Schoolgirl Heather Turner spent Friday, 16 January 1998 with her friend Kali Edmonds at Semaphore Beach.
The teenager planned to walk home to Largs Bay, meet a friend, and then return to Kali’s house.
She somehow ended up at a home in Ashton Rd, Davoren Park, with a group of between four and eight people aged in their 20s.
Police believe Heather left the home (which has since been demolished) with the intention of travelling home. She never arrived.
A fortnight later, on 31 January 1998, Heather’s body was discovered partly submerged in a creek at Port Gawler.
Investigators believe that the group of people Heather saw that evening hold the key to solving her murder.
The teenager was murdered at an unknown location, and her body moved to Port Gawler area several days before it was discovered.
While she was fully dressed in what she was last seen wearing on Friday 16th January 1998, her distinctive shoulder bag – a Tweety Bird bag – has never been recovered.
“She was cheerful, vivacious, and a huge fun-lover. She simply desired to have fun “Ms Edmonds claimed.
Ms. Edmonds was the final reliable witness to see Heather alive.
“She insisted she would be okay. It was a lovely, warm day. It was, in fact, in the low thirties. She was merely walking back home; she was going to meet this friend and then return to my residence “Ms Edmonds said.
She never made it.
“After a certain period of time, I called her house to find out where she was, and her mother informed me that she had never returned home,” Ms. Edmonds explained.
After recognising Heather’s jewellery, Kali alerted Crime Stoppers when an unidentified body was discovered in Port Gawler mangroves.
Ms. Edmonds has been perplexed and troubled by what transpired with the 16-year-old in the days preceding this finding.
“Consider the sequence of events that led up to that point. What must it feel like being confronted by someone who is plainly physically dangerous and you wonder, “Have I really encountered the one who would kill me?” Ms Edmonds said.
Major crime detectives now suspect that after leaving Semaphore Beach, Heather ended up at a demolished residence on Ashton Road in Davoren Park.
She is believed to have been with a group of four to eight individuals in their twenties.
“We felt Heather left the residence with the goal of returning home. She failed to arrive,” Detective Brevet Sergeant Shaun Osborn from SA Police said.
Police believe that others who were present at the residence that night have information that could lead to an arrest, and they are pushing them to speak forward.
“They definitely would have the keys to help us solve her murder,” stated Detective Bvt. Sgt.
It is anticipated that a $1 million incentive may convince someone to reveal the truth and stop the suffering of a family.
Ms. Edmonds stated, “A family has been broken and a mother has had to lie awake for 20 years wondering what happened to their beautiful daughter.”