Hiker Lily Hooper found dead after family wrongly told she survived

Lily Hooper, an 18-year-old bushwalker from Oakdale southwest of Sydney, was found dead in Nattai National Park on Thursday, August 20, ending an eight-day search that had drawn close to 1,000 people into the rugged terrain of the New South Wales Southern Highlands.

As the search ended, Hooper's family were briefly told she had been found alive. New South Wales Police had passed on the wrong news, and the state premier repeated it in parliament before correcting himself. Police and the premier have since apologised.

Officers found the body of a woman in bushland at about 11:30am, New South Wales Police said. Formal identification had not taken place. The force said its investigation would examine both how she went missing and how her family came to be told, incorrectly, that she was still alive.

The morning she set out

Hooper left home in Oakdale at about 8am on Wednesday, August 12, to walk in Nattai National Park, a stretch of rugged country southwest of Sydney. She meant to return the same day. Her family raised the alarm about 10pm, when she had not come home, and a search began that night.

Her car was found about an hour later on Wanganderry Road, close to the start of the Bonnum Pic Walking Trail. By late that night, authorities had set up a command post at the trail's entrance to coordinate the effort. She had been walking alone.

Police described Hooper as an experienced hiker, though they said it was unclear what clothing or supplies she had taken with her. Her martial arts club described her as a talented and tough martial artist, and the picture that emerged over the following days was of a capable teenager who knew the outdoors.

Nattai National Park is known for sandstone cliffs and dense bushland southwest of Sydney, terrain that funnels walkers along narrow ridgelines and past steep drops. The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service warns that cliff edges can be unstable or hidden by vegetation and that conditions can change quickly. Many of its parks have limited mobile coverage.

The scale of the search

The search involved about 1,000 people across the eight days, among them almost 100 Australian Defence Force personnel on its busiest day and about 280 State Emergency Service volunteers, according to figures released during the operation. Crews scoured steep drops and dense undergrowth along complex cliff lines, working in winter weather that repeatedly slowed their progress.

Police used a thermal-imaging helicopter and examined telecommunications data in an effort to trace Hooper's last movements. The large-scale, multi-agency search also drew in police rescue teams, sniffer dogs, mounted officers, trail bikes, firefighters, ambulance crews and national park staff, an effort that ran day after day across ground that gave up little.

Hooper's family had been stationed at the search command point since she went missing, waiting for news alongside the crews. As the days passed with no sign of her, the case drew national attention and a growing hope that she might be found alive.

No cause of death has been determined, and a report is being prepared for the coroner.

The wrong news

Word reached the family that Hooper had been found alive, and they were seen celebrating at the search site. Police said they held that belief for eight to 10 minutes before the correction came, and described the error as born out of elation that she had been found.

Premier Chris Minns went further, announcing her survival during a live broadcast of a New South Wales budget estimates hearing before he was corrected. About 25 minutes later he returned to the microphone to tell the committee that the earlier advice had been wrong and that Hooper had been found deceased, apologising to those present.

I apologise to the committee, but it seems as if the early advice was wrong. Lily's body's been found, and she's been found deceased.

Minns later said he genuinely believed he had been sharing good news. In a statement, he apologised again, offered his deepest condolences to the family and said he was profoundly sorry that anything he had said might have added to their heartbreak at an already devastating time.

The New South Wales opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, called the news devastating and said so many people had been hoping for Hooper's safe return.

What the coroner will review

A coronial inquiry will determine Hooper's cause of death. Police and the State Emergency Service are separately reviewing how her family came to receive the wrong news, and the state government has announced a review of the search.

Police offered unreserved apologies to the family for the additional trauma the mistake caused at an already unbearable moment, an error officers said had been made in the belief that Hooper was alive.

Commissioner Mal Lanyon confirmed police had first tried to lift the body out by helicopter but could not, because of the nature of the terrain and the heavy canopy, and that crews had to recover her manually, on foot.

A community in mourning

Across the Wollondilly Shire, where Oakdale sits, the Wollondilly Performing Arts Centre and the shire library were lit purple in Hooper's memory for the rest of the week, and flags on the council chambers flew at half-mast. The local community absorbed the loss of a teenager many had followed through eight days of searching.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor led a moment of silence in Federal Parliament, and Albanese called her death an unspeakable tragedy.

The park's known hazards

The winter conditions that slowed the search rank among the park's hazards. Freezing temperatures and dense regrowth hampered the crews, and the weather across the Southern Highlands can deteriorate quickly, turning an established route treacherous within hours. Rescue teams take time to reach country this far from towns.

Police said on August 15 that initial inquiries indicated Hooper reached the summit of Bonnum Pic about mid-morning on the day she set out, with no contact after that. The trail lies deep in country where phone signal falls away, and a search of that ground, once begun, can take days rather than hours.

The reviews are focused on the radio and reporting difficulties crews faced in the remote area and on the incorrect information given to the family. No timetable has been set for their findings.

Jim Hooper, Lily's father, praised the emergency workers who had searched for his daughter and said he was not angry at police, the commissioner or the premier over the mix-up. The family had waited at the search command point through the eight days, and he singled out the rescuers' effort for thanks.

Her club, Bujutsu Martial Arts and Fitness Centre, published a tribute describing her as a 'talented and tough martial artist', and her instructor Mark Szalajko spoke of missing her. It was among the many tributes that followed her death, from the small town southwest of Sydney where she lived to the floor of Federal Parliament.

The coroner will ultimately determine how Hooper died. The search that mobilised close to 1,000 people ended eight days after she set out for a day walk that was meant to bring her home by nightfall, and her family's brief belief that it had was corrected within minutes.