Niamh Maye should be celebrating her 36th birthday this year, but she hasn't been seen in nearly two decades.
On Easter Saturday, 2002, the then-18-year-old had been fruit-picking with friends in the Snowy Mountains. She was booked to catch a bus north from Batlow to Cootamundra and then a train to Sydney, to spend Easter with her family. But she never showed up.
Detectives hit a wall in their investigation, and no one has ever been charged.
"I was only 20 at the time and I think I had some naive optimism that maybe we would still find her, but realistically we knew immediately when she didn't get on that bus that something had gone wrong," Niamh's sister, Fionnuala Hagerty, said.
But even 18 years later, she is still urging the public to come forward with anything they might know.
"No matter how insignificant: something you heard, something you saw, something that's just bothered you," Ms Hagerty said. "We just want to bring her home – or bring her remains home, and give her the farewell that she deserves."
As police launch National Missing Persons Week, they're just as determined as ever to find answers.
"it is quite a difficult process ... I used to think child abuse investigators had the hardest job, but these missing persons investigators, they live the grief with the family the whole way through," NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said.
Around 11,000 people are reported missing in Australia each year. But the newly formed missing persons registry, along with advanced DNA technology, is helping to solve cases.
In 2020 alone, 99 per cent of people reported missing were located within 90 days.
"We now have the largest capability in the country in missing persons investigations," Commissioner Smith said.
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