23 Years After A Father Mysteriously Vanished, His Family Received Handwritten Letter In The Mail

23 years after a father mysteriously vanished his family received a handwritten letter in the mail at their home on Australia's Sunshine Coast Gabriel Nagy's family receive a mysterious letter in the mail 23 years previously they lost a husband and father with no explanation a man who simply vanished without a trace now they are about to discover what really happened all those years ago although it played out mostly in Australia Nagy's story actually began thousands of miles away in Germany there his parents met and fell in love in the aftermath of the Second World War however prospects in the country were bleak and soon the couple decided to seek their fortune elsewhere when Nagy was just a young boy his family emigrated to Australia but while they soon settled in Sydney in New South Wales life was far from easy in fact made he claims that he was often left to care for his ailing mother while his father regularly worked away from home eventually however he grew up and started a family of his own by January 1987 Negi was still living in Sydney and married to a woman named Pamela together the couple had two children Stephen then 11 and Jennifer 9 apparently the family lived a comfortable life supported by Nagy's job as a shop fitter meanwhile he was studying to become an accountant but even though the children remember him as a loving father Negi admits that he often struggled to get by a few things took me off I suppose the straight and narrow he told Vision Christian radio in an undated interview not making correct decisions was one of them in that I suppose I got married too early too quickly not thinking the consequences through and soon he found himself overwhelmed by the challenges of family life but despite Negi struggles there was apparently little to indicate just how badly things were about to go on January 21st the father of two telephoned Pamela and told her that he was on his way back to the family home but even though she was expecting him to arrive for lunch he never appeared the next day Pamela's confusion turned to fear when her husband's vehicle was found abandoned at the roadside apparently the car was now just a burnt-out shell for his family it was the start of a baffling mystery he'd never been away from home without telling anyone Jennifer told The Courier Mail in 2012 before long Nagy's disappearance had turned into a full-blown missing person investigation it was very soon after that everyone started rallying around and started putting out the big alarm bells Jennifer recalled then some two weeks after his car was discovered there came another break in the case apparently Nagy had visited a bank and withdrawn money in New Castle a city some 100 miles to the north there he had reportedly used it to purchase outdoor supplies but then the trail went cold and for more than 20 years Pamela and her children were left to wonder what had happened to the missing man growing up Jennifer's struggled to come to terms with the fact that her father had disappeared and that she might never know why it was just so traumatic for everyone she recalled it really affected me emotionally people would ask where's her dad it was too much too painful nobody had any answers to explain the sudden disappearance of a dad who was a loving caring father Jennifer continued I thought he was my world and all of a sudden it's taken away from me but as the years passed she came no closer to understanding why her father had vanished without a trace after a while Pamela Stephen and Jennifer left their home in Sydney and relocated to the Sunshine Coast some 500 miles away in Queensland ever hopeful they ensured that their details were kept on record in case nagy decided to return however they eventually came to believe that their husband and father had died then some 23 years after Nagi's disappearance something incredible happened for the past 10 years Senior Constable Georgia Robinson had been trying unsuccessfully to get to the bottom of the strange case but now she was nearing the end of the line and preparing to have Negi legally declared dead however as Robinson gathered information for the hearing at the coroner's court she decided to make one last attempt at tracking Nagy down and this time she struck gold apparently a Gabriel Miggy had recently undergone operations on his AI and Australia's Health Authority Medicare had documented the procedures soon the records were traced to man also known as Ron Saunders who had recently begun using the name Gabriel Nagy apparently he was living in Mackay a city on the East Queensland coast over 1,000 miles from where Pamela's husband had disappeared and before long the police had arrived at his door hoping to finally get to the bottom of the mystery officers handed over Robinson's contact details and a few days later Saunders picked up the phone she wanted to come up and talk with me he told The Courier Mail according to him the past 20 years of his life had been a confusing blur at the time Saunders was living and working at McKay's River of Life Church however he had spent much of the past two decades homeless and wandering from place to place with no real idea of where he came from there was something in the back of my head there that I must have done something wrong to have been living the way I was he recalled intrigued Saunders agreed to meet with Robinson and soon she traveled to Mackay to confirm her suspicions that Gabriel Nagy had finally been found happily she was quick to dispel the confused man's fears the first thing she said when she arrived was you haven't killed anybody you're not wanted by police you're a missing person and that's not a crime Saunders explained but where Saunders and Negi really the same men and if so what had he been doing for the past 23 years apparently Robinson began by showing Saunders pictures from Maggie's life and asking him questions about his past and soon the memories that had been buried began to return it was like a cartoon where flashbulbs go off on top of people's heads Saunders explained she gave me a letter from Jennifer a letter from Pam and letters from my dead and stepmum and together they managed to piece together the incredible story that had taken a father and husband so far from home apparently one of the first things that Nicky could remember was being in Newcastle having sustained a serious head injury according to some reports he had been injured in a car accident but whatever the truth he found himself alone in a city with no recollection of his previous life while Nagi's family searched for him the missing man found himself homeless and with no clue about his real identity it was just a big blank in the back of my mind he told vision and every time I tried to think about it it just made me wonder was I crazy what happened to me and then I'd think to myself what have I done to be in such a position confused Negi began to suspect that might have been a criminal in his previous life I just feel guilty and think maybe I've committed murder or a bank robbery or something he explained I'll just shut up and forget about it then I'd occasionally jump inside a bottle and that had helped me really forget stuff according to experts Nagy had fallen into what's known as a dissociative or ugh state apparently this is a rare but traumatic neurological condition that can cause sufferers to forget their own identities moreover it's a disorder that can sometimes prompt individuals to travel inadvertently leaving their old lives behind interestingly the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders known as the dsm-5 describes the experience as bewildered wandering and certainly that is the state that it seemed Maggie had found himself in in fact he had spent the next two decades living on the streets relying on the occasional kindness to get by over the years Negi traveled steadily northwards from newcastle first arriving in the city of Gladstone on the Queensland coast eventually he moved on to rockhampton where he was offered a temporary place to live and work on a local farm elsewhere he picked up casual jobs building and fishing around the state in Cardwell in Queensland's far north Negi found himself passing a place called saunders beach with no idea of his real name he decided to become Ron Saunders an identity chosen for its ordinary sounding nature meanwhile he continued wandering finding odd jobs to sustain him along the way today Negi has little recollection of the reasoning behind his continued travels nevertheless it was one of these seemingly random adventures that finally led him to the truth apparently he found an old bike at a tip and decided to ride it south and for three days he cycled through all the daylight hours stopping only to rest and scavenge food from Benz eventually Negi or sunders as he was then known made it to Mackay where he stopped to rest and there he encountered Barrie heigh-ho the pastor of the River of Life Church and even though he did not think of himself as a homeless man he soon accepted the meals that hey-ho and his wife had on offer apparently back then I looked like a greyhound naggy told vision all ribs skin and bone and soon he found himself volunteering for hey hos congregation however he wanted more and before long the pastor had offered him work as a caretaker at the church a position that came with its own accommodation now off the streets Nagy spent two years living and working at McKay's River of Life Church then suddenly fleeting memories of his old life began to return I'd been living under a pseudonym for a long time but I'd been having flashes of my proper name things were slowly returning he told The Courier Mail with hay hose help Nagy was able to reclaim the identity that he had lost many years ago meanwhile he had managed to land a permanent job working part-time in a nursing home but while his life was coming together at last it wasn't until his I operations that the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place after Robinson tracked Nagy down she left it up to him whether or not he chose to contact the family that he had left behind but that very afternoon he began penning a letter to his long-lost loved ones meanwhile Pamela Stephen and Jennifer were informed that the missing man was alive i sat down and wrote the longest letter I've ever written in my life seven and a half pages on both sides of the paper Nagy recalled eventually he finished and popped the note in the post happily only a few days passed before he received a text message that made his heart leap it said hi dad and that was enough to make me cry Nagy explained she wrote that she had finished the letter and she still loved me and amazingly Jennifer wasn't the only family member who was keen to get in touch ten minutes later the phone rang and it was Pam he recalled we talked until the battery died just weeks later Jennifer decided to fly out to Mackay and reunite with the father that she had not seen for 23 years he met me at the airport with a big bunch of flowers she told the courier mail it was like it was all in slow motion and we ran through the airport into each others arms around the same time Nagy was also able to reunite with his father although his mother and younger sister had sadly passed away travelling to Sydney he also met his niece and nephew for the first time it was just like in the Bible the prodigal son coming home he told vision it was unreal although Negi plans to continue living in Mackay he is now in regular contact with Pamela and his children and the family are making up for lost time meanwhile jennifer has spoken out about how important it is for the loved ones of missing people to get some answers I want to give people hope that sometimes good things can happen miracles can happen she told The Courier Mail if you have left home for whatever reason ring and let somebody know you are okay Jennifer continued it doesn't have to be your family the not knowing can really really affect you in the end meanwhile Nagy himself credits religion for giving him a second chance at life and even though he knows that his relationship with his children will never be the same as it was before he disappeared he is grateful for the time that they have been able to share today Nagy still bears a scar from the injury that allegedly kick-started his ordeal and while he has apparently conquered his addiction to alcohol he still occasionally struggles with his mental health I'm still a bit crazy at times but in a better way than I was before he told vision at least I've grown up a bit I'm making better decisions you

Channel: Americans Channel

Views: 379,876

Rating: 4.6033316 out of 5

Keywords: 23, years, after, father, mysteriously, vanished, his, family, received, handwritten, letter, in, the, mail, Americans Channel

Id: c5-QU5QmhFw

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2019