Katharina Buczek
After Emma disappeared just seven days later, though, her Mazda van was left behind. Inside, the 26-year-old’s belongings and passport were all left behind.
Mental Health Concerns
According to friends and family, Emma was creative, cryptic, and private. She was not known to open up easily or talk about herself often– making it difficult to understand what she might have been thinking prior to her disappearance.
In the winter of 2011, though, one of Emma’s friends and roommates started to grow concerned. The 26-year-old reportedly spent hours using various objects to obsessively make patterns.
Staff members at a shelter Emma sometimes stayed at also revealed how she had acted erratically. The shelter workers believed that she had exhibited symptoms of depression and paranoia.
Strange Behavior Leading Up To Emma’s Disappearance
Just over one week before Emma’s disappearance, on November 20, 2012, the 26-year-old was captured on surveillance footage while at the downtown Victoria YMCA. In the footage, she can be seen walking in and out of YMCA four times in under 15 minutes.
During that time, Emma also went back to the doors to peer outside before reentering the building. And because of what she was holding– either an iPod or just fidgeting with her hands– authorities thought that Emma might have believed she was being followed.
Then, five days before Emma vanished, she phoned her mother, Shelley, and reportedly begged for help getting back to Perth. At that time, Shelley reassured her daughter and claimed that she would definitely pick up or help Emma in getting home.
The very next day, though, Emma called her mother back and insisted that her plans to travel home were canceled.
This same pattern occurred four days in a row. And according to Shelley, her daughter kept saying that she “did not know how she could face her.”
