LUCILLE Butterworth's boyfriend dug with his bare hands to try and find her body after an anonymous tip-off, an inquest has heard.
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John Fitzgerald told the coronial inquest examining her disappearance 46 years ago that over the years, he would receive distressing letters telling him where she might be buried.
He broke down on the stand as he described unearthing a ram's skeleton after receiving a letter with directions.
"You'd never believe the joy of not finding anything," Mr Fitzgerald said.
"One minute you want an answer and then you're scared of what you will find."
Mr Fitzgerald said he and Ms Butterworth, 20, had made wedding rings, and were keeping their engagement a secret.
"I had a devil's own job to get her to keep it quiet until her birthday," Mr Fitzgerald said.
He told coroner Simon Cooper he would never forget the moment he realised she was missing.
Mr Fitzgerald said he rang her work first thing in the morning when she failed to turn up to a Miss Tasmania meeting in New Norfolk the night before.
When it was confirmed she wasn't at work, he rang her mother Winifred, only to find she hadn't been home.
"This was the horrible moment when we realised something had happened," he said. He said the following search was "like a nightmare".
"It was incredible where we gained the stamina from to just keep searching," he said.
About two months after Ms Butterworth vanished on August 25, Mr Fitzgerald was invited to a friend's house where there was a group of people waiting with news to make him "feel better".
The false claim included one that Ms Butterworth had been kidnapped and drugged by a thickset Greek man who had been fond of Ms Butterworth for some time, and that she was being held against her will in New Zealand.
"I can't understand why so many people would get together and tell so many lies to make me feel better," Mr Fitzgerald said.
"When I went to police, they denied they ever said it ... how could people do something so cruel?"
The meeting was held at the house of taxi driver Dennis Wood, who Mr Fitzgerald has always considered a suspect in Ms Butterworth's disappearance.
"He would get a few drinks on board and he would want to menace the girls," Mr Fitzgerald said, adding that his girlfriend was a favourite target.
"I've always thought upon Dennis as a possible suspect."
Investigators believe Ms Butterworth, thinking she missed her bus at Claremont, accepted a lift with someone she knew and was killed the same night on August 25, 1969.
On Monday, counsel assisting the coroner, Simon Nicholson, identified convicted murderer and rapist Geoffrey Hunt as the main person of interest.
Hunt lived across the road from Mr Fitzgerald and he described him as a "bit of strange character who didn't seem to make many friends".
The inquest is expected to hear from Ms Butterworth's brothers Jim and John on Thursday.