POLICE took more than six months to properly search Lucille Butterworth's bedroom after she vanished, an inquest has heard.
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Ms Butterworth's brother, Jim, told coroner Simon Cooper on Thursday that his mother wrote a letter to then-premier Angus Bethune expressing her disgust at the handling of the case.
Mr Butterworth, 79, told the inquest examining her disappearance in August 1969 that it wasn't until 1970 that police searched her room and began a proper investigation.
The inquest heard the detectives who took on the initial case were moved to night shift two weeks later due to staff shortages.
Retired detective sergeant Jeff Edwards said the case wasn't treated as a crime, and it was presumed Ms Butterworth was "out on the town".
Mr Butterworth said he and his brother John searched for their sister all the way to Launceston after she went missing.
"It was just impossible, and as things turned out, it was," Mr Butterworth said.
He said when they stopped at police stations along the way no one had heard of the case, despite her being reported as a missing person.
"I thought it was pretty slack," Mr Butterworth said.
"We were absolutely disgusted."
Mr Butterworth said as the family became desperate to find her body, clairvoyants were used.
He said a Dutch psychic told the family she was in reeds on the banks of the Derwent River near Granton.
Mr Butterworth used scuba gear to search the area, to no avail.
"Any straw was a good straw for us at the time," Mr Butterworth said.
He told the inquest the family was inundated with calls from people telling them they knew where Ms Butterworth was.
"Every crank and his brother was making statements about where she was," he said.
The main person of interest in the case is Geoffrey Charles Hunt, who killed car sales agent Susan Knight in 1976.
Mr Butterworth said when Hunt was arrested for Ms Knight's murder he spoke to a policeman who told him Hunt had also admitted to killing his sister.
"We thought at the time 'we've got the person who got Lucille'," Mr Butterworth said.
"It went nowhere."
Investigators believe Ms Butterworth, 20, accepted a ride with someone she knew after missing her bus to New Norfolk and died on the same night.
The inquest continues.
