An unassuming weatherboard cottage in suburban Sydney remains a crime scene, as police search for the remains of murdered schoolgirl Quanne Diec.
It is alleged the 12-year-old was abducted just a few hundred metres from her Granville home as she made her way to school on the morning of Monday, July 27, 1998.
Vinzent Tarantino, who once went by the name Victor Gerada, was charged on Sunday with kidnapping the girl "with intent to hold her for ransom". It is alleged that at some point over the next 12-and-a-half hours he caused Quanne "a substantial injury" that ended her young life.
Forensic specialists spent Monday searching the Gerada family home on Second Street, Granville. The yellow-painted property remained cordoned off on Tuesday as NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said he was hopeful Quanne's body would be recovered soon.
"They deserve to know where their little girl is," Mr Scipione said of the Diec family.
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"Police have worked very hard to try and resolve that issue and at this stage I am hopeful to get a result in the not so distant future."
Tarantino will remain in custody until he next appears at Parramatta Local Court in January.
The 49-year-old former Kings Cross bouncer has been "a person of interest in this investigation for 18 years," Superintendent Scott Whyte told reporters in Sydney on Monday.
He would not comment on whether he was stalking the schoolgirl.
He said Tarantino was not known to the family but the murder was not random.
