Siriyakorn "Bung" SIRIBOON

 

 

“After a week of her [Bung] not being there, we were so devastated and upset... That was a tough year," says close friend Layla.Detectives trawled through Bung’s social media accounts, but found no indication that she had met anyone online.

 



                                                                                                                        

Letter from Bung's mother Vanidda - thanks to Herald Sun -

 

"How is it even possible to put words down to how we are feeling?

I just want to know, just to know that you have life, is all I ask.

We don't need to know who you are, it doesn't matter what has happened in the past, that person who has or might know what happened to Bung.

I forgive that person, whatever they do with me and I want them to make a decision now, for the right thing to do.

But just to know you still have life, I just think about my daughter, she has a future and is just too young.

Every day at home, I look; your room, all my mind and thoughts are for you.

I think your neighbours are so important, for people and neighbours to help and not to turn a blind eye and to look out and help one another.

My birthday is coming up and I wish my girl to come back for me, that is all I wish for my birthday present.

I just want to know what happened, if you were a mum, try and imagine for me.

It has been very hard, sometimes you have to step back and look at another way to look or walk forward and I have to do this every day.

You would be my birthday present, I need you to be my present, the best present, please come back.

Thank you every person who prayed for Bung and my family.

Thank you so much."

 

  

 

Boronia parents searching for missing daughter Siriyakorn 'Bung' Siriboon

 
A BORONIA man is pleading for help to find his missing 13-year-old adopted daughter, Siriyakorn 'Bung' Siriboon.
Bung, who is Thai, was last seen by her mother Vanidda and father, Fred Pattison, at 8.20am yesterday, before she left for school, the Knox Leader reports. Her parents raised the alarm with Boronia police when Bung failed to return home from school by 4.30pm. Mr Pattison said Bung walked the 10 minute route to Boronia Heights College each day. He said it was "completely out of character" for the "streetwise" teenager to disappear.

 

Search continues for missing Boronia teen

6 Jun 11 @ 09:23am by Erin Michael and Georgie Haberfield - Knox Leader

 
 
 “Bung’’ Siriboon has not been found since going missing on Thursday.
Police are still searching for the teenager this morning, after her father issued a plea to find his adopted 13-year-old daughter on Friday. Bung, who is Thai, was last seen by her mother Vanidda and father Fred Pattison at 8.20am yesterday, before she left for school. Her parents raised the alarm with Boronia police when Bung failed to return home from school by 4.30pm. Mr Pattison said Bung walked the 10 minute route to Boronia Heights College each day. He said it was “completely out of character” for the “streetwise” teenager to disappear. “I had just got home from nightshift and she ate her breakfast and said goodbye to us just like she normally does,’’ Mr Pattison said. “There were no major arguments; we’re a close family. ‘’The school didn’t alert us to the fact that she had been absent that day, so we had no idea she was missing.” Bung and her sister Siriporn “Bang’’ Siriboon, 20, have been living in Australia for four years. Mr Pattison said Bung was not fluent in English, but she could communicate effectively. “We miss her, we just want her home safe,’’ Mr Pattison said. “She’s gentle, shy; she cares about other people’s feelings. “If she has problems or anything she’s dealing with, we want her to know that she can talk to us about it. “If anyone even thinks that they’ve seen her, call the police.’‘ Mr Pattison has resorted to placing missing posters around Boronia. He expressed concern Bung had started to meet new people through online social networking sites. Bung is about 154cm tall, has a slim build and long black her down to her lower back. She was last seen wearing her blue check school uniform and a blue school raincoat. If you have seen Bung, phone Boronia police on 9760 6600.
 

Boronia teenager Siriyakorn 'Bung' Siriboon still missing

6 Jun 11 @ 01:37pm by Erin Michael - Knox Leader

Siriyakorn ‘Bung’ Siriboon, 13, has not been seen since she said farewell to her mother Vanidda and step-father Fred Pattison at 8.20am last Thursday morning before she left for school. Members from Knox Police met with the Knox Crime Investigation Unit (CIU), which has taken over the investigation, this afternoon. Knox CIU detective Sen-Constable Ian Brown said while there was nothing to suggest Bung had been abducted, it could not be ruled out. “At this stage, there’s no reason to believe Bung is not in the area,” Sen-Constable Brown said. “We’re hoping for the best possible scenario which would be she’s gone off with a friend. “She might think she’s in trouble with her parent,s which is delaying her showing her face.” Sen-Constable Brown said Bung’s parents would be interviewed tonight. “They are obviously very concerned as this is an act out of character for Bung,” he said. Mr Pattison told the Leader this morning that the lack of information on Bung’s disappearance was evident and asked the public to “keep an eye out” for his adopted daughter. “We don’t want to know who or what or why or how, we don’t want to blame anyone, we just want her home safe,” Mr Pattison said. Since Leader reported Bung’s disappearance on Friday, our website has been used by people posting messages of support for the missing teen. Bung’s parents raised the alarm with Boronia police when she failed to return home from school by 4.30pm on Thursday, June 2. Mr Pattison said Bung walked the 10 minute route to Boronia Heights College each day. The school did not inform Bung’s parents that she was absent. Bung and her sister Siriporn “Bang’’ Siriboon, 20, have been living in Australia for four years. Mr Pattison said Bung was not fluent in English, but she could communicate effectively. “We miss her, we just want her home safe,’’ Mr Pattison said. “She’s gentle, shy; she cares about other people’s feelings. “If she has problems or anything she’s dealing with, we want her to know that she can talk to us about it. “If anyone even thinks that they’ve seen her, call the police.’‘ Mr Pattison has resorted to placing missing posters around Boronia. Meanwhile concerned community members have created a ‘Find Bung’ group on Facebook to spread the word in an attempt to locate Bung. More than 500 people have joined the group including school friends and strangers concerned for her welfare. He expressed concern Bung had started to meet new people through online social networking sites. Bung is about 154cm tall, has a slim build and long black her down to her lower back. She was last seen wearing her blue check school uniform and a blue school raincoat.


Sightings of missing Boronia girl reported

7 Jun 11 @ 01:04pm by Erin Michael - Knox Leader

POLICE have confirmed two reported sightings of missing Boronia teenager Siriyakorn “Bung’’ Siriboon.
Two separate witnesses say they spotted the 13-year-old in the morning and afternoon of June 2 - the day she disappeared. Bung, who is Thai and can only speak conversational English, has been missing for five days. Knox Crime Investigation Unit’s detective Sen-Constable Rohan Bodsworth, who is heading the investigation, confirmed a witness had spotted Bung walking down Chandler Rd, Boronia - towards Dorset Rd - at 3.20pm. She was wearing her blue-and-white school uniform. A second witness confirmed Bung had been seen walking to Boronia Heights College on Mount View Rd, Boronia, on June 2 just after 8am. Sen-Constable Bodsworth told Leader there was a “missing piece of the puzzle” as to where Bung was between the sightings and appealed for more witnesses to come forward. “It sort of indicates she was somewhere in the Boronia area on Thursday at least,” Sen-Constable Bodsworth said. “We feel strongly that someone in the local community would know where Bung was on that day. “It seems likely that during this time she would have been with someone. “If she was, they would possibly know information as to where she is now.” Det-Sen-Constable Bodsworth said the squad had a number of leads on the case but “nothing concrete”. If you have seen Bung, phone Boronia police on 9760 6600.
 

Abduction attempt sparks new fears

  • Shelley Hadfield
  • From: Herald Sun
  • July 01, 2011 12:00AM
  • VICTORIAN investigators say there are disturbing similarities between a masked man's attempt to lure a girl into his car and the disappearance of another schoolgirl nearby.
    Parents in Boronia, east of Melbourne, have been urged to be on alert as detectives probe any connection between the two cases. Police patrols have been stepped up in the area at school start and finish times, and local police have been working with schools in a bid to get any leads from students and educate them. As well as being in close proximity, both cases involve schoolgirls of Asian appearance walking to school alone in uniform. "This incident has opened up a new line of inquiry for us,'' Det-Insp John Potter, of the homicide squad, said yesterday. "We don't have any suspects in either case at this time.'' Boronia teen Siriyakorn "Bung'' Siriboon, 13, was last seen walking to school in Elsie St on Thursday, June 2.
    Insp Potter said investigators did not believe there was a link to Mr Cruel and the 20-year-old case. No suspects have been identified in the disappearance almost a month ago. Detectives fear Bung has been abducted, and Insp Potter said murder was a possibility. Other than a report from a neighbour who saw Bung on her way to school, there are no reports of where she might be or what happened to her, Det-Insp Potter said. "We are hopeful to find Bung safe and well.'' Insp Potter said police had followed several lines of inquiry without success. They are now investigating links between the two incidents, three streets apart. On Wednesday, an 11-year-old girl was walking to school in nearby Bennett St when a man got out of his car and approached her, trying to entice her into his dark green Holden station wagon. Insp Potter said the incident was disturbing and detectives were treating it seriously. "My understanding is she was approached by this man. He asked if she wanted a lift, she has said no and has taken out her mobile phone to make a call. The man has seen that and fled.'' The driver of the green station wagon is described as caucasian, with grey short hair, in his 60s and wearing dark tracksuit pants and a dark, long-sleeved top. He was also wearing reading glasses and had a white surgical mask covering his mouth. Insp Potter said parents everywhere should be aware of the potential for incidents like that to happen. He said it might have made it easier to abduct Bung because she didn't have her mobile phone with her. "If children have access to a mobile phone, it would be a good thing for them to have it.'' Several Melbourne brothels have been checked, police fearing it might have been a motive behind any abduction. "That aspect of this investigation … has not resulted in any information that suggested she's been abducted for that purpose,'' Insp Potter said. He said detectives were also looking through the Sex Offenders Register. There have been reports of sightings, but they have all been discounted. "If she's been abducted against her will, we are asking for those responsible, for her family's sake, to please contact us,'' he said. He appealed to Bung, if she had gone of her own accord, to contact her parents or police. Insp Potter said the worry was that no one had reported anything of a suspicious nature. "Here's a 13-year-old girl who has no background reason why she might disappear,'' he said. "There's nothing obvious that we are able to establish in terms of Bung as to why she might go. "That's another worrying aspect because that points back to the potential for abduction.'' Police have discounted the possibility that the disappearance is connected to social networking sites. Police are confident she is still in the country. Bung's stepfather Fred Pattison said he and Bung's mum Vanidda were remaining positive. "We strongly believe that she's still all right, that she's still alive,'' Mr Pattison said. "Come forward if you know anything, just come forward, don't be scared, don't say `I don't want to get involved', if you know something come forward.'' Bung is 154cm tall, slim and has long black hair. She was wearing a blue check school uniform and a blue school raincoat.

 

*Editor's note - the above abduction attempt was proved to be a hoax

Family prays for little Bung

THE family of missing teenager Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon believe she is still alive.
Bung's stepfather, Fred Pattison, said the family was not focusing on Wednesday's attempted abduction of an 11-year-old friend of Bung, just streets away from where Bung, 13, disappeared. Homicide squad chief Det-Insp John Potter said there were some similarities between a digital image of a man wanted for questioning over this week's abduction attempt and at least two other images of men police want to speak to about other crimes. One is a man police believe may know about the abduction and sexual assault of an elderly woman in Clayton in February. The other is an image of a man they want to speak to about the attempt to snatch a 16-year-old girl off the street at Ringwood East on Tuesday, June 21.
Insp Potter said detectives hunting for Bung were looking at potential links to attempted abductions across Melbourne's east in recent months. Police media issued a statement yesterday saying there was "absolutely no evidence at this stage of any links between the recent incidents in Boronia, Ringwood and Clayton". "We are not ruling out that possibility, however to say the matters are linked is completely inaccurate," the statement said. Several Boronia parents told the Herald Sun they would no longer allow their children to walk to school. Mr Pattison said his family was still plastering the area with posters of Bung and attending their local Buddhist temple to pray for her safe return. "We still think she's OK and she's going to come home and that's what we want to focus on," he said. "We miss her and we want her back home. We want to stay positive and ... that's what we are going to do." Bung was last seen in Elsie St on June 2. Only a few blocks away, in Bennett St, a man wearing a surgical mask tried to lure the friend of Bung into his dark green Holden station wagon on Wednesday. The girl and Bung were in a year five and six composite class at the local primary school in Boronia. Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

 

Family of missing teen Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon hold hope

Jessica Craven and Shelley Hadfield
THE family of missing teenager Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon believe she is still alive.
Bung's stepfather, Fred Pattison, said the family was not focusing on Wednesday's attempted abduction of an 11-year-old friend of Bung, just streets away from where Bung, 13, disappeared. Homicide squad chief Det-Insp John Potter said there were some similarities between a digital image of a man wanted for questioning over this week's abduction attempt and at least two other images of men police want to speak to about other crimes. One is a man police believe may know about the abduction and sexual assault of an elderly woman in Clayton in February. The other is an image of a man they want to speak to about the attempt to snatch a 16-year-old girl off the street at Ringwood East on Tuesday, June 21.

Insp Potter said detectives hunting for Bung were looking at potential links to attempted abductions across Melbourne's east in recent months. Police media issued a statement yesterday saying there was "absolutely no evidence at this stage of any links between the recent incidents in Boronia, Ringwood and Clayton". "We are not ruling out that possibility, however to say the matters are linked is completely inaccurate," the statement said. Several Boronia parents told the Herald Sun they would no longer allow their children to walk to school. Mr Pattison said his family was still plastering the area with posters of Bung and attending their local Buddhist temple to pray for her safe return. "We still think she's OK and she's going to come home and that's what we want to focus on," he said. "We miss her and we want her back home. We want to stay positive and ... that's what we are going to do." Bung was last seen in Elsie St on June 2. Only a few blocks away, in Bennett St, a man wearing a surgical mask tried to lure the friend of Bung into his dark green Holden station wagon on Wednesday. The girl and Bung were in a year five and six composite class at the local primary school in Boronia. Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
 

Missing Bung's mum heads off to Thailand

  • Anthony Dowsley
  • From: Herald Sun
  • July 07, 2011 12:00AM
THE mother of missing teenage girl Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon has left Australia to spend time in Thailand as police desperately track her daughter's suspected kidnapper.
A homicide squad working from Knox police station is aware that Bung's stricken mother, Vanidda, has returned to her home country as they continue to hunt down leads over Bung's disappearance. Bung's stepfather Fred Pattison said the family owned property in Thailand and his wife's trip home had been planned for a year. "We have personal business over there," he said. "She needs a break. We had plans to go to Thailand. Life can't stop. Stuff gets out of hand and it gets messier. We have a house over there and land interests and family. "This was planned for over 12 months." Mr Pattison said his wife would get support from her family, but they remained positive their daughter, 13, would return home.
"We're positive she will come back. I believe somebody would have to know something. There's a lot of people working on it." Mr Pattison is taking care of his other daughter, Siriporn, while his wife is away. He said he wanted the hunt for his daughter to continue to be highlighted in the media but the ordeal had been draining. A police spokeswoman said Vanidda's trip home would not affect their investigation. "We believe this holds no significance to this investigation at this stage," she said. Bung's family has spent days delivering flyers, walking the streets and knocking on doors looking for clues. Police have been working towards identifying a man, dressed in dark clothing and wearing a surgical mask, in relation to another attempted abductions in Boronia. They have released an image of the suspected child predator, who allegedly tried to abduct a friend of Bung's on June 29 in Bennett St, only blocks from Bung's home. He was seen driving a green station wagon. Bung was last seen in Elsie St on June 2. The subject of the kidnap attempt and Bung were in a year five and six composite class at the local primary. Investigators have not ruled out links to another abduction attempt in Ringwood East, when a man driving a light blue sedan allegedly tried to abduct a girl, 16, on June 21. Bung is about 154cm tall, slim, and has long black hair. She was last seen wearing a blue checked school uniform and a blue school raincoat.

Missing Bung's mum back in Thailand

7 Jul 11 @ 09:41am by Zoe Lewis - Knox Leader

THE mother of missing Boronia schoolgirl Siriyakorn ``Bung’’ Siriboon has returned to Thailand as police continue to investigate her daughter’s disappearance.

Bung’s step-father Fred Pattison told Leader this morning that his wife Vanidda had returned to Thailand for “personal and business’’ reasons.

“We had holidays booked for a long time,’’ he said.

“I was supposed to go in two weeks time but I won’t be going unless Bung is found.’’

Mr Pattison said his wife’s return to Thailand had “nothing to do’’ with Bung’s disappearance.

He said the family was still holding out hope that Bung would return home.

Knox CIU Sen-Sgt Neil White said the Homicide Squad was continuing to investigate Bung’s disappearance and could not rule out links to last week’s attempted abduction of an 11-year-old girl just streets from where Bung was last seen.

Bung was last seen in Elsie St, Boronia, and has now been missing for five weeks.

Anyone with information should phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

 

Police find 'replications' of Mr Cruel in Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon case

  • Jon Kaila
  • From: Sunday Herald Sun
  • July 10, 2011 12:00AM
DETECTIVES are still probing similarities between the notorious Mr Cruel cases and the recent abduction of missing schoolgirl Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon.
The 13-year-old, who has not been seen for five weeks, disappeared with "replications of what happened to Karmein Chan", senior officers say. Chief Insp John Potter admitted police were looking at several past cases, including those of Mr Cruel. "There are aspects in this case that happened with Mr Cruel 20 years ago," he said. "We are looking at the replications with Karmein Chan. "Bung is Asian, the same age and it happened in the eastern suburbs. At this stage there is no direct link but we continue to look at persons of interest." Mr Cruel was the name given to a murderer and rapist who attacked girls in Melbourne's eastern suburbs in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
"It's as though she vanished into thin air." Police are also considering offering a reward for information. "We are thinking carefully about a reward," he said. Mr Potter ruled out stepfather Fred Pattison and mum Vanidda having any involvement, saying: "We have satisfied ourselves that whatever happened to Bung, it's not them."
 

Missing schoolgirl Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon must have been abducted, say police

  • Shelley Hadfield
  • From: Herald Sun
  • August 05, 2011 12:00AM
DESPERATE detectives hunting for a missing schoolgirl say they have no suspects, no sightings and no strong leads two months after her disappearance.

It is now 64 days since Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon, 13, went missing.

Detectives say she must have been abducted.

Bung's step-dad Fred Pattison will this morning launch a fresh appeal for information.

"Somebody out there knows what's happened here and we are desperate for that person to come forward," Mr Pattison said.

"People don't just vanish off the face of the Earth."

Bung was last seen walking to school in Elsie St, Boronia, on June 2.

Insp John Potter, of the homicide squad, said police had received about 500 calls, but no "red-hot lead".

"The only thing we know is she was walking to school as if nothing happened and she never got there," he said.
 

"We have got no suspects. We have not had one sighting of Bung."

"There's been absolutely no indication that she's anywhere and we hold grave fears for her welfare now."

Mr Pattison said the family were remaining positive.

"We are living in hope and believe that she's still alive. It's hard that there's no news," he said.

"We pray for her every morning and every night.

"If you know something, it's time to say something. We want her home."

Insp Potter said detectives were still sifting through dozens of pieces of information phoned to Crime Stoppers, many after another Boronia schoolgirl falsely claimed someone tried to abduct her.

Police had expanded the area to be doorknocked and were checking the sex offenders register.

A poster of Bung was put up at Southern Cross station this week as part of Missing Persons Week.

Investigators have also spoken to Bung's friends.

Vanidda Pattison wants her daughter 'Bung' back for her birthday

  • Mark Buttler, Shelley Hadfield
  • From: Herald Sun
  • September 09, 2011 12:00AM
 
VANIDDA Pattison has only one wish when her birthday arrives in 18 days.

Ms Pattison wants the return of her beloved daughter Siriyakorn, 13, who is known as "Bung".

"My birthday is coming up and I wish my girl to come back for me, that is all I wish for my birthday present," Ms Pattison said in an open letter published on this page.

"You would be my birthday present. I need you to be my present, the best present, please come back."

Bung vanished on her way to school in Boronia three months ago and investigators say they have no strong leads.

Ms Pattison used the letter to urge anyone who knows what happened to her daughter to speak up.

"We don't need to know who you are, it doesn't matter what has happened in the past, that person who has or might know what happened to Bung," she wrote.

"I forgive that person, whatever they do with me, and I want them to make a decision now, for the right thing to do."

Bung is never far from her mother's mind.

"Every day at home, I look; your room, all my mind and thoughts are for you," Ms Pattison wrote.

She thanked the many community members who had prayed for Bung and the family since June.

The mystery remains one of the most challenging confronting the homicide squad.

Sex offender registers have been scoured, the local area heavily searched, doorknocks conducted and scores of leads followed until they reached dead-ends.

Squad head Det-Insp John Potter said investigations showed there was no evidence pointing to any possibility other than Bung being abducted.

She disappeared after leaving her family's Elsie St, Boronia home on June 2, en route to Boronia Heights College.

Bung never arrived.

Det-Insp Potter said an appeal for public help had generated 500 calls to Crime Stoppers but none had yielded strong leads.

He said it was crucial that the case not slip from the community's consciousness.

Siriyakorn 'Bung' Sirboon

"The only way we're going to solve this is with the help of the public. We're desperate for that one strong lead," he said.

"Someone actually knows what happened. We need that person to think of the family and tell us what happened to Bung."

Det-Insp Potter said disappearances such as that of Bung were "extremely rare".

"We can only conclude she's been abducted," he said.

There was no indication to back any suggestion Bung had staged her own disappearance.

"All our evidence suggests she comes from a loving family," he said.

Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au

Agony goes on for family of missing girl Siriyakorn 'Bung' Siriboon

  • by: Andrew Rule
  • From: Herald Sun
  • December 01, 2011 12:00AM

  • SIX months after Siriyakorn Siriboon set off for school her mother is still waiting for her to come home. ANDREW RULE reports on one family's grief beyond words.

    THE last time her family see her, she turns on the doorstep and says "Bye, Mum, see you later." It is about 8.20am on a Thursday, six months ago tomorrow.

    She crosses the street to the footpath and heads towards high school, a few minutes' walk.

    Two doors down, a neighbour glances through his living room window and glimpses her: a 13-year-old girl in a blue and white uniform and blue rain jacket, carrying a dark backpack.

    She moves from right to left across his vision - for about three seconds, he later calculates.

    Then she vanishes.

    Whoever sees her next, you'd think, is the only person who knows what happened to her, and why. The only one who knows if she is alive or dead.

    Her family call her Bung, a short name standing in for the one on her passport, Siriyakorn Siriboon. She is a good girl: diligent, punctual, polite, never wags school.

    People trust her, so when she doesn't turn up in her year 7 class that June morning, everyone assumes she has stayed home because of illness. It's the first week of winter, what teachers call "flu season", when kids wake up feeling awful and can hardly drag themselves out of bed.

    If Bung were a troubled child, a repeat truant, teachers might suspect she is off on an escapade of her own. But she is none of those things, so no one worries until later.

    At 3.30pm her mother, Vanidda Pattison, realises her daughter isn't home at the usual time. She calls her name from the kitchen, wonders why there's no answer.

    About 4pm, the telephone rings. Bung's stepfather, Fred Pattison, answers. It's Dyamai, Bung's school friend. She asks to talk to Bung about what to wear to football practice next day.

    It's the first Fred has heard that Bung wants to play football, as well as training for athletics and the school's rock eisteddfod.

    "Why didn't you talk to her at school?" he asks, puzzled.

    The girl hesitates. Bung wasn't at school, she says.

    That's how the torment starts. First they go to the school, Boronia Heights Secondary College. The principal, Kate Harnetty, is still in her office, working late.

    Harnetty has seen Fred Pattison at school functions and noticed he is calm and polite, and shows more interest in his stepdaughter's progress and behaviour - both good - than many fathers do.

    She doesn't know his wife as well because Vanidda, only four years out of Thailand, isn't confident speaking English with strangers.

    The Pattisons try not to panic. They look in the school library to make sure Bung isn't there. The principal checks the year 7 roll then finds a teacher who confirms Bung hasn't been in class.

    That's when Kate Harnetty knows they have reason to worry. Bung doesn't "fit the mould" of kids who play truant or run away from home, as she later recalls. "She's just a sweet little girl. It was out of character."

    She urges them to go straight to the police.

    Minutes later, Fred Pattison walks into the police station in Dorset Rd. On the wall in the waiting area is a poster that says: When someone goes missing a day spent waiting is a day lost.

    It's true enough but truth does not always equal reality in police work. The reality is that more than 35,000 people go missing in Australia every year, and more than half of them are under 18. The overwhelming majority turn up safely in hours, days or weeks.

    But it's almost impossible to guess which tiny proportion of missing person reports could turn into something more sinister.

    The policewoman who appears from behind the one-way mirror is polite and sympathetic but has no reason to think the report is different from the many that come to nothing.

    In any case, the search has to start close to home, with friends and family that parents can reach quicker than the police can.

    Fred has been up all day doing chores after night shift as a fitter in a Scoresby confectionery factory. Normally, he would take a nap and go to work. Instead, he calls his boss to say he won't be in.

    In fact, it turns out he will not be back for a month.

    Fred and Vanidda stay up all night. First, they visit Bung's friend Dyamai to get the names and telephone numbers of Bung's other friends. They call or visit each one.

    Every blank they draw deepens their fear - and sends widening ripples of alarm. Late-night phone calls between other parents, school friends and teachers draw more people into the puzzle but no one knows the answer.

    By 8am the Pattisons are back at the school, distraught, waiting to talk to the one classmate they missed overnight, but the girl knows nothing.

    Kate Harnetty sees the overnight change in the couple: the hollow eyes and anguished faces. She urges them to go back to the police.

    As soon as they leave, she calls the station to make sure they are taken seriously. With Fred Pattison's full-arm tattoo, cropped hair and tiny plait, she knows he looks "a bit like a merchant seaman" and fears he and Vanidda might be dismissed as trouble-prone time wasters.

    As Pattison says later, he "hassles the police a bit" that morning. At that point it's still not unreasonable to suspect that Bung has run off with someone, and is now nervous about coming home.

    Her parents are desperate to believe this, but too fearful to wait and do nothing. They make up simple posters: a snapshot of a smiling Bung in school uniform.

    One of Fred's workmates helps put up the posters all over the district, first on power poles along the route Bung walked to school, then further away, in shops, bus stops and railway stations.

    About 2pm, Knox Leader trainee reporter Erin Michael is buying a coffee in the Boronia Mall when she sees Fred Pattison taping up a poster. She introduces herself.

    "He seemed quite vague and shocked," she would recall. "He came over to the office. He was pretty emotional." Half an hour later she puts the story online. That night, the Herald Sun picks it up. So as day two ends, the mystery is public - but deepening.

    With every hour, the Pattisons grow more fearful. They put up posters all weekend.

    By Monday, June 6, Knox detectives are on the case. A police spokesman concedes they have not "ruled out abduction". It's the first time the spectre of kidnapping is officially raised.

    Inevitably, there are false leads and false hopes. On Tuesday, June 7, the trail is muddied when a schoolboy reports he saw Bung in Chandler Rd after school on the day she disappeared.

    It turns out to be another Asian girl in school uniform. A security guard thinks he saw Bung at the railway station. He is wrong, too.

    On Thursday, June 9, police set up an "information caravan" along the route Bung usually walked to school. People trickle in to talk. There is speculation but not much information. Nothing leads anywhere.

    Detectives need a door to knock on, a car to trace. At the end of the first week they have neither. Twenty-five weeks later, they still haven't.

    IT is just after 8.20am on a recent Thursday, much the same as the morning Bung walked out the door of the little house halfway along Elsie St. This is where suburbia meets the bush.

    Cockatoos, magpies, crows and parrots squabble in the trees that fill the big post-war house blocks next to the Dandenongs. It's more Neighbours territory than the place for a horror story.

    In the cream brick veneer at No.55, Vanidda Pattison is packing. Months of waiting for the news she dreads have taken a toll, though she tries to mask unspeakable fears with animated conversation, smiles and laughs.

    She stays busy, but when she stops for a photographer to take a picture, the camera does not lie. Frozen in every frame, her eyes are full of pain.

    Reliving the moment she realised Bung hadn't got to school that day, she holds her face in her hands. A policewoman, herself a mother, puts her arm around Vanidda as she talks of the last time she saw her girl.

    When Fred got home from nightshift about 7.30am that Thursday, Vanidda was cooking chicken curry soup and rice for breakfast. "Bung had that breakfast," explains Vanidda. "Then she took some for lunch. The canteen is not nice for her."

    They almost always refer to her in the present tense and cling to the belief she is alive, somewhere, somehow. It's a way to cope with a loss beyond words.

    Vanidda is small, wiry from a lifetime's hard work and the simple diet she has followed most of her 42 years. She grew up in Ubon Ratchathani province in northeast Thailand. Her first marriage ended when her two girls were small, and her parents helped raise them while she worked. Now she is going home to see her mother and father.

    She and Fred own a house in Thailand and were intending to move there after Bung finished school. Now everything is on hold.

    Stacked on the couch are gifts for her family and the Buddhist temple in their home town. Early on the day Bung went missing, Vanidda and Fred had gone to the Bunnings store in Bayswater to buy roofing screws and sensor lights to donate to the temple. They believe in karma. Faith helps them get through each cruel day.

    Vanidda met Fred in Melbourne when she was on holiday seven years ago. He spoke passable Thai, having spent a year there on long-service leave and studying the language at home.

    His interest in Buddhism grew from his dedication to sado karate, which he took up at 15 and has practised ever since.

    He admires the Thai work ethic and family values. Vanidda - he calls her "Nid" for short - "is a hard worker", he says. "It's a cultural thing. A good thing."

    Together they have transformed the garden of the house they bought from an old couple four years ago. They also pounded the streets "letter boxing" retail catalogues together to earn extra money and keep fit.

    Pattison understands self-reliance and hard work. He grew up in a battling family of nine around Queenscliff and Portarlington, then moved to Melbourne as an apprentice fitter at Carlton United Breweries, aged 17.

    He still barracks for Geelong; Cats premiership posters are taped next to the front door but he's not had much appetite for footy since June 2.

    It's the same with the fishing boat in the yard. He bought it last year but has never used it. He is holding down his job, thanks to an understanding employer, but the rest of his time is devoted to holding the family together, including Bung's big sister, Siriporn, now 20, a student at Swinburne.

    Pattison is calm and self-possessed. He doesn't swear or bluster to mask his anguish, and he looks people in the eye. It's clear why investigators soon decided he had nothing to do with his step-daughter's disappearance.

    He bears no grudges that detectives questioned them so closely. That is how it goes when someone vanishes. Family members and friends have to be cleared first. Then neighbours and workmates, outwards in widening circles. But if that doesn't work, then what? That's the question the Puma Taskforce faces.

    'What we've got," says an exasperated Detective Superintendent Brett Guerin, "is a big bag of fresh air."

    Police are rarely so frank in public. But the dozen investigators recruited for the taskforce in October know what their boss means. This could be the toughest assignment of their careers.

    Not only do they have no leads, they are starting behind scratch because of a false one.

    On June 29, almost four weeks after Bung disappeared, a Boronia primary pupil was late for school. Asked why, she lied that a grey-haired man wearing a surgical mask had tried to force her into a green Holden station wagon.

    Trapped in the lie, the girl did not confess for more than a week. The nonexistent kidnapper and his green Holden had been widely publicised because the supposed "victim" was also an Asian girl

    and the scene was near where Bung lived.

    The hoax overshadowed a genuine abduction attempt a week earlier. On June 21, a middle-aged man with greying hair and decayed teeth had tried to drag a 16-year-old schoolgirl into a blue sedan in Bedford Rd, Ringwood East.

    Investigators don't want to pin their hopes on the Ringwood incident but they can't ignore the fact it happened only 10 minutes from Elsie St, less than three weeks after Bung disappeared.

    When the man with the bad teeth and blue car is found, he will have the taskforce's undivided attention. Meanwhile, no one wants to say they are most likely looking for a killer. Even though the homicide squad is running the taskforce, and no matter how likely abduction and murder might seem, investigators must keep an open mind.

    Without leads, they have to consider all possibilities - even the faint one that Bung left voluntarily, which would mean no crime was committed. It's true some teenagers stage their disappearance but they almost always have reasons to leave home and not return. The investigators are sure none of those usual sordid reasons applies.

    Bung was happy at home and school. Her behaviour was good, her attitude consistent and did not change in the days or weeks before she disappeared.

    One by one, the taskforce has crossed off theories.

    Bung had Facebook friends, just as several million others do. Police have combed the family's computers but found nothing to show she struck up contact with anyone outside her own group.

    She left her mobile phone home the day she disappeared but investigators soon worked out that was not unusual.

    She had wanted to go to school earlier than usual one day, but police found she had wanted to meet her friend Dyamai, not anyone suspicious.

    They are left with a likely scenario that she was lured or forced into a car without being seen. If that did happen, no one wants to speculate on what happened next. But murder isn't an automatic assumption. There have been well publicised cases overseas of girls being abducted and imprisoned, some for years. A copycat crime can't be ruled out.

    Neither can police rule out the possibility Bung was abducted by human traffickers to use or sell into what police call "sexual servitude". They checked eastern suburbs brothels after a tip-off that a young Asian girl had been seen in one, and would do the same again. Thai nationals have been involved in sexual slavery scandals in Australia and a Thai speaker might have been able to lure Bung into a car.

    These are the bleak possibilities that desperate parents cling to: that a sexual psychopath or a human trafficker has taken their child and kept her alive.

    The Puma Taskforce has set up in a big unused room at Glen Waverley police station. With its whiteboards, computers and telephones, it could be any tired suburban office but for one thing: the work here is deadly serious.

    The office is within easy reach of Boronia, but far enough away to suit anyone who wants to talk to police without being seen by neighbours or relatives. The success or failure of a long investigation could rest on such subtleties.

    The investigators have to look for clues they are not sure exist. It is like sifting tonnes of beach sand in the hope of finding a tiny mystery object that might have been lost somewhere else, or not at all. Persistence and concentration is everything.

    First, they have to interview, or re-interview, about 400 householders who live along the streets between the Pattisons' house and the school, then work outwards. They have to trace every conceivable visitor - tradesmen, salesmen, delivery drivers, postmen - who might have been in the district in June.

    They have to find every registered sex offender and test his alibi for that day. Next, they have to identify suspects who might never have come under notice before.

    To do this they need help from people who can suggest anyone that might have had an excuse or an opportunity to be near Boronia on June 2.

    They need people to confide a suspicion or a secret about a relative, neighbour or workmate. The police would never put it so bluntly but their message could be reduced to this: The vanished girl is someone's sister, someone's daughter - she could have been yours. And whoever took her is somebody's brother, someone's son. Someone knows him.

    It takes less than five minutes to walk to the eastern end of Elsie St from the Pattisons' house. About the same to cross Albert St and walk up Harcourt St to the high school's back gate.

    It looks so normal to an outsider but life has changed here. Children who used to walk to and from school themselves now go in pairs or groups. Parents eye slow-moving cars suspiciously. Many more now juggle their lives to drive children to and from school.

    Bob and Nancy Downward have lived at 73 Elsie St since 1956. They used to see Bung walk past most days, head down.

    Since June, the Downwards pick up their 11-year-old grand-daughter from school every day and look after her until her mother finishes work. "Once, you knew everybody," says Bob, a retired brickie. "Now there's some weird people out there."

    Down the road at No.55, Fred Pattison runs through the options they allow themselves to think about.

    "Maybe someone befriended her over time," he says quietly. "Maybe someone who spoke Thai. Or maybe someone just grabbed her and put her in a car. She was such a lovable kid. Maybe they took her to raise as their own. All the monks and mediums we speak to tell us she's alive and wants to come home. We can't and we don't think anything else but that. We still think she's coming home."

    Every school day, Bung walked past the pole on the corner of Harcourt and Albert streets. It has dozens of rusting staples in it from notices put up over the years - for lost pets, garage sales and the like.

    Now there is only one poster on the pole, one the Pattisons put up that first fearful day.

    Bung's photograph has faded, and wind, rain and insects have invaded the clear plastic cover. The paper is frayed so the telephone numbers are no longer readable. There is something pathetic about it that brings a lump to a stranger's throat.

    Opposite the Pattisons' house lives an Elsie St lifer that everyone calls Trudy. Like Bung, she was a migrant girl. She arrived from Holland in the 1950s and has lived here ever since.

    Trudy loved the way her new neighbours Fred and Vanidda turned the tired block across the road into a pretty garden, with a new fence, gurgling pond and flower beds. Now she finds it heartbreaking.

    The old woman looks across the street at the Pattisons' car parked in the drive, two "Missing" posters still taped to the back window. They, too, are starting to fade. "I pray for her every night," she says, and her eyes glisten with tears.

    Spread the word on Twitter and help find Bung by using the hashtag #findbung

    1000 quizzed as Bung mystery deepens

    • by: Staff writer
    • From: Herald Sun
    • December 01, 2011 12:00AM
    POLICE have spoken to more than 1000 people trying to find out what happened to missing schoolgirl Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon.

    It is six months tomorrow since Bung disappeared as she walked to school in Boronia.

    She is believed to have been abducted.

    The head of the homicide squad, Inspector John Potter, said there were still no suspects in the baffling case.

    Bung, 13, was last seen in Elsie St, Boronia, on her way to Boronia Heights College on June 2, wearing a blue and white school uniform and a blue school raincoat.

    Detectives have examined all CCTV footage in the area and have questioned and investigated the alibis of almost 100 registered sex offenders in the Knox area.

    They are still checking out the alibis of a few of those people.

    Anyone with any information should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

    Spread the word on Twitter and help find Bung by using the hashtag #findbung

     

Developments' in search for Bung Siriboon

  • by: Wayne Flower
  • From: Herald Sun
  • March 09, 2012 10:38AM
 
POLICE have announced developments in the case of missing schoolgirl 'Bung' Siriboon.

The 13-year old has not been seen since the morning on June 2 last year when she was walking to Boronia Heights College.

Chief Commissioner Ken Lay told 3AW this morning there had been recent developments into her disappearance, but was unable to go into further detail.

Bung's stepfather Fred Pattison said he had no idea what the developments might be.

"No-one has spoken to us, we’re still trying to get a hold of the detective to see what the story is," he said.

Police have spoken to more than 1000 people trying to find out what happened to Bung.

In December last year the head of the homicide squad, Insp John Potter, said there were still no suspects in the baffling case.

Bung was last seen in Elsie St, Boronia, on her way to school wearing a blue and white school uniform and a blue school raincoat.

Detectives have examined all CCTV footage in the area and have questioned and investigated the alibis of almost 100 registered sex offenders in the Knox area.

Anyone with any information should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Breakthrough in hunt for missing Bung

March 9, 2012 - 1:25PM

Police have appealed for a mystery caller who provided information regarding missing Boronia schoolgirl Siriyakorn 'Bung' Siriboon to contact investigators again.

The appeal comes after Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay this morning revealed police had made a breakthrough in the disappearance of Siriyakorn, who vanished nine months ago.

Detectives from Task Force Puma are keen to talk to an anonymous caller who provided "information that is of interest" and have asked that the person call Crime Stoppers again.

Mr Lay said there had been "recent developments" in the case that has baffled police and the teenager's family and friends.

"I should say in the Bung investigation that things are progressing along with that investigation," Mr Lay told radio station 3AW.

"We're comfortable with the way things are going with that."

Bung, then 13, was last seen heading to Boronia Heights College from her Elsie Street home in her school uniform about 8.30am on Thursday, June 2, 2011.

She was wearing a blue-and-white striped dress, blue raincoat, blue-patterned backpack and black Dunlop Volley runners with white socks.

Last October, police set up Task Force Puma and doubled the number of police officers working on the case in a bid to find out what happened to Siriyakorn.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said police believe Bung was abducted and hold grave concerns for her welfare.

Mr Lay did not say what the recent developments were and said police were now "working our way through them".

A Victoria Police spokesman said he could not provide any more details about Mr Lay's comments or what information the mystery caller had provided.

Mr Lay's comments came as surprise to Bung's step-father Fred Pattison.

Mr Pattison said Bung's family was not aware of any breakthroughs in the case and that he was disappointed the Chief Commissioner had made a public statement before her family had been updated.

He said he was contacting police and did not want to comment further until he knew more.

Mr Lay referred to Siriyakorn's disappearance while speaking about the reported abduction and armed robbery of a 74-year-old elderly man from the same street as her family home yesterday.

He said there was no connection between the two cases.

Anyone with information about either case has been asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or go to www.crimestoppers.com.au.

 

Development in the search for Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon

 
Wednesday, 27 June 2012 15:27
 

Taskforce Puma detectives have today announced a development in the investigation into the disappearance of 13-year-old school girl, Siriyakorn Siriboon.

Siriboon, nicknamed ‘Bung’, left her home in Elsie Street, Boronia at about 8.30am on Thursday 2 June, 2011.

She was seen by a neighbour a short time later in Elsie Street heading towards Albert Avenue.

Bung did not arrive at school that day and has not been seen or heard from since.

Investigators continue to hold grave fears for her safety.

Homicide Squad Detective Inspector John Potter said information had been received which suggested that Bung was walking in Harcourt Road, had crossed Paisley Avenue and was heading towards Moncoe Street at about 8.55am on the morning she went missing.

“The information is of significant interest to investigators,” D/Insp Potter said.

“The reported sighting places Bung within 130 metres of the school entrance at the end of Moncoe Street, which she regularly used.

“We are asking anyone in the area who may have seen or heard something that morning, however insignificant, to contact police.”

Information can be provided anonymously and police urge anyone with information relating to Bung’s disappearance, who haven’t already spoken with police, to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit www.crimestoppers.com.au.

 

Police say Siriyakorn ‘Bung' Siriboon was 130m from safety when kidnapper struck

  • Mark Buttler and Katie Bice
  • From: Herald Sun
  • June 28, 2012 12:00AM
POLICE suspect the person who kidnapped schoolgirl Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon lives in the area where she vanished.

Homicide squad detectives have revealed they had tracked her to a spot 130m from her school in Boronia.

Det-Insp John Potter said the sighting indicated 13-year-old Bung intended to go to school but met with foul play on the morning she vanished, June 2 last year.

Insp Potter said the final sighting came as she made her way along Harcourt Rd, just before beginning the short walk along Moncoe St to Boronia Heights College, at 8.55am.

"We don't know what happened to Bung in those 130m, but clearly it's that short distance in which she's gone missing," he said.

Insp Potter said there was a strong chance the person responsible lived nearby.

"It is every likelihood that the person is local," he said. "We're hoping this information will lead to a credible suspect."

Taskforce Puma, a team of officers assigned to the case last year, remains at full strength.

Police say Siriyakorn ‘Bung' Siriboon was 130m from safety when kidnapper struck

  • Mark Buttler and Katie Bice
  • From: Herald Sun
  • June 28, 2012 12:00AM

POLICE suspect the person who kidnapped schoolgirl Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon lives in the area where she vanished.

Homicide squad detectives have revealed they had tracked her to a spot 130m from her school in Boronia.

Det-Insp John Potter said the sighting indicated 13-year-old Bung intended to go to school but met with foul play on the morning she vanished, June 2 last year.

Insp Potter said the final sighting came as she made her way along Harcourt Rd, just before beginning the short walk along Moncoe St to Boronia Heights College, at 8.55am.

"We don't know what happened to Bung in those 130m, but clearly it's that short distance in which she's gone missing," he said.

Insp Potter said there was a strong chance the person responsible lived nearby.

"It is every likelihood that the person is local," he said. "We're hoping this information will lead to a credible suspect."

Taskforce Puma, a team of officers assigned to the case last year, remains at full strength.


Insp Potter said detectives kept working through lists of registered sex offenders and 600 calls from the public offering information.

"We hope for the best but fear the worst," he said.

The area in Harcourt Rd where Bung was last seen is lined with mostly weatherboard homes with front fences or hedging.

Local resident Rachel said it was surprising to hear news of Bung being seen in the street.

"They said something about a local person that could be involved so that's ... a massive concern.

"But I guess if it's closer to the case being solved, that's a positive thing."

Rachel said she felt for Bung's family.

"That's the saddest part, especially in a community that is not considered to be in such a bad area. It's a really safe area, but you can't really say that now I guess."

She said the street was busy enough that if there had been "any commotion" on the day somebody would have noticed.

Ange Panagiotou said it was a good area and he was not worried by the news.

Anyone with information should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit the website www.crimestoppers.com.au.

People can call anonymously.

Det Insp Potter said police had received more than 600 calls on the case over the past 12 months.

He said a task force has been established to handle the investigation and 12 officers were working full-time on the case.

Police are yet to offer a reward but a spokesman said it was "not off the table".

Former homicide squad cop Charlie Bezzina, who contributes to True Crime Scene at heraldsun.com.au, said if he were leading the investigation he would consider a reward.

"There's a child involved and you have to use everything within your lawful means to try and solve it."

Mr Bezzina also floated the idea of having the case reviewed by interstate police.

"After a while you can get too close to the information and can't see the forest for the trees. It's not a slight on the investigators. It's just human nature that a fresh view on things can be paramount in breaking a case," he said.

Was schoolgirl Bung Siriboon snatched off a suburban street in broad daylight?

Bung never made it to school on 2 June, 2011. To this day her family are no closer to finding out what happened to their smart and music-loving 13-year-old.

Each year, more than 38,000 people are reported missing in Australia. Although 95 per cent are found within a week, about 2,000 people remain missing long-term. Bung Siriboon is one of them. Her story is the last in an SBS series on missing persons from multicultural backgrounds.

Bung Siriboon’s school was barely 10 minutes’ walk away, along residential streets lined with banksia shrubs and brick veneer cottages – it took a bit longer if she met up with friends and dawdled, chatting about pop music and Justin Bieber.

Bung – her real name was Siriyakorn, but everyone knew her by her family nickname – was a typical 13-year-old, if a little more polite and deferential than most young teenagers, thanks to her traditional Thai upbringing.

Although not exactly streetwise, she knew to be wary of strangers, and would never get into a car with someone she didn’t know, according to her stepfather, Fred Pattison.

Nor would she dream of wagging classes. “She loved school, and being at school with her friends,” says Layla Preston, who entered Year 7 with her at Boronia Heights College, in Melbourne’s outer east, in 2011.

Thursday, 2 June, 2011 began like any other school day. After a breakfast of egg rice soup, Bung left the modest house which she shared with Fred, her mother, Vanidda, and elder sister, Siriporn (known as Pang), at about 8.30am. Fred, who had just finished a night shift at a local factory, was in the back room. “Bye, mum, see you later!” Bung called out.

Crossing Elsie St, where the family had mostly lived since migrating from Thailand four years earlier, she headed east. Three doors up, a neighbour’s dog barked as she hurried past, carrying her schoolbag; glancing through his lounge room window, the neighbour caught sight of the teenager in her blue and white uniform and blue raincoat.

Elsie St terminates in Albert Ave, a congested main road which Bung used to cross every morning, before turning left into quieter Harcourt Rd. A little way along Harcourt is the left turn into Moncoe St, a cul-de-sac which led to the high school’s back gate.

Someone reported seeing Bung in Harcourt Rd at about 8.55am, just 130 metres from the gate. But she didn’t make it to school on 2 June. And she hasn’t been seen since.   

When Fred Met Nid

Long fascinated by Buddhism and martial arts and Asian culture, Fred Pattison first visited Thailand in the mid-1990s, taking long service leave from his fitter’s job at Carlton & United Breweries.

“I spent six weeks there, met some nice people and had some good experiences,” says Fred, who still lives in the family home in Elsie St.

“I had a lot of holiday saved up, so I started going backwards and forwards. I fell in love with the place.”

He also learnt Thai, which helped him and Vanidda to hit it off when he met her in Melbourne in 2004. She was on holiday; they kept in touch after she went home. Nid, as he calls her, lived in Ubon Ratchathani province, in the country’s north-east. She had two daughters from a marriage which broke up when the girls were small.

In 2006, Fred moved to Thailand for a while, to be with Nid, and for a change of scene. With Nid’s ex-husband largely absent, Fred became a father to Bung and Pang, who quickly grew to love and accept him. Bung, he remembers, was an adventurous child, always climbing trees – and sometimes falling out. Fred and Nid got married and started up a business, making awnings.

Unfortunately, the business did not thrive, and they struggled to service the mortgage they’d taken out on a house and some land.

Fred decided to return to Australia and look for a fly-in, fly-out mining job, but was hired by Cadbury’s as a fitter, his old trade.

The rest of the family joined him in 2008. Bung was 10; Pang was 17.

From Thailand to Australia

Fred and Nid wanted to give the girls "a better life and a better future and a good education".

The plan was to put them through school, pay off the family’s debts and then retire to Thailand.

“And if the kids wanted to go back, they could, but they’d have a level up from the Thais because of their Australian education,” explains Fred.

They bought the Elsie St house and transformed the front garden into a little oasis, with a swing and a pond and a riot of colourful shrubs and flowerbeds.

The sisters settled in, despite speaking little English initially. Pang completed the equivalent of Years 11 and 12 at an adult education college, graduating with a Victorian Certificate of Education.

Bung, after an intensive English course, attended the local primary school, which backed on to Elsie St, near the family home.

Fred liked that proximity. Growing up in Queenscliff, on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, he had gone to school in Geelong, a 90-minute bus trip away. He also liked the tranquillity of suburban Boronia, next to the Dandenong Ranges.

"I wanted her [Bung] to grow up feeling safe. And there was no reason why she shouldn't feel safe walking to school. There were always lots of people around, particularly in the morning – kids going to school, commuters driving to work. The main bus route is near here, and there are two arterial roads. I certainly never had any concerns."  

Dancing, Justin Bieber and a best friend

Dyamai Hillard was in Year 4 at Boronia Primary when Bung arrived. The two girls sat next to each other.

“I really wanted to get to know her, but I think she found me annoying at first!” says Dyamai.

“She put a ruler down the middle of the desk so I couldn’t cross over to her side.” It wasn’t long, though, before the pair bonded.

Dyamai describes Bung as “a happy person, with a very kind heart and so caring... I was bullied a lot, and she was the only one who stood up for me... She could be quite shy with new people, but once she got to know them, she was very outgoing. She was always ready to talk to people and try new things. She was just so easy to be around.” 

The girls moved up to high school together. They would meet at a little park on the way to school. They walked home together, and hung out at each other’s houses.

At Dyamai’s, they watched TV and played with her dogs. Bung made Dyamai try Nid’s spicy noodles. At weekends, they did odd jobs, such as gardening, for neighbours, then spent the money at Maccas. Bung always had an ice cream sundae.

Academically, Bung excelled at maths. Above all, though, she loved dancing and singing and drama. She and Dyamai were rehearsing for the Rock Eisteddfod schools competition, as was Layla Preston, another close friend. Bung was into K-pop, a music genre from South Korea – after she disappeared, her parents discovered she had been teaching herself the Korean alphabet. And then there was Justin Bieber.

Layla recalls: “She absolutely loved Justin Bieber. She had a crush on him, and she’d always listen to his songs.”

Each morning, Layla would wait for Bung at the bottom of a tall flight of stairs leading to the school’s junior section. The two would swap music, and choreograph dances together.

At the time Bung went missing, they were working on a jazz/hip hop duo for a Years 7 to 9 performance night, “and I loved the choreography Bung was coming up with”, says Layla.

Even now, the Rihanna song they set it to makes her think of Bung, who was “just so bubbly and friendly, always making people laugh, always wanting to have fun”.

'One of the good kids'

At home, theirs was “a pretty normal happy family”, according to Fred. Nid worked part-time, most recently stuffing letterboxes with shopping catalogues.

The family took a couple of trips back to Thailand. They had beach outings, sometimes visiting Fred’s mother in Portarlington, near Queenscliff. Bung liked playing in the sand and swimming in the waves.

She and Pang often argued, but they always made up; despite the age difference, they were close.

As Dyamai saw it: “She [Bung] loved her sister, and she loved her parents. She fought with her mum sometimes, but just over the normal teenage stuff, like not wanting to clean up the dishes.”

Bung’s stepfather calls her “a girl that showed her emotions and was attuned to people’s feelings... If someone was on the outer or getting picked on, she’d befriend them. If you hurt yourself, she’d always be the first one there with a pill or a Band Aid.

“She was also very independent. If she didn’t like someone, you pretty much knew it... I wouldn’t call her streetwise, but she was an older soul. She was one of the good kids.”

Like most girls her age, Bung spent a lot of time in her bedroom. She liked drawing, and had several Facebook accounts.

As far as Fred and Nid knew, she had never had a boyfriend. Although very sociable, she preferred not to stay over at friends’ houses.

“She was not a terrible teenager,” says Fred. “She wasn’t one of those that was not coming home or not ringing up or running away.”   

Panic sets in

Layla recollects the roll being called on 2 June, and the silence that followed Bung’s name. “I thought to myself, ‘That’s weird, Bung’s always here.’”

 

Bung being such a diligent student, her teachers assumed she was sick. They didn’t call her parents; her parents, meanwhile, had no reason to think she wasn’t at school. She was always home on time, though, usually by 3.40pm.

At 4pm, Nid wondered aloud where she was. Just then, the phone rang.

Fred answered; it was Dyamai, calling to remind Bung that they were playing football the next day. He asked: “Why didn’t you tell her that at school today?” Dyamai replied: “She wasn’t at school today.” “And that’s when panic set in,” relates Fred. “I was like, ‘What do you mean, she wasn’t at school today?’”

He and Nid drove straight to Boronia Heights College, where the principal, Kate Harnetty, confirmed Bung had been absent.

Fred and Nid speed-searched the campus, including the library. No Bung. By 4.20pm, they were at Knox Police Station, where officers took a statement but urged them to speak to all family and friends.

Bung had left her mobile phone at home that day, which was not unusual.

It had been raining that morning, and Dyamai’s mother gave her a lift to school. They paused at the little park; Bung wasn’t there.

Later, Fred and Nid came over and asked Dyamai to help them contact Bung’s friends.

“I just sat there on the floor, crying,” she remembers. “I gave them phone numbers of everyone I could think of. It was so scary. I was so sad and shocked. It didn’t seem real.”

'We’ve got to find her'

That day, Layla left school early, feeling unwell. In the afternoon, a friend phoned up. “She said: ‘Bung’s missing.’ I’ll never forget those words. I just started bawling. Then I was calling all my friends and telling them: ‘Bung’s missing, we don’t know where she is.’”

Fred and Nid phoned or visited every one of Bung’s friends. No one had seen her. Others in the school community were also anxiously calling around. Bung’s parents didn’t sleep; the next morning, they returned to Knox Police Station. And they began scouring the area.

They walked the streets, knocked on doors. They searched shops and parks, backyards and vacant blocks. They made posters, featuring a smiling Bung in school uniform, and taped them to lampposts and power poles, stuck them up at bus stops and in Boronia Mall.

“I don’t think we ate for a week,” recounts Fred, who took leave from his job.

“We were walking around in circles, in shock, trying to cope. I was beside myself, but I had to be strong to support my wife and daughter. It would have been so easy to fall apart, but instinct kicked in. It was like, ‘We’ve got to find her, what do we do?’

“Friends and workmates were dropping in and organising search parties, and people were setting up Facebook pages and bringing us food. There were TV cameras everywhere, and reporters sitting out front and chasing you down the street.”

After a month, Fred went back to the factory. He had always worked night shifts; now, though, Nid hated sleeping at home by herself. She couldn’t work, couldn’t concentrate on anything. Not long afterwards, she returned to Thailand.

“She went over there to get some solace with family and friends, to visit the temples, take her mind off things,” says Fred.

“She just couldn’t handle it here. Here was where everything had happened. Bung was the apple of Nid's eye. She and Bung were very connected, very close.”

Police investigation ramps up

By Monday, 6 June, Knox detectives were on the case. Soon afterwards, the Homicide Squad took over – not because police assumed the worst, they reassured Bung’s family, but because the squad was well resourced.

Detectives doorknocked hundreds of homes. They traced tradesmen, delivery drivers and other outsiders who had passed through Boronia on the day Bung vanished.

They combed through CCTV footage from train stations, service stations and shopping centres. They questioned scores of known sex offenders living locally. They checked brothels, after tip-offs that a young Asian girl had been spotted in one. They followed up more than 1,000 pieces of information from the public.

They also turned a relentless gaze on Fred and others close to Bung.

“The father’s always the first suspect,” he says, with a shrug. “They searched me, searched the house, all the cupboards, the roof. They even searched under the house, because somebody said I’d been digging.

“I was under investigation for a long time. People were saying, ‘Oh, it’s got to be him.’ It didn’t worry me. I've got nothing to hide.”

Detectives trawled through Bung’s social media accounts, but found no indication that she had met anyone online. They also made inquiries in Thailand, including with her birth father; those, too, drew a blank.

Some young girls do run away, but not Bung. She had been her usual sunny self in the period leading up to her disappearance. There had been no major rows or incidents at home, nor any problems at school.

There was only one, grim conclusion to be drawn: somehow, she had been lured or forced into a car, in broad daylight, in an area teeming with people, without anyone seeing anything.

'A big hole in our friendship group'

After Bung went missing, Boronia schoolchildren stopped walking to school on their own; instead, their parents escorted them or gave them lifts.

“We were told to be careful and walk in big groups,” says Layla Preston. “Everyone was stressed about it.”

A month later, another Boronia schoolgirl claimed a man had tried to drag her into a car, near Bung’s home. The 11-year-old eventually admitted making up the story.

However, a week earlier, a 16-year-old girl escaped what police believe was a genuine abduction attempt in Ringwood East, a 15-minute drive away.

Layla recalls the sombre mood at school. “After a week of her [Bung] not being there, we were so devastated and upset... That was a tough year. There was a big hole in our friendship group.”

Dyamai had “news reporters following me home and police rocking up all the time”. She felt oppressed by the photos of Bung all around her, on Missing Persons posters.

She moved to Byron Bay, in northern NSW, to live with her father for a while. Another friend had to switch school, unable to cope. Others received counselling.

Bung’s absence was keenly felt when Boronia Heights College won the Rock Eisteddfod state title in August.

“I kept thinking, ‘I wish Bung was here with us,’” sighs Layla. “She would have absolutely loved it.”

In November 2011, Victoria Police announced the formation of a special team, Taskforce Puma, to investigate her disappearance.

Weeks on, though, detectives had found nothing more than “a big bag of fresh air”, they told the 'Herald-Sun'.  

$1 million reward and still no leads

It’s 3.30pm on a Friday afternoon, and Elsie St is awash with chattering children in blue and white uniforms. In 2014, Boronia Heights College moved to the primary school site, near Fred’s place; the amalgamated school is called Boronia K-12 College.

At home, Fred is surrounded by beaming photos of Bung. There’s one of her at Bangkok Airport, about to fly to Australia – the first time she got on a plane. One with Nid and Bang at a look-out on Mt Donna Buang, in the Victorian Alps, where they went tobogganing. One of her when she graduated from primary school.

He has videos, too ­– of Bung singing and dancing in her living room. Dyamai shot some of them. “She loved the camera,” says her friend. Fred rarely watches them: it’s too painful.

In 2013, in a dramatic twist, a man claimed to have hit and killed Bung with his car, panicked and buried her body at a local reserve. Police searched the reserve but found nothing, and released the man after arresting and questioning him twice, saying parts of his story did not add up.

Detectives also grilled Robert Knight, out of jail and living near Boronia after kidnapping and sexually assaulting two schoolgirls in 1980 and 1996. He, too, was ruled out as a suspect, and Puma was disbanded in late 2013.

There were two potential sightings of Bung on the morning of 2 June, one in Boronia, the other in nearby Rowville. The first was of an Asian girl looking out of the back window of a white Ford Falcon wagon driven by a Caucasian man in his 50s or 60s, with a slicked-back hairstyle and a tattoo.

The second was of an Asian girl in the front seat of a white station wagon, possibly a Holden HQ Kingswood, driven by a Caucasian man in his late 30s or early 40s, also tattooed. Neither led police anywhere constructive.

Not even a $1 million reward – on offer since 2014, along with immunity from prosecution – has enabled detectives to make headway, although the investigation remains active.

“That’s the hard thing,” says Fred. “There’s just nothing. It’s like one minute she's there and the next she's gone. But you don't just walk down a street and vanish. Somebody knows something; they just need to have a conscience and come forward. We want to hear any information, even if it’s bad.”

He and Nid are convinced, though, that Bung is alive. Both devout Buddhists, they have consulted “hundreds of monks and mediums, and they all say that she hasn’t passed over”, relates Fred.

“We have to believe that, because there’s no evidence otherwise. We have to believe that one day she’ll be back.”

Nid remains in Thailand, although she has returned for holidays and Fred goes out there as often as he can. He has looked after Pang, who graduated from Swinburne University with an international business degree last year.

Pang “isn’t a big one to show emotions, but she's lost her younger sister, she misses her sister, and she’s kept busy by putting herself through education”, according to Fred.  

'We've been waiting so long'

Bung would have turned 19 in June. Her friends graduated from high school last year without her.

Layla says: “Life goes on, but when I think about her, I feel so sad in my heart, because I miss her smile and her laugh and her energy and her presence.”

Dyamai has Bung’s name and birthdate tattooed on her leg. She is still traumatised by the loss of her friend. Weeping, she says: “I can't walk home by myself at night time. I don't take my dogs for walks any more. I can't sleep in the dark without a light on. I’ve had counselling, but it doesn’t help, because there's no closure... It’s agonising not knowing where my best friend is and whether she’s safe. And I really cannot imagine the pain her parents have gone through. They're heartbroken.”

For Fred, it “doesn’t get any easier with time”. He reflects: “I try not to think about what could have happened to her [Bung]. If you think too much about it, it drives you crazy. You don't want to get out of bed in the morning. You don't even want to wake up.” Christmas and New Year are always difficult, he says, because of Bung’s birthday on 30 December. June, when she vanished, is also tough.

In June last year, around the time of the anniversary, Year 12 – Bung’s year – planted a tree in the grounds of K-12 College. A solar light shines on the tree, and a plaque bears the words: “Lights will guide you home”, from a Coldplay song. At a little ceremony, Layla and three other friends delivered a speech, and five white balloons were released – one for each year Bung had been missing.

This year, the same four friends marked the sixth anniversary by getting matching tattoos, each featuring the word “hopeful”.

“Because we all loved her and we’ll never lose hope,” explains Layla.

“We still have hope that one day we'll get some answers. We've been waiting so long, and we miss her terribly.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taylor and Bung always walked to school together. The one day they didn't, Bung disappeared.

CHELSEA MCLAUGHLIN Mama Mia
Senior Entertainment Writer

Each morning, 13-year-old Bung Siriboon would make the short 10 minute walk from her east Melbourne home to school.

On the way she’d meet up with her friends, but on the morning of June 2, 2011, Bung walked alone.

At school, Bung’s friends listened as her name was called. Eight years on, they still remember the deafening silence as she wasn’t there to answer back.

Bung, whose real name was Siriyakorn but was known by everyone as her nickname, never made it to class.

Bung had always been an enthusiastic, diligent student so her teachers assumed she was sick. Her mother and step father had said goodbye to her about 8.30am and had no reason to believe she wasn’t at school.

After school, Bung was always home on time. About 3.40pm.

According to an SBS investigation, At 4pm, Bung’s mother Vannida wondered out loud where her daughter was.

Then the phone rang.

Bung’s stepdad Fred Pattison answered to hear Bung’s friend Dyamai on the other end. She wanted to tell Bung about something that was planned for school tomorrow.

This was how Bung's parents learned that she had not made it to class.

"That's when the penny dropped," Fred told A Current Affair. "That's when we started to panic."

For eight years, Bung has been missing. The police door-knocked more than 1000 doors to try and determine what had happened to the young teen, but in 2013 the taskforce set up to investigate Bung's disappearance was shut down as its leads dried up.

Speaking to A Current Affair, Bung's friends spoke of the pain of not knowing what had happened to her.

Close friend Taylor said she struggled with her decision not to walk with Bung to school on the morning on June 2.

"I remember it clear as day, walking with my brother and he asked if I wanted to [walk with Bung] and I don't know why, but I said no.

"I really regret it that I didn't walk with her that day, that was something that is really hard to live with."

Dyamai told the show about making the phone call that made it clear Bung was missing.

"I basically told them their daughter was missing. I felt really responsible for a lot of years," she said.

She said Bung would always be her best friend.

For Bung's family, the uncertainty of what happened to her has created a life in "limbo".

Her grieving mother moved back to Thailand, finding it too hard to live in the Melbourne home she'd shared with her youngest child, but Fred still lived in the same home.

"We want some sort of news, good or bad, we want to know," he said. "We still believe she is coming back one day. We'll see her again one day."

Her friends are also united by their hope of seeing Bung again.

"Every day I'm still hoping that she's okay," Taylor said. "You want to know that these past eight years haven't just been the worst eight years of her life."

There remains a $1 million reward for information leading to the conviction for Bung's disappearance.

 

 

 

NEWSVIC NEWS

Fresh appeal ten years after 13-year-old schoolgirl Siriyakorn “Bung” Siriboon vanished

 
AAP
 

A decade after Melbourne teenager Siriyakorn “Bung” Siriboon vanished, police have made a fresh public appeal for information.

Wednesday’s 10-year anniversary of her disappearance was marked by Victoria Police again releasing a photo of the 13-year-old schoolgirl.

Bung, dressed in her uniform, left home about 8.30am on June 2, 2011 to walk to school in Melbourne’s outer east.

The Boronia teen never made it.

Despite a number of public appeals and a reward of up to $1 million, the case continues to baffle Victoria Police.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Justin Tippett said their thoughts were with Bung’s family, especially her mother Nid, father Fred and sister.

“Ten years is a long time to go without answers and I’m sure the loss of Bung feels as raw today as it did in 2011,” he said.

“Despite a significant and thorough investigation, we’ve unfortunately not been able to solve this case and either provide Bung’s family with answers or hold the offender to account.”

Weekly emails and calls

Apart from the reward, the Department of Public Prosecutions would also consider granting indemnification from prosecution.

Tippett said police continued to receive weekly calls and emails about Bung’s disappearance.

“As history has shown, often those involved in a crime of this nature are unable to keep it secret, so we are especially keen to hear from anyone who may have specific knowledge of the person involved,” he said.

Five years ago, police released information about a vehicle similar to a white Kingswood station wagon that was seen in Rowville the morning Bung disappeared.

A white EA to EF Ford Falcon station wagon similar to that of a car that was seen close to the scene.

It may have had a young female passenger, but police have never confirmed whether it was Bung or if there was any connection to her disappearance.

A school backpack she was carrying is also yet to be found.

Anyone with information is urged to call Crimestoppers.