CAMPING GONE WRONG

NORTH COAST KILLER LURKS

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The NSW North Coast is a popular destination for campers, but in recent years, some have questioned if it might also be the stomping grounds of Australia's worst serial killer.

Around 67 women have gone missing along the 600-kilometre stretch between 1977 and 2009. Some of their bodies have never been found, including 21-year-old Narelle Cox and 18-year-old Rose Howell.

Former Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham said there were "alarming similarities" with the homicides. He has called for a special commission into the cold cases.

"If you look at the modus operandi of these killings, there are striking similarities," he said.

"Rape, torture, murder and dismemberment - that is an incredibly uncommon crime, and to find it repeatedly across the North Coast is incredibly alarming.

"It is impossible to think that there are 67 individual murderers in the area from the North Coast to Tweed Heads who have escaped justice."

Criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro believes there's more than one killer responsible for the deaths.

"As we know, serial killers have a chameleon ability to blend into the community," he said on his Motive & Method podcast with criminologist Dr Xanthe Mallett. "And of course, a lot of those towns along the eastern particularly seaboard, Byron, are transient towns. So people can disappear." Dr Mallett agreed.

"To me, it says there's got to have been more than one predator. Which means they could, in theory, still be active and a risk to the public," she said. "I'm not trying to scare anyone, but until we know who they are we can't guarantee that that's not the case."

However, NSW Police maintain there is no serial killer at large, saying: "To this date, there is no evidence to indicate a common offender was responsible for the disappearances."

FIGHT TURNS FATAL