TWO sisters who went missing in Aberdeen more than a week ago visited the bridge where they were last seen the previous day, police have said.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on Market Street at the Victoria Bridge over the River Dee at around 2.12am on Tuesday, January 7.
They crossed the bridge and turned right onto a footpath next to the river heading towards Aberdeen Boat Club.
Police said that investigations into their disappearance have now confirmed both women were seen at the same bridge at around 2.50pm on Monday, January 6 and spent around five minutes in the area, not engaging with anyone else.
It has also emerged a text message was sent from Henrietta’s mobile phone to the sisters’ landlady at 2.12am on Tuesday January 7, from the area of Victoria Bridge, indicating they would not be returning to the flat.
The phone was then disconnected from the network and has not been active since, police said.
Extensive searches have been carried out in recent days, with the police helicopter, dog branch and the marine unit among the specialist resources involved.
Police said they are focusing on the River Dee as there is no evidence the women left the immediate area.
During the investigation, officers have learned the sisters, who are originally from Hungary and part of a set of triplets, had been planning to move out the flat they rented in the city.
Police Superintendent David Howieson said on Tuesday: “There was an indication from the person from whom they rent a flat who had concerns that they left the flat and indicated they intended to move.”
However in an interview with the BBC, the sisters’ brother Jozsef said they did not inform their relatives of this decision – including during a phone call they had with their mother on the Saturday before their disappearance.
He said: “They wrote a message to their landlady that they wanted to immediately end their tenancy agreement. We didn’t have any information about that.
“So that’s the strange thing, that the girls didn’t tell us anything about that.
“They never mentioned any such plan.”
He told the broadcaster the women had no financial difficulties and were saving up to buy their own property.
Police are keeping an open mind about what happened to the sisters, but have said they have not found anything to suggest a third party was involved.
Howieson said: “We’re trying to remain open minded in terms of what the wider circumstances may have been.
“What we know is that the behaviour of the sisters in the morning on which they disappeared is very out of character.
“We don’t really understand why they seem to have left their home address and walked to this area in a fairly direct line before the CCTV footage of them is exhausted.
“One of our theories has to be that they’ve entered the water for reasons unknown, and that’s why so much of our search activity is focused on the river, the river bank, and the harbour itself, but we’re not ruling out the fact that they may have left this area by means that we haven’t identified yet.”
