Wife Is Shocked To Run Into Her Long-Lost Husband At A Mall Parking Lot, After Him Being Missing For 10 Years

October 8, 2018

A woman could not believe her eyes when she ran into her husband who has been missing for over a decade.

An unexpected sighting

Sandie Gillette was shocked when she saw her husband – and the father of her two children – at a mall, about 1800km from where she last saw him.

The last time Sandie saw Russell Jenkin was in September of 2006 when he walked out of their home after a heated argument. He never came back. Russell simply disappeared, leaving Sandie and their two sons, Ethan, 4 at the time, and Charlie, who was 2.

Since he went missing, Sandie did everything within her power to find him. They appealed to the public and the police even took it on as a missing person's case, but no one ever saw him.

Then, one day, in 2017, a chance encounter left Sandie bewildered. She saw her husband face to face and could not believe it. Sandie told AU News that she always felt he was still out there, but running into him "was a bit of a shock."

via GIPHY

The sighting took place on January 27. Sandie was with 15-year-old Ethan and her daughter from another relationship when she encountered Russell as they walked out of a shopping center. The man Sandie believed to be her long-lost husband was walking right toward her.

She turned to her teenage son and told him that was his father coming up to them. The young boy had only one photo of him – the one that was used in the case since the rest were destroyed in a flood. After checking online later, the teen agreed with his mom that it was Russell.

Sandie said the man was only close to them for a few moments and she was not sure if that was really her long-lost husband, so she never approached him.

In my head, there was this argument. Is it? Isn’t it? But it definitely was him. We were very close and we kept watching each other walk past. And yeah, whether he was realising that was us, just as he were realising that was him, it was dumbfounding. We weren’t even a car length apart and we just bypassed each other staring.

As Sandie got in the car with her kids and drove away, the man continued to watch them. She wished she had said something to them, she revealed.

But at the same time I don’t really know what to say. It’s been a long time and obviously people’s lives change. Whether he lives there or was just passing through, I’m just positive it was him. I don’t know if it is the awkwardness of the situation ... He could have approached us too, but what do you say to someone who has been missing for over 10 years?

Sandie was initially hesitant to report the sighting, however, her children urged her to tell the authorities.

The internet is skeptical

As Sandie's reported sighting made the news, many people were skeptical about whether or not she really saw her husband.

Some just could not get past the fact that she did not say something to him and others wondered why she waited months to report it.

We guess, like Sandie, we'll probably never know what really happened to Russell all these years. It could have been good for the family to get a closure though.