A New Zealand nurse who became a prostitute to fund her drug habit was one of several women who disappeared from Sydney's north shore in the 1980s, an inquest has heard.
Marion Sanford wrote a letter to her brother Peter in January 1980, saying she had gone to meet friends and would be back at the Cammeray home they shared within a week.
"I am not at all sure when I will be home but it should be within 2 days to 1 week at the latest I suppose! Met a couple of friends. See you later, love Marion," she wrote in a letter posted at Sydney's Central Railway Station.
But the 23-year-old, who was working as a prostitute in Kings Cross to pay off debts, vanished without a trace.
Detective Sergeant Robert George, who has been working on the case since 2008, said Ms Sanford's disappearance had been linked with that of two other women, Linda Davie and Mary Wallace.
"The similarities are the geographical area where they all disappeared, along with the ages and general description of the females," he told the inquest at Glebe Coroners Court in Sydney on Monday.
"Linda Davie was of New Zealand background as well."
Ms Davie, 22, was an aspiring model who moved from New Zealand to live with her boyfriend in 1980.
About 10 weeks after Ms Sanford's disappearance, Ms Davie mailed a letter to her boyfriend saying she was going away for a few days.
She never returned home.
Ms Wallace, also a nurse, disappeared in September 1983 and was last seen in Crows Nest.
However, the women do not seem to have known each other and no one has been found responsible for their disappearance or presumed death.
"There's no indication that they knew each other," Det Sgt George said.
"No one has any record of Marion since 1980."
Counsel assisting the coroner Sophia Beckett said Ms Sanford was a bright and popular girl when trouble in her nursing career led her to drug use and prostitution, first in New Zealand and later in Sydney.
"The nature of the prostitution which she was engaged in will be one of the subjects of this inquest," she said.
"The inquest will look at possible links to Sydney criminal identities ... the vulnerable position she was in through her work."
About the time she disappeared, Ms Sanford had tried to cut back her drug use but was still working the streets with the help of her boyfriend, Warren Mills.
"She had debts of thousands of dollars and she was working the streets of Kings Cross," the court was told.
The court heard that months before her disappearance she had been abducted and gang raped in Wiley Park, southwest Sydney, but continued to use prostitution to support her drug habit.
The court was told she had been offered thousands of dollars for overseas drug trafficking, but never got a passport.
Ms Sanford's four siblings, some of whom had travelled from New Zealand, were in court.
The inquest, before coroner Paul MacMahon, continues on Tuesday.
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