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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/data-babe on 2024-01-15 00:32:22+00:00.
At 5am on Monday June 21, 2004, Jim Donnelly left his home in Dannemora, Auckland, for Glenbrook Steel Mill where he'd worked as a scientist for nearly 20 years. He signed in, changed into his work uniform - and hasn't been seen since.
Jim exhibited some strange behaviour in the week before his disappearance. Twice he had asked his wife, Tracey, to come home early so he could explain why he wanted to join the Freemasons. He seemed anxious and went for walks for hours at a time. On the Saturday night before his disappearance, Jim and Tracey were meant to spend the night at an Auckland hotel but he left the home unexpectedly for an 'urgent meeting', and told Tracey that he might be 'a little fragile' when he returned. A few hours later he returned home, wearing a hired suit. The night at the hotel did not go ahead. On Sunday, he paced the house and told Tracey he needed to divert a "crisis and a waste" but again gave no further details.
On Monday he left for work as usual. Tracey called Jim's best friend, Stephen, to arrange a meeting between the two men that night, hoping that Jim would open up to Stephen. Soon after this, Jim called Tracey back as he'd heard that someone had been trespassed from his workplace on Sunday night. The number plate matched Jim's. Stephen called the steel mill and after finding his parking spot empty, steel mill staff told him that Jim wasn't at work. Stephen and his wife went to the Donnelly home to see if he was there - he wasn't. He asked staff at the mill to look for his car again - they found it, parked in a different part of the car park. At this point Tracey went to the police and reported Jim missing.
The investigation found that Jim had arrived at work, put a muffin he'd purchased on the way to work on his desk, and changed into his uniform - after that there were no sightings of him. He had a daily handover meeting at 9am which he didn't attend and his work computer had not been turned on.
Initially it was thought that perhaps Jim was injured somewhere on or around the mill grounds. The area was searched by police and mill staff but there was no sign of him. His friends went back that night to search themselves, wondering if Jim was avoiding police, and left food for him which was never touched. You can see the area on Google Maps; it's a remote area right by the Waikato river.
The night of his disappearance, a car pulled up next to Jim's car in the carpark. After spotting the police, the car's lights were turned off and it drove away. Tracey believes that someone involved in his disappearance had returned to move his car but she and Jim's friends had raised the alarm earlier than they'd expected. The car has never been identified.
Three days after Jim's disappearance, a digger operator saw someone matching Jim's description 'running for his life' in a direction away from the searchers. Two days after that, his hard hat was found beside a vat of low-strength acid in a supposedly 'secure' area of the mill that had already been searched. The hard hat was not tested for fingerprints. The vat was drained and inside searchers found his work ID card, PalmPilot, safety glasses, and work key, which was normally kept on a keyring with the rest of his keys which have never been recovered. There were also his credit cards and some cash that had presumably been removed from his wallet which has also never been found. The lead investigator has said that he thinks this scene looked 'staged'. It has been confirmed that the acid was dilute and would not have been strong enough to dissolve human remains, although it's possible that an outsider didn't know this.
Eventually the search for Jim was scaled back after finding no trace of him. The case was reopened in 2010 but this doesn't seem to have led to anything. Police talked to experts about draining sewage ponds within walking distance of the mill but they were told that the contents were so corrosive that they would have dissolved human remains and that they'd be wasting their time.
Some speculate that he was gay and ran away to start a new life. Others theorise that he had a mental breakdown and died by suicide. Tracey believes that something was done to him inside the steel mill, while the steel mill thinks that he left the premises. Police have considered four theories: accident, suicide, staged disappearance, and foul play. It doesn't seem that they've ruled any of these out. In 2007, a coroner's report stated that what happened to Jim is unexplained but "the presumption is Jim has died”.
This article gives a good overview of the timeline before Jim's disappearance and this one gives more details of the facts. The podcast "A Moment in Crime" by Anna Leask at NZME (publisher of the New Zealand Herald) is excellent and has much, much more detail than I could include here including an interview with Tracey - I would highly recommend listening to it if you're interested in the case.
I lean towards some kind of mental break or psychotic episode and paranoia that led to him attempting to run away and eventually dying by accident somewhere - but then how did the helmet and other items show up in the mill days later?? He wasn't a heavy drinker, gambler, or known drug user so it seems unlikely that he ended up involved with the criminal underworld.
Sources:
NZ Herald: Mystery at the mill: The strange and unsolved disappearance of scientist Jim Donnelly
Times Online: Man’s disappearance baffles police two decades later
NZ Herald: Donnelly case reopened
Stuff: The Lost: What happened to Jim Donnelly?
RNZ: Jim Donnelly - The answer lies in the mill
Howick and Pakuranga Times: Man’s disappearance still confounds police two decades later