Rhyanwen McConnochie: Inquest call 50 years after mystery disappearance of Fairlight woman
A tormented family is calling for an inquest into the mystery disappearance of a young Sydney woman 50 years ago — they believe she may have been murdered.
Manly
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For 50 years the family of a missing young northern beaches’ woman has been tormented by not knowing where she is.
Now, on the anniversary of the disappearance of 24-year-old Rhyanwen McConnochie, her sister is pleading for the NSW Coroner to open an inquest to help solve the mystery.
Kathryn McConnochie believes Rhyanwen may have been murdered and wants the Coroner to refer the matter to the NSW Police Unsolved Homicide Squad.
On February 1, 1975, Rhyanwen was admitted to the now demolished Shortland Clinic in Newcastle, which treated people with mental health issues.
But at 8.15pm that evening she walked out of the facility, without staff permission, with only the clothes she was wearing. There was a record of her staying at a Salvation Army hostel the same night, but there were no confirmed sightings after February 2.
Newcastle police opened a missing persons’ file.
Kathryn said Rhyanwen did not know anyone in the region and had no transport.
She believes her sister’s disappearance may be linked to the unsolved cases of three missing young women in the Lake Macquarie region in the 1970s and 80s.
Police set up Strike Force Arapaima in 2019 to look into those disappearances.
Kathryn said the Coroner could also look at whether Rhyanwen’s participation in contentious “Encounter Group” psychotherapy “personal growth” sessions with her, now deceased, husband, in the 1970s were a factor.
Rhyanwen was 24, and with the married surname of Horne, when she went missing.
She grew up in Fairlight and went to Manly Village Public School and MLC Burwood before training as a nurse at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
It was at the hospital that she met her future husband, Michael Horne who was studying psychiatry.
Before her disappearance, they lived at Greenwich.
“Rhyanwen attended two (encounter) groups from 1973 to 1975, in Sydney and Lawson in the Blue Mountains,” Kathryn said.
“The Encounter Groups she attended with her husband led to the break up of their marriage.
“She was questioning herself, her direction in life and she was under a lot of stress at the time. Rhyanwen had no mental illness before January 1975. Going missing was extremely unlike her.
“I’m urging anyone who was involved in these groups during this period and may know something about my sister or anyone she was close to at the time, to come forward.”
Kathryn said that a coronial inquest could investigate Rhyanwen’s disappearance and have her case reclassified as an unsolved homicide as well as examine the issue of encounter groups.
“We want an investigation to be done into the destructive effects of these groups on participants,” she said.
When she disappeared, Rhyanwen was described as being of caucasian appearance with a fair complexion, 170cm tall, with slight build, long wavy brown hair and grey-green eyes.
Her mother Yvonne, who died in 1980, hired a private investigator and offered a substantial reward for information in an effort to find her daughter.
“It has been devastating not to know what happened to Rhyanwen for so long,” Kathryn said. “It’s always there in the background of our lives.
“It’s very hard to accept that Rhyanwen is gone, because it’s still unresolved.
“You cannot complete the grieving process when you don’t know what happened to your family member.”
Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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