The family of Ms Bernard, an Aboriginal woman who went missing in 2013, have voiced their frustration after a man has finally been charged with her murder more than a decade later.
“This has been a long sad journey for us as a family. After nearly 11 years the police have finally charged the man who last saw our granddaughter, daughter, mother, sister, niece, aunty and cousin alive,” said the family in a statement.
Painting a picture of their loved one, the family said she was “a cheeky little girl who grew into a quiet, proud and loving mother”.
“Many do not know that Ms Bernard is a Kowanyama woman who lived all her life in her community where the Mitchell River flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria.”
“She loved to dance and to swim in the freshwater on her country. Her favourite flower was an orange hibiscus.”
“Many of you would not know that we laid her favourite flowers around her framed photos at her inquest. Today we still grieve for her to come home.”
Continuing the search
“Our women do not go missing and they don’t run off into the dark for no reason,” the family of Ms Bernard has said, noting their frustrations at the police’s investigation into her disappearance.
Ms Bernard was 23 when she was reported missing. On February 10, 2013 the mother of two was seen at a pub in Coen on Cape York before allegedly travelling to Archer River Quarry with quarry caretaker Thomas Maxwell Byrnes, where she was last seen.
For the next 11 years, no charges were laid after subsequent police investigations and colonial inquiries were unsuccessful in piecing together her disappearance. And last year, a $500,000 reward for information was announced.
Byrnes, now 62, has been a person of interest throughout the investigation and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. He told the inquest she left the property later in the night to go “walkabout”.
In April 2022, the coronial inquest ordered police to undertake fresh searches at Byrne’s property after finding fault with initial investigative efforts.
Byrnes has now been charged with murder, with Ms Bernard’s family urging him to reveal her location so she can be brought back to her “traditional homeland” and “buried alongside her loved ones”.
“When we reported our loved one missing to the police in 2013 they believed the man who is now charged with her murder and who told police that she ran off in the middle of the night for no reason,” said Ms Bernard’s family. “The police never suspected his involvement in her death and in the disposal of her body which has never been found.”
Having never let up pressure on investigators to find Ms Bernard, the family also thanked efforts from their lawyer, human rights activist Debbie Kilroy and the coroner who “ensured the police did their job” and followed up “their failed investigation” from 2013.
Detective Acting Superintendent Mick Searle said police recognised there had been “challenges and shortcomings” with the initial investigation into Ms Bernard’s disappearance. He said the investigation would continue despite Byrne’s arrest.
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