A $1 million reward is now on offer for anybody with information that could solve the 46-year-old mystery of a Melbourne mother murdered in her home while her baby was nearby.
Mary Anne Fagan, 41, lived with her husband and five children – then aged 15, 13, 12, six, and 17 months, in a house on Dandenong Road, Armadale.
On the morning of Friday, February 17, 1978, she drove her kids to school at about 8.30am in the family’s Holden station wagon, before returning home at about 9.15am.
Her husband was away working and not expected home until later that afternoon.
Shortly after she arrived home, a neighbour saw her speaking to council workers who were repairing the road outside the Fagan home.
She had parked her car in the driveway and was last seen at about 10.30am in her front yard by a witness who drove past the house.
At about 11am, Fagan’s husband called her for a brief conversation. It was the last known contact anybody had with her.
Shortly after 4pm, the Fagan children came home from school and noticed the side gate was open.
They couldn’t find their mum, but could hear the 17-month-old baby crying inside the house.
The car was still in the driveway and the doors to the house were locked.
The children called their father from a local phone box, and then returned to the house and broke a window to get inside.
They found Mary Anne Fagan dead in the front bedroom.
She had been bound, gagged, and stabbed a number of times.
A motive for her murder has never been established and a number of personal items taken from the home have never been recovered.
A reward of $20,000 for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of her killer was offered in April 1978, which was increased to $50,000 in June of the same year.
Now, the reward has leaped to $1 million, and prosecutors will consider granting indemnity to anybody who can guide them to the killer.
“Mary Anne was a much-loved mother, wife and daughter and we know her family still feel her loss as keenly as they did 46 years ago,” Detective Inspector Dean Thomas said.
“She missed all five of her children growing up, their birthdays, weddings and the births of her grandchildren. Each of her children has had to grow up without their mother and I know they have thought about that almost every day.
“Mary Anne was brutally murdered for no apparent reason in the place she should have felt safest, and with her 17-month-old baby nearby.”
