One person a month is going missing

SEVEN people reported as missing in Tasmania this year still have not been found.

 

That is one person for each month.

Missing persons co-ordinator Detective Constable Natalie McIntee said this substantially high figure compared unfavourably to the four cases reported over 12 months from January 2010.

About 35,000 people are reported missing in Australia each year.

Some are found within days, some are never found and some do not want to be found. This is the case for 1600 Australians and 25 Tasmanians.

The most recent case is Bridport fisherman Donald Campbell, 70, who was last seen on Saturday, July 23.

Seventy-year-old Burnie man Ivan Zulj last month was reported missing by his two daughters - a second mysterious disappearance of an elderly North-West man after 69-year- old Sheffield man Nicola Sallese in 2008.

Detective Constable McIntee said a missing person was found within a fortnight in 93 per cent of Tasmanian cases.

Previously, after a person was missing for two years, the case was moved on to the police cold case unit, but now that unit has been disbanded, all cases have been handed back to the districts from which they originated.

A case can only be closed if a missing person is found or the state coroner or Supreme Court determines its outcome.

Detective Constable McIntee said it would be rare in any Tasmanian cases that missing people had assumed a new identity elsewhere.

More commonly they are victims of an accident or suicide.

She said this year's theme for National Missing Persons Week centred on the effect a missing person left on family and friends.

She said that friends and families from the beginning often grieved for a missing person as if they were dead, or refused to accept the worst, holding hope for years on end that their loved one was alive and would one day emerge.

Nicola Sallese's son, Nick, said he was certain that his father was dead.

Mr Sallese disappeared in 2008 and it is believed that he may have driven towards either Launceston or Hobart in his silver Toyota Camry sedan (registration number FH2973).

Unlike grieving the death of an elderly loved one, the Sallese family never had a chance to prepare for the loss and celebrate a good life lived.

"You never get a chance to say goodbye - they're just gone," Nick said.

National Missing Persons Week starts today