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Berowra's cold case mystery – 1937 to 1946
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DetailsA very sad set of circumstances started in 1937 when John Jordon (aged 75) tragically died after he fell into his well whilst trying to extinguish a small fire at his house just north of Berowra. His son-in-law Norman Stephenson, and daughter Lillian Stephenson, were on their way to Jordon’s home when they noticed smoke. The young man rushed into the house, which was well alight, but could not find any sign of Jordon. He then went to the well in the yard for water, to extinguish the blaze, where Jordon was found.
Police investigated and concluded John Jordon had been reading in bed when he dozed and knocked over his kerosene lamp setting fire to his bed clothes.
Things became more traumatic for Lillian when, soon after her father’s death, her mother also died at her sister’s home in Asquith.
Young Lillian was devastated at the loss of her parents. She eventually married Norman Stephenson who enlisted in the air force during the Second World War.
In mid-1945, Lillian left her home in Chatswood, leaving her 4 year old daughter with her mother-in-law, to go to Wagga Wagga in order to stay for a while near her husband, Norman, who was stationed at the air-base there.
One afternoon she told the woman she was boarding with in the town, that she was off to meet her husband and they were going away for the weekend. Her husband was surprised to later hear this and he said he found a note from his wife saying she could no longer bear the pain and her health problems any longer. However, he was not too concerned as he believed Lillian had gone back to his mother’s house in Chatswood, to be with their daughter. When he discovered she was not at Chatswood he reported her missing to the police.
Nearly 6 months after her disappearance Lillian was found dead in Berowra, in November 1945. Her body was discovered very near to where her father had died eight years earlier. Many of the newspapers across the country reported the events:
“BODY BURNT AND NAKED IN BUSH”.
“Badly burned and naked, the body of a young married woman who had been missing for almost six months, has been found. It was in the bush near Berowra, 28 miles north of Sydney. The woman was Mrs. Lillian Stephenson, 27, formerly of Chatswood, wife of a member of the RAAF”.
In fact the body was not naked, as reported, and this was the first of a string of inaccuracies in the press on this case.
“Walter Payne, a local poultry farmer and member of the Berowra bush fire brigade, found the body while fighting a fire which broke out about two miles from Berowra. Detectives could find no trace of the woman’s shoes or jewellery, although a handbag which revealed her identity was close to the body.
Police are satisfied the woman died in the bush soon after she disappeared, probably from poisoning, and that she was burned by one of several fires which had been in the locality in recent months”.
Lillian Stephenson (nee Jordon) was once crowned as, “The Belle of The Hawkesbury” as she was thought by many to be the prettiest girl in the district. She was born in 1917 in the family house, at Berowra, the youngest child of eight. Their house was on the Pacific Highway near where the old Tollgates used to be. This was also a few hundred yards and across the road from where her body was found.
Lillian attended Berowra Public School with the likes of Bill Foster, and she spent her youth growing in Berowra. She married airman Norman Stephenson who served as a Flight Sergeant for several years in the Air Force during the War. He was based at the Air Force base Uranquinty, approximately 15 kilometers south of Wagga Wagga.
It was first reported that the police were satisfied that Lillian had died from suicide or natural causes whilst grieving in the bush near Berowra, however there were some circumstances that started to create a lot of doubt in that theory;
• Mrs. Lillian Stephenson had been reported missing from Wagga Wagga five months prior to her body being found in Berowra. How did she get there? It would have taken a long steam train ride from Wagga Wagga to Central and then another steam train north to Berowra, right past Chatswood where her little girl was.
• Experienced locals stated that her body could not have possibly lain where it was found for any long period of time without being reduced to a skeleton as it was found on a teeming anthill. Where was the body for the last 5 months if not in Berowra?
• The bushfire which swept over the body had actually started where her body was found. Who started the fire and why?
• Experienced bush fire brigade members emphatically declared their belief, that someone had heaped tinder and fallen timber around the body before starting the fire there. Did someone want to draw attention to the body or dispose of it?
• Lillian’s husband, Mr. Norman Stephenson, appeared to move on with his life very quickly. A woman he was involved with, Kathleen McWilliam, had also been stationed at the Air Force base at Uranquinty as part of the WAAF. She wanted to make the relationship official, but this was not possible whilst Lillian was presumed missing and clearly Mr. Stephenson was still married. What was required for these two to move on with their life together was a body and a subsequent death certificate.
• Someone was feeding incorrect information to the press, who reported that Lillian’s father had committed suicide in the water well on his property, as he was depressed because he thought he was going blind. The press incorrectly reported that Lillian’s mother had died in tragic circumstances not long after the death of her husband, when in fact she died peacefully at her daughter’s place in Asquith. It appeared someone was trying to paint a picture that suicidal tendencies and depression ran in the family in order to add weight to the claims of Norman Stephenson, that his wife, Lillian, had been depressed and probably committed suicide.
On the day of the fire, which was a Monday in late November, a local orchardist and poultry farmer, Wally Payne, was sitting at the back of his property milking one of his cows. From there he commanded a very good view of the surrounding hills most of which were dense bushland. Payne saw a spiral of smoke curling up in the bush about a quarter of a mile away. He also saw a man in a short-sleeved shirt leave the area soon after he had first seen the smoke. He had no idea who the man was as he was a distance away, but he had immediately thought that the man may have started the fire from a discarded match or cigarette.
After telephoning, the Captain of the Berowra volunteer bush fire brigade, Bill Gainsford, Payne ran to the fire and began to beat it out. Soon afterwards Gainsford arrived with the fire truck and water tanks.
Gainsford says, Payne took me by the arm and said, “Come with me for Heaven’s sake and see what I’ve found”! There lying in the ashes, was the cruelly burnt body of a girl. We were too disturbed to consider the affair coolly then, but later we reached the unalterable conclusion that the fire was not caused by a spark from a passing locomotive. Neither could it have been caused by a spark from a fettler’s fire. That being the case someone must have lit the fire. I believe the fire was started on the spot where the body was lying. I also truly believe that whoever lit the fire gathered pieces of wood and heaped tinder around the body in such a way to try to ensure that the flames would completely consume the body”.
Payne agreed with Gainsford’s assessment, “On that day with a nor-easterly blowing it would be impossible for a spark to start that fire”.
Because of the mounting evidence of doubt to the theory of suicide (upheld primarily by her husband) there was a local District Coroner’s inquest, held at Hornsby, and investigation by the police, in February 1946. The Berowra locals were very shaken by the whole affair particularly as Lillian was originally a local girl whom many remembered with fondness. They wanted a speedy resolution to the matter.
The autopsy suggested the woman had been dead for months prior to her body being discovered and there was no sign of drugs in her stomach. There were no obvious marks of violence on the body and so the police still held the likely view that she had died from exposure in the bush.
Many questions were asked as to how her body could have lain in that area undiscovered for so long, especially with railway fettlers regularly working in and around that area.
The Coroner was unable to solve the mystery. However, he declared that there was, “no foul play involved”. Despite several suggestions from both Lillian’s husband, Norman Stephenson, and his sister, that Lillian had often spoken of suicide, the coroner would not declare suicide as the cause of death. Nor did he declare that she was insane. The case was left open. Certainly not everyone was satisfied with the open finding especially Lillian’s older brothers Stan, Noel and Richard Jordon.
Norman Stephenson quickly remarried in August 1946 to the woman he had been stationed with at Uranquinty, Kathleen McWilliam, which was only 6 months after the coronial inquest. Their son Peter was born in April 1947. Norman’s daughter was aged four when her mother died, and she lived with her father, stepmother and her new half-brother for some time. But as a teenager, she was raised mostly by her grandmother in the Chatswood residence which was where her mother had once called home. It was thought that her uncanny resemblance to her mother, Lillian, was un-nerving to her father and stepmother.
It was reported many years later by Norman Stephenson’s brother, William (Bill) Stephenson, who made a report to Crime Stoppers on his death bed, that he suspected his brother, Norman, had more knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Lillian’s death, as did his second wife, Kathleen Stephenson (nee McWilliam). He told Crime Stoppers that he felt guilty that he had been involved in covering up certain aspects of the inquiry, by supplying the canvas (tarp) to his brother, that he believed the body had been wrapped, carried and stored in. He said that, when the canvas was returned to him it had been hidden under the family home in Chatswood and could still possibly be there to this day.
Years later other family members also suspected that the diamond laden engagement ring that Norman’s new wife wore and had been made by Norman himself (Norman became a well-known jeweller after the war) consisted of the diamonds that had circled the face of an heirloom watch that was worn by Lillian – which was never seen again.
In 2004 Norman Stephenson passed away. However, police cold case investigators took interest, marking the persons of interest as Norman Stephenson and Kathleen Stephenson. They have since conducted new investigations and reopened the case following the fresh information provided in 2007 by Bill Stephenson. The Stephenson family home in Chatswood has been sold but it is still standing. It is understood police are looking at possible ways they may be able to forensically investigate the Chatswood home to look for new evidence, such as the tarp mentioned by Bill Stephenson.
It is the conclusion of the Chief Inspector of the Unsolved Homicide Team at Parramatta that while the actual circumstances of Lillian’s death may never be known, it is almost certain she died at Wagga sometime after the end of July and before the end of November 1945. They also conclude that sometime after her death her body was relocated, to north of Berowra Station near her childhood home. A fire had been lit around Lillian’s body, which, according to the Coronial Inquest, was fully clothed, including a light overcoat. A handbag with Lillian’s identification and hat was found nearby.
By a twist of fate Norman and Lillian’s daughter, Judith, moved to Berowra when she married. She has raised her own family in the area and still lives in Berowra today, as do Judith’s children and grandchildren.
CreatorNathan TilburyKeywordsBerowraCrimePolice
Police investigated and concluded John Jordon had been reading in bed when he dozed and knocked over his kerosene lamp setting fire to his bed clothes.
Things became more traumatic for Lillian when, soon after her father’s death, her mother also died at her sister’s home in Asquith.
Young Lillian was devastated at the loss of her parents. She eventually married Norman Stephenson who enlisted in the air force during the Second World War.
In mid-1945, Lillian left her home in Chatswood, leaving her 4 year old daughter with her mother-in-law, to go to Wagga Wagga in order to stay for a while near her husband, Norman, who was stationed at the air-base there.
One afternoon she told the woman she was boarding with in the town, that she was off to meet her husband and they were going away for the weekend. Her husband was surprised to later hear this and he said he found a note from his wife saying she could no longer bear the pain and her health problems any longer. However, he was not too concerned as he believed Lillian had gone back to his mother’s house in Chatswood, to be with their daughter. When he discovered she was not at Chatswood he reported her missing to the police.
Nearly 6 months after her disappearance Lillian was found dead in Berowra, in November 1945. Her body was discovered very near to where her father had died eight years earlier. Many of the newspapers across the country reported the events:
“BODY BURNT AND NAKED IN BUSH”.
“Badly burned and naked, the body of a young married woman who had been missing for almost six months, has been found. It was in the bush near Berowra, 28 miles north of Sydney. The woman was Mrs. Lillian Stephenson, 27, formerly of Chatswood, wife of a member of the RAAF”.
In fact the body was not naked, as reported, and this was the first of a string of inaccuracies in the press on this case.
“Walter Payne, a local poultry farmer and member of the Berowra bush fire brigade, found the body while fighting a fire which broke out about two miles from Berowra. Detectives could find no trace of the woman’s shoes or jewellery, although a handbag which revealed her identity was close to the body.
Police are satisfied the woman died in the bush soon after she disappeared, probably from poisoning, and that she was burned by one of several fires which had been in the locality in recent months”.
Lillian Stephenson (nee Jordon) was once crowned as, “The Belle of The Hawkesbury” as she was thought by many to be the prettiest girl in the district. She was born in 1917 in the family house, at Berowra, the youngest child of eight. Their house was on the Pacific Highway near where the old Tollgates used to be. This was also a few hundred yards and across the road from where her body was found.
Lillian attended Berowra Public School with the likes of Bill Foster, and she spent her youth growing in Berowra. She married airman Norman Stephenson who served as a Flight Sergeant for several years in the Air Force during the War. He was based at the Air Force base Uranquinty, approximately 15 kilometers south of Wagga Wagga.
It was first reported that the police were satisfied that Lillian had died from suicide or natural causes whilst grieving in the bush near Berowra, however there were some circumstances that started to create a lot of doubt in that theory;
• Mrs. Lillian Stephenson had been reported missing from Wagga Wagga five months prior to her body being found in Berowra. How did she get there? It would have taken a long steam train ride from Wagga Wagga to Central and then another steam train north to Berowra, right past Chatswood where her little girl was.
• Experienced locals stated that her body could not have possibly lain where it was found for any long period of time without being reduced to a skeleton as it was found on a teeming anthill. Where was the body for the last 5 months if not in Berowra?
• The bushfire which swept over the body had actually started where her body was found. Who started the fire and why?
• Experienced bush fire brigade members emphatically declared their belief, that someone had heaped tinder and fallen timber around the body before starting the fire there. Did someone want to draw attention to the body or dispose of it?
• Lillian’s husband, Mr. Norman Stephenson, appeared to move on with his life very quickly. A woman he was involved with, Kathleen McWilliam, had also been stationed at the Air Force base at Uranquinty as part of the WAAF. She wanted to make the relationship official, but this was not possible whilst Lillian was presumed missing and clearly Mr. Stephenson was still married. What was required for these two to move on with their life together was a body and a subsequent death certificate.
• Someone was feeding incorrect information to the press, who reported that Lillian’s father had committed suicide in the water well on his property, as he was depressed because he thought he was going blind. The press incorrectly reported that Lillian’s mother had died in tragic circumstances not long after the death of her husband, when in fact she died peacefully at her daughter’s place in Asquith. It appeared someone was trying to paint a picture that suicidal tendencies and depression ran in the family in order to add weight to the claims of Norman Stephenson, that his wife, Lillian, had been depressed and probably committed suicide.
On the day of the fire, which was a Monday in late November, a local orchardist and poultry farmer, Wally Payne, was sitting at the back of his property milking one of his cows. From there he commanded a very good view of the surrounding hills most of which were dense bushland. Payne saw a spiral of smoke curling up in the bush about a quarter of a mile away. He also saw a man in a short-sleeved shirt leave the area soon after he had first seen the smoke. He had no idea who the man was as he was a distance away, but he had immediately thought that the man may have started the fire from a discarded match or cigarette.
After telephoning, the Captain of the Berowra volunteer bush fire brigade, Bill Gainsford, Payne ran to the fire and began to beat it out. Soon afterwards Gainsford arrived with the fire truck and water tanks.
Gainsford says, Payne took me by the arm and said, “Come with me for Heaven’s sake and see what I’ve found”! There lying in the ashes, was the cruelly burnt body of a girl. We were too disturbed to consider the affair coolly then, but later we reached the unalterable conclusion that the fire was not caused by a spark from a passing locomotive. Neither could it have been caused by a spark from a fettler’s fire. That being the case someone must have lit the fire. I believe the fire was started on the spot where the body was lying. I also truly believe that whoever lit the fire gathered pieces of wood and heaped tinder around the body in such a way to try to ensure that the flames would completely consume the body”.
Payne agreed with Gainsford’s assessment, “On that day with a nor-easterly blowing it would be impossible for a spark to start that fire”.
Because of the mounting evidence of doubt to the theory of suicide (upheld primarily by her husband) there was a local District Coroner’s inquest, held at Hornsby, and investigation by the police, in February 1946. The Berowra locals were very shaken by the whole affair particularly as Lillian was originally a local girl whom many remembered with fondness. They wanted a speedy resolution to the matter.
The autopsy suggested the woman had been dead for months prior to her body being discovered and there was no sign of drugs in her stomach. There were no obvious marks of violence on the body and so the police still held the likely view that she had died from exposure in the bush.
Many questions were asked as to how her body could have lain in that area undiscovered for so long, especially with railway fettlers regularly working in and around that area.
The Coroner was unable to solve the mystery. However, he declared that there was, “no foul play involved”. Despite several suggestions from both Lillian’s husband, Norman Stephenson, and his sister, that Lillian had often spoken of suicide, the coroner would not declare suicide as the cause of death. Nor did he declare that she was insane. The case was left open. Certainly not everyone was satisfied with the open finding especially Lillian’s older brothers Stan, Noel and Richard Jordon.
Norman Stephenson quickly remarried in August 1946 to the woman he had been stationed with at Uranquinty, Kathleen McWilliam, which was only 6 months after the coronial inquest. Their son Peter was born in April 1947. Norman’s daughter was aged four when her mother died, and she lived with her father, stepmother and her new half-brother for some time. But as a teenager, she was raised mostly by her grandmother in the Chatswood residence which was where her mother had once called home. It was thought that her uncanny resemblance to her mother, Lillian, was un-nerving to her father and stepmother.
It was reported many years later by Norman Stephenson’s brother, William (Bill) Stephenson, who made a report to Crime Stoppers on his death bed, that he suspected his brother, Norman, had more knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Lillian’s death, as did his second wife, Kathleen Stephenson (nee McWilliam). He told Crime Stoppers that he felt guilty that he had been involved in covering up certain aspects of the inquiry, by supplying the canvas (tarp) to his brother, that he believed the body had been wrapped, carried and stored in. He said that, when the canvas was returned to him it had been hidden under the family home in Chatswood and could still possibly be there to this day.
Years later other family members also suspected that the diamond laden engagement ring that Norman’s new wife wore and had been made by Norman himself (Norman became a well-known jeweller after the war) consisted of the diamonds that had circled the face of an heirloom watch that was worn by Lillian – which was never seen again.
In 2004 Norman Stephenson passed away. However, police cold case investigators took interest, marking the persons of interest as Norman Stephenson and Kathleen Stephenson. They have since conducted new investigations and reopened the case following the fresh information provided in 2007 by Bill Stephenson. The Stephenson family home in Chatswood has been sold but it is still standing. It is understood police are looking at possible ways they may be able to forensically investigate the Chatswood home to look for new evidence, such as the tarp mentioned by Bill Stephenson.
It is the conclusion of the Chief Inspector of the Unsolved Homicide Team at Parramatta that while the actual circumstances of Lillian’s death may never be known, it is almost certain she died at Wagga sometime after the end of July and before the end of November 1945. They also conclude that sometime after her death her body was relocated, to north of Berowra Station near her childhood home. A fire had been lit around Lillian’s body, which, according to the Coronial Inquest, was fully clothed, including a light overcoat. A handbag with Lillian’s identification and hat was found nearby.
By a twist of fate Norman and Lillian’s daughter, Judith, moved to Berowra when she married. She has raised her own family in the area and still lives in Berowra today, as do Judith’s children and grandchildren.
CreatorNathan TilburyKeywordsBerowraCrimePoliceRelated
LocationBerowra
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Nathan Tilbury, Berowra's cold case mystery – 1937 to 1946. Hornsby Shire, accessed 20/04/2026, https://hornsbyshire.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/5746