HE was too far away to call out and she wouldn't have heard him. But as Steven Norris hastily walked across a surf club carpark, he caught his last glimpse of his girlfriend Trudie Adams.
Yesterday he told an inquest into her presumed death 33 years ago he recalled the moment "clear as a bell".
It was the late 1970s and he didn't like her hitching, even though everyone did it, and often insisted on going with her if she was adamant.
That night, on June 24, 1978, Ms Adams was on the other side of Barrenjoey Rd when a "fairly new" fawn or beige-coloured Holden panel van pulled up to pick her up..
"I saw the vehicle stop beside her and so I couldn't see her any more," Mr Norris told Glebe Coroner's Court.
Then, "10 seconds later", the van was gone - and so was the attractive 18-year-old woman he loved.
Mr Norris said he walked across the road, determined to hitch a ride and, in a way, to "follow" her and check that she arrived home safely.
He admitted yesterday the couple were in the process of breaking up - so perhaps they would talk when he caught up with her at her home.
Ms Adams, he said, was comfortable with her decision to end the relationship. He, however, was not.
He got a ride within a couple of minutes but the fawn panel van had long disappeared from view. Mr Norris was dropped off in Avalon and made his way to her house, to find her mother Constance still waiting up for her daughter.
But Ms Adams had not arrived home. He went for a ride on a borrowed bicycle around the beaches but in the end presumed she had stayed with friends so was not "overly concerned".
It wasn't until the next afternoon he knew something was wrong, when Ms Adams had still not returned home.
He joined police, family and her extended group of friends in a search.
But he said that within two or three days he had a deep feeling that Ms Adams had "met with foul play" on that Saturday night after a dance at the Newport Surf Life Saving Club.
Mr Norris kept his emotion in check yesterday but admitted the disappearance and suspected murder of Ms Adams had affected him deeply.
While rumours about his possible involvement in Ms Adams' suspected murder had plagued Mr Norris for many years, he said he had always simply "turned a blind eye to it".
Mr Norris also told the hearing he knew he had nothing to hide about Ms Adams' disappearance.
And he was adamant about the car make and model because he was "pretty good at cars, I know them".
http://www.news.com.au/national/boyfriends-one-final-glimpse-of-trudie/story-e6frfkp9-1225995761040
the inquest turned its attention to Neville Tween the questions were a lot more pointed. Tween, aka John Anderson, aged 70, had been a suspect in the abduction and rapes of 14 young women on the northern beaches in the 1970s. He was called from jail, where he is serving a sentence for cocaine importation, and laughed off suggestions he had been involved. He did have a Holden panel van, of the type of vehicle that Ms Adam's then boyfriend, Steve Norris, said he saw her get into in Barrenjoey Road, that night, but so what? He had not been convicted
http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac;jsessionid=758F1447E220170BF932DAB8599E774E?sy=afr&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=brs&cls=582&clsPage=1&docID=SMH110402Q67VA7M5TEE
http://weforsrilanka.com/discussion-forum/19-foreign-policy/45928-fnkm-sneakers-spikes-bavz Interesting report.
the inquest turned its attention to Neville Tween the questions were a lot more pointed. Tween, aka John Anderson, aged 70, had been a suspect in the abduction and rapes of 14 young women on the northern beaches in the 1970s. He was called from jail, where he is serving a sentence for cocaine importation, and laughed off suggestions he had been involved. He did have a Holden panel van, of the type of vehicle that Ms Adam's then boyfriend, Steve Norris, said he saw her get into in Barrenjoey Road, that night, but so what? He had not been convicted
http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac;jsessionid=758F1447E220170BF932DAB8599E774E?sy=afr&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=brs&cls=582&clsPage=1&docID=SMH110402Q67VA7M5TEE
http://weforsrilanka.com/discussion-forum/19-foreign-policy/45928-fnkm-sneakers-spikes-bavz Interesting report.
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