‘Total heartache’: hope for family of abducted child Renee Aitken

A DNA collection drive could solve hundreds of unsolved missing person cases, including that of five-year-old Renee Aitken, who hasn’t been seen since for 37 years.

The last and only time the mother of missing child Renee Aitken provided a DNA sample was after a mind-boggling phone call from the United States.

It was the early 2000s and there had been no trace of Renee for almost 20 years.

She was five years old when she was snatched from her bed in the middle of the night in the sleepy town of Narooma in February 1984.

The case was every parent’s worst nightmare and became one of the most baffling unsolved crimes in NSW.

Renee Aitken was just five years old when she was abducted from her Narooma NSW home in 1984.

In the Christmas holidays of 2001 or 2002, police received the call from an American woman, claiming that she might be Renee.

The woman had been adopted and was on a mission to find her birth family.

She was searching missing children in Australia when she came across a photo of a blonde-haired Renee.

The woman travelled to Australia to take part in a DNA comparison with Renee’s mother.

Renee’s extended family have gone to great lengths to support her heartbroken mother, Morna, over the decades, including shielding her from any dashed hopes.

“We wanted to shield her in case it didn’t come to anything,” Renee’s aunt Robyn Aitken said. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Morna Aitken with a photo of her missing daughter Renee Aitken and her son Brad. Picture: News Corp

Morna provided a DNA sample and it was discreetly compared against the woman from America. There was no match.

“It was really horrendous because it’s that moment of ‘what if?’,” Ms Aitken said.

“What if this is the one?”

Next month Morna will provide a second DNA sample — this time as part of a groundbreaking initiative aimed at solving the state’s long term missing person cases.

The newly minted NSW Police Missing Persons Registry will host a pop-up centre in three regional towns next month to take DNA samples from the families of missing people.

Those samples will be compared against the state’s 440 unidentified remains cases in the hope of providing families with answers.

The DNA collection program was piloted on the mid-North Coast earlier this year and about 50 relatives volunteered samples.

How police use familial DNA samples to investigate missing person cases. Picture: NSW Police

There have been no cases solved yet, MPR boss Detective Inspector Glen Browne said, but the process was also about ruling matches out.

“We had one example where our scientists thought there was a weak match between unidentified remains and a long-term missing person,” he said.

“But getting new familial DNA from the family of that missing person showed them it was in fact not a match.

“It’s not a positive result we are looking for but it is something that got that investigation back on the right track.”

Insp Browne said families were also interviewed to capture unique details, like tattoos or surgical scars, that would be uploaded with the DNA samples to the National Missing Persons Victim System database.

Behind the Northern Region, the Southern Region has the largest number of long-term missing person cases in the state.

Some of those cases are also suspected homicides — like Renee.

Missing Person Registry boss Detective Inspector Glen Browne. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The Missing Persons Registry is collecting DNA samples from the families of long-term missing people. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

In 1984, Morna and her children Renee and Brad had moved up to Narooma from Victoria.

On the night of February 16, the family shared fish and chips on the beach before returning home for bathtime.

“The kids were tucked up in bed,” Ms Aitken said.

“Then Brad woke up and said “mummy, mummy, Renee isn’t in bed’.”

Brad, then 8, had been sleeping in a bed in the same room as his sister.

He woke up and found his blanket folded down his legs and Renee missing from her bed.

The back door was wide open.

The key suspect, Brian “Spider” Fitzpatrick, also known as Brian Bishop, died in a car accident after being subpoenaed to give evidence at an inquest into Renee’s disappearance in 2003.

The Aitken family suspected it was suicide.

The convicted sex offender had been in Narooma at the same time Renee went missing.

Ms Aitken said he had actually stayed at Morna’s flat days prior with Renee’s aunt while the family were away.

“He was the creepiest person,” she said.

“He actually came back to the flat after we had called the police (when Renee went missing) looking for his blanket, which he’d already came for earlier. He looked drug affected.

“He left Narooma four or five days later.”

The DNA profiles will be compared against the unidentified bodies index. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Detectives interviewed Fitzpatrick in jail in 1987 and were left in “no doubt” he was involved in Renee’s disappearance, a 2003 coronial inquest heard.

The coroner found Renee was likely murdered after she was abducted, but delivered an open finding.

Morna no longer lives in Narooma but is continually haunted by what happened that night.

She tried to articulate the unrelenting pain of missing a loved one and missing answers.

“It is a total heartache,” she said. “The mental and physical anguish that you feel, I find it hard to talk about.”

Police have told the Aitken family that, ideally, it would be best to have DNA samples from six different family members.

This information will be used to create mini-family trees on Renee’s profile, along with other identifying details — dental records and surgical scars.

“I encourage anybody with a missing loved one to come forward and give their DNA to make sure police can identify quickly,” Ms Aitken said.

“I am so pleased there are better processes in place for DNA testing and registering.”

The DNA pop-up centres will be held at Bega, Batemans Bay and Nowra between May 3 and 7.