Searchers comb rugged bush in Te Pohue, for Fiona Wills (inset), 77, who has been missing for two days. Photo / Warren Buckand
Searchers comb rugged bush in Te Pohue, for Fiona Wills (inset), 77, who has been missing for two days. Photo / Warren Buckand
Two days of searches in rugged bush and garden-clad countryside northwest of Napier had last night failed to find any sign of missing and recently widowed farmer's wife Fiona Wills.
The mother of Federated Farmers' immediate-past national president Bruce Wills, 77-year-old Mrs Wills disappeared while feeding the chickens at TrelinnoePark on Tuesday, just three weeks after husband John's funeral in the same gardens just east of Te Pohue.
Mr Wills was in Wellington at the time brother Scott and other family members mounted a search early on Tuesday night. Police were called, the Lowe Corporation rescue helicopter was used in an aerial search, and a specialist search and rescue team entered the area and hunted throughout the night.
Yesterday afternoon, bereft of answers, Mr Wills had been without sleep for more than 30 hours. He was still co-ordinating dozens of neighbours and other friends searching 12ha of densely grown gardens and surrounding farmland in the rain, which had been falling since late Wednesday.
Mrs Wills, who suffered Alzheimer's, had wandered in the past, but she had always been found within minutes, with what Mr Wills said were "protocols" in place to deal with any unexplained absences.
The alarm was raised within as little as 15 minutes of when she should have been back at the house from feeding the chickens. Last night, however, more than 48 hours after she was last seen, there had still been no sign of her, nor a 30cm-high, clear plastic five-litre jug she used to feed the chickens barely 50 metres from her house, several times a day.
Described as Caucasian with white hair, slim and fit, about 1.6m tall, she was last seen wearing grey khaki pants, a long-sleeved back top and sandals.
Mr Wills had returned from Wellington to be "overwhelmed" by the sight of police, Land SAR teams and neighbours and friends searching for his mother.
The search was suspended as the weather closed-in late on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Wills concerned for the wellbeing of the searchers. He told Hawke's Bay Today: "They'd searched all through the night, they hadn't slept, some were just exhausted on the lawn."
In his search for answers, he considered the possibility she may have wandered and perhaps even tried to retrace some of the steps of her earlier years.
Searchers get organised by Bruce Wills whose mother 77-year-old Fiona Wills went missing on Tuesday. Photo / Warren Buckland
He sat on Wednesday evening thinking of all the possibilities, and ventured out, searching the farm with his dogs, travelling every track, and ultimately driving the 60km to Havelock North, where she was born, and Hastings, where she grew up.
"I drove for five hours, until the sun came up, through every trail, every high point, beeping the horn," he said.
The hunt included contacting logging and other contractors and others who may have used Old Taupo Coach Rd, where Trelinnoe is situated almost 6km northeast of State Highway 5. No one had seen a thing, he said.
Yesterday, dozens turned out again, at least eight groups searching up to several kilometres away, before returning to search again the gardens and property immediately around the homestead.
"This is absolutely overwhelming," said Mr Wills, adding search offers from 30-40 others had been turned down, because there weren't the resources to co-ordinate them.
Neighbour Fiona Scott said: "The garden became her life. Can she still be in the garden?"
The transformation of 1134ha of waste scrubland to the successful Trelinnoe Station and the creation of a popular tourist-destination garden started when John Wills and brother Brian moved on to the property in 1956.
John and Fiona married in 1959 and had lived on the property 55 years when he died on November 16. His funeral was held on one of the lawns surrounded by the garden and ponds, and a network of woodland paths.
