Mystery of Woman Vanished in Forest Haunts Family
Wellington (New Zealand):
Bob Stewart can't get around too well now, but he knows the leafy paths of the Catchpool Valley intimately. He walks them in his mind, taking various turns, backtracking, trying to disorient himself. He has mapped out every possibility.
It is nearly four months since his wife Kaye vanished in the Rimutaka Forest Park, near Wellington. She went for a walk down a gentle track on a drizzly June day to fill in time before meeting her daughter. She was last seen asking directions from a DoC worker around lunchtime. "What happened? Where did she go? It's just a void. There's nothing that tells you what could have happened," Bob says.
After asking for directions back to her car, 62-year-old Kaye should have walked 50m along the main road and back into the park down the tarsealed road. It should have been simple.
Maybe she misunderstood the directions and got lost. Or perhaps she went out on the main road and was abducted. Bob says police are divided between the two possibilities. The family does not know what to believe and still searches the park twice a week for her.
"To be honest, I hope she got lost in the bush. But from time to time I think of the alternative of abduction, and that of course is extremely hard to contemplate."
For the Stewart family Bob and his twin daughters Tanya Stewart and Jane Galanakis the uncertainty is almost unbearable.
"It's very hard," Bob says. "I really haven't come to terms with it. I really am in a situation where, from day to day, I hope the phone's going to ring and somebody will say they found Kaye, that we'll know what happened."
The Stewarts took the Sunday Star-Times to the park this week to retrace Kaye's last steps. It is not rugged terrain, and the tracks are well-marked. It is difficult to understand why she has not been found.
Kaye was a top physiotherapist, treating All Blacks and other leading sportspeople.
Bob says she always had time for her family and friends, visiting sick neighbours, and delivering meals to the elderly.
Tanya says family lives have been thrown into disarray since Kaye's disappearance. "Every day you think you're going to find Mum. The brain plays tricks. I still have lots of times I can't even believe it's happened."
Four months on, Bob Stewart is still searching for clues. He sketches a map of the area, the spidery lines guessing his wife's last steps.
"There are still endless possibilities. She could still be lying somewhere in this bush but, how did she get there? And why?"
Searching for his wife takes an added toll on Bob he has stenitis, which has left him with a permanently numb left leg. He has walked all the tracks but continued searching is difficult, so he instead spends time thinking through possible scenarios to try to find his wife of 36 years.
Jane visits the park twice a week to search for her mother. She racks her brains for possible paths her mother might have taken, any reason to go further afield, up a bank, along a firebreak.
Last Sunday a group of seven were out, sweeping one of the steep hillsides for seven hours. Friends, the family's electrician, and even a complete stranger have phoned and offered to join the search, touched by the need to solve the mystery.
The police, too, have been unstinting in their support and efforts, and the Stewarts say they are indebted to them. But despite two intensive police searches, and the frequent visits by trampers and hunters to the park, none of Kaye's clothes or other evidence have been found. Her bank accounts remain untouched.
And as the months go on, and searchers trace and retrace her most likely tracks, it gets harder to comprehend what happened.
Oct 09, 2005
Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand
Wellington (New Zealand):
Bob Stewart can't get around too well now, but he knows the leafy paths of the Catchpool Valley intimately. He walks them in his mind, taking various turns, backtracking, trying to disorient himself. He has mapped out every possibility.
It is nearly four months since his wife Kaye vanished in the Rimutaka Forest Park, near Wellington. She went for a walk down a gentle track on a drizzly June day to fill in time before meeting her daughter. She was last seen asking directions from a DoC worker around lunchtime. "What happened? Where did she go? It's just a void. There's nothing that tells you what could have happened," Bob says.
After asking for directions back to her car, 62-year-old Kaye should have walked 50m along the main road and back into the park down the tarsealed road. It should have been simple.
Maybe she misunderstood the directions and got lost. Or perhaps she went out on the main road and was abducted. Bob says police are divided between the two possibilities. The family does not know what to believe and still searches the park twice a week for her.
"To be honest, I hope she got lost in the bush. But from time to time I think of the alternative of abduction, and that of course is extremely hard to contemplate."
For the Stewart family Bob and his twin daughters Tanya Stewart and Jane Galanakis the uncertainty is almost unbearable.
"It's very hard," Bob says. "I really haven't come to terms with it. I really am in a situation where, from day to day, I hope the phone's going to ring and somebody will say they found Kaye, that we'll know what happened."
The Stewarts took the Sunday Star-Times to the park this week to retrace Kaye's last steps. It is not rugged terrain, and the tracks are well-marked. It is difficult to understand why she has not been found.
Kaye was a top physiotherapist, treating All Blacks and other leading sportspeople.
Bob says she always had time for her family and friends, visiting sick neighbours, and delivering meals to the elderly.
Tanya says family lives have been thrown into disarray since Kaye's disappearance. "Every day you think you're going to find Mum. The brain plays tricks. I still have lots of times I can't even believe it's happened."
Four months on, Bob Stewart is still searching for clues. He sketches a map of the area, the spidery lines guessing his wife's last steps.
"There are still endless possibilities. She could still be lying somewhere in this bush but, how did she get there? And why?"
Searching for his wife takes an added toll on Bob he has stenitis, which has left him with a permanently numb left leg. He has walked all the tracks but continued searching is difficult, so he instead spends time thinking through possible scenarios to try to find his wife of 36 years.
Jane visits the park twice a week to search for her mother. She racks her brains for possible paths her mother might have taken, any reason to go further afield, up a bank, along a firebreak.
Last Sunday a group of seven were out, sweeping one of the steep hillsides for seven hours. Friends, the family's electrician, and even a complete stranger have phoned and offered to join the search, touched by the need to solve the mystery.
The police, too, have been unstinting in their support and efforts, and the Stewarts say they are indebted to them. But despite two intensive police searches, and the frequent visits by trampers and hunters to the park, none of Kaye's clothes or other evidence have been found. Her bank accounts remain untouched.
And as the months go on, and searchers trace and retrace her most likely tracks, it gets harder to comprehend what happened.
Oct 09, 2005
Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand
