Susan Thomson disappeared after writing a foreboding letter about her difficult husband

SUSAN Thomson was just 15 when she ran away from home to live with her much older boyfriend Arthur, with whom she was to spend the next 34 years of her life.

Desperately seeking Susan: letter raises fears

FOR 16 years the fate of this smiling woman has remained a mystery.

Susan Thomson was declared dead by a coroner in 2007 and the clues to her disappearance in late 1999 left to go cold.

Until now.

A copy of a final chilling letter written by Susan Thomson to her mother was only discovered after her partner, Arthur Thomson, committed suicide.

Around 1965, 15-year-old Susan ran away from home with Arthur, eight years her senior.

She spent the next 34 years living with her de facto husband.

The couple shared a reclusive lifestyle on their remote Cushnie property, northwest of Kingaroy, until Susan went missing around late 1999. She was 49.

In a Public Trustee estate case, a Supreme Court judge had to consider whether Arthur Thomson had secretly murdered Susan seven years earlier.

Arthur, 64, shot himself in 2006, just days after his mother Isabella, 85, died in the house of natural causes.

It was only then police began to suspect he might have killed Susan years earlier.

In the house, police found a copy of a letter Susan had sent to her mother Marie Shaw in Tasmania in late 1999, around the time she was last seen alive.

“I don’t know when something might happen but things are very strained, one day things OK. Next day at each other’s throats (when he’s home),’’ she wrote.

“... He must never know we’ve made the initial contact. Even to do this letter is risky.’’

It was the last time Mrs Shaw, now 81, heard from her daughter, who in previous years had kept in regular contact.

After police discovered the copy of Susan’s final letter, they brought in cadaver dogs to search the property.

No trace of Susan has ever been found.

Scan of copy of letter from Susan Thomson to her mother Marie Shaw. It was found by police in their house after Arthur Thomson committed suicide. To go with Mysterydeath story.

The Supreme Court heard that around May 2000, Arthur had shown up unannounced at Susan’s mother’s Tasmanian home, saying he was looking for Susan.

Arthur peered over the back fence towards vacant land, as if Susan might be hiding there.

He told Mrs Shaw that Susan had disappeared one day while shopping in Gympie.

While there was no history of domestic violence, in a court affidavit Mrs Shaw said Arthur had been known to have a short temper.

“I must admit I never really trusted Arthur,’’ she said.

“...I was quite close to Susan and I cannot think of any explanation as to why she would not be in contact with me if she could.’’

Justice David Boddice said while Susan’s letter could have raised questions about whether Arthur took her life, it equally could have inferred she decided to flee the relationship.

He found insufficient evidence that Arthur killed Susan and said she could have established another life.

He said Susan was presumed to be still alive when Arthur died and ruled her estate included the Cushnie property which was to be inherited by Susan’s mother.