Belinda Williams

Ballarat family still searching for answers following murder of Belinda Williams

by · The Courier

More than two decades later and the family of a doting mum killed in Ballarat is still without answers.

Belinda Williams was 36-years-old when when she had two girlfriends over to her newly rented Buninyong home on June 25, 1999.

After hugging her friends goodbye about 9.30pm, she changed into her nightgown and crawled into bed with her daughter and read her a story.

It is believed that sometime after that the much-loved daughter, sister and mother was murdered in her Elizabeth Street home while her six-year-old daughter slept.

When Mietta woke around 9am, her mother had vanished.

Mietta phoned her father, who reportedly searched for Belinda throughout the morning before reporting her as missing.

The case has long been a mystery, as family and friends insist Belinda never would have left her daughter alone.

Read more: Who killed Belinda Williams? 20 years on and still no answers

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Read more: More than two decades and still no answers

The doors to the house were locked, none of her valuables taken and the clothes she had changed out of the previous evening were still crumpled on the bathroom floor.

Extensive searches of the area were undertaken for almost two weeks. Eventually it was two walkers who found Belinda's lifeless body - still in her nightgown - lying in scrub off the Mt Buninyong access road.

While decades have passed and a $1 million reward for information that leads to a break in the case is on the table, nobody has ever been charged.

The grief is still just as raw for her mother, Shirley Macey, as it was when her daughter's body was first discovered.

As another anniversary passes, Ms Macey's desperation for answers grows.

In ill health, Ms Macey appealed for anyone in the community with information - no matter how small - to contact authorities.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or to make a confidential report online: https://www.crimestoppersvic.com.au/report-a-crime

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