Linda Anne GRIMSTONE

 

                 

Six-year-old Sarah Stone, giving strength to her dad as he pleads for public help in locating her missing mum Linda Grimstone in 2000.

 

Linda Grimstone was last seen in Alpine National Park on September 4, 2000. Her husband Stephen, pictured with daughter Sarah, believes her case was botched by police.
Photo: Craig Sillitoe


Date of Birth: 1958
Build: Medium
Height: 168 cms
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Last Seen: 4 September 2000
Circumstances:
At about 8.50am on 4 September 2000, Linda Grimstone dropped her two children off at Croydon Hills Primary, Melbourne and did not return to pick them up. Police enquiries have revealed that Linda purchased petrol at the Wesburn petrol station at approx 9.45am and was last seen at approx 3.50pm that same day in the car park of Powers Lookout 270km NE of Melbourne. Police can't explain her reason for attending Powers Lookout but her vehicle was located at 10am the next day in bushland nearby.

 

 

Yearning for the truth after six years

Mark Russell
August 20, 2006 - The Age

Mother of two Linda Grimstone disappeared in Victoria's rugged alpine mountains. Her husband is convinced that she met foul play. He wants answers.

THE husband of a woman who went missing in the Alpine National Park nearly six years ago claims senior police bungled the case by failing to investigate her disappearance as an abduction and murder.

Stephen Grimstone, 54, of North Croydon, hopes an inquest expected to be held later this year into his wife Linda's presumed death will uncover the truth about her fate and result in the homicide squad finally being called into investigate.

Mr Grimstone, a business development manager, said local detectives always believed Linda, a mother of two, had been a victim of foul play but their superiors put the case in the too-hard basket, viewing her as just another missing person, one of more than 30,000 reported in Australia each year.

Mr Grimstone said he was forced to raise $10,000 from his own savings to put up a reward for information about the case because the State Government simply didn't care. "It's been a shambles," Mr Grimstone said. "A lot of effort went in at the start then it all got too hard. I've gone through six years of hell and so have my kids (Alex, 17, and Sarah, 12) and we want answers."

The officer in charge of the investigation, Senior Detective Steve Wyatt, told The Sunday Age he was convinced another person had played a role in the disappearance. Mrs Grimstone, 42, was last seen at the Powers Lookout at Whitfield, 270 kilometres from Melbourne, on September 4, 2000 — the day after her 23rd wedding anniversary — after dropping the children at school in Croydon.

A couple from Adelaide reported seeing Mrs Grimstone sitting in her car at the lookout about 4pm. It was the first time she had been there.

Her locked car was found the next day about 10am, partly covered by tree branches on a dirt track in dense bushland near the lookout. More than 160 police and volunteers, a police helicopter, the mounted branch and the dog squad searched for five days in poor weather without success.

Mr Grimstone believes authorities dismissed his fears that his wife had been abducted and murdered because of a number of past episodes in which she had been depressed and disappeared, but always returned.

"The reason they didn't find her (in the national park) is because she wasn't in there," he told The Sunday Age. "It's a homicide."

"In my view senior police and the Government have just washed their hands of this because it would have meant committing too much time and resources."

Detective Wyatt, whom Mr Grimstone praised for his efforts, said he believed someone had interacted with Mrs Grimstone before her death. "It's extremely unlikely that she would have been able to get out of the search area unless she had the assistance of another person," Detective Wyatt said.

"It would have been very difficult for anyone … given the putrid conditions that night.

"I also believe that this woman at some stage would have made contact with her children if she was still alive so you would have to assume, given the time that's passed, that she's not.

"I don't know if this third party has accidentally knocked her over with their car in the fog and panicked and taken her away out of the area. I don't know if she's met with a person and met with foul play.

"All I believe is there must have been some interaction of a third party. And if that third party even assisted in the accidental death of this woman, it's possible a crime has been committed because the death has never been reported to the authorities." Detective Wyatt said while he could never rule out anyone as a suspect, he did not believe Mr Grimstone was involved. He said the homicide squad had not been called in or a reward offered because no body had been found and there was no physical evidence at this stage to suggest a crime had been committed.

Mr Grimstone said he had been with his wife for 25 years and they had had a loving, caring relationship. "She adored her children and she's not just going to run off," he said. "For her not to come back is just so out of character. She has definitely met with foul play and I know there are guys in the police force who think the same.

"It does make me angry. The positive thing is it drives me to find out what happened.

"I am convinced there is a person or persons out there who have done this, who have destroyed my family, and they get up every morning, have breakfast, go to work, go out with their mates, and life just goes on — but our lives are in frigging turmoil.

"All I want to do is find my wife, put her in consecrated ground, somewhere where my children and I can go to pay our respects, and bring the bastards that did it to heel," Mr Grimstone said.

He said he believed his wife had driven off into the country to try to clear her head and had been abducted.

"Everything to me points to the fact that she was picked up and someone with local knowledge put the car into the bush. She was taken out. I believe it was probably more than one person, they saw her, she would have been crying, she would have been distressed, it was freezing cold, pouring down with rain, pitch black, and so she'd have been in a hell of a state and they've taken advantage of that.

"She met with foul play as sure as day follows night."

Missing woman dead: inquest

Posted 

A coronial investigation has found that a woman who went missing near Mansfield 11 years ago, is dead, but it has been unable to determine her cause of death.

Croydon woman Linda Anne Grimstone was last seen near Powells Lookout, at Whitlands in Victoria, on September 4, 2000.

In his findings, coroner Richard Pithouse says Ms Grimstone had a history of anxiety and depression.

The coroner says inquiries have not produced any explanations for Ms Grimstone's disappearance but he found no evidence of foul play.

 

 

 

Voice Contestant's Family Heartache: "She Completely Disappeared"

 

 

Sarah Stone hasn't seen her mum since she was six years old. 

Charlotte Willis
MAY 3, 201712:07AM

Sarah Stone hasn't seen her mum since she was six years old. 

As a six-year-old, Sarah Stone's life changed forever when her mother disappeared without a trace one day after dropping her at school.

The Voice contestant is the daughter of missing woman Linda Anne Grimstone, who disappeared on September 4 in 2000 after dropping her two children at Croydon Hills Primary School in Melbourne's north-east. She hasn't been seen since.

On Tuesday night, Stone opened up during her audition on Nine's singing show about her mother's mysterious disappearance.

"When I was six years old, my mum dropped me off at school. That was the last time that we saw her, she completely disappeared off the face of the earth," she told the program.

"Still to this day no one really knows what happened to my mum, so that is always something that I guess is a question in the back of all of our minds," the now 22-year-old said. "So it's just something that we've had to deal with day-to-day."

"It was 17 years ago this year," Stone's dad, Stephen Grimstone told host Sonia Kruger, recounting the tragic story. "Sarah was only six, and Alex [her brother] was only 11. There was no family here, all of the family is back in the UK. Me and Linda came here to start a new life."

The 42-year-old mother of two went missing the day after her 23rd wedding anniversary. Stone says her father still talks about his wife every single day and will never give up searching for "his absolute soul mate".

Linda Grimstone was last seen at around 3.50pm the same day in the car park of Powers Lookout, about 270km north east of Melbourne, according to the National Missing Persons Centre. Her locked car was found at 10am the following day in bushland nearby. Police were unable to explain why she was at Powers Lookout. She remains number five on Australia's missing persons list.

In 2006, six years after Grimstone's disappearance, the officer in charge of the investigation, Senior Detective Steve Wyatt, said he was convinced another person had played a role in the disappearance.

"It's impossible to have any sense of closure. It's still an open case but there's been a coronial inquest and the police have now said that my mum is deceased just for legal reasons," Stone told TV Week.

The musician says she found comfort in music from a young age, channelling her grief into singing. She was successful in her Voice audition Tuesday night, with all four artists turned their chairs for Stone.

She ended up joining Boy George's team after he said it was "impossible not to turn as her voice was so beautiful."