Niamh Maye: Police search for missing teen on Tumut property
Police have begun digging for the remains of 18-year-old Niamh Maye who went missing from the Riverina region nearly 20 years ago.
The Wagga News
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Police have been searching a property in the Riverina region for the remains of a teenager who went missing 20 years ago.
As part of ongoing inquiries into the disappearance of Niamh Maye, officers attached to the Riverina Police District started searching the property in the Tumut region on Wednesday.
A NSW Police spokeswoman said Ms Maye went missing in 2002 after she was last seen at a campground with friends.
“Niamh, then aged 18, left a campground at Jingellic on Saturday 30 March 2002 and has not been seen since,” the spokeswoman said.
“A subsequent coronial inquest determined Niamh had died at or near Tumut on Saturday, 30 or Sunday 31 March, 2002.”
Ms Maye, from Armidale, had been fruit picking in Batlow, near Wagga, as part of a gap year after high school before taking on study at university.
The 18-year-old was supposed to make her way to Sydney in March 2002 to travel with her sister to Armidale for Easter.
Ms Maye was camping in Jingellic and was offered a ride back to Batlow to catch the bus to Sydney, after a mix up with the bus schedule.
It has been that the man who last saw Ms Maye alive was fellow fruit picker Jason Nicholson who was diving a black HT Holden hearse.
He told police said he dropped Ms Maye off in Tumut at around 1pm, March 31, where she was going to hitchhike her way to Sydney.
Mr Nicholson was arrested in Brisbane about six months after Ms Maye’s disappearance on charges of raping a 19-year-old woman.
However, he died by suicide while in police custody.
In 2012, a coronial inquest determined Ms Maye had died at or near Tumut.
The current search for the 18-year-old comes after NSW Police renewed its appeal for information in August last year.
Last year the Federal Government announced a new $3.6 million dollar DNA program to be set up to examine hundreds of unidentified human remains and potentially solve missing persons cold cases.
Anyone with any information regarding the disappearance of Ms Maye should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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