Grief-stricken mother wants answers on why she found out on social media about her autistic son Luke Fergusson’s death after discovery of his remains at a dam

A distraught mother wants someone to take responsibility after discovering her missing son’s death via social media.

Worse still, Luke Fergusson’s remains had been identified almost two months before his mother, Sue Bedey, learned of them on a newspaper’s Facebook page.

Mr Fergusson, 28, who is autistic, went missing in June 2023 after walking away from the family property in the South Burnett area of ​​Queensland.

“Luke was a very special person to us,” Ms Bedey said 7News about his son, who had the mental age of an eight-year-old child.

“He didn’t have the ability to be a normal 28-year-old. For us, he was still stuck at eight or nine.

The family had recently moved to the area before Mr Fergusson disappeared.

His mother said it gave him a “fit.”

“Any change for Luke created enormous anxiety. He really struggled to change things.

She said that the day he was very upset, “it was over one little thing.”

“We couldn’t find a particular set of spoons.

“He had…a pretty major seizure. Usually we hold it until it is sufficiently settled.

Ms Bedey said her eldest would normally have gone for a walk until things calmed down, but this time he may have “walked a little too far and got lost”.

She said police initially carried out a very extensive search for Mr Fergusson, but scaled back the operation after about two weeks.

Human remains were found three months later, but they could not be identified.

The family was given very little information at the time as there was doubt over the identity of the body, but in December they were told that as soon as authorities knew anything they would contact them.

Ms Bedey said she realized they were not the only family with a missing person or while waiting for DNA results.

Without warning from state authorities, she learned of her son’s death last Friday after police updated a missing person’s report and it was posted on social media by a media outlet.

“I just picked up the phone and scrolled through social media. That’s the first thing I read,” Ms. Bedey said.

She called the newspaper that published the article and the police, but got no response.

Eventually the coroner called her and confirmed it was Luke’s remains.

No one had contacted the family before.

“It made us feel like we just didn’t matter,” she said.

“I know the police did everything they could to find Luke, but after two weeks they left, went to their next job and we left.”

Ms Bedey said it was as if “Luke didn’t matter, he wasn’t an important person”.

She now asks why it took her two months to tell him about her son’s death and why she had to learn about it from the media.

THE Mail-Mail previously reported that the Australian Federal Police had been asked to help Queensland deal with a huge backlog of DNA testing in the state.

This was probably one of the reasons for the delay in the formal identification of Mr. Fergusson’s body.

The family has now set up a GoFundMe page to give their beloved son and brother the farewell he deserves.

The mother said the horrific circumstances felt like a “never-ending nightmare”.

“You get to a point where there is no more sleep, there is no rest, there is no peace.”

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman for comment.