The daughter of missing woman Darlene Avis Geertsema said she heard an argument and hitting sounds on the last night she saw her mother, a coronial inquest heard.
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Kathryn Gray was eight-years-old at the time of her 30 year-old mother's disappearance from a unit at Best Street in Devonport on October 23, 1978.
Darlene's partner John Shepherd, the father of Kathryn's brother Ryan, is a person of interest at the inquest and is being represented by Devonport barrister Greg Richardson.
Ms Gray told the inquest that on the afternoon of October 23 her mother picked her and brother Ryan up from school.
"I was sitting in the front seat and Mum showed me the tickets," she said.
"We were going to see my older sisters [living in Queensland] for the twins 13th birthday and she showed me the jewellery she had bought," Ms Gray said.
She said the plan did not include Mr Shepherd.
Ms Gray said that Mr Shepherd would visit the unit to see Ryan that night.
"I thought that is not good because it always led to arguments," Ms Gray said.
The inquest has heard evidence that Ryan was all that Mr Shepherd thought about.
Ms Gray said her mother was drinking on the evening-which was unusual.
"I heard an argument, I don't know what it was about which became heated and I heard hitting sounds and Mum was yelling to stop," she said.
"There were hitting sounds and and crying and then it went very quiet." She said that during the night she saw two sets of headlights leave the unit's car park.
"In the morning I went in to give Mum a cuddle and she wasn't there," she said.
She said Mr Shepherd told her that Darlene had gone to her friend Julie's place.
Ms Gray said not long after she saw Mr Shepherd burning her mother's clothes and Elvis Presley record collection.
Mr Richardson suggested to Ms Gray that Mr Shepherd had been living at the unit with the children and Darlene.
"I only remember him there that night," she said.
Darlene's sister Helen Pocock said she wrote to Mr Shepherd to ask him to reveal on his death bed where her body was. She said Mr Shepherd had never replied.
Ms Pocock said that she saw blood on the walls at a house in Trevallyn that Darlene shared with Mr Shepherd in about 1971.
"Her face was as black as I've seen, her eyes were bright red and her lip swollen," she told counsel assisting Madeleine Wilson SC.
"What about her nose?," Ms Wilson asked.
"Her nose was sideways and she had bruises on her arms."
She said that Darlene told her that she had been attacked by a group of girls.
However, Ms Pocock said she worked out what had happened after visiting the house in Trevallyn with her sister Dawn.
Ms Pocock and Darlene's daughter Tania Furber told the inquest that Mr Shepherd had never contacted them to say Darlene was missing.
A Westbury man, Colin Jarman who was a former boyfriend of Darlene, told the inquest that his sister Wendy was married to Mr Shepherd.
He said he had heard of an occasion of domestic violence.
"They were at a cabaret and John went home early and she never came home all night," he said.
"She said he [Mr Shepherd] gave her a clipping."
Mr Jarman said he confronted Mr Shepherd about it.
The inquest continues on Wednesday.
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