Bargo, a sleepy hamlet nestled in the southern highlands of New South Wales, is the kind of place where life drifts by at its own pace. Known for its bush ranging past and its proximity to the pristine Picton Lakes, it’s a town where the extraordinary rarely intrudes. But in 1992, an unimaginable tragedy shattered Bargo’s serenity, forever etching the name Ebony Simpson into its history and breaking the collective heart of the community.
Ebony Simpson was only nine-years-old, a bright, happy girl living in Bargo with her parents, Peter and Christine, and her two older brothers, 15-year-old Zac and 14-year-old Tas. She was a Year 4 student at Bargo Primary School, where her teachers and classmates all adored her. Described as timid yet cheerful, Ebony had a warm and easy-going nature.1
To those closest to her, she was lovingly called “Bonny.” Ebony dreamed of becoming a police officer, a goal her family and friends were sure she could achieve. Whether playing netball, spending time with her friends, or simply being her creative self, Ebony seemed to excel at everything she tried.2
On August 19, 1992, the ordinary rhythm of Bargo’s quiet life was broken forever. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and Ebony was on her way home from school. Normally, her parents or brothers would pick her up or meet her at the bus stop, which was just 400 meters from her house. But on this day, Peter and Christine were visiting relatives in Wollongong, and Zac had planned to meet Ebony at the bus stop after his own school day. Unfortunately, Zac’s bus ran late, leaving Ebony to make the short walk home alone.
At around 4:00PM, Ebony stepped off the school bus at the corner of Bargo and Arina Roads. It was a familiar and safe path, one she had walked many times before. Wearing her blue tracksuit and a pink parka, she was easily recognizable, even from a distance. Her pink school bag dangled from her small shoulders as she began the walk toward her home. A neighbour, Nellie Abela, saw her walking in the direction of her house, and for a fleeting moment, everything seemed perfectly normal. But that was the last time anyone saw Ebony alive.3
When Zac arrived home a short while later, he expected to find his little sister there waiting for him. Instead, the house was eerily quiet. Ebony wasn’t home. Perplexed, he called their mother, Christine, to see if she had picked Ebony up after school. When she told him she hadn’t, Zac’s concern deepened. He immediately started calling Ebony’s friends, hoping she had gone to a classmate’s house or stopped somewhere along the way. But every call ended in disappointment—none of her friends had seen her after school.4
By the time Christine returned home, panic had set in. She and Zac scoured the streets of Bargo, calling Ebony’s name and stopping at every house in the neighbourhood. When their search turned up nothing, Christine made the call every parent dreads—she phoned the police to report her daughter missing.
Detective Sergeant Rod Grant was one of the first officers on the scene, and he wasted no time organizing a search. Police from Camden and Picton were dispatched, along with the dog squad and local SES volunteers. A police helicopter hovered overhead, its searchlights cutting through the darkening skies as the hours passed.
Missing person flyers were quickly printed and distributed across the area. They described Ebony as standing 130 centimetres tall with waist-length fair hair, dressed in her blue tracksuit and pink parka, and carrying a pink school bag. Police and volunteers went door-to-door, questioning neighbours and urging them to report anything unusual, no matter how minor it might seem.Bottom of Form
As the search for Ebony Simpson continued, a neighbour came forward with a lead that would ultimately expose the grim truth. The neighbour recalled seeing a man, approximately 18 or 19 years old, working under the bonnet of a dirty white or cream-colored car on Arina Road—the same road Ebony had walked down just before vanishing. The car, possibly an early model Mazda or Datsun, was described as being in poor condition, with visible stains from a smoky exhaust pipe.
The man had been standing just ahead of Ebony, positioned at the corner where she would have turned onto Arina Road. He was described as wearing a black, long-sleeved top and black jeans, standing around 177 centimetres tall, with straight, shoulder-length brown hair and a thin build.
This detail wasn’t an isolated observation. Police revealed that a car matching the description had been spotted multiple times in the area in the days leading up to Ebony’s disappearance. Witnesses also reported seeing a similar car loitering near primary and high schools in surrounding suburbs over the past few months. Although police couldn’t confirm whether it was the same car, they couldn’t rule it out either.5
When Ebony’s mother, Christine, heard the description of the man, she recalled seeing someone similar in the days before Ebony’s disappearance. With her help, detectives created a composite sketch. The image was quickly circulated, and soon after, multiple calls came in identifying the man as 29-year-old Andrew Peter Garforth.
Garforth was an unemployed father of two with a history of petty crime that included breaking and entering, theft, and traffic violations. While his criminal record spanned years, it held no indication that he was capable of the unspeakable acts he would soon admit to. Garforth had been living in Bargo for just five weeks, having skipped bail in Western Australia. His family had recently moved to the area, settling just 3 kilometres from the Simpson home.
When police located Garforth, they brought him in for questioning. What they didn’t anticipate was the chilling confession that followed. Garforth calmly admitted to abducting, raping, and murdering Ebony Simpson, the horrific details with disturbing detachment.
On that fateful day, Garforth had positioned himself near his car, pretending to tinker under the bonnet. When Ebony walked past, he grabbed her from behind and forced her into the car’s trunk before speeding off. He turned the music up loud to drown out any sound Ebony made from the trunk.
He then drove to a remote dirt track along Charles Point Road, where he moved her from the trunk to the front seat. Ebony, terrified and pleading for her life, begged him to let her go home. But Garforth had no intention of showing mercy. At the edge of a dam nearby, Garforth bound Ebony’s hands and feet with wire before subjecting her to a brutal rape.
He recollected: “She asked me if I was going to let her go and I said I don’t know.” But Garforth did know. After he was finished with the sexual assault, he threw Ebony into the water of the dam while she was still bound. Despite being a strong swimmer, Ebony was unable to keep herself afloat with her hands and feet restrained. Garforth stuffed her school bag with rocks and tossed it into the dam as well, hoping to sink any evidence that might implicate him. As Ebony struggled and screamed for help, he walked away, fully aware she would drown.6
Shockingly, Garforth later returned to the area where he had abducted Ebony and joined the search efforts organized by the local community. He walked among concerned neighbours and police officers, feigning worry for the little girl he knew would never return home.
Following the confession, Ebony’s body was retrieved from the dam.
The murder of Ebony Simpson didn’t just shatter the small town of Bargo—it sent shockwaves of grief and outrage across the entire nation. Among those most devastated was Andrew Garforth’s wife, Denise. The mother of his two young sons, aged one and three, Denise was blindsided. At the time of Garforth’s arrest, the couple had been planning to expand their family with a third child.
In an emotional interview with A Current Affair, Denise expressed her disbelief. Despite feeling deeply hurt and destroyed by what had happened, she confessed that she still loved Andrew. She described him as an amazing father to their children, struggling to reconcile the man she knew with the monster who had taken Ebony’s life.
While Denise and the Simpson family reeled in emotional agony, Andrew Garforth faced the brutal reality of prison life. Shortly after being placed in Long Bay Jail, he became the target of inmate fury. In one incident, he was attacked while sitting alone in a locked holding yard. Days later, a group of inmates broke into his locked cell to attack him again. Following these attacks, Garforth was transferred to Goulburn Jail, where he was placed under protection.7
Garforth’s murder trial began in January, but there would be no drawn-out legal battle. In court, he pleaded guilty to the murder of Ebony Simpson, offering no defence, no explanation, and no remorse.
Mr. Justice Newman, who presided over the case, made the decision to exclude victim impact statements from Ebony’s family, acknowledging that the effects of such a crime were too obvious to need articulation. “Plainly enough, the effects of these events upon the victim’s family would be horrific,” he remarked. He also described Ebony’s final moments as unimaginably terrifying, emphasizing the cruelty and coldness of Garforth’s actions.
During sentencing, Justice Newman noted Garforth’s disturbing lack of emotion, both during his crime and in his confession to investigators. He recalled Garforth’s “callous and casual comment” about what he had expected to happen to Ebony as she struggled in the water, a detail he found “chilling to the extreme.”
The courtroom was packed on the day Garforth was sentenced, and when Justice Newman handed down a life term without the possibility of parole, the room erupted in cheers and applause. Garforth became only the fifth person in New South Wales history to receive such a sentence—a reflection of the severity and inhumanity of his crime.8
The sentence brought a measure of justice to Ebony’s family, but it could never erase the profound loss they felt. Andrew Garforth’s life sentence ensured that he would never walk free, but the scars of his actions would linger indefinitely—on the Simpson family, the town of Bargo, and an Australia that would never forget Ebony Simpson.
Footnotes:
- The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 August, 1992 – “Goodbye Bonny, Our Little Angel”
- The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 August, 1992 – “Police Fear For Missing Girl”
- Southern Highland News, 20 August, 2002 – “The Day a Town Lost Its Innocence”
- The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 August, 1992 – “House to House Search Today for Ebony”
- The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 August, 1992 – “House to House Search Today for Ebony”
- The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 February, 1993 – “Ebony Murder Unplanned, Hearing Told”
- The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 August, 1992 – “Prisoners Attack Schoolgirl’s Accused Killer”
- The Sunday Age, 10 July, 1993 – “Cheers in Court as Child’s Killer is Jailed for Life”
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