By Charlene Gatt
ON 18 February 1995, Shari Narelle Davison went to Crown Casino with a male friend around 2am.
By 7am the friend left and Shari was left alone, and it is believed she took a taxi to her Footscray home.
At 2.45pm the same day Shari went to a local service station and made several phone calls. She has not been seen or heard of since.
The unsolved case is one of 35,000 missing persons cases to flood police desks every year.
In Australia, one person goes missing every 15 minutes.
More than 95 per cent of those that go missing are located within a week, but over 1600 Australians have been reported as missing for more than six months.
According to the National Missing Persons Co-ordination Centre, people suffering from mental illness, the elderly and young people – especially females aged between 13 to 17 – are most at risk of going missing.
Reasons for going missing are many and varied and can include anxiety and depression, misadventure, homelessness, domestic violence, becoming a victim of crime drug and alcohol abuse and family conflict.
Some people make a conscious decision to disappear, while for others its involuntary.
Inspector Jill Wood from the Safer Communities Unit said even the smallest piece of information could potentially be the missing link for police when investigating reports of a missing person.
“Many families describe it like living in darkness when someone they love disappears – not knowing where they are, if they are safe or even if they have shelter,” she said.
“For every case of a missing person, around 12 people are affected in some way by their disappearance.
If you think you have information on a missing person, or are interested in learning more about missing persons, visit www.missingpersons.gov.au
