“COLLEEN, Colleen ... Colleen!”

They were the heartbreaking cries of a little boy as he scoured bushland for his teen sister after she vanished from a small New South Wales country town in September 1990.

It’s a moment Lucas Craig, 32, will never forget.

Lucas was just seven year old when his sister Colleen Walker-Craig, 16, was murdered by a suspected serial killer in Bowraville, northern NSW.

The Craig family lived together in Sawtell and Colleen, the second eldest of six, had been visiting relatives in Bowraville when her life met a tragic end.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Lucas told news.com.au.

Colleen’s parents knew something was wrong almost straight away. Her disappearance was out of character and it was unlike her not to call home.

“She was always in contact with my mum or dad,” Lucas said.

“If she was staying with our friends or family she would call and say, ‘I’m staying here tonight.’

“We never got anything, no phone call or nothing, so we knew something was wrong a couple of days after she went missing.

“That’s when my mother basically picked us all up from Sawtell and moved us to Bowraville to find my sister … we had never lived there at all in our lives.”

But, despite the family’s efforts, they would never see Colleen again.

Colleen Walker-Craig, 16, Clinton Speedy-Duroux, 16, and Evelyn Greenup, four, were brutally murdered in Bowraville between September 1990 and January 1991.

The bodies of Clinton and Evelyn were discovered in bushland on the outskirts of the town to the side of a dirt road. Colleen’s clothes were recovered in a river nearby but her body has never been found. Local man Jay Hart was tried separately over two of the murders and found not guilty in each.

The victims’ families and police have long argued key pieces of evidence linking the three crimes together have never been heard in court. On Thursday, the families and supporters descended on parliament to demand a retrial of the alleged killer.

Hundreds of the victims’ family members and supporters, piled out of buses they had chartered from various country towns across NSW, to march from Hyde Park to NSW Parliament House.

They were joined by politicians and police officers to ask NSW Attorney General Gabrielle Upton to refer the cases of the three murdered children to the Court of Criminal Appeal — a move which could trigger a retrial.

“This won’t end until your demands are met,” NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge told the crowds.

A mutual distrust between police and the community compounded by racism and prejudice ensured the case against Hart was flawed from the beginning.

Several family members of the victims told news.com.au their initial reports to police were met with assertions their missing children had most likely “just gone walkabout”.

Police didn’t establish a co-ordinated murder investigation until after the discovery of Clinton’s and Evelyn’s bodies months later.

Hart has since changed his name and worked with Aboriginal children for years in another NSW town.

Activist Ken Canning said the initial police response was a result of “racial profiling” and discrimination and that their delayed investigation meant they missed out on vital evidence.

“The murders of three children wouldn’t have been brushed aside if they were white,” Mr Canning told news.com.au.

At the time of her disappearance, Colleen’s family launched their own exhaustive search and left no stone unturned, but it was ultimately to no avail.

“I remember going out into the bushland looking for her,” Lucas said.

“Mum drove us around the whole town, the backstreets, the back roads.

“We would actually physically go out into the bush and call out her name and look for anything that we could find that could link us to any information at all.

“My mother even went knocking on people’s doors in the town, asking have they seen her and showing photos.”

Lucas said his sister’s murder “changed our lives completely”.

Twenty-five years on, no one has been held to account for the murders, but that hasn’t weakened the resolve of those still fighting for justice.

Lucas said his family was unable to heal without closure.

All of the victims’ families have been constantly plagued with questions about what could have been for the past 26 years.

“(Colleen) loved kids,” Lucas said.

“When she was in high school she did work experience at a preschool and I can just imagine she’d have heaps of kids.

“She was mothering and really nice and we were accustomed to big families so she probably would have had lots.

“I always wonder how many kids would she have had, if she would have got married and what she would have done for work.”

No one will ever know.

But the victims’ families are adamant they won’t back down until the killer is finally behind bars.

Clinton’s cousin Jasmin Speedy, 32, told news.com.au the murderer was still walking the streets after 26 years and “for all we know he could have committed another crime”.

“The community is not safe when there is someone of that nature walking the street but at the end of the day we had three kids who deserve justice because they were brutally murdered,” she said.

“We’re tired and this is our last chance in getting justice for these three kids but at the same time I don’t think anyone is going to stop fighting.

“We’ll come up with ways to move forward and try and get justice in another way if this doesn’t work today.”