More than 20 years after NSW teenager Rose Howell mysteriously vanished on the way to a friend’s house on the Mid North Coast, police are offering a $750,000 reward for information on her baffling disappearance.
The Bundagen woman was heading to a friend’s house about 6.15pm on Friday, April 11, 2003 — she had been planning her 19th birthday party, and had scheduled to meet her mum that following Sunday — but she was never seen again.
She was last spotted walking east along Perrys Rd in Repton, about 25km south of Coffs Harbour.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
“There are people in that community that would have information,” NSW Police Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said last year.
“The public are reminded that there is no piece of information too small for investigators; your tip could be the missing piece of the puzzle in this investigation,” Doherty added on Tuesday.
Police have now offered a $750,000 reward for information.
In 2012, the NSW Coroner determined that it was likely that Rose had died, but that the date, place and cause of death were undetermined.
But her mother, Malila Howell, told 7NEWS last year: “Until there is evidence that she is dead, there is actually that hope.”
“I see somebody and I think, ‘Oh, that could be Rose’. When she first went missing, it would happen all the time, 10 times a day. It wasn’t. It still happens.”
Rose lived with Asperger syndrome, had an olive complexion, and wore her dark hair in a mohawk about the time of her disappearance.
“She was eccentric … she marched around the world, played bass guitar, amazingly funny,” Malila said.
Clues in a decades-long search
Shortly after Rose disappeared, police received an anonymous letter that suggested Rose entered a car on a nearby highway.
More recently, localised searches have been conducted by police in relation to the disappearance.
A search warrant of a Repton property was executed on June 4, 2024, where a “ground-penetrating radar” was used to search two specific areas on the property.
A Ford Falcon believed to be connected to Rose’s disappearance was also forensically searched on July 8, 2024.
“We’d really like to know what happened to her. Her father died without knowing, she’s got three brothers who don’t know what happened to her,” Malila said.
“It hurts, still, 20 years later.”