Witness Tells Inquiry She Saw Daniel Morcombe, heard Cries for Help

DANIEL JAMES MORCOMBE, WAVING HAPPILY

This News was on 15th December, 2010

A MOTHER saw Daniel Morcombe standing at a bus stop about the time of his disappearance and then heard the urgent screams of a child in distress while driving to collect her daughter from church, an inquest has been told.

Judith Van Der Meer told the Brisbane Coroner's Court she remembered seeing Daniel, a blue car and two men acting "conspicuously" under the Kiel Mountain Rd overpass about the time of his disappearance of December 7, 2003.

Ms Van Der Meer, who was running late to collect her young daughter from the nearby Christian Outreach Church, said after passing Danile she heard a child's voice yelling.

"It was definitely Daniel there with a stick (and then) I remember hearing a boy's voice saying, 'No, I don't want to,' " she said.

"It was short, it was sharp, it was urgent."

However, the mother-of-the-three said after collecting her daughter from church she "didn't think anything more of it".

SCENE OF THE CRIME: The photo above shows where Daniel disappeared

Ms Van Der Meer said she also heard the distinct voices of two men, who could have been those she had seen standing near a blue car near where she had seen Daniel standing and holding a stick."

Chief coroner Michael Barnes was told the woman was also suspicious of a man, who she thought looked like a "murderer", who attended at least three services at her church and spent time congregating with young children.

"There was something that made me quite uncomfortable about him," Ms Van Der Meer said.

She said she saw the same man walking up an embankment near the Woombye bus-stop Daniel as last seen at prior to his suspected abduction.

Under questioning by solicitor Peter Boyce, for the Morcombe family, said her recollection of the events did not come back to her until she was relaxing while on a camping holiday a week or two later.

"When I had time to relax it (memories of that day) started coming to me and was getting clearer and clearer," she said.

"It was like two o'clock in the morning, and, oh my gosh my memory just kicked in."

The hearing continues.

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