Friends of Revelle Balmain had intended to celebrate the 22-year-old’s life-changing decision to move to a new country on the night she disappeared 30 years ago.
Suellen Simpson, a sister searching for answers, watched on at the Lidcombe Coroner’s Court on Tuesday as friends of Balmain recounted their final conversations on the day she went missing.
Balmain was working as a model and escort when she was last seen in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on November 5, 1994.
She had attended a booking with client Gavin Samers in Kingsford before he dropped her at a hotel nearby about 7pm.
It was meant to be one of her last jobs as an escort before flying to Japan to work as a dancer.
A conversation over the phone wasn’t supposed to be the last time Balmain would speak to her friends, the court was told.
Plans to farewell Balmain had fallen through when the aspiring dancer failed to turn up for drinks with friends that night, a companion who cannot be named for legal reasons, said.
The two had worked together at an escort agency, Select Companions, owned and operated by Jane King and Zoran Stenojevic.
The friend said she had disliked Stenojevic, who she believed was infatuated with Balmain.
Stenojevic was known by a number of the escorts as a driver to and from their bookings, the court heard multiple witnesses say.
The friend said her relationship with the owners was rocky at best, describing Stenojevic’s behaviour as aggressive at times.
When it came to Balmain, the friend said he “was all over her”, which she described as meaning he had an intimate “look in his eyes” whenever he was around her.
“Zoran treated Revelle differently … he was much friendlier (to her),” the friend said.
Another witness recalled having plans to see Balmain, who had recently begun dating another friend, the same night she disappeared.
A dark-coloured Holden Commodore was reportedly seen in the Kingsford area on the Saturday evening, with a loud skid and the sound of a woman’s scream heard before the car carrying multiple people sped off.
A previous inquest in 1999 found Revelle had died at the hands of a person or persons unknown and the matter was referred to the Unsolved Homicide Unit.
A fresh investigation between 2007 and 2009 followed by a formal review in 2020 failed to produce any compelling evidence in the case.
Ms Balmain was in debt to the escort agency at the time of her death as well as engaging clients outside of the agency’s knowledge, known as moonlighting.
King and Stenojevic are scheduled to give evidence later in the inquest before Coroner Joan Baptie.
