Hetet said not having any answers made it a \u201clonely world\u201d for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not able to put them to rest [and] that\u2019s a different loss. <\/p>\n
\u201cI will carry it forever until we find him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The night of the disappearance<\/p>\n
Hetet said Brown was celebrating a cousin\u2019s 30th birthday on the night he was last seen.<\/p>\n
Hetet\u2019s uncle had died and she was involved in preparations for the funeral at a marae the next day, so she didn\u2019t attend the party.<\/p>\n
She said Brown had made plans to attend the funeral and had even bought a new black shirt for it.<\/p>\n
Hetet said the last time she saw Brown was before the birthday party and \u201che was excited\u201d.<\/p>\n
Aydan Brown has not been seen since August. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n
They shared a kiss and said \u2018I love you\u2019 before he left around 5pm.<\/p>\n
\u201cLittle did we know the last time that we were going to see each other was that time,\u201d she told the Herald.<\/p>\n
Hetet said the couple usually stayed in touch by phone and she messaged Brown around midnight to check how his night was going.<\/p>\n
He responded quickly with \u201cI love you, my babe\u201d \u2013 the last text she received from him.<\/p>\n
She messaged him again around 3.30am, after her work at the marae\u2019s kitchen was finished.<\/p>\n
When messaging Android-to-Android, it leaves two ticks to confirm a text has been sent and received.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt only had the one tick … but it didn\u2019t say that he received it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Terene Hetet at Hamilton Lake, hoping to find answers about what happened to her missing partner.<\/p>\n
She found it odd as his phone or data would need to be off, and Aydan \u201cnever\u201d had either turned off. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe always make contact,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Hetet tried to ring, but the call didn\u2019t go through. Initially, she didn\u2019t think much of it.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until she arrived back at the place they lived in that she really got suspicious. <\/p>\n
She said the shirt he had bought to wear to the funeral was still sitting untouched on her bed.<\/p>\n
Hetet contacted some people from the party and one of Brown\u2019s cousins told her Brown left in the early hours of Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
Aydan Brown was last seen in Hamilton on August 17 and was believed to be driving his 2016 grey Mazda ute.<\/p>\n
According to Hetet, the cousin said Brown even told party attendees that his reason for leaving the party was that he needed to get home for the funeral.<\/p>\n
The drive from the party to their place would only have taken 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
Hetet said she was sure \u201csomething\u2019s happened during that time\u201d.<\/p>\n
Search efforts and investigations<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s family lodged a missing persons report with police on August 19.<\/p>\n
Detective Sergeant Jonathan Carter said police investigated many leads and information provided by the public since Brown was reported missing.<\/p>\n
This included that Brown may have travelled to a rural or bush area in the Waikato or Bay of Plenty.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, despite our efforts, we have still not been able to locate Aydan or his grey Mazda ute,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n
Terene Hetet at Hamilton Lake.<\/p>\n
Police would not confirm if they were treating this as a death.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice have now referred the matter to the coroner.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the active investigation is closed, police may reopen the case if new information that can assist them arises.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said if anyone still has information about Brown or his grey Mazda ute, registration QYA209, could they please contact police using the reference number 250819\/5160, or by calling 105. <\/p>\n
Carter said police \u201cregularly\u201d updated key family members throughout the investigation via a family liaison officer and Brown\u2019s parents.<\/p>\n
Aside from the police searches, Brown\u2019s family also carried out private searches after appealing for information on social media via Waikato, Auckland and Rotorua pages, Hetet said.<\/p>\n
She said they also sought help from a psychic.<\/p>\n
The family unsuccessfully searched across Waikato, Auckland and Rotorua, including the Mamaku Ranges, as Brown used to live there with his grandmother, and a psychic reading pointed them there, she said.<\/p>\n
Hetet said they also contacted commercial diving company Deep Dive Division to carry out an underwater search from the Pukete boat ramp in Hamilton to Ng\u0101ruaw\u0101hia.<\/p>\n
Deep Dive Division managing director, Tua Karalus, confirmed the search and said he was grateful the family reached out. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe see that as our role to play in the community, to help those who don\u2019t have the capability,\u201d Karalus said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love how they\u2019re searching hard-out … they love the guy and they\u2019re doing all they can … to find him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big plans and happiness<\/p>\n
Hetet said she met Brown in June this year and had an instant \u201cdeep connection\u201d.<\/p>\n
She got emotional when speaking to the Waikato Herald at Hamilton Lake, a place she\u2019d visited with Brown a few times.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur first dates were walking around here\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
Brown moved into her home a week before his disappearance.<\/p>\n
Hetet said since then, they had spent some time thinking more about \u201chow we wanted to live life\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hetet said Brown was happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe … had mentioned that he\u2019s never been as happy as he was in a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was thinking about building his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hetet said Brown had many plans and had been looking forward to a lot of things.<\/p>\n
One of the events Brown was particularly looking forward to was a visit from his mum, who is living in Australia and whom he hasn\u2019t seen in eight years.<\/p>\n
Brown also had two sons, whom he hadn\u2019t seen in two years.<\/p>\n
Hetet said Brown missed his mother a lot, and was so excited he \u201cstarted to bawl his eyes out\u201d when he heard she booked tickets to come to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was so over the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown had also planned to reconnect with his two sons at Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething\u2019s happened [to him]… [he] had so much to look forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strong bonds<\/p>\n
Hetet said Brown would also \u201cnever take off\u201d, because of his family\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
She said the family were already struggling with the death of Brown\u2019s brother, who died in Australia a few years ago. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe wouldn\u2019t want to upset his wh\u0101nau … they\u2019re already hurting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hetet said Brown\u2019s disappearance was \u201cout of character\u201d for him and she was \u201cvery suspicious\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t understand how he couldn\u2019t have made it home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe there is somebody out there [who] knows something. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe just want to bring him home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the uncertainty, Hetet finds comfort in Brown\u2019s final messages to her, saying it empowered her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey help keep pushing me, knowing that he loved me … [and] he thought about me in those last moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakat\u0101ne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hetet said not having any answers made it a \u201clonely world\u201d for her. \u201cYou\u2019re not able to put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38864,61545,6256,1121,651,12629,21818,9770,2109,6288,12898,16122,6501,130,111,43,139,69,675,85374,131,61,4518],"class_list":["post-121511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-answers","tag-aydan","tag-brown","tag-case","tag-close","tag-coroner","tag-desperate","tag-disappearance","tag-family","tag-hamilton","tag-investigation","tag-mans","tag-missing","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-refer","tag-than","tag-to","tag-weeks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}