Mother Charged With Murder Over Toddler Daughter Who Went Missing More Than 15 Years Ago

Baby Leonie Astra Hutchinson would have been 16 years old today had she not have disappeared in 2001 from her home in Hunter Valley, NSW. Her mother only reported her daughter's disappearance on January 2004. Apparently, Mrs. Hutchinson told her neighbors that her daughter was taken as a sacrifice in her "witchcraft cult."

Yahoo reports that the child had no records of existence. The child has no Medicare or school records, although she had been immunized on October 2001. Little Leonie was last seen on December 2001 accompanied by her mother picking clothes in a shop.

Helen Hutchinson, Kate's mother and Leonie's grandmother, did not know at first that her granddaughter was missing. She was also unsure if her daughter was involved and was baffled that people think that the child was with her.

"I believed Leonie was safe with her mother being monitored by many different organisations and that is what I had been told," Helen said. "So I had no worries up to that point about it."

There have been several inquests on Kate's daughter. She had told people that her daughter is being taken care of by friends but another witness say that Mrs. Hutchinson has been involved in drugs and paranoid about a "wolf-man."

A family friend also presumed that the girl was living in Byron Bay or Coffs Harbour; places where Kate frequently went to. Her friends also told the court that she had been planning to make a daughter to sacrifice it to the "wolf-man," ABC reports.

Kate was arrested at her Evans Head home and taken to Lismore Police Station in New South Wales. She did not apply for bail. The police are investigating where Leonie or her body could be found, according to Daily Telegraph. They believe that the toddler's body may have been hidden in a well in their previous family home.