It’s been 50 years today since 24-year old Rhyanwen Horne walked out of the Shortland Clinic in Newcastle and was never seen again.

While her devastated mother, who died in 1980, devoted the remainder of her life to searching for her daughter, Rhyanwen’s disappearance has remained a mystery.

Younger sister Kathryn McConnochie, one of Rhyanwen’s only two remaining siblings, remains hopeful that someone out there knows what happened to her beloved sister.

“I was four and a half years younger than Rhyanwen and we shared a close relationship,” Kathryn tells Newcastle Weekly.

“She was a quiet and sensitive person who was always kind, considerate and helpful to others. She was conscientious and dedicated to her work as a nurse and had a strong affinity with nature.

“In the three years prior to her going missing, she studied art and music and taught children’s movement classes.

“Her disappearance was very out of character.”

Rhyanwen had recently separated from her husband Dr Michael Horne in 1975, but he was the one who checked her into the now demolished Shortland Clinic in Newcastle at 4pm on 1 February 1975.

She discharged herself at 8.15pm and left the facility with nothing but the clothes she was wearing.

She did not know anyone in the Newcastle area.

Rhyanwen’s involvement in the Encounter Groups

Kathryn believes that shortly before she went missing, Rhyanwen experienced a psychotic episode that put her in a clinic in Sydney before she was told to return home.

It was her late husband Michael who felt the Shortland clinic in Newcastle, while far from her Sydney home, might have the right “progressive approach” to mental health treatment.

In the year before her disappearance, Kathryn says her sister went through a huge transition in her character, which she believes was mostly due to her involvement in a strange group.

“She became involved in Encounter Group through her husband who was studying psychiatry.

“Michael was heavily involved in these groups both in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, and they were a new form of personal growth inspired by American psychologist Carl Rogers.”

Kathryn says that the groups had a troubling history of causing psychological issues for people after they left, with studies that took place in the US to prove it.

“Rhyanwen had not experienced any mental health issues prior to January 1975 and I believe that her participation in the Encounter Groups lead to both her marriage ending and to her breakdown.

“She was questioning herself and her direction in life and she was under a lot of stress at the time, and stress is a well recognised as a precursor for psychosis.

“Weeks after their marriage ended, she moved out of their shared home and started fasting without supervision: Within weeks it combined to lead to her mental health deterioration.

“Michael took her back to their home but was unable to cope with her which was why she was admitted her to the mental health clinic in Newcastle.”

So what happened after Rhyanwen walked out of the Shortland Clinic?

Rhyanwen and Kathryn’s distraught mother hired a private investigator, launched a massive search campaign and offered a reward, but sadly to no avail.

Newcastle City Police also undertook their own inquiries into Rhyanwen’s disappearance, however years later, the family discovered that the police record of Rhyanwen’s case had gone missing.

“I know that the police were informed soon after she was found missing from the clinic and they carried out a wide search of the area that night.

“I am unaware of what other efforts they may have made to find her as the records have gone missing.

“I do know however that a person wasn’t classified as officially missing in the 1970s until they had been missing for three months.”

Over the years Kathryn says that the family made ongoing attempts to find Rhyanwen with no luck.

In 2021 Kathryn says she became aware of some new DNA testing technology.

The family contacted the missing persons unit which is when they discovered her sister’s file had been missing since the 1990s when police record were digitized.

“I was asked to make a new detailed statement about my sister’s case with any records I had and photos so that a new file could be started and the investigation by police could recommence.

“Unfortunately the DNA testing of my sister and me found no matches with any unidentified remains. An investigation for signs of life was made by the police with no results at that stage and a media release in 2023 by the Newcastle Police Force did not result in any new information.”

Kathryn said she is disappointed by how little has happened in the fifty years since her sister went missing and that she would like a Coronial Inquest to take place in order to investigate the disappearance and to have her case reclassified as an unsolved homicide.

“We are asking the public for help and we are looking for any information from people who saw Rhyanwen at the Shortland Clinic in Newcastle in February 1975, or those who knew her through the Encounter Groups prior to her disappearance.

“We want an investigation into the destructive effects of these groups and we also want the New South Wales police to investigate links with other unresolved cases of women who disappeared in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie region in the 1970s and 1980s.

“It is absolutely devastating for our family to go for so many years without knowing what happened to our Rhyanwen.”

Anyone with information that can assist investigators is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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