Helen Barnett of Koumala, Mackay suspected dead

A Mackay region woman who went missing on the eve of Valentine’s Day is now suspected to have died. Her best friend has told of her desperate search for answers.

A Mackay region woman who went missing on the eve of Valentine’s Day is now suspected to have died.

Helen Barnett, then 53, was last seen about 4.15pm on February 13 about 300m from her home on Turnors Paddock Rd outside of Koumala.

Her best friend Michelle Cain had for months desperately hoped Helen was alive.

But upon learning Helen could be dead, Ms Cain said it strengthened her belief she had met with suspicious circumstances.

“It’s hard grieving … think(ing) where is she, where can she be? She’s got to be somewhere,” Ms Cain said.

“We need to find answers.

“Whether somebody’s picked her up, I don’t know.”

Helen had been renting a home on 80-plus hectares surrounded by cattle and cane properties with the nearest town of Koumala 11km away.

The last text message exchange between Michelle Cain and her best friend Helen Barnett before Helen vanished, last spotted near her home outside of Koumala in the Mackay region on February 13, 2022.

At 9.15am on Sunday, February 13, Helen texted Ms Cain she’d been “been up all night watching (the) Winter Olympics” and was “now going to get some sleep”.

Twenty-four hours later, Ms Cain learned Helen had vanished.

She said Helen suffered from a medical condition making long walks physically impossible.

And Helen’s phone, as well as her sneakers and sunglasses she always wore when leaving home, were left inside the house.

Mackay Inspector Ian Haughton provides an update on missing Koumala woman Helen Barnett on February 21, 2022. Picture: Madeleine Graham

Emergency services including police, the SES, the army, the Rural Fire Service, and the RACQ CQ Rescue helicopter crew would scour a 5km radius over three weeks through dense scrub and rugged terrain.

Drones were also used for aerial surveillance and local waterways were combed with no success.

The military used drones to search Koumala for missing woman Helen Barnett who disappeared on Sunday, February 13, 2022. Picture Lillian Watkins

Ms Cain, whose friendship with Helen spanned 38 years, said her disappearance was “out of character”, both having communicated three to four times a week.

“Why did she leave her phone and everything behind? I just didn’t get that from the start,” she said.

Ms Cain had the grim task of retracing Helen’s steps four weeks after their last text exchange.

“I went up there with my husband … and we cleaned her house out because at the end of the day when she was going to come home, I knew she wouldn’t go back there, meaning she would contact one of us,” she said.

“It was sad looking around her home and finding her cat (Smudge) and (it was) very confusing on how could this happen … she lived there for eight years.”

Koumala woman Helen Barnett, 53, who was believed to have gone for a walk on a Turnors Paddock Rd property on February 13 and failed to return, sparked a search mission to find her. Picture: Contributed

Ms Cain said they searched the home for clues or any hint that could explain Helen’s whereabouts.

“I couldn’t make sense that she could not be found when I knew she wouldn’t go into the paddocks, I knew she would stay to the road, and both sides of the roads were pretty clear and fenced,” she said.

Ms Cain took Smudge and some of Helen’s belongings back to her home on the Sunshine Coast hoping authorities will call for traces of Helen’s DNA.

She also hopes to get sniffer dogs to try once more to find Helen’s body.

Koumala woman Helen Barnett, 53, who was believed to have gone for a walk on a Turnors Paddock Rd property on February 13 and failed to return, sparked a search mission to find her. Picture: Contributed

For now, the rest of Helen’s things are with her 85-year-old mother in NSW.

“She’d been hoping that she’d get to see (her daughter again) before her time,” Ms Cain said.

“Were positive that one day (Helen) will be brought home.

“She deserves to be laid to rest.

“She needs to be home for her mum and for her friends and me.

“She’s my sister from another mother.”

A Coroner’s Court of Queensland spokesman said Central Coroner Magistrate O’Connell was investigating Helen’s suspected death.

Helen was last spotted wearing a black and white shirt, shorts and thongs, and had on a shoulder and knee brace. At 168cm tall, Helen’s long brownish-grey hair was tied in a ponytail.

Her disappearance came only four months after fellow Koumala woman Rene Latimore was reported missing on August 18, 2021.

Ms Latimore, a 31-year-old mother from West Mackay, was found dead at Ilbilbie more than a week later on August 29.

A 17 year old was arrested and charged with her murder on November 26 and remains in custody.

Originally published as Helen Barnett of Koumala, Mackay suspected dead