Photos flying from the wall and mysterious noises in the night: The chilling moment haunted dad of murdered Elly Warren says her ghostly spirit contacted him - after she was raped and killed in Africa a decade ago

By WAYNE FLOWER, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA Published: 02:59, 31 July 2026 | Updated: 03:11, 31 July 2026 Elly Warren's father felt a shiver and knew he was not alone. His beloved daughter had recently died - and for a moment he finally felt comfort.  Paul Warren has lived every parent's worst nightmare over and over again.  Even ten years after daughter Elly, 20, was raped and murdered - and denied justice - he still speaks with the sadness only the father of a murdered child can.  Ahead of the tenth anniversary, Mr Warren spoke to Daily Mail's The Trial Australia podcast this week about his daughter's brutal death, a world away from her seaside hometown of Seaford on Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne's south-east. Elly's body was found facedown near a toilet block by a local fisherman in Tofo Beach, Mozambique, about 5am on November 9, 2016. The keen environmentalist was on a scuba-diving trip in the area, and was just four days away from returning to Australia when she went with friends to a bar that night. Her murder remains unsolved despite an exhaustive investigation by Mr Warren, who was forced to seek justice himself on the back of what he described as a massive cover-up by authorities overseas and right here on home soil.  But on The Trial podcast, Mr Warren shared an experience that filled him with hope - which is all he has had to cling to while searching for justice in vain for so many years. Paul and Elly Warren on one of the many happy occasions they spent together before her horrific, unsolved murder  'I was sitting on the couch, I felt a shiver, a little bit of a coldness, and I was on my phone, and I couldn't see my keys in the front door, but I could hear my keys jingling in the front door,' he told The Trial Australia. 'And I thought, that's really odd. Somebody must be on the other side of the door trying to get in. I said, "Hello, is anybody there?" I yelled it out.  'There was no answer, so I got up and I walked over past Elly's monument [his private shrine to his daughter] and I'm looking at the door with the keys, and they'd stopped.'  What happened next changed the way Mr Warren viewed life and what awaits beyond.  Mr Warren recalled he had been told by a clairvoyant that one day Elly would 'show him that she was still around in some way'.  An engineer by trade, Mr Warren said he had dismissed the suggestion as total rubbish.  'And then all of a sudden it just popped into my mind what the clairvoyant told me that Elly will show me in a way that you would believe,' he said. 'All of a sudden it popped into my head just to say, "Elly, is that you or are you here?" Mr Warren believes Elly found a way to communicate with him after death  The photo memorial in Mr Warren's home where the strange incident happened  'As soon as I said that ... two of Elly's pictures flew off the table behind me ... They didn't drop down on the floor. They ended up in the middle of the room. 'And the glass in one of the pictures was broken. I turned around and I looked at the pictures and I was flabbergasted.  'I was in shock. I just I froze. I didn't know what to do.' Mr Warren said he had often discussed the afterlife with his daughter, who had been sceptical about its existence.  'I used to tease her a lot and she was really, really very intelligent,' he said. She used to debate it with me all the time - we were at loggerheads about it.' The incident happened the day after Good Friday, and Mr Warren said Elly knew how important timing was to him as an engineer, and believes she was contacting him.  'I've been living here 20 years. Prior to 2019, nothing ever fell on the floor. And after that day, I've had nothing, no pictures, nothing ever fall on the floor,' he said.  Elly had a deep love for animals and spent her short life caring for them  Mr Warren has published a book about his long, hard road in the pursuit of justice for his daughter 'Yet at that point in time, when I said, "Elly, is that you? Are you here?", those pictures didn't land on the floor in front of the monument, they went into the middle of the room.' Mr Warren said he would live out his life certain he would one day see his precious daughter again.  'What I think is that there's a form of energy that leaves the body once we die. So we're still alive. We're not fully dead,' he said. 'And I believe that now. I believe that there's more to life after we die, but unfortunately we're never going to find out until that happens.' Mr Warren has published a book Hunting Elly's Killer, about his exhaustive efforts to get justice for his daughter.  Have you ever experienced something that made you question what happens after we die? What's your view?'I don't know about getting justice for Elly, but I've written the book mainly because I don't want what's happened to Elly's family to happen to other families,' he said.  'People need to know the truth about our authorities, the Mozambique authorities, the coroner's court and the doctor. What really went on.' For the full tragic story about that quest, listen to The Trial Australia, buy the book or visit Ellywarren.net.