There’s never been a funeral service or a body located. He can’t be sure his brother is even dead.

But Walter has done what most families of missing persons are unable to do – grieve.

Peter Thomas Whyte was last seen on January 9, 1986, after he told family he would be going on a photographic expedition in the Grampians.

The 26-year-old was due to return in five days.

Six days later, his family hadn’t received a call to say he was home but they weren’t worried. After all, he was an accomplished bushwalker and knew the area well.

On January 24 his mother reported him missing to police and an extensive search of the Grampians began.

Search and rescue crews, SES, Department of Conservation, local police and the airwing combed the national park for four days to no avail.

The search had a strike of hope when Peter’s white Datsun sedan was found by Walter on February 4.

“I went up to Halls Gap with a youth group to search for him because he hadn’t returned or contacted us. I looked around and found his car in front of the swimming pool,” Walter said.

“The lady (who worked) there had said the car had been there for a few weeks.”

Strangely, Peter’s hiking gear and camera equipment had been left in the boot of the car.

“Peter was very meticulous in having a list of all the gear he was taking and he didn’t have one,” Walter said.

Peter was a New Zealand national and moved to Australia with his family and became a successful adventure photographer, with expeditions to the US and New Zealand.

“He was such an avid bushwalker. It wouldn’t have been out of character for him to hike for days,” Walter said.

“We didn’t know if he had just taken off to go a bit further afield.

“But if he would be going further, he would have driven there.”

Walter said Peter “might have gone for his own reasons” and that “he didn’t like being connected”.

“The Coroner’s report stated that on the balance of probability he would have died shortly after he went missing either by his own hand or someone else’s,” Walter said.

At the time, Walter was confident that Peter did not commit suicide.

“I’d been talking to him shortly before he disappeared and he put it strongly that he would not do that (take his own life) because we had another brother who had done that,” he said.

Prior to the national missing persons database being introduced (after Peter Whyte disappeared), cases had to be reported to individual jurisdictions to be processed by authorities.

An unofficial sighting in the Northern Territory was not followed up because Peter had not been reported missing there.

Walter’s sister wrote letters to backpacker accommodation across the country as Peter was a member of the national Youth Hostel Association.

In 2004, the search returned to the Grampians after a group of Bendigo schoolgirls found human bones 150 metres from the Mount William car park. 

“The detective at the time was so positive it was Peter’s bones,” Mr Whyte said.

However, a coronial inquest found DNA testing returned a negative match.

Further DNA testing in 2008 found the remains to belong to Frederick Laurence Goggin, who went missing from Broadmeadows in 1993, and who was believed to have met with foul play.

Despite the findings, Walter said the discovery of the bones allowed him to mourn for his brother and reach closure.

“I allowed myself to grieve. And it was good because it had built up over the years,” he said.

No funeral service has been held for Peter, and Walter said there was a need for a memorial space for other families whose loved ones had disappeared.

“A memorial service would have been great. I want a missing persons’ memorial board (in Ballarat) because it’s an issue with no closure,” he said.

“It could be somewhere they (families) could take their grief, a memorial board where there are names of a missing person to let people know that there was someone in their hearts.”

Looking over his short garden fence from his humble weatherboard home, Walter laughs intermittently while recounting memories of his brother.

“He always said that if you had more than you could fit in your pack, then you had too much. He was a true bushman,” Walter said.

“I have more than come to terms with it (his disappearance).

“I don’t think he’ll ever knock on the door and say, ‘Hey it’s your long-lost brother’.”

david.jeans@fairfaxmedia.com.au