Missing schoolgirl Quanne Diec was enticed off her street and detained by a man who intended to hold her for ransom, then murdered her sometime during a 13-hour period in 1998, police will allege.
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Details of the 18-year-old cold case emerged in court on Monday following a stunning breakthrough on Sunday resulting in the arrest of Vinzent Tarantino, 49.
Quanne, 12, was plucked off the street on July 27, 1998, just moments after she left her family's home in Granville to go to Strathfield Girls High School.
She was intending to catch a train from Clyde to Strathfield but did not arrive at school and was never seen again.
Mr Tarantino, who has also been known as Victor Gerada, attended Surry Hills police station on Sunday to be interviewed by detectives.
He was later charged with murder and detain for advantage.
Police began searching a Granville house connected to Mr Tarantino on Monday morning just a few streets away from the Diecs' home, saying their top priority was "to bring Quanne home to her parents".
The search raises the possibility that Quanne's body has lain just 700 metres from her family home for almost 20 years.
According to court documents, Mr Tarantino "did entice away and detain Quanne Diec, with intent to hold her for ransom, and caused her a substantial injury".
He murdered her between 6.30am and 7.30pm on July 27, 1998, the court documents say.
Mr Tarantino did not apply for bail in Central Local Court on Monday but made bizarre comments about "what I have done".
"Can I say something, your honour?" he said to magistrate Les Mabbutt.
"I believe my brother ... and my partner ... have been murdered in retaliation for what I have done."
Mr Mabbutt noted that Mr Tarantino's comments were now on the record but did not say anything further.
Wearing jeans and a blue polo shirt, Mr Tarantino was represented by a Legal Aid lawyer.
Mr Tarantino has also been charged with having custody of a knife in a public place after he was allegedly caught carrying a 35-centimetre kitchen knife in Surry Hills on Sunday.
The accused, who has no connection to Quanne or her family, has been a major suspect since 1998 and Superintendent Scott Whyte put the breakthrough down to "good, hard, old fashioned police work".CCTV footage released by police in 2000 appears to show Quanne being followed by a shadowy figure as she walked past an Australia Post sorting centre in Factory Street, Granville - 400 metres from her home.
She did not make it to the other end of the sorting facility.
Forensic police spent the day inside the house connected to Mr Tarantino. A neighbour, Peter Youssef, said he knew the man as Victor Gerada and that he had previously worked as a Kings Cross security guard.
He said the man had left home at a young age but had returned over the years to visit his parents.
"He was just older, a little bit troubled but nothing like what they are saying about him today," Mr Youssef said.
On the day she disappeared, Quanne was heading for Clyde train station on her way to Strathfield Girls High School but never arrived.
Her disappearance was not reported to police for about 10 hours because the school believed she was probably sick at home, while her family thought she was at school.
The Diec family, who searched for years for their missing daughter, has been told of the arrest but had asked for privacy, Superintendent Scott Whyte told reporters in Sydney on Monday.
Quanne's parents, who were born in Vietnam, have never stopped searching for their daughter and said in 2000 that they had spent thousands of dollars travelling around Australia to follow up possible sightings.
Ann and Sam Diec still live in the same home in Granville in which Quanne was last seen by her family.
In 2003, they said they would never move in case Quanne walked back into their lives.
"If Quanne did return and we're not here, then she won't know where we have gone," Mr Diec told The Sunday Telegraph.
