Rahma El-Dennaoui, who was 18 months old at the time, went missing from her parents’ home in Lurnea, Sydney, on November 10, 2005. Despite many extensive searches, no trace of her has ever been found.
“On November 9, 2005, Rahma was sleeping between two of her sisters on a double bed under the window. She couldn’t sleep in the heat, so her dad got up at 2 a.m. and went to check on her. She was gone when he got back at 8 a.m.”
Rahma could fit through a hole in the flyscreen, and Rahma’s older sister said she saw a “man without hands” take her sister.
Rahma’s father was known to be a drug dealer, and a neighbour heard a fight between Rahma’s parents after their daughter swallowed an ecstasy tablet. This was said at an inquest.
When a picture of her came out, it was of her when she was 8 months old, which I find very strange. “Police warn that there aren’t many photos of her, and this one was taken 10 months ago.”
Theories say that Rahma accidentally took an Ecstasy tablet and died, and that her parents tried to hide the fact that she had died. After she went missing, they were caught on tape talking in code about her going missing and the investigation.
At the inquest, it was also said that some people had heard someone say that Rahma’s father killed her by accident and buried her at a relative’s farm.
Other ideas are that she was taken by a known sex offender in the area or that she was taken to Lebanon and may still be alive there.
The Coroner’s thoughts: The coroner said that Rahma El-Dennaoui did not just vanish into thin air.
She didn’t agree with the family’s idea that a stranger had taken their daughter and raised her as their own, but she also didn’t rule out the possibility that someone had taken the child and raised her as their own.
The coroner also said that there was “no conclusive evidence” that the 19-month-family old’s had faked her kidnapping. She did say, though, that there were some “troubling” parts to their story, and phone intercepts showed what she called “puzzling” behaviour from a family that was supposed to be in mourning.
In particular, the joking and laughing by Rahma’s parents with third parties about the kidnapping and the splitting of the reward money, the specific references to avoiding talking about the inquest on the telephone and actually talking in code,’ Deputy Coroner Freund said.