Family of Niamh Maye hopes Casefile podcast will end 20-year mystery of teen missing from Batlow

Niamh Maye, from Armidale, had travelled to Batlow in the southern NSW to work picking fruit in apple orchards and was last seen travelling north from Jingellic on Easter Saturday on March 30, 2002.

Niamh, whose Irish first name is pronounced 'neeve', was at the time of her disappearance about 170 centimetres tall with a slim build, Caucasian appearance, shoulder-length dark blonde hair and blue/grey eyes.

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The Maye family has said "we'll never stop searching" for Niamh, whom they described as a highly intelligent, artistic and kind young woman.

"We have never given up hope that we might be able to bring Niamh home and give her a proper resting place", Niamh's 81-year-old mother Anne said.

Niamh's father, 81-year-old Brian Maye, said their daughter was always with them in spirit.

"We miss our loving, cheeky, creative, fun daughter, sister and aunt," he said.

"We hope one day we can bring her home."

Niamh's older sister, Fionnuala Hagerty, said it was hard to describe the days after she realised the family's youngest child of six sisters and a brother had gone missing on her gap year before studying at UTS.

"We were just paralysed with fear and to not have any answers was, and still is, very difficult," she said.

"At the time it was very frightening as we were thrown into a completely unknown situation.

"Nobody ever expects it to happen to them or their family; it's something you see on the news but unfortunately it happened to our family."

Last known movements

Niamh had a number of items in her possession at the time of her disappearance, including a tent, backpack, a Pentax ME SLR camera with lens and tripod, a black Pentax PC 50 compact camera, a chrome ADEC girl's watch and a TEAC PD-P215 Discman-style portable CD player.

A subsequent coronial inquest, held 10 years after Niamh's disappearance, determined she had died at or near Tumut on that March 2002 weekend.

Riverina Police District officers conducted a search at Tumut in August last year as part of ongoing inquiries into her disappearance.

Ms Hagerty said she had seen the rise in popularity of podcasts, particularly about unsolved cases, and hoped the technology could help find Niamh.

"I started listening to podcasts a few years ago when I was on maternity leave, I listened to 'Teacher's Pet' and 'The Lady Vanishes' and hearing other people who were going through something similar with so many unanswered questions got me to wondering if there was more we could do," she said.

"Things have changed a lot in the past 20 years, technology has changed and the way people communicate and consume information has changed and we thought there was no harm in trying.

"We got in touch with the 'Casefile' [podcast team], they have been really incredible and we have been working with them for nearly two years on a podcast that we hope will be available later this year."

Casefile is an award-winning Australian true crime podcast that has been downloaded more than 275 million times since it was launched in 2016 and will dedicate a series of episodes to Niamh's disappearance, titled 'Missing Niamh'.

The Maye family has urged members of the public to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit missingniamh.com with any relevant information that might help lead to answers about Niamh's disappearance.

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