1. ‘Mummy would never leave you’: Family of woman missing since July speaks of heartbreak.
Mother of three Kim Richmond disappeared in the early hours of July 31 from her remote farm in the Waikato region of New Zealand.
The 42-year-old has not been heard from since, and her family are desperate for answers, the NZ Herald reports.
Richmond’s mother, Raywynne Richmond, doesn’t believe her daughter – who has now been missing for seven months – is still alive, but wants to bring closure to her daughter’s young children.
“We don’t believe she’ll be alive. We’ve thought that from the beginning because she wouldn’t do this kind of thing,” she told the NZ Herald.
“I have told my little one [Kim’s daughter] ‘Mummy would never leave you. She loves you too much. Someone’s done something and hurt Mummy.’ But what can you tell them? We don’t know ourselves.”
The family called Kim’s mobile phone for two days after she went missing. Then, the phone stopped ringing and went straight to voicemail.
A police, land search and rescue and a specialist dive squad have searched for Kim since she went missing. Lake Arapuni was lowered, but nothing was found.
The only clue in relation to her disappearance has been the discovery of Kim’s bank card, found on a roadside 160km away from her home in early October.
Raywynne is pleading for members of the public to come forward with any information.
“Even if [you think it’s nothing] it could be something. We’ve never found a single thing, not a shoe, nothing,” she said.