POLICE are trying to determine how missing Parkes man Ray Wehrstedt travelled from Bathurst hospital to where human remains, believed to be his, were found in a creek beside the Vale Road on Thursday afternoon.
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Officers spent yesterday morning searching a riverbed in South Bathurst where a man’s body was discovered by a member of the public around 3.20pm on Thursday.
Mr Wehrstedt, 60, was last seen walking out of Bathurst hospital’s emergency department in June last year.
While the body is yet to be formally identified, a wallet containing identification belonging to Mr Wehrstedt was found at the site.
The remains were cloaked in clothes similar to those Mr Wehrstedt was wearing when he was last seen.
Inspector Colin Cracknell from Chifley local area command yesterday said police were having difficulty determining how Mr Wehrstedt would have travelled across the city.
“He was probably not capable of walking that distance alone in his confused state,” Insp Cracknell said yesterday. “We’ve commenced a search today to try to identify any other items that may assist with our investigation.”
Mr Wehrstedt’s family has been notified of the discovery. Police are treating his death as suspicious at this stage, primarily because no cause has yet been determined.
Insp Cracknell said the find would, hopefully, provide some closure for the family.
“It will be a relief for the family if we can confirm it is Ray,” he said.
“We’ve collected DNA samples from members of the family which we will use to compare against the DNA of the remains, with the view of obtaining a positive identification.”
The remains have been transported to the Department of Forensic Medicine in Newcastle for a post-mortem to confirm the cause of death.
However, because of a number of variable factors, including the significant decomposition of the body, Insp Cracknell could not say how long the identification process would take.
“It will be an ongoing investigation for some time,” he said.
The body was discovered by a member of the public, who was walking across a bridge beside the Vale Road on Thursday afternoon.
“That person has realised a pile of clothes beside the bridge was actually human remains,” Insp Cracknell said. “A thousand people could have walked across the bridge and not realised what they were looking at.
“There was significant rain on Christmas Day and we believe the remains may have travelled down the creek as a result. We don’t suspect the body has been placed there.”
Police returned to the crime scene yesterday and, with the help of State Emergency Service crews, searched the creek upstream and downstream from where the remains were found.
In the months after Mr Wehrstedt’s disappearance, police conducted a number of full-scale searches of local waterways. These included searches of the Macquarie River in June and stormwater pipes off Durham Street in August.
