“I’LL SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE BRINGING JUSTICE FOR MY LITTLE DAUGHTER…” – A grieving father who refused to give up after his daughter’s m-u:rder says one shocking email became the breakthrough that finally helped identify those responsible.
A 20-year-old, in the midst of a six-week solo trip, was brutally murdered. Her dad says one act exposed her killer before a bombshell email landed in his inbox.
Searching for Elly’s killer
“It’s only for your eyes.”
Those were the instructions in an email from the father of a young Australian tourist murdered on the trip of a lifetime.
“I have sent you the only crime scene photo we have, taken from the fisherman at 5am. It’s just for your eyes so you can see what we are talking about.”
The attached photograph of Elly Warren’s body is hard for me to look at. I can’t imagine how much harder it is for Paul Warren.
First light has broken at Tofo Beach, a coastal town in a southern province of Mozambique, a nation nestled between South Africa and Tanzania.
The 20-year-old, in the midst of a six-week solo trip through Africa, is face down in the sand.
She is wearing no pants. Her bikini bottoms are around her ankles. The black T-shirt she wears is torn completely from the shoulder down the right side.
In the foreground of the photograph, taken on November 9, 2016, is an empty beer bottle and a copper tap. The image of a girl in a dress is painted on a brick wall above her left shoulder. Her last breath was taken less than a metre from the entrance to the women’s toilet block.
Elly Warren in Mozambique where she was murdered in 2016.
Elly Warren, pictured on a beach in South Africa in 2015.
The official cause of death was asphyxia. She had inhaled sand into her lower airways and had bruising on her neck and mouth. The sand was a golden yellow, the kind found at the beach a short distance away. Importantly, it was not the black sand around the toilet block.
Almost 10 years on from Elly’s murder, and with no charges yet laid, Mr Warren has revealed that a recent email turned his search for the killer on its head.
Speaking with news.com.au, the former engineer who has dedicated his life to getting justice for Elly, said a private investigator working Elly’s murder pro-bono had been sitting on information for years.
“(Elly’s mother) Nicole hired a private investigator in 2019 and he did a report for the coroner. He said the circumstances definitely point to Elly being murdered,” Mr Warren said.
“Earlier this year I emailed him and he said, ‘Look, Paul, I’m not investigating for Nicole anymore but off my own back I’ve been doing little bits and pieces’.
“This is a guy, a South African, who worked for one of the top agencies there fighting illicit drugs and crime. Now he’s on his own doing private stuff. He’d got pretty fond of the case and Elly and wants to know what happened.
The exact location where fishermen found Elly Warren.
“He was working with the top criminal police in Mozambique when they reopened the case in 2022 and part of that meant going back to Tofo.”
Mr Warren said the investigator and a new detective on the case “were asleep at a lodge in Tofo” in 2022 when a “brazen” attack took place that the investigator believes involved Elly’s killer — or more specifically killers.
“They’ve come in and stolen his mobile phone and laptop. That’s a pretty brazen act,” Mr Warren said. “This investigator told me they were lucky any evidence we had on them wasn’t taken at the time.
“He said there’s no question the people who broke in are the people that murdered Elly because they’re really concerned about the evidence we’ve got.”
A sticking point for Mr Warren is that the investigator can’t tell him “who they are”.
“He told me they know who murdered Elly. So there’s more than one. He said they’re all from Tofo and one guy has left and they’re looking at him at this stage.
“That’s all he’ll tell me. He won’t tell me who they are.”
A letter sent by Mozambique police to the coroner in 2023 states that there are solid suspects but they don’t believe they have enough evidence to convict, Mr Warren says.
“It’s very frustrating.”
Elly Warren, 20, was volunteering in Tofo, Mozambique in 2016 when she was found dead.
What happened at 2am?
On the night her body was found, Elly had been out with friends from Casa Barry Beach Lodge and was dancing in the street.
Sometime after 2am, a man watched her walk from the Pariango Beach Motel towards the Tofo De Mar Hotel and a street clustered with snack bars.
Three hours later, a fisherman found Elly’s body near the toilet block, the location of the town’s only public freshwater taps where fishermen went daily to prime their boats.
Mr Warren learned the heartbreaking news of his daughter’s death when his other daughter Kristy phoned him.
Among his regrets are not going to Mozambique sooner. He was reassured that authorities there were investigating and taking the matter seriously.
But the torn black T-shirt was never given back to the family and Elly’s body was cremated, along with any potential evidence it may have carried with it — another regret for Mr Warren.
This week, in a bid for closure and to retain the wealth of documented evidence over 10 long years, Mr Warren will publish his book: Hunting Elly’s Killer: A Father’s Relentless Hunt for Justice.
“The book is a testament to my enduring love for her,” he said.
Elly’s board erected at the toilet block where she was killed.
Paul Warren, the grieving father of murdered young Melbourne woman Elly Warren, has released a book about his long search for answers.
“It has all the aspects of Elly growing up and leads into my investigation. So I think it has a good balance. It’s difficult to put everything in about the way the case has been handled but we’ve touched on it.”
Speaking previously to news.com.au, Mr Warren said he was frustrated by a lack of answers or urgency from Australian Federal Police.
“If you had a daughter who died from suspicious circumstances in a third world country, you would expect Australian authorities to investigate properly,” Mr Warren said.
“Most Australians would expect that. Everybody I’ve spoken to asks me why the AFP didn’t go straight in. What did we get? F** all. We were on our own.
“They were telling us the Mozambique authorities were investigating. In the end, I got so frustrated, I went over myself. If this ever happens to another family, they’ve gotta get over there. I can tell you now, through diplomatic channels, it takes time and if they don’t do that you’ll lose everything.”
He has since worked tirelessly, exhausting almost his entire life savings, in the pursuit of justice for his little girl.
Multiple autopsies showed Elly Warren had sand in her lower airways, including her bronchial tubes. Picture: Supplied
Elly was living out her dream.
Alongside the book, Mr Warren has created a website — ellywarren.net — that includes a eulogy to his daughter, updates and a call for national reform for circumstances when Australians die overseas.
With retired police detective Charlie Bezzina, Mr Warren has compiled a proposal for what he’d like to see happen in cases similar to his.
It includes “putting the coroner at the centre of Australia’s response”.
“When an Australian dies overseas in suspicious circumstances, the coroner should use every lawful power available to establish, as far as reasonably possible, the cause, manner and circumstances of that person’s death,” he wrote online this week.
“The coroner is an independent judicial officer whose responsibility is to establish the facts surrounding a person’s death.
Divers heading to the beach in Tofo, Mozambique. Picture: Greg Bearup
Casa Barry Lodge, where Elly Warren was staying while she was volunteering in Tofo, Mozambique.
“Where an Australian dies overseas in suspicious circumstances, the coroner should not be limited to receiving second-hand information. Wherever it is lawful and practicable, the coroner should have access to first-hand factual information to assist in fulfilling those responsibilities.
“Charlie Bezzina and I believe that, to properly exercise these responsibilities, the coroner should have access to practical and professional investigative resources.”
He is calling it the Elly Warren Protocol.
“When an Australian dies overseas in suspicious circumstances, every family deserves the confidence of knowing that their coroner has exercised every lawful power available to establish, as far as reasonably possible, the cause, manner and circumstances surrounding the death of their loved one.
“It is our hope that Elly Rose Warren’s legacy will not simply be remembered for the tragedy of her death, but for inspiring meaningful reform that helps future Australian families receive the answers, transparency and support they deserve.”
