Lorrin went to the shops 12 years ago – and was never seen again. Her daughter has been haunted ever since

For Amelia Grozdanovski, the happiest times of life have often been the hardest since her mother disappeared without a trace almost 12 years ago.

Every December, she would dance with her mum – Lorrin Whitehead – to Michael Buble Christmas songs in the kitchen as they made fresh raspberry jam that they would pour into jars and give to friends and family.

When Grozdanovski got engaged, and when she gave birth to her own child, the first person she wanted to call was her mum.

Lorrin Whitehead disappeared in 2013.Credit: Victoria Police

“There are not really words to describe it,” the 33-year-old says.

“The unknown is the hardest part. Not knowing makes all the happy moments the saddest. All while trying to hold out hope that one day she will come home.”

This week, investigators revealed they had reopened the perplexing cold case.

Police and SES volunteers dressed in bright orange scoured dry bushland and long grass in the town of Shelford, west of Geelong, in the hope of finding the mother-of-five – sparked by fresh intelligence suggesting her remains could be buried there.

Whitehead, who was 41 at the time, was last seen visiting a supermarket in the Victorian town of Bannockburn, about 90 kilometres south-west of Melbourne, in the afternoon of Friday, February 8, 2013.

Grainy CCTV footage captured from the town’s Woolworths supermarket at the time shows Whitehead, dressed in dark clothing, purchasing a bottle of water, a pen and a card.

A witness told police that minutes later she was spotted getting into a red 4WD. She has not been seen since.

The Monday after she vanished, Whitehead’s boss rang Grozdanovski when her mother did not arrive at work.

Whitehead, a debit and credit agent in Geelong, was a dedicated worker.

Alarmed, Grozdanovski went to her mother’s house and found the front door and garage unlocked. In the kitchen, there was a smashed fruit bowl with rotten peaches on the floor.

“I knew in my gut something was not right,” she says. “It was odd, it was all off. Mum was such a stickler for security and all the doors were open.”

Lorrin Whitehead holds her daughter Amelia.

Grozdanovski felt a wave of panic and fear when she noticed paint drop sheets on the ground inside the house. Her mother’s work phone, purse and life-saving diabetes medication were strewn on her bed.

Whitehead’s personal phone and laptop were missing. Her bank account has remained untouched ever since.

The mystery intensified days later, when a greeting card – addressed to Whitehead’s children – arrived in an envelope inside Grozdanovski’s step-father’s mailbox on February 13.

Investigations by experts have been unable to determine if the handwriting on the envelope was her mother’s. There was nothing written inside except a pre-printed message in the blank card, which read, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”.

The new police investigation has stirred hope for Grozdanovski, who has never stopping searching for her mum.

“I still look out every window for her,” she says. “When it rains outside, I am always wondering where she is.”

Grozdanovski’s four younger siblings were between the ages of nine and 13 when their mum disappeared.

“She loved us all so much,” she says.

“She was so kind and patient. The most devoted mum.

“I didn’t have much growing up, but Mum always made me feel like I had everything.”

Grozdanovski’s favourite memory is of going to a nearby raspberry farm with her mum and siblings, picking berries in the sunshine. They would bring the fruit home to make jam and slather it on fresh bread.

She says other missing person cases, including that of Ballarat mother Samantha Murphy whose disappearance and suspected murder sparked a massive police response, have brought up complex emotions for her.

Police and SES members search for missing Bannockburn woman Lorrin Whitehead near Shelford on Tuesday.Credit: Nine News

Grozdanovski wonders if enough was done in the weeks after her mother’s disappearance or if the police investigation could have been reopened sooner.

“It is emotionally challenging for us,” she says.

“We feel a lot of grief for [Murphy’s] family and I guess it provokes questions for us around whether we have done enough to find her. Guilt is something that can mix into sadness so easily.”

Detective Sergeant Steve Murphy, from the Moorabool Crime Investigation Unit, said this week that police had spoken to hundreds of people during their investigation into Whitehead’s disappearance before an anticipated coronial inquest next year.

Murphy said police had received more tips after a media appeal, prompting the new search.

“There are a number of aspects to her disappearance that remain extremely concerning for investigators,” he said.

“There have been no confirmed sightings of Lorrin since 2013. Most people we have spoken to have also agreed that her disappearance is extremely out of character.”

Grozdanovski, a nurse, does not believe her mum left of her own volition or self harmed. She was in the “best mental state she had been in for years” in the months before she vanished.

Whitehead had recently overcome cancer, joined a photography group and was getting a passport, telling her daughter she wanted to travel to Europe, Singapore and go on a Fiji cruise.

“She had big life plans,” Grozdanovski says. “The last time I saw her ... we were talking about going on a mother-daughter trip.”

Grozdanovski has kept a memory book, filling its pages with photos, certificates of achievements, news clippings on the search for her mother and journal entries.

She describes it as a way to honour her mother and ensure she is living a life she would be proud of.

“I would never wish it on my worst enemy to have a missing loved one,” she says.

“All we want is to bring her home. We just really hope the community come forward with any information they have.

“Even the tiniest bit of information could help us find out what happened to Mum.”

Whitehead is described as 170 centimetres tall, with a medium build, brown eyes, and brown hair.

Anyone with information has been urged to call CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.

Lifeline 131114

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