Forever Young

Forever Young

Australian Story, 21 November 2019

Ursula Barwick was 17 years old when she vanished without a trace.

Her family dropped her to the train station on the NSW Central Coast in Spring 1987. She was headed to Sydney to start a new job and was to call when she got there. But that phone call never came.

Desperate and worried, Peter Barwick reported his daughter missing but police at the time failed to prioritise the case. Friends and family were not interviewed and potential leads were missed.

For the next three decades, those closest to Ursula lived with an enduring heartache, not knowing if she was dead or alive.

When Ursula’s fate was finally discovered by two new detectives in 2016, it raised uncomfortable questions for NSW Police as to why her disappearance had gone unsolved for so long.