Partner: Not knowing is the worst
Disappearance of Hamilton woman last heard from on Friday afternoon is totally out of character, says son
The wait for the response to his text messages quickly went from minutes to hours, and now it’s been days. For Steven Reeve, going to sleep means new hope of waking up with his partner Stephanie King bursting back into their home in the Hamilton suburb of Silverdale.
But that hope is short-lived and instantly turns to tears as yet another day has been clocked up that King, 39, remains missing.
“I’m a mess, really,” Reeve says when asked how he’s coping.
“I just wake up every morning bawling my eyes out and hoping that she will be at the door.”
He hasn’t seen King, a mother of two, since 7.30am Friday, when she kissed him on the cheek and said she’d see him later before jumping on the bus to do a few errands around town.
He texted her about 20 minutes later and she replied saying she was on a bus full of kids.
He got another text from her about 2pm saying she had been to one appointment and was on her way to another.
“That was the last I heard from her,” Reeve said yesterday. “I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is that a person can’t disappear off the face of the earth.
“Somebody knows something but not knowing is the worst.”
He had walked and driven around their street — Crusher Place — and even as far away as Kawhia in his search for King.
“I have been walking everywhere, driving everywhere, just hoping that she will show up.”
He said police were hoping to get CCTV footage of the doctor’s surgery King had said she was visiting, as well as from Winz, and from the bus she had caught.
Reeve said he was concerned for . . .
her health as she had rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. He had asked to take the day off work, as had King’s son Montoya, 21, who was hoping to get a day off as stress leave.
Montoya said he was a bit of a mess when his mum first went missing but now was trying to focus on finding her. “It’s not like her to disappear. If she would disappear for a few days she would contact me or my sister [Ngahia, 11].”
Montoya last spoke to King on Friday morning when she asked him to take her shopping that night.
He tried to contact her but wasn’t able to reach her.
He then got a call from Reeve that evening to ask if he had seen her.
He said his mum was “always in good spirits” and he wasn’t aware of any issues she might have.
Montoya said he was tired and drained but determined to find his mum.
Reeve described King as about 165cm tall.
She was last seen wearing a long, black, hooded polyester jacket with blue jeans, a pink shirt and grey anklehigh Bata Bullet shoes. Call right now and we’ll also give you a FREE Paint Runner Pro + FREE Better Grip 4 Piece Kit!*