The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 11

It Is now almost thro years since 16-year-old Julie Mykyta was killed one of seven victims of the infamous Truro murders in South Australia, For her mother, Anne-Marie Mykyia, has been five years of horror, and anguish which drove her to the brink of suicide 1 Now she has told her story. Her book, titled It's A Long Way To Truro will be launched tomorrow, LANCE CAMPBELL reports from Adelaide, mm 14 if 0 4 1 8 1 Irush and Annt-Marh Mykyta walked the streets in those early days. of the pick-up in the white Valiant Mrs Mykyta talked some of them in her living room. "Someone in the room was screaming. Almost dispassionately, I realised that it was me.

'She could be dead in a ditch I cried, 'and we sit here talking'." Mrs Mykyta's mother-in-law blamed the parents for driving their daughter away: "You and Irush, you've always been to up in each other that you've neglected the children all their lives." Mrs Mykyta wrote to Julie when an informant told her she was living in a commune. Julie, ilease come back. We do ove you very much, even if we do seem to be preoccupied with Our own affairs a lot of the time. We can talk about this. No one will be angry." Anne-Marie My-kyta't nightmare began on January 22, 1977, when her husband, Irtish, discovered daughter Julie was not in bed.

"Girls of that age are running off all the time," the police told Mrs Mykyta. "Shell be back when the novelty wears off." Mrs Mykyta knew dif- ferent. She knew her daughter -and she knew Julie wouldn't have run away without a word. Julie never came back. And her mother fell prey to alcohol.

Vallum, self-loathing, loneliness, and guilt. She thought of ending it all. She says: "I lived behind glass, in a world of fire and looked out at people who moved and spoke in a soundless trance and could not hear, my screaming." After Julie had been missing for 40 days, Mrs Mykyta wept when one tired and most of all "unbelieving." Julie was buried on July 20, 1979, at a secret venue so only relatives and friends attended. Mrs Mykyta decided to write It's A Long Way To Truro just before Miller's trial began in February last year. She thought it would help her accept the reality of her personal tragedy and help her come to terms with it.

Proceeds will go to the Julie Mykyta Memorial Scholarship for gifted children. (It's a Long Way To Truro is published by McPhee Gribble). after Julie vanished the couple was asked by Det Sgt Giles to face the fact that their daughter might hare been murder-, ed. "Now what I have to tell you Mrs Mykyta, Mr Mykyta," he said, "is that we've got five little girls, possibly more, who have disappeared in the same way." Mrs Mykyta recoiled. She agreed to Det Sgt Giles's request that they give a press interview, thus beginning Anne Marie's role as virtual spokesperson for the bereaved parents of the Truro victims." Another body (Sylvia Pittman) was discovered on Easter Sunday, 1979.

Then on April .26, two more were to be found. Mrs Mykyta went to stay on a farm where friends supported her. She became obsessed with decay: could not eat; the smell of meat sickened me; it was like eating my daughter's body; and even vegetables seemed to be rotten in my mouth." Julie's remains were uncovered on May 24, 1979. To this day, Mrs Mykyta finds it hard to remember her feelings. She felt -o physically ill.

of her acquaintances told her: "She'll be resurrected in the desert" In fact, Julie was lying in the scrub near Truro after being killed on the same day she had disappeared. On the testimony of James William Miller, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Truro murders, he and Christopher Robin Wor-rail bad picked up Julie in a white Valiant in King William Street, Adelaide. Cranks We won't bo undersold on quality Worrall, who was killed in a car accident a month later, trussed Julie and kicked her in the stomach before strangling her, Miller said. Mrs Mykyta would prefer not to think about what else happened to Julie. But for the two years before Julie's body was found, Mrs Mykyta couldn't stop wondering whether the teenager was dead or alive.

During mother and daughter's last cooversa-. tion together, Julie had said: "Thank you for my childhood, for' those happy years." Was this a farewell? Could she have run away, perhaps to her sister in Queensland? Could she have committed suicide? Anne-Marie's father had died by his own hand, after coming home broken by the war. Anne-. Marie herself had failed in an attempt when she, too, was 16. i2 RED WINE, COFFEE and CARPETS Not good combination in fact, either spilt on your new carpet can spell disaster.

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Some were cranks; one even posed as Julie. Mrs Mykyta pinned a note on the front door, telling Julie where the key was. She saw a clairvoyant who -said Julie was alive "another stick to beat myself with." She set a candle in the window during the family's traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve supper to guide home the lost ones, according to tradition. She dreamt horrible dreams. She had unpleasant words with Irush, he with his silences, her with her continual spoken thoughts on what might have happened.

When the rages subsided, they were in love again. Still they searched, but fading hope meant increasing desperation. Once in Sydney, Irush thought he had seen Julie ahead of him. He ran after her, and past her so he wouldn't scare her. He returned to Adelaide deeply upset.

On April 26, 1978, the first Truro body (Veronica Knight) was found. On January 22, 1979 two years to the day Chilling Vlffl PRIDE YOU CAN INDIVIDUALISE YOU CHOOSE THE FINISH Jamais Hardie Hardif lex or Woodgrain Hard! Plank Also aluminium or steel color weatherboards in six modern attractive colours with concealed fixing Mrs Mykyta found letters and poems by her daughter, often described as a brilliant student. They chilled her heart. She wrote of taking a lift from a stranger and smoking a "few jays." Her girls had been warned about hitch-hiking from an early age and she thought they had listened. Mrs Mykyta and husband Irush walked the streets of our "small, safe city" in those early days.

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Mieei 11 THE SUN-HERALD, NOV 8, 1981 11.