The young mum had complained of being stalked by the man for months, and now she was gone. In bizarre and chilling circumstances.

Police revealed that in the lead-up to her disappearance, the crazed fan had broken into Arrow’s home, placed lingerie on his victim’s sleeping form, washed the dishes, prepared breakfast, fed her dogs, scrawled messages in lipstick on her bathroom mirror, rearranged furniture and, at times, phoned her house 27 times a day just to hear a recorded message.

In the days before she disappeared, the singer reported seeing a man staring at her through her kitchen window and an angry message ‘U Left Me’ daubed on her mirror.

She’d only moved into the house two months earlier to escape the stalker’s relentless harassment.

“This man has been building up his infatuation over a lengthy period of time and he’s so infatuated that he has to be with this girl,’’ the detective heading the case said at the time.

“I’d say he’s demented — he needs help and we’re hoping he’s not going to harm her. He’s never shown signs that he wanted to hurt her before.’’

Shaking and fighting back tears, the woman’s husband, also a musician who was away on tour when she disappeared, pleaded for the kidnapper to return her safely for the sake of their toddler son.

“She always told me about this man and it seemed like he was in love with her, but she never took much notice of it — she’s very headstrong,’’ he said.

“If this man cares for her then he’ll let her go. I can understand why he’s done it — she’s beautiful. It will be the best Christmas present if she comes home to us.’’

His emotional plea was echoed by the missing woman’s distraught father.

“I’m so scared. Years ago abductions were not so bad, but today people don’t seem to have any scruples. Please let her go, we’ll do anything to get her back.”

Worried police set up a major incident room. A team of about 25 officers searched the singer’s home, where her car was found abandoned and the driver’s door open.

The front door of the house was open with the keys in the lock and a baby’s carry bag, towel and a single earring were lying on the driveway.

When she was still missing two days later, police said their fears were “growing by the minute’’.

But hours later, they were calling it a “miracle” after she was found alive.

Two motorists driving along a lonely Gold Coast Hinterland road just before 10pm found her lying face down, her hands tied behind her back. She was in apparent shock but otherwise unharmed.

Belying her surname however, the singer was not exactly a straight-shooter. Like most bumbling crime capers, what had seemed like a good idea at the time turned out to be a “fairlie” stupid one.

Arrow had just pulled one of Australia’s biggest hoaxes, up there with the Fine Cotton ring-in affair and Helen Demidenko literary scandal.

Arrow, though, was sticking to her story.

At a hastily-convened 2am press conference the morning after she was found, she told journalists her abductor had grabbed her from behind at her Isle of Capri home and placed something over her head, and she passed out.

She told how the “infatuated fan” had kept her tied her to her four-poster, telling her menacingly: “I gave you one more chance.’’

But Arrow said the man did not attempt to hurt her and spent most of his time sitting on the bed and occasionally rubbed his hands up the outside of her legs.

Arrow said she thought the man was going to kill her when he took her in the car and dumped her at Mudgeeraba.

Instead he told her: “You’ve got another chance’’.

Det Sgt Mick Sparke, of Surfers Paradise CIB, said police were confident of an early arrest.

Arriving at Broadbeach police station the next day for a second lengthy interview with detectives, Arrow angrily denied suggestions from waiting journalists that she had made the whole story up.

“It was the most frightening experience of my life,’’ she said.

“Trust me. This is not a bad publicity stunt — I can think of a lot of easier ways to run a publicity stunt than this.’’

Arrow said she had been trying for six months to get police to sit up and take notice about her stalker “and now finally everyone is taking it seriously”.

Asked if police suspected she may have staged the abduction as a publicity stunt, Det Sgt Sparke said: “We’re not prepared to say that at this stage.”

But Arrow’s yarn was unravelling fast.

Within days, police were searching, fingerprinting and photographing a room at the Town & Country Motel at Nerang.

Detectives and scientific experts began making discreet inquiries after being told a woman with an uncanny resemblance to the singer stayed at the motel while she was missing.

Sources told The Courier-Mail that a “Do not disturb’ sign was placed on the room door for the duration of the stay of its guests, a woman and a man. The room was paid for in advance by a mystery third party.

A cleaner struck by the female guest’s likeness to Arrow gave a statement to police.

On New Year’s Day 1992, Arrow finally fessed up.

“We have obviously suspected for some time what was going on and today she’s admitted it was a hoax,’’ Detective Senior-Constable Ron St George told reporters.

“The case has been a great waste of men and resources. We have unsolved murders to work on.’’

An embarrassed Arrow split from her husband, who reportedly knew nothing of the hoax, and fled Queensland for Sydney.

A business associate, Jim Byrnes, said she had only staged the abduction to draw police attention to a man “who had been harassing her for some considerable time”.

This was backed up by the mystery man who helped fake the kidnapping, colourful Gold Coast nightclub identity turned panel beater “Big Bob” Deering.

But Deering, well-known on the Glitter Strip for his playboy lifestyle and gold jewellery, said he watched in amazement as the hoax spun out of control with Arrow’s increasingly elaborate tale.

“We didn’t realise the media would blow it up so much. It was all blown out of proportion. I told her it was all getting out of control and she should come forward and tell the whole story,’’ he said at the time.

“I told her to tell the true story, but she said it was too late to stop. She said we couldn’t stop in midstream. You could have hit me on the head with a baseball bat when she carried on.’’

Record companies and entertainment booking agencies slammed the stunt and the Brisbane Broncos Leagues Club cancelled Arrow’s upcoming gig.

She was later charged with making a false complaint to police, fined $5000 and ordered to pay more than $18,000 for the police investigation.

Her high-profile lawyer Bill Potts, now Queensland Law Society president, told a packed Southport Magistrates Court his client admitted her stunt had been “utterly stupid” and she apologised to police and the public.

He said Arrow had been publicly ridiculed through cartoons, songs and car bumper stickers saying “reabduct Fairlie Arrow’’.

Arrow had decided to concoct her “amateurish and bumbling” hoax after complaining to police 10 times regarding house break-ins, possibly by a psychotic fan, Potts said.

Arrow’s legal woes did not end there, however. She copped another $600 fine for slapping Deering’s solicitor in response to him calling her a “femme fatale” in court.

She later posed nude for men’s magazine Penthouse for a reputed $25,000 to help pay her legal bills.

Almost 25 years on, Arrow lives in California, singing in a two-piece country music band called Shotgung Wedding.

She moved to the US in the mid-1990s, making good her vow that it would be “a long time before I work in this country (Australia) again”.

The Town & Country, meanwhile, still trades on its Fairlie fame.

In a nod to its most infamous guest, the motel promotes itself as a great place to “dine out or hide out”.