Inside year-long search for Tahnee Shanks, QLD mum missing in Mexico

It’s one year since the Shanks family in Australia got a call about a little girl being dumped outside a Mexican church and realised her parents were missing. They are still waiting for answers.

The mother of a missing Queensland woman has described the year since her granddaughter was dumped outside a church in Mexico and her parents nowhere to be seen as a “nightmare”.

It is one year since the Shanks family received a call from Mexico after pictures began circulating on Facebook of Adelynn, then aged 2, outside a chapel in a shady part of popular tourist city Cancun.

That call would trigger a mercy dash as Adelynn’s grandmother Leanne and her uncle Ben flew to Mexico to collect the toddler while police tried to track down her missing parents Tahnee Shanks and Jorge Luis Aguirre Astudillo.

Tahnee, who grew up in the Whitsundays, had been living in Mexico for some years but was recently estranged from her partner.

She was last seen on CCTV footage at a toll booth with Jorge and Adelynn on the morning of May 2, 2022 Mexico time and then her daughter was found alone near the Chapel of the San Archangel chapel that night.

Adelynn, the daughter of missing Whitsunday mum Tahnee Shanks, settling into Queensland life with her Aunty Leela and grandmother Leanne Shanks on June 2, 2022. Picture: John Gass

Tahnee’s mother Leanne said she had been thinking a lot about that phone call at 10.10pm on Tuesday May 3 Australian time.

“Within 10 hours of Addy being dumped, she had been identified and we were contacted,” she said.

“It was incredible. It was a rollercoaster. It’s still a rollercoaster.

“I’m not game to mourn her, I just can’t bring myself to do that because I need to hold onto hope.

Mexican Wilbert Alonzo Canto posted photos of Whitsunday woman Tahnee Shanks’s daughter Adelynn to find her parents. The photos went viral and helped connect the Shanks family to the little girl. Her parents are still missing. Picture: Contributed

“It’s been very disheartening, the whole 12 months. There’s been very little progress, it’s been very hard to communicate about the search.

“I fear we may never get an answer.”

Whitsunday mum Tahnee Shanks vanished near Cancun in Mexico on May 2, 2022. Her daughter Adelynn, pictured, was dumped at a church the same day and her parents have not been seen again. Picture: Facebook

But Ms Shanks said her hopes had been buoyed in the past 36 hours as she finally felt people in Mexico were taking a fresh look at her daughter’s case.

She said she was feeling “encouraged” that answers could be forthcoming.

“At the end of the day, if you can get answers, you can know how to feel,” she said.

“I’ve lost another son and I speak to Chris all the time.

“I can talk to him because I know he’s gone but I can’t bring myself to talk to Tahnee.

Missing Whitsunday woman Tahnee Shanks with her partner Jorge Aguirra Astudillo in Mexico before baby Adelynn was born. Picture: Instagram

“It’s hard because I don’t know whether to mourn the day she went missing, or we found out she has disappeared, or not.”

Ms Shanks said her and Tahnee’s sister Leela were going to release something like flowers on the water at Moreton Bay, near where they now living, but it just did not happen.

“It’s a nightmare. It’s the worst feeling not knowing whether to mourn,” she said.

Little Adelynn is settling into Whitsunday life with her family as authorities continue to search for her mother Tahnee Shanks who went missing in Mexico a year ago. Picture: Supplied

The Shanks family, the rest of whom live in Mackay and the Whitsundays, had a “dress rehearsal” for their deepest fears earlier this year.

Mexican authorities conducted a jungle search behind a subdivision in January looking for the “clandestine graves” of the missing couple.

Local newspaper Por Esto! reported how armed officers with machine guns and cadaver dogs did a sweep near an artificial lagoon and housing units on January 14 after receiving potential “new evidence” about the couple’s whereabouts.

Mexican newspaper Por Esto! has reported a jungle search took place with cadaver dogs to hunt for the “clandestine graves” of a Queensland mum and her estranged partner in a popular tourist city in Mexico. Tahnee Shanks and her estranged partner Jorge Luis Aguirre Astudillo vanished near Cancun on May 2, 2022. Picture: Facebook

“It ended up being false,” Mrs Shanks said after learning the search ultimately proved futile and their bodies were not found.

“To be told they’ve found them, that made it a finality whereas I guess you still carry that bit of hope, you know.

“Sometimes I wonder what’s worse.”

Whitsunday mum Tahnee Shanks, who vanished near Cancun in Mexico on May 2, 2022, missed her daughter Adelynn’s third birthday with family back in Australia. Her family fear the worst. Picture: Facebook

Mexican police initially confirmed possible cartel links in the couple’s disappearance, fearing the former Whitsunday woman was caught up in “retaliation” from crime groups her estranged partner was allegedly involved in.

In the same month Ms Shanks went missing, Quintana Roo Attorney-General Óscar Montes de Oca Rosales said investigators were looking at two lines of inquiry – domestic violence or criminal links.

Little more has been revealed in the many months since.

Australian consular support is ongoing, with liasions between local authorities and the Shanks family, but local police are responsible for missing person searches abroad.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade continues to provide consular assistance to the family of Tahnee Shanks, who remains missing in Mexico and is the subject of an ongoing police investigation,” a DFAT spokeswoman said in response to many questions that have gone unanswered.

Adelynn, who is now aged 3, is living with her uncle Daniel and aunt Angela in the Whitsundays.

Her English is improving every day. But it is unlikely she will ever be able to share what she saw that day one year ago.