THE Daniel Thomas story began with the seemingly nondescript report of a missing child.
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I can clearly remember the Friday night of October 18, 2003, even more than a decade after Daniel’s disappearance.
As I finished my shift in the newsroom I took note of a colleague’s message there was a little boy missing at Myrtleford, mainly because I was working that weekend and I knew it would be something to check with police the following day.
There were few other details and a brief report appeared in the Saturday paper, but when I called police that morning there was still no news of the missing boy’s whereabouts and police and emergency services volunteers had launched a full-scale search for him.
Photographer Peter Merkesteyn and I arrived in Myrtleford to find Search and Rescue Squad officers had been joined by the dog squad and volunteers from various North East SES and CFA units to scour the surrounding parks, vacant land and stormwater drains for any sign of the little boy, who we now knew was Daniel, aged 2½.
There was little reason to believe this was anything but a toddler who had wandered away from home while being cared for by his babysitter, then identified only as a woman named Mandy, while his mother Donna was away at Shepparton.
Peter and I spent some time waiting in front of the house in Standish Street, Myrtleford, where Daniel had been living with his mother and where he was reportedly last seen at about 3pm that Friday.
The search for Daniel had moved further away from the house and as it went on that first weekend and in the days that followed, it became increasingly unlikely such a young child would have wandered so far.
There was no sign of the toddler who had been wearing distinctive bandages on his arms and legs because he suffered severe eczema and a bandage on his forehead from what police described as a “previous injury”.
I spoke with neighbours in Standish Street, many awoken that morning and the night before by the police helicopter that had been circling above Myrtleford directing the search on the ground below and looking for any indication as to where Daniel might have gone.
But it was a chance encounter out the front of Daniel’s home with his father, Kevin Ruffels, that allowed the full story to begin to unfold to The Border Mail.
“He’s such a tiny little boy and he’s a dear little boy and I’d ask you to really look out for him."
- DOROTHY RUFFELS (DANIEL'S GRANDMOTHER)
Mr Ruffels, estranged from Ms Thomas eight months before, had been a part-time father to Daniel, moving to the North East from Melbourne to be closer to his parents and other family.
Ms Thomas had followed him from Melbourne to Myrtleford where she had been living for only a couple of months.
He had been told by police of Daniel’s disappearance on the Friday and he had spent most of Saturday keeping vigil in Standish Street, a lonely figure seated on a plastic chair in front of the skate park and children’s playground in a seemingly ideal family neighbourhood.
Mr Ruffels had not seen his son for about two months but was obviously shocked at his disappearance and was hoping Daniel would be found in someone else’s care, describing him as “a beautiful little boy”.
That weekend I also met Daniel’s elderly grandparents, Lloyd and Dorothy Ruffels, for the first time.
Etched on their faces was the exhaustion caused by the worry of the child’s disappearance and the effect on their own ill-health.
Mrs Ruffels pleaded for people to pray for Daniel’s safe return, concerned such a tiny child may have slipped the attention of the public during the search for him and obviously worried he may have succumbed to his love of water.
In the decade since that first weekend when a family made a desperate plea for the public’s help to find Daniel Thomas, there have been hundreds of stories in the media and thousands of words have been written about a case that became a notorious child killing.
In our newsroom, I calculated at least eight different journalists have written about the case and the key players since that weekend in October 2003.
In the wake of coroner Jacinta Heffey’s handing down of findings into Daniel’s death, I reflect upon Dorothy Ruffels’ initial plea for help to find her grandson and I am desperately sad at the truth that has since emerged.
“He’s such a tiny little boy and he’s a dear little boy and I’d ask you to really look out for him,” Mrs Ruffels told the media that weekend.
The story that was first about a missing child has become a sickening reality about a little boy who was tortured to death by one woman and betrayed by another who should have been his protector.
The tragedy is we now know no-one had been looking out for Daniel in what would ultimately be his short and sad life.