Pod Insights True Crime Conversations The Australian Family Cult That Vanished Overnight About this episode In 2007, a family of three and their friend vanished from their secluded home in Nannup, Western Australia, leaving only a cryptic note claiming they had moved to Brazil. They never arrived.
As investigators delved into the lives of Chantelle McDougall, her partner Simon Cadwell, their daughter Leela, and friend Tony Popic, they uncovered a web of doomsday prepping and cult-like spiritual beliefs.
Was this a voluntary disappearance to a "higher plane," or something far more sinister?
LINKS
Listen to Expanse: The Nannup Four here https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/expanse/id1635088231.
If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
GET IN TOUCH
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations https://www.instagram.com/truecrimeconversations/?hl=en
Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or send us a voice note. https://help.mamamia.com.au/en-US/send-a-podcast-voice-note-467960
Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes.
Get 25% off Nala with your Mamamia subscription. Click here https://www.mamamia.com.au/nala-discount-code/?utm_source=shownotes&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=discounts to get your code ends April 1st.
CREDITS
Guest: Dominique Bayens https://www.abc.net.au/news/dominique-bayens/10317056
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533976/Host: Gemma Bath https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmabath/?originalSubdomain=au
Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahli-blackman-205a891b7/?originalSubdomain=au
Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy
Audio Engineer: Jacob Round
Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.
Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 It's 1998 and 17-year-old Chantelle McDougall has just moved into a secluded home in Melbourne's outskirts to take on a job as a live-in nanny. Her dreams in the city of becoming a famous actress have been put on hold for now. She didn't get into the school she wanted. So she's keen to regroup and make some money. As she starts the job and becomes enmeshed in her nanny family's life, in charge of baby Daniel, she starts to pull back from her parents. They don't really hear from her much, and when they do, what she says is worrying. The dad of the family, Simon, seems to be some kind of self-styled spiritual guru with some pretty wacky beliefs.
0:43 Speaker 00 Beliefs Chantelle is starting to also spruik. As the years go by, Chantelle's life gets more and more secretive. To her parents, it gets more and more concerning. She is now dating the dad, Simon. She has his baby. They move to a tiny town in WA. They're rarely allowed to visit. Then, nine years later, in 2007, Chantelle, Simon, their five-year-old daughter Leela, and their friend Tony, a man who'd been living on their property, simply go missing. They are never heard of or seen again.
1:29 Speaker 00 I'm Gemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. A note was left on their nana's home door. It read, "We have moved overseas to Brazil and could not take most of our furniture with us. Sorry to leave so quickly." But they never went to Brazil. They never left the country. As news of their disappearance broke, so too did the details of Simon's cult-like beliefs and doomsday prepping, along with the isolating and controlling hold he had over his partner and child. But when an inquest in 2018 failed to provide any real answers about where the
2:11 Speaker 00 Nannup Four might be or what happened to them, the story naturally dipped out of the headlines. Until now, ABC reporter Dominic Baynes has been revisiting the case with fresh eyes in Expanse: The Nannup Four, which you can listen to via podcast or watch on ABC iView. Dominic joins us now to tell us the latest in this story.
2:37 Speaker 00 Dominic, I want to start with the town of Nannup, because a lot of people might not have heard of this place. It's a very small place. Tell me about it. Where is it? How many people? What it's all about?
2:50 Speaker 01 Oh, it's a beautiful part of the world. It's about three hours south of Perth. So you kind of leave Perth and drive down into the south west of WA. And you've got these kind of winding roads and jarrah forests and farmland. And Nannup kind of just, it just kind of appears out of nowhere. You kind of get no warning and then suddenly it appears and you drive over this little bridge, over this beautiful, the Blackwood River, which everyone in that area will know really well. And you drive through and it's the kind of place that's still got so much of its historic charm. In fact, I think
3:30 Speaker 01 quite a few TV shows and films are made there because it still has all of that real kind of colonial style, like the bull nose verandas along the main street. And yeah, it's history. It's a little timber town, a little farming town. There's quite a bit of dairy farming around that area. But probably in the late 60s and 70s, it started attracting more hippies that would come there for the isolation and the cheap land prices. So it's kind of, it's made up of a real mix of people and
4:11 Speaker 01 And I think that has brought a lot of culture to the town because now, well, for years it's had an annual Nannup Music Folk Festival, which um is just like really iconic here in W A. And it's grown a lot. There's a lot of people, um I guess tree changes that have moved down there in the last twenty years. But when this happened in two thousand and seven, it was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and you would, you know, couldn't walk down the main street without seeing someone you know. And it is still really like that. It's a really close knit town.
4:44 Speaker 00 And you live relatively close. You know this area quite well.
4:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I live about an hour away from Nannup. I've lived in the southwest of W A um since twenty twenty, so about five years. Um but even like as a kid, you know, I would come down here for weekends away or um. You know, the southwest is just such a beautiful place to visit. So I've always been familiar with Nannup. But certainly over the last year have spent a lot of time there.
5:13 Speaker 00 When did you first hear about this story? What attracted you to it?
5:18 Speaker 01 Well, I probably first, uh it kind of had, you know, I was actually, I would have been in high school when this all happened. I first properly heard about it when I've moved to the southwest about five years ago. And I didn't really know, I mean, you know, because I work in a newsroom, it was kind of brought up every now and then. And um and, you know, once a year it would sort of make the news again. And um I didn't really know that much more about it than what was in the news headlines of like this um bizarre doomsday cult. So it wasn't really until about a year ago that I started looking
5:58 Speaker 01 more closely at it and trying to kind of understand what actually happened, you know, was this a cult? Who were these people? What were their relationship to each other? And what were the circumstances that led to their disappearance?
6:14 Speaker 00 When you started digging and.
6:18 Speaker 00 Chatting to people and sniffing around town a bit. Were you welcomed? What was the temperature when you started to kind of ask questions around the place?
6:27 Speaker 01 Hmm. Oh, look, it was a really mixed bag. There were some people, you know, I think when something like this happens in a small town, people kind of band around each other and in some ways maybe close ranks because, you know, this happened 20 years ago and at the time there was such a media storm around it. I think, you know, someone told me at one point they had helicopters flying over Nannup. And, you know, there were a lot of people who spoke at the time and then, you know, were just continuously, you know, had journalists knocking on their door, asking for quotes and, and to, you know, be interviewed.
7:08 Speaker 01 So for a lot of people, I think it brings up not just the painful memories of the disappearance, but the aftermath of that and what it was like to have the town in the spotlight in that way. So certainly some people that I approached felt like I do not want to talk about this again. And, you know, I can completely understand that. And then on the other hand, you had people who I would call up and they'd say, yeah, I remember them and, and this is what I know and, and maybe you should speak to this person. So I don't think there was, um, you know, there wasn't a particular,
7:48 Speaker 01 everyone kind of reacted differently, I guess, um, to, to my phone calls and my request for, you know, sitting down for a cup of tea.
7:58 Speaker 00 I want to rewind a bit and go back to kind of the origin story of Chantelle, where she came from. What was her story prior to Simon and everything else that happened?
8:10 Speaker 01 It's funny to talk about someone who you've never met before in that way. But as I spoke to more and more people about Chantel, she really kind of came to life for me and I could just see her and and the type of person she was. And, you know, I spent quite a bit of time um with her, her parents, who, you know, they they still live in a little town in Victoria called Wadonga.
8:34 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
8:35 Speaker 01 And that's where Chantel grew up. And, um, you know, it's this kind of, you know, lovely little country town and she grew up having such a um kind of outdoorsy life. She was a real water baby and they they spent quite a bit of time on the dam out there and um doing water sports and that sort of thing. But the impression that I get of Chantel as a child, she was just like this real goofy joke star. They, you know, her parents talk about the really daggy jokes that she liked to make and her and her sister loved performing. As she moved into high school, she was involved in the local theatre group and she had dreams of being an actress. And in fact,
9:18 Speaker 01 um, when she moved to Melbourne after high school, she had aspirations of of going to a a local uni or doing an acting course, which unfortunately never happened for her.
9:31 Speaker 00 Because she met Simon, how did he kind of come into the picture?
9:35 Speaker 01 Well, Chantel, when she moved to Melbourne, she met another man whose name was also Simon. There are a lot of Simons.
9:45 Speaker 00 Confusing.
9:46 Speaker 01 In this story, it's very confusing. Um but she met another guy named Simon and he had been attending an ashram in Melbourne. And it seems like he came across Simon Cadwell's teachings during his time at that ashram or within that community. And he had Simon Cadwell's books.
10:08 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
10:08 Speaker 01 Which he introduced to Chantel. And we don't know the, I don't know the exact moment that he met Chantel, but at some point. Uh, Chantel's boyfriend, Simon, introduced her to Simon Cadwell, who then employed her as a live-in nanny for his young baby son. And from there, that's kind of how their story began and um, and how they began to be inmeshed with each other. So it began really as Chantel um, uh, working as a live-in nanny for Simon Cadwell, and then eventually entering into a relationship with him and and them having a child together.
10:50 Speaker 00 So who was Simon at that time? You say he was a dad, so did he have a partner? Was he working? He was obviously already into some strange beliefs. He'd published books. Who was he at that time?
11:03 Speaker 01 Around this time, yeah, it was kind of, this was, I'm talking about the late nineties, about ninety-seven, ninety-eight. And from what we understand of him at this time, he'd just, um, he was from the UK originally, and he had just spent many years kind of going back and forth to India. He'd um, stayed in ashrams in India. He had had gone through, I guess, this period of um, what he describes as spiritual enlightenment. And during that time, he'd written a number of books, one of them called Servers of the Divine Plan. And he'd also created an online, like a website and an online forum where he'd amassed
11:48 Speaker 01 a number of followers. And he hosted free courses and essentially answered people's questions about this, this religion that he had essentially created. And, you know, he, I guess, yeah, at that point, he was kind of uh, established, I guess, as a spirit, self-styled spiritual guru.
12:11 Speaker 00 Yeah.
12:12 Speaker 01 It doesn't appear that he had, like, I've, I've never been able to find any evidence that he held down an actual job.
12:20 Speaker 00 Right.
12:20 Speaker 01 Apart from writing his books. It seems like a lot of the time, he was being supported um, by the women around him and potentially by some of his followers as well.
12:33 Speaker 00 I know that I've heard you say that it's quite hard to answer this, but what were his beliefs?
12:39 Speaker 01 Well, look, to just try and distill it into a nutshell for you, Gemma. I think he essentially believed that the world was moving towards the end of a 75,000 year cycle. And at that point, there would be certain beings. And when I say beings, he kind of, he believed that there were aliens on earth. He believed that certain, I guess, people like himself would be sort of the chosen people to move up to a higher plane and go from the the physical world to a fifth dimension. And only people who were kind of servers of the divine plan, who had prepared themselves
13:23 Speaker 01 for that transition, would kind of be chosen to move up to a higher plane.
13:28 Speaker 00 Right, so this is something he he has created, he's the leader of this kind of belief.
13:36 Speaker 01 Well, from what I can tell, he's drawn from a lot of different religions. But essentially, he did create his own religion, in a sense, yes.
13:45 Speaker 00 And he has a cult or he has a following? What does that look like?
13:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, look, in, in, I guess, his life in Nannup, he was a very insular, closed off person. It doesn't seem, not, not many people ever saw him around town. So it was kind of like, in the real world, he didn't really have that many people around him. But in his online world, we, from what I've been able to uncover, he had followers from around the world, particularly in America, some in the UK as well. And A lot of these people, they were dedicated followers to him and some people, you know, they undertook his, um, the courses that he offered.
14:34 Speaker 01 But some of them also travelled to meet him in, in person.
14:39 Speaker 00 So it was kind of like an online cult?
14:42 Speaker 01 That's kind of a question I ask because some of, I guess, the questions around this story are, well, this was four people who disappeared, so how can this be a cult?
14:53 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:54 Speaker 01 Was it really a cult? And that is something that I kind of delve into in the podcast. And I, I speak to a cult expert, a man named Raphael Aron, who has spent forty years studying cults. And, um, and from what he explained to me,
15:11 Speaker 01 the way he put it was actually, um, having, you know, four people, including a child, in this household created like almost a, um, a stronger sense of enmeshment than the typical cult that you think of, where the leader is sort of this far off person that you never really meet, you just hear about. But because he was there, right there in the house every day, and was, I guess, the most spiritually dominant person there, that the influence that he had on the people around him was perhaps even stronger than, you know, your typical cult leader that you kind of think of,
15:53 Speaker 01 that is in the white robes and, you know, you kind of only get the honour of meeting
15:58 Speaker 00 Mmm.
15:59 Speaker 01 once, if that makes sense.
16:01 Speaker 00 Yeah, for sure. There were quite a few steps between Chantel moving in as a nanny and nan up. So she moves in, she's looking after Daniel. He lives in the house, his partner or wife also lives in the house, is that right?
16:19 Speaker 01 Yes, at some, so like you said, there are a few steps before they made it to Nannup. So they met in Melbourne, Chantel was employed as a live-in nanny. And she did go travelling at one point. Her parents talk about, you know, they were, they'd heard she was nannying for this man. And they didn't really know much about him, but Chantel kind of alluded to the fact that he had, you know, had these spiritual beliefs that she was sort of quite interested in. And she, she did nanny for them for some time, but then she went travelling. And she went over um to the UK and her parents thought, you know, she's this young eighteen-year-old at this, at this stage woman.
17:03 Speaker 01 And um they felt quite a bit of relief because they thought, oh, she's, she's left this weird situation that we don't really know much about. And she's gone and done, you know, I guess, normal teenage things like travelling the world. Um but what they didn't know was that Simon was actually in the UK with her. And she helped Simon get back into the country, at which point they moved to Perth in Western Australia. And what we've learnt, what I've, I've managed to find out from that stage of their lives, Chantel was living with Simon. He had two other women in the house with him, who I guess you could say were also his followers or enmeshed in that world.
17:49 Speaker 01 So he was having relationships with three women at, at one point in time. And at some point, the other two women left the situation. And Chantel was the remaining woman with Simon and they had a baby together.
18:07 Speaker 00 I think it's worth saying at this point too that, you know, she met Simon when she was eighteen, he was twenty.
18:13 Speaker 01 Seventeen.
18:14 Speaker 00 Seventeen and he was.
18:15 Speaker 01 Seventeen and he was eighteen years older than her.
18:18 Speaker 00 Yeah. So they end up having a child.
18:24 Speaker 00 Was that kind of like the beginning of a family unit for them? Like, was that happy news? What did that look like?
18:32 Speaker 01 I think for Chantel's family, it was happy news because of course, you know, when a child is brought into the world, it's a wonderful thing. And Leila was just this gorgeous, tiny little baby with these big eyes. And I think for Chantel's parents, you know, at this point, they were still on the other side of the country and they hadn't met Simon yet. So Leila, Chantel's mum, Kath, travelled over to Perth when Chantel had Leila. And not only was that her first time meeting Leila, it was her first time meeting Simon. And that was a pretty unsettling meeting. He was a really weird guy. I think one of the first conversations he had with Chantel's mum was asking her what planet she was from.
19:18 Speaker 01 So it was a really complicated time, but I think they, they did feel that, you know, the birth of Leila, they hoped that that would be the start of kind of a normal family situation. And, and it did in some ways open the door back up with their relationship with Chantel. Because until that point, they really had no idea what was going on in her world. They felt like they couldn't ask too many questions because after she moved to Melbourne and met Simon Cadwell, they noticed such a sudden change in her, where she went from this bubbly, goofy, young woman to quite closed off.
20:03 Speaker 01 They didn't really understand what these new spiritual beliefs were that she was, that she was experimenting with, I guess. And yeah, they, they described feeling like they were walking on eggshells. And if they asked too many questions, they would be shut off from Chantel. So when she had Leila, they did feel like the door opened a little bit and that they had a connection with her again. And I guess, you know, it's that thing of being able to just talk about the, the mundane things of motherhood. What am I going to cook for dinner? And, you know, and Chantel's mum would send over care packages and knit and sew little outfits for Leila. So I think, you know, it does feel like at every.
20:49 Speaker 01 Every fork in the road, they were still so hopeful that Chantel was getting just like the normal family life that they really wanted for her.
20:58 Speaker 00 I want to bring in Tony here because he's another figure that's around during this time. He's living in the house when it's the three women, including Chantel and Simon. How does he come into all of this? Because he follows them to Nannup.
21:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, so he seemed to, it's quite a, it's hard to find out much about how Tony made his way into the group. But from what I've been able to find out, it seems like he came into the Perth house after the two women left.
21:29 Speaker 00 Right.
21:30 Speaker 01 But he was living in a tent in the backyard, despite, you know, this house having all these spare rooms. And from what I understand, it was because Simon liked to have his own space, which read into that what you will. But it seems like at this point, Tony himself was going through a vulnerable time. He was this young, this man in his 30s who until a couple of years before had had a really stable job. He had a well-paying job, he had a company car, he was really well-dressed and just really kind of, I guess, had a pretty
22:11 Speaker 01 stable life. And at some point, he started going to these spiritual seminars where he was encouraged to give away his possessions. And from there, he essentially led a pretty nomadic life where he kept to himself. And at some point, his path crossed with Simon Cadwell. He moved into the house and from there, it seems like he too became really enmeshed and under Simon's control in a lot of ways.
22:39 Speaker 00 But he wasn't in a relationship with anyone. He was more just like a follower.
22:44 Speaker 01 It seems like he was a follower, he was a good friend of Chantel's. I think they had a really, um, a close connection. But it, it, it seems like he was a follower of Simon's, yes.
22:56 Speaker 00 So how did they end up in Nannup?
22:59 Speaker 01 They sort of made their way from Perth to increasingly more isolated, um, locations. They lived in Denmark for a little bit, which is another little coastal town, um, in, on Western Australia.
23:13 Speaker 00 Not the country.
23:14 Speaker 01 Not the country. And, um, and they, they, yeah, eventually made their way to Nannup in late 2003, where they were renting a, um, a little farmhouse, about 10Ks out of Nannup. And from what I understand of that time, Simon was feeling like there was a lot of noise or interference from, um, electricity and wifi and, and too many people around. So it seems like he was increasingly attracted to more and more isolated places. And that's how they came to be living on the outskirts of Nannup.
23:52 Speaker 00 Do you think his beliefs were getting more and more extreme over this time as well?
23:56 Speaker 01 I think that, I don't know if it was that his beliefs were becoming more extreme or that he was becoming perhaps more extreme in his behaviour. And, and perhaps, you know, I'm not a, a mental health expert, but it seems like at this point, he was becoming more and more paranoid and more and more isolated and cut off from the world, certainly.
24:24 Speaker 00 You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Gemma Bath. I'm speaking with Dominic Baynes, journalist and host of the ABC podcast Expanse: The Nannup Four. Up next, did anyone in Chantel and Lila's lives suspect they were in danger? And did they say anything?
24:46 Speaker 02 You know the drill. You pick the couch, pay the deposit, then wait 12 weeks praying it matches the living room. Let's skip that. Mamamia is giving one lucky subscriber a $5,000 voucher for B2C furniture to spend on pieces that are in stock and ready to ship right now. High-end style, zero wait. To enter, head to mamamia.com.au/subscribe. You'll unlock all our subscriber-only podcasts, articles and our fitness app move. Already subscribed? You're already in the running. Offer ends October 31st. T's and C's apply.
25:22 Speaker 00 What did the locals think of this group? We've got, you know, a couple with a daughter and then a man who's been living with them. He was living in a caravan off to the side of the house again, not in the house. Did the town know them? Did they like them? What did they think?
25:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, Chantel and Tony were well-liked and known around town. You know, both of them held down quite a few jobs during their time in Nanaup. Tony, he had a job at the nursery, he worked at the hardware. And from everyone I've spoken to, the number one things they say about him is that he was a really hard worker and just a really, a nice, gentle man. So he was, he was known around town and Chantel herself, she had a little group of friends. She worked really hard. She had jobs at the fish and chip store. She worked at the, at the, the local pub. She taught private swimming lessons.
26:23 Speaker 01 She even looked out after a, a young woman with disabilities. So they were both really contributing members of Nanaup and, and well-liked in the community. I, I think more so what people say is that they never saw Simon around. They would often see Chantel or Tony and Lila, of course. But Simon really kept to himself and didn't really leave the house much.
26:47 Speaker 00 What about the relationship between Chantel and Simon? Were there any?
26:54 Speaker 00 Kind of worrying signs there or things that people noticed?
26:58 Speaker 01 Absolutely, and it's been interesting talking to people about that over the last year because it seems like everyone I spoke to saw a little moment here or had a kind of an unsettling experience there. But it's almost like it wasn't enough to really ring the alarm bells. It's only in hindsight that they sort of think, oh, that was, that was not great. Or, you know, maybe I should have asked some more questions about that. There was one woman in particular, she was in a homeschooling group with Chantel. And, you know, they would catch up every fortnight where the kids would do little activities and, and the mums would catch up.
27:42 Speaker 01 And she always kind of got the sense that, you know, Chantel would share little bits about her home life, but overall she was quite private. But Diane did get the sense that, that Chantel's partner was perhaps a little bit controlling. At one point, Chantel had told her that when she fell pregnant with Leila, Simon said, well, you can have the baby, but it's your responsibility to look after her. And at, at one point Diane did actually go out for a visit with them and, and she met Simon in person and she said, you know, he, he was pretty unremarkable. It was kind of, you know, we had a, a short chat, but he was fine. I didn't feel unwelcome.
28:26 Speaker 01 But after she left, not long after that play date, he called her up on the phone. You know, this guy that she'd met once in passing. And he called her up to tell her, well, you know, Chantel's got end time syndrome. And she was like, what? And he says, well, the reason Chantel, you know, doesn't like to go outside too much is because, you know, we don't go anywhere because Chantel has end time syndrome. She's scared about the end of the world. And Diane said to me, you know, she said Chantel had never mentioned anything about this to me before. And and she was kind of thinking, why is this man who I've met once
29:08 Speaker 01 calling me up to tell me this about his partner? And she sort of said, you know, Diane's a real, she's a real straight shooter. And um she just said, well, you know, thanks for telling me that, Simon. But I think, you know, if Chantel wants to tell me that, she can tell me that herself and see you later. And um so, you know, it's it's these little moments of a phone call here or an interaction there where people felt like, you know, there's something kind of off about this guy, but not enough to really ring too many alarm bells.
29:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, and it sounds like as well, when this story first made headlines back in two thousand and seven, that the focus was so much on the cult and the doomsday and all of that, that perhaps the complicated relationship and potentially flags there weren't something that were discussed as much.
30:02 Speaker 01 I think so for sure. I think that it's definitely been overlooked, in my view, how young Chantel was when she met him, seventeen years old. I I don't know if you can remember what you were like at seventeen, but I can't imagine meeting a man eighteen years older than me and and moving in as his live-in nanny when he's this spiritually dominant, self-styled guru who's claiming to have all the answers. And in my view, like a young woman like Chantel, who's been described as open and bubbly and maybe a little bit naive, I don't think she really stood a chance against that. And and it seems like, you know, a- across the the ten years that um that led to their disappearance.
30:48 Speaker 01 They became more and more enmeshed. They had a baby together. They moved away from her family and her friends to these increasingly isolated areas. And and I certainly think that, yes, on the surface, uh we look at it and see this doomsday cult, um this bizarre disappearance. But when you look closer at the heart of this, it's this seventeen year old woman who's met a man much older than her and he's, his behaviour has been one of manipulation and isolation and and lack of self autonomy, which I think in twenty twenty six, we would look at that and say it's a textbook case of coercive control.
31:28 Speaker 00 That's, that's the phrase that keeps coming up in my brain when I think about it. I'm like, the manipulation, the coercive control, and those weren't terms that we were using as much in two thousand and seven.
31:39 Speaker 01 No, I don't think so. I think, you know, in in the early two thousands, a relationship was only dangerous if there was violence involved.
31:48 Speaker 00 Or, yeah.
31:49 Speaker 01 Physical violence. Yeah. And and I think what we know now is that a a controlling relationship is it can look so many different ways. And this was one of them.
32:02 Speaker 00 They disappeared in two thousand and seven, but it wasn't like that happened kind of out of the blue because they were kind of planning to move, so to speak. Tell me about that because they visited Kath or Kath visited them, they're Chantel's mother, and they were kind of telling everyone they were going to move overseas.
32:21 Speaker 01 Yes, there was talk of movement in or or moving overseas in the months leading up to the disappearance. And there were a few things that kind of you can look back now and say, well, maybe that was um what, you know, what sparked all of this, what led to the disappearance. Um but, you know, one of those things which we um hear about in episode one is um the the power transformer, which was installed on their property. And Simon's real distress about that and his worry that the power transformer was emitting EMFs, electromagnetic fields, and that that was interfering with his mind.
33:04 Speaker 01 And it seems like that was a a big source of paranoia and and mental distress for him and and one of kind of the starting points of him. Um, you know, them saying that they were going to move away to an area where no one could find them. But, you know, Kath, Kath McDougall, Chantel's mum, she, her final visit to Chantel was just a, a couple of months before they disappeared. And at that point, Chantel had not said anything about moving overseas. There had been a passport that had arrived for Leela during that visit, which, um, you know, Chantel kind of brushed off, didn't say too much about.
33:45 Speaker 01 And it wasn't until Kath left Nana and returned back to, to Victoria that she received a phone call from Chantel, where Chantel said, um, we're moving to Brazil in six weeks' time. And, and that was, you know, that was a huge shock for Kath. And she immediately, you know, did everything within her power to kind of try and stay in contact with Chantel. They got the internet installed. Kath put together a, a little backpack care package for Leela, where she'd put all of her contact details in there because she, she knew, you know, if you guys move to Brazil, we're probably not going to see you for many years
34:26 Speaker 01 because we don't have the money to get over there and visit. And you guys don't have the money to come back for a visit. So it was around that time, they, they did tell people that they were moving to Brazil. But at the same time, there were people who it came, they had no idea that they'd moved to Brazil, you know, they, they didn't give notice to their landlords. They, they left a, a note pinned to the door saying that they'd moved to Brazil. So it seems like it was kind of a murkier situation than just saying, oh, we're moving overseas.
35:01 Speaker 00 So it's almost like there was a bit of talk of it and then suddenly they were gone. Who was it that raised the alarm that they were actually gone and missing?
35:10 Speaker 01 Chantel's parents, you know, they had had a final phone call with her where she said, "Yep, we're just, we're getting ready to leave and we will, we'll contact you as soon as we get there." And, and so every day Kath would go out and, and check the letterbox and they, they'd check their email that they'd set up and they had no word from her. And pretty much within weeks, they started getting really concerned and they actually reached out to a, a family friend who was a local police officer in country Victoria, not far from where they live. And they asked him for help and that's kind of when the alarm bells really started ringing
35:51 Speaker 01 because from his early investigation, he found that nobody had, well, they, they hadn't used their passports and their bank accounts hadn't been touched and they, they sold a lot of their possessions as well in the lead up to the disappearance.
36:08 Speaker 00 Once the police got involved and they realised, these people haven't left the country, they haven't gone to Brazil, even though that's where they've said they've gone, they haven't touched their bank accounts. What do they, what are their theories? What do they look at at the time?
36:23 Speaker 01 Well, at this point in time, I guess you have to remember that these are three adults and a child, but three adults who have told people we're moving overseas. And so, you know, in the first instance, it went to the missing persons team within WA Police. But when three adults say that they're moving overseas, there's not really, you know, you kind of just take their word for it and think, well, they've said that they were moving overseas, that's probably what they've done. So it kind of took some time for, I guess, that concern to really deepen. And it was only when more information about Simon Cadwell himself came to light
37:08 Speaker 01 that I think the concern really grew around, okay, what actually happened here? Because even the McDougals at that point thought, oh, they've, they've got to Brazil and something's happened to them there. The idea that perhaps they hadn't even left the country at all hadn't really occurred to them.
37:28 Speaker 00 After the break, we learn more about who Simon Cadwell really was.
37:37 Speaker 00 So what were some of the things to come out about Simon's history or story in the inquest that we didn't know about?
37:46 Speaker 01 Well, I think the most shocking thing that came out, which actually came out well before the inquest, but it was covered again during that investigation, was the fact that Simon Cadwell was lying about his identity. And his real name was not Simon Cadwell, it was Gary Felton. And he was a man who had grown up in the UK. And actually, one of his first jobs was working at a software company, which is a bit of foreshadowing there that he ended up spending so much time on the internet. So this was a man who knew a lot about computers in the early 80s, when not a lot of us knew
38:30 Speaker 01 that much about computers. But one of his first jobs was at a software company in his early 20s, where he met a man named Simon Cadwell and ended up stealing his birth certificate and then stealing his identity and travelling to Australia and assuming the name Simon Cadwell while he was living here.
38:52 Speaker 00 Do we know why?
38:55 Speaker 01 We don't. It's not 100% known why he did it. But to me, it seems like almost an opportunistic behaviour. He took the passport, he created a driver's licence while he was in the UK. And it sort of snowballed from there to the point where he... He got a passport under that name and then moved to Australia. And then just, you know, nobody really knew him as anything other than Simon Cadwell when he came here. But, you know, this was something that Chantel's parents didn't find out until two years after the disappearance.
39:37 Speaker 01 In fact, they talk about, um, you know, they told me the story of, they were actually travelling um, up the east coast, handing out missing persons flyers because they were just desperate to do anything they could um, to, to try and find Chantel and Leila or find out information about what had happened. And it was when they were travelling up the east coast that they got a call from a reporter saying that a man named Simon Cadwell has been arrested in the UK. But it's not the Simon Cadwell you know. And actually, the Simon Cadwell you know, his real name is Gary Felton and he's been operating under a false identity for years now.
40:20 Speaker 00 It gives so many more question marks to this story.
40:23 Speaker 01 It raises the, you know, at that point, Kath and Jim, you know, they didn't really know what had happened. They still don't know, but when you find out that your daughter's partner is a man who's stolen his identity off of someone, I think for them it really brought, you know, they started going, oh my god, who is this man? And what is he actually capable of? If he was capable of stealing his identity and, and why did he steal it? What was he running from? And what has he done to our daughter and granddaughter? You know, those are the questions that were going around in their minds.
41:00 Speaker 00 Have we heard anything from anyone in Gary's life about what he was like?
41:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, I managed to track down some of his, his childhood friends and from what I've been able to find out about him. He was this, you know, quite good looking, he's described as quite good looking, charismatic. He could really um spin a yarn, tell a great story. And he, until his kind of, at some point in his twenties, he was working at a software company. He liked to party on the weekends, just do kind of normal, um, you know, early twenty, mid twenties things. And at some point, he started taking LSD. Is the, the story that I've been told by someone who knew him quite well.
41:50 Speaker 01 He started taking LSD and he, he really changed from that point. And he started talking about having a, a direct line to God. And um about aliens existing and, and he talked about having the cure for cancer. So just, you know, really uh bizarre behaviour. And in, in the words of um one of his old friends that I spoke to. He just felt like he blew his mind on, on LSD and it was at that point that he left his job. He started travelling for long um stretches of time to India. Where he was experiencing, I guess he called it spiritual enlightenment.
42:34 Speaker 01 And he just, I guess, became increasingly more bizarre and unsettling in his behaviour. Until it came a point where his friends in the UK didn't see him anymore. And he'd moved to Australia under a, a new identity.
42:52 Speaker 00 Well, another theory that ended up coming up was this family suicide plan idea. Is that something that wasn't kind of presented until the inquest, which was many, many years later, twenty eighteen? Is that when that kind of became a potential theory?
43:08 Speaker 01 Yes, yeah, that that came out in the investigation that was held in the lead up to the inquest, when a lot of Simon's online activities were looked into and some of his followers were tracked down. And that was something that, you know, came as a real shock to Chantel's family, that they had no idea about, that in the months leading up to their disappearance, Simon had spoken to one of his online followers and told them about plans for a family suicide pact. And he'd said in that message that he didn't think Chantel could go through with it because she kept delaying. And his follower, the follower that he was speaking to, said to him, if you do that,
43:52 Speaker 01 that is tantamount to murder, because you're taking the life of your five-year-old daughter. And it was at that point that he became much more closed off, and he said, actually, I've changed my mind and we're just going to move to an isolated area where no one can reach us.
44:09 Speaker 00 What would the reason have been that he gave for a suicide pact?
44:14 Speaker 01 From what I've been able to find, it seems like in those months leading up to the disappearance, he spoke of having, his energy was low, he was feeling like the, I guess, that the planets were sort of disrupting his, his internal world, I guess you could say. It seems like, and some, you know, people have reported that he spoke of depression, of not wanting to be on this planet anymore. So it seems from his, his online behaviour that Simon Cadwell was declining in his own kind of mental health, I guess you could say.
44:55 Speaker 00 Yeah. When this theory was presented to Chantel's parents...
45:04 Speaker 00 What did they think about that? Is that something that they think their daughter could or would do?
45:10 Speaker 01 Um, you know, that that's a question that I asked them and it's a really, it's a difficult question to ask of any parent that's lost their child. And, you know, they they said to me, we just don't think that Chantel could have hurt Leila.
45:26 Speaker 00 Yeah.
45:27 Speaker 01 Because she was such a loving mum and she really did have such a a beautiful connection with Leila and take really good care of her. I think, you know, I I don't think that they they have said to me that they they swing between hope and despair. You know, one day they'll think, oh, maybe they have just moved somewhere and um off grid where they can't be contacted. And other days they feel like Simon has done something to their daughter and granddaughter. But we just don't know.
46:04 Speaker 00 Because the area Nannup has been searched, hasn't it, quite extensively for bodies?
46:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, there there was a a search within Nannup, within the bushland surrounding Nannup, sort of, well, many, many years ago now. And it wasn't, it didn't, you know, bring anything to light, no.
46:25 Speaker 00 What did that inquest conclude? Did it give any closure to the parents of Chantel?
46:32 Speaker 01 Unfortunately not, you know, there was a a lot of really troubling information that came to light, the the main thing being Simon's talk of um a a family suicide pact. But unfortunately, the coroner could not determine whether they were alive or dead. So sadly, you know, the McDougals thought that that was going to be their their final chance to get fi-, you know, finally get answers and it wasn't to be.
47:01 Speaker 00 So they were left with this kind of real mystery where, you know, they really don't know what's happened. And then you picked up the case a year or so ago. Since you've been investigating, has anything surprised you?
47:15 Speaker 01 A lot of things have surprised me. Um, I think.
47:20 Speaker 01 You know, I was able to find people who knew Simon Cadwell well when he was a younger man and had some really crucial insight into how he became the person that he did.
47:32 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
47:33 Speaker 01 And that was not something that was in the inquest and not something that's really has been reported on at all before. I spoke to a lot of people who have never spoken publicly before, each who were able to give me a little piece of the puzzle each, which, you know, when you put it all together, paints this really complex picture. I think what surprised me the most was the fact that, you know, like we said earlier on the surface, when you think of a doomsday cult, it brings to mind people in white robes, you know, worshipping around a fire. And this story is like, it's like something that could happen in a movie.
48:15 Speaker 01 But when you really start looking closely at it, the themes around it are just so common, that coercive control, the isolation, the spiritual dominance.
48:27 Speaker 00 Yep.
48:28 Speaker 01 Um, I think that that is really what surprised me the most was just how, not ordinary but common, the kind of behaviour and relationship between these people were.
48:42 Speaker 00 Underneath those crazy headlines.
48:44 Speaker 01 Exactly, yeah.
48:46 Speaker 00 I know you're still in the weeds of this case, you're still chasing leads. Do you think we'll find answers on where the Nannup four are and what happened to them?
48:56 Speaker 01 I really don't know. I would, I would, I would love that for the McDougall family and the Poppage family and everybody who knew them and loved them. Towards the end of the podcast, we do speak with a man who's been conducting his own investigation to retired Victorian detectives who are looking into this. And, you know, they have a theory and we really, we dig into that and, and look at the possibilities around that. But, you know. At this stage, we we still don't know where they are, but I'm really hopeful that um by doing this podcast, you know, not only will people
49:39 Speaker 01 understand this story more and perhaps have more compassion for the people involved, but also that, you know, it it might bring people out of the woodwork. And, you know, I, at the end of every podcast, I, episode, I say, you know, if if you have any information, this is an ongoing case and and please get in touch or please contact police. So I think, you know, and that that's one of the main reasons why the McDougles wanted to take part in this, because over the last twenty years, they have just tried to keep Chantel and Leela's story in the spotlight in the hopes that
50:14 Speaker 00 Hmm.
50:14 Speaker 01 somebody will come forward with some information, because I think they they really do believe that somebody out there knows something about this.
50:23 Speaker 00 Is there a question that keeps you up at night? One little kind of, is there anything from this story where you're like, no, that's what I really wanna know? Like, what's the thing you struggle with the most not knowing about in this case?
50:35 Speaker 01 Oh, there's so many, so many questions that that keep me up at night. Um. I think I think a lot about um the people who've been left behind in this and the impact that it's had in their life. And, you know, when you do something like this, when you put together this podcast like we have, I think a lot about how they have made themselves so vulnerable and, you know, exposed their heartbreak once again, trying to keep Chantel's story in the spotlight. So that is something that I personally think about a lot, um and hoping that I've kind of done justice to that and to their story.
51:20 Speaker 01 And then, you know, to do with the case, I just, I keep going over and over. You know, how how did this young woman who had the world at her feet, who had dreams of becoming an actress, just become so enmeshed in this man's life? Who was so, you know, he had, he spoke a big, you know, a big game and he had a lot of, um, I guess he was very charismatic, but at the end of the day was just this ordinary man who was just controlling and and arrogant and believed that he had all of the answers. And then, of course, the question that everyone wants to know, where are they? And what happened?
52:03 Speaker 01 And that, you know, I absolutely go over that over and over in my mind and think about all of the different possibilities. And it just, you go around and around in circles. So I can't imagine what it's like to be their family and their friends and have gone over those questions again and again for nearly 20 years.
52:28 Speaker 00 Thank you to Dominique for helping us to tell this story. You can listen to the podcast Expanse, the Nannup 4, at the link in our show notes. This episode does discuss suicide, and if you or someone you know needs support, please contact Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14. If you want to see visuals from this episode, head over to our Instagram page, at True Crime Conversations. And for in-depth case explainers, follow us on TikTok under the same name. True Crime Conversations is hosted by me, Gemma Bath. Our senior producer is Tali Blackman. The group executive producer is Alaria Brophy. And there's been audio design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.
53:16 Speaker 01 True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was recorded on.
Previous The Family Friend No One Suspected Next The Podcast Uncovering The New Victims Of Serial Killer Christopher Wilder Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated