Police call for help to solve a 38 year old Melbourne cold case

Police are calling for help from the public to find a man who violently sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl almost 40 years ago.

The victim accepted a lift home from Flinders Street Station with a man she had just met on March 24, 1982.

But when she got in the car it became clear the man wasn’t driving her home.

He drove her to a dirt track where he blindfolded and gagged her, before violently sexually assaulted her and driving off.

The woman hailed down a car, and a man and woman drove her back to the city for help.

Detective Acting Sergeant with the Sexual Crimes Squad, Jess Mastroianni, says investigators at the time didn’t have the technology to identify her attacker from DNA material collected after the attack.

Now they do.

So police are calling for anyone with information to come forward.

“The couple that picked her up, this is something that I don’t think you would forget,” Detective Sergeant Mastroianni told 3AW’s Dee Dee.

“The victim doesn’t recall at all where it was … she was unfamiliar with the area. She doesn’t remember what kind of car they were in, but what she does remember is that they were a male and a female and they obviously knew something terrible had happened to her.

“She was terrified to tell them anything about what happened. She was still in a state of shock.”

The victim doesn’t remember what she was wearing at the time of the attack, but she is about 5′5″ and had short light brown hair at the time of the attack.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or at crimestoppers.com.au

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