KEY POINTS:
"If he was breathing, he'd be here." It's that simple for Jenny Wade.
The Warkworth mother knows her son, 17-year-old Luke Mason, better than anyone, and yesterday she told the Herald on Sunday her hope of finding the missing teenager alive was gone.
"When you find shoes by
the water...
"He didn't come back up to get his shoes. I can't think of anything else that fits."
Mystery surrounding the young farm hand's disappearance after a party nine days ago deepened yesterday as 150 searchers from Warkworth scoured river banks and bush but failed to find any sign of him.
A week of intense searching by police on foot, a police dive squad, the Eagle helicopter and friends and family had discovered only a pair of size 13 Globe shoes his mum bought him, and Luke's most prized possession, his BMX bike.
They were spotted 100m apart, near the Mahurangi River, en route from the party to his mum's home north of the town.
Police have not discounted two reported sightings of Luke walking along SH1 in the opposite direction from his mother's house on the night of the party.
The small town's rumour mill was in overdrive all week as theories about Luke's disappearance abounded.
One family friend, Trudie Elliott, who was with searchers yesterday, said no one knew exactly what had happened.
"We are searching all down the main roads, in case somebody picked him up," she said.
"He might have thrown up in their car and they didn't like it."
Some people were afraid there could be a more sinister element to Luke's disappearance. "No one knows, it's just a mystery," Elliot said.
Luke, who is described as friendly, polite and dependable, was last seen leaving a friend's party about 8pm last Friday.
He had been drinking tequila - at least half a bottle - and was drunk, but happy, "stoked" with his new job, friends told the Herald on Sunday.
His mother described her son as a "mummy's boy".
"He'd hug me in public, in front of all his friends."
She said she had spent most of the past week trying to work out what might have happened to her eldest son.
"I have moments when I have to go back there, back to where the bike was, and just think, just try and figure it out."
The family was doing everything possible to piece together the mystery, she said.
A psychic in Blenheim had been sent a map and photograph of Luke and a kaumatua may be brought to the river.
"It's just a sense of loss, of big empty openness," she said.
"It's hard for everyone else, because they want to help me heal, but heal from what?"
Kevin Blackman, the Warkworth detective heading the case, said there were no firm leads as to what happened to Luke.
Two witnesses who reported a person stumbling along the main road near where his bike and shoes were found were "fairly certain" it was Luke.
"We are keeping our options completely open."
He said officers were still talking to the dozen people at last Friday's party but rebutted rumours there was any trouble at the party.
"It was just 'See you later guys, I'm off home'."
Blackman said if there was still no progress in the next couple of days, the search effort would be re-evaluated.
"There are a lot of theories going around, it's a small town and people talk."
Elliott said everyone was desperate to find answers.
"I hope this doesn't become an unsolved case, because that just wouldn't be right."
For Wade, the hope may have gone but the support she has received from the community has still been overwhelming.
"It's magical," she said. "I don't feel alone."
