State Coroner to announce dates for inquest into 1986 disappearance of Perth mother Sharon Fulton

The State Coroner will soon announce dates for an inquest into the baffling 1986 disappearance of Perth mother-of-four Sharon Fulton — almost three years after the case first reached the Coroner’s office. An investigation by The West Australian last year found that cold case detectives forwarded the case to the Coroner’s office in April 2018 after a major reinvestigation of the entire case in 2016. Police usually send cold case files to the Coroner when they have exhausted all lines of inquiry. However, it is ultimately up to the Coroner whether to hold an inquest into the death or suspected death of a person. A Coroner’s office spokeswoman said in March last year the court was continuing to investigate Mrs Fulton’s case in readiness for an inquest. “I am unable to advise the timing of when it is likely this matter will be listed,” she said at the time. However, this week the spokeswoman confirmed “tentative” inquest dates into Mrs Fulton’s case would be announced at a Coroner’s Court hearing on February 5. Who will be called as a witness to the inquest — and how long the inquest will last — will become clearer later in the year. Mrs Fulton, who was 39 when she went missing, was married with children aged between three and 15 when she vanished on March 18, 1986. She was last seen in Wangara at the WA Sound and Coordination Centre about 9.30am, having dropped off her three-year-old son there. She was due to go to a friend’s house in Bayswater later that day but never arrived. Detectives reviewed the case several times between 2008 and 2017. The case underwent a full reinvestigation in 2016. That new investigation ended in 2017 and a year later the case was forwarded to the Coroner. A talented tenpin bowler, Mrs Fulton lived with her husband and children in Readshaw Road in Duncraig. The family had moved to WA in 1983 after Mrs Fulton’s husband was posted to the RAAF Base Pearce in Bullsbrook. Her disappearance happened in the same year David and Catherine Birnie murdered four Perth women but detectives have previously ruled them out as suspects. In an interview with The Sunday Times in 2016 Mrs Fulton’s son Kyle said he was desperate to know what happened to his mother. “I would almost beg for someone who does know what happened to her to give us children some closure, so that we can give her a proper burial and know where to pay our respects,” he said at the time. “It’s that void in our lives that we need to have filled.” Anyone with information about the case can still call Crime Stoppers anonymously or make a report online.