The Missing Australia podcast: Lorrin Whitehead’s daughter tells of her search for the truth

Lorrin Whitehead was seen buying surprising items before her home was found with signs of a struggle. Then her kids found a shock letter in the mail . Listen to The Missing Australia podcast.

Lorrin Whitehead lived for her family.

A loving mother to five children, she had just overcome a gruelling cancer battle and was starting afresh.

So when she vanished without a trace on February 8, 2013 from Bannockburn, a small regional town 90km south west of Melbourne, it left not only her family reeling but police officers perplexed by her sudden disappearance.

The 41-year-old was last seen leaving her home by a neighbour before being captured on CCTV at her local supermarket.

“From there, we’ve searched high and low for a decade with no answers. Unfortunately,” eldest daughter Amelia Grozdanovski tells The Missing Australia podcast host Meni Caroutas in episode two The Missing Mum.

Amelia Grozdanovski wants to find out what happened to her mum. Picture: Peter Stoop

 “I’m a bit of a fixer in my life,” Ms Grozdanovski said.

“I’m a nurse by trade. I am a mum. I’m a wife. And all those roles involve fixing problems and giving comfort and love and support. And I guess particularly to my mum’s parents, you know, and her brother and sister and my siblings, they often, [who] come to you for solace and come to you for answers. And unfortunately, it’s really hard to be able to say, ‘you know, I just don’t know. I don’t I can’t help and you can’t change it and you can’t fix it’.

“And that’s probably the hardest thing for me is that I can’t make it better,” she said.

Lorrin Whitehead was last seen in February 2013 at a local supermarket in Bannockburn, Victoria. Picture: Australian Federal Police.

Ms Whitehead and daughter Amelia putting the angel on top of the tree in 1994. Picture: Supplied

While police ultimately concluded that there were no suspicious circumstances involved in the disappearance, Ms Grozdanovski has her suspicions about what happened to her mother.

Ms Grozdanovski reveals in The Missing Australia podcast she confronted a person she believed played a role in her mother’s disappearance.

She had that fear from the moment she realised something sinister may have happened to her mum.

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“I‘ve held this belief [since then] … whether it be by their own hand or by external organisation or by accident,” she said.

“I feel that this person is solely responsible for her going missing, and they know who they are. And I’ve confronted them in the past”.

Extraordinarily, Ms Grozdanovski said she has been able to forgive that person.

But the passage of time does not make her mother’s loss any easier or dull the memories of the last time she spoke with her Mum.

The last known sighting of Ms Whitehead.

“She rang me at about 3.30 in the afternoon. I was just about to head into an afternoon shift in the nursing home where I worked, and mum rang me and she goes, ‘I’m sorry’. And I went, sorry for what? And she goes, ‘oh, I’m just sorry. Things have been really hectic. I’m just really sorry’,” Ms Grozdanovski recalled.

“And I went, ‘okay, well, we’re going to meet for Sunday for coffee. Right?’ And she goes, ‘yeah, absolutely’”

But that coffee catch up at their regular cafe in Geelong never happened – Ms Grozdanovski had to cancel and text her mother to reschedule for Monday.

Ms Whitehead never wrote back – instead she got a call from her mother’s boss saying she hadn’t turned up for work.

Amelia with mum Lorrin Whitehead.

Age progression image of Lorrin Whitehead – Courtesy AFP.

When they went to Ms Whitehead’s home they were shocked by what they saw – a broken fruit bowl with rotting peaches on the floor and dirty dishes piled high in the sink.

“All the doors were open and just odd,” Ms Grozdanovski recalled.

“It was all off … It was something I’d never seen because my mum was quite a stickler for security. Single female, living alone, you know, as it would be.”.

Despite the state of her home, and Ms Whitehead leaving behind her phone, personal items and crucially her life saving diabetes medication, Detective Tim Robinson said there appeared to be no suspicious circumstances.

“At this stage, it’s still believed that she’s left of her own accord, without any interference from a third party,” Detective Robinson told the podcast.

“And there’s certainly nothing in the investigation to date that would suggest otherwise”.

A handwritten card arrived in the post five days after she vanished with the words: “Don’t cry. It’s over. Smile. Because it happened” adding to the police theory of no suspicious circumstances.

A theory that still doesn’t sit right with Ms Grozdanovski

“She was the best I’d seen her in a long time … she was trying to think about maybe getting a passport and going on holiday. She was planning. She was studying … we were planning a mother, daughter trip,” she said.

Originally published as The Missing Australia podcast: Lorrin Whitehead’s daughter tells of her search for the truth