The Complicated Grief When A Family Member Goes Missing​

The Monthly, 1 August 2022

When a family member goes missing in a high-profile case, a surge of charlatans, cranks and hacks are stirred into action. Psychics will call you to pitch their gifts and share their hunches. Phone calls will come in the middle of the night, only to offer a sinister laugh or laboured breathing. Reporters will beg and badger you into yielding before their cameras. Well-meaning but thoughtless citizens will call in useless tips that will accumulate into a mountain of demoralising and contradictory intelligence.