Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Family still hope to find Wendy
TWENTY years after a young woman vanished while attending a children’s party, her family hope she will find her way back home or that they will get answers about her bizarre disappearance.
This week when Weekend Argus’ Cape Cold Case team visited Wendy Foster’s home in Steamboat Road in Strandfontein, her mother, Elizabeth Foster, 68, grabbed her chest and placed her hand over her heart, in the hopes that we had brought news about her daughter.
“I thought I would hear something about my child,” she said.
Our team explained the reasons for our visit and were welcomed into the Foster home. The family have done reconstruction since Wendy vanished, adding a loft and staircase.
“I sometimes wonder whether Wendy will know this is her home because we have made changes, I’m always hopeful that she will find her way back home,” said Foster.
Inside the family home stands a photograph of Wendy taken when she had won a Spring Queen competition while working at a factory.
In June 2001, Wendy, who was 27, single and unemployed, was keen to find a job.
On the weekend of June 16, 2001, Wendy left her home to attend a friend’s child’s birthday party and was never seen again.
Foster said the family had been told that Wendy had left the house of her friend in Lansdowne that Saturday to return home, but never arrived.
“Wendy was job-hunting and that weekend we knew she was going to sleep over at her friend’s place.
“During that weekend, I received a call from a man who was looking for Wendy about a job opportunity.
“When I called the friend, she informed me that Wendy had left on Saturday.
“I didn’t think anything was wrong because she usually slept at her friend’s over the weekend,” she said.
Foster visited the friend shortly after the phone call to carry out her own investigation into where Wendy could be.
“I wanted to know whether anyone had accompanied her to the taxi rank. No one had,” she said.
Foster explained that Wendy had undergone brain surgery in high school and had suffered temporary memory loss at the time, and also had a short temper.
This led her to believe that Wendy may have suffered memory loss after leaving the party.
“I thought maybe she didn’t know how to find her way back home.”
The family then reported her missing, with the assistance of Michelle Ohlsson, of the Concerned Parents of
Missing Children.
The family searched morgues and hospitals and placed flyers around Cape Town. Soon they received various stories that she had been cited in communities such as Delft.
Since her disappearance the family say they have received no feedback from police. They are still hopeful they will find Wendy.
“My message to my daughter is: ‘please come back home, we have never forgotten you’,” Foster said.
The family said Wendy had birthmarks on her back and stomach.
Her niece, Kezia Grobe, 25, who was 5 when Wendy disappeared, said they often searched social media for answers.
Police spokesperson, Captain FC van Wyk said police had searched the archives at Strandfontein police station for records of her case and have diverted it to Landsdowne for feedback as nothing could be traced.