Ballarat grandmother Shirley Macey is certain whoever murdered her daughter has told someone their darkest secret.
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And homicide cold case detectives believe they can solve the cold-blooded killing.
Sunday marked 18 years to the day since the disappearance of Belinda Williams, who was last seen in her Buninyong home along Elizabeth Street on Friday, June 25, 1999.
Ms Williams, 36, had entertained girlfriends before they left her house on the cold winter's night about 9.30pm.
She then got into bed to cuddle her six-year-old daughter, who she read fairy-tales to every night.
But when Ms William's daughter awoke her loving mum was nowhere to be seen.
Her body was found 11 days later, dumped amid scrub on the slopes of Mount Buninyong, still dressed in a nightshirt.
But eighteen years on nobody has been charged despite a $1 million reward for information.
And the pain for her family will not heal with time.
“Belinda was beautiful, she was very bubbly and enthusiastic about everything – a lovely person,” Ms Macey said.
“Her daughter is now 24 and is exactly the same.
“But it’s so heart-wrenching that after 18 years there is nothing. And with a $1 million reward. We don’t even know what day she died.”
At one stage police believed Ms Williams was murdered by someone she knew but lacked enough evidence.
Ms Macey said she had her suspicions about someone, but still said it could have been anyone.
“I’ve always thought something but maybe it’s someone completely off the radar,” she said. “Because where she was living people were altering the house and there were all sorts of people going through.”
Ms Macey remains in close contact with homicide squad detectives belonging to Victoria Police’s cold case unit, which is based in Melbourne.
She said it was difficult when detectives moved on as she has to build relationships with new officers.
But cold cases are still solved even decades later.
A man accused of the murder of a six-year-old in Preston in 1984 fronted the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court last month.
Ms Macey just hopes she will live to see justice brought to her daughter’s killer.
It’s this hope she thinks about when she sits and reads around Lake Wendouree, looking towards the shadow of Mount Buninyong where her daughter was callously dumped all those years ago.
“Somebody must know something,” she said. “Please if you do, come forward.”
Call Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000.
