Desperate dad who used a sex worker to probe his Aussie daughter’s murder in Mozambique sends urgent warning to cops

EXCLUSIVE

A desperate father who hired a sex worker to investigate his daughter’s murder is threatening to resume his unorthodox investigation unless Australian authorities help solve her murder.

Paul Warren has demanded that Australian diplomats give him a thorough update at the end of this month on the investigation by local detectives in Mozambique into the death of his daughter Elly.

The Melbourne father warned that if he was unhappy with their progress he would have “no choice” but to return to the south-east African country and renew his own research.

“I’ll give them three weeks (and) if there’s no response, I’ll move on,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

Warren’s daughter was just 20 when she was murdered on November 8, 2016 during a night out with friends in the coastal town of Tofu.

The aspiring marine biologist was celebrating the end of her six-week volunteer program documenting the country’s endangered coastal reefs when she disappeared around 1 a.m. while going to a bar for another drink.

Her body was discovered four hours later by a local fisherman as she lay face down in the mud outside a public toilet block across the road from the popular nightspot.

She had cuts and bruises on her neck and mouth, her shirt was torn open and her skirt was pulled up with her underwear down to her knees.

Elly’s death was initially ruled a drug overdose by local police, before two separate toxicology reports showed there were no illegal substances in her system.

Mozambique authorities eventually ruled her death a homicide last year, but said the country’s homicide detectives had been unable to identify her killer.

The concession came on the eve of an inquest into Elly’s death, conducted in her home state of Victoria.

Coroner John Cain found that Elly may have had two or three alcoholic drinks the night she died, but it was unlikely that she was drunk.

He said the popular young environmentalist had died after choking on sand, but he could not determine how the sand got into her throat and lungs.

The sand in her lungs was golden, while the dirt around the toilet block was black, indicating her body had been moved after she was killed.

Many of the key circumstances surrounding her death remained unknown because the coroner’s court, the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had all failed to obtain evidence prepared by Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service.

As a result, Mr Cain said he was unable to determine whether Elly had died outside the toilet block or been moved after she was killed, whether she had been sexually assaulted on her last night alive, or even confirm whether she had been murdered.

Mr Caine said it is now up to the local investigating judge in Mozambique to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to continue or abandon the investigation into Elly’s death.

‘Without knowing what the pretrial judge and the investigating police in Mozambique have in their hands, I do not know whether there is an identified person or persons of interest. [if] there is an active investigation underway or that all possible leads have been followed and the investigation has stalled,” he said last December when handing over his findings.

Mr Warren said his family was devastated by the lack of cooperation between Australian and Mozambican authorities since Elly’s death and feared investigators were not interested in finding his daughter’s killer.

The retired industrial engineer said he had repeatedly requested updates from DFAT on the status of investigations in Mozambique following the inquest – most recently on Monday – only for his emails to be ignored.

“I’m hoping for a response from DFAT this time with my recent email,” he said. “If not, I have no choice but to go back.

‘They thought that after the inquest it would fall away and the family would give up. The thing is, there’s still an investigation going on there because I haven’t heard anything else.

‘I now think it is time to visit Mozambique again and ask to speak to a government official to find out the facts for myself.’

Despite being warned not to interfere with the official investigation, Mr Warren has made two trips to Mozambique and spent his savings – about $80,000 – conducting his own private investigation into Elly’s death.

He now suspects that Elly was killed in a botched robbery on the beach, before she was dumped at the toilet block and the scene was staged to look like an assault.

In 2020, he received a tip that a local crime lord had heard him bragging about her death.

The man had distinctive tattoos and was known to hang out at a pub just around the corner from where Elly was last seen.

“The town where Elly was murdered is a small place, and nothing happens there without this man knowing about it,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“Either he killed my little girl, or he knows who did it.”

He was unable to return to investigate the pipe himself due to the strict coronavirus lockdowns at the time, but worked with a private investigator to investigate remotely.

Together they hired a sex worker from a nearby village and paid her to move to Tofo and infiltrate the gang in an attempt to gather more information about Elly’s death.

The sting lasted about a month before the sex worker began to fear for her life and they ended the operation.

He is now pleading with the AFP to offer to assist Mozambican authorities in a full re-investigation of the killing, amid fears that local detectives were ill-equipped to handle the investigation.

“The AFP kept telling me not to worry, that the Mozambique police would conduct a proper investigation and that I should not go there and get in the way,” he said.

‘But the local police were simply not equipped to handle a murder investigation, and I quickly realized that the AFP did not want to get involved.

‘Then I knew I had to do it myself.

‘My biggest regret is that I didn’t jump on the plane the moment I found out she was dead, but trusted the AFP to do their job.

‘When I look back on those first few weeks after Elly’s death, I am completely disgusted by their incompetence and inaction – and I am still disgusted by it.

‘It’s been over eight years now and I’m still the only one doing anything. It shouldn’t be up to me to investigate and interrogate suspects.’

The AFP said it was involved in the Mozambique investigation through all appropriate channels.

“The investigation into the death of Elly Warren fell within the jurisdiction of the Mozambique authorities,” a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.

“The AFP, through our senior liaison officer, has engaged regularly with Mozambican authorities since the death of Elly Warren in 2016, including providing significant support to Mozambican authorities through on-the-ground meetings and regular communications.

“The AFP is committed to working with the foreign law enforcement community and will continue to leverage the AFP’s relationships and extensive capabilities to support Australians at home and abroad.”