Looking for Suzi

By Kath Gannaway
THE disappearance of Suzanne (Suzi) Lawrance from Healesville in 1987 was not big news in Healesville, or anywhere, at the time. Not page 1, not even page 3.
An appeal was made on page 10 for the 16-year-old to contact her family who were “upset”, or for anyone who “knew of her whereabouts” to call police.
The pain and tears of those first frantic weeks which turned into months, then years, is never far from the surface when Liz Westwood talks of the daughter she has never stopped loving.
Now remarried and living back in Warburton where she grew up, Mrs Westwood said 20 years on she is still looking for answers, still hoping one day to hold her daughter in her arms and tell her how she has missed her, and how much she loves her.
She dropped Suzi off at Healesville Memorial Hall on the Saturday night, 7 February, just 10 days before her 17th birthday.
The party, possibly a 21st, was her first big outing after recovering from injuries received in a car crash and she was dressed for the occasion.
She had just returned to Healesville High School after a stint in the workforce and Mrs Westwood said things were fine at home.
It’s a story she has told time and time again over the years as Suzi’s disappearance has surfaced during Missing Persons’ Week, in the Mountain Views newspaper as anniversaries came and went, and in other media. But there is no sense that is any easier for the retelling.
Mrs Westwood recalls she wasn’t concerned when Suzi wasn’t there when she got home on the Saturday night.
“It was no big deal in Healesville at that time,” she said. “I could wake up and have half a dozen kids staying over in the loungeroom.
“It was a very different time.”
She went into Melbourne and then to the country music festival in Yarra Glen but was starting to worry when Suzi was still not home by Sunday night.
On Monday she went to the police.
The puzzle of Suzi’s movements remains incomplete. There are pieces – Suzi left the party distressed.
Two boys spoke to her at the gates of Queen’s Park where she declined their offer to walk her home.
She was seen the next morning in Healesville, wearing a pink and white top, talking at a car with some boys.
Later she was seen by a local woman who knew her at the same country and music festival her mother was at. She was with “a lad” not known to the woman.
A dream a week or so ago, probably prompted by the anniversary and Suzi’s birthday, has reignited Mrs Westwood’s longing for answers.
She has had other dreams; disturbing dreams in which Suzi was always a child, “but this one was comforting,” she said.
She dreamt she had found her. She was in Western Australia, where she had lived as a child, and that she was an adult… with her hair twisted up with a clip.
Her Healesville friends at the time will also be adults now, perhaps with children of their own, and Mrs Westwood is hoping someone may be able to answer the questions she has lived with since Suzi disappeared.
Where did Suzi spend the Saturday night – what were her movements after she was seen at Queen’s Park.
Who were the boys she was seen speaking to in Healesville’s main street on the Sunday morning?
Who was “the lad” she was seen with at the music festival at Yarra Glen.
As she talks of Suzi in the present tense, Mrs Westwood says she knows if Suzi was murdered she may never find her.
But she hopes that the belief of 20 years ago will hold true – that Suzi will come back.
Anyone who can help with the answer Mrs Westwood desperately needs to know is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.