Aust, search for girls continues

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32665, 22 July 1971, Page 3

Aust, search for girls continues

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 21

The Australian police are still searching for the two daughters of a New Zealand geologist, missing from their home in Queensland for some weeks.

Lynda Jones, aged four, and her two-year-old sister, Tracey, vanished from their home in Charters Towers, Northern Queensland, some time in the two weeks before July 7. Nothing has been seen since of the girls, or the couple who were looking after them for their father, Bruce Henry Jones, aged 26, formerly of Waihi. The girls’ grandmother, Mrs Kathleen Jones, flew from Auckland to Brisbane today to help her son in the search for the children. Mrs Jones said that the family in New Zealand learnt last Friday that the children were missing.

“I sold my house in Kenny Street, Waihi, to pay for my air fare to Brisbane,” she said. “I don’t care how much I spend, as long as we get the children back.” She said that her son had lived in Australia for the last two years and a half. “He works as a geologist and was away for about two weeks, on a job in Georgetown, about 280 miles north of Charters Towers,” said Mrs Jones. “When he returned on July 7, he found the children gone, his car gone, $2OO in cash and the couple who were housekeeping for him missing.”

Mrs Jones, who has married daughters in Auckland, Taupo and Mount Maunganui, and a son in Hamilton, said: “The whole family has been in a turmoil since this happened. Every time the phone rings we wonder if its news that the children have been found.” The children’s mother, who is living in Sydney, was also shocked by the news. “Her family are as much in the dark about it as we are,” said Mrs Jones.