Lisa Edwards recalls her father sitting at the table one morning in 1978, in a bright and sunny kitchen. But something was wrong – he was typically gone by that hour.

That morning, on his way to work, her father had picked up the newspaper as always.

“But this time, the front page reported that bodies had been found in Mount Isa and a photo of a watch – one that looked like Karen’s,” Edwards told the Coroners Court in Brisbane on Friday.

“I’m sure none of us will ever understand what that moment was like for my parents.”

Lisa was only nine years old at the time her sister, Karen Edwards, 23, was killed. Her body was found near a bush track in north-west Queensland, near her partner, Tim Thomson, 31, and their friend Gordon Twaddle, 21.

“That was the day I realised terrible things don’

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