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NEW SOUTH WALES
Missing You
Monday, 2 November, 2009
Imagine someone you loved went missing.
Watch online: Missing You
Each year in Australia about 35 000 people are reported missing.
But when it's an Indigenous person, their disappearance is less likely to be reported to authorities. This can have many repercussions for the missing person.
Whatever happens, the mystery of what has become of a friend, sibling, son or daughter can be unbearable.
"Sometimes I wake up and I think maybe today is the day she'll come back into our life or we'll find out what happened to her", Kim O'Donnell says of her stepsister Amelia Hausia, missing for 17 years.
Video journalist Kris Flanders spoke to a family member left wondering, along with a former missing person, to bring you this report on what happens when a loved one vanishes.
National Missing Persons Coordination Centre - 1800 000 634 (Toll Free)
Crime Stoppers - 1800 333 000 (Toll Free)
www.missingpersons.gov.au
TRANSCRIPT
KIM O'DONNELL: Sometimes I wake up and I think, “Maybe today’s the day she’ll come back into our life or we'll find out what happened to her.”
VOICEOVER: Kim O'Donnell's sister, Amelia Hausia, has been missing for 17 years. She describes her as a happy, creative person who loved dancing, and with aspirations of finishing her studies.
KIM O'DONNELL: Amelia had attended her school graduation – the Year 12 graduation - the night before, and had broken up with her boyfriend, and the following morning she left a letter - a message, a handwritten note - to say that she was going for a walk and had some stuff to think about and that she would be back. Amelia attended Year 12 in Canberra and was boarding with her aunty at the time, and she went off and she never came back. And that was the 17th of December 1992.
VOICEOVER: The family initially thought Amelia was upset and was most likely at a friend's place. They expected her to eventually come home, but she hasn’t been seen since.
KIM O'DONNELL: No, I don't think the family ever realised that 17 years later we would be still talking about her disappearance. I don't think the family at the time realised that she would ever be classed as a ‘cold case’ - as a missing person.
VOICEOVER: The Family & Friends of Missing Persons unit is a New South Wales-based support service offering the counselling. Since 2004 it has responded to 250 families. For every missing person, up to 12 people are directly affected.
SARAH WAYLAND, FAMILY & FRIENDS OF MISSING PERSONS: As community we don't cope well with not knowing - we don't cope well with not being able to have an answer to our questions – ands missing is quite tortuous. Most families say that the longer someone’s missing, the more difficult it is, whereas if there had been a sudden bereavement there’s a sense of shock in the beginning but a gradual, I guess, understanding over time that that loss has been permanent. With missing it’s a day-to-day struggle of not knowing, “Is today going to be the day that I find out what happened to my loved one?”
VOICEOVER: Some of the reasons that people go missing include escaping family violence, sexual assault and other causes, like diminished mental capacity and, of course, foul play.
BOB WAITES, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER NSW POLICE: The important thing there, of course, is to remember that it is not a crime - that going missing is really about someone who has an issue in their own life and it is not a crime and we don't treat it as a crime. Our job is to actually locate the person and make sure they are safe.
VOICEOVER: Currently there are over 1,600 people missing longer than six months Australia-wide. Indigenous Australians are urged to report missing persons to the police, rather than using community contacts, sometimes referred to as the 'Black Grapevine'.
BOB WAITES: Often they don't want to be found by their family or the people that are reporting them. We respect that. Even if we locate them we don't automatically report it back. That’s the choice that they make. Providing we are aware that they are safe, all we will then tell the person who’s reported them – they’ve been located by police, they are safe and it is their wish that their whereabouts not been made known.
VOICEOVER: Dorothy Johnson has gone missing twice in her life, the first time at the age of 16.
DOROTHY JOHNSON, FORMER MISSING PERSON: When the welfare took me back off my foster parents and brought me down to my natural mother we really had nothing in common. We didn't know each other. I was scared. I was brought up in a house with no alcohol. Coming into a house where everyone drunk was really scary.
VOICEOVER: Rather than stay in that situation, Dorothy made the decision to leave. She disappeared and was forced to grow up quickly, living on the streets, all the while thinking no-one cared about her.
DOROTHY JOHNSON: I rang my foster mum and she near had a heart attack. She thought that I was dead. That was when it hit down to me what I had done.
VOICEOVER: Police involved with the Amelia Hausia case have recently released a forensic artist's impression of what she may look like today.
KIM O'DONNELL: 17 years is a long time. She’s 34 now so she'll… I wonder what she looks like, but I think, as the years go by, I tend to think that she’s no longer with us. I hope that anybody that may have information about her or may have known her or may think that she is living next door or near, if she is there - if she is out there that we just want to know that you're OK. We just want to know - that's it. She doesn’t have to contact us. She could contact ‘Living Black’. She could contact Missing Persons Unit.
VOICEOVER: This Christmas, to celebrate Amelia's life, Kim will be joined by her family, and together they will put the final touches on Amelia's remembrance garden.
Source: Living Black SBS
Watch online: Missing You
Each year in Australia about 35 000 people are reported missing.
But when it's an Indigenous person, their disappearance is less likely to be reported to authorities. This can have many repercussions for the missing person.
Whatever happens, the mystery of what has become of a friend, sibling, son or daughter can be unbearable.
"Sometimes I wake up and I think maybe today is the day she'll come back into our life or we'll find out what happened to her", Kim O'Donnell says of her stepsister Amelia Hausia, missing for 17 years.
Video journalist Kris Flanders spoke to a family member left wondering, along with a former missing person, to bring you this report on what happens when a loved one vanishes.
National Missing Persons Coordination Centre - 1800 000 634 (Toll Free)
Crime Stoppers - 1800 333 000 (Toll Free)
www.missingpersons.gov.au
TRANSCRIPT
KIM O'DONNELL: Sometimes I wake up and I think, “Maybe today’s the day she’ll come back into our life or we'll find out what happened to her.”
VOICEOVER: Kim O'Donnell's sister, Amelia Hausia, has been missing for 17 years. She describes her as a happy, creative person who loved dancing, and with aspirations of finishing her studies.
KIM O'DONNELL: Amelia had attended her school graduation – the Year 12 graduation - the night before, and had broken up with her boyfriend, and the following morning she left a letter - a message, a handwritten note - to say that she was going for a walk and had some stuff to think about and that she would be back. Amelia attended Year 12 in Canberra and was boarding with her aunty at the time, and she went off and she never came back. And that was the 17th of December 1992.
VOICEOVER: The family initially thought Amelia was upset and was most likely at a friend's place. They expected her to eventually come home, but she hasn’t been seen since.
KIM O'DONNELL: No, I don't think the family ever realised that 17 years later we would be still talking about her disappearance. I don't think the family at the time realised that she would ever be classed as a ‘cold case’ - as a missing person.
VOICEOVER: The Family & Friends of Missing Persons unit is a New South Wales-based support service offering the counselling. Since 2004 it has responded to 250 families. For every missing person, up to 12 people are directly affected.
SARAH WAYLAND, FAMILY & FRIENDS OF MISSING PERSONS: As community we don't cope well with not knowing - we don't cope well with not being able to have an answer to our questions – ands missing is quite tortuous. Most families say that the longer someone’s missing, the more difficult it is, whereas if there had been a sudden bereavement there’s a sense of shock in the beginning but a gradual, I guess, understanding over time that that loss has been permanent. With missing it’s a day-to-day struggle of not knowing, “Is today going to be the day that I find out what happened to my loved one?”
VOICEOVER: Some of the reasons that people go missing include escaping family violence, sexual assault and other causes, like diminished mental capacity and, of course, foul play.
BOB WAITES, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER NSW POLICE: The important thing there, of course, is to remember that it is not a crime - that going missing is really about someone who has an issue in their own life and it is not a crime and we don't treat it as a crime. Our job is to actually locate the person and make sure they are safe.
VOICEOVER: Currently there are over 1,600 people missing longer than six months Australia-wide. Indigenous Australians are urged to report missing persons to the police, rather than using community contacts, sometimes referred to as the 'Black Grapevine'.
BOB WAITES: Often they don't want to be found by their family or the people that are reporting them. We respect that. Even if we locate them we don't automatically report it back. That’s the choice that they make. Providing we are aware that they are safe, all we will then tell the person who’s reported them – they’ve been located by police, they are safe and it is their wish that their whereabouts not been made known.
VOICEOVER: Dorothy Johnson has gone missing twice in her life, the first time at the age of 16.
DOROTHY JOHNSON, FORMER MISSING PERSON: When the welfare took me back off my foster parents and brought me down to my natural mother we really had nothing in common. We didn't know each other. I was scared. I was brought up in a house with no alcohol. Coming into a house where everyone drunk was really scary.
VOICEOVER: Rather than stay in that situation, Dorothy made the decision to leave. She disappeared and was forced to grow up quickly, living on the streets, all the while thinking no-one cared about her.
DOROTHY JOHNSON: I rang my foster mum and she near had a heart attack. She thought that I was dead. That was when it hit down to me what I had done.
VOICEOVER: Police involved with the Amelia Hausia case have recently released a forensic artist's impression of what she may look like today.
KIM O'DONNELL: 17 years is a long time. She’s 34 now so she'll… I wonder what she looks like, but I think, as the years go by, I tend to think that she’s no longer with us. I hope that anybody that may have information about her or may have known her or may think that she is living next door or near, if she is there - if she is out there that we just want to know that you're OK. We just want to know - that's it. She doesn’t have to contact us. She could contact ‘Living Black’. She could contact Missing Persons Unit.
VOICEOVER: This Christmas, to celebrate Amelia's life, Kim will be joined by her family, and together they will put the final touches on Amelia's remembrance garden.
Source: Living Black SBS
