Six years on, Sara's family still waiting for answers

Sara Louise Neithe. Photo / Supplied

As another year passes, the family of missing Hauraki Plains woman Sara Louise Neithe can do nothing but wait and hope for some kind of closure.

It was late in the evening of March 30, 2003, when the 30-year-old Ms Neithe left her former boyfriend Mark Pakenham's house near Kaihere for the 10-minute drive to her home at Kerepehi, 18km northwest of Paeroa.

But neither Ms Neithe nor the distinctive "Snifter" green-coloured Honda Civic hatchback she drove have been seen since.

Her mother, Eileen Marbeck, said her family were still hanging on for answers as the police file on the mother-of-three remains open.

"We can't let it rest and we can't find anything out," said Ms Marbeck.

"It's just an impossible situation, you can't close it."

Yesterday a police search of a rehabilitated peat field about 5km southwest of Ngatea revealed nothing.

"The police are doing their best...we were hoping they would find something but they didn't so it's back to square one," she said.

Detective Sergeant Glenn Tinsley of Waihi police said investigators used a magnetometer, which would detect iron if the car was there, at two sites at the peat field, which was converted to dairy pasture five years ago.

"We are always reviewing our inquiry and sometimes those reviews result in us looking at areas of further possibility," he said. "But in this case it's nothing more than that," he said.

Despite several tip-offs and a $50,000 reward offer for information on the case there have been no breakthroughs.

The case, which featured last year on the controversial television series Sensing Murder, is still being treated as a missing person's inquiry despite suspicions of foul play.

Ms Marbeck said her family's search had seen her son "travelling all over the North Island" to distribute flyers pleading for information.

But for now, all she and her family can do is place flowers at a marble plaque Ms Marbeck made for her daughter and hope for eventual closure.

"We put some flowers on it... just once a year, it's just a little something," she said.