14.04.2021
3 min read

Acquitted suspect focus of Diec's inquest

An inquest into the disappearance of Sydney schoolgirl Quanne Diec has received no new evidence after focusing on the acquitted suspect of her death.
Greta StonehouseBy Greta Stonehouse
Sydney schoolgirl Quanne Diec disappeared after leaving her home on the way to school in July 1998.

The cold-case murder of 12-year-old Quanne Diec remains a mystery after an inquest hearing focused on the acquitted suspect of her death.

Vinzent Tarantino was found not guilty by a NSW Supreme Court jury in 2019, three years after walking into a police station to "confess" to the Sydney schoolgirl's murder, and after other so-called confessions to past girlfriends.

Quanne's devastated family struggled to understand this decision and were not present at their daughter's inquest at the NSW Coroners Court in Lidcombe on Wednesday.

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No new evidence surfaced and Coroner Derek Lee was asked to make findings that she died by homicide shortly after she went missing.

The night before the "well-liked and well-rounded" schoolgirl disappeared on July 27, 1998, she had been in high spirits with no known medical issues.

She was last seen alive by her mother four houses away from their Granville home walking towards a train station to attend Strathfield Girls High School.

A neighbour later made a police statement that she had seen a young foreign-looking girl speaking to a man in a white van marked with blue and white stripes, before getting inside the vehicle that drove away.

"Police believe this is the last known sighting of Quanne Diec," counsel assisting Howard Mullen said.

Other alleged sightings have been dismissed, while different people of interest dropped away to leave the remaining "significant" person of interest being Mr Tarantino.

His then-girlfriend Laila Faily was reporting domestic violence when she told police that he confessed to abducting the girl and dumping her body.

He described it to her as a botched ransom attempt ending in her strangling on a mattress he later disposed of.

Ms Faily says they both drove in a van before parking near bushland with a wheelie bin.

He returned with the bin smelling very bad about an hour later, she said.

Mr Tarantino's father confirmed he had thrown away his son's mattress. He was also found to have borrowed a friend's van to move furniture close to the date of Quanne's disappearance.

After calling the missing persons unit in 2003 saying he had information regarding Quanne's whereabouts, then withdrawing this, Mr Tarantino walked into Surry Hills police station in 2016, confessing to her abduction and murder.

Throughout his statements he also said his life was being threatened by bikie gangs after he witnessed a shooting, a reason his defence gave the jury as to why he believed he would be safer in jail.

Police never uncovered any evidence to say outlaw motorcycle gangs were behind this paranoia.

Mr Tarantino led police to an area of bushland south of Sydney where he said she had been buried, but her body has never been found.

Mr Mullen acknowledged her family's unexplainably heartbreaking and "unnatural" loss, adding that an inquest compelled families to relieve the most distressing of memories.

Mr Lee is due to hand down his findings on April 19.

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