Somewhere between dead and alive: Nicole Morris Pt. 2

Loved ones of missing people are desperate for answers, and unfortunately there are people more than happy to exploit their despair for their own gain. In part two of her conversation with Gary Jubelin, missing persons advocate and author Nicole Morris calls out clairvoyants and psychics, exposing the very real trauma caused by false hope. The pair discuss why all missing persons should be treated as homicides until proven otherwise, how dangerous assumptions made early in an investigation can derail justice and leave families without answers for years, and call for better resourcing and a national approach to missing persons investigations. Nicole is the author of Lost: More True Stories from Families of Australian Missing Persons. Subscribe to our new Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram:@icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=enTiktok:@icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcastFacebook:@icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  We live in the most connected era in human history. Mobile phones, the internet, CCTV on every corner. Yet there's currently almost 3,000 long-term missing persons in this country. Nicole Morris is the founder of Australia's only missing persons database and the author of Lost, a book dedicated to the long-term missing. She has spent decades ensuring that the people who vanished are not simply forgotten. In part two of my conversation with Nicole, we explore the strange, sometimes baffling circumstances in which people disappear and ask the questions that linger longer after the search parties have gone home. Was it a choice, a terrible accident, or something much more sinister?

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Nicole Morris, welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  When we were finishing off in part one, we were talking about people that reach out to you a lot about information that they might have or not about missing persons. I'm going to throw this out to you, clairvoyance.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  You laugh, okay.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  I have not, I've never been quiet about my condemnation of people who will take advantage of vulnerable missing persons families. And it happens all the time, whether they mean to or not. And it happened recently as well. There was a very well-known American clairvoyant who came to Australia specifically to talk about missing children, including William, I think. And didn't like it when I went onto their page and pointed out that they'd spelled his name wrong. And, "Oh, you know, that doesn't matter." Yes, it does. Yes, it does.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  And you're profiting from the terrible distress of these families. And it's concerning to me, the impact that it has on the families as well. Having said that, almost every missing person's family will consult a medium or a psychic at some point because they have that desperation to find answers. And sometimes it brings them comfort. And it is 100% their right to do that, and I would never tell them not to. What concerns me is when people will randomly decide to pass on information to a family that they have dreamed up, that they've felt in their waters.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  And that can cause great distress to a family. I remember a woman whose daughter had gone missing. She hadn't come home from a nightclub. And some person contacted her and said, "Oh, I feel that she has been abducted and raped and murdered, and she's lying bound in a shed." And the woman came home safe the next day. But for that period of time, that image was in that mother's head, and that is unforgivable, absolutely unforgivable. And there are families, I remember one of the Claremont in Western Australia, the victims of that serial killer. Her dad was sloshing around in a swamp,

• 4:08Speaker 01

  trying to dig through the mud because a clairvoyant had told him that's where the body was. And I think he said he was standing in this swamp going, "Why am I doing this? This is crazy." But that's the level of distress the families of missing people feel. It's a desperation, so they'll listen to anything. And there are people who will take advantage of that. Either innocently, you know, they might go, they might really believe that they feel this, or they might be trying to profit in some way from that.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  What you said right up front, exploiting vulnerable people. That's what I take issue with clairvoyance. I was at a symposium, international symposium with Unsolved Homicides. And I think it was someone from Scotland Yard or the FBI was talking, and talking about clairvoyance and just said, "Show me a clairvoyant that takes you to the body, and I'll show you the person that put the body there." Now, what that's meaning is, no case, and this person was bought from overseas and speaking, he couldn't reference any case. And there was some very experienced law enforcement officers there, from right around the country and internationally there.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  And no one knew of any clairvoyant that has helped solve a case. So if they're saying they know where the body is, they must have put the body there. That's my take. And I have an open mind to a lot of things, but also a practicality that comes with investigating homicide. And no clairvoyant has ever assisted in an investigation that I'm aware of, certainly not any investigation I have been involved in. I've heard clairvoyants say they helped investigations that I was involved in. And yeah, for whatever reason. I'm a strong advocate for victims of crime, the victims' families.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  And what I do take issue with, and I think you balanced it nicely when you said, "Yeah, they might be genuinely thinking they're doing the right thing." And I accept that. But the trauma they cause victims' families when they contact them out of the blue and say, "Look, I've got information that your loved one might be buried under the bridge" or different type of things like that. The victims contact me. They're almost embarrassed to contact me. But it plays on their mind, and it plays on their mind to the point sometimes the victims will actually go out and search the area themselves, where I say, "Well, I can't actually dedicate resources to that" based on information from a clairvoyant.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  But again, perception's a funny thing because I think we've all watched enough crime shows or whatever where a clairvoyant has solved a crime or a vision. But all the detectives I've dealt with, all the detectives I respect, I think they sit in the same boat as I do in regards to clairvoyance and their impact on investigations. The troubling part of it is, when you're running an investigation, if someone's providing information, sometimes I'm thinking, "Is this someone just trying to ingratiate themselves into an investigation? Maybe I've got to have a look at that person because why are they getting themselves involved?" But yeah, I'm aware of it.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  And I've had family members contact me so many times about clairvoyance. And the only thing, it provides false hope. And when that hope is lost again, it's just further pain. Having said that, I do understand why the families, because they're desperate, they're vulnerable, and they will try anything. So yeah, it's a murky area, but I just wanted to, I got a sense, maybe I'm a clairvoyant. I got a sense that you would have come across that a lot with the profile you've got with missing persons. And I just wanted to get your take on it.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Constantly. And so it is a delicate balance of not wanting to criticize the family's decision to do that because that's completely up to them. And most of them do. And with varying results, they can, and then some of them will tell me that they've gone to see five different clairvoyants, tarot readers, psychics, mediums, and they've all told them something different. And so I'm going, "Okay, so what does that tell you?" And but again, it's their right to do that. And if it makes them feel better, if a clairvoyant said, "They've passed, they're watching over you, they want you to be happy in your life,"

• 8:56Speaker 01

  then that's fairly harmless and not going to distress them too much. And if it provides them comfort, that's a good thing. But again, if they're saying, you know, "Yes, they were horribly murdered, and you will find their bodies somewhere near a town," starting with R.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  That that can make things so much worse because then they're constantly going, oh, could it be the Riverina? Could it be? You know, it's, it's, it's so hard for them.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  The other thing I I've noticed, the higher the profile of the investigation, the more clairvoyants come out too. And that's, yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Because it brings attention to them and they don't care who they, who they use, particularly these high profile ones. They picked William for a reason because he is Australia's highest profile missing person. They're not, they didn't pick a case that no one has ever heard of. So,

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they're, they're going to solve, solve that. And I, I cautioned any, any police that, because I, I have seen some police actually want to follow up, up the information based on the clairvoyant. But I, I think there's enough.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  In my experience, I think the police sometimes want to, um, to kind of help the family deal with it by not, not disagreeing with it. So if, if the police officer says, don't be ridiculous, you can't listen to them, that can cause the family distress. But if sometimes a police officer will say, okay, yep, let's do that to keep you, you know, to give you a little bit of peace. Let's bring that on board. They can come with us and we'll have a little look, something like that.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and I, I do understand that. And I, I've been guilty of, of that myself. Sometimes I go, okay, we'll, we'll have a look at that park. Yeah. A cursory look and, and see to put people's minds at ease. But again, I, I suppose it just comes into how vulnerable people are when they, they lose their loved ones. In your book, there's a, a quote that, in your, your, your last book, Lost, all missing persons need to be treated as homicides until proven otherwise, certainly not written off as suicide, especially if there is mental health present. Um, I'll jump in there just on my takeaway from it. All missing persons need to be treated as homicides until proven otherwise. I say that all the

• 11:18Speaker 00

  time with any, if we're called a homicide to a deceased person and the same with a missing person. So 100% agree with, uh, agree with that. I'm interested in your, your take on that part, but also the, the second part of it, certainly not written off as a suicide, especially if there's mental health present. So that quote's in your book for a reason. Let's, uh, let's break it down.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Uh, it, it sort of became very apparent to me in my second book, Missing, when I was writing about Sandrine Jordan. Um, she had had a previous suicide attempt and therefore the coroner and police have said, well, obviously she's killed herself. But her family strongly disagree with that. And there has been, I think, a lot of, um, evidence since then to suggest that she could well be the victim of foul play. Uh, but police, I think, are just doggedly sticking to that, no, previous suicide attempt, therefore this is what's happened. And just this week, this week, last week, um, the, the Queensland authorities

• 12:22Speaker 01

  have said, no, there's not enough evidence to sort of push for a full coronial inquiry, which is so frustrating. So I'm actually going to, um, send Deborah Frecklington a copy of my book. So I, I want her to read Sandrine's chapter. And then if she still says, no, I really don't think there's any foul play here, then I think, I don't know what else we can do. But, uh, in Lost, it, it was particularly evident with the case of Brian Maxted, who, uh, 25 year old young man who went missing from Darwin, um, jumped on a plane to Sydney. And, uh, I think because he was on antidepressants.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Then the coroner said, well, obviously he's taken his own life. That doesn't make any sense to me or, or to his family. Um, he, he caught a taxi to King's Cross for a night out. Where in that is, is the suggestion of suicide? He left all his stuff at, at the hotel. And, uh, just because someone is on anti, there's vast numbers of people on antidepressants. That doesn't mean they're suicidal at all. And the issue that his mother took exception to was a police officer who had never met Brian, who was basing all of her, um, her conclusions and assumptions on a report that she had in front of her,

• 13:47Speaker 01

  stood up in, to the coroner and said, yes, in our opinion, Brian has taken his own life. And his mother is sitting there going, you didn't even meet him. And she knew him inside, out and backwards. They were, they were extremely close. Every time I talked to Janine, she says, I loved Brian so much and Brian loved me. With every conversation, we have that, um, that exact phrase, uh, we loved each other so much. She knows her boy. And, and why wouldn't police think, okay, a young, fairly naive 25 year old from Darwin, who'd never really left Darwin, jumps on a plane to Sydney and, and goes to King's Cross. And

• 14:29Speaker 01

  in, this was, I think, 2009, and King's Cross was not for the faint hearted. It's, it's, you know, it's been a bit gentrified now. But 2009, it was very wild and wooly and a lot of robberies, a lot of fights, a lot of violence. And you've got a naive 25 year old from Darwin in that mix. Why wouldn't you consider that that could be a homicide? And the problem also with that case is it was handled back between Northern Territory Police and New South Wales Police, because they were saying, oh, well, he technically went missing from the Northern Territory, but he was last seen in Sydney. So it's not our case, it's your case. Where clearly it should have been handled by King's Cross Police.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Fa- families don't need to be caught up with that. I, I understand what you're, you're saying on that case and, uh, and valid points that you're bringing up. I, I've got to say, and I'm sure you've encountered this situation as well. I've had situations where, and, yeah, the evidence is overwhelming, that a certain thing has happened that might be self, self harm. But it's very hard for the families to come, come to terms with that. And I, I think we've, we've got to acknowledge that occurs as well. And I, I understand that, uh, completely, that, uh, families are, are looking, the worst thing you could think is someone's taken your own life. So I understand the starting point

• 15:52Speaker 00

  for families are going, no, they wouldn't have, have done that. But that, that's a very difficult part of policing. Sometimes where you've got to get, uh, the opinions across and, and show the evidence. How do you overcome those difficult, uh, situations? Communication, present as much of the evidence as you can and let the family sit on it. Understand that no matter what you say is not going to appease the family if, if they're, you know, protecting the memory of, of their loved one.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  That's, that's my experience in that sort of area where it's a bit ambiguous about as to what's happened. And if the evidence is leaning towards it was self harm or misadventure, that doesn't necessarily have to be self harm, could be misadventure. And the families don't want to, uh, want to believe it. And I understand the pain the families are going through. And I understand how dare, from their point of view, anyone say, say this about our loved ones. What, what's your take on it? Because I'm sure you would have seen situations like that before. And how, how do you deal with it?

• 16:57Speaker 01

  I actually wrote an entire chapter on this exact topic. I wrote a whole chapter that was supposed to be, I think it was supposed to be in the second book. And it was a young man missing from the Newcastle area. And he had a history of severe mental illness. Um, he was the, the, the most distressed, tortured young man. It absolutely broke my heart. Um, his mum found him in a really terrible state. He hadn't showered for weeks. He hadn't been eating properly. He was, he hadn't been taking his medication and she took him home with her for a few days and he disappeared from her home. Um, and because of his severe mental illness, he was schizophrenic and, and he, um, was very paranoid about

• 17:42Speaker 01

  things. He had, um, installed cameras in his home because he was absolutely convinced that people were trying to break in and harm him. And his mother believed that. So to me, it was clear that this young man was just tortured. And he had had multiple suicide attempts in the past and was, um, it was very clear that he was extremely unwell. Um, at, at the point, at the time he went missing, he was, at the lowest point, he was sort of facing criminal charges and, um, and, and he didn't have a great future ahead of him. Um, and he had been hospitalized multiple times, which he absolutely hated. He knew that that's what was going to happen again. They would, they would commit him

• 18:25Speaker 01

  again. He was just an absolute mess. And so to me, it was clear that that's what had happened to him. He had chosen to take his own life. Um, and that was the conclusion of policing the coroner as well. But his mother was absolutely adamant. He said, she said, no, no, no, people were after him. He, he told me that people were after him. And that's what was happening. So I wrote the chapter based on what she had told me and the available evidence. And I sent it to her and she was absolutely furious. She was, she said, I'm horrified at what you've written. And I said, I'm so sorry. I've, I've written what you've told me.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Uh, oh, that's just not, that's just not him. That's just not what happened. You're, you're suggesting, and I said, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just presenting what the facts of, of his life, the facts, his entire history and the facts of the situation. And she said, that's, he's not going to be in your book because that's not an accurate portrayal of my son. And I said, that's completely fine. That's absolutely fine. Because she is not there in her catching up to the reality. And maybe it's, that's too painful. It's too hard, too painful to think he took his own life. So she said, no, that's it. No, someone's, someone's murdered him and no one's listening to me. So I said, and you are completely entitled to believe that. Um, but you know, this, I can't help you get past that.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Difficult, isn't it? It's I'm listening to you tell that story and it just, yeah, I can see how hard it is. But again, it just shows the impact. I suppose the only piece, and getting back to that quote to start with, that you can give to the families is demonstrating that the matter has been properly investigated. Everything that can be done has been done. And the end result, the only court of law that they can go to to get someone to adjudicate on it is the coronial inquest at the coroner's court. And a lot of times that's what the families want.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  They just want all the evidence presented at the coroner and the coroner to make an assessment of what's happened to their loved one.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  I've seen situations like that, regardless of the result, regardless of the evidence, that the family's not going to be happy with the results. But I think the way that you're adopting it, step back, give them peace. If that's the way that they've got to process it. And it's such a deeply personal thing, telling someone what's happened to their loved one.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I'll still make appeals for him as long as it takes, absolutely. You know, I'm not going to withdraw my help from a family just because they were upset.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  There's very few people who have chosen to not want their appeals out there, which is an interesting concept as well. There's, I could count on one hand, the people who have said, no, I don't want you to make appeals for my missing person. So they still want the appeals to keep going.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Other problems associated when people have disappeared. And sometimes the coroner's court can resolve this. But someone disappears, who has access to their bank accounts? If they're running a business, how do they manage a business? If they're renting a property, who takes over that? There's so many issues that need to be followed up when someone disappears. And we're not children in this regards, we're talking adults that are living a life. Talk us through the problems that people have found with that. Because quite often, if someone, if your loved one disappears and they're running a business, you don't have a lot of rights initially until things have been properly adjudicated on and decisions have been made.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Exactly. And people don't know where to start as well. And I don't think I would know where to start if I had to suddenly take over a family member's affairs. I mean, if your parents are elderly, they can appoint you as guardians of their affairs. But when someone goes missing suddenly, particularly if they're younger, the families find themselves in a huge mess. And sometimes the coronial process can take many years. And depending on which state it's in, it can be difficult as well. In Lost, I talk about the case of Michael Graham, who went missing in the outback on the Goldfields in Western Australia.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  And his wife managed to get his inquest quite quickly, sort of within a year, because it was very obvious that Michael was deceased at that point and was not coming home. So it would have been easy for the coroner. But she found herself in, with ridiculous red tape. She wanted to take their daughter over to New Zealand to visit Michael's family. And she couldn't because Michael wasn't there to sign the consent. And she's standing there arguing, saying, I just, he's not here to sign the consent form, he's missing. They go, well, he's not alive or dead, he's missing. We don't have a box for missing.

• 23:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  And she couldn't even put a notice in the paper for a memorial service for him. Because they said, no, we can do a funeral notice, but we can't do a memorial notice unless there's a notification from the funeral home. And she said, well, there isn't one because I don't have a body and I haven't had a funeral.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  How traumatic and frustrating. Yeah, yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it is absolutely ridiculous. Tony Ryan had to take over car payments for his sister. Like, who does that? Who keeps paying the rent on a house? And how long do you keep paying the rent after someone goes missing? You know, because you expect them to come back. So the rent still needs to be paid, the car payments still have to be made, but for how long? And then, once you decide that they're not coming back, you may not have been able to get an inquest yet. So you don't have the legal right to sell their car. You just have to keep making the payments somehow. And that's not easy. If you're adopting someone else's financial burden, it's very, very difficult.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Because it's, being missing is a state in between alive and dead. And it's so difficult.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can, and you're dealing with the emotional trauma of losing a loved one and not knowing what's happened. And then you've got all these other layers onto it. And that came out in your book. And when I say I hadn't really thought about it, I'm thinking about the trauma and all that. But the practical day to day things of how do you move forward when you're caught up in the red tape?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  And when do you move forward? How long do you leave it? It's because there's no cutoff time. It's if you think, oh, they might have just taken, is it a month? Or is it three months? Or is it a year? How long do you leave it?

• 25:19Speaker 00

  With the cases that you deal with, there's many reasons why people disappear. Like, if you break it down, you look at the full spectrum. They're choosing to disappear because they've got their life in a rut or whatever. And they want to start out again and they're just starting cleanly. Misadventure, they're walking in the mountains, they get lost and they're never found. Mental health or self-harm type situations where they choose to, life's not for them anymore. Or outside, or human interference where someone, something more sinister has occurred. In the dealings with all the missing people that you've had,

• 26:01Speaker 00

  what sort of differences do the families have to the type of thing that might happen? Are they all looking at the worst case scenario? Or do they just want answers? Are they?

• 26:13Speaker 01

  I think everyone's different. They all definitely want answers. A lot of them don't even, it is more important to find the remains of the missing person than to even get a conviction for a killer. They want to know what happened and they want the remains back. Is the primary thing that they're after? I think that's something that Ray Speechley's daughter Nikki said to me was that she, there is a level of, not relief, but there is that different level because she knows that her father wandered off into the bush and was lost. So she doesn't have that, my father was murdered.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Extra layer of trauma added to her. So she said that that makes it slightly easier for her. So I think that the victims of crime families have the worst time of it because they're obviously imagining the worst that can happen and what happened to their person and the final moments of their person. And then they've got to find the person. And then, then it almost is the beginning of the worst bit because then they've got possibly a criminal trial. And as you know, these things can take years. And then there's no guarantee, like the Levisons. There's no guarantee that you're going to find justice at the end.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, and when you talk about justice and also bringing in misconceptions, people often think if there's no body, we can't charge people with murder. That's not the case.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, look at Chris Dawson.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Well, a classic case and a very high public profile case. And I think it's interesting that you mention that because it taps into missing person when Lynette disappeared. But it was so, there were so many things there that should have raised red flags. And thank goodness that the right results come, that it was come a long time, a long time after. But I think you could perhaps use that as a test case for mistakes that were made about assumptions that someone's just wandered off.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Particularly that there's a lot of almost identical cases to Lynette's that I list. And you think, okay, did this woman really leave two, a three and a four year old at home and just go off? You really, did that really happen? And I think as a homicide investigator, you'd know that a great deal of the time, police know exactly what's happened.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  But you've got that burden of proof. You can't convict someone without being very sure. You can't even take it to trial unless you are sure that you're going to win because you've sort of got one shot at it.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  And certainly when you haven't got the body, you've got to be able to prove beyond the reasonable doubt that the person is deceased, which is sometimes hard to do. I had a case, a Bob Lubick matter.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  He was thrown off the gap and the assumptions made there initially when he went off the gap, that suicide, because the car was found up there and it was treated, initial parts of it were treated as a suicide. As it turned out, it was a murder. His body was found, I think it was five days later, had floated in the ocean down to just south of Cronulla and was, his body was found there. But again, that could have been written off purely as a suicide, based on the assumptions that, oh, well, the car was found at the gap, therefore he's committed suicide.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  That was the exact intent of the people that murdered him at the gap, to take him up there and threaten him. But yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of different things. Do you think it's harder with social media and the way the world's changed, we're virtually a cashless society? Do you think it's harder for people to disappear in this day and age than it was, yeah, three or four decades ago, or even, even closer, two decades ago?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Very much so, yeah, because we've got number plate recognition. I was, there was a case last week, I think, and they, they were able to find, they know exactly where her car was going because they, they capture number plates on the highway. So it's not like she left in a car and we've got no idea where she went after that. Run the plate through the, the system and they'll say, okay, yep, she was captured on this particular highway. So you've got, you need to prove your identity at every, at every level in the world that we live in now. To, to do anything, you need, to access your work emails, you need a PIN number, you need, and they can log in. They,

• 31:09Speaker 01

  I was reading the other day, they know exactly what time a missing person last accessed their Facebook page. So Meta must have given them that particular data. They've, they can ping cell phones to quite a, a specific radius. They know when it was last used. So you've got all of that forensic evidence that pinpoints exactly the last moments of a missing person and exactly where they were. So it is really difficult. And, but on the flip side of that is, you were mentioning people can just go for a walk in the mountains and are never seen again. And we live on a big island surrounded by water. A lot of people go missing in the water, a lot of people go missing in the bush. And, and they say, well, how could you not find a body?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Get out in the bush and you'll understand that, particularly in, in certain places in Tasmania. And it's the Blue Mountains, it's, it's so thick and you can just walk a couple of seconds into the bush and you're completely invisible.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  And, and, and you're lost. But with, with the technology, if someone disappeared now, we've all got phones, you know, someone, well, the phone's not pinging, the phone hasn't, that can be readily checked and quite easily by police. It's not like we're pre-mobile phone days, you'd go away up the coast and you'd have to find a public phone box to phone home and say, hey, I'm here, I'll contact you next week. So.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I think we've got the advantage now that if someone's got concerns about someone's welfare, they can see if there's something sinister very early in the piece, if they stop using their credit cards. Before, well, they might have got a lot of money out of the bank, they're, they're living on the, on cash. It's not the way the world operates these days.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I was, I was also thinking that because we've got such a vast population now, it's, in some ways, it's easier to disappear into that vast population because I was thinking about the case of Barbara Brown, who was last seen in 1978. She was a blonde Texan and therefore people remembered her. So you've got physical sightings of her, because there were less people around and, and a blonde Texan hitchhiker stood out and was remembered because there were less people around. And, and I think it would have been harder for her to, to blend into the population as it was. So you've got, I guess in a big city, that's how people go missing because so many, millions of people.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  Well, that, that was, I, I read some information last reported drinking at Epping, Epping Hotel, then was heading, heading north up the coast or, or whatever.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  The Epping Hotel was a red herring.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  I proved in the book that she couldn't have been. So, so, and that was presented to the coroner as a factual, as factual evidence.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  And there was a lot of assumptions based on the fact that they believed she was at the Epping Hotel, having a drink. That was one, and there, there's this parliamentary inquiry and a lot of people that disappeared, hitchhikers and, and different people. In reference to that particular case, you, you mentioned the Pope and Lapform matter, where a boyfriend and girlfriend disappeared. I think that might have been 79 or around, around that time as well.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yep, very close.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  And they were last seen in a green Bedford van. I, I remember that because when I was a local detective, I was, I put on the case and ended up at Mull and Bimby and everywhere else trying to locate that, that van. But they're mysteries, aren't they? They're, they're mysteries that we.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah, you think it's, generally, it's, it's not so unbelievable that you can't locate people, but to not locate distinctive vehicles as well is, you know, what is, whatever happened to that van?

• 35:02Speaker 00

  Well, I, I learned a lot about Mull and Bimby, I can tell you that. Turn, turn, turning up there in a unmarked police car, I thought we were fairly covert, and run up there and into a hippie commune and everyone just disappears in the bush and screaming out, government here, government here. And like a, a green Bedford van, I, I thought they would be pretty easy to locate, but I can assure you, there was a lot of Bedford vans up, up there and it was an interesting, interesting line of inquiry. But yeah, all the, all these cases, is there one that jumps out to you? One that resulted, you didn't see coming? Like when you've sat down, spoken to the families

• 35:47Speaker 00

  or seen how that played out, or when you were researching any of the cases? Did it have a twist and turn that you didn't expect?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Gary Conmore's case was like that actually. Went missing only two years ago. We've just had the second anniversary. He went missing on his own property at Rookhurst, near Gloucester, New South Wales. And I started thinking, it was, some of the family had approached me and said, oh, we'd really like you to, to look into this story. And so I thought, oh, well, you know, it's an, an elderly man who's just gone missing in fairly rugged country. Gloucester, Rookhurst area is very mountainous, thick bushland, lots of thick lantana, old gold mines. I thought, oh, well, he's just wandered off on his own property. Perhaps he had early dementia. And then I discovered that he did have a sort of an acquired brain injury, had previously had a stroke,

• 36:40Speaker 01

  was having some confusion. So I thought, well, okay, that's a fairly clear cut case. And then when I started to talk to the family and I talked to, I ended up talking to everybody in his life. I talked to his partner, his sister, his brother, his sons, his neighbours, I talked to absolutely everybody. And a clear picture began to form in my mind and I thought, I, I think that this actually could be foul play, which was a complete surprise. I thought that it was absolutely a case of someone wandering off. And, and it was the middle of winter, it was very cold, he would have had hypothermia. But the more people I talked to, I, I began to be really concerned and

• 37:23Speaker 01

  to the point where they had ordered the inquest and I went to the coroner and I said, if you haven't, if the police haven't looked into this particular aspect of it, I think that they need to. And I would like to, I, I gave the coroner the chapter that I had written. And I said, this is why I, I have concerns. And I knew that a particular person of interest had not been spoken to by police. And I, I said, I think that's a problem. And the coroner came back to me and said, I agree with you, I'm directing the police to reinvestigate it. And so they went back and I think that is still happening as we speak. So it was, I never expected

• 38:05Speaker 01

  that to happen. And even when they started telling me the stories about why this particular disagreement may have happened, I, I was thinking, oh, okay, you know, it's just, is it an argument about a dog? Is it, you know, what is, but then it turned much more sinister and then events are still happening even today that make me think something very wrong has happened in that particular case. And his son's had concerns as well.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I, I think that leads to, yeah, you, you make assumptions. If you make the wrong assumption, then I'm saying you're making the assumption that, oh no, this is someone that's wandered off. When that, when that happens from a policing point of view, that can be when there are real problems with an investigation. If, if wrong assumptions are made, made at the start and the investigation's not, yeah, done thoroughly, information and evidence can be, be lost. The teenage disappearance, that uh, there's a chapter in your book about teenagers disappearing.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  It's quite frightening how many, how many people have um disappeared as teenagers. And I'm taking this from your book, I think, so I hope it's right. Uh, thirty seven thousand teenagers go missing each year for many reasons. That, that would be roughly, and we're talking across the nation. A factor that I, I didn't uh, put into it, most of them are found safely.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Almost all, yeah, yeah, found safely. But the amount of homelessness for teenagers or some of young adults, so twelve to twenty four. Uh, twenty three percent of homelessness, or twenty eight thousand, uh, aged between twelve and twenty four. So I break that down. There's twenty eight thousand two hundred homeless people aged between twelve uh, and twenty four. That's frightening, and I think that would uh, play in a lot to uh, missing, missing people if you haven't got a home.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely, and there's a, a case that's still, it's probably one of those ones that's gonna haunt me for the rest of my life. Is um, is a kid in Melbourne who um, was missing and his actual, his social workers were on the phone to me saying, can you put this information out? And I remember the social worker called me and she said, we know where he is, but the police won't go and pick him up. And that's part of the problem as well, because police hate dealing with these cases. Because um, they, there isn't um, a compulsion to return them to their parents. And sometimes if the kids refuse to go home, it is a very complicated and it's a situation, a system that really needs an overhaul as well.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Um, but in this particular case, this kid was in um, a group home and had run away from the group home multiple times. They knew where he was, but police wouldn't go and pick him up because he was just, you know, he would just run away again. And I ended up getting a phone number for this kid and I spoke to him myself. And said, uh, the, the social worker was trying to call triple O and even that wasn't working to go and pick up this kid. They knew where he was and I said, where are you? And he said, well, I'm with this older guy and you know, it's, it's, it's not great because he does bring all these men home. And I have to, you know, do things to, to earn my keep here. And so in return for him looking after me, this is what I do and this is what I have to do.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  And I said, you don't have to do that, you can go back. He said, I don't wanna go back, why would I go back? Here, I get drugs and I get food and, and you know.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  But so why, why would I go back and get locked up? I'm not gonna do that. And there was nothing I could say, I didn't know what to say in response to that. You know, as a, as a mother, as a parent, I, as an, an older person, I can't say, this is so bad for you. This is, this is traumatic and wrong and, and even though you hate being in the care home, that's where you need to be.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  It, it's, it's sad that they choose that option, um.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, and I think that's what's happening a lot.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Being abused than uh, what we can provide. You, you talk about, and, and yeah, you're an advocate on uh, helping people and the, in the missing persons space. There needs to be more resources, yeah, uh, I think a lot of the failings with uh, if there have been failings with uh, policing, has been the under-resourcing of what's needed to properly follow these things up. When kids are living like that, uh, society, we haven't got it right, have we? You can't have a kid living, living like that, we gotta, we gotta protect the, protect the kids.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Exactly, and, and you know, it's, if it's not safe in their home, then they shouldn't be there. But there also needs to be an alternate system. I think the foster care system is also, you know, in, it has its own issues. There shouldn't, children shouldn't be in danger, children shouldn't be abused. And I don't know how to fix that, it's, it's sort of, um, you know, missing persons is my area. So I don't pretend to be an expert in child um, safety. My parents worked in child welfare um, in the sixties and seventies. And so it's um, something I've always been aware of. And in the book, I talk about Cherie Westall's case and she had the best foster family in the world.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Um, and, um, but the trauma that she had experienced as a child still caused her issues um, throughout her whole life. And so when you've got these traumatized kids, um, it's almost impossible to, I think Frances, her foster mother said that, um, that the social worker said it's, it is almost impossible, it's almost inevitable that these children will run away, will act out, will get into trouble because of the, the starting.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  What's the circumstances of her disappearance?

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, Cherie was um, fifteen years old and in foster care from the age of five, um, with all of her siblings. But I, I was thinking that like William's case, I don't know that her status as a foster kid had anything to do with her disappearance. That's, that's my opinion. I, I think that she was probably abducted from the street by an opportunistic person. Um, it's a crime of opportunity and um, she has never been seen again. And, and they, they did say she's a foster kid, she's run away. Um, that's just not, that, but then they're not listening to the family that say, no, she was, she had plans for the future.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  She was enrolled in TAFE, she was an amazingly talented young woman, she could play the piano by ear, she was artistic. She, this is not something she would have done. She was really close to her siblings, um, in contact with her siblings. So, so yes, she was a foster kid, but she'd been a foster kid for ten years in a great home, so.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you for mentioning the William Tyrrell matter because I, I think that is quite often been misrepresented, the, the fact that William was a foster kid and there was so much confusion about it. And uh, I know the views in, uh, that I hear, people, yeah, constantly coming up and saying this or, or saying that, have just misread the situation, like, there's nothing to be ashamed of, a, a child's, a foster child. And the environment that was uh, raised, I always say on the, the William Tyrrell matter, we talk about the uh, he was a foster child, see all the beautiful photos of him riding his bike and playing and all that.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Yep, yeah.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Those photos are from the foster family.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  He was a happy kid.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that, that was the environment that he disappeared in. But uh, yeah, when uh, when kids, you know, most recently we had that uh, the young fella down in South Australia, Gus Lamont disappeared and that.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  It, it does capture the attention of the uh, the country, cause I think you look at children that young, that innocent, and uh, just disappeared and, and no, no answers, so it's a, just goes on, doesn't it?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  And it's rare to have children go missing in this country, as you'd be aware, it's a really rare thing. From, from William to Gus, there's none. So, like Cleo, that she was located, yeah.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, not just rare here, rare in any, yeah, similar type community as uh, as we have here in the uh, in Australia.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  And I've, I've often been asked that and I, I, I think this way on uh, why children around the age of three or four. Anyone that's had uh, supervision or a three or four year old, know that you can't turn your back for a moment, because you don't know what they're going to get up to. And I think that's why it's so rare, there's not the opportunity, if, if there has been something sinister involved.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  There's not the opportunity because we've got eyes on the children, that's why it's such a rare, uh, rare situation. And then, yeah, in William's circumstances, playing at the uh, foster grandparents' place, everyone feels safe having their child, you know, run around the yard in, in the grandparents' place. And so it's just that, that opportunity where eyes are off them for a moment and that's where, where they've disappeared. So that's why it doesn't happen, happen very often. And I suppose that's what gets the attention of uh, everyone uh, talk, talking about it.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:46Speaker 00

  If you had to, and you've been doing this now and working, and I don't know where you get the energy uh, to, to do all this, like it's. You're making a lot of sacrifices because you're bringing in a lot of people's pain into into your life. You've been doing it for over two decades. I think you're entitled to offer an opinion as to how could the whole situation with missing persons be improved? When we talk law enforcement, we talk every way, even the way that message that you would put out to the families if they got concerns about someone that's disappeared.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Hmm, I think you've mentioned resourcing and that's got to be right up there. It's got to be, um, you know, as a, as a country, we're spending a lot of money on things that I think are frivolous, if I could use that term, you know, I don't, I think maybe.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Are you, sorry, can we stop there? Are you accusing the government of wasting our taxes?

• 48:44Speaker 01

  A little bit, a little bit, yeah.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  Shock, horror.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  I, I think they can be better repurposed. Um, on policing, you know, the community is crying out, not just for missing persons, but for youth crime and for, the community doesn't feel safe. And, um, the parliamentary inquiry is demanding that cases, old cold cases are reinvestigated, but I don't know that there are police to do that. Or are you going to pull them off current cases to look at old cases? Whereas there, there needs to be, um, recruitment, there needs to be support in policing because you're losing vast numbers of police, good police that, that I could mention are no longer, you know, out there doing a job.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  And so there needs to be resourcing in staffing and resourcing in the very basics of DNA testing the remains that are in, that are lying in gleep morgue. So as, as I said to you the other day, I'm making appeals for people that were found years ago and, but we don't know. We don't know who they are, they haven't got a name.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  So we're, we're, we're talking a body of skeletal remains.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Staying at the morgue that haven't been identified.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Yep, absolutely. And it's, it's, um, how awful to, to then one day say to the family, oh, you know, they were found in two thousand and ten, but we just didn't have any money to do a DNA test on them. That's ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. So we need to overhaul the labs, you know, the Queensland lab was in such a mess and there's a massive backlog of sampling now. And then there's cases in jeopardy because of, of potential contamination. So overhauling the labs and, um, and resourcing funding for all aspects of missing persons. Um, we're a rich country and there's got to be money there somewhere to put into.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  I, I just think giving a family a little bit of peace when the worst thing in the world, if you think the worst thing in the world is losing somebody that you love, that's got to be the worst thing in the world. That's worse than other disasters and terrible things that happen in the world. So if we can fix that, why wouldn't we? If we have the ability to fix that, we're not a poor country.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and the things that you're talking about there, and I understand the monetary, you know, restraints with, uh, yeah, budgeting issues. But it's not a great deal of expense just to set the system up. So, and it should be nationwide. So there's not this, um, yeah, we're operating in silos in each state that should be, yeah, national across the country. But set up the systems and make sure that, uh, yeah. And it's not, I, I, I'm not here and I, I don't get the sense you are seeing here beating up on the police. There's been mistakes made, which is understandable, mistakes happen. But what we, have we learnt from those mistakes and making sure we prevent those mistakes from, uh, happening again? And I think we could set up a system.

• 51:49Speaker 00

  It's complex in that each case is different and each person that disappears, there's, there's a different set of, set of circumstances. But the process to document the initial report, the steps that need to be taken, a pretty clear cut. It's, it's not that complicated. It's pretty obvious what needs to be done if someone's been reported as missing and the inquiries. And that should be the benchmark, that should, that should be the, the benchmark that every time that someone is recorded as a missing person, these things are done.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, as I understand it, and maybe you can confirm this, having worked there. As I understand it, uh, all missing persons cases, suspected homicides are reviewed every five years. So I don't know if that's still the case, but that's at the very minimum of what needs to happen. I actually think it should be kind of a cursory glance at it, at least yearly and a, and a phone call to the family saying, just wanted to double check, we've still got your, your contact details. Just wanted to reassure you that we haven't forgotten them. Just that communication that we were talking about before.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  Well, I, I worked in unsolved homicide as, as an inspector and I, I didn't, uh, see it that way now. I know there's been an overhaul and there's been criticism, wide range of criticisms about how unsolved is, uh, is dealt with. But it's something that, uh, I think we've got to understand, or when I say we, I'm talking to police, understand, the families are unforgiving in regards to what inquiries are done with their loved ones. And there should be a system in, in place, not attacking individuals and, you know, even the command. Resources are limited, we, we haven't got unlimited resources. But I definitely think it could be, uh, uh, the quality could be enhanced if the numbers were increased.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  But also having the people with the, the right experience investigating these unsolved homicides.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely, with a focus on compassion, not just, yeah, your person's gone missing. You know, don't increase their distress, it's just have a little bit of, of, you know, to you, you know, a hundred and thirty missing persons reports a day, police would become kind of a little bit immune to, to that whole process. But to that family, this is the only time in their whole life that they're going to walk into a police station and report someone as a missing person. So you need to, they need to recognise that that's, that's a horrific thing that the, the person's doing. And just, just a little bit of compassion towards them.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  I, I think if you, you say compassion, the way that I, I tried to get that across and it was taught to me when I was a younger detective or a younger police officer and I, I tried to pass this on. Treat the person that comes in as you would want your family member to be treated. And, yeah, when someone's phoning up and, uh, the loved one is, yeah, missing and they, they mightn't have slept worrying about what's happened. If you phone up and you've got the name of a police officer and the response is, I know that police officer's gone on leave or whatever, you know, I can understand why families would get, uh, get concerned, but I don't think anyone sets out to add trauma to, uh, to families. I, I don't think the police do.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  It's just something that if there have been mistakes, we need to, need to overhaul it. And the type of stuff that you're talking about is, uh, yeah, practical and, and I think achievable that, uh, that we could possibly do. Another thing that I, I just wanted to ask you this because I, I don't know where it stemmed from, but, uh, quite often now with technology, if someone disappears around the area in which you live, your mobile phone gets a text that, uh, look out for such and such a person. What was the genesis behind that? I think it's a great idea, but how, how did that come about? Do you have any understanding of that?

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Not a huge amount, sort of technology isn't really my area, but I do think it's amazing. I, it's, it's interesting to see the public reaction to that. It, it annoys people and it annoys me that it annoys people. Like you're thinking, honestly, the, the amount of spam emails we get, this is an important one. People go, how do I block this number so I don't get these? Like, no, no, these are really important.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  I didn't realise it was annoying people. I, I thought that to me, it seemed like a good idea.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Oh, I got this, this text and it was, I, I don't know anything about this. Why are they texting me? Like, no, it's, it's a very small thing that everybody can do and, and it works. That's the thing, it, it actually works that they're able to send a specific geographical area a text message and people are going, okay, oh, well, okay, there's this missing person. Hang on a minute, I'm sitting at a bus stop and they're right here. That has happened and, um, people may see them walking down the street, particularly an elderly person. If you see someone walking down the street in a dressing gown, you've got to think to yourself, all right, this, that's not quite right. Um, so maybe just think, oh, okay. And then you get this text saying, you know, missing eighty year old in your area.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, hang on a minute, I'm going to call the number that's on my text. It's a brilliant idea.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  I, I, I think it's a great idea and, and the credit to the, the police for initiating in that. But the community members, let's have a bit of a community feel here. It's not that bigger, bigger impossible. You're not sending out because someone hasn't come home in past five minutes, where is the person? There's obviously where there's, there's concerns. Um, if people want to reach out and, uh, and find out what you do or, or get advice, what's the easiest way to, um, to get in contact with you? And you're going to regret, you're going to regret that I've asked this, but yeah.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  No, that's what I'm here for. So, yeah, um, through the Facebook page, it's, um, if you send me a message, I'm there all the time. My husband said to me last night, it's seven thirty, why are you still talking to people? It's like, oh, yeah, okay, I have to remember that I should have business hours, but I don't. So it's, it's whenever I get a spare minute to, to answer somebody, then I'm always available for advice or to, to get a missing person appeal out there. And, um, I'm constantly updating the website. So for long-term missing persons, jump on there and have a look. It's all organised by state and by gender. And so people can look at New South Wales male missing persons from now and from right back until the nineteen fifties. So there's, there's every case you can imagine.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  Well, good on you. I don't know where you get the time, the energy. I hope you're looking after yourself and you've also managed to write, uh, three books of, uh, uh, missing, vanished and lost. I don't know where you get the time to do any of that. Your husband must be very understanding as, as your children because you, you're putting a lot out there. But look, I, I think it's an important thing. I hope people that have listened to, uh, our conversation now get an appreciation of the, uh, the type of, uh, emotion and dramas that come when someone disappears. So next time you, you hear of someone having, uh, gone missing, understand that the pain that that causes and it's a ripple effect too, isn't it?

• 58:57Speaker 00

  It just doesn't impact on one person that, that can, uh, yeah, pass on to generations.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Yep, and a whole community, a whole community is, um, affected when the person goes missing.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  Well, keep up the good work.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 59:10Speaker 00

  Get, get some rest and, uh, yeah. But, uh, good luck to what you're doing there. I think it's a really important, uh, role that you've managed to, uh, carve out for yourself and, uh, all the best for the future. And thanks very much for, uh, coming on Eye Catch Killers.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Thank you and thank you for all your hard work, Gary. I don't know if people say that enough to you, but thank you for everything you've done.

• 59:32Speaker 00

  I appreciate it. Thank you, all the best.