Ian Craig HOLLIS 

                                                                                                                                                                                                   Tattoos on Ian's hands

Missing Persons Week: What happened to Ian Craig Hollis | Daily Telegraph  

 

 

        

     

           Above - an age-enhanced image of what Ian may look like today

 

DOB: 1969 - 16 years old when missing .           
HAIR: Brown BUILD: Solid EYES: Green
CIRCUMSTANCES:
16 year old Ian Hollis was last seen on 16 May, 1986 at his home in Minto, Sydney, NSW. There are fears for his safety.
Reported missing to: Missing Persons Unit.

Ian was two weeks short of his 17th birthday when he disappeared after an argument with his girlfriend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e18iZsePiUY

From his sister Debbie -

Ian loved playing footy for Minto Cobras and he attended Minto Primary School and also Sarah Redfern High at Minto Australia NSW
I would like to ask you to take a look at Ian's photo and please join
NO, YOU MIGHT NOT KNOWN IAN BUT ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS OR EVEN ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS' FRIENDS MIGHT KNOW OF HIM EVEN
(Don't ever assume others might not know Ian.)
MAYBE SOMEONE MIGHT HAVE SEEN HIM OR KNOWS SOMETHING
so please let us know
please have a look at our web page
MISSING IAN
http://debbiedu4.webs.com/

 

Wednesday, July 14, 2004. 7:24 AM (AEST)

Police relaunch missing man case - ABC

Police have relaunched their search for a man who was reported missing 18 years ago and could be living in the Tenterfield district.

Ian Hollis was 17 when he disappeared from south-western Sydney in 1986.

He would now be 35 years old.

The Westmead coroner is about to open an inquest into his disappearance and police have been asked by his family to reissue an appeal for information on his whereabouts.

Mr Hollis is known to have lived in northern New South Wales and could have spent time at a youth hostel known as Tooloom in the Tenterfield district.

When he was last seen, he was described as being of European appearance, 175 centimetres tall, with a solid build, brown hair, olive complexion and green or hazel eyes.

Family still searching for answers 23 years after Ian Craig Hollis went missing

03 Aug 09 @ 12:12pm by Ben Pike - Cambelltown Macarthur Chronicle

 
SHIRLEY Spaccavento has been waiting for more than 20 years for her son Ian Craig Hollis to come walking in the door.

The young man disappeared from Minto on what was a regular day in 1986.

He had spoken to his mother in the morning, gone over to his girlfriend’s house, and then disappeared from Minto on May 16.

As the case again comes under the spotlight - with a coronial inquest in October and the start of Missing Person’s Week this week - Ian’s mother is still holding out hope for her son.

“It was so out of character for him to go missing, and when he left he wasn’t having a fight with anyone in the family,” she said.

“He came over to see me that morning and then he was gone.

“My daughter has done a lot of work on the computer searching for people that knew him, but there’s been nothing concrete.”

Mrs Spaccavento and her daughter, Debbie Dufor, are looking for Ian’s best friend at the time, Terry Davis, who they say would be able to help shed light on Ian’s whereabouts.

“Ian spent a lot of time at Terry’s place and they knew each other well,” Mrs Spaccavento said.

“We have not been able to get in contact with him since.

Det-Sgt Mike Hales, of Macquarie Fields police, said the most helpful people in missing person cases were close friends and family.

“We have got five open cases at the moment at Macquarie Fields,” he said. “As for Mr Hollis, he went missing after an argument with his girlfriend.

“Over time it becomes more difficult and contacts can be lost.”

In Campbelltown 162 people were reported missing between January 1 and July 23 this year.

Police and family members were able to locate 173 people in the same period, with many older cases solved.

In Macquarie Fields local area command, of the 110 cases of missing persons in the same period, 112 people were located.

Nationwide, one person every 15 minutes is reported missing.

If you can offer any information about the whereabouts of a missing person, phone the Missing Person Unit on 1800 025 091.

Prayers for missing brother's return

IAN Hollis was just 16 when he disappeared one autumn afternoon in 1986 from Minto, in Sydney's southwestern suburbs, and in the 23 years since then, his sister Debbie Dufour has prayed every night for his safe return.

"I don't really know what could have happened to him," Ms Dufour said.

"I am hoping that he is somewhere alive but as you get into the story of what happened with Ian before he disappeared, you get the feeling that there has been foul play, but there is no proof of it."

The NSW Coroner will today hold an inquest into the death or disappearance of Ian, who would now be 39, but whatever findings he makes, it will be too little, too late for Ms Dufour.

"The first 15 years of Ian's disappearance, the local police didn't do anything at all to look for him," Ms Dufour said. "That has what has made it so hard now to get anything concrete on Ian."

Macquarie Fields Detective Sergeant Michael Hales, who took up Ian's case two years ago, admits there appeared to be little or no investigation into the teenager's disappearance, but it was difficult to be certain because no records were kept.

Ms Dufour, who last year set up a Facebook page devoted to finding Ian, claims that prior to his disappearance her teenage brother was in a relationship with a young mother who was already in a de facto relationship.

Two weeks before he disappeared, Ian was lured to a toilet block and bashed by unknown assailants. On the day he disappeared, the girlfriend allegedly told Ms Dufour that following an argument Ian had left in a friend's brown car.

There have been no sightings of him since then and his bank account remained untouched.

 

One boy, a secret lover and a mystery

THE day before he vanished, 16-year-old Ian Craig Hollis allegedly gave an ultimatum to his secret lover, an inquest into his disappearance has been told.

The teen's mother, Shirley Spaccavento, claims she overheard him on the phone telling 22-year-old Karlene Shaw she had to choose between him and the father of one of her two children.

The next day, on May 20, 1986, Mr Hollis disappeared and has not been seen or heard from since, Glebe Coroner's Court has heard.

Ms Shaw, who lived around the corner from Mr Hollis's home in Minto, has denied the affair took place and claims he was just a friend who came around to play with her children.

She told police she last saw him the day before he vanished, when he left her house with some "local boys who were dags" in a brown car.

Ms Shaw was with her young friend when he was bashed and robbed by two men near a toilet block about two weeks before he went missing.

Afterwards, Mr Hollis became paranoid about his safety and stayed with his aunt and then his sister before returning home.

The inquest heard Mr Hollis had confided in at least two friends that he was gay and that he had told a youth worker he once prostituted himself to a man in Cabramatta in exchange for drugs.

The court also heard police failed to act on Mrs Spaccavento's missing person's report until three weeks after her son vanished.

Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon said there was no explanation for the delay and it had hampered subsequent investigations.

Mr MacMahon said Mr Hollis was close to his mother and sister and that it was highly unlikely, in the event that he ran away from home, he would not get in touch for so many years.

He found that Mr Hollis was deceased, however he made an open finding on the nature and cause of his death.

Outside court, Mr Hollis's family said they continued to hope and pray that he was still alive and had chosen to run away.

 

Missing Persons Week: Sister Debbie Dufour searches for answers about what happened to Ian Craig Hollis, who disappeared 31 years ago

Big sister Debbie Dufour has woken up every morning for the past 31 years and hoped that today her family would finally get the answers about what happened to her brother.

Luisa Cogno
August 4, 2017 - 3:45PM
Macarthur Chronicle Campbelltown

BIG sister Debbie Dufour has woken up every morning for the past 31 years and hoped that today her family would finally get the answers about what happened to her brother.

Ian Craig Hollis, then 16, of Minto, was last seen getting into a mystery brown car outside his girlfriend’s Minto home on the afternoon of May 19, 1986, and he has not been seen since.

In the decades since that day, his devoted family, including mum Shirley, now 71, have anxiously searched far and wide, questioned Ian’s friends and footy mates and even turned to psychics and Facebook in their quest for answers.

“It was unusual for Ian to disappear like that because he’d always say to mum, I’ll be back in a couple of hours or I’ll be back soon,’’ Mrs Dufour said.

Mrs Dufour said Ian’s disappearance had affected all generations of her family.

“I want answers for my children and grandchildren as well. It’s affected everyone and we’ve all gone through hell,’’ she said.

Now 52, Mrs Dufour, of St Andrews, was heavily pregnant with her third child when Ian vanished.

“Two weeks before Ian disappeared, he was bashed in a toilet block at the community hall at Minto and he became very concerned after that. He went to stay with an aunt in Blackett,’’ she said.

In 2013, the NSW Deputy State Coroner Paul MacMahon ruled Ian had died of unknown circumstances on or about May 19, 1986.

“As to the place of death and the cause and manner the evidence available does not enable me to make a finding,’’ the coroner’s report said.

Mrs Dufour said she was speaking out during Missing Person’s Week because the worst thing was not knowing what had happened to Ian, who would now be 49.

“It’s horrible not knowing. Somebody out there knows something and we want to find out and have a proper burial place for Ian, somewhere we can go and put flowers,’’ she said.

Mrs Dufour affectionately remembers Ian as a cheeky brother who loved playing footy for the Minto Cobras and who loved animals and collecting lizards from the nearby canal.

“He’d go down to the canal and catch lizards and bring them home. He’d have the lizards running around the loungeroom and mum would yell, Get them out.’’

Ian would have turned 17 two weeks after he disappeared.

He had finished school at Sarah Redfern High and was looking for work.

Mrs Dufour said Ian had no money on him when he disappeared and the unemployment benefits he had been receiving were not touched.

Ian was living with his mum and stepfather in Minto when he disappeared.

“Mum lived in the same house for 40 years and she had the same phone number and she didn’t want to change anything (in case Ian tried to find her),’’ she said.

Her mum moved to Leumeah two years ago but her desire to find out what happened to Ian remains.

Anyone with information is urged to phone Macquarie Fields police on 9605 0499.