A coronial inquest has heard today that Maureen Braddy and her boyfriend Allan Whyte may have disappeared with the help of her grandmother.
MAUREEN Braddy and Allan Whyte may have fled Bendigo and started new lives with the help of Maureen's grandmother, Charlotte Braddy, an inquest has heard.
The new claims made by Maureen's aunt, Valerie O'Donoghue, have offered another alternative explanation to the disappearance of the two teenagers who were last seen in 1968.
Mrs O'Donoghue told the Coroner's Court that she believed her mother, Charlotte, helped Maureen escape and find somewhere to live with Allan.
She said her mother had asked her not to reveal where the pair had gone and that it was a long-guarded secret that she had "kept in confidence".
The information was not included in Mrs O'Donoghue's initial statement to police.
She told the inquest that she only told police "what I thought they needed to know".
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Defending her decision not to disclose the information, or explain how the escape plot was carried out, she said: "If Maureen wanted to disappear that's her business".
Mrs O'Donoghue told the inquest she was confident her brother Stan Braddy - the only suspect in the homicide investigation - was not involved "in any way" in their disappearance.
She said she still saw her brother occasionally but they had become estranged in recent years.
"He's stopped talking to me because I spoke to police," she said.
Yesterday, Detective Sergeant Allan Birch told the inquest Mr Braddy told police in an interview last year that the couple were abducted as part of a “slavery trade arrangement”.
The inquest continues.