Mum hopes for answers after Leisl Smith murder charge
THE heartbroken mother of a young woman who disappeared without trace in 2012 is hoping she will finally learn what happened to her daughter and be able to lay her to rest after a man was charged with murder.
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THE mother of missing woman Leisl Smith was today both “heartbroken” and “hopeful” at the news a man had been charged with her daughter’s murder.
For six years, Sandi Harvey has prayed for answers in the cold case, after Smith disappeared without a trace on August 19, 2012.
The 23-year-old was last seen leaving her home in Wallarah, on the New South Wales Central Coast.
Then last night, Miss Harvey got the call she had been both dreading and hoping for.
Police told her a 48-year-old man known to the family had been arrested and charged with the murder.
He was picked up by police on the Gwydir Highway, west of Inverell, in northern NSW.
“A detective rang me and told me that he had been arrested,” Miss Harvey, 63, told True Crime Australia.
“She had actually planned to come out and see me but unfortunately got caught up with another case and couldn’t come out. But she rang me yesterday and said, ‘Look, I don’t want you to find out from the news’.
“And I actually went over to speak to my mum (Smith’s grandma) ’cos I didn’t want her to find out from the news either,” she said.
Police have always treated the disappearance as suspicious because there had been no confirmed sightings of Smith and she had not touched her bank accounts.
Although her family had always hoped she was alive, Miss Harvey said she wasn’t completely shocked that a murder charge had been laid.
“Let’s call it mother’s instinct. You just know these things but I did hold out hope,” she said.
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The man has been a suspect in the case for years and was questioned by police in April, 2013.
Two of his properties in Wallarah and Brookfield, NSW, were searched by cadaver dogs and several items were seized. Other properties were scoured in the Hunter Region.
When asked what the best outcome would be now, Miss Harvey choked back tears and said she hoped it meant she would finally be able to lay her daughter to rest.
“I’m trying to keep it together when I talk to people. I’m just grateful for the help and everything that everyone’s given me.
“If I could just find her and could just have understanding about why and what happened — I don’t think it’s a lot to ask, I really don’t,” she said.
Miss Harvey also expressed thanks to the people who have actively commented on and shared the Find Leisl Smith Facebook page.
The mystery surrounding Smith’s disappearance was heightened by two text messages received from her phone by her father in the days after she went missing.
“F--- you. I can’t do this and I’m not going to keep your secret any more,” read the first text message two days after she was last seen.
Smith’s father immediately called her phone but it was switched off.
Then the next day another text, “I’m really sorry dad. Please don’t be angry”.
True Crime Australia does not suggest her father was in any way involved in her disappearance.
It is unclear whether Smith sent these texts or someone else was using her phone. There is suspicion she may have been pregnant at the time she disappeared.
On the day Smith was last seen, CCTV footage captured her parking her car at Tuggerah train station at 1pm on August 19.
She locked the car and walked away without boarding a train; her abandoned car was found a month later by police.
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Miss Harvey said: “I want people to know that they can think it will never happen to them but it will happen.
“It might not be a direct thing, it might be a friend of a friend, or it might be a cousin, or it might be a long lost relative or something but somewhere along the line they will know someone who has lost someone.”
A man was formally denied bail at Inverell Local Court today.