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$1 million reward offered by Australian police to solve 45-year-old cold case of murdered mom
Australian police offered a $1 million award Friday for help solving the cold case of a mother who was murdered 45 years ago. Mary Anne Fagan, a homemaker with five young children, was found stabbed to death in 1978 at her Armadale home, Victoria police said.
Victoria Police, Australia
Detectives said in a statement they “believe that it is possible there are still people in the community who know what happened to Mary Anne and who was responsible.”
On the morning of Feb. 17, Fagan drove her children, then 15, 13, 12, 6 and 17 months, to school in the family’s station wagon. She returned home around 9:15 a.m. and was seen about an hour later in the front yard of the property by a witness who had driven past the house, police said in a statement.
Her husband, who was away at work, called his 41-year-old wife around 11 a.m. for a brief conversation. That was the last time anyone spoke to or heard from Fagan.
When her children arrived home around 4 p.m. that afternoon the side gate was open, they couldn’t find their mother, and they heard a baby crying in the house. Victoria police said the children found Fagan bound and gagged, and fatally stabbed a number of times in the front bedroom of the house. A number of personal items taken from the home have never been recovered, police said.
Australian police have offered large rewards previously to the public for assistance in solving cases. Last May Western Australia Police offered a $1 million award for information about 12-year-old, James Patrick Taylor, known as Jimmy, who vanished on Aug. 29, 1974, after walking from his family’s home in Derby to a local store about half a mile away.
A month later, Queensland police offered a $500,000 award from information in the case of Meaghan Louise Rose, who was found dead at the base of Point Cartwright Cliffs at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast on July 18, 1997. Queensland police issued an arrest warrant for 70-year-old Keith Lees shortly after the award announcement.
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Boeing’s 33,000 unionized machinists on Wednesday voted to approve the plane manufacturer’s latest contract offer, ending a seven-week strike that had halted production of most of the company’s passenger planes.
The union said 59% voted to accept the contract. Members have the option of returning to work as soon as Wednesday, but must be back at work by Tuesday, November 12, the union said in a statement.
Union leaders had strongly urged members to ratify the latest proposal, which would boost wages by 38% over the four-year life of the contract, up from a proposed increase of 35% that members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) had rejected last month.
The revised deal also provides a $12,000 cash bonus to hourly workers and increased contributions to retirement savings plans. The enhanced offer doesn’t address a key sticking point in the contentious talks — restoration of pensions — but Boeing would raise its contributions to employee 401K plans.
Average annual pay for machinists, now $75,608, would climb to $119,309 in four years under the current offer, Boeing said.
The vote came after IAM members in September and October rejected lesser offers by the Seattle-based aerospace giant.
“In every negotiation and strike, there is a point where we have extracted everything we can in bargaining and by withholding our labor,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers stated last week in backing Boeing’s revised offer. “We are at that point now and risk a regressive or lesser offer in the future.”
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su has played an active role in the negotiations, after recently helping to end a days-long walkout that briefly closed East and Gulf Coast ports.
The Boeing strike that began on Sept. 13 marked the latest setback for the manufacturing giant, which has been the focus of multiple federal probes after a door plug blew off a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The incident revived concerns about the safety of the aircraft after two crashed within five months in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
Boeing in July agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud for deceiving regulators who approved the 737 Max.
During the strike, Boeing was unable to produce any new 737 aircraft, which are made at the company’s assembly plants in the Seattle area. One major Boeing jet, the 787 Dreamliner, is manufactured at a nonunion factory in South Carolina.
The company last month reported a third-quarter loss of $6.1 billion.
contributed to this report.
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