Trudie Adams asked her mum to wait up for her the night she left the party at Newport Surf Club and put her thumb out into the traffic on Barrenjoey Road. She never made it home. Almost 40 years later, Trudie’s disappearance remains a mystery, an infamous cold case that stands in stark relief against the cool surf culture and the gleaming new suburbs and malls of Sydney’s Northern Beaches in 1978. This is Australia’s real-life ‘Twin Peaks.’ And it’s not just a Sydney or even a New South Wales story, but one that has consequences for crime and punishment across the continent.

Trudie Adams asked her mum to wait up for her the night she left the party at Newport Surf Club and put her thumb out into the traffic on Barrenjoey Road. She never made it home. Almost 40 years later, Trudie’s disappearance remains a mystery, an infamous cold case that stands in stark relief against the cool surf culture and the gleaming new suburbs and malls of Sydney’s Northern Beaches in 1978. This is Australia’s real-life ‘Twin Peaks.’ And it’s not just a Sydney or even a New South Wales story, but one that has consequences for crime and punishment across the continent.