Gone: The Disappearance of Aeryn Gillern is a 2011 documentary, which debuted at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary follows Kathryn Gilleran, a former police officer, who is forced to deal with a mother’s worst nightmare, her son’s disappearance. In September of 2007, Aeryn visited his mother in Cortland, New York. He stayed with his family for ten days, before returning to Vienna, Austria. Kathy received a call from her son on October 27, 2007.

 

Two days later, Aeryn was missing. Kathryn was notified of her son’s disappearance on Halloween of 2007. The documentary picks up somewhere around this point and focuses on Kathryn’s attempt to find her son. She travels to Vienna and meets with police. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get very far and mainly gets criticized. In fact, she is constantly belittled, due to her son’s sexuality. Aeryn was Mister Gay 2006 of Austria. The police make this known and quickly blame his death on his sexuality and suicide.

 

Eventually, this gets to the media and it spreads like wildfire. Unfortunately, this only makes the situation worse and Aeryn Gillern remains missing, despite Kathryn’s efforts. Throughout the documentary, we mainly hear from Kathryn about her venture and determination. She receives very little help and is forced to take on all of the responsibility on her own. To this day, Aeryn is still missing. More information, pictures and updates regarding the case can be found here. Contact information for submitting tips can be found there, as well.

 

The documentary is currently available on HULU for free. Overall, the documentary is tremendously sad and frightening. It is fairly obvious that something very fishy happened and is being covered up. Whether or not the truth will ever emerge remains to be seen, but Kathryn refuses to give up hope. There is no doubt she is a very strong woman and will never let her son’s memory vanish.

 

The documentary is very intriguing, well put together and definitely worth checking out. If you’re a fan of true crime documentaries or missing persons cases, I highly recommend checking it out. Also, you should be sure to familiarize yourself with the case, by using the link above. We can only hope Kathryn and Aeryn’s family will one day receive the answers that they deserve.