Presuming Melissa did leave Matthew Henderson’s Lambton Rd flat and walk out into the night on Monday, April 18, at 1am, where did she go? She doesn’t return to her friend’s home in Charlestown for which she had a key. And she doesn’t go to her other friend in Jesmond.
It seems, if she is still alive, healthy and not under coercion, that she pursues new living arrangements altogether, as we’ll see below.
Matthew Henderson tells a friend she was going to tell Scott Hunt their marriage is over, but tells police she doesn’t speak to him at all as she leaves.
As we read in the April 18, 1994 post, there are sightings at Hunt’s place at Whitebridge from the 18th, but these are discounted.
Hunt and Henderson both claim they never see her again after the events of the 16th-18th and one or both ring some of Melissa’s friends to see if she is with them.
But there is another contact with Melissa after the 18th that has not been widely reported.
Scott Hunt says that Melissa rings him on Tuesday, April 19 and asks him to meet her at a home in Wallsend. Scott says she is staying there with a prostitute friend, and they arrange to meet at about 1.30pm. When he arrives Melissa is not there and the woman who lives there knows nothing about the plan to meet and doesn’t know where Melissa has gone.
This evidence was shared with me in 2019 and I’ve not seen it in other reporting. It brings us to within six days of when Melissa’s body was found, and as the autopsy suggested she had been in the dam for at least three days (possibly six), then we are hearing something of Melissa’s movements and contacts mere days from her death.
Why has Melissa moved away from the more familiar territory of Waratah, Whitebridge, Charlestown to Wallsend? Was she afraid of someone – perhaps someone not visible to us in these accounts – that keeps her on the move? How did she get to Wallsend and why did she want to meet Scott? Why did she change her mind and where did she go next?
We have no real answers to these questions, but we have two further sightings to discuss in subsequent posts. One was reported to me in 2020 and the other was made to police in 1994.
>> I’ll continue detailing what we know of Melissa’s movements during this time, immediately before her death, in the hope it stirs someone’s memory, or someone’s conscience. Next up Wednesday, April 20.<<
If you know anything about the murder of Melissa Hunt, my sister, please contact Crime Stoppers or contact me through this blog.
The unsolved murder of Melissa Hunt 