Family say missing man murdered - 50 years on

The family of a Tauranga man who disappeared 50 years ago believe he was murdered.

Sidney Fisk, known as Pat, was a 37-year-old Inland Revenue inquiry officer when he disappeared during a work trip to the Murupara area in December 1956.

His is one of 16 missing person cases featured in Without Trace - on the trail of New Zealand missing persons, released this week.

According to the book's author, Hamilton journalist Scott Bainbridge, many of the cases are believed to be unsolved murders.

At the time Fisk went missing, police thought he had fled the country, his former wife, Maureen Thomas, told the Herald on Sunday. But the 82-year-old says her former husband was conscientious about his work and would not have left behind a pregnant wife and four children.

"We thought he was murdered but the police at the time weren't very interested with that theory. The last person he saw that day was probably the one who did it but he is dead now," she said.

Bainbridge speculates Fisk either had an accident or was murdered after deciding to investigate organised prostitution on coastal ships.

His daughter, Caroline Fisk, a scientist living in the Hokianga harbour, has spent years investigating her father's disappearance.

"It all adds up that he was murdered. Any person who did the same depth of study as I have done would reach the same conclusion. You look into the police files and the witness accounts, there are lots of strange things about the case. The police case files seem to have disappeared."

A recent police review of the case did not reach any conclusions.

Each year, around 16,000 people go missing, according to the police National Missing Persons Bureau. Right now, the database lists 800 people as missing, 600 for a year or more. Some who disappear then turn up are recidivist missing persons, said a police spokeswoman.

Females in the 10 to 19 age group are most likely to go missing.

In a more recent case, Bainbridge thinks Sara Niethe was unlikely to have run off or had an accident.

The mother-of-three's disappearance in March 2003 is still a talking point in Kerepehi and surrounds, said Detective Senior Sergeant Glen Dunbier, of Hamilton police. Niethe disappeared after leaving the home of a friend, Mark Pakenham, in Kaihere, north of Morrinsville.

Theories about her disappearance include that she could have run away, crashed her car into a canal searched by police divers, taken her life, or been abducted and murdered.

Bainbridge speculates convicted murderer Ronald Jorgensen faked his own death in a car crash in 1984.

He also raises the case of Betty Wharton, aged 3 when last seen in Hamilton in 1964. There are two theories: that she was given by her parents to a stranger or given to a family member to be raised.

Recent cases include Wellington woman Kaye Stewart who has not been seen since going into the Rimataka Forest Park in June, and former model Iraena Asher who disappeared in October after calling police from Piha, but being sent a taxi which went to the wrong address.