June, 2024, will mark the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of east Auckland man Jim Donnelly.
The Times is looking back through a series of stories at one of the most baffling unsolved cases in recent New Zealand history.
Donnelly was 43 years old when he went missing on Monday, June 21, 2004.
He hasn’t been seen since and his whereabouts are a total mystery to his loved ones and the police.
The married father-of-two was living with his wife Tracey and their two young children in Dannemora when he disappeared.
Coroner Sam Herdson held an inquest hearing on the matter in Auckland in 2007.
Her subsequent report states when Donnelly vanished he’d been working at Glenbrook Steel Mill in Waiuku, South Auckland, in a supervisory engineering role for 19 years.
Despite extensive searches at the mill and surrounding area, and an in-depth investigation, the coroner found what happened to him remains unexplained but “the presumption is Jim has died”.
Vehicle found in car park
Inspector Dave Glossop previously held the file on Donnelly’s disappearance before it was transferred to detective inspector Shaun Vickers of Counties Manukau Police.
While Glossop wasn’t involved in the initial investigation, he has colleagues and friends who were and he knows as much about the case as anyone.
He says police learned Donnelly had arrived at work as normal that day but his behaviour was unusual.
“He was acting strangely at his locker and when he was seen walking up the gantry, like he was trying to hide from people.
“Jim went into an office he shared with other people and when they arrived he wasn’t there.
“The muffin he’d bought for lunch was sitting on his desk.
“I think all the time about scenarios but can’t believe he would have been taken out under duress without everybody seeing him.”
Donnelly’s vehicle was in the mill’s car park, but extensive searches of its grounds failed to establish where he’d gone.
Glossop says it’s possible someone who worked with Donnelly knows what happened to him.
“There’s always a chance someone at the mill has held back information from police.
“But I have no reason to disbelieve anybody and the amount of media that’s been done on this in New Zealand and overseas … it’s been picked up because it’s so strange.
“It’s been the subject of podcasts, it’s been on TV, and there’s nothing that’s ever come out to date that’s been useful.”
The hard hat
One of the strangest aspects of the case centres on Donnelly’s safety hard hat, which was found five days after he went missing.
It was located near an acid vat inside Glenbrook Steel Mill, leading some people to speculate his body may have been in the vat.
“We are 100 per cent certain the hard hat wasn’t there on the days of the search,” Glossop says.
“It stood out and it was in a thoroughfare, an area that people were walking past.
“It’s a big yellow hat with ‘Donnelly’ written on the front and it’s a bespoke hat and old style. It has earmuffs attached to it.”
Glossop believes the hard hat was placed where it was found five days later to draw police to the acid vat.
“We found [in the vat] his wallet, his Palm Pilot, and a lock he used to lock out machines so they couldn’t be turned on, and we found banknotes.
“Why would someone throw cash away? But then there are telltale things that weren’t thrown away like his father’s watch, which meant a lot to him. That wasn’t in there.
“And the fact his car was still there. Everything is a mystery.”
Glossop says the mill runs 24-7 and he doesn’t know how someone would be able to walk around it carrying Donnelly’s hard hat to then place by the acid vat without being seen.
“It’s uniquely known as his hat and to put it there without being detected, you can’t walk around without a helmet on in that place.
“You have to wear all your safety gear and they’re very good at enforcing that. So who put it there?
“The only options are either Jim returned to the scene five days after he disappeared and placed his hat there, or someone else did.”
Glossop says the acid in the vat was not strong enough to dissolve a human body.
Police drained it and an examination by Environmental Science and Research found no trace of body fat.
Even the banknotes found in the vat weren’t damaged, just discoloured, he says.
“There’s no way to get in there [to the vat]. You would have to go through some rollers.
“You couldn’t just climb in, so what was the purpose of that red herring?
“My belief is the hard hat was not there during the search but was put there later.”
The next story in this series examines more of the evidence relating to Donnelly’s disappearance.
