Johanna Martin remained in high demand as a stripper. It was titillating but grubby, and little attention has been paid to her passing in the weeks since. Police say they are pursuing ''an avenue'' of inquiry, but say no arrest is imminent. Sex industry workers wonder if the murder of one of their own is being given less than top priority, and there is talk of women leaving the industry in fear. Martin's family and friends have had to deal with public exposure of a secret life aboutwhich they apparently knew little or nothing. Meanwhile, they all grieve - family, friends, colleagues, remembering two very different women and left to wonder which of them was the real Johanna. The truth is, she was surely both. The mysteries of her murder and of her life fall somewhere in between.

She had been married more than 40 years, and raised two children, not the life history you expect of an exotic dancer. Martin was a stripper - and in the world of adult entertainment she took things further than most. Performing as Jazzy O, she did more than just dance. In certain circles, she was a legend. At bucks' nights and footy club parties - even at parties organised by policemen - she was the showgirl who would go the extra mile with the boys. She also did straight escort work, sometimes through an agency, sometimes taking her own bookings. She was doing it until the day she was killed. ''She'd do things not many other girls would do,'' said one industry figure, suggesting it was Martin's willingness to go to extremes that accounted for her longevity in a business where working at 65 is usually unheard of. But that was not the life remembered at her funeral at Fawkner Memorial Park. There, the celebrant remembered the ''infectious spirit'' of a woman known to family and friends as Honie. Her driving force was ''care of family … laughter and enjoyment and family caring time together''. Mourners were told of a love story, the long marriage of Honie and her late husband, Arthur, who died a few years ago, more than four decades after they married in a Richmond church in 1963.

Johanna was just 17 then. She had come to Australia as a four-year-old from Holland. She seemed set for a traditional life. With Arthur, she moved to Powelltown, a tiny timber-industry town in the Yarra State Forest. ''It was a rather wonderful life then,'' mourners were told. Honie grew her own vegetables, made her own clothes. ''She was a wonderful homemaker, always looking after the interests of her children,'' the celebrant said. The handful of sex industry workers in the chapel knew the Johanna described by the celebrant as ''a person of industry, hardworking''. And they were familiar with a woman who seems to be remembered by all for her gregarious nature. ''Anyone who knew Mum knew that she loved to talk,'' is how her son Wayne described her. ''And she was the same with anyone.'' Listening to Wayne was Maxine Fensom, owner of Maxine's Gentlemen's Club in Brunswick, who had known Martin for years. Surprised as she was that the funeral ignored Martin's other life, Fensom agrees with the picture painted. ''She was effervescent, friendly, always bubbly, just a lovely woman,'' Fensom told The Sunday Age. ''Everyone loved Jazzy O.'' Especially her clients. Martin is known to have provided her services to a cross-section of the Melbourne community, from factory workers to footballers. ''You'd be lucky to find a footballer in town who didn't know her,'' said Fensom. A willingness to engage in group sex was one of her hallmarks, as well as the often shocking nature of her shows, which included various props.

''She was a niche act,'' Fensom said. ''But one thing I will say is, she thoroughly loved her work. It wasn't like it was a hardship for her. I don't think she ever said no to a job.'' Martin's working life left her a wealthy woman. She is understood to have owned several properties, including the apartment at Southbank she was living in when she died. She was such a regular client that a staff member from her Mercedes dealership attended the funeral. (Her 2010 model, with her Jack Russell locked inside, still alive, was found nearby two days after her body was found.) Her fingers were bedecked with expensive jewellery. Industry talk puts her estate at $3.5 million, a sum that raises the obvious question of motive. Was she killed for money - perhaps robbed by a client? Or was her death an accident, with police having raised early on the possibility of her having died in a sex game gone wrong. Fensom dismisses that idea, saying Martin never allowed herself to be tied up, for instance. ''She said she was worried they'd take her jewellery.''

The absence of a police breakthrough has provided fertile ground for rumours. The Sunday Age has been told that a couple of weeks before she died, Martin had expressed concern to a friend about a client from NSW. He had been harassing her by phone and threatening to come to Melbourne. To another, she confided she had recently been in a relationship with a younger man, and had joked at his enthusiasm for spending her money. Within the industry, a more worrying theory abounds - that her killer targeted her because she was a sex worker. One industry source, who did not want to be named, said the case had left many in the business fearful. ''Girls have started to take their safety a lot more seriously,'' she said. ''And some are quitting completely.'' The woman said she had seen Martin the weekend before her disappearance and nothing seemed amiss. Police are giving little away. One source told The Sunday Age: ''We're following an avenue on this and we don't know where it's going to lead.''

Fensom said there was frustration that the case had not been solved, and questioned why the investigation had such a low profile. ''Everybody in the industry is anxious to hear some sort of news. I would hate to think they wouldn't take it as seriously because of the industry that she's in.'' That's a notion dismissed by Inspector Steve Wilson, of the homicide squad. ''We take all [cases] seriously. The person [killed] is irrelevant. There has been no easing off the pedal.'' He would not discuss further details of the investigation or comment on the industry rumours. Martin's family have also adopted a low profile. They have not spoken to the media since her death, and did not respond to a request for an interview. It is unclear what, if anything, her family knew of her other life. ''She told me her kids didn't know what she did,'' a friend said. ''Her husband knew that she did stripping; he would come to her shows sometimes.''

At her funeral, the family's pain was clear, and they seemed intent on preserving their memories of her in the face of such a distressing public epitaph: ''Australia's oldest sex worker killed''. It was obvious she was much more than that. As the service ended, two of her grandchildren were racked with sobs, embracing in tears as they left the service. To them, she was Nana or Grandma, not Jazzy O, and whatever secrets she had chosen to keep, there seemed no doubt she was loved too deeply to lose their devotion now.