A battle to locate the bodies of two teenagers, believed to have died in Bendigo 50 years ago, is being fought on multiple fronts, with family and friends behind a push to re-open the case.
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Maureen Braddy and Allan Whyte went missing on November 23, 1968, after they had attended a dance at the Mundy Street YMCA.
Family members and friends have called for public pressure on authorities to dig up a well and to explore an abandoned mine-shaft where they believe vital evidence might be hidden.
An online petition, which had more than 2200 signatures by early Monday morning, called on Victoria's attorney general, chief commissioner of police and deputy state coroner to further investigate the so-far under-explored sites.
At the same time, a group of Maureens family members and their friends have been retracing her steps, piecing together an alternate timeline of her movements in the hours before she vanished.
Efforts to look at both blocked-up holes near Maureen Braddys Vinton Street home have been caught in a long-running stalemate because authorities have indicated there is not yet enough evidence to justify digging.
Peter Horvath, a friend helping Maureens family piece together evidence, said, until you look, you arent going to find evidence.
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Family members efforts to break the stalemate have never ended, but the latest efforts have upped the ante, Maureens sister Lyn Ireland-Butterworth said.
Both she and Mr Horvath hoped the latest push, just over half a century since the disappearances, would galvanise the public and help bring about a court order to open the well and the right permits for the mine-shaft.
They hoped their efforts would help solidify the argument that the last place Maureen was seen was on Vinton Street and not at the Mundy Street dance.
One theory is that Maureen and Allan boarded a tram to Eaglehawk together. It is one that appeared to have been bolstered late last year when a witness said she had seen both Maureen and Allan.
Yet it contradicted testimony from another witness who told a coroners inquest and police that he dropped Maureen off at home.
Clayton Norton-Doidge started a petition in a bid to bring public attention to the case.
We want as many signatures as we can get. The more pressure we can put on those in power to act, the better, he said.
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