After 16 days since Karen Ristevski’s disappearance, it’s time for hard questions: Andrew Rule
IT IS now 16 days since a well-liked wife, mother and small-business owner walked out of the family home and didn’t come back. It’s time for hard questions, writes Andrew Rule.
Andrew Rule
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IT IS now 16 days since the Wednesday morning that a well-liked wife, mother and small-business owner supposedly walked out of the family home in Avondale Heights, and didn’t come back.
As two weeks stretch into three, it seems the investigation is still concentrating on the mystery surrounding Karen Ristevski’s exact movements on June 29.
Inevitably, it’s time for hard questions about what may have happened to the 47-year-old — the sort of questions that torment family members of the missing, and make everyone else wince.
Mrs Ristevski’s aunt, Patricia, was trying to speak at a media conference yesterday when such a “killer question” was lobbed at the red-eyed man standing next to her.
He was asked directly if he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance.
The poor aunt was flabbergasted and offended. The missing woman’s daughter, Sarah, was even more distraught than she had been for two weeks, if that’s possible.
So, while the question aimed at Borce Ristevski by a television reporter shocked, it did not surprise. Sadly, because most disappearances — and murders — are solved close to home, police are obliged to eliminate family first.
That’s how it was in the Jill Meagher case, when detectives had to grill the missing woman’s husband, Tom, and a workmate who had been drinking with her shortly before she vanished from Brunswick almost four years ago.
That’s how it was when Bung Siriboon went missing while walking to school in Boronia the year before.
It turned out, of course, that Jill Meagher was attacked by a random stranger. And police long ago eliminated Bung’s family from the investigation.
Instructors teach young detectives that an investigator’s mind has to be like a parachute — “if it’s not open, it won’t work”. But police have to make choices about what to do first — and how long to do it.
In this case, they don’t seem to be concentrating on the Maribyrnong River, which winds through steep grassland behind the Ristevski family home. A few sweeps by the water police, as if for appearance’s sake, seem to be all.
Likewise, police and SES volunteers have plodded over the land that runs along the river and stretches from the bank hundreds of metres to the ridgetop where the Ristevskis’ home perches with its neighbours. It’s a big, wild area, close to the heart of Melbourne. Plenty of space, in theory, for someone to be killed — or abducted — and a body hidden until it could be disposed of.
But police have more ways of solving disappearances than by wearing out boot leather.
One is to check suspicious vehicle movements in the hours or days after Mrs Ristevski was last seen. The other is to trace mobile phone movement of anyone of interest, starting with family members and business associates.
The Ristevskis run a boutique at Taylors Lakes. Like thousands of other families, they have money problems. These led to an argument the day Mrs Ristevski vanished.
Her husband says she went for “a walk” about 10am to clear her head.
To get to the grassland over their back fence, you could step out the gate — or use an access lane next to the double-storey house. It seems no nearby security cameras recorded Mrs Ristevski using the back gate. Perhaps she went down the side way. Or perhaps she left in a car.
Meanwhile, there is the alternative scenario of the complete stranger.
A young woman who walks dogs daily in the grassland told the Herald Sun yesterday a middle-aged man had accosted her twice in recent months.
The first time, she picked up her dog and the man said something about it being “nice and close to your breasts”. The second time he asked if he could walk with her.
She thinks the last time she saw him was three weeks ago, not long before Karen Ristevski disappeared. Just another thing for police to look into.
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