When 12-year-old Lisa Mott left her home in regional Western Australia on October 30, 1980, her mother assumed she would see her in a few hours.
The schoolgirl spent two hours shooting hoops and chatting with her friends in Collie in the state's southwest.
Lisa and a friend went to a pizza shop opposite the courts and returned a few minutes later, before heading home at about 9pm. A friend walked her part of the way and last saw Lisa getting into a yellow panel van on Forrest Street.
Lisa never made it home.
Forty-four years on, her family is still desperate for answers.
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It's the cold case that has haunted Collie for decades, yet no body or crime scene has ever been found. This week, detectives visited the town to issue a fresh appeal for information and vowed to "never give up" until they get justice for Lisa's family.
"It's every parent's worst nightmare — losing a bright young child without any explanation," Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Dowding said.
"We want to find that explanation and we believe that's possible with the help of the community. Any small piece of information may be all we need to progress this investigation and find the answers for Lisa's family."
Police believe Lisa was murdered, but for more than two decades, they had no fresh leads.
Initially, one of Lisa's friends was the lone witness of the yellow panel van. But in 2004, a second witness, a 57-year-old man, came forward and corroborated the story.
"He umpired at basketball, so he'd seen the two girls and seen the yellow panel van too," Dowding said in a new episode of the WA Police's Cold Case: Western Australia podcast.
Police reviewed 170 panel vans in the southwest area. Investigations revealed there were about 600 yellow Holden or Ford vans registered between 1970 and 1980.
