KEY POINTS:
The case of the missing deaf woman at the centre of a police hunt has an eerie cinema "prequel" involving the same family.
Fears are growing for the safety of Emma Agnew, 20, who hasn't been seen since Thursday. Her car was found gutted by fire at a
park in Christchurch.
Teacher Erik Versteeg, who knows the family and taught Emma, said one of her three brothers had starred in an acclaimed short film about a deaf teenage boy dealing with the loss of his sister.
Closer starred Toby Agnew, who is also deaf, and was short-listed for a Cannes short film prize.
Versteeg, who was Emma's Year 10 social studies teacher at Hornby High School, described her as a "lovely girl" who had virtually no speech and had an interpreter with her during school hours.
"I would hate to think that something has happened to her. She was someone who didn't have a bad bone in her body."
Emma was last heard from at 10.30am on Thursday when she sent a text message to her family saying she had an offer from a man to buy her car, which she had been trying to sell.
Less than 12 hours later police found the torched red Mazda in Bromley Park, 2km from Emma's Gloucester St flat. She had failed to turn up for work at the Deaf Association where she was expected that same morning.
Yesterday her aunt, Evelyn Patmore - signing for Emma's family, who are all deaf - told the Herald on Sunday they were coping "the best they can".
Her disappearance was hugely distressing for both her parents and three brothers. Not knowing what had happened or why Emma had not been in touch was heartbreaking.
"At the moment we are just going through the process and waiting," she said.
Detective Inspector Tom Fitzgerald said police held grave concerns for the 20-year-old, and their fears were growing as time went on.
He said police were trying to identify a silver Japanese car seen in the Bromley Park area between 9pm and 10pm on Thursday, and wanted to hear from the driver or anyone else who may have seen it.
While it had been reported that Emma had been planning to meet a man interested in buying the car, that was only supposition, he said.
"All we know is that she had a text offer about it."
A team of 25 police officers was working on the case yesterday, canvassing the area near her flat in Linwood and examining Emma's car and the area around it.
Fitzgerald rejected suggestions Emma's disappearance could be a copycat act. Last month Napier man Cameron Dormer, 25, was charged with wasting police time after the discovery of his burned-out car and his subsequent "disappearance" sparked a police hunt across the North Island.
"There is absolutely nothing to indicate whatsoever that her disappearance was engineered," Fitzgerald said. "There is absolutely no reason for her to do that. It would be completely out of character."
