Family’s remarkable quest for answers over missing son
THEY’VE walked the streets of towns along a 130km stretch of Australia’s coastline to put up countless posters and offered up $50,000 of their own life savings as a reward, clinging to hope in the face of a coroner’s finding that their son is dead.
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FOUR months ago, Sylvia Veljanovska and her family walked the streets from Bundeena in Sydney’s Royal National Park to the village of Berry, 130km away on the New South Wales South Coast.
Along the way they put up countless posters on community bulletin boards, lampposts and power poles offering $50,000 of their own life savings as a reward for anyone with information that could help them find their son Nick.
It was a last-ditch effort by a desperate family to find a trail that leads them to the whereabouts of their beloved 28 year old, who despite reported false sightings across NSW, Queensland and Victoria has not been seen or heard of since June 11 four years ago.
“This is the day our lives were turned upside down, and one of the ways to help (is to) remind the public that Nick is still missing,” Sylvia said yesterday as she checked a Facebook page the family set up to funnel any information the reward posters may attract.
“Yes, we put up missing person posters in June this year on the 4th anniversary of when Nick went missing. We started at Bundeena and put posters all the way down south to Berry.
“Life has been very difficult for the family since Nick’s disappearance. We are still no closer to finding him and live everyday with the pain of not knowing if he is alive and well or not. Our hopes and prayers are that he will walk through the front door or he calls to say he is safe.”
Nikolce ‘Nick’ Veljanovski had a supportive family, decent job and a loving partner, Amanda Wales. He told family he had bought an engagement ring for her and was very excited about the future.
But he vanished from the national park with no trace ever found except his car in the park’s carpark and a final desperate phone contact from a suburb 10kms away.
Late last year NSW Deputy State Coroner Magistrate Derek Lee formally declared Nick deceased, but added “available evidence does not allow for any finding to be made as to where Mr Veljanovska died or the cause and manner of his death”.
And that declaration has been the hardest part for the family, who remain in perpetual grief over a son who could be dead or alive, prompting the poster campaign and an offer of a substantial chunk of the Bankstown family’s savings as a reward.
According to the coroner’s report, on the day he went missing Nick took the day off work and drove Ms Wales’ blue Honda Jazz to the national park. His mother called him at 7.51am that morning but there was no answer and she then missed two return calls from him at 8.47am and 10.27am.
At 11am he stopped off at the Yagoona 7-Eleven, his image captured on CCTV, before being seen by a local at the Beachcomber Carpark at the Royal National Park. National Parks and Wildlife Service worker Tim Clatworthy saw him walking along Council Road and the pair stopped briefly to chat. Nick said he was looking for the coastal walk track that stretches from Bundeena to Oatley and was given directions to the Jibbon trail.
At 3.50pm Ms Wales rang Nick and asked if he could pick her up from work that day, but he explained he was too “far away” and she should get her mother to do it. When she said she couldn’t and asked what he meant by too far away, he responded: “Don’t push me today. You don’t know where I am.”
He later said he didn’t mean that, but she noted he sounded upset and wouldn’t say why he was at the national park. Later he sent her a picture with a pair of legs hanging over a cliff with the ocean and rocks below.
During a subsequent call he told her he had been gambling and had lost their money and was now worried. But he said he was walking back to his car and they would talk about it when he came home. But then the call lost reception. That was the last anyone heard from him.
The coroner Mr Lee’s report noted Nick had accumulated debts of more than $38,000 to a number of banks and lending agencies and was in default on a car loan and had also borrowed money from friends. He liked to gamble and would play poker machines in pubs and clubs, which the coroner suggested may have been the cause of his debt. The coronial report declared it unlikely he went into hiding to avoid repaying the debts.
“Having regard to Nick’s close relationships with his family and Ms Wales it seems implausible that he would willingly sever all contact with them abruptly and without explanation,” Mr Lee wrote. “Furthermore, the fact that Nick was making plans for his future life with Ms Wales, and had taken steps to put these plans into action, only increases this implausibility. While Nick was certainly experiencing financial difficulties, and these difficulties were clearly troubling him, it seems improbable that they would prompt Nick to taking the extreme step of ending all contact with his family and Ms Wales.”
It may have been misadventure, that is he fell off the cliff, or self harm but the inquest heard there was no evidence to suggest either as there was an attempted call made from Kurnell and he was described as never depressed and always cheerful.
According to police, the last registered activity on his phone was at 4.18pm when he attempted to call Ms Wales; phone tower triangulation pinned the call being made from Bridges Street in Kurnell about 10km from where he left his car at the park’s Beachcomber Avenue carpark. So apparently he was out of the national park area or at least someone with his phone was.
“Without any concrete evidence and the fact that his body or any of his personal belongings like wallet and keys have never been found we are not willing to accept that he is no longer alive,” Mrs Veljanovska said.
“We believe that he is out there somewhere and trying to work through life’s challenges and will get in contact when he is ready. Some concerns we have is that divers were not sent in until six weeks after Nick went missing and an SES search was not completed until three months later. We also asked the police to bring out the search dogs on the first day but they wouldn’t. As a result of these actions by the police we believe they have cost us possible answers and closure.”
No adverse finding was made in that respect by the coroner, who noted that with 10km of coastline needing to be searched it was deemed best to use a helicopter. PolAir was deployed and searched the coastline up to Wollongong and 500m out to sea, as well as trails, while co-ordinating with a ground search by 24 officers including the Police Rescue squad and trail bikes. They also canvassed Kurnell and the broader Cronulla area as that was where the mobile tower last tracked Nick’s phone.
Now handmade posters are what the family hopes will reward them with information. There have been a few possible sightings in NSW as well as Victoria and Queensland.
“The majority of the reported sightings since the introduction of the $50,000 reward have been in NSW, however there has also been one in Queensland and a couple in Victoria,” Mrs Veljanovska said. “The most recent possible sighting was at Ingleburn train station, however unfortunately there was no CCTV footage to confirm if it was Nick or not.”
Others are helping though, including the founder of Missing Persons Advocacy Network (MPAN), Loren O’Keeffe, who in 2017 launched ‘The Unmissables’ campaign, using artists, writers, families and cafes to create coffee cups highlighting the stories of some of those missing, including Nick.
About 38,000 missing persons reports are filed with police each year in Australia, with about 2000 remaining missing for three months or more.