A DISTRESSED mother of a British individual who vanished while camping with his partner in Sardinia has been receiving unsettling messages stating: “I tried to believe it was an accident.”
Michael Frison, 26, vanished without trace last July while staying with Jersey-born Niomi Orlandini – a woman he met online.
Cristina, 49, has launched a campaign to find him but Niomi has since also disappeared.
The woman from Chard, Somerset, a mother of two, has been receiving “anonymous and alarming Facebook messages” from an account she suspects belongs to “someone with insider knowledge.”
The cryptic messages “reference guilt, fear, and the inability to remain silent.”
They read: “You cannot live a lie without it finding you eventually.
“I’ve seen it in nightmares.
“This isn’t about blame, it’s about the silence that eats away.
“I tried to forget. I tried to believe it was an accident. But the fear… it doesn’t go.”
Cristina earlier conveyed to The Sun that she can “empathize” with Jay Slater’s mother, Debbie Duncan, and holds the local Italian authorities accountable for not conducting a thorough investigation.
She said: “I can’t even imagine how Jay Slater’s mum would have felt when her son went missing and she couldn’t communicate in Spanish.
“I can communicate with the police and they have been useless.”
Cristine explained that her son Michael had flown from Bristol Airport to Olbia on July 2 last year, before driving to his grandparents home in Sassari to celebrate his 25th birthday and his grandma’s 70th.
Niomi, 27, asked to join him on the trip and he cancelled his return flight to the UK in order to stay with her for an additional week.
According to his mum, the pair left Michael’s grandparents home on July 12, and went to volunteer on a farm in the Gallura hinterland, where they would work in exchange for food and accommodation.
Mum-of-two Cristine says the trip from her parents’ place to the site they stayed at was a “70 mile journey”, and the area was surrounded by “rugged terrain and deep vegetation”.
The pair arrived on an area of land, owned by a German couple, on the same day they left, with Michael and Niomi staying in a tent about “100 metres away” from the couple, who were in a campervan.
Cristine said that was the last day she heard from him: “He texted me saying he was going to sleep and that he’d call me tomorrow. He ended it with a heart emoji.”
A snap taken from the scene shows clothing and a water bottle in the area where they camped.
Heartbroken mum Cristina has grown increasingly frustrated over the Italian authorities’ reluctance to share key information about Michael’s disappearance with British cops.
The Foreign Office has stated it cannot intervene in the investigation unless Italy formally requests their assistance.
Italian police have yet to locate or question Niomi, believed to be the last person to see Michael alive.
She has not co-operated with the authorities or his family, and is thought to have moved to Thailand where her mother is from.
Cristina explained that police in Britain advised her to tell the Italian authorities to seize Niomi’s passport, which they did not do, and that they got offended when she tried to tell them how to do their jobs.
The crucial passport error may have allowed Niomi to vanish with a raft of questions left unanswered.
She added that she has also not been given a family liaison officer, and claims Italian police have kept her in the dark.
The worried mother additionally raised her concerns about Niomi, saying she has not spoken to her sisters since she left, though they keep telling her that she is a “lovely girl”.
Efforts to track down Niomi’s family in Jersey have failed.
Cristina said: “I’m not looking for a culprit, I’m looking for my son – I’m not accusing her of anything.
“But the fact she is not responding is quite mysterious and very strange.”
The mum added: “Human beings do not disappear from the face of earth without leaving traces unless something extremely bad happened to them.”
The mother has been left questioning why Niomi would not respond to her appeals for help or check in for an update on the search.
Cristina, who lost her husband seven years ago and is now juggling the search for Michael with looking after her youngest son, 11, said she’s going through an “unimaginable mix of emotions”.
She said: “It’s destroyed our lives.
“Not knowing where Michael is and what happened is unbearable.
“Feeling the worst and holding onto hope for the best – it’s an overwhelming sense of helplessness.”
She says she feels “drained” by the emotional and physical toll of his disappearance, and vowed: “I am determined to find him, even in my grief I will not stop fighting for him.
In her desperate efforts, Cristina has “given up everything”, abandoning her promising career in social work in order to dedicate her time to finding Michael and downsizing her home.
She said: “I am leaving the house because I can’t afford to live here and balance going between here and Italy.”
Cristina added that her second son is home educated and has developed separation anxiety.
She praised Michael as “such a kind and truly special soul”.
She said: “He feels so deeply not just for himself but for others – he notices when someone is struggling.
“He offers a kind word and a helping hand.
“It’s a never-ending nightmare.
“There’s no real accountability… I am here and I am broken.”
A GoFundMe campaign launched by Michael’s pals in the UK has now reached £10,000 in the effort to help find the missing Brit.
Michael’s mum living through ‘never-ending nightmare’
By James Moules, Foreign News Reporter
THE mother of a Brit man who went missing in Sardinia a year ago has said she’s been “broken” since his disappearance.
Michael’s mother Cristina Pittalis has told Sky News of her anguish over what happened to him.
“I’m trying not to lose my mind,” she said as she recounted the last time she heard his voice.
“He was in a rush but absolutely clear in his speech, I didn’t detect any confusion in his state of mind.”
Cristina, who is from Somerset, told the broadcaster: “Human beings do not disappear from the face of earth without leaving traces unless … something extremely bad happened to them.”
Her son had reportedly gone for a walk, and returned in a confused state and showing signs of heatstroke.
After this, he went for a second walk – from which he never returned.
His clothes and trainers were later found close by.
Michael’s mum told Sky News is was “extremely unlikely” he would suffer heatstroke as he had lived on the island before.
It would also be “completely out of character” to wander off barefoot and leave his belongings behind, she added.
She has now moved to Sardinia along with her other son, 11, in an attempt to look for Michael.
Cristina, who is originally from Sassari in the island’s northwest, said she is “extremely worried because there are no traces of Michael”.
Although a local investigation into his whereabouts is ongoing, Michael’s mum wants Interpol to step in to help with the search.
“It’s a never-ending nightmare,” she said. “There’s no real accountability… I am here and I am broken.”
