
Police renew push to find Celena, Sabrina and Jessica
A NOD and then a smile. Was this the last time anyone saw Celena Bridge alive?
A Sunshine Coast birdwatcher believes he may have been the last person to see the British backpacker before she disappeared, noticing a woman as she organised camping gear and cooking on the banks of Booloumba Creek on July 17, 1998.
Police have long claimed the 28-year-old never made it to the camping ground on the edge of the Conondale National Park, but the fresh allegations indicate she may well have made it to her site, before she was snatched by her killer.
Celena was part of a trio of women who vanished without a trace on the Sunshine Coast between July 1998 and August 1999.
Despite one of the biggest search efforts in Queensland history, the bodies of backpacker Celena Bridge, teacher aide Sabrina Ann Glassop and teenager Jessica Gaudie, were never found.
Police have now started a new taskforce dubbed Operation Echo Troop, in a renewed bid to find the women's bodies and bring closure for their families.
The special emergency response teams began scouring treacherous terrain last month, looking for clues - shoes, clothing, camping equipment and possibly, human remains.

Half-a-million dollars in reward money has also been placed on the table.
The operation has prompted Greg Roberts to come forward to The Daily. The Sunshine Coast man, who lived in Brisbane in the late 1990s, was camping at Booloumba Creek with two mates when he believed he saw Celena Bridge. It was not until mid-August 1998, when Celena was reported missing, that Mr Roberts clicked he could hold important information.
Mr Roberts said he and his two friends gave a friendly nod to a fellow female camper, who appeared to be the same age as Celena, late in the afternoon on July 17.
It was the same time Celena was expected to arrive at the camping grounds in the Kenilworth State Forest for a birdwatchers' campout.
Celena never showed up for the birdwatching meeting, where enthusiasts were camped just down the creek from where Mr Roberts believed he saw Celena.
"We saw a woman about Celena's age camped by herself late on the Friday afternoon preceding the weekend, a short distance upstream from our tents," Mr Roberts said.
"We noticed that her oval tent had a dove, some sort of peace symbol, on it. Some cooking utensils appear to have been recently arranged near the tent door.
"I remember she had on a hooded jacket and I have memories of her glancing up as we walked past and we nodded and that was it.
"From our tent during the night, we heard the sound of a vehicle, possibly a small truck, twice, as it drove along the camping area access road," he said.
"The next morning, we saw that the woman's tent had been relocated to a more secluded spot in the forest about 100m away.
"The tent was zipped up; there was no sign of the woman or her utensils outside and we didn't see her for the rest of the weekend."

But police investigations indicate the last place Celena was seen was near Kenilworth's Piabun centre for troubled indigenous youth, after hiking from the Crystal Waters Permaculture Farm at Conondale.
Mr Roberts was interviewed 10 days after Celena was reported missing, but believes police were quick to dismiss the information.
In a statement, police said they were committed to solving the case and would not comment specifically on Mr Roberts' claims.
"I would be happy to be interviewed again," Mr Roberts said.
"I believe this could potentially be a key piece of evidence and could be useful from a police point of view that there is possibility that the road was not the last place she was seen, but in fact, she did make it to the creek and did set up camp.
"I just think the family deserves to know at least where she was last seen."
Police have started revisiting the dense bush on Booloumba Creek Rd from Maleny Kenilworth Rd and into Conondale National Park.
A search of the area started eight years ago, but was suspended when resources were directed to other cases, including the Daniel Morcombe investigation.
Just months later, the second woman to go missing from the area was Sabrina Ann Glassop. The teacher aide, who lived on Booloumba Creek Rd, went for a drive with her poodle and was never seen again. Her car was found a short distance away at Little Yabba Creek, but she has not been seen since.

A few months later, Nambour teenager Jessica Gaudie also went missing while babysitting.
On May 16 this year, Detective Senior Constable Mark Wright told ABC's the 7.30 Report that Jessica's disappearance was "as difficult as it gets" with no crime scene and no body. Despite the ob
stacles, police charged former Piabun worker Derek Sam with Jessica's murder in 2001.
She had been babysitting Sam's children in Nambour the night she went missing. After almost 15 years behind bars, Sam can apply for parole next year. Police hope this is refused unless he reveals the location of Jessica's body. Police have long suspected Sam was involved in the disappearance of Celena and Sabrina, but have never had enough evidence to convict him of the crimes.
The Daily has followed the case of the three missing women since 1998.
In 1999, The Daily wrote of how locals feared a serial killer was living among them and how police described the missing person's cases as "something from the X-Files" with no clues or leads.
Anyone with information which could help with the renewed investigation should phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
How it all unfolded
Three women went missing from the Sunshine Coast hinterland in a 16-month period:
CELENA BRIDGE 1998
July 13: the 28-year-old British backpacker travels to Crystal Waters Permaculture Farm, west of Maleny
July 15: Celena is seen walking from the farm with her pack and told locals she was heading to Kenilworth State Forest to camp and bird watch
July 18-19: Celena fails to appear at the bird watchers camping event
August 9: Celena fails to meet her boyfriend at Brisbane Airport
August 15: SES search begins in bushland and waterholes, but no trace of Celena
SABRINA ANN GLASSOP 1999
May 29: Kenilworth State School teacher-aid goes missing after driving 400m from her house to Little Yabba Creek rest area where she often walked her dogs
May 29: Ann's car was found, along with two sets of footprints, but no trace of Sabrina was ever found
JESSICA GAUDIE 1999
August 28: Jessica Gaudie leaves her Nambour home to babysit three young children and was never seen again.
Derek Bellington-Sam sentenced 15 years in jail for the murder of Jessica Gaudie
2002: Coronial inquest into the disappearances of Ms Bridge and Ms Glassop, coroner Paul Johnstone found there was not enough evidence to commit Sam or any other person to stand trial for their murders. He did find, however, that both women had met with foul play, with their bodies concealed at an unknown location by the person or people responsible for their deaths.
2001: Derek Bellington Sam, who was a supervisor on a property for troubled Aboriginal youth at Kenilworth, was convicted in 2001 of murdering Jessica.
May 2014: Police launch a renewed investigation into the missing person's cases
2015: Sam due for release. He still denies having any part of any of the murders and still denies knowing where any of the bodies are located