'False hope' for family after old post from Jess Boyce pops up on Facebook
Wednesday, 29 May 2019
An admin error is to blame after the Facebook account of a missing Marlborough woman published a post to a public Facebook page.
Renwick woman Jessica Boyce's Facebook account posted a vehicle advertisement to a Nelson buy, sell and trade page about 3pm on Tuesday, almost 10 weeks after she disappeared.
Boyce was last seen on March 19, driving her mother's ute. Two hikers found the ute near Lake Chalice, in the Mount Richmond Forest Park, 90 minutes west of Blenheim, on March 22.
Her post, which advertised the sale of a 2007 Subaru Forester, mirrored an old post of hers, which she published to a different Nelson buy, sell and trade page in September 2018.
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Boyce's cousin Aaron Goodwin said it was likely her new post was also submitted in September, but appeared eight months later because her page membership was approved on Tuesday.
'The admin of that group has sent a screen shot showing that Jess's membership was approved at the same time her post appeared on that group page,' Goodwin said.
'The administrator clicked 'approve all' when dealing with the build up of pending membership requests to the group, rather than approve an individual one for Jess alone, which is why he didn't pick up on this at the start.'
He said the family had asked the page's administrators to disable comments on the post to prevent rumours or false information from spreading.
Goodwin said when he first saw the post he was 'shocked', but thought it must have been an administration glitch.
'I've sent her a tonne of messages since she disappeared and they're all still pending. If she had logged into her account, the messages would have gone from 'pending' to 'sent',' he said.
A police spokeswoman said on Wednesday police were aware an automated post was made from Boyce's Facebook page.
'We are confident it was not posted by Jessica following her disappearance,' the spokeswoman said.
Goodwin said in a Facebook post on Tuesday night that the constant ups and downs were 'a nightmare'.
'So much false hope keeps coming though, but it always vanishes when we reach out to grab it,' his post said.
Goodwin said Boyce's younger sister was 'gutted' after finding out the post did not come from Boyce, 'because she thought Jess was using Facebook'.
Boyce's mother, Kay Johnstone, said her daughter's re-posted Facebook advert sparked messages from friends and family who checked in to see if Boyce had been found, but Johnstone told them she hadn't.
The family did not have access to Boyce's Facebook account, she said. She had reached out to Facebook, police and the admin of the buy, sell and trade page about the post, she said.
Police and LandSAR searched the forest park and its huts when Boyce's vehicle was found, but suspended efforts on March 26.
Two Nelson LandSAR members revisited the forest park in their own time earlier this month, and search teams kept an eye out for clues to Boyce's disappearance while searching for Nelson man Philip Young two weeks ago.
No official searches had been held since efforts were suspended.
The helpfindjess.org website was set up by Boyce's family last month so people could write in anonymously.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Blenheim police on 03 578 5279. Alternatively, anonymous tips can be passed on to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.