Andrew Rule: Still haunted by a little girl lost — the case of missing schoolgirl Bung Siriboon

IT’S seven years since 13-year-old schoolgirl Bung Siriboon walked out of her house and out of her loved ones’ lives but the pain of her loss has not diminished, writes Andrew Rule.

BUNG Siriboon would have turned 21 this year. It is seven years this week since the 13-year-old Melbourne schoolgirl walked out of her family’s house and out of their lives, surely abducted within a few hundred metres of home.

Her mother and stepfather have tried to cling to the belief, against all odds, that she is alive somewhere. Keeping that faith was the only way to get through day after day of the worst torment a parent can suffer.

They know the police have never given up on finding the thread that will reveal what happened to their girl. But there is no pain more cruel than not having a body to bury. And that takes its toll.

Bung’s mother Vanidda has returned to Thailand to be with her own family. Bung’s stepfather Fred Pattison remains in the family house at Boronia where Bung lived with them and her older sister.

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Missing schoolgirl Siriyakorn ‘Bung’ Siriboon.

It was there, at 55 Elsie St on June 2, 2011, that Bung dressed in her uniform to go to Boronia Heights Secondary school, a few blocks away. It was just another Thursday morning — until it wasn’t.

“Bye, mum. See you later,” she said as she walked out the door about 8.20am, as usual.

She crossed the street to the footpath and headed towards school, a few minutes’ walk.

Two doors down, a neighbour glanced out his living room window and caught a glimpse of what locals saw every school day: a girl in a blue and white uniform and blue rain jacket, carrying a dark backpack.

She moved from right to left across his vision — for perhaps three seconds, he later calculates.

Then she vanished.

Whoever saw her next, you’d imagine, is the only person who knows what happened to her and why. The only one who knows if she is dead or alive.

No one in Elsie St, or around the corner leading to the school, saw anything odd.

Vanidda and Fred Pattison, parents of missing schoolgirl Siriyakorn ‘Bung’ Siriboon, in their home in Boronia.

Bung wasn’t immediately reported missing at school, ironically, because she was such a trustworthy pupil that when she didn’t answer roll call, everyone assumed she stayed home with a cold. It was the first week of winter, the “flu season” when teachers are used to children becoming ill overnight.

At 3.30pm, Bung’s mother Vanidda realised she wasn’t home on time. A little later, the telephone rang. It was a classmate, Dyamai, wanting to ask Bung what to wear to sports training next day.

Fred asked Dyamai why she hadn’t asked that question at school. It was only the truth struck them: Bung hadn’t been at school all day.

More than 38,000 Australians go missing every year. More than half are under 18. Most turn up in hours, days or weeks. Some stay hidden for their own reasons. But a few of the missing vanish forever and as time passes it becomes clear they must have met foul play.

It is unavoidable that in the first hours police are reluctant to consider abduction, likely because so many children turn up so quickly — if not the same day, then soon after.

The next step in the process is that police are obliged to eliminate the missing person’s closest family and friends as potential suspects before widening the search.

Bung’s stepfather Fred Pattison and Detective Inspector John Potter address the media.

There is no easy way to do this except asking often frantically worried loved ones the hardest questions anyone can face. Fred Pattison had to satisfy police he knew no more than he was saying before police felt justified mounting a wider search. That would take until the following Monday.

Meanwhile, Fred and Vanidda put up dozens of “missing” posters around the neighbourhood.

The story went public after an alert Leader newspaper reporter saw Fred putting up the poster and filed a report that was run in the Herald Sun as well as the local group.

The public response was huge. But despite thousands of hours spent eliminating hundreds of leads since then, Bung’s family are no closer to knowing what happened to her. But at least police are confident about what didn’t happen.

They have traced and questioned hundreds of known sex offenders and tradesmen and delivery drivers who might have driven down certain streets on the morning of June 2, 2011. There have been red herrings and distractions. In the first week, a boy reported he saw Bung in nearby Chandler Rd after school on the day she disappeared. It turned out to be another Asian girl in school uniform.

Fred Pattison and his wife Vanidda five years after their daughter Bung’s disappearance. Picture: Steve Tanner

Then a security guard thinks he saw Bung at the local railway station. He was wrong. Four weeks after Bung disappeared, a Boronia primary school pupil was late for school. Asked why, she lied that a grey-haired man wearing a surgical mask had tried to force her into a green Holden station wagon.

Trapped in the lie, the girl did not confess for more than a week. In that time, the non-existent kidnapper and green Holden were widely publicised because the supposed victim was also an Asian girl and the scene was near where Bung lived.

Unfortunately, the hoax overshadowed a genuine abduction attempt a week earlier. On June 21 a middle-aged man with greying hair and decayed teeth had tried to drag a 16-year-old schoolgirl into a blue sedan in Bedford Rd, Ringwood East.

Missing Boronia teenager Siriyakorn ‘Bung’ Siriboon.

Investigators didn’t overstate the importance of the incident but couldn’t ignore that it happened only 10 minutes from Elsie St, less than three weeks after Bung disappeared. They still can’t.

Later, police released details of other reported sightings in the hope the public would help identify unknown drivers. One sighting was in Napoleon Rd, Rowville, between 8.45am and 9am the day Bung disappeared. The witness saw an Asian schoolgirl in an old white Holden station wagon driven by a man in his late 30s to early 40s. He was bald or had light-coloured hair, had a large tattoo on the left side of his neck and sleeve tattoos.

IN 2014, police revealed a report that an Asian schoolgirl had been seen in a white Ford Falcon travelling east on Boronia Rd between 8.30am and 9am on the morning Bung disappeared. A witness has described a man at the wheel of the car as being caucasian, in his 50s or 60s.

His hair was slicked back “rock and roll’’ style and he wore a blue singlet and had a tattoo on his left arm.

At that stage, police had dealt with about 1200 information reports and identified almost 30 suspects. Not all have been discounted.

One of the original investigators, Inspector Tim Day, now heads the homicide squad. Another original task force detective, Justin Tippett, is still in the squad and sights the constant trickle of information as it comes in. It means the squad has continuity: a grasp on what is genuinely fresh information and whether it is promising.

The Catch-22 for police in a case that captures public attention is that it generates so many “leads” that it soaks up hundreds of work hours to eliminate them. The catch is, of course, that any one of those apparently useless leads could be the one.

As Insp Day said this week: “History has taught us that staying the course will eventually yield results … we strongly believe that there are still people out there who know exactly what happened to Bung and are holding on to that vital piece of information.”

There is a $1 million reward to do the right thing.

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Originally published as Andrew Rule: Still haunted by a little girl lost — the case of missing schoolgirl Bung Siriboon