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When they were growing up on a farm near Portland, in western Victoria, Paul Delaney and brother Greg were best mates.
They fought like siblings do, but every day they would be out riding motorbikes or horses, or playing tennis.
“We did everything together,” Paul says.
Greg is often in Paul’s thoughts, but no longer in his life. On July 12, 1989, Greg vanished from the family home in Geelong. He was 21 years old.
On Sunday, as part of National Missing Persons Week – August 2-8 – the Delaneys are making what Paul terms “a last-ditch effort” to find out what happened, although they no longer believe Greg is alive.
Paul and their mother, Pamela, want anyone with information on the disappearance to come forward.
“I’ve said to the police, find me a finger, something that I can prove is Greg, and I can bury it and say, ‘goodnight, goodbye’,” Pamela says.
In July 1989, Greg was working as a chef at Greenmount resort on the Gold Coast in Queensland, but had flown back to Victoria to visit his family in the Geelong suburb of Whittington, now called St Albans Park, where they’d moved in 1988.
Greg spent the night of July 11 drinking and watching television in the Ottoman Court house. Paul remembers waking at 3am or 4am to find Greg in the lounge, ranting to himself.
Paul says he told Greg to go for a walk, to sober up. Greg tripped over a lamp. The noise woke their father, Paddy, who came out and swore. Greg walked out of the house.
The next night, when Greg didn’t return, police were called. Searches found nothing.
Greg was described as 165 centimetres with a medium build, brown hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, white Adidas sneakers and a jumper with black and white squares.
Paul says Greg might have hitchhiked to see his girlfriend in northern NSW.
This was months before serial killer Ivan Milat is known to have murdered hitchhikers he picked up on the Hume Highway west of Sydney. Paul fears that this is what happened to Greg.
The Australian Federal Police have released a new image of what Greg might look like today, age 58, if still alive.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Mark Woodhead, from the Geelong crime investigation unit, says: “This investigation remains open so if anyone has any information, no matter how small, now is the time to come forward.”
Greg’s father, Paddy, died in 2003. Pamela says that if Greg was alive, he “would have been in touch with me”.
Tears still come when she talks about the eldest of her four sons. She wants to solve this mystery.
“Everyone knows he’s gone. But we’d love to have a grave to visit,” she says.
Anyone with information is urged contact Crime Stoppers at 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.
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