Could the young woman walking along a deserted road have been Gordana Kotevski?

ALMOST 25 years later, senior Sunday Telegraph journalist Gillian McNally is still haunted by the image of a young girl being led along a deserted road by a man. To this day she still wonders if that girl was Gordana Kotevski.

IN 1994, I thought I saw Gordana Kotevski.

I was driving home alone and I’d taken the back way through Kahibah along Burwood Rd.

It was dusk, I remember because the sky was a bit pink.

Burwood Rd is a quiet stretch. Part of it tracks down through a gully with thick scrub on either side. There are no houses, just an old railway track and a dirt carpark where bushwalkers begin the hike to Glenrock Lagoon.

Almost 25 years later, Gillian McNally still wonders if the young woman she saw along a dark road was Gordana Kotevski.

The area was deserted, I was the only car on the road, and I saw something that’s stayed with me for 24 years.

A man and a young woman were walking down the narrow gravel roadside.

At the time, I thought she looked like the missing teen I’d seen on the news for weeks.

Or was it months? I can no longer remember the time frame.

Her hair was dark and long, her features fine like Gordana’s.

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The man was older and he had one hand on the back of her neck, as if he was pushing her along.

They looked dishevelled.

They were carrying huge bottles of water, not drinking bottles, like gallons, something you’d take camping.

And as I passed, he looked straight at me.

McNally was driving at dusk along Burwood Rd, between kahibah and Dudley- just near the Yuelarbah Trail car park, when she spotted the pair.

Everything felt off. When I arrived home, I felt so uneasy, I called Charlestown Police and made a report.

I don’t know who I spoke to; I’d never called the police in my life. I never heard anything more.

Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting this was some sort of missed lead. In hindsight, it could have been anything.

Maybe their car had broken down, maybe they were bushwalkers, maybe they were growing dope in the bush.

Gillian McNally

Maybe I’d just seen her face so many times, she’d lodged in my subconscious.

I was just three years older than Gordana, I’d spent my teen years hanging around Charlestown Square.

It was a terrifying story that could have happened to my friends or to me.

Memory is a fickle thing, and more than 20 years later, I’m not sure what I really saw.

It was a glimpse from a moving car in fading light. Even so, it still leaves me cold.

Dredging up this murky memory is unlikely to shed new light on the case, it probably was nothing.

It’s little more than an insight into the thousands of tip offs and possible sightings police struggled to make sense of as they tried to bring this poor girl home.

But somebody’s memory does hold a clue.

Somebody saw something.

And just like me, it probably still leaves them cold.