemed to
42:18start at from when they married from when they married she seemed to be born at that marriage
42:23there was there was no school no parents i i did start wondering what was it that she was
42:30withholding lies were being told even on her wedding day stage navy with joanne duff of new york chose
42:38and valentine's day for her wedding at tour commander john philip stevenson ran an american
42:43citizen wow she is the daughter of the late mr and mrs john milton and new york which is a very
42:50confusing statement very confusing so your parents basically thought my mother was american actress
42:56with no family in australia they had no idea she had for me in australia no but the wedding would be
43:01rocked by a bigger schedule halfway through the reception there was a an unusual event by any
43:08standards a woman had arrived and was demanding to be led and she was claiming to be your mother's
43:14mother so she came and um told her to go away sent sent her away wow did mother have to defend
43:21and the fact that actually she's got an australian mother your mother always avoided talking about
43:29and her family out that mum actually said that she was an american actress didn't have family here and
43:37then to find out that her mother actually up at the reception wanting to come in must have been
43:43quite extraordinary i think she was embarrassed by her mum so as she married my father that was it was
43:49almost like she didn't want her past to come up and it was interesting what sandy said where you know
43:57if people tried to pry she would walk away but she was joan mcdonald so who is my grandfather john mcdonald
44:09that to me is the big bit of the puzzle that's missing who's john mcdonald
44:20kerry stevenson is searching for the truth about her mysterious grandfather john mcdonald hi i'm alicia
44:27oh hi alicia kerry nice to meet you at the state library of victoria historian alicia serrato has
44:35been examining the life of kerry's grandmother ivy and made a startling discovery oh okay may the 30th 1927
44:44john mcdonald married ivy lee so she was obviously pregnant because my brother was born in december
44:52so she was just pregnant there we are that's a big piece of the puzzle and i thought we could have
44:58wow a look at a photo of gladys ivy and so that's her that's her so they got married yes
45:06and then something happened something happened so this newspaper article from june 1927 young man
45:14sec oh extraordinary evidence was tended to collingwood court yesterday during the hearing
45:20a charge against john milton tout who was charged bigamy
45:25gladys ivy lee 24 years said she had known the accused for two years at christmas
45:30he asked her to marry him she consented on 30th through the fourth marriage the accused gave the
45:37name of john mcdonald so his name is john milton tout that's right so john mcdonald was an invented
45:45name invented name yes wow goodness me and then it goes a present to the bride yeah he's further
45:53charged with having stolen a diamond ring valued at 15 pounds the property of mrs keenan of chelsea
45:59on the 1st of may she left the ring in her room and it disappeared gladys lee said that when they
46:04started on their honeymoon the accused produced the ring and asked her to wear it the accused was
46:08also sent for trial on this charge oh my goodness what a mess yes so he married my grandmother but it
46:18was bigamy because he was still married to somebody else yes what a naughty boy yes so there's an article
46:23in this newspaper from the 2nd of august 1927 okay leniency for the wife's sick johnson tout received
46:33the benefit of the best offenders act mr justice macarthur said that he had a good wife who is
46:39prepared to receive him back and live with him it would be doing the wife a great wrong to send her
46:45husband to prison you can consider yourself very fortunate said mr justice macarthur you should be
46:51thoroughly ashamed of yourself you have behaved disgracefully wow yeah the judge gave him
46:58some leniency but it means that my grandmother he loved your grandmother yeah yes it's a bad luck
47:06you're on your own would you like to photo of your grandfather yes i would love to so this is my
47:12grandfather that looks like a mug shot it does but it is a world war ii shot and that would have been
47:19we would okay yeah we joined the air force it's amazing yeah you're a naughty man
47:30all through the process i've always wanted to know who's this john mcdonald so mum always said
47:36that her father died in a motorbike accident but you know if you tell yourself something often enough
47:43it becomes truth and so that was her truth she wanted to create a new life she didn't
47:50want to continue with the history of what had been the past which is why she never wanted to talk about
47:55it i think she just visualized her own future and made it happen how does it make me feel lighter
48:06it was going around in my head who was she who was she who was she now i know i've uncovered some
48:11amazing things and isn't it interesting how
48:16you know we're only for breath but in that breath of life so many things can happen
48:27matthew heimel has discovered his mother's disappearance
48:30in 1987 is closely related to two other cold cases his own inquiries have unearthed new information
48:39he's keen to pass on to the authorities
48:43at the missing persons unit matthew is meeting with detective inspector andrew stamper
48:49what about the case of my mother my birth mother many times um is it still open
48:54uh look the case is open yeah so we never close missing persons cases so um sadly we're still no
49:02close to you know finding the answers that you need as to as what happened to your mum uh that's not to
49:07say that we don't keep looking what is your your your your opinion about vince or nadia because i've got
49:13we've got three who seems to be connected to him yeah he has been looked at as a as a as a suspect
49:21uh a number of times over the years and there's a lot of information there that would suggest that
49:25he was a strong person of interest but in terms of whether or not he was you know perpetrated
49:31a crime against your mother i don't know we have found some um information about anamaria
49:38we know an awful lot about anamaria so anything that would assist with that that would that would be
49:43good what further evidence would be required to crack this case we need to put forward and assist us
49:50and if they are holding some secrets that's what we need what we'll undertake today to you is to
50:03i was very pleased to to have a meet with victorian police this is exactly what i was looking for
50:09i was trying to get a team of professional on my side to start to look and to reinvestigate the case
50:21when i went to melbourne i was focusing on the disappearance of my birth mother
50:27what i understand now is my changed uh it is uh it is not anymore about only
50:37it is also to fight for those women who um who were left behind without nobody knew
50:45what happened that my mother would be very proud that i'm fighting for people who don't have a voice
50:57when it comes to my to my two boys if they ask me who is my grandmother i will be able to tell them
51:04who she was and if they ask me and so what have you done for her i will be proud and i will be able
51:12to tell them to tell them to tell them everything i can to find her
51:24what's going on
51:35but
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