"Broken" family's appeal after daughter missing for 7 weeks
A mother has shared how her family is "broken” as she remains in the dark about what happened to her missing 14-year-old daughter who disappeared seven weeks ago.
The family of Tasmanian girl Shyanne-Lee Tatnell has made another plea for answers after the teen vanished while walking to see a friend on April 30.
“She’s my baby and I desperately want her back,” her mother Bobbi-Lee Ketchell told A Current Affair.
The teen had moved in with her grandmother due to tension with her mother in the family home in the town of Burnie, later moving onto a youth centre in Launceston.
She started walking from the centre along the North Esk River on the night of April 30 but never reached her destination.
Her mother shared the agonising conversation she had with her daughter before she vanished, with Ms Ketchell urging her daughter not to break her curfew after being grounded.
“She got upset … we had a little bit of a disagreement and then I said, ‘I love you’,” Ms Ketchell revealed.
She confessed her daughter never said, “I love you back”.
Her grandmother has described the young girl’s disappearance as torture.
“You don’t just disappear off the face of the earth without something being found, some piece of clothing or footwear or phone,” her grandmother said.
The family believe that their daughter accepted a lift from someone or was potentially “forced into a vehicle”.
“She was rebellious and it didn’t matter what I would tell her not to do. She was firm on doing what she wanted and didn’t think of the consequences before doing it,” Ms Ketchell said.
Police are seeking the drivers of two silver cars captured on CCTV near the area where she was last seen.
“We actually want to discount you from any investigation, from any potential witness, so we can move on with other aspects of the investigation,” police said.
Authorities have also highlighted that at one point the footage showed Shyanne-Lee running but said there was “no evidence” she was being chased.
Her family have urged anyone with information to come forward.
“Nanny loves you so much Shyanne. I need you home, your family needs you home desperately,” her grandmother said.
“If someone has my granddaughter, you need to release her now.
“We are a totally broken family, we’re lost without her.”
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