July 31, 2010
Laura HAWORTH
Laura HAWORTH
Laura Haworth, then aged 23, was last seen on 5 January 2008 at a
friend’s house in Queanbeyan, NSW.
After telling her friend she was going to work, Laura left the house
in her red Mazda 121. Laura did not attend work and has not made any
contact with family or friends since. Lack of contact with family
is very out of character.
On 19 January 2008 Laura’s vehicle was located parked at the
Kanangra Court car park, ACT. Police enquiries in the area were
unable to locate her. Police have conducted extensive enquiries into
the whereabouts of Laura and hold serious concerns for her safety
and welfare.
If you have information that may assist police to locate Laura
please call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Laura's story comes from her Mum, Beth -
Laura was 23 when she disappeared, and would now be 26.
The photo is from some years ago, but is clear of her facial features, and she
still looked like this when she disappeared.
She was last seen in Queanbeyan, although a long time resident of Canberra. She
also had regular time in the Cowra area, as her Dad lived near there.
A friend of Laura's heard her making arrangements over the phone to meet someone
socially on the night of her disappearance.
It sounded like a normal friendly conversation, nothing untoward. She waited
till it was time to leave on Saturday night 4 Jan 2008.
She went out in her car, which was found two weeks later at some units in
Ainslie, Canberra.
She knew people in those units, but police have been unable to determine if she
saw anyone she knew from there. Police have no clue what has happened to her.
Her handbag and mobile phone are missing with her. She has not used any
keycards, accessed any banking, has not used her mobile phone.
She leaves behind 2 young children whom she adored, and the rest of her family
including a young brother and sister, then age 7 and 9.
Laura was in contact with me most days. If she was upset, angry, or not well,
she would be in touch much more, sometimes 5-10 times a day.
Laura has bi-polar disorder. She is usually quite well, but does have serious
episodes of paranoia and anti-social behaviour that are as heart
wrenching for her, when she is well again, as they are for her friends and
family to witness.
We'd be grateful for any information from those who knew/know her, or anyone
that may have seen her.
Laura your Mum has this message for you -
"I'd like her to know that I'm waiting for her call. And I'll wait forever."
Tuesday marked the second anniversary of Ms Haworth's disappearance. The mother of two vanished leaving few traces, and her family and police have renewed their plea for anyone with information to come forward.
Police say there has been no activity on bank accounts held in Ms Haworth's name, and her mobile phone has not been used.But they remain hopeful MsHaworth disappeared of her own volition, and have no evidence to suggest she met with foul play. They have repeatedly stressed the 25-year-old is not being sought for any offences and is not in any trouble.
Ms Cassilles received a call from a withheld number on Ms Haworth's birthday last year.
The caller hung up immediately. ''I hope that was her, but it could have been someone innocent, not knowing,'' Ms Cassilles said. ''It sounds like a cliche, but it really is a roller-coaster ride of hope, losing hope and getting hope again ... I'm always looking for her on the street, seeing people ... we used to double back in the car sometimes to see if it was her.''Ms Haworth was last seen by a friend in Queanbeyan, but the last time her mother saw her was over lunch on Christmas Day 2007.The rest of the family headed to the coast for a few days, but kept in contact.
''It was usual for us to be on the phone to each other a few times a day,'' Ms Cassilles said. Ms Haworth was in the process of moving from Mawson to her friend's house in Queanbeyan when she went missing.
Ms Cassilles spoke to her over the phone on the day of her disappearance, when the 25-year-old was heading to the Cotter River for a swim.
''Nothing seemed unusual ... she seemed happy during that [talk],'' she said.
*Anyone with information about Ms Haworth's whereabouts is urged to contact Crimestoppers on 1800333000.
Week a time for soul searching
July 31, 2010
SOMEWHERE stashed away in evidence storage are Megan Mulquiney's nightie, bed linen and hairbrush.
They've been there for 26 years now; it's been that long since their owner had need of them.Megan Mulquiney has not been seen since July 28, 1984.
The then-17 year old finished her shift at the Big W in Woden Plaza shortly after noon, but never made it home.She is one of the seven ACT people listed by the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre. Six women, one man.
The disappearance of Kate Alexander stretches back more than three decades. For the family of Laura Haworth the pain is much fresher, much rawer.Statistically, all seven are anomalies.In 95 per cent of the 35,000 missing persons cases reported each year one every 15 minutes the individual is found within a short period of time.
But there are 1600 of these nightmarish rarities, the "long- term missing" cases.This week is doubly significant for Megan's mother Dorothy.
Today is the start of National Missing Persons Week, and last Wednesday Mrs Mulquiney marked 26 years to the day since her little girl vanished.Megan's disappearance has been the subject of a cold case investigation. A coronial inquest ended in January 2009, returning an open finding. The last person of interest in the case, convicted rapist Paul Vincent Phillips, was hauled before the inquest last year.
The inquest found Megan was probably murdered by persons unknown, and Phillips remained a person of interest. But that's as far as it went. And for Mrs Mulquiney, closure is nowhere in sight."There's a big hole there for me. In one way, I suppose I'd like not to think [Phillips] did what they say he did to Megan."
Mrs Mulquiney wants to know what happened in her lifetime."Really, now that the coronial inquest has happened, Megan's case is hidden in a box somewhere.
It's a sleeper."The disappearance of mother- of-two Laura Haworth is the territory's most recent long- term missing person case.
Beth Cassiles last saw her daughter Laura at a Christmas lunch in 2007. Ms Haworth was in good spirits. She was in the midst of moving house, and expressed relief when her mother offered to pay to keep larger items in storage temporarily."Looking back, I think she might have known she was going away and was relieved someone would be taking care of her things," Ms Cassiles said.
"She was quite attached to her things."On the day she went missing Ms Haworth and a friend were headed to the Cotter Dam for a swim. It is believed they returned to her friend's home in Queanbeyan.
During the day Ms Haworth received a call from someone, who she went out to meet later that evening. She has not been seen since.Her car was found dumped at Kanangra Court in Reid two weeks later, with paperwork and clothes neatly arranged inside.
Her two children are now six and nine years old. Every time they visit their grandmother in Curtin, they have new theories about where their mother might be. Sometimes she's on a skiing holiday. Sometimes she's dead."I'm really hopeful that she's alive, and [has] made a new life for herself somewhere," Ms Cassiles said.
National Missing Persons Week has, in years past, been a time for Ms Haworth's family to get a measure of "recognition and acknowledgement" for their suffering.But Ms Cassiles is upset about a decision not to hold the traditional service for the families at the All Saints Church in Ainslie. Police this year decided not to ask the church to host the event, and Ms Haworth's mother is hoping to negotiate some other way to mark the occasion in Canberra.
Whether two years have elapsed, or 26, or more, the families of the missing maintain hope.For Mrs Mulquiney, it's about closure, and the promise of that crucial piece of information that could help police close the case.
"Somebody out there must know something," she said.And Ms Cassiles has a message for her daughter Laura.
"I'd like her to know that I'm waiting for her call. And I'll wait forever."Do you know something?
Visit the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre at www.missingpersons.gov.au/home.All information will be treated as confidential.
A Canberra mother has made a public plea to Chief Minister Andrew Barr for more police resources to help find her daughter who has been missing for almost a decade.
Beth Cassilles made her impassioned appeal direct to Mr Barr on Friday by ringing Chief Minister's Talkback on ABC Radio Canberra.
She was frustrated by the lack of progress in the case of her daughter Laura Haworth, who was last seen on January 5, 2008, leaving a friend's house in Queanbeyan. Laura was then aged 23 and had two children of her own, then aged three and four.
The young woman has not been seen or heard from in a decade. The last 10
years have been torture for her family.
"I've had some very dark times in my thought processes. It's a constant in my life," Ms Cassilles told The Canberra Times.
"The worst part is thinking she's in trouble somewhere and needs help."
Ms Cassilles said she used talkback radio to contact Mr Barr out of sheer frustration. He said he would contact ACT Policing on her behalf.
"I don't know who else to turn to," she said after the call.
"It takes a lot of courage and effort on my part to pick it up each time and it is incredibly draining emotionally and I was just hoping to get some support from someone else, in working with the police."
Ms Cassilles said it was difficult for historical missing persons cases to compete against more urgent crimes such as murder when the same finite policing resources were assigned to investigate both.
She had no issue with individual police officers who were well-meaning but instead with the level of resourcing available to long-term missing persons cases.
"The case is never closed," she said.
"They were quite active in the first few years and in more recent years they have been saying they don't have the resources to put to it because any time there's a homicide in Canberra, they need to put their resources into that instead of a missing person.
"So the cycle I'm on with them is, I don't hear from them for a long time. I ring up and find out who the case officer of the day is. They don't know much about the case, they get themselves across the case and come and visit me and say, 'We're going to do this, that and the other. We're reviewing the whole thing and we'll finish the review in three months and get back in touch.' And then they don't get back in touch.
"Then I'll ring them up again and I'll be given a new officer who will say the same thing, 'We're going to do a review'."
ACT Policing was asked to comment on those claims. A spokesperson said police were investigating eight long-term missing people.
"The ACT Policing investigation into the disappearance of Laura Haworth remains open and urge the community to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 if they have any information regarding Laura," a statement said.
Ms Cassilles said she did not understand why a coronial inquest had not been held into her daughter's disappearance.
"Usually a long-term missing person's case would go before the coroner well before this," she said.
"That can often trigger more information and give the police more power to do something. It's not something I particularly want to go through but I think it could help."
ACT Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay said there was no time period that would trigger an inquest into a missing person's case.
"I understand and sympathise with the family and their desire for answers. This is an open investigation, and for that reason the government cannot comment further at this time," he said.
"The coroner has jurisdiction to hold an inquest into a suspected death under the Coroners Act 1997, but there is no specific number of years or particular circumstance in relation to missing people that means an inquest must be held. "Each case is assessed on its own merits and where there is a suspected death, an inquest may be held."
Ms Cassilles said her daughter was leaving a house in Queanbeyan where she had been staying when she disappeared. The last person to see her was a male friend. Her children, who are now 13 and 14, had not been living with her, but instead with relatives.
Her red Mazda 121 was found two weeks later on January 19, 2008, at the Kanangra Court car park in Reid. There was no sign of her. Her phone and handbag were missing.
Ms Cassilles said Laura had been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder just before she disappeared but her family felt nothing was untoward. "We didn't think anything was particularly wrong at the time," she said.
Summernats was on at the time, an avenue of investigation police had considered, her mother said.
"There was one theory, a person from out of town had taken her," she said.
At the time of her disappearance, Laura was slim, 170cm tall, with blue eyes and her hair cut short and dyed red.
Anyone with information is urged to call Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.
■ More details are at https://missingpersons.gov.au/
Among the 2600 people on the long-term national missing persons register in Australia, the case involving Canberra's Laura Haworth is one of the most perplexing for police.
The 23-year-old mother of two was last seen on January 5, 2008 leaving a friend's house in Queanbeyan.
Her bright red Mazda 121 sedan was found two weeks later on January 19, 2008 at the Kanangra Court car park in Reid. Her phone and handbag were missing. There has been no activity relating to her phone or her bank account.
The mystifying elements to this case are that Ms Haworth has a loving and caring family and she has two young dependants, whom she adored.
Her children were three and four at the time, and now teenagers.
From her family's perspective, there was not the slightest suggestion that the young mother had any reason to simply disappear.
It's national missing persons week this week across Australia and Ms Haworth's baffling case is one which has been highlighted in the hope of generating fresh information from the public.
Ms Haworth's Mazda, which is still held by police at its exhibits centre in Mitchell, was thoroughly forensically examined but no details of that examination and what it may have yielded have been shared with her mother, Beth Cassilles.
Having a personal vehicle from which to possibly draw forensic "leads" is unusual among long-term missing persons, most of whom leave precious few exhibits, especially one the size of a car, to examine.
Having tapped into the significant national resources of the federal police forensic facility at Majura, local investigators are not sharing that level of information with the family, with police saying "it is not usual practice ... to share investigative strategies with families".
"They [the police] explained to me along the way that they can't share some things with me because it might jeopardise the investigation," Ms Cassilles said.
"I'd like to know these things. The only thing they've said about the car is that they would like to keep it because it might be part of a murder investigation at some point."
What's equally frustrating for the family is that in the ACT, investigating long-term missing persons is a shared responsibility within a small homicide team. Officers are drawn away to look at fresh murder or homicide cases, or transferred from the ACT's so-called "outcome two" section into roles at the Australian Federal Police's "outcome one".
This revolving door of detectives doesn't help foster investigative continuity or ongoing relationships with the families of long-term missing persons.
Around 12 months ago, Beth Cassilles was aware that a fresh piece of information on her daughter's disappearance had emerged.
"I know there's been some information shared with the police that seems important and I know that it hasn't been investigated yet because there's not the resources available to do it," she said.
"To me, that information is vital and it's like, 'wow, let's do it', but there's not the resources to do it."
Ms Cassilles's frustration with the investigation into her daughter's case bubbled over three years ago when she made an impassioned plea directly to Chief Minister Andrew Barr on ABC radio talkback.
She asked at that time for more police resources to help find her daughter. Mr Barr promised at the time to contact ACT Policing on her behalf.
Detective Superintendent Jamey Bellicanta said that as time goes on "the opportunity to seek additional information, be it forensic information or digital information, is reduced however, advances in technology have provided investigators with updated DNA and on occasions, personal information that have initiated further avenues of inquiry".
"Each individual investigation is undertaken by, for mine, passionate investigators and I want to stress to families of long-term missing persons that their loved ones are not forgotten," he said.
"But sadly in the mire of ongoing and contemporary investigations, on occasions we aren't placing the resources and effort that needs to be placed into these [missing persons] investigations."
Police and Ms Haworth's family have urged anyone with information about the Canberra woman's disappearance to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.