Missing person, Queensland: Allison Bernard missing since 2013 but police not actively investigating
A young mum leaves a Queensland pub with a man – and then vanishes. It’s been six years and nobody is looking for her. Nobody can – or will – answer her kids’ haunting question: “Do you know where my mummy is?” Tom Chamberlin reports
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A YOUNG mum on a night out at a pub leaves with a man.
They go back to his home and she is never seen again.
Her heartbroken child still ask relatives: “Do you know where my mummy is?”
If Allison Bernard had vanished in suburban Brisbane, she would have become a tragic household name and her case received much more attention, her family say.
Answers would have been expected.
But six years on, police have concluded reports and are no longer actively investigating; the coroner has not decided if the court will hold an inquest; and her family, who believe she met with foul play, are haunted by both her disappearance and the lack of action in the time since.
This mother will never come home to her little boy.
HITCHED A RIDE
Allison did have form getting into trouble over the years.
She’d slip out of handcuffs, her wrists so small she’d have to clasp them together as police put a single cuff over them twice.
They suspect Allison – or Neeridine, as she was known to family – was murdered near Coen, in remote far north Queensland, after leaving the local pub with a man.
Police, who agree the 23-year-old died in 2013 after she was last seen near an old quarry, say they searched far and wide, but could not find a trace of her.
But was she murdered or did she get lost out in the country and perish?
Allison, from the small town Kowanyama on the Gulf of Carpentaria, had been visiting her boyfriend in Napranum further north, near Weipa.
She then hitched a ride to Coen on her way home to Kowanyama.
On the way home she’d touch base with Deanne Greenwool, her aunty who lives in Coen, with plans to stay at her home.
Ms Greenwool recalled their last interaction.
“She said, ‘Aunty, I’m going to the pub; I will be back’,” she said.
“I said: ‘OK, I’ll get dinner cooked’.”
Ms Greenwool said Allison left in the afternoon and walked to the pub, only a short distance away in the small town.
She never saw her again.
AGONISING WAIT
“I stayed up all night. Waiting, waiting, waiting,” Ms Greenwool said.
“Then it was the next day and I was asking around.”
At the pub, Allison saw another relative, but she later left with a local non-indigenous man.
“They were asking her to come home but she didn’t want to come home with them; she decided to stay,” Ms Greenwool said. “We’re still looking for answers, the family back in town.
“I’ve always thought it was foul play.”
Detectives have confirmed they investigated the mother’s disappearance.
But they say there is no proof she was murdered.
Allison went with the man to a quarry near Archer River, where he was staying, about an hour away from the tiny township.
He told investigators the pair had sex and then she left while it was still dark.
WITCH DOCTOR
After her disappearance, police and SES were involved in a massive land search as temperatures reached as high as 35C.
The search took a twist when a witch doctor had visions of the 23-year-old on sacred Aboriginal land.
A traditional owner nicknamed Dundee was called in to search on horseback to find the mother.
But eventually the search was scaled back.
Allison’s uncle Teddy Bernard, who works for the Kowanyama Shire Council, said family reported Allison as missing three days after she was last seen.
It was particularly difficult for the family as it was her son’s fifth birthday.
“I still think of that day,” he said. “She was loving, a caring mother for her two kids, always respected her grandmother ... and we miss her.
“I think my niece being indigenous, police in north Queensland did not prioritise her as a missing person.
“There was a person of interest that I don’t think the police investigated thoroughly. It still kind of haunts me today.”
PROPER BURIAL
Mr Bernard said the family wasn’t informed if there would be a cold-case investigation or another team of detectives tasked to Allison’s disappearance.
“The last time I spoke to detectives was five years ago,” he said.
“You are the first person calling me, after five years.
“She probably met foul play.”
Mr Bernard says he wants an inquest held into Allison’s disappearance.
“It’s just that if only someone did something to her, have some dignity and tell the police,” he said.
“Let us know where she is, if they’ve done something.
“Let us give her a proper burial.”
A spokesman for the Coroners Court of Queensland told The Sunday Mail: “The Northern Coroner, Ms Nerida Wilson, has received all investigation material and is reviewing the matter in order to determine whether an inquest is required.”
LAST TO SEE HER
Ms Greenwool says she thinks about her niece all the time. Allison’s children are now looked after by other family members.
“Even on her birthdays, it’s very sad,” she said.
“I know because when I went home last year, her little boy, he always speaks about it.
“He asked me, ‘So you know where my mummy is? Have you seen my mum? Has my mum been back?’,” she told The Sunday Mail.
“He has grown now. It’s so sad. I’m lost for words when he asks me that.
“I didn’t know what to say to the little boy.
‘“You’ve come from Coen, do you know where my mummy is? Has my mummy come back there?’
“I was one of the last one from Kowanyama that she saw,” she said.
Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000
Originally published as Missing person, Queensland: Allison Bernard missing since 2013 but police not actively investigating