Unknown Teenage Girl

Dragged by the hair but where is she now?
June 10, 2007 - The Age

Three weeks after an apparent abduction police are still baffled. Mark Russell reports.

IT IS a mystery to strike fear into any parent's heart.

A teenage girl gets off a bus about 9.30am and is walking along Bamfield Road, Heidelberg Heights, with another girl she has just met, when a black late-1990s VT Commodore suddenly swerves into a driveway in front of them.

A muscular, olive-skinned, clean-shaven man in his late 20s gets out of the car and grabs both girls.

The younger girl, 13, would later tell police the man pushed her to the ground and tried to choke her but she managed to get away unscathed, apart from a few scratches to her neck. But, she says, the terrified older girl — said to have yelled out "Don't run away. Help me. Help me" to the younger girl — was not so lucky.

The man dragged her by the ponytail towards his car and neither have been seen since.

The police helicopter was called in and officers door-knocked the area for information without success. It is now 23 days since the 13-year-old reported the incident and there has been no breakthrough — and, intriguingly, no missing person reports made to police.

Detective Inspector Kim West, of major crime division unit Taskforce 500, said he believed the girl was telling the truth about what happened and rejects any suggestion it may have all been a hoax.

"We don't believe that for a second," he said. "We've followed probably in excess of 60 leads to try to identify the girl.

"We've had phone calls from two fathers who said they had 15-16-year-old daughters who were on heroin and had left home and were living with boys in that area.

"Both of them said they thought the identikit photo (of the missing girl) resembled their daughters but they have both since been found and deny they were the girl involved.

"We had another case where a girl, who is under the care of the Department of Human Services and is wanted on warrants for failing to appear in court, was said to look like the missing girl. We tried to find her without success."

Inspector West said it was possible that the girl broke away from the man before he got her in the car and she might be too scared to report the incident to police. "The witness said the man grabbed them both and dragged them towards his car," he said. "She fought him and broke away. When she last saw the second female she was screaming for help.

"The witness has run around the corner and jumped in the phone box and rung the police but she heard the squeal of the tyres as the car took off."

He said it was possible the girl had known her abductor and it had been a domestic dispute between boyfriend and girlfriend or a fight between brother and sister. The problem with this theory, Inspector West said, was that the 13-year-old girl saw or heard nothing that made her think the victim and the suspect were not strangers.

"There was none of this: 'You shouldn't have left me', or 'Are you coming home?"' he said "There was no apparent recognition."

He thought the case may never be solved.

"The way we're going I don't think we'll ever know. We've spent some unbelievable man hours on this case and we'll keep going until we've investigated every possible lead."

Thousands of teenagers go missing each year but, in contrast to this case, most are found within 48 hours.

Victoria Police statistics show 6908 people were reported missing between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006. Almost half of these — 3116 — were aged 17 or younger. In 2004-05, 2717 Victorian kids went missing.

One area of frustration for police is that if a missing teenager is found, police can only tell their family that they have been found, not where they are.

Police do not have the power to arrest a missing teen unless they are considered to be at risk; only then can they be returned to their parents.

An independent study of missing people in Australia found that the most common reasons that young people went missing involved asserting independence and rebellion against parental authority. Many were also escaping physical and/or sexual abuse. But the problem for children who do go missing is that they unwittingly expose themselves to circumstances where they are at risk of being preyed upon by others.

The missing Heidelberg Heights girl is described as having a long, blonde ponytail with distinctive blonde streaks. She has fair skin, is 170cm tall, and was wearing a black top, pink jacket with pockets, denim jeans and light brown thongs.

The abductor was wearing a white hat with brown writing, brown and white baggy T-shirt, dark, baggy jeans and new Nike runners.

Anyone with information is urged to contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000 or online. National Missing Persons Week will be held from August 5-11.