By NAOMI LARKIN
Joanne McNish, the New Zealander assaulted, robbed, shot and left for dead by bandits in Honduras, believes her attackers will never be caught.
The 28-year-old from Christchurch is angry at the slow progress police have made in tracking down the two men who killed her Israeli boyfriend, Gal Erlich, and shot her in the stomach.
Her elder sister, Kim van der Breggen, told the Weekend Herald yesterday that Ms McNish believed the police lacked the resources to find the men despite the information she had given them.
"She's getting frustrated with the fact that they have not been caught. She said she would never forget their faces. She would know them straight away."
Ms McNish had been forced back to hospital this week with stomach pains from her wounds, her sister said. She had also gone back to see police - "She's scared they are not going to catch them."
Ms McNish and Mr Erlich were trekking in Pico Bonito National Park, part of the largest rainforest in Honduras and a popular tourist attraction, when two gunmen on a motorbike attacked them and demanded money.
The couple handed over $500 but after a struggle Mr Erlich was shot in the head - he died in hospital - and Ms McNish in the stomach. She played dead long enough to fool the killers and later crawled to the edge of a road to raise the alarm.
After being released from hospital in La Ceiba, she returned to the resort of Utila, where she and Mr Erlich had been living and working.
Her parents, former New Zealand bowls champion Bruce McNish and his wife, Joan, were this week reunited with their daughter in Utila.
"They are with Joanne now and she is very pleased with that," Ms van der Breggen said.
Ms McNish developed her passion for travel after leaving school - she attended Christchurch Girls High School and then Lincoln High School - her sister said.
"She came over to Australia for a holiday with a friend from school and ever since then she wanted to travel. She worked at quite a few jobs in Christchurch and then she just up and decided to go with a girlfriend to America, on the way to England."
Ms McNish did a variety of jobs in London, including cooking, mainly to fund her travels around Europe before working for a year to save money for her trip to South America.
She met Mr Erlich in Peru and they had been together about a year.
"This is the first guy she thought she could settle down with."
Ms McNish still intended to go to Israel where her boyfriend was buried to say goodbye.
Her sister added: "I hope mum and dad bring her back."
Grieving traveller despairs of justice
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