Dad hopes for step forward in long search

Bob Martin says psychics have pointed him to an area in the Wairakei Thermal Valley, near Taupo, to look for his daughter Frances. Picture / Alan Gibson

Bob Martin's task is like a search for a needle in a haystack, but nothing will stop this dedicated father.

Most weekends, the retired 68-year-old drives from his home in Hamilton to Wairakei, near Taupo, where he combs a rugged area several hectares in size, looking for his daughter's body.

Francesca Martin disappeared on April 20 last year after buying cigarettes and gas at a Caltex station in Naylor St, Hamilton.

Her car was found abandoned near the Wairakei turnoff on State Highway 1 the following night.

Mr Martin believes she was murdered - a theory backed up by psychics employed by the family to help solve the mystery of the 42-year-old's disappearance.

The three psychics have also isolated an area at Wairakei where they believe her body lies.

On the advice of the psychics, Mr Martin, his two sons and other helpers have cleared two large patches of land and conducted searches with spades, diggers and metal detectors.

Police have also used a cadaver dog to search one of the patches, beside a dirt road leading to Wairakei Thermal Valley, but found nothing.

Today, Mr Martin hopes to convince them to bring in the dog to search the second patch, which two of the psychics have identified as the "critical area".

Police had been reluctant to let the Rotorua-based cadaver dog, one of only two in the North Island, into this area, which was covered in dense scrub punctuated with blackberry and gorse and next to a scalding geothermal stream.

There was also concern the dog might fall down a tomo (cave).

A determined Mr Martin saw only one solution - to clear the patch of vegetation completely.

With the help of Contact Energy, which owns the land, he organised a contractor to do the job with heavy machinery.

Mr Martin told the Herald yesterday that the police now had no good reason to refuse his request for the cadaver dog.

Without it, he and his sons must continue their painstaking - and, to date, fruitless - searches by hand.

Staring across the mountains of exposed earth, Mr Martin said the task was close to impossible.

"I'm a realist," he said, "but I also know I want to find my daughter."

Earlier, Mr Martin showed the Herald photos and written tributes to his beloved "Francie".

He said he wanted to ensure her true character as a compassionate, caring, intelligent person was remembered. An accountant, she lived alone but had a boyfriend and was a member of a church that practised Christianity but without the pomp and ceremony, he said.

Reports that she had a propensity for taking rides with truckies were an "absolute lie" and based on overheard conversations rather than fact.

Mr Martin believes her willingness to help others got her into trouble.

Camera footage from the Caltex station shows her coming in once to buy her cigarettes and petrol, and then returning to talk to the clerk and gesturing as though asking for directions. It was 8.55pm.

Mr Martin would not reveal what the psychics have told him about exactly what happened to his daughter, but hoped people who passed through Wairakei the following day would sift carefully through their memories.

"Somebody must have seen the car there, who got out of it, or who got into it." He would not give up until the mystery was solved.

"I will find her," he said. "It's the least I can do."