A 'personal' chat then silence - Elisa Curry disappearance has cops baffled
The Age
Tammy Mills and Anna Prytz
3 mins ago (as at 13:14 AEST 5 October 2017)
‘The disappearance of 43-year-old Victorian woman Elisa Curry is unusual.
Normally, police have little clues they can follow: the direction someone was last seen heading, a phone pinging from a tower to reveal a location or a car left somewhere.
They don't have any of that in this missing persons case, no one even knows what she might be wearing.
They do know that on the night she was last seen, she had been discussing a "personal" matter with a female friend. But that's about it.
An intensive, four-day hunt has yielded no sign of the mother of three and keen marathon runner who was last seen at her family's holiday home in Aireys Inlet, near the Great Ocean Road, on Saturday night.
"The difficulty here is we haven't had any of that," Inspector Peter Seel said at the start of the fifth day of searching on Thursday.
“We don't know what she was wearing, we don't know at the time what her state of mind was, so it's difficult to gather all of that together and know what happened."
This is what police do know.
Ms Curry watched the AFL grand final on Saturday afternoon at the family holiday home on Victoria's Surf Coast. A female friend who watched the game with her left sometime after it ended.
Two neighbours came around on Saturday night, the husband and wife both left and the wife later came back and saw Ms Curry get into bed.
“They've come over and spoken to her and she said she was going to bed," Inspector Seel.
Inspector Seel won't say why the neighbour came back, just that it was a personal matter. Police have yet to say what that personal matter was.
Ms Curry had been texting her husband David, who was at the grand final with their three children, about the result of the game but by 10.30pm her phone – which is also missing – was switched off, so far never to be turned back on.
By the time Mr Curry and the kids came back to Aireys at 9am on Sunday as planned, Ms Curry was gone.
When she left or what she was wearing when she did is still a mystery.
"He [Mr Curry] has looked around the house, " Inspector Seel said.
“He just can't identify what was there and what wasn't there as far as clothing goes."
In what may be related or not – as in Ms Curry either took it with her or it escaped – the family's black Labrador was also gone.
It was found late on Monday afternoon roaming the streets by a neighbour.
So here are the questions: maybe she got up in the middle of the night and left, maybe the keen marathon runner went for a run on Sunday morning.
Even more difficult to answer, and deeply personal, is the answer to the question of why.
Asked about her mental health in a press conference on Thursday, Inspector Steel said: "I don't think that takes that any further as far as the search goes".
Police haven't found any signs of foul play, but that doesn't mean they haven't combed through the family's lives for answers and searched their home back in the Melbourne suburb of Surrey Hills.’
‘Inspector Seel said Mr Curry and the couple's three young children, aged seven to 12, were "very distressed".
"They're doing it pretty badly at the moment, especially the children," Inspector Seel told radio station 3AW.
“My hope is we can give them some answers. If we can give them those answers at this stage, I don't know."
However given there is no involvement from specialist police squads such as homicide or the suspicious missing persons unit, it could be a case of she's injured herself in the bush.
The land along the Surf Coast is beautiful, but also unforgiving. The bush is dense, the tracks are rocky, there are cliffs and tidal seas.
On Thursday morning, police set off in a boat along a nearby creek searching in reeds and rocks. An Airwing team rejoined the search too, flying over cliffs near Eagle Rock Parade.
"It's risky and the tides can come in suddenly," said one neighbour.
"It is very distressing isn't it?
"You feel sadness and despair. Everyone is very concerned in the area and it could have been us.
"She's a mother and a daughter and a wife and a friend."‘
Read more at:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/a...earance-has-cops-baffled-20171005-gyurf7.html