Killing Juanita

Summary

Winner Ned Kelly Award / Best True Crime 2004

Killing Juanita is the award-winning, definitive account of Australia's most notorious cold case, now fully updated with new information.

On 4 July 1975, Juanita Nielsen set out on foot through the wintry streets of Sydney's red-light district. The chic heiress and newspaper publisher had a business meeting with a man called Eddie Trigg, a manager at the seedy Carousel Cabaret nightclub in Kings Cross. The following day, Juanita was reported missing. She has not been seen since and her body has never been found.

Despite a series of police investigations, a coronial inquest and a federal parliamentary inquiry, the mystery of Juanita Nielsen’s disappearance remains unsolved. The pressing question now is why?

Killing Juanita is an unflinching examination of this cold case and its chief protagonists, not least Juanita. An ardent campaigner fighting the proposed demolition of historic houses in the Cross, she was a thorn in the side of a powerful property developer with links to notorious crime bosses. This is a compelling story of greed, corruption, dirty politics and cover-ups. It finally puts to rest decades of speculation, providing the definitive answer that authorities never could – or would.

'Has the craft of a modern-day thriller.' Sydney Morning Herald