By Jed Lanyon
National Missing Persons Week has brought attention to a 34-year-old Healesville mystery.
On the night of Saturday 7 February 1987, 16-year-old Healesville resident Suzanne ‘Suzi’ Lawrance failed to return home after leaving a 21st birthday party at the Memo Hall.
That weekend was the last time Suzi would be seen as she disappeared without a trace as local residents last sighted her walking through Queen’s Park.
The cold case was covered in depth by the Australian True Crime Podcast, where co-host Emily Webb spoke to Suzi’s family and friends about her disappearance.
Having covered Aussie true crime through her podcast for five years, Ms Webb shared what stuck out about this particular case.
“I think what is interesting with Suzi’s disappearance is that not much is known. Back in 1987 things were different, Healesville was a different place, probably. It wouldn’t have been the tourist mecca that it is now.
“What intrigued me was there was this absolute mystery and getting to know Liz (Suzi’s mother) I guess I felt like it would be really hard not knowing what had happened to your child.
“There’s just a lot of stuff that wasn’t clear. At first people thought she might have run away and Liz had spoken to local police who were investigating it at the time. The thought back then with a lot of missing persons was ‘We’ll get them back. They’ll come back’.
“I think the intriguing thing is just the lack of progress over the years with this case and it’s just sad for a family that doesn’t know and for her friends who would like to know what happened to her.”
While some of Suzi’s friends and family believe that she wouldn’t have run away, there was no evidence to suggest that anything suspicious had taken place.
“There were a few things in Suzi’s life at the time – She had just returned to school at Healesville High after being involved in a pretty bad car accident the year before and had been quite badly injured,” Ms Webb said.
“She didn’t take any money with her, she didn’t have any resources to go missing.”
34 years on from her disappearance, Suzi would be 51, and her family remain without closure.
Speaking to Star Mail, Suzi’s brother Tony Lawrance shared the experience of having Suzie’s case brought up again through National Missing Persons Week.
“It’s obviously a very emotional experience, I suppose this isn’t the first time, we’ve done it many times and it does bring a lot of stuff back up. Suzi’s never been forgotten and I suppose it just highlights it again after mum had done it many times.”
Mr Lawrance recently started posting on local community Facebook noticeboards and even created his own page, “Search for Suzi”.
“A lot of her school friends have been on there and we’ve made contact with them again, which has been interesting. Obviously it brings it all back to the surface again.”
He explained what it would mean to have an answer for Suzi’s disappearance and shared what he believes happened all those years ago.
For me, personally it’s about closure now. I don’t believe she’s still alive, I think she was met with foul play soon after she went missing. But it’d be about the closure for me and for my mum who’s nearly 80 now. She’s only got a bit of time left really and we’d like to find an answer before she passes.
Mr Lawrance urged local residents who have any information, no matter how seemingly insignificant, to come forward and share it to Crime Stoppers.
He revealed that his efforts on social media lead to a recent Crime Stoppers report about a potential sighting of Suzi on the day following the birthday party in Main Street Healesville.
“We’ve always encouraged people to come forward with any information… We’ve had a couple people ring Crime Stoppers and there is information coming out recently that the police can go and investigate truly.
“One girl said she spotted Suzi the next day, and she’s only told me that 35 years later, on Main Street Healesville in front of the post office. That’s gone back to Crime Stoppers so it’ll be interesting to see if they make anything out of it.”
If you have information that may assist police to locate Suzanne please call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
