The 40 Year Search For A Missing Person

What toll does it take on a detective, to investigate a missing persons case for 40 years? What do you tell the family? When do you stop looking, if ever? 

Meet David Plumpton, an old school detective. A Tasmanian local, he joined the force because he wanted to make a difference.

In this episode of Crime Insiders: Detectives, David unpacks his career, talking to host Brent Sanders about the cases that have impacted him the most.

“It’s not so much the death and destruction but missing persons… because it’s the unknown”

David explains what it’s like to try and find answers for these families:

“40 years later in the street, he’d see someone and think, that’s Lucille”

This case, of missing Tasmanian woman Lucille Butterworth, is still unsolved. The 20-year old Miss Tasmania hopeful disappeared from a bus stop in Hobart In 1969, and was never seen again. Her story is investigated in this 6-part podcast, The Day Lucille Disappeared:

Lucille’s case is one of many that has stuck with David over all these years. Listen to the full episode to hear how a double murder in Hobart changed his career forever:

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