Wills family still searching for clues

"Is there such a thing as a chook-whisperer?" asks bereft farmer Bruce Wills of "the guys" who last saw his mother, Fiona Wills, before she disappeared on December 9. Photo / Warren Buckland

Three weeks after farming widow Fiona Wills disappeared on her family farm northeast of Napier, son and former Federated Farmers national president Bruce Wills is not shy of talking to the chooks, if that's what it takes to find his missing mum.

As family, neighbours and friends yesterday continued scouring Trelinnoe Station, its garden park and nearby roads, Mr Wills holds one of the eight fowls as the others shuffle out to peck around their run and said: "Is there any such thing as a chook-whisperer? They are the last guys to see her. Come-on chooks. Where's grandmother?"

He is, of course, well aware that, like so many other aspects of the mystery, it would be a miracle if the chooks provide the answer, but the extensive inquiries and search make the family "95 per cent certain" that 77-year-old Mrs Wills did feed the eight chooks after walking the barely 50 metres from the house about 6pm on December 9.

But there have been no clues as to what happened next.

An Alzheimer's sufferer, Mrs Wills had strayed in the past, but the protocols put in place meant she was always found within minutes.

"If mum was gone half an hour, the nurse would call her," said Mr Wills, who was in Wellington at the time of the disappearance. "She would call back, I'm here ... That night, it didn't happen."

The alarm was effectively raised when his elder daughter Kate told 21-year-old sister Claire: "My God, I think I've lost grandma."

The two were just a few days home from their year at law school, and adored their grandmother, but never thought they would never see her alive again.

"She called back and said 'No, seriously, I think I've lost grandma'," Claire said yesterday, sitting in the gardens and petting a day-old goat which was found, separated from its mother, during the continued searching over Christmas. "It is surreal. I just thought we would find her. I can't believe it's come to this."

She saw the Search and Rescue team sweep into action, its experienced members starting to hunt and search through the night. "They were finding rabbit tracks on the ground," she said.

But there were no tracks for Mrs Wills, and three weeks later still nothing has been found, after searches across the 12ha of the Trelinnoe garden park, over 4000ha of farmland and countryside, and as far as Hastings and Havelock North, where Mrs Wills grew up.

She had lived on the farm all 55 years since marrying John Wills, who died there on November 16, which , in the absence of anything else, has the family finding some consolation in the notion that the couple are now together in peace.

"There is a true element of freedom for her," said their son.

The hunt has gone to extremes Mr Wills never knew existed, including examining data from searches, in New Zealand and abroad, for other Alzheimer's and dementia sufferers who have disappeared, but most often been found.

Mr Wills says the family is being realistic, knowing the prospects of finding his mother alive are remote, but family and friends have continued searching during Christmas.

Part of day-to-day running of the property now includes flicking aside the hydrangea, parting the bushes and blackberry, looking down the gullies and across to the Waipunga Ranges, in the hope that where specialist searches and dog teams did not find an answer, a simple and even casual glance could end the mystery.

The family had previously planned to be mainly at home over Christmas, but it was to look after Mrs Wills in her first Christmas apart from her husband.

As more arrived to walk the gardens and nearby roads, Mr Wills said: "I think they don't feel it is right that they can put their feet up, while mother is still out there somewhere."

"We do want closure," he said. "It is surreal. You half expect grandmother to just turn up. We're still struggling to get used to the fact she isn't going to."