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Murder in the Orchard? The Disappearance of Judy Yorke

As another anniversary goes by, the family of the young mum from New Zealand hopes a guilty conscience could one day spark a confession.

Verity Partington
4 min readOct 24, 2022
Judy Yorke, who vanished in 1992

It has now been 30 years since Judith Yorke went missing after going out to a party in Matapihi in her native New Zealand, and investigators are no closer to finding out what happened to her than they were in 1992.

More than 30 potential witnesses were in the orchard where she was last seen that night — so will one of them ever step forward to do the right thing?

A night out leads to the unthinkable

Judy Yorke was 25 and the mother of two small children on 21st October 1992. She was off on a rare night out and had arranged to drop the kids off with her parents at 7:00 PM so they could stay the night before she collected them the next day.

Her daughter Shannon was just three and told RNZ that although she can barely remember her mother now, she clearly recalls that fateful night when she was dropped off for the final time.

“I clearly remember sitting on my nan’s lap wrapped up in an itchy blanket. Mum waved goodbye and that was that,” she said.

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Verity Partington
Verity Partington

Written by Verity Partington

A writer and author of crime thrillers living in the UK. Partial to books, stationery, papercrafts and walking. You can find her books on Amazon here: https://a

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