Karen Ristevski's body was found in bushland. Photo / Victoria Police
Karen Ristevski's body was found in bushland. Photo / Victoria Police
By all accounts, Sarah Ristevski was incredibly close to her Wellington-born, Melbourne mother, Karen, and the pain of loss is written all over the young woman's face.
Not only has Sarah Ristevski had to endure almost nine months of worry about her mother's fate, she has also had to live under the cloud of suspicion directed at her father, Borce Ristevski.
Today, Mr Ristevski's lawyer conceded the 52-year-old was the prime suspect in the disappearance and suspected murder of Mrs Ristevski, whose decomposed body was found in Victorian bushland on Monday.
Sarah Ristevski, daughter of suspected murder victim Karen Ristevski, with a young man believed to be her boyfriend. Photo / Sarah Ristevski Facebook
He said his client maintained his innocence and urged the public not to make assumptions about what had happened.
That was nothing new to Sarah Ristevski, who was literally sitting next to her father at a press conference the first time a reporter asked him outright if he had killed his wife.
The pair, along with Mrs Ristevski's aunt Patricia Gray, cut the event short and walked out in protest.
"That's really not appropriate at the moment ... honestly, I have to say, that is really inappropriate ... this is about Karen, this is not about anything else, this is about finding Karen," Ms Gray told the Channel Seven reporter who asked the question.
Sarah Ristevski has remained fiercely loyal to her father since the first day her mother went missing, clinging to him at public appeals for information and sobbing into his chest.
When Mr Ristevski stopped co-operating with detectives in the middle of last year, claiming they had developed tunnel vision and were looking at no other suspects than him, Sarah followed suit, according to The Australian.
The daughter has also been dragged into a sordid feud between her father and his estranged son Anthony Rickard, a self-confessed drug addict.
Mr Rickard has alleged on numerous occasions that Mrs Ristevski planned to leave her husband after Sarah turned 21 (she had her birthday after her mother went missing), a claim which Mr Ristevski has disputed.
Borce and Karen Ristevski pictured together in a Facebook post.
Mr Rickard moved in with the family when his mother kicked him out of her house as a teenager. The Ristevskistook him in and "a situation" developed between he and Mrs Ristevski.
In the statement, submitted to Sunbury police station on July 22, 2016, Mr Rickard wrote that he'd "rather not fully detail [the situation] at this time".
One time he claimed he had simply "overheard" Mrs Ristevski say she planned to leave Mr Ristevski after her daughter's 21st birthday.
Another time he claimed (to both The Australian and the Herald Sun) that Mrs Ristevski had planned to run away with him after Sarah's birthday and that the tensions arising from this situation had led to her disappearance.
Her uncle Vasko repeated Mr Rickard's claim but put his own spin on it, telling reporters that he believed Mrs Ristevski had run away because of the tensions between her nephew, her husband and herself.
He suggested that revelations of an affair between stepmother and stepson might be mortifying enough to keep her away for good.
The site where Karen's body was found. Photo / Nicole Garmston / News Corp Australia
Sarah Ristevski, who worked at Bella Bleu, Mrs Ristevski's struggling Broadmeadows clothing boutique, was also been dogged by rumours that she and her mother were not getting on in the weeks before she went missing. News.com.au is not suggesting Sarah Ristevski has anything to do with Mrs Ristevski's disappearance.
Bella Bleu closed last February and caveats had been placed on the Ristevski's Avondale Heights home by lenders after Mr Ristevski borrowed cash from a notorious Melbourne loan shark on at least two occasions.
Meanwhile, Sarah Ristevski remains holed up in her family's Oakley Rd mansion with relatives and friends, including a young man thought to be her boyfriend.
Missing persons squad detectives late Tuesday visited the Ristevski family home to deliver the devastating news that Mrs Ristevski's body had been identified.
They spoke to The Ristevskis for about an hour. Sarah Ristevski has not spoken publicly since the discovery of her mother's body.
