Unravel True Crime · uci

The Carousel Club Part -6

July 26, 2021·4 min
The episode begins with the host considering whether the person responsible for Juanita's disappearance could have been anyone with deep connections to Kings Cross, before concluding the situation was more targeted. Attention then turns to Jim Anderson's alibi for the day Juanita vanished. The host notes the alibi is weaker than previously assumed because the travel ticket was simply printed with the name Jim Anderson, meaning anyone could have used it. The host commits to re-examining this alibi in a future episode. Journalist Neil Mercer provides a vivid account of visiting Jim Anderson in a hospice in the Blue Mountains as Anderson was dying. Without being prompted, Anderson raised the Juanita Nielsen case, telling Mercer he had nothing to do with it and was not in New South Wales at the time. He made clear he did not want people speaking about him this way after his death. The host reflects on what it means that this case was still on Anderson's mind at the very end of his life. The episode then shifts to the search for Loretta Crawford, the Carousel Club receptionist who had changed her story multiple times over the years. Aunty Pip had been methodically searching for Loretta for weeks, believing there was more to the Anderson-Crawford connection than public records showed. The host was initially sceptical because Loretta had been unreliable in the past and had not been heard from in years. However, Aunty Pip believed she could reach Loretta on a personal level, framing the approach as family reaching out to family. A tip came in suggesting Loretta might be in remote New South Wales. With only an address and phone number on a scrap of paper, Aunty Pip made a spontaneous decision to drive there immediately. The host describes this as very characteristic of Aunty Pip's approach. During the drive, Aunty Pip calls the host and describes the rural landscape, then mentions being overcome by sadness thinking about how young Juanita was when she disappeared. She tells the host she feels very emotional. Upon arriving, Aunty Pip discovers there is no Loretta Crawford at the address she was given, ending the episode on a note of uncertainty.
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