Shortcut: The Unsolved Death of Elly Warren in Mozambique

**Meshel Laurie** (0:04)
10 years ago, 20-year-old Elly Warren was found dead in a coastal village in Mozambique under circumstances that remain deeply contested. In the years since, her father, Paul Warren, has spent his life savings and traveled across continents in a relentless search for the truth, uncovering alleged failures by authorities along the way. He's written a book about it called Hunting Elly's Killer, and he joins us to share the story of his ongoing fight for justice. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. A warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
Who was Elly Warren? Tell us about your girl, your adventurous girl.

**Paul Warren** (0:58)
She certainly was. She was unbelievable. As a baby, she was hard to deal with even then at the start, but things happened at school. She stuck up for herself.
She was really confident about anything and everything.

**Meshel Laurie** (1:14)
She seemed to make friends easily too. I've seen people talk about her from Mozambique, people that she was volunteering with, really popular girl.

**Paul Warren** (1:21)
Oh yeah, she was out there. She loved it and she wouldn't stop talking. Like Jade O'Shea, one of the ladies that worked at Casey Barry as a bartender, said that she would get back from the dives and nobody else get a word in, because Elly was talking about her dives, you know. Tufo, yeah.

**Meshel Laurie** (1:40)
Tufo is the name of the town.

**Paul Warren** (1:41)
It's a small fishing village.

**Meshel Laurie** (1:43)
Yeah.

**Paul Warren** (1:44)
It's near Inzenbaum, which is a bigger town and it's got an airport. It's a 20-minute drive from Inzenbaum. That's where the Zenit main police, criminal police were based at.

**Meshel Laurie** (1:55)
So what's your understanding of that last night?

**Paul Warren** (1:58)
I think the best understanding comes from Jade O'Shea, her friend, and it's in transcript in the inquest. They dropped her off at the backpackers in Jake's car. Elly couldn't get out quick enough because she wanted to go with her friends. Johan, the manager there said he didn't even see her go. She didn't check in, but she left her luggage in the dorm where she was sleeping that night. And she was off, and she went to Victor's bar where she was dancing and having a good time with her friends. Now the thing is, you've got to remember, is Elly was diving the next day. She was very responsible with her diving. So she wouldn't have been drinking much. And there's a photo of her, which was at the inquest at the coroner got, at Casey Barry before they went to the lodge with a big large two litre bottle of water.
And then she went to get her phone, and then she came back along the beach and Jade and that were a bit concerned about Elly. So they went back to Victor's Bar, and it was about 11 o'clock that night.
And Elly said, Hi, I've been looking for you. And Jade said, Oh, where have you been? We've been looking for you. And next minute, Jade said, I think, I think Elly went to the bar to get a drink. And that was the last time they saw her. Now that's not like Elly because Elly is big with friends.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:13)
And also she said, I've been looking for you.

**Paul Warren** (3:15)
Yeah.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:15)
And I've found you.

**Paul Warren** (3:17)
So she's gone to the bar and then...

**Meshel Laurie** (3:21)
Not come back.

**Paul Warren** (3:22)
Nobody saw her after that. Victor had closed the bar and gone to the girls and the girls wanted to go to the toilet. So they went over the position where Elly's body was found the next morning.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:33)
And she wasn't there then?

**Paul Warren** (3:34)
She wasn't there then, no.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:36)
So what time was that? About midnight?

**Paul Warren** (3:38)
Probably about midnight, yeah.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:40)
So then the next thing we know is that about 5 a.m., a fisherman.

**Paul Warren** (3:44)
Well, what happened with the fishermen was to get the salt water out of their motors. They bring their motors up and they put them in a bin with fresh water to flush the motors. And you can see in some of the photos, there's a bin near the toilet block where they do that. He said that he saw a dark shadow of something in the distance and he walked up and he saw it was the body of a lady.