Coodanup resident Shae Deverell never met her auntie Annette. But it doesn't make the 24-year-old any less heartbroken by Annette's suspicious death and the cruel shadow the mystery has cast over her family for almost 40 years.
Nor does it lessen the anger Ms Deverell feels towards authorities who have never held an inquest into Annette's death and never offered a reward for information that might lead to the truth.
"We need justice, we want answers and we want to know," Ms Deverell said.
Speaking after the release of the first episode of the four-part Mandurah Mail podcast Annette: Cold Case Unlocked, the Coodanup resident said she hoped that renewed interest in the unsolved crime would encourage people with potential clues to come forward.
LISTEN TO EPISODE 2: right here
LISTEN TO EPISODE 1: right here
The first episode, The Skeleton in the Forest, was released on September 11 and was played almost 10,000 times in its first week.
Not just Australians were hooked. The podcast reached the US, UK, New Zealand and Indonesia - hitting No. 1 in Apple Podcast's Australian "top charts" rankings for news content and No. 2 across all categories.
Direct feedback from listeners has included several messages from people who say the podcast has prompted them to provide new information to Crime Stoppers and local police in Mandurah, south of Perth, where Annette spent her teenage years and where she was last seen alive on Saturday September 13, 1980.
Ms Deverell, whose father Michael is one of Annette's three brothers, says it saddens her to think that she never got to know her aunt.
"I really wish I got to meet her," she said.
"I wish she was still around so she could see us all grow up. We have a really big family."
Annette was 19 when she died.
Today she'd be 58 and would have nine nephews and nieces and many more cousins.
Ms Deverell, who has a child of her own, says the loss of Annette had always tormented her father and her grandmother, Margaret Carver, over the years.
You never know, our family could still be talking to them, standing around them and we don't know.
- Shae Deverell on her auntie Annette's death
She was angry there had never been a reward offered by the Western Australian government for information about Annette's death.
"I think we'll get answers if there is," she said.
"I also think the police could do a much better job than they did last time."
Ms Deverell, like her grandmother and a number of her former high school friends featured in the podcast, suspects that someone who knew Annette back then - and who is maybe even still living in the town - knows something about how her aunt died, or was directly involved.
"You never know, our family could still be talking to them, standing around them and we don't know," she said.
"I hope they're alive to face the consequences - it makes me sick."
Do you have information that could help police solve this case? Contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Contact Carla Hildebrandt at annettepodcast@gmail.com. You can remain anonymous.
- Written and presented by journalist Carla Hildebrandt, the first two episodes of Annette: Cold Case Unlocked are available now on your favourite podcast app.
Photo credits: Margaret Carver, Mandurah Historical Society, Carla Hildebrandt.