Qld: Public support keeps mssing teen's family going

AAP General News (Australia)
04-20-2004
Qld: Public support keeps mssing teen's family going

By Rosemary Desmond and Nikki Todd

BRISBANE, April 20 AAP - Denise and Bruce Morcombe won't give up.

And they want to make sure the public also won't forget the search is still on for
their missing son Daniel.

The Sunshine Coast couple today met Queensland Premier Peter Beattie at state parliament
today as politicians donned red ribbons for the campaign to find clues to Daniel's disappearance.

The Morcombes released 1,000 red balloons in a Brisbane park, prompting truck and crane
drivers on nearby building sites to sound their horns in support.

Mrs Morcombe said the support from the public helped keep her family from losing hope.

"What keeps us going every day, is just everything that everyone is doing for us,"

she told reporters.

All the Morcombes want is a clue to what happened to Daniel on December 7 last year
as he stood waiting for a bus under the Kiel Mountain Road overpass on the Nambour Connection
Road.

Police fear the teenager, who was heading to the local shopping centre to buy Christmas
presents for his family, was abducted by two men seen with a blue old model, four-door
sedan, near the bus stop.

Around $100,000 has been raised from large corporate donations down to community sausage
sizzles and car washes towards an advertising blitz to be run in Cairns in the north down
to Newcastle in the south.

But Mrs Morcombe said many media outlets had donated time and space to the campaign
whose true value was now closer to $250,000.

Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson will officially launch the campaign in
Brisbane next Tuesday (April 27) before the two-week media focus switches to northern
NSW.

"The suspect blue vehicle has NSW number plates," Daniel's father Bruce Morcombe said.

Mr Beattie told state parliament anyone with information should come forward to police.

Despite a massive police investigation involving more than 100 officers, few significant
leads on the boy have been made.

Addressing Daniel's family in the public gallery, Mr Beattie said he spoke for all
Queenslanders when he said his thoughts and prayers were with them.

"I would urge all Queenslanders and all Australians, if you have any information of
any kind, no matter how small or how insignificant you may think it is, to come forward
to Crime Stoppers, because it may be the key," Mr Beattie said.

"If anyone knows the people involved in this matter I would urge them to search their
conscience and to come clean and come forward to police."

AAP rad/sc/pw/jlw

KEYWORD: MORCOMBE NIGHTLEAD(PIX AVAILABLE)

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