Te Pohue farmer Bruce Wills doesn't know if anyone will ever find his missing mother and Alzheimer's sufferer Fiona Wills.
But he does hope that when a coroner investigates early next year he finds ways of helping prevent tragedies like that which has mystified the Wills family since Mrs Wills wandered off to feed her chooks a year ago today.
On the eve of the anniversary, former Federated Farmers Hawke's Bay and national president Mr Wills yesterday told Hawke's Bay Today the coroner has called for an inquest likely to be held in March, and he hopes it will consider ways to monitor Alzheimer's sufferers.
He said that if his mother had worn some sort of alert or tracking device she would probably have been found within minutes of the alarm being raised early on the night of December 9 last year, when it was noticed the 77-year-old hadn't returned from feeding the chickens in Trelinnoe Garden Park.
She and husband John had developed the gardens over more than half a century on their farm northeast of Napier.