When Australian Elly Warren was murdered in an African seaside town, the 20-year-old’s family could never have imagined they would still be searching for her killer seven years later.
While coping with the trauma of his death, they had to fund their own investigation, hiring private investigators and providing information to Australian police and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“This whole process has been a disaster for us,” Warren’s father-in-law, David Cafarella, told the coroner on Wednesday.
He said the Australian Federal Police and DFAT had been “seemingly unable to work cohesively”, with no financial or legal assistance offered or help in repatriating their daughter’s body from Mozambique.
Cafarella has called on Victorian coroner John Cain to order the AFP to open a homicide investigation into Warren’s death and for the agency to change its procedures for the families of deceased Australians abroad.
Elly Warren (above) was found dead outside a toilet block in Tofo, Mozambique, in 2016 – her killer was never caught
The family of Elly Warren (pictured right) had to fund their own investigation into the 20-year-old’s death.
“An independent unit that could come together if necessary at short notice to ensure that all angles were covered in a timely manner, rather than seven years of back and forth between agencies, all worried about who is going to get away with it. takes at which patch,” he said. .
“I can’t help but think that if this had been done early, Elly’s killer would be behind bars.”
Cain investigates the cause of Warren’s death in November 2016 and the circumstances surrounding it.
Jade O’Shea, who testified remotely from New Zealand, met Warren while working at a popular dive center in Tofo, Casa Barry, and the two became friends.
She said a group of friends, including Warren, went to Victor’s Bar and then another friend’s house to mix up cocktails.
After an hour or two, the cocktails ran out and Warren left to go back to Victor’s Bar because she was bored.
“She was definitely not drunk, she was completely coherent and sober,” O’Shea told the court.
Warren (above) was an aspiring marine biologist volunteering in Mozambique when she was killed
Jade O’Shea said she met Warren (above) while working at a popular dive center in Tofo and last saw her at a popular bar
When she and the others arrived at Victor’s Bar, Warren wasn’t there and it was busy, so the group sat outside the bar and drank beer.
Warren then rounded the corner and waved at the group, as if she was going to grab a beer at the bar and join them.
That was the last time O’Shea saw her friend, around 11 p.m. on November 8.
Warren, an aspiring marine biologist who was volunteering around the country, was found dead outside a toilet block in the seaside town of Tofo.
AFP International Engagement Commander Andrew Smith appeared before the three-day inquest on Wednesday, where he was asked about the force’s decision not to formally investigate his death.
When an Australian died overseas in suspicious circumstances, AFP’s initial position was that “where the crime was committed is where it should be investigated”, did he declare.
“We can’t just go to another country and start doing our own investigation,” he told the court.
Smith said AFP sent emails and letters to Mozambican authorities offering to help with the investigation, but they did not respond.
Warren’s family (above) slammed the Australian Federal Police for ‘seven years of back and forth between agencies, all worried about who gives a damn about whose patch’.
“Without the cooperation and full support of law enforcement in the country, the role we can play is very limited,” he said.
He first visited Mozambique in May, months after Cain asked AFP to “move heaven and earth” to find answers for Warren’s family.
“That’s when it was decided to have a high profile presence,” he said.
Previously, an AFP detective had been sent to Mozambique, he said.
Smith met with local police and high-level officials, including Mozambique’s deputy director of prosecutions, where he said he was told for the first time that police were investigating Warren’s death, believed to be a homicide.
Asked about an initial autopsy concluding his death was a homicide, he said the report was ‘a bit of a document from a doctor’ and would not have influenced AFP’s decision to pursue an investigation as much as the police decided it was a homicide.
Blake Gray, who was volunteering as an honorary consul in Mozambique for DFAT, was sent to Tofo about three days after Warren’s discovery.
He spent a day and a half gathering information and interviewing local people before returning home.
Father-in-law David Cafarella described the investigation into Warren’s murder (above) as a ‘mess’.
Gray said local police refused to speak to him and government officials were adamant his death was “an accident.”
“I couldn’t understand how I couldn’t talk to the police who were literally 50 yards away,” he told the court.
The investigation continues.
