Two years after Jayden Penno-Tompsett vanished from a remote North Queensland town while on his way from Newcastle to Cairns to ring-in the new year with his mates, the 22-year-old's mother says she wants an inquest conducted.
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Rachel Penno told the Newcastle Herald she had received several tips from people in the Charters Towers area since her son went missing, suggesting he had been buried on a property that has not yet been searched.
Jayden, who lived in Birmingham Gardens, was last seen in the early hours of December 31, 2017, at Charters Towers - about 130km from Townsville.
As the Herald reported at the time, he was travelling with a friend from the Hunter in the early hours of the morning when an argument broke out after they stopped at the Puma Roadhouse on the Flinders Highway.
Police were told the pair then drove about 20 minutes further north-east before Jayden left the vehicle near the quiet and rural Stockroute Road - he has not been seen since.
But Ms Penno, who visited the remote town last year for the 12 month anniversary of Jayden's disappearance, said yesterday she believed there was a property in the Charters Towers area that could hold the key to discovering exactly what happened to her son.
She said she believed an inquest was the best chance of getting answers for the family.
"I want to find my boy and bring him home to where he belongs," Ms Penno told the Herald.
"I've come to accept that I may never find him, it's such a large area and they've had two cyclones and floods since.
"All I want now is to find the mongrels who did this and get justice for Jay. I just want to find the truth."
Police conducted extensive ground and air searches in the days after the Newcastle man disappeared, but there was no trace of him.
His social media and bank accounts have remained inactive for the past two years.
Jayden's father, Brendan Tompsett, said yesterday there had been no new information from investigators in Queensland for a long time.
But Mr Tompsett said he held onto hope that his son would be found.
"The time he's been gone seems to have gone very quick, but every day is a long day, if that makes any sense," he said.
"He might be still out there, he might not either, but miracles do happen.
"There is a chance, that's the reason you keep going."
Anyone with information that could help with the investigation into Jayden's disappearance can contact Queensland's Police Link hotline on 131 444 or the NSW Police hotline at Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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