Tiemuzhen Chalaer — The disappearance at dawn
PODCAST: City dweller Tiemuzhen Chalaer’s love of music drew him to an unregistered dance party deep in the bush. But early next morning, ‘Tim’ left a car packed with his friends, wallet, passport, shoes and socks and headed into the bush — never to be seen again.
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CITY dweller Tiemuzhen Chalaer’s love of music drew him to an unregistered dance party deep in the bush. But early in the morning, ‘Tim’ left a car packed with his friends, wallet, passport, shoes and socks and headed into the bush — he was never seen again.
Tim’s story is the second told in the new Lost in Sydney investigative podcast series produced by the network of NewsLocal newspapers across Sydney and the Central Coast.
They are some of the most tragic of unsolved missing people cases, the first produced to coincide with the start of Missing Persons Week.
Clearly some people are hiding from the truth and don’t want to say that they were using illegal substances - Tim’s sister Anita.
They are emotional stories. They are mysterious stories. They are heartbreaking stories. They are people stories. Stories told about people who are lost, by those who are left behind, the people who knew them best.
The 24-year-old Darlinghurst man, known to family and friends as Tim, accepted an invitation from friends to attend the GEOhectic music festival near Lower Portland, more than 30km north of Richmond — on Saturday, August 6, 2016.
READ MORE:
PODCAST AND EXTENDED STORY HERE
But early the following day, Chalaer left his friends, the car, his wallet, passport and insulin — to treat his type 1 diabetes — and headed out into the bush.
His father said his friends were unaware that he had been missing for several hours before leaving the party without him.
“Tiemuzhen’s friends left the party, they thought that he had made his own way home to Darlinghurst,” Hakki Chalaer said.
“It wasn’t until they contacted Tim’s flatmates that they realised he had not returned, so they drove from the city back to Windsor police station to inform the police.”
But it was Tim’s sister, Esin Chalaer, who was the first person to find out he had been missing.
“Clearly some people are hiding from the truth and don’t want to say that they were using illegal substances,” she said.
“I know he’s out there and both my parents and I just really want to find him no matter what happened,”
EPISODE 3: THE BOY ON BOXING DAY
IT IS Boxing Day, 1982, a young indigenous boy jumps the back fence of his Dundas Valley home to scurry off to Eastwood station — he is on a mission to borrow money for his mother — minutes later his brother goes after him, but Bradford Pholi is never seen again.
Bradford’s story is the third and next podcast — to be released next Monday, August 20.
The disappearance of the 10-year-old boy with pearly white teeth, dark brown eyes and brown hair, resulted in the early death of his mother and his siblings have had a spiralling battle with substance abuse.
Bernie Pholi, Bradford’s older brother, speaks about the day his young brother declared he was going to Newtown for the money after he and his sister Anita refused.
“Me and my sister have never been the same since,” Mr Pholi said.
“It’s destroyed our lives. My mum died earlier from that … two years she went looking for him. Up and down. She used to go up and down The Cross, down the City.”
EPISODE 1: THE LIME GREEN VAN
LATE at night on August 25, 1978, Stephen Lapthorne and Michelle Pope drove off in a lime green Bedford van from his home in West Pymble heading to Berowra.
They were never seen again.
And the search for the couple continues.
READ MORE:
PODCAST AND EXTENDED STORY HERE
An inquest that identified backpacker serial killer Ivan Milat as a person of interest in the couple’s disappearance.
Mr Lapthorne’s father, Victor, confessed that he believes police investigations will never reveal what happened to the young couple the night they disappeared.
“This will be the mystery that dies with me,” he said