By John Andrews
Lionel Russell's son Sid, now a 25-year-old company manager on the North Shore, is curious about the fate of the father he hardly knew.
After a happy Waihi homelife growing up with his mother and stepfather, Mr Russell had no great desire to find out what really happened.
However, his
curiosity was aroused six months ago when he learned his father had been officially listed as a missing person.
"By that stage my mother had had a few dealings with Sergeant Mike Hill from Ohakune," said Mr Russell.
"He brought me into it and made me more aware. I'm picking he [his father] has got himself involved with the wrong kind of people.
"From what I have seen and from what Mike Hill told me, he didn't seem to be that bad a guy but seemed to be quite easily led.
"I don't think he was really criminal, just careless."
Resigned to the likelihood that his father is dead, Mr Russell would like to solve the mystery of what happened to him.
