What happened to Zac? The mother of a teenager who hasn’t been seen in four years wants answers, but the last people who saw him alive won’t talk to her and say he just ran off into the woods.
Zac Barnes seemed to vanish into thin air when he was only 18 years old. Since the apprentice bricklayer went missing from his home in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales on November 13, 2016, there has been a lot of mystery and confusion about what happened. After two long years of silence, Zac’s mother, Karen Gudelj, hasn’t given up on finding out what happened. She says that the story about Zac running from a car into the bush while upset is “absolute bullsh*t,” but that doesn’t help her find out what happened. The mother of six has worked around the clock to find out what happened to her middle son. She has sent out search parties and looked for clues, but to no avail. She is in the process of setting up a coroner’s investigation into Zac’s disappearance because she is desperate for answers.
The picture shows Zac’s parents, who say they will do anything to find out what happened to their son. Ms. Gudelj said, “I want to talk to the two people he was with in the car last, but they won’t talk to me.” Those were the last people who saw Zac. They say that they were driving through Newcastle’s Thornton neighborhood when he suddenly got scared, jumped out of the car at the corner of Tripp Close and Haussman Drive, and ran into nearby bushland. But not everything makes sense. In particular, Ms. Gudelj doesn’t understand why the two young men have stopped helping solve the mystery of why he went missing. She asked, “Why don’t you help your family find your so-called best match?” “Because you think you’ve been wronged? We just want to know how he could “disappear into thin air.” You and he were the last two people who saw him. Only you can say for sure where he got out of the car. There are no witnesses who can back up or disprove what you say.’
a woman posing for a picture: Zac’s mother-of-six has worked around the clock, inaugurating search parties and hunting for clues about her middle son’s disappearance – all to no avail
Zac’s mother-of-six has worked around the clock, launching search parties and hunting for clues about her middle son’s disappearance – all to no avail
The two young men, who Ms. Gudelj hasn’t named for two years to avoid a witch hunt, seem to have removed Zac’s Facebook page from their list of friends since then.
The young Australian roughneck has three tattoos that would have made it hard to miss him in the days after he went missing. The first and most noticeable is a VB logo on the back of his right calf. Ms. Gudelj has always asked people who liked Zac’s official Facebook page to let her know if they thought they saw him or one of his tattoos, but she says no one has ever thought it was her son. Australia-wide, there hasn’t been a single confirmed sighting of Zac. “I, along with nearly 200 volunteers and police, have turned the area upside down during multiple searches, and Zac is not in the bush area where his friends say he ran,” she said.
The young Aussie roughneck has three tattoos, one of which is a VB logo on his right calf. These tattoos would have made it hard to miss him in the days after he went missing. Since the day he went missing, Zac hasn’t used his bank accounts, social media, Medicare card, or phone.
Shortly after Zac went missing, there were new claims that he owed people money or may have done some “foolish things.” But his mother quickly shot down any logical ideas that might have come from that claim. She said, “The person he owed money to isn’t anyone bad.” In fact, that person has helped police investigations a lot. She said, “All I want is the truth.” “I don’t care who or what hurt him or why. I just want to be able to put our boy to rest and say goodbye to him the way he deserves.”
Zac’s family hopes that a coroner’s investigation will answer some of their most important questions. “It breaks my heart to think that someone or someones probably just threw him away like trash to keep themselves safe.” The case, which has confused family, friends, and the police, is now going to a coroner’s inquest, where Ms. Gudelj hopes to find some answers. On their “GoFundMe” page, the family is now trying to raise money to help pay for legal representation.
Love Realty, where Ms. Gudelj works, is also putting a portion of every property sold or rented into a fund that will be used for representation. “A lawyer will cost about $10,000 per day, and we don’t know how long it will take because we don’t know how many statements we’ll have to cross-examine.” It would be easy to spend at least $100,000 in 10 days. But Ms. Gudelj wants to know what happened to her son. “I’ll never give up,” he said. Everyone who knows anything will have a harder time because I will fight to find answers and find him,’ she said. Call Police Link at 131 444 or Crime Stoppers at 1800 333 000 if you have information that could help with the investigation.