Tarita Fisher had a horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
In the final months of 2017, her sister-in-law Constance Watcho had gone quiet.
No-one had seen or heard from her in weeks — not her kids, her brothers or anyone in her large family network across Brisbane and central Queensland.
Constance, or Connie as she was affectionately known, was a funny, strong-willed and loving mother-of-10, says Tarita.
The 36-year-old had been living in Brisbane for the past few years and had had a difficult life, but her disappearance was completely out of character.
"For her to be vanished — she just vanished — that's not Constance. It's not Constance," Tarita says.
"I said to one of [her] brothers at the time, I said, 'Look, this is unusual. She needs to be listed as a missing person. This isn't normal.'"
Her brothers and one of her teenage sons made the trip from their small, neighbouring communities of Cherbourg and Murgon down to Brisbane to search for her.
"Just asking people on the street if they knew any stories, where she'd been, what happened. I just knew something wasn't right," says Constance's son Orlyn.
It was clear from their own search efforts that she was nowhere to be found, and so the family reported her missing on February 8, 2018.
'Aboriginal women don't just go missing'
The Coroners Court would later hear that just two days after her family went to police, officers had assessed Constance's case as "medium-risk".
The risk assessment for a missing person's report is crucial, according to research by the Australian Institute of Criminology, because it is the central mechanism by which police resources are then allocated.
"She wasn't medium-risk. That's their terminology. When an Aboriginal woman goes missing in our communities, it's high-risk," Tarita says.
"When someone goes missing, there's something seriously wrong … because Aboriginal women don't just go missing. They don't just disappear or go into hiding."
Tarita often reflects on why Constance's case has received little national attention.
"It's a Black woman gone missing, disappeared off the face of the Earth and no one could locate her. The only people that cared was her family."
An unspeakable crime in plain sight
On a bright, beautiful morning, as ferries whizzed by on the Brisbane River, police officers waded through overgrown weeds and grass to reveal an unspeakable crime.
In the wealthy inner-city suburb of Kangaroo Point, near a busy walking track at the base of a cliff, Constance's body was discovered in a sports bag, hidden in plain sight.
It's September 10, 2018, and by now she had been missing for almost 10 months.
It was evident to police that Constance's body had been completely dehumanised: dismembered, disarticulated at the joints and partially stuffed into a bag.
Some of her bones were strewn about the grass. Her bra was still intact around her torso and shoulder bones.
It would later be revealed at a coronial inquest that the man who discovered her body and reported it to police was one of the last people to have seen Constance alive.
'We think it's your Mum'
Orlyn says he found out about his mum's death from police, moments before they held a press conference.
"They just told me what they found and just [said] 'We think it's your mum,' and [they] just said it's going to be on the news in 30 seconds. I hung up the phone," he says.
"I cried and went quiet for months."
Tarita broke the news to two of Constance's other children, Rose and Michael, who were still in high school at the time.
Satellite imagery revealed that Constance's body had lain in the same spot for at least six months — in the same suburb where she was last seen alive.
It's a startling revelation: all this time her body had been barely concealed just 200 metres from where Constance had been staying.
Police would later tell an inquest: "If the remains were located sooner, this would have assisted us greatly in so far as establishing a cause of death."
The discovery of her mother's body was shattering for Constance's daughter Rose, who began questioning whether a thorough search of the area had ever been carried out by police.
"My mother was found 200 metres from the last place she was seen, in a place where a lot of people walk by. That part of the investigation I feel wasn't conducted properly," she says.
"I do see a lot of things on the news — white women going missing [and] getting found, a proper investigation into what happened. It's not like that with my mother."
During the inquest, the Queensland Police Force says it invested significant resources into the investigation into Constance's disappearance and death, which included checking interstate police databases and accessing bank records.
Police had 'no working theories' on what happened
Police told a coronial inquest last month they had "no working theories" about what happened to her.
The inquest heard that a man had approached police near his home to tell them he had found the bag at the cliffs.
Media reports at the time referred to the man as a "member of the public".
In fact, Constance had been living with him, along with her boyfriend Przemyslaw "Sam" Sobczak, and a third man, Dallas Bandman.
Queensland Police told the inquest that the three men were persons of interest in the case and that "versions provided by all those three [men] are conflicting with each other, and also with previous versions given by them."
Constance seen arguing with boyfriend, coroner hears
Dallas Bandman told the Coroners Court that he last saw Constance arguing with her boyfriend, Mr Sobczak, near the Kangaroo Point flats where they all lived, on November 27, 2017.
Mr Bandman was read a portion of his statement to police about what happened next.
"I remember thinking enough is enough, and I went outside and told them to piss off. They didn't say anything, they just walked off," he was quoted as saying.
However, Mr Bandman told the inquest that after he had asked them to leave, he had actually gone back inside the flat and bundled up sheets and pillows and stuffed them into a bag, before giving it to Constance and Mr Sobczak.
When shown a photograph of the bag that had contained Constance's remains, he said it had belonged to him and that it was the same bag he had given the pair the night he kicked them out.
He was asked why he hadn't told police this important detail in his statement.
"I just want to clarify that not everything I said to police is in the statement," Mr Bandman said.
Mr Bandman then told the inquest that Mr Sobczak had returned to the flat the next day.
"He [Mr Sobczak] had two black eyes. Swollen black eyes. Maybe a scruff mark on his face, on his chest maybe. Looked like he'd been in a fight."
When Mr Bandman asked where Constance was, he says Mr Sobczak replied, "f*** off".
Mr Bandman strongly denied any involvement in the disappearance and death of Constance.
"She was a friend of mine and I didn't hurt her," he said.
At the inquest, Mr Sobczak answered "I don't know" and "I don't remember" to dozens of questions, and replied "No" when asked if he had anything to do with her death.
Mr Sobczak will return to give evidence when the inquest resumes.
'Show her children what happened to her'
Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist and academic Amy McQuire has been closely following the inquest.
"Her family felt that there was an urgency to find her," she says.
"The fact that Constance was found so close to where she was last seen — that's something that has never been properly answered.
"There was just this total apathy."
The coroner heard Constance's case is deemed a "suspicious death" because police have said a cause of death cannot be determined.
"Show her children the outcomes. Show her children the truths of what happened to her. There's got to be some answer to this," Tarita says.
Her loved ones have multiple unanswered questions over whether Queensland Police have conducted a meaningful investigation.
"For someone else, it would have been quick to solve. It's been years now and they still haven't done anything," says Constance's son Michael.
Four Corners sent a detailed list of questions to the Queensland Police Force regarding the investigation into Ms Watcho's death.
A spokesperson says the force is committed to "enhancing its capability" to protect victims of violence but that it would be inappropriate to comment further while Ms Watcho's inquest is ongoing.
A silent crisis
Amy McQuire says there is a pattern of ongoing violence towards Indigenous women stretching back decades.
"Aboriginal women are largely [seen as] just passive and bodies for which acts of violence are done to," she tells Four Corners.
"And I think that's a real reason why this crisis has been silenced for so long … media and society haven't been listening."
No-one knows how many First Nations women have disappeared over the decades, but Four Corners has established at least 49 missing cases across Australia since 1941.
Many of these women's families have spent several years pushing for better search efforts, more rigorous investigations, and increased media attention to unsolved cases of missing Aboriginal women.
It's taken more than four years for Ms Watcho's case to go before the Queensland coroners court.
Last month, Constance's family made the difficult decision to sit through five days of hearings.
They also held a moving and emotional ceremony for her at the base of the cliff where her body was found.
Constance's eldest children are growing up in Murgon, not far from where she was raised in Cherbourg.
Their Mum is now buried at the Cherbourg cemetery where her grave is adorned with purple flowers — her favourite colour.
"I just miss her and love her," Michael says.
"I'll never give up on her and I know that she's with me everywhere I go."
Watch the full Four Corners investigation on ABC iview.
EDITOR'S NOTE: November 1, 2022: An earlier version of this story included a name which has been removed for legal reasons.
