Mystery solved as inmate’s DNA links bone fragment to 1979 boating tragedy

An inmate who entered the prison system last year has unwittingly solved a decade-long mystery and helped bring closure to his family, after his DNA was linked to a bone fragment discovered on a beach near Tweed Heads on September 24, 2011 – exactly 32 years since his uncle Bill Moran was tragically lost at sea.

Police hope the story will inspire family members of the state’s hundreds of missing persons to come forward to provide samples of their own DNA, which may help investigators identify more than 300 human remains.

Bill Moran was lost at sea in a 1979 storm that also claimed his wife Philippa’s life.

It was an “absolutely beautiful” spring morning on September 24, 1979, when 24-year-old Bill Moran and his 21-year-old wife Philippa took their newly-purchased motor cruiser boat out with relatives Ray and Maria Moran, heading from Port Stephens towards Byron Bay.

But Ray recalls by the afternoon, the clouds began rolling in.

“It just got worse and worse as the hours went by and we ran into the biggest southerly you’ve ever come across,” he said. The boat was “more of a harbour cruiser” and not up to the conditions.

“When we got hit by the first wave and lost an engine … it was all over. Just a matter of time then.”

Maria and Ray Moran recall the tragic 1979 boat ride.

Ray and Maria ended up clinging to debris in the water for six hours as they waited for help after their dinghy capsized. Bill and Philippa managed to get back into it.

“We were thinking ‘oh great, they’ll be able to go and get help’,” Maria said.

But it would be the last time they saw the couple.

The dinghy carrying Bill and Philippa Moran when they were last seen alive.

Philippa’s body washed up on Kingscliff Beach two days later. Bill was never found – that is, until surf lifesavers found a jaw bone fragment on the same beach, 32 years to the day after the ocean claimed his life.

By the time the bone was identified, it was more than 40 years since his death.

Maria said it was “a bit comforting” to get the call from investigators and to learn “that he was found on the same beach, so they were obviously together ’til nearly right at the end.”

She said Philippa’s gravestone “was always ‘Billy was lost at sea’. Now they can be together, so it’s kind of good. It’s a lovely feeling.”

Relatives say the remains of Philippa and Bill can now be reunited.

The rare result comes as NSW Police prepare to this week roll out a pilot program for collecting DNA samples from family members of hundreds of missing persons, in a bid to match some of the 330 unidentified remains on the Missing Persons Unit’s books.

Of those remains, nearly 200 are within the northern NSW policing region, which spans from Newcastle to the Queensland border.

DNA collection centres will be set up in Coffs Harbour on Monday and Tuesday and Port Macquarie on Thursday and Friday, for family members to attend and provide a cheek swab.

Missing Persons Registry coordinator, Detective Inspector Glen Browne, said police were starting with the northern region due to its high number of missing persons, but will roll out more testing centres into other regional centres.

“We are very hopeful that we will get further results,” he said.

Carole Field, the DNA database and case management unit manager from NSW Health Pathology who works with NSW Police to identify remains, says there was some luck involved that Bill’s nephew, the inmate, “obviously shared enough DNA with his uncle that he came on our list.”

She said sometimes even siblings won’t share enough DNA to make a firm match, and ideally investigators would have both parents, or multiple family members, to check against the profile.

DNA collected from families of missing persons is kept separate from DNA collected from crime scenes and offenders. “We’re only using those samples to search against unidentified remains,” Ms Field said.

She said the more samples they have, the more links are possible. “It may just change your family’s history.”

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