MAN SPOTTED AFTER 11 YEARS MISSING
A MISSING man who vanished without a trace 11 years ago, leaving his car at the Lara football ground, has reportedly been sighted by his partner two states and 1800km from where they last saw each other.
Russell Jenkin was last seen leaving his Werribee home after a heated argument with his partner Sandie Gillette on September 22, 2006.
He’s been an official missing person ever since.
Mr Jenkin was also featured in a National Missing Persons Week story in the Geelong Advertiser just three weeks ago.
Now Ms Gillette, mother of the couple’s two sons, has shared the story of her possible sighting of him at a Sunshine Coast shopping centre with hopes he will come forward and confirm his whereabouts to his family.
“I always sort of believed he was out there somewhere. But it was a bit of a shock seeing him. I don’t know how to explain it — it was numbing,” Ms Gillette said.
The 44-year-old was with her eldest son Ethan, now 15, and a daughter she had from another relationship, walking out of the Caloundra Stockland shopping centre on January 27, when she saw the man she believes was Mr Jenkin coming right towards her.
When Ms Gillette and her children got into their car, she kept watching. And he was watching them.
“He was very observant of us. By that time he had taken off his sunglasses and I realised that was definitely Russell,” she said. The only photo the family has of Mr Jenkin is one almost 15 years old that is featured on his missing persons page. All the others of him were lost during the Queensland floods in 2011.
“Once (Ethan) checked the picture, he realised it was him as well. He’s older, obviously, more heavy-set, but I’m positive it was him,” she said.
Ms Gillette has spent a decade trying to move on from a chapter of her life with no definitive end but it was her sons who encouraged her to go to the police and report the sighting.
Ms Gillette wants Mr Jenkin to go to a police station and tell them he is OK but is unsure what she would want to happen next.
“Me, personally, I don’t expect Russell would come back into the picture. But that doesn’t mean his sons can’t know him,” she said.
“They had asked about him many times over the years, especially Ethan as he was getting older. There is always this not knowing. There is a gap there that needs to be filled in.”