GEORGE TOWN: About 12 months ago an Australian told her husband that she was heading for a dental appointment at Burmah Road here before visiting her mother at the Little Sisters of the Poor Home at Batu Lanchang.
She vanished and had not being seen since – gone in a blink of an eye in an age where there are personal locaters and Global Positioning System (GPS).
The only facts established were that she underwent a dental procedure, took a ride-sharing ride but before reaching the old folk’s home, she told the driver to drop her off outside the Ramakrishna Orphanage in Scotland Road.
The police had cleared the driver and dental workers of any suspicions.
Since Dec 13 last year, the family members of Parit Buntar-born Annapuranee Jenkins had been agonising over the fate of their wife, mother and grandmother, who would be now 66 years old.
It took a toll on them, said the missing woman’s son, Steven Jenkins.
He said the pain had been unbearable, especially for his father, Frank, and his sister, Jen Bowen, who works full time and has two children. She also has to care for her father, who is ailing and heartbroken.
Steven, 39, had scoured the country with friends and Bowen to find clues to Annapuranee’s disappearance but there had not been any leads except for unsubstantiated reports of her sightings in four locations in the northern region.
Steven said the family offered a reward of RM20, 000 and pasted over 10,000 posters of Annapuranee throughout the country, including in most police stations along the west coast of the peninsular.
Jenkins sought help of every level of the Australian authorities including the politicians back home, but nothing concrete developed.
Steven is now trying to contact Malaysian politicians to help find his mother. He said his resources had been drained.
He didn’t make any headway in his search with the help from his mother’s relatives in Perak.
Annapuranee’s mother, Mary Anne, had died at the old folk’s home in Oct at the age of 101.
He has gone to an extent of trying to contact the underworld gangs to locate his mother.
His frustration was compounded by the initial response from the police that it could be due to a family feud.
Steven insisted that his mother was of sound mind and did not have any family disputes or cases of abuse or a life-threatening disease. “She literally just disappeared and I am loss for words,” he said.
Steven revealed that the mother left her passport behind in the room at the Jen Hotel here, but she packed many personal belongings with her.
According to him, it was his mother’s customary habit to pack toothbrushes and other toiletries whenever she went out.
