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KASAMA Vol. 13 No. 2 / April-May-June 1999 / Solidarity Philippines Australia Network

Name: STRZELECKI, Annabel

Date of Birth: 3 August 1969

Hair: Shoulder length straight black

Build: Thin, petite

Height: 150cms (4ft 11ins)

Circumstances: Annabel Strzelecki was last seen at her home address at Clare, SA on Saturday June 6, 1998.

If you have any information on this or any other missing person, no matter how trivial, please contact either your local police station or the National Missing Persons Unit. You may choose to give your information anonymously. Call the NMPU on 02 6243 5666.

Photo and profile downloaded from the National Missing Persons Unit (NMPU) web site at http://www.missingpersons.info.au

Annabel Sabellano Strzelecki's husband says he has not seen his wife since she left home in the early hours of June 6, 1998 supposedly in the company of a Filipina and a man who he had not met before that night.

The couple had lived in the Clare, South Australia area since 1989. They married in the Philippines when she was 19 and Jim Strzelecki, a former opal miner, was 63.

Major Crime Detective Inspector John Peake said the missing woman's disappearance was out of character. "The fact she has still not yet been discovered tends to show that she could have met with foul play. But that's not to say she isn't out there alive and well and doesn't want to be discovered."

Annabel's friends say she was totally devoted to her two children, Rachel 5, and Richard 7, and she would not have left the marriage without taking them with her. The children are being cared for by relatives in Adelaide.

Reporter Penelope Debelle in The Age described the church service organised by Annabel's friends thus: "At the service of remembrance at the Clare Uniting Church, a purple cloth was draped from the cross and on to this women pinned large black tears.

"One black tear we weep upon the cloth of sorrow. One black tear for all those women who have come to this land dreaming of a better life, only to find a nightmare.

"Filipino women from all over the district came to the service. The cultural bonds are strong and the Reverend Tony Eldridge says the women support each other."

"She was very gentle and a good mum," said a close friend. "She was a very generous person. She didn't have a lot, but what she did have she always wanted to share."

According to data collected by the Centre for Philippine Concerns-Australia (CPCA), Annabel is one of six Filipinas gone "missing" in Australia since 1980.

We still do not know the whereabouts of Azucena "Asing" Pollard who in 1987 was reported by her husband, Harry, to have run away from their home in Tumbarumba, NSW taking their baby son with her. Nenita Evans of Melbourne, Victoria also disappeared in 1987 and Jean Angela Keir of NSW was last seen in February 1988. The police investigated the possible link between Jean's disappearance and the violent death in 1991 of Rosalina Keir, the second Filipina wife of Thomas Keir. Due to lack of evidence, he was acquitted of Rosalina's murder and no evidence of Jean's situation came to light.

CPCA data lists Rosalina Keir as one of sixteen Filipino women murdered in Australia since 1980 in whose cases the perpetrator or suspect was their non-Filipino spouse, de facto partner, fiance, boyfriend or employer. Three children were also killed.

- Dee Dicen Hunt