Complete list of Queensland’s missing persons from AFP

More than 2500 people are among the long-term missing cases in Australia. In National Missing Persons Week we learn about Queenslanders who remain unaccounted for.

They are our family, friends and loved ones … often gone without a trace.

The Australian Federal Police’s list of missing persons contains 67 from Queensland, all with their own stories to tell.

As we enter National Missing PErsons Week, read about the tale of Wendy Darvill, a mother-of-two who disappeared mysteriously in 1996.

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DISAPPEARANCE OF WENDY DARVILL

Gary Darvill stumbled out of the scrub.

He was dazed and confused and dishevelled.

It was 2003. Just over seven years had passed since his wife Wendy vanished into thin air, and his bizarre appearance and behaviour around the anniversary set off alarm bells at Brisbane’s police headquarters.

Wendy Darvill has been missing since 1996.

What was he doing wandering around the rocky bushland in the 52ha Seven Hills reserve? Where, precisely, had he been?

Detectives had long been interested in Gary, and now he had their attention once more.

BACKGROUND

Wendy and Gary had two young children. They all lived in an ordinary suburban house on Tristania Way in Mt Gravatt East.

But Wendy was about to have to deal with a surprise of her own.

A letter arrived in the post. When Wendy opened it she discovered it had life-changing news.

She had been fined for failing to submit tax returns relating to her husband’s computer consulting business.

Rapidly sifting through the piles of paperwork at home, she came across more startling information. Gary had been concealing the state of their finances from her.

He hadn’t lodged the tax returns and they had a debt of $120,000.

Wendy Darvill disappeared as she went to pay a fine at Mt Gravatt.

Wendy, at 35, had discovered her devoted husband had been keeping secrets.

There was no time to waste. The next day, she resolved, she would go to the court to pay the fine and visit the tax office to arrange repayment of the outstanding tax. She arranged a couple of days off work to get it sorted.

But she never made it.

That next day, August 8, 1996, Wendy vanished.

Gary reported her missing that evening. He’d gone for a walk to clear his head and when he came home, his wife and her car were gone, he told police.

Her silver Toyota Camry was found abandoned at a Holland Park bus stop weeks later.

Gary was standing next to the car when police arrived.

He denied any involvement in his wife’s disappearance.

Val French with a picture of her daughter, Wendy Darvill, in 2003.

His lawyer was Terry O’Gorman, a vocal advocate who would lend him support publicly in the years that followed.

Gary had another important ally. Wendy’s mum, Val French, didn’t suspect him and said so publicly.

“As his mother-in-law, I’ve told police that is so impossible and incomprehensible,” she said, in the weeks after her daughter went missing.

“If I could find a man with Gary’s qualities, I would get married again.”

Terry O'Gorman stood by Gary Darvill.

POLICE INVESTIGATION

Three years after the disappearance, Detective Inspector Peter Scanlan, who had worked the case since the start, called it “the perfect murder”.

He revealed shortcomings in the initial police investigation.

“The car was not examined because at that point Wendy was simply listed as missing,” he said at the time.

“We do not have blood samples or a body but we believe she met with foul play.”

Deputy State Coroner Wendy Clements examined the case, looking closely at Wendy’s discovery of her husband’s secrets about their financial affairs.

Ultimately, Clements couldn’t say when, how or where, but concluded Wendy had met her demise.

“Unfortunately, the most likely outcome of all the information available is that Wendy Darvill is dead,” Clements found.

There wasn’t enough evidence to put anyone on trial, and an offer of a $50,000 reward yielded no more information.

2003 BUSH WALK

It was Wendy’s mum who suggested the bush walk.

When Gary emerged from the Seven Hills reserve in Brisbane’s east, he was covered in dirt.

Police conducting routine patrols found him that Monday night. Background checks quickly revealed his link to the baffling disappearance of his wife, and a red flag was raised.

Had Gary revisited his wife’s bush grave?

Seven Hills Reserve in Brisbane, where Gary Darvill emerged in 2003.

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Police launched a massive search of the reserve, looking for Wendy’s remains. Cadaver dogs were brought in and State Emergency Service volunteers fanned out.

At a media conference, a detective referred to Gary as a “focal point” of the police investigation into his wife’s disappearance.

His lawyer, O’Gorman, said he wasn’t a well man – Gary had recently been diagnosed with a neurological condition, had suffered a spasm at the base of his brain and had been put on life support.

SES volunteers search bushland at Seven Hills Reserve in 2003 in the hunt for Wendy Darvill.

The bushland incident was the result of a relapse, O’Gorman said, and Gary had been forced back to hospital.

And still, Wendy’s mum Val French – a journalist who founded Older People Speak Out – supported him.

Wendy’s father had accepted his daughter was no longer alive, but wanted answers.

“Wendy was in charge of her life, she was making decisions,” he said at the time.

“We want some closure; there is no doubt she is dead, but I would like to know how and where.”

With the pressure mounting, Gary cracked.

In September 2003, three weeks after his strange bushland trek, he was found dead in the family home.

At 44, he’d taken his own life.

A discovery had been made in the bushland tracks of the Seven Hills reserve – an abandoned bag.

It contained a book of poetry with a handwritten note, later linked to Gary, with the message: “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.”