The WA state coroner has stepped into the controversy surrounding a reported serial killer.
The move followed reports in The Weekend West that a nationwide search had been launched for the victim of a Perth man who committed suicide last year after reportedly leaving a note confessing to three murders.
It's understood police are certain that Richard Edward Dorrough killed Broome woman Sara-Lee Davey in 1997 and Sydney prostitute Rachael Campbell in 1998.
Detectives are searching through missing persons and unsolved murder files to try to identify the third victim.
In a statement issued on Saturday morning, the WA Police Media Unit said: "As an inquest into Sara-Lee Davey's disappearance has been scheduled for April 2016 the State Coroner has directed WA Police not to reveal, or confirm, the contents of the note attributed to Richard Dorrough in this morning's Weekend West."
Sara-Lee Davey disappeared in 1997. The bubbly 21-year-old came from the Bardi Aboriginal Community at One Arm Point on the Dampier Peninsula, three hours drive north of Broome.
She was last seen on January 14 when she called at a house on Saville Street in Broome to collect a handbag and told relatives she would return later. The car that she was driving was never found.
The Weekend West reported that Dorrough, who was 19-years-old at the time and on shore leave from HMAS Geelong, met Ms Davey at a nightclub. Reportedly a taxi driver told police he drove the pair to Broome Port after which Ms Davey was never seen again.
Detectives interviewed Dorrough some weeks later but did not lay charges, saying there was a lack of evidence against the sailor.
After Ms Davey's disappearance there were many theories about what could have happened to her..
At one point Bradley Murdoch, the man convicted of murdering Peter Falconio, was being investigated because he went to live in the Kimberley region in August 1996, five months before Ms Davey disappeared.
Murdoch was convicted of shooting dead Peter Falconio - a British backpacker whose body has never been found. However police never brought charges against him regarding Ms Davey.
Another theory was that the 21-year-old had simply run away, but her close-knit family have never believed that.
Her mother, Irene Davey, talked about her daughter's disappearance to Fairfax reporter Lindsay Murdoch in the wake of the Bradley Murdoch case.
Mrs Davey, who runs cultural tours at One Arm Point, has always been adamant that her daughter did not run away.
"No way did she do that," Mrs Davey said. "Her bank account has never been touched and she was too close to her family."