Cold case detective questions ‘murdered’ remark in disappearance of Revelle Balmain
According to a report by Australian Associated Press (AAP), a disputed phone call made after the disappearance of model and sex worker Revelle Balmain continues to trouble investigators more than three decades on, a Sydney court has heard.
Balmain, 22, vanished on November 5, 1994, after attending a booking with client Gavin Samers, who later dropped her at a hotel in suburban Kingsford around 7pm. She had been planning to travel to Japan and was preparing to leave Australia imminently, AAP has reported.
During a resumed inquest into the cold case, Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Bell said a witness recalled Balmain’s boss, Jane King, contacting a pizza restaurant manager on the afternoon of her disappearance to verify that she and her husband, Zoran Stanojevic, had dined there.
According to the witness, King asked the manager to confirm her presence because her employee “had been murdered”.
“The words used were quite intriguing,” Bell told the court, as quoted by AAP.
King has disputed that account, maintaining she said Balmain was “missing”, not murdered. However, Bell questioned why King felt the need to substantiate her whereabouts so soon after Balmain vanished.
“I find that odd,” he told the inquest.
Bell also said he found King’s claim that she had reported Balmain missing to police “very strange”, noting there were no police records to support it, AAP has quoted.
According to a report by AAP, the court heard that Balmain owed the company approximately AU$400 at the time of her disappearance, and King was aware that she was planning to leave the country. Bell said there were also unresolved questions about calls King made that night, as well as Stanojevic’s whereabouts between 6.30 pm and 10.30 pm.
The detective told the court he wanted greater clarity around Stanojevic’s knowledge of Balmain’s appointment on the day she disappeared and his associations with two Serbian clients.
It was stressed during the investigation that the men were important clients and it was necessary to understand why, Bell said.
The two clients returned to Europe after Balmain’s disappearance, and a request for assistance from the Serbian government has been pending since 2021, the inquest heard.
The unresolved issues were aired on the first day of the resumed inquest, which began in 2024. King and Stanojevic are due to give evidence before the coroner later this week, according to AAP.
A previous inquest in 1999 concluded Balmain died at the hands of a person or persons unknown, and the case was referred to unsolved homicide detectives. Further investigations between 2007 and 2009, followed by a formal review in 2020, failed to uncover compelling new evidence, as reported by AAP.
In 2021, authorities announced a AU$1 million (NZ$1.15 million) reward for information, a year after Bell took charge of the investigation, AAP has reported.
The inquest is scheduled to run until Thursday.
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