Found After Four Months

Winifred Brady from Ireland , who went missing in Međugorje on September 7th last year, was found dead exactly four months after the search for her began. She was found by, Vidan Kozina, a hunter from Međugorje on January 7th this year.

Winifred had visited Međugorje twice before, and she joined the group of 30 Irish pilgrims last summer, among whom there were two friends of hers. Immediately before the disappearance, in a phone conversation with her husband who had remained in Ireland, she mentioned a dispute with her friends, upon which she took a separate room. As he said later, on that occasion he had the impression that Winifred would have liked to get home as soon as possible.

Yet he advised her to try to relax and stay in Međugorje. No-one knows what happened later. It's only known that she was using a walking stick and that she was a smoker. Were any of these the reason why she was not able to get out of the karst region in which, it seems, she got lost in? No-one knows.

Dragan Ostojić, President of the Hunters' Club “Golub” (Pidgeon) from Čitluk says that at one point there were 140 people searching for her, and at another 170. But it was all in vain. They didn't have any starting point, nor did they know in which direction she had set off in.

-  All the time we were looking for her on the basis of guess-work, without any pointers – he said.

Her husband Stephen also came to Medjugorje to search for her. Now he remains alone in Dublin and cannot believe what happened.

- You do not miss someone until they disappear – he says of the woman whom he met a few decades ago in a dance hall and later married. – Only now, when I have to take care of myself, learn how to cook, do the shopping and the housework, I miss everything about her – Stephen said.

Winifred Brady is one of the seven pilgrims who have gone missing in Međugorje and were later found dead.

- Međugorje is visited by a huge number of pilgrims some of whom are physically and psychically ill, so it's no wonder some of them get lost and wander away, and later cannot find their way back in this rough terrain and thick woods – says one of the Hercegovinian Franciscans - who warns pilgrims to stick together on their tours so as to avoid further accidents like these.

The full article can be found on page 17 of Vol 2
2007 issue.