Renewed search in mum mystery
The husband of a woman who disappeared into thin air two years ago is hopeful a fresh search will bring closure for his family.
Denise Potter left her daughter’s Dunedin home without her phone, purse and with only the clothes she was wearing, minus any shoes.
Extensive searches failed to find the 54-year-old, who has not been seen since she disappeared from the garden of the Carroll St property on March 30, 2015, about 12.45pm.
Now police are revisiting cold case. A large search and rescue exercise will take place over the weekend of November 10, and will include pamphlet drops and door knocks around the city rise area.
Her husband Steve Potter welcomed the move, saying ‘‘anything that will help has to be beneficial’’.
He and the couple’s two daughters had struggled with the disappearance.
‘‘To lose your wife is one thing, but to lose your mother ... It was out of character, you simply don’t disappear in a pair of jeans and a top.’’
He had difficulty living in the Alexandra home the couple had built together ‘‘due to the memories’’, and ended up staying in a flat they owned.
Compounding that loss was almost two years it took for coroner to look into the case.
A 2017 coroner’s report found Denise Potter ‘‘died at a place unknown around 30 March 2015’’.
‘‘The cause of death is unknown.’’
The couple’s family trust meant their affairs were tied up, and so he wrote ‘‘heartfelt letters’’ to the coroner asking for the case to be looked at sooner.
‘‘I got letters coming back saying ‘these things take time’.’’
Despite having a coroner’s report and a death certificate, accessing her KiwiSaver still meant going to court with affidavits proving she was dead.
‘‘If you can’t get a judge to accept what a coroner is saying, it just seems to be ludicrous.’’
Potter said he was financially the the the fortunate, but felt for others caught in similar situations.
Fighting the system is something he knows only too well after helping with a perjury case involving a police officer, and a car crash in 2005.
Potter’s friend Shane Cribb was convicted and later cleared of blame for the crash, which later saw two police officers convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Coastal Otago search and rescue co-ordinator Sergeant Nathan White praised the Potter family for consenting to the search, and acknowledged Steve Potter’s battles with police.
There were several theories over the disappearance but ‘‘none of those are conclusive’’, he said.
In May 2016, police referred her disappearance to the coroner as they considered there were reasonable grounds to believe she was dead.
In the weeks before she went missing, Potter sought help for her sleeplessness, anxiety and thoughts of death.
The coroner’s report noted Potter was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2014, had undergone surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and had trouble sleeping.
She was hospitalised after a suicide attempt, and was later released – with a diagnosis of anxiety disorder – into the family’s care.
Coroner Anna Tutton said she was not satisfied Potter’s death was ‘‘the result of intentional selfharm’’, and the cause of death remained unknown. previous