Mum's plea on NSW daughter's cold case

Police and devastated family members are hoping a $100,000 reward will lead to a breakthrough in the suspected murder of Sydney woman Tracey Valesini in 1993.

Sandra McSavaney with Detective Inspector Stewart Leggart

NSW Police and Tracey Valesini's mother, Sandra McSavaney, announced a reward for information. (AAP)

A devastated family are hoping a $100,000 reward will lead to answers about the suspected murder of a young mum who went missing from the NSW Blue Mountains more than two decades ago.

Tracey Valesini, then 20-years-old, was last seen at a custody hearing for her daughter Crystal at Campbelltown Courthouse in Sydney's southwest on January 8, 1993.

She never showed up for her next court date and hasn't been seen since.

Tracey's terminally ill mother, Sandra McSavaney, on Wednesday made an emotional public appeal for information concerning her daughter's disappearance.

"Someone knows what happened to Tracey, I've had enough," Ms McSavaney told a press conference in Parramatta.

"I've had a lot of birthdays and Christmases without my child. I want to be able to put something on my daughter's grave.

"They've put their hand in my chest and ripped my heart out."

On what would have been Ms Valesini's 45th birthday, the NSW government on Wednesday announced a $100,000 reward for information that helps solve the suspected murder.

Homicide detectives have attempted to piece together Ms Valesini's final movements using only a handful of facts, blood spatter, a mysterious bank transaction and cryptic posts on Facebook in the years since her disappearance.

"Tracey moved to a home at Wentworth Falls with her new boyfriend and his sister and partner, where they lived until May 1993," unsolved homicide team coordinator Detective Inspector Stewart Leggat told reporters.

"They have since told police Tracey moved out earlier in the year when their relationships deteriorated."

Ms Valesini's boyfriend at the time, William Booby, remains a person of interest along with her other housemates, Det Insp Leggat said.

A year after she went missing $500 was deposited in Ms Valesini's bank account in Liverpool and, five days after that, $490 was withdrawn in the Blue Mountains.

Detectives established Strikeforce Sonning in 2001 and executed a search warrant on the Wentworth Falls home in May that year.

A forensic examination uncovered blood spatter in the bathroom which police believe was the result of a high-velocity impact - most likely a gunshot.

A DNA analysis of the blood was unsuccessful but the sample is being reanalysed with improved technology. Police believe the blood will belong to Ms Valesini.

A 2006 Coronial Inquest found Tracey died between December 1992 and December 1993 at Wentworth Falls of injuries inflicted by another person.

Ms McSavaney believes her daughter is buried nearby.

A message posted on the Facebook page set up to gather information about the disappearance urged family to "look beyond the mountains" in 2015.

Det Insp Leggat said it would form part of the investigation but did not provide further detail.

"I find it hard not knowing what happened to you," Ms Valesini's daughter Crystal, who is now older than her mother at the time of her disappearance, wrote on the same Facebook page in January.

"But then I think to myself that it would be even harder to know what happened."


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Source: AAP



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