Raymond Stirling's family thank community after great grandfather found

In the 32 days after Raymond Stirling disappeared not a clue was found as to the frail 84-year-old's whereabouts.

Family dropped the great grandfather at his Halcione Cl home amid the overhanging trees not far from the Flagstaff shopping centre at 8pm on Monday, January 15. They'd just spent a week's family holiday at a Coromandel beach. 

When support services pulled up at 11am the next day there was no sign of the Hamilton retiree, who suffered from mild dementia. 

For five weeks his family searched everyday, never giving up hope of finding Stirling and being able to lay him to rest next to his late wife Margaret. 

"Our intention was to keep going until we found him," his daughter Julie Caddigan said on Tuesday, three days after Stirling's body was found.

"Our focus the whole time has been on finding him. We hadn't given up hope at all."

On Saturday afternoon, as family put together plans for a mass search on Sunday, Caddigan's brother Glenn discovered his father's body in a gully off Wairere Dr in Rototuna, about 2km from Stirling's home.

It's difficult for Caddigan to explain how she felt when she got the call from her sister-in-law.

"It was like a sinking feeling, but it shouldn't have been."

"It means everything to us (to find him)."

She said family were surprised at where the father of five was found. Searchers had checked that area before, she said, but no one had delved deep enough into the bush in a part of a gully not easily accessible.

"He wasn't in an easy location to find, had we not have been searching in deep we never would have found him."

Glenn had always been determined to find her father, she said, spending his days and nights searching. On Saturday he'd taken a different path up an almost empty creek in the gully area heading towards Hukanui Rd roundabout.

"That's the only reason he found him, if he'd come from a different angle, you probably wouldn't have found him."

Family were struggling to process how a man of such frail walking ability had navigated such an obscure path to end up around 30 minutes from his home.

"We're all just mulling that over, as to how he got there. And it goes to show even after all that searching we did, he could easily have not been found."

​More than a thousand people turned up to help search over the five weeks, and the outpouring of support from the wider Hamilton community was overwhelming, Caddigan said.

"It actually kept us going. Sometimes when you got disheartened by it, everyone's enthusiasm gave you the encouragement to keep going.

"We just want to thank everybody, people we didn't even know, we feel like we know these people now."

"It was a huge effort from everybody and I can't believe we found him."

Police were in the final processes of formally identifying Stirling's body on Tuesday afternoon while family were now preparing for his funeral.

"He was a lovely, lovely man. Never had a bad word about anybody.

She also wanted to thank the police Search and Rescue for the initial search efforts and communication through the search.

Stirling leaves behind five children, Glenn Stirling, Bruce Stirling, Kim Kelly, Janice Skiffington and Julie Caddigan, two sisters, Margaret and Joyce, and a brother Jimmy, along with 15 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.