Missing Melbourne mum: Search for Karen Ristevski continues
UPDATE: WATER Police divers are planning to wade into a dams and creeks on farmland northwest of Melbourne as the search steps up for missing mother Karen Ristevski.
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UPDATE: WATER Police divers are planning to wade into a dams and creeks on farmland northwest of Melbourne as the search steps up for missing mother Karen Ristevski.
Police are draining dams on properties in the Toolern Vale region today as the search continues for clues into Ms Ristevski’s disappearance.
SES crews are continuing their line searches across paddocks and roadsides as part of an extensive search.
Missing Persons Squad detectives, Search and Rescue members, Air Wing and mounted police were among those searching rural areas around Toolern Vale and Gisborne yesterday.
Police are hoping the huge search will create a breakthrough in the six-month mystery.
SES crews are also helping the search along with specialist cadaver dogs, used to find human remains.
A number of dams in the area were drained as police hunted for clues.
The police officer in charge of the investigation yesterday said he remained confident his officers would get to the bottom of what happened to the 47-year-old mother of one.
Ms Ristevski was last seen at her home in Oakley Drive, Avondale Heights, about 10am on Wednesday, June 29.
Detective Inspector Stephen Dennis, head of the Missing Persons Squad, said inquiries had brought police to the area, 50km away from Melbourne CBD.
“We have performed quite an extensive search of this area,” he said.
“It is the most significant search we have conducted to date. We are very keen to search this area as thoroughly as we can.”
It is understood Monday’s search failed to yield any significant clues.
In August, the Herald Sun revealed Ms Ristevski’s phone was tracked near Gisborne on the day she vanished, close to where the search is now taking place. Yesterday, residents of Blackhill Rd said police had been in the area two months ago to carry out a search of an abandoned restaurant that burned down in 2013.
In a macabre twist, the search is taking place about 1km from where the body of murdered Brunswick woman Jill Meagher was found in a shallow grave in 2012.
“We are searching grassland, farmland, we are searching wooded areas and creeks,” Insp Dennis said.
“It is quite an extensive area of farmland, wooded country and there is some fairly undulating country out there.”
Insp Dennis said he remains confident the case will be solved. He said it was a tough time of year for Ms Ristevski’s family.
“I’m sure it is extremely tough for them, coming up to Christmas,” he said.
“There has been ongoing (police) contact with the family throughout the investigation.
“The investigation is ongoing. There has been ongoing discussions with various members of the family.”
Police have also encouraged people who own property in the area to search their land and contact police if they remember seeing anything out of the ordinary.
“We’ll be here as long as it takes to search the area,” Insp Dennis said.
The missing woman’s husband, Borce Ristevski, told police in June that they had argued over money before his wife left their $1.1 million home to go for a walk to “clear her head”.
He has denied any part in the disappearance.
THERE’S MORE TO SEARCH STORY THAN HEADLINES
THE story of the search for missing Avondale Heights mum Karen Ristevski has gripped the state since she vanished without a trace on a cold winter’s morning almost six months ago.
On Monday, under a blazing summer sun, police stepped up their investigation in a high-profile sweep of farmland exactly 34km away from the Ristevski family home in Avondale Heights.
It has been a complex and, at times, frustrating case for the small team of Missing Persons Squad detectives working around the clock to crack it. The police numbers crisis has touched most departments in Victoria Police and the Missing Persons Squad is no exception.
The Ristevski probe has generated more headlines than most cases this year.
It is not uncommon for the police officers who are working on the case to take their work home with them.
Hundreds of hours of CCTV has been painstakingly studied again and again in the hope it will yield the vital piece in the jigsaw which will reveal Ms Ristevski’s fate.
Yesterday, police searched a number of dams. Locals commented that at the time Ms Ristevski went missing, most of the dams were dry.
In the past few weeks, police have not released any updates about the case.
Yesterday morning, a small army of different squads headed up the Calder Freeway to an area between Toolern Vale and Diggers Rest.
It is an area where bodies have been dumped in the past. Jill Meagher was found there in 2012. Earlier this year, murdered teen Cayleb Hough was found in a disused mineshaft not far away in Lerderderg State Park.
Ms Ristevski’s mobile phone, as well as her husband Borce’s phone, were detected by transmitter towers in the area on the day she went missing. Mr Ristevski was interviewed by police, but has always denied any involvement.
Police are very confident they are looking in the right place to solve the mystery of Karen Ristevski.
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