Pod Insights Unravel 01 What Became of Jack? | Vanished About this episode When Jack's mate turns around, he's just… gone. Vanished. His mate says that's how fit 27-year-old Jack McLennan disappeared from a bush picnic spot 3 hours from Brisbane. But when searchers discover a trail of baffling clues, suspicions begin to deepen among friends and family.
They start questioning what this is — it doesn't seem like the average missing person's case to them. Could it be murder? Is it someone who's just gone missing? ABC journalist Rob Burgin picks up the case, determined to find out what became of Jack.
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0:36 Speaker 02 Just before we start, this episode contains some strong language.
0:42 Speaker 03 Okay, so it's night time and I'm in complete darkness out here in the bush. There's insects clinging to my eyeballs.
0:55 Speaker 03 And I know there's a waterhole just over there, but I can't really see it right now. I'm about three hours from Brisbane at a kind of picnic spot called Fixed Crossing. There is no one else around and to be honest, I do feel a little bit uneasy being out here by myself. That's because about 18 months ago, at almost this exact time of night, in this exact spot, a man just suddenly disappeared.
1:31 Speaker 03 He was 27 years old, a local who lived in a town just down the road from here. His name was Jack McLennan. Jack was here to hang out with a mate. They sank some beers. Jack's first major relationship of his adult life had just broken down. And he was here to try and blow off some steam, maybe forget about his worries.
1:58 Speaker 03 His mate says, one minute Jack's like twenty to thirty metres away, they're chatting and they're joking, then the next minute he turns around and Jack has just vanished. It's as if he's been swallowed up by the night or something.
2:18 Speaker 03 And since that moment, as far as I know, nobody else has set eyes on Jack McLennan. He's just gone.
2:41 Speaker 03 As soon as I heard about the mystery of what happened that night at Fix Crossing, I felt compelled to find out more.
2:48 Speaker 04 There's no sign of him, no messages, no contact, no footage, nothing, just gone.
2:54 Speaker 05 I'm not out there just looking for a lost car or a lost dog, I'm looking for my son.
3:00 Speaker 03 That night, Jack was in that raw moment after a fresh breakup. A moment that can be angry or heartbroken, but can also be full of freedom and new possibilities.
3:10 Speaker 04 Even though, you know, he was at the end of his relationship, you know, he was not sad about it, he was just ready to move on.
3:19 Speaker 03 A lot of people go missing, but this case seemed different. Normally, when someone goes missing, they're found within two days. And normally, they don't leave behind a series of strange clues, just like Jack did.
3:34 Speaker 06 And I was like, oh my gosh, guys, look at this.
3:36 Speaker 04 And we're like, fuck, we're not gonna hang under this car for three days. I was suspicious from the start.
3:42 Speaker 06 You don't really know what to believe, who to trust.
3:45 Speaker 03 As one local said to me, people don't just walk off into the dark and disappear. And people who knew him have started to worry. Maybe Jack stumbled onto something way darker than the thick scrub around Fix Crossing.
4:00 Speaker 05 There are villains in this story.
4:02 Speaker 07 We were told by so many people, don't go there, you'll get killed, you'll get chewed. There seems to be foul play, Rob, involved here. Nothing else makes sense of it.
4:10 Speaker 04 Is it a murder? Is it someone just gone missing?
4:14 Speaker 03 This case, it's still unfolding, it's still completely unresolved. And where it leads, I honestly don't know.
4:23 Speaker 03 In this podcast, you can follow my investigation every step of the way as I try and find out what happened that night at Fix Crossing. I'm Rob Burgin and this is What Became of Jack?, the latest season of Unravel.
4:50 Speaker 03 I've got to say, this whole story, it's not my usual patch. I'm not usually a crime reporter. For most of my career, I've actually been a sports journo. In recent years, I've been an ABC local radio producer based on the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane. But no matter what I do, people usually say I am a bit like a dog with a bone. Once I'm in, I'm all in. Around Christmas of 2024, a couple of months after Jack disappeared, there was a totally unrelated story about a decaying old bridge which took me out to the area around Jack's hometown. And while I was out there, I chatted with some of the locals. What other significant moments in the life of the bridge have you seen or been
5:35 Speaker 03 a part of?
5:36 Speaker 04 You know, I climbed over it, I swam under it, I fished off it, I shot and mullered off it, which you can't do these days.
5:44 Speaker 03 The other main reasons we get out there are typically when it floods or for the annual pumpkin festival. Gamary is a pumpkin town of the whole of Australia, I'd say, and the big pumpkin is there. Yeah, it's a big pumpkin, you can't put your arms around it.
6:07 Speaker 03 But this one time when I went out there, it was a really different vibe. A few locals and other concerned people, they were holding a public meeting about Jack's disappearance. They seemed worried and they had their own little bits of information they wanted to share with me. The more I learned about Jack, the more I realised that we had a fair bit in common. When I was around Jack's age, apart from my work in the media, I juggled working part-time as a personal trainer. And my own love life at this time, it was really messy and confusing. Jack's story was kind of similar. He'd also worked as a personal trainer and had just been through a period where his first really serious relationship, it had basically imploded.
6:52 Speaker 03 I was starting to see a fair bit of my younger self in Jack.
6:59 Speaker 03 After that trip to the region, I found myself constantly wondering where Jack was and what had happened to him. I felt like if I didn't do something to help the family out, this story might struggle to get the attention it deserved. So one day, I just picked up the phone and called Jack's mum. Yeah, hi, it's Rob Burgin from the ABC. How are you? Yeah, not too bad, mate. Over the next few weeks, we spoke over and over again on the phone, probably 20 times in total.
7:30 Speaker 05 Hi, Rob.
7:31 Speaker 03 Hey, Kelly, how are you? I'm having one of those crap days, man. We're just like, I hope my brain's going to work for you today. Eventually, I drove the three hours back inland to her place. And I decided that if I was going to investigate this, I was going to need to spend a lot more time in the towns around Fix Crossing. And I was going to have to get Jack's mum to tell me everything she knew about what happened the night that Jack vanished.
7:57 Speaker 05 So you want me to sit here?
7:59 Speaker 03 I sit down at the kitchen table at Jack's old family home. And Kelly Moody, his mum, she sits across the table from me. And to begin with, the conversation is lighthearted and a bit of fun. She pokes fun at my tattoos and we joke about how she called me on the way here to ask me for a carton of milk for a morning cuppa.
8:19 Speaker 05 Thank you, Rob, for bringing my milk.
8:22 Speaker 05 Thank you.
8:23 Speaker 03 Don't tell the ABC that.
8:27 Speaker 03 I can see photos of Jack on nearly every wall in the house. Kelly's face lights up when she describes the effect Jack can have on people.
8:35 Speaker 05 He just brings amazing positivity. You know, you just feel energy. It's like, whoa, hi Superman. And comes in, he's very demonstrative about his feelings. He'll hug you, give mum a tap on the head, hello, mother duck. And he's quite funny, too, you know, humorous. So he's just a generally happy, decent person, you know, just great.
9:01 Speaker 03 But then the mood changes when Kelly starts to tell me the story of how she first discovered Jack had gone missing. She hates retelling it. It was the morning after Jack went out to the waterhole at Fix Crossing and Kelly was getting ready for a road trip.
9:16 Speaker 05 I remember trying to ring Jack because I had said to him, "Do you want to come?"
9:21 Speaker 03 The plan for the whole family was to drive to their aunt's place in northern New South Wales.
9:26 Speaker 05 And he'd said he'd take his car if he did, because he loved coming to Unijans.
9:30 Speaker 03 But Jack didn't answer his phone.
9:32 Speaker 05 And I just put it down to a young fella, he's been out, you know, and he's sleeping in.
9:37 Speaker 03 So Kelly's jumped in the car with her two daughters, Sydney and Bella, and they've headed off, thinking Jack would follow them later on.
9:44 Speaker 05 And I actually went on the Saturday morning, not knowing Jack was missing.
9:52 Speaker 03 It's a hot day, and even hotter in the car.
9:55 Speaker 05 It was really hot. I didn't have good air conditioning, so the trip wasn't good.
9:59 Speaker 03 They're inching slowly down the Pacific Highway.
10:02 Speaker 05 It's at least four hours on a good day, and this was a slow trip because there was so much traffic.
10:08 Speaker 03 Suddenly Kelly's phone starts lighting up with messages which she can't read or reply to because she's the one that's driving. Then her daughter Sydney's phone starts going off too. It's Jack's ex-girlfriend Carly.
10:22 Speaker 03 Carly was Jack's first serious adult relationship, and until recently, they'd been living together and building a life together. But they'd been arguing, and in the last two weeks, the arguments had reached a breaking point. They were still communicating constantly, but the relationship, it was pretty much over. Now, as Sydney and Kelly drive down the highway, Carly's texting to say she's worried. She can't get a hold of Jack, and his car hasn't moved in almost 24 hours.
10:52 Speaker 05 I couldn't believe my son hadn't returned to his car. And you know, it was mum's worst fear that was setting in.
11:00 Speaker 03 Kelly finds a spot to turn off the highway, then pulls into a car park to get her head straight. She pulls out her phone and calls Jack's ex-girlfriend back to find out more about what she knows.
11:12 Speaker 05 She was quite worrying on the phone, she sounded stressed.
11:15 Speaker 03 Carly says that Jack had been out with a mate from work called Chris, but she didn't know much more than that. At this point, Kelly's still hoping for the best.
11:24 Speaker 05 My mindset was that he was with that fellow he was with that night. Um, because of the way he'd talked the night before, you know, he said, I'll just stay at my mate's house. So I figured he was there. I just thought, I've got to talk to this person. And I started ringing his number, which he gave me.
11:45 Speaker 03 This workmate, Chris, answers the phone. And he tells Kelly that he and Jack had been down at the waterhole at Fix Crossing. In the afternoon, it was warm and they drank some beers, swam in the creek and were just trying to take Jack's mind off his relationship troubles. They stuck around until after the sun went down. And Chris says everything was going fine. That is until about 10pm, when he says he turned around and Jack was just gone. He disappeared into the night. But Chris doesn't seem overly concerned.
12:21 Speaker 05 According to him, nothing's a worry.
12:26 Speaker 03 Chris seemed to think Jack had just decided to walk out of there and go have some fun somewhere else. But Kelly, she's not convinced, and this does nothing to calm her down. She goes to the local police station and reports Jack missing.
12:46 Speaker 03 Kelly tries to reassure herself that the most likely thing is Jack's just had a big night with a mate and he'll soon surface on his own. She's still four hours away from home with her two daughters across the state border in New South Wales. So they decide to spend the night at their auntie's place before heading home the next day. And soon after Kelly gets back, she goes to the last place Jack was seen, Fix Crossing.
13:16 Speaker 05 I just wanted to go straight back out to where I thought Jack could have been. You've already got dread in your mind because you know this is where Jack was potentially for a few hours.
13:28 Speaker 03 Fix Crossing is a tiny community of about forty people. It sits in a region full of huge livestock, cotton and peanut farms, along with big patches of bush. There's not much at Fix though, apart from a small school, a few houses, and a dead end road that comes to a halt at a picnic spot next to the water hole. There's a shed and a drop toilet, a small weir, a rope swing and a few tables scattered around the place, but not much else.
13:58 Speaker 05 I went down to the spot where I'd heard he was that day, which is a shed not far from the water, and went inside that shed to look for any signs of him.
14:10 Speaker 03 It's a cream coloured tin shed, and inside Kelly finds a beer bottle.
14:14 Speaker 05 And I took it. So it was a great northern beer bottle and I presumed it was Jack because it was within a couple of days of him being there.
14:22 Speaker 03 She feels like there's something sinister about this place.
14:25 Speaker 05 It was really revolting actually. I looked down in the water at the rope swing and I saw a snake in the water. I looked at that bushland and I'm going, "Oh my god, I hope you didn't walk out there because once you do start walking within even fifty, hundred metres, you can't see everything around you. You know, you're just looking at bush."
14:44 Speaker 03 A sick feeling in her gut settles in. The waist-high grass, it looks tough to walk through. There are lantana bushes and thorny vines crawling up tree trunks and covering every fallen log. And once the sun goes down, Kelly says it feels almost menacing.
15:02 Speaker 05 And I felt fearful. Just the noises, everything's quiet, but you'll hear these animal noises and um, it's getting really dark out there. You're not seeing houses, you can't see anything. It's just pitch black.
15:19 Speaker 03 It's a Friday night when Jack vanishes at Fix. And most of the time, if someone's reported missing, they'll turn up within two days. So on Monday afternoon, when the whole weekend's gone by with no sign of him, a full-scale police search roars into action.
15:36 Speaker 03 To begin with, police focus on the area around Fix Crossing. We are appealing to people that may have information. It doesn't matter how small it is, but they may have some information that might be so relevant, but it might be very, very helpful for us. But it's a battle against the elements. There's wild animals, heat, these deep dams, and snakes. Heaps of snakes.
16:00 Speaker 03 Word spreads in the community that Jack's missing.
16:03 Speaker 06 I was told that there was a missing person.
16:07 Speaker 06 And I thought to myself, if he's missing, he could be anywhere.
16:11 Speaker 03 Heath Sander is close to the most local local you've ever met. He lives just up the highway from Fix Crossing, in a small town of about 2,000 people called Mergon.
16:22 Speaker 06 You can always take the boy out of Mergon, but you can't take Mergon out of the boy, I reckon.
16:26 Speaker 03 Heath's the president of the Local Business Association and the Rotary Club and a councillor, and he owns one of the main pubs in town. But crucially, he's also an ex-search and rescue volunteer. During a search a few years back, he found the body of a young girl who drowned in floodwaters. So he knows exactly what's at stake.
16:48 Speaker 06 I put myself in that picture and I thought to myself, well, someone needs to do something. So I put the call out.
16:54 Speaker 03 Heath and a group of other locals are among the first to start looking for Jack.
16:58 Speaker 06 So I had actually my wife and three of our staff and myself and walked that section of road there just to make sure that, you know, he wasn't lying on the side of the road injured or whatever.
17:10 Speaker 03 To begin with, the search turns up nothing of interest. And as an experienced search and rescue volunteer, Heath knows they don't have much time. It's been three days since Jack was last seen at Fix. And if someone's lost in the bush, Heath knows the chances of finding them alive starts to shrink pretty rapidly from here on in.
17:30 Speaker 06 Once the three or four days had gone past, we knew that something major had happened and that he had, you know, if he had wandered off, then it wasn't going to be good.
17:42 Speaker 03 Jack's dad, Ross, flies up from Tasmania where he lives to help with the search. He and Kelly have been separated for more than 20 years, but they still get on well. When he arrives, he feels like police aren't taking things seriously enough.
17:57 Speaker 07 I think the police automatically, you know, will have a bit of a misadventure element put on the whole thing. A bit slow to kick off with the search. I mean, once it was underway, it was very, very good. The SES and the police were very good and they do one stage after the other.
18:18 Speaker 03 Queensland Police declined to answer my specific questions, but they provided a short statement, saying that the coordinated search involved more than 160 personnel over 10 days, and that the effort was extensive and multifaceted, incorporating both land and water-based operations. Police eventually do send out a search helicopter, but to Ross, it feels like it doesn't stay long enough. And as the hours tick by, with the search turning up nothing, Ross can't believe this is happening to his family.
18:48 Speaker 07 It's something we only see on telly, you know, these sorts of stories and, and your heart goes out to the victims and you think, oh, the poor thing's not thinking in a million years it's going to happen to you. And then I just think, oh, and then I am thinking about what it's doing to me and Kelly and I think what poor Jack's been through. What he must have gone through on that night, that poor, poor, beautiful man. And it just tears my heart out, Rob.
19:18 Speaker 03 Initially, it's hard for me to get a sense of who Jack McLennan really is. A lot of the videos of Jack that his mum had were lost when her old phone stopped working, and he didn't give much away on social media. I scour through the internet, trying to find any traces he's left behind.
19:35 Speaker 00 What's up, guys? Jack here from Concorde. Real quick today, I've got some.
19:39 Speaker 03 One of the few videos I can find of him is this brief how-to guide for arm exercises that is made for the gym he worked at.
19:46 Speaker 00 Okay, starting off, we have dumbbell hammer curls.
19:50 Speaker 03 Simple, keeping the hands in the neutral position. He's curling a pair of heavy looking weights. He's confident and seems genuinely enthusiastic about what he's teaching. And the last one for today is rope hammock curl, alright? So we're really targeting the lower bicep and brachialis. Let me know what you think and I'll catch you guys in the next one.
20:14 Speaker 02 Even if he didn't know you, he used to stop and help people around and in the gym, he would always talk to new people and give them hints on how to use machines and what exercises to target different things.
20:28 Speaker 03 Jack's sister Sydney says he got a real kick out of helping people and he helped her too. Sometimes when she came home from school, she'd find him doing yoga in front of the TV.
20:39 Speaker 02 And I'd join him and we'd get our yoga mats out and sit in the lounge room and just do different poses together. And it would just be a time for meditation and he loved all of that grounding stuff.
20:50 Speaker 03 Right back from when Sydney was young, she'd been close to her brother, even though there was a 10-year age gap between them.
20:56 Speaker 02 I just remember as a kid, he treated me like his little doll because I was his baby sister. Going into his room often, I would just go in there, sit there next to him and talk about our day and he probably thought I was annoying, but just having that time together, I loved being in his presence.
21:18 Speaker 03 Jack's disappearance hit Sydney hard. She's halfway through her year 12 exams when he goes missing and it completely derails her life.
21:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, so I only had about a month left of high school to do and yeah, during that time, we were just going out looking through the bush.
21:47 Speaker 03 As the family searches for Jack in the days after he goes missing, heavy rain starts to fall and it doesn't stop for three days. It makes the search even harder. It wipes out scents that could be useful for sniffer dogs and obliterates tracks and footprints. At night, Jack's sister Sydney listens to the rain at home with a growing sense of dread. Mum, my sister and I were all in the same bed and I was so upset because I was thinking if he's out there falling over in a paddock somewhere and he's getting all of this heavy rain and thunder and everything, I just felt so terrible because we weren't out there with him or finding him.
22:31 Speaker 03 Around five days after Jack's last seen, with the rain still falling as the family continues to search, the thought starts creeping in, they might be looking for a body. I wouldn't like to be the one to
22:47 Speaker 03 find him, if that makes sense.
22:50 Speaker 03 I wouldn't want to be, yeah.
22:54 Speaker 03 That would be hard for me to come upon.
23:00 Speaker 03 Just as the family is losing hope of finding any sign of Jack, the search suddenly changes completely when a series of strange clues start appearing. Four things that belonged to Jack will be found, four things Jack left behind, each one more confusing than the last.
23:19 Speaker 02 Twenty-six past ten, it's been one week since missing man Jack McLennan was last seen in the South Burnett. Inspector Scott Stullitt is leading that search and has more of an update for you, including some shoes of Jack's that have been discovered.
23:36 Speaker 06 A promising sign several days ago were a pair of shoes which we located on a creek.
23:41 Speaker 03 The first clue is Jack's white trainers. They were found, the laces still tied, as though he just kind of stepped out of them and walked away barefoot.
23:52 Speaker 06 So based on that, an assumption could be made that a direction of travel was towards the highway. Those shoes have been positively identified by. A closer side.
24:02 Speaker 03 So the theory seems to be that Jack could have been walking away from the fixed crossing picnic area towards the north, back to the nearest town Mergon. He could have been intending on going either via the highway or a slightly more direct dirt back road on the other side of the creek. It's completely possible he was going to walk the roughly five Ks along either of those roads back to where his car was parked in Mergon. But whatever he did, he clearly never made it there.
24:31 Speaker 06 So we can't discount the fact that, you know, Jack may have got a lift with someone or Jack may not want to necessarily be located at the moment for whatever particular reason. We are concerned for Jack's welfare. It's been nearly a week since, since he was last seen. So we are appealing to people that might have any information that they can provide. That would be appreciated as well.
24:54 Speaker 03 Although the police say the discovery of Jack's shoes are a hopeful lead to the family, that explanation doesn't make sense and the discovery is an ominous sign.
25:06 Speaker 03 When his shoes are found, what's your initial reaction?
25:12 Speaker 05 Fear. Now it's gone up a level because why are his shoes here? He should have them on his feet. You know, you're walking in snake territory. Why would you take your shoes off?
25:23 Speaker 03 When Jack's dad Ross hears the news, he travels to the place they were found.
25:28 Speaker 07 The shoes were found in a spot where it didn't make sense. Well, we're at the place where they allegedly were and where he started walking off into the darkness. Now, it was a very dark night by all accounts, no moonlight. So he had his phone torch, I would imagine, because it would have been pitch dark. And he's apparently climbed through barbed wire fence into some paddock, which was just unforgiving of education. Like it's precarious in the daylight, let alone without torture or anything. And why he would have gone through that fence? Nothing was making sense.
26:10 Speaker 07 Why would anyone kick their shoes off, tramping through this unforgiving country and make things worse for yourself?
26:19 Speaker 03 To Ross, the whole thing feels off. For starters, even barefoot, Jack should have been able to make it back into town. It was only 5Ks. He'd been known to walk distances much longer than that if he felt like it. And after all, he was a fitness instructor. Secondly, if he did get picked up on the highway, why hasn't anyone come forward to say so? It's been in the news for days. Why hasn't someone seen him? The shoes do not feel like a positive clue to the family.
26:50 Speaker 07 There seems to be foul play, Rob, involved here. Nothing else makes sense of it. And we just don't know why. He's such a loving guy. He's just such a giving guy, Jack. He never said a bad thing about anyone. Almost borderline naive, but in a beautiful way, a forgiving way, a compassionate way. And someone's taken advantage of him. And we just can't understand it.
27:21 Speaker 03 Then, the same day Jack's shoes are found, the police make a second startling discovery. But the family don't hear about it from the police. Jack's sister Sydney finds out through social media.
27:33 Speaker 05 Ross, Mum and I were sitting at a cafe in Mogen. And then I went onto Facebook and was just scrolling through. And I came across Queensland Police Services. And they posted that Jack's hat had been found about three blocks away from where we were sitting.
27:54 Speaker 03 They'd found Jack's trademark black cap, the one he wore almost everywhere.
27:59 Speaker 05 And I was like, oh my gosh, guys, look at this.
28:02 Speaker 03 Sydney says they're learning the hard way, that police might not always keep them up to date.
28:07 Speaker 05 And Mum was like, what? The police didn't even contact us to tell us this was his hat? How has someone confirmed it?
28:14 Speaker 03 When I asked police about this, they declined to answer my questions. Kelly recognises the hat immediately and a whole new set of theories develop.
28:24 Speaker 05 The hat was located up in Mergan, outside a church in the bush. And so now I'm going, oh my gosh. When I first heard that, you know, I thought, oh, well, Jack's up in town. He's not in this horrible bush.
28:40 Speaker 03 Heath Sander, the former search and rescue volunteer from Mergan, agrees that the hat could be a good sign.
28:47 Speaker 06 The fact that Jack's hat was found in Mergan and it was wet. I thought, well, he's definitely gone across the creek.
28:56 Speaker 06 You know, because the hat was wet. And when the hat was found in Mergan, I thought maybe he had made it back to Mergan.
29:02 Speaker 03 But the family soon learns how the hat got there and their hopes of finding Jack in town quickly vanish. Chris, Jack's mate, had apparently found the hat in his own car and he tossed it into a nearby hedge. He says at the time that he did it, he wasn't worried about Jack. He was actually annoyed he'd walked off and left his soggy hat in the car. But when Jack didn't turn up, Chris says he was the one who told police where to find the hat. Kelly calls Chris again and asks for more details about what they did that night and where Jack might be. Chris knew Jack had just broken up with his girlfriend and he tells Kelly, maybe Jack went on a date with someone new.
29:44 Speaker 05 I was quite irate towards him just saying, don't be silly. My son did not walk off on a date, especially when I, you know.
29:54 Speaker 05 I just know Jack, he wouldn't go on a date at, what, nine or 10pm at night. That's ludicrous.
30:03 Speaker 03 Time starts to stretch painfully for Jack's family. Kelly spends nearly every day at a fixed crossing, but each day of searching, it's another disappointment. The family sets up a Facebook page urging people to get in touch and Kelly does interviews on local radio.
30:20 Speaker 05 We've been searching all day today up near Fix again. I just want to bring him back, no matter what. I just need to find him. I can't rest and of course no mother could.
30:32 Speaker 03 But then, more than a month after Jack vanished, a local olive grove farmer named Troy discovered a third baffling clue.
30:42 Speaker 04 We're just checking our cattle on the ground and then we found a credit card. It actually was sort of the same colour as one of my bank cards. So I thought I'd just drop one of mine and I've picked it up. And then realised that it wasn't the same bank and read his name and it was not a nice feeling.
31:02 Speaker 03 It's Jack McLennan's credit card. Troy says it looks like it has some teeth or chum marks on it. It could be from a dingo or a wild pig or a crow. There's a whole bunch of wild animals out here making all sorts of ruckus, especially at night time. Troy keeps the card and marks the spot where he found it. Then he calls Crime Stoppers.
31:24 Speaker 04 And put a report in there and they just said, someone will contact you within the next three days. And we're like, fuck, we're not going to hang on to this card for three days. So we took it into the police station, reported it to them and they came out that night. Took the two police back there, detectives back there and they've, they did a drop point or whatever, GPS drop point on it. And then they came back the following day and then organised the search, tied ribbons in all the trees, dived the dams, helicopters and drones, doing grid searches around the creek.
32:01 Speaker 03 As they're searching through the olive grove near where the card was found, police discover the fourth clue. It's Jack's wallet. But I'm told there's no money in it, no other cards, no driver's licence. And his phone, the one thing that might actually tell us what happened and where he went that night, it's nowhere to be found. And ever since then, silence.
32:32 Speaker 03 One thing you do learn when you work as a journalist is that a lot of people go missing. But to me, this story hit different. I feel a connection to Jack and to what he might have been going through around the time that he disappeared. I honestly haven't been able to stop thinking about the pain that his family must be suffering through. What sticks with me is the weird clues. I keep thinking about the shoes, the wallet, the credit card. There's just no obvious logic to the location of any of this stuff. The shoes were discovered on the western side of the water at Fix Crossing. But his wallet and the credit card were found on the complete other side of where he disappeared, almost two kilometres away.
33:16 Speaker 03 If Jack's shoes suggested he was walking back into town on his way back to his car, then what was his wallet doing out here, way over in the other direction, on the other side of the creek, as if he was heading away from town? It doesn't add up, and I can't let it rest. To me, it feels like there's a chance that someone else saw Jack after he vanished from Fix.
33:41 Speaker 03 There's a chance that there's some other chapter to this night that we're just not being told about. Something dark. I really want to find out what that might be, and I think you could play a part in this.
33:55 Speaker 03 If you saw anything the night Jack disappeared, or if you know someone else who might have, get in touch, unravel true crime at abc.net.au or you can call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Maybe together we can bring some resolution to the family and work out what became of Jack.
34:26 Speaker 03 Next episode, the first major interview with the person closest to Jack in the months before he disappeared. Someone who's barely spoken to the media before now, the partner he'd just broken up with.
34:39 Speaker 05 To be honest, I think Jack wouldn't just walk off in the middle of the night. I've just picked up on things that other people haven't that make it seem like it can't be anything else but foul play.
35:03 Speaker 03 This season of Unravel is intended to be listened to as a whole. If you haven't heard all the episodes, you shouldn't draw any conclusions because you haven't heard all sides of the story yet.
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