I lived two streets from where the ‘Vanishing Cousins’ were last seen. A death where I lived still haunts me.

Sunday Night’s episode of Spotlight on Channel 7 centred on the disappearance of teenage cousins Raelene Eaton and Yvonne Waters in Perth, in 1974. 

On the afternoon of Sunday April 7, 16-year-old Eaton and 17-year-old Waters visited The White Sands Hotel in Scarborough. They would reportedly leave as passengers in a vehicle in the early evening, and were never seen again. 

The episode struck a chord with me, not because I have any connection to the case – I don’t – but because of the last location the girls were seen alive. Or should I say ‘locations’ – the aforementioned hotel, and a nearby residence on Hastings St. 

Let me explain. 

Late August of 2017 found me jobless and becoming increasing desperate to find new employment. I was living in Sydney, and after months of rejection and failed interviews, someone finally showed a bit of faith and offered me a job. 

Only thing was, it was in Perth. 

A fair way to travel yes, but it was in an industry I loved, and with my parents encouraging me to give it a shot, I accepted and made the trip west. 

The new employer put me up at the Country Comfort Hotel in the suburb of Belmont for a fortnight, to allow me some time to secure an apartment to rent. 

Finding a place to live was harder than I anticipated, and although I was in Perth on my own, I had to settle for a two bedroom flat on the second level of an apartment block on Stanley Street in Scarborough. 

The U-shaped building, although sturdy and respectable, had an eerie feeling from the start. Despite a dozen or so cars parked in the rear carpark, the entire block often felt lifeless. There were never any sounds of people coming or going, nor that of doors opening and closing. 

It was a far cry from the spirited atmosphere just 500m to the west at Scarborough beach, where – with summer approaching – locals and visitors flooded the beach, Stirling Leisure Centre, and the many foreshore bars and restaurants. 

Despite its eeriness, never did I think the lifelessness of my new living quarters would be a sign of things to come. I’ll come back to that shortly. 

Watching Spotlight on Sunday night, the program's use of maps reminded me how close I lived to the last two places cousins Raelene Eaton and Yvonne Waters were seen alive. 

Hastings Street – where Raelene Eaton’s older brother Graham lived and the second last place the girls were seen alive – is one street over from where I lived on Stanley Street. I remember walking down Hastings Street numerous times, but don’t recall anything standing out. As the Spotlight program stated, the house Graham Eaton lived in has long been demolished and rebuilt on.

The White Sands Hotel – the last place the girls were seen – is two streets over from where I lived, and is still there. I certainly remember going in there once, and once only. 

I can actually pinpoint the day and the time of day. 

It was 4.10pm on Saturday the 14th of October 2017 that I entered the sports bar at The White Sands Hotel. The first ever edition of The Everest horse race in Sydney was run five minutes later, and I lost five dollars because I had a bet on number five, a horse named Clearly Innocent, which did no good. 

The sports bar was only half-full, however was littered with players from the English rugby league team, who had a warm-up match six days later in preparation for the upcoming Rugby League World Cup. I remember seeing Sam Burgess there and saying to him, "You're a fair way from Redfern," mistakenly thinking he was on an end-of-season footy trip with his South Sydney Rabbitohs teammates.

In terms of the sports bar itself, I remember it being quite dark and old-fashioned, with three to four occupied pool tables. I was there no longer than ten minutes; as soon as The Everest race was over, I left, as did the English rugby league team.

Fast forward two months and I decided not to return to Melbourne for the Christmas/ New Year break. There didn't seem much point – I only had a week off, flights were outrageously expensive, and most of my family were going away themselves anyway. To make up for it, my younger sister came to visit from January 6-9. The spare room definitely came in handy.

Over the four days, I took my sister to Trigg, Cottesloe, Mandurah and Rottnest. We basically did the beach tour.

During her time visiting, nothing at the apartment block seemed out of the ordinary. In fact, coming back from lunch one afternoon, we spotted a handful of residents sitting in a circle on the lawn enjoying a wine and a cheese platter.

"Do you know them?" My sister asked me.

"I've lived here nearly six months, and not only have I not seen my neighbours at a get-together on the lawn, I've never seen my neighbours," I replied.

My sister and I did the polite thing and sat down and chatted with them. I can't remember anything about the conversation, other than one of my female neighbours saying she walked dogs for a living. After twenty minutes, my sister and I left. A day later, my sister returned to Melbourne.

It was only two weeks after that, that something unbelievable happened. It remains to this day the most ghastly thing I can recall learning in my entire life.

I returned home from a grocery run in the late morning to find the door on the unit directly below me smashed in, the immediate surroundings cordoned off with police tape, and police officers surrounding the place.

"Everything all right?" I asked one of the constables.

"Overdose," the bloke replied.

"What, today?"

"Nah mate, rotten corpse. He's been there for months I reckon."

I remember those words, "rotten corpse," and how they made me feel severely nauseas.

I went upstairs to my place, unpacked the groceries and showered, even though I'd already showered some hours before. No less than a minute after I dressed, did a knock come at the front door. It was the same constable I'd spoken to, standing next to a colleague.

He asked me if I'd seen anything unusual. I said no. He told me it was called in after the neighbour living downstairs in the unit beside the deceased's, noticed a horrible stench. He asked me if I'd smelt anything. I said no. That was the honest truth, but how hadn't I? I'm an asthmatic, no matter where I've lived, I've always opened doors and windows to let fresh air into the premises. This place was no exception.

I was freaked out for days, and experienced horrible bouts of nausea whenever I let my brain think about what had occurred just below my floor. What made it worse was bumping into the female neighbour who was at the aforementioned gathering on the lawn, who said she walked dogs for a living. She told me police asked her questions as well. She said police told her the victim's mother hadn't heard from her son since July of the previous year. I moved in above him in September.

With this information, I was hit with the reality that from the day I moved in, I may have had a person lying dead just a matter of metres from me; lying in the apartment below me. I cooked on top of him. I watched TV on top of him. I slept on top of him.

I had my sister stay with me on top of him.

Renovations on the downstairs unit where the man died, began a week or so later. Not that that made me feel any less squeamish. I was on a six-month lease and had made up my mind that when it was up, I was out of there.

As it turned out, I got sacked from the job two weeks later anyway and had no choice but to move - from Perth back to Melbourne. I never did find out why I was let go, although the bloke who fired me was himself sacked much later over allegations of serious misconduct, so maybe it was more to do with him than me.

While disappointing, the loss of my job was a drop in the ocean compared to the awful circumstances surrounding the man in the apartment below me, and the very sad disappearance of Raelene Eaton and Yvonne Waters in 1974.

In terms of the latter, I hope police are able to discover the truth, so that some minor peace may be found by the cousin's surviving friends and family.