Sunday marks three years since Ray Speechley disappeared from his Dalmeny aged care home but his daughter hopes a search of a new area on Saturday will bring a new lead.
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Nikii Smith has appealed for everyone to get behind a search on foot near where he was last seen at 4pm on Thursday, July 7, 2016.
The morning after Mr Speechley went missing, Nikii Smith made a promise.
"I remember driving down and looking into the bush saying, 'I will bring you home Dad - I will find you'," she said.
"I just never thought I would be trying to keep the same promise three years later."
It is heartbreaking there have been no leads; not one item of clothing, not one item he was carrying.
- Daughter Nikii Smith
Ms Smith has accepted her father, who suffered Alzheimer's, is most likely deceased. But whatever his fate, she just wants him home.
"I know it sounds strange, but I don't want him out in the bush alone - I want him home with his family," she said.
"That's the promise I have made; to bring him home, one way or another."
Her mission has become a full-time occupation. Her Muswellbrook home has become an office, the dining table piled with papers and the wall covered in maps and grids.
"If I lived down there, I would be out there [searching] all the time," she said.
It is mentally challenging to switch from daughter to detective.
Mr Speechley was last seen wearing jeans and a dark jacket with a pyjama top beneath.
A man similar in description to Mr Speechley was seen on the Princes Highway, Dalmeny, about the same time he is thought to have left the retirement home.
Numerous failed attempts to find Mr Speechley or any of his belongings in the nearby bushland have caused his family heartbreak.
To this day, Ms Smith remains dumbfounded by his disappearance. She continues to look for leads.
Mr Speechley was carrying a glass jar of humbug lollies, a tin of Rawleigh's antiseptic cream and his wallet. They have never been found.
"I come down every couple of months to do a search," she said.
"It is heartbreaking there have been no leads; not one item of clothing, not one item he was carrying."
Mr Speechley was carrying a glass jar of humbug lollies, a tin of Rawleigh's antiseptic cream and his wallet. They have never been found.
"I would love to find the jar of humbugs or the big tin of Rawleigh's cream, just to know we are heading in the right direction," Ms Smith said.
It is mentally challenging to switch from daughter to detective.
"I have had to learn about bones and what happens to them out in the bush," she said.
"It is really hard.
"If I don't put my searcher hat on, it can be quite overwhelming when I get there."
Each year, Ms Smith organises a volunteer search. She explains how bones can have a different appearance, depending on where they are found in the bush.
"You think they will be white, but they can be grey, or in a wet area - green; under foliage - brown," she said.
Ms Smith pragmatically brings animal bones from her farm to show volunteers what to look for.
She hopes 20 people will turn out on Saturday.
"Even if it is raining, I will still go out and look. I don't like wasting a minute," she said.
A drone will map paths.
"From what I have gathered from paperwork from the coroner's office, there is an area which hadn't been searched on foot," she said.
To help, meet at Lawlers Creek Road at 9am on Saturday.
"The more people we get the better," Ms Smith said.
"If we don't get the numbers, I plan it in a way smaller groups can do as well."
Police have appealed for the driver of a red/maroon car, similar to a Honda Accord, to come forward. The car was seen stopped on the side of the Princes Highway around 700 metres north of where Mr Speechley was last sighted.
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