Sharon Robards has gone 29 years without answers after sister Tracey Valesini went missing

Tracey Valesini should have celebrated her 50th birthday last month, but it has been 29 years since she was last seen at Campbelltown Courthouse and her sister is still searching for answers.

A young mother of two went missing nearly three decades ago, but one of her family members is determined to find the answer to what happened to her.

Tracey Valesini, 20, had been due at a custody hearing for her then two-year-old daughter at Campbelltown Court in February 1993. Her last confirmed sighting had been at the same court a month earlier.

She did not turn up and her daughter’s biological father was granted custody. Both of Ms Valesini’s daughters are now older than their mother was when she vanished.

Sharon Robards is still hopeful that even after 29 years investigators might find the body of her younger sister Ms Valesini and has spoken about the case in light of Missing Persons Week.

Tracey Valesini.

“I am always thinking about her. I want the answers and I want to lay her to rest,” the 56-year-old told the Macarthur Chronicle.

“The person or people who did it are still out there walking around.”

Ms Robards said that due to complicated family dynamics she had not spoken to her sister in a couple of months when she disappeared.

“I would call up and ask about her, but I sort of got different answers and it was a while before I realised she was really missing,” she said.

“I do not think that enough was done at the start.”

When unsolved homicide case detectives reviewed the case in 2001, they executed a search warrant on her last known address at McLaughlin Ave, Wentworth Falls.

An image taken in the Wentworth Falls bathroom at the time of the crime scene warrant in 2001.

A blood splatter, consistent with a gunshot, was found and kept for forensic analysis. Although the technology was not available to identify whose blood it was, police believe it was Ms Valesini’s.

A coronial inquest was held in February 2006 when the State Coroner returned a finding that Ms Valesini died between December 1992 and December 1993 of “injuries inflicted upon her by another person”.

The matter was referred back to the Unsolved Homicide Team for further investigation.

In 2017, Sandra McSavaney, whose other daughter was murdered in 2002, said she believed that Tracey was killed “because of something she knows”.

Tracey Valesini.

“There’s someone out there who knows what happened,” she said at the time. “It’s like they have put their hand in my chest and ripped my heart out.”

Tragically, Ms McSavaney died after a battle with cancer in 2019 without ever knowing what really happened to her child.

Ms Robards said the question that haunts her to this day is “why?”.

“Tracey was such a beautiful kid, she was always on the go and she was very confident,” she said.

“Why could anyone do this and not come forward. I’ll keep looking for answers until we find her body. I just want to be able to lay Tracey to rest.”

Missing Persons Week is an annual national campaign to raise awareness of the issues and impacts surrounding missing persons and runs between July 31 and August 6.