When her sister, Gail, returned to the Canning Street flat they shared the next morning, Ms Garciacelay and the men were gone.

There was a blood-soaked towel on the floor and some of Julie's underwear had been cut and strewn about.

That was 40 years ago, on July 1, 1975. Ms Garciacelay, 19, has not been seen since.

Two of the men, both suspects in the disappearance, have died.

The other, former The Truth newspaper reporter John Grant - who was also implicated in the notorious Easey Street killings - has repeatedly denied being involved but has not been cleared by police.

It can be revealed that police are preparing a brief for the Coroner, the latest development in a case which has been re-examined several times in the past four decades.

Ms Garciacelay was a talented pianist who arrived in Melbourne from her native California less than a year before she disappeared.

She travelled to Melbourne because Gail was homesick, and the sisters planned to return home before Christmas that year.

Ms Garciacelay worked as a librarian at Southdown Press in La Trobe Street, which printed The Truth and The Australian newspapers.

The boxer, Rhys "Tommy" Collins, and violent criminal John Joseph Power, reportedly met Ms Garciacelay when they were in the library researching police corruption.

Mr Grant knew the men from his reporting beat.

He had been asleep at a neighbouring house when Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett were stabbed dozens of times in their rented terrace in Easey Street, Collingwood, on January 10, 1977.

He was cleared of involvement in those unsolved killings, after a DNA analysis in 2010.

The men who had been with Ms Garciacelay the night she vanished said she left the flat to make a phone call at a nearby pay phone, and they left when she did not come back.

But police found a piece of paper with a phone number left by Gail, and money to make the call, inside the flat. It was confirmed that no call had ever been made. A carving knife, $125 cash, and a black cape were missing from the flat.

In May, 1979, police received information that Ms Garciacelay's body had been dumped in an abandoned well near Smythesdale in central Victoria, but nothing was found.

Detectives said there were inconsistencies in the statements provided by the men.

Power died in 2012 - almost a decade after a court order preventing him from being questioned over Ms Garciacelay's slaying, and stopping him from being prosecuted for an alleged attack on a female escort, because of his poor health.

Power spent almost 30 years in prison for a string of offences, including the vicious rape of a 19-year-old woman in 1992 while he was on parole, a shooting, armed robberies, and dishonesty offences.

He escaped from prison twice and was acquitted of murdering a woman in 1972.

Power was on parole in 2002 when police alleged he met the escort near his Broadmeadows housing commission unit.

Police claim the woman had been sitting on Power's bed when she told him she would stay for only 45 minutes, not a full hour.

Power allegedly grabbed the woman around the stomach, pulled out a knife, and pointed it to her neck. He allegedly tried to gag her with a cloth, but she escaped and ran to a nearby house.

Despite police saying he remained a person of significant interest, Power was deemed unfit for further questioning because of a serious mental impairment.

Julie Garciacelay's mother and sister, with a protrait of Julia.

A lawyer argued in 2002 that Power was dying of a heart condition and should not be questioned by police.

But he lived until July, 2012, and, according to a death notice, was remarkably lucid at the end for someone suffering a mental impairment.

"You knew it was your time," a friend wrote in a newspaper classified.

"You said to me don't be sad, I'll be waiting for you but take your time, till we meet again, I love you."

Power was 71, and, according to the notice, had learned from his mistakes.

"Love, you pulled a few wrong reins over the years but you took it on the chin and became stronger for it."

Collins, the boxer, died in 1998. He said hemet Ms Garciacelay at her flat to discuss a food-related business venture, and brought the other two men along.

He was a former fairground boxer who became Australian middleweight champion, and was also a two-up operator.

He had a string of criminal convictions, but for less serious offences than Power. It is believed Mr Grant, 65, is still living in Melbourne.

When the case was reopened in 2003, after another blood stain was found in the Canning Street flat, Mr Grant said he had been "to hell and back" since being linked to the murder.

"We went over there for a drink and that was it," he said at the time.

"She went away and we got tired of waiting and left . . . I would like to see the whole thing solved too, of course.

"Get some peace for me, for everybody."

That peace, perhaps, could come as part of an impending Coronial investigation.

It is unclear whether the death of Power in 2012 prompted police to prepare the brief.

"Julie's death was investigated at the time and unsolved," a Victoria Police spokesman said.

"In recent years it has been looked at again. Victoria Police believe that Julie Garciacelay is deceased and a coronial brief is in the final stages of being prepared prior to being given to the Coroners Court for review.

"Victoria Police will await any further directions from a Coroner prior to deciding the future of the investigation."

In 2002, Ms Garciacelay's mother Ruth started a music scholarship for college students who had an interest in piano.

Students in Humboldt County, known for its redwood forests that stretch back to the Pacific coast, are eligible for the scholarship.

Perhaps, in the sunshine of a Californian summer, the 2015 scholarship holder is thinking about Ms Garciacelay.

And perhaps, on July 10, the student could play happy birthday. It would have been Julie Ann Garciacelay's 60th.