05 Lies in Lismore | Confessions

Multiple people are alleged to have confessed to murdering Simone, so why were they ruled out as suspects? Journalist Richard Baker hits the road to try to find them, and the people who heard their alleged confessions, to understand more. Credits Host and reporter: Richard BakerProducer and fact checker: Romy SherSupervising producer: Alicia BridgesSpecial thanks: Chiara Holzhaeuser; Joanne Shoebridge and everyone at ABC North CoastAdditional reporting: Cath AdamsTheme composition and additional music: Martin Peralta and Ashley CadellSound design: Tim SymondsExecutive Producers: Tim Roxburgh, Eric GeorgeHead of Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn

• 0:00Speaker 00

  There are a lot of perfectly sensible reasons to start a war. Territory, resources, pigs. Wait, what?

• 0:06Speaker 01

  You've got to pay for that pig.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Yes, a pig, a pastry shop, a football game, sometimes even birds.

• 0:13Speaker 02

  They don't seem to be easy to kill.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  History is filled with some stupid wars. On the No One Saw It Coming podcast, we are diving right into them with me, Mark Fennell.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  Search No One Saw It Coming podcast on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:30Speaker 02

  ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

• 0:38Speaker 03

  When the German backpackers drove into Lismore on that day in 2005, they weren't looking to stay long. They were passing through, they just needed a cheap place to rest their heads for a night. So they chose the Lismore Tourist Caravan Park, among the trees and sports fields, right next to Lismore's town centre. It's in a broad strip of green space that separates the town's shops from its residential suburbs.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  It all adds to Lismore's relaxed semi-tropical vibe. But what the German group probably didn't realise was that this area could sometimes be pretty rough too. Lismore had its darker side and its share of lost and troubled souls. More than a few of those troubled souls were in and around the caravan park that night.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  Heath Tunstall was one of them.

• 1:34Speaker 04

  I was struggling with my mental health and alcohol and found myself living at Lismore Caravan Park. Not the greatest place to live. Felt very, oh, what's the word? Unpredictable. A lot of people, if not in the same situation as myself, very similar.

• 1:55Speaker 04

  Quite lost sort of people. But yeah, it was a dodgy place to live.

• 2:02Speaker 04

  It was Dodge City. Yeah. And it was all open, like anyone could walk in and out at any time. So you never really knew who was lurking. Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  Heath remembers the group of German backpackers arriving that day.

• 2:17Speaker 04

  You just noticed new people coming and going, like that was in my environment and yeah.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  What did the group look like?

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Backpackers just, you know, cruising, doing their own dance, yeah. I remember there being like, what I thought was two couples.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  Do you remember hearing them at all?

• 2:38Speaker 04

  That night, I do vaguely remember hearing yelling.

• 2:43Speaker 04

  I believe I must have been in bed or half awake sort of situation and kind of like startled me awake. But it wasn't uncommon to hear a bit of yelling and that sort of, or you know, loud music or loud laughing. So it kind of, I didn't really acknowledge it as anything out of the ordinary.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  After that night, Heath says he started to see signs that something bad had happened.

• 3:12Speaker 04

  The police presence would have been, would have been my first awareness. The nature of the caravan park was that if a police car came in, everyone, you know, took, took a notice of it.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  And what were the police doing?

• 3:27Speaker 04

  They were at the camp, the Germans camp, at their van.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  Heath says the rumor mill in the caravan park started churning. People knew a German girl was missing and they saw police and SES searching the drains around the caravan park.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Then Simone's body was found behind a wire fence at the old botchy club, just over the road, in an area where he'd seen people drinking before. He says he never personally drank there, but he remembers it being a messy place where you'd find old beer cartons.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  There's palm trees there.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  Mostly just like a grassy sort of area with a bit of like recreational infrastructure around it, yeah. Sometimes there would be like 10, 15 people there, too many all on the piss, not a good combination. So yeah, it was something I would avoid. I found passing that drinking crowd intimidating. So I'd walk on the other side of the road or, you know, keep my eyes down or keep my eyes away sort of thing from that area while they were drinking, yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  The sports fields near the drinking spot had a reputation for being dangerous too. A woman was assaulted by a stranger on one of the ovals about a month after Simone was killed. And there were some violent types staying inside the grounds of the caravan park. I knew that police had initially looked into several people who'd been in the area that night and ruled them out. But when I started to look into these people more, I was kind of shocked.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Remember at the inquest in 2007, how it came out that multiple people were said to have confessed to killing Simone? Well, it was a high profile case. As sick as it seems, made up confessions aren't uncommon. But here's what shocked me. There are witnesses placing no less than four of those people around the area where Simone went missing. All four of those people were seen right there that night, in or around the caravan park, the sports oval or the botchy club where Simone's body was found.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Four people seen near where Simone's body was found were reported to have confessed. That's a lot of people allegedly admitting to murder.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  In Australia, women are way more likely to be assaulted by someone they know than by a stranger. So it made sense that police were looking closely at Tobias Moran.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  But the locals say, if you got assaulted by a stranger in Lismore, it wouldn't be a huge surprise if it happened there, in that dark area of trees and sports fields. So now I want to know how and why police ruled out these four other people who were allegedly there that night. Is there a chance that any one of them really could be Simone's killer?

• 6:50Speaker 03

  I came to Lismore to try to find them and the people who say they heard them confess. And what I heard was disturbing. I'm Richard Baker and from Unravel, this is Lies in Lismore.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  So we've just turned off the road up a driveway that's kind of just cut into like a field of grain. It's pretty interesting. I'm glad it's not too wet here because I don't think the Kia Soretto hire car is going to handle it. I'm on my way to meet a man who says he heard one of those confessions. His house is about a 30 minute drive out of Lismore. This place belongs to Phil Lenton and he's, could be a very important witness in the Simone Strobel story. And I can see we're about to be greeted by a dog.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Hello, I think we might set up outside. If that's cool with you, in the shade here? Yeah, that'd be lovely. Phil's a knockabout beef farmer and in the early 2000s, he met a bloke called Gavin Parker, who everyone just calls Gus.

• 8:30Speaker 05

  We were having a beer up at the hilltop and he walked in the hilltop.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  It's local pub?

• 8:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, local pub up the hilltop at Lismore.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Gus and Phil hit it off. They got chatting and realised they rode the same motorbike.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  He was riding a Kawasaki and I used to ride Kawasaki, I still got my Kawasaki 900, you know. And I just said, oh mate, you're riding a Quaker, you know, and he's like, yeah. And it sort of started from there.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  The two became friends and they'd catch up for Arvo beers about once a week.

• 9:02Speaker 05

  You know, he seemed a decent sort of a bloke.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  But they had one catch up that Phil says was really weird. It was February 2005. He says the exact times and days can be hard to remember since it was so long ago. But it was shortly after Simone Strobel went missing. Local media was full of stories about what might have happened to her.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Phil tells me he was at home when he heard a knock at the door. He opened it and there was Gus with some kind of tree branch between his legs. And instead of coming inside, Gus ran off into the front yard.

• 9:43Speaker 05

  He took off out the front of the house with this thing between his legs like a broom, swishing it on the thing going, oh, this is my dragon's tail.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  Phil had a closer look at the so-called dragon's tail. It was a palm frond, the same type of distinctive plant leaf used to conceal Simone's body.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  He was really fixated on it and I just went, this, this what? And he goes, oh, it's, it's my dragon tail, it's um.

• 10:11Speaker 05

  What did he say, good karma?

• 10:13Speaker 06

  Um, peace offering.

• 10:15Speaker 05

  A peace offering?

• 10:16Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  That's Phil's partner, Sherelle. She was also there when Gus turned up that day.

• 10:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, that's right. He said, "Oh, it's a peace offering." And I'm like, "Well, what do you want a peace to give me a peace offering for, mate? What, you know, we're all good."

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Phil says the palm frond was decorated with ribbons and other bits and pieces. He didn't know what to make of it.

• 10:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, a bit of paper on it and just shit like that. You know, bottle top lids and just, no, yeah. I don't know, there was bits of hair on it too.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  The other thing Phil says concerned him was that Gus turned up without his car. He said Gus had recently hit a rough patch and was living out of his car and couch surfing.

• 11:00Speaker 05

  And I'm like, "Jesus, where's your car, mate?" He went, "Yeah, my car's fine." I said, "Well, do you want me to drive you to your car, Gus?" Because I said, "Mate, I know that's your, your life's in that car, mate, you know? There's everything going, it's in there."

• 11:12Speaker 03

  But Phil says Gus told him he'd hidden his car and that no one would ever find it. Eventually, Phil says Gus put down the palm frond and came inside.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Phil says they had a couple of beers and then the conversation took a dark turn.

• 11:31Speaker 05

  And then I just said, "Well, what have you been up to?" And he goes, "I've been down Byron Bay." And I'm like, "Well, yeah." And, "What have you been up to down there?" "I've been sleeping at the cemetery." And I'm like, "What the fuck? You've been just sleeping at the cemetery? You're jaking me?" And he's like, "No, no, no."

• 11:49Speaker 05

  I said, "What, some of your work? Going out there sleeping on some of your work, will you?"

• 11:54Speaker 03

  In case it's a bit hard to hear, Phil says he asked Gus if he'd been sleeping on some of his work at the cemetery. Phil meant it to ask him if he'd been sleeping on the grave of someone he'd killed. It was supposed to be a bit of dark humour, but he says Gus took the question seriously.

• 12:13Speaker 05

  And he goes, "Yeah."

• 12:16Speaker 05

  And I went, "What?" And he goes, "Yeah." And I'm like, "He's for real." You know, it's just that moment, you know? And I was like, "What did you do, Gus? Who?" And he goes, "Oh, some woman."

• 12:34Speaker 05

  I go, "What, did you do that?" "Oh, she deserved it," sort of, you know? It went from joking, well, fucking around, to he was feeding them. Just think, the whole demeanor of the whole room changed, you know what I mean?

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Phil says Gus was talking about a different woman in Byron Bay. He didn't know if Gus was talking about a real person or just making things up. Gus wasn't known to be the most reliable storyteller.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  But something about the way he was speaking was worrying. At this point, Phil says it made him think about the German girl he'd seen in the media. So he asked Gus about Simone.

• 13:19Speaker 06

  That's when you brought up two.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, and that's when I said to him, I said, "Well, you didn't hurt that girl then. Lismore, you did, yeah? You had anything to do with that?" And he's like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Cass." And he's like, "Yeah." Because he said, "Oh, don't worry, I would never hurt yous. I wouldn't hurt you guys."

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Then Gus said something that put Phil on the back foot.

• 13:40Speaker 05

  You know, "Um, I've been sleeping under your house." And I was like, "What? You've been fucking doing what, man?" And he says, "I've been sleeping under your house." And it was pretty wild. Just remember, it's like, "There's the door, see you later, mate."

• 13:58Speaker 03

  When Phil and Sherelle checked under their house, they say they found blankets and other things to indicate someone had been staying there.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  I, I, I just, I didn't know what to do. I was like, "Fuck, what do you do? You've known this bloke for all this time and he's admitted this shit to me." And it's like, and he wasn't joking, he was, he was feeding them. And I didn't want to really get too involved in it. So I thought, "Well, best thing I can do is ring Crime Stoppers." So I rang Crime Stoppers, I reckon. It was that night.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Phil says he called Crime Stoppers twice in 2005 to report this encounter with Gus, but he says he didn't hear back.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  I leave Phil and Sherelle's house thinking about why police wouldn't have followed up with them at the time. Doesn't make sense to me.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  I know Gus worked at a car repair shop in Lismore, so I decide to give that place a call. The guy who answers the phone tells me I need to find a bloke called Tomo. Tomo's full name is Glenn Thompson, and Gus stayed with him for a short time in 2005. I don't have a number for him. My only clue is to look for a house in Lismore with a distinctive motorbike out front.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  I walk around in the heat for two hours looking for the house. And I'm just about to give up when a guy with long grey hair pulls up in front of me. It's gotta be Tomo. Hey, are you Tomo? I'm looking to have a chat to you. I was chatting to the guys down at the repair shop. I'm a reporter with the ABC and I've been sent up here to have a fresh look at the Simone Strobel case from 21 years ago. He's friendly enough, but understandably taken aback being approached by a sweaty stranger. He says he doesn't want to be recorded, but he invites me inside and he'll tell me what he remembers of the night Simone disappeared.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Tomo says around 11pm, he saw Gus at a repair shop not far from the caravan park. It would have been about 400 metres away from the spot where Simone's body was found. He says he didn't see Gus again that night. Then, the next morning, Tomo says Gus told him he'd been out doing men's business with some, quote, "crazy pricks."

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Tomo also noticed Gus didn't have the car that he lived out of, and he too thought that was odd.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  When a news story about the search for Simone came up on the TV in the following days, Tomo says Gus piped up, saying, "They'll find what they're looking for behind the devil's stones."

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Tomo wasn't sure what Gus meant by "the devil's stones." He was often rambling about religion, so he let it pass at the time.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  According to Tomo, Gus said God must have told him.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  Weird as it sounds, this was pretty on-brand for Gus. Both Tomo and Phil Lenton said Gus talked a lot about religion, but also sex.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  The search for Simone's body continued for a few more days. Tomo says he was shocked when, six days after Simone disappeared, police announced they'd found her body. He realised the location of Simone's body was about 70 metres from a piece of public art, an arrangement of painted stones called the Totem Forest. Tomo says he asked Gus if they were the stones he was talking about, and Gus said they were.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Simone's body had been found right in the area where Gus said it would be.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  In the days that followed, Gus was spotted at the makeshift memorial to Simone, making offerings. Lismore police even stopped Gus and questioned him. They searched his bag and found a collection of items that seemed strange for him to have. There were some clothes, and also personal lubricant, condoms, duct tape, a face mask and a pocket knife.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  Tomo made a statement to police too, and police did interview Gus as a result.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  He said he wasn't involved in Simone's death, and he denied ever confessing to killing her. He's never been charged with any crime related to this case.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Still, I've got questions for police. What can they tell me about the items found in Gus's bag? Did they test them in any way to check if they belonged to Simone? Why wasn't Gus explored further as a potential suspect? I put those questions to them, but they declined to answer. So, if I want answers to those questions, I've got to talk to Gus myself. I find a phone number and give him a call.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Hello, is that Gus there? He doesn't want to talk about the Simone Strobel case, other than to say he's sick and tired of being linked to it because he had nothing to do with what happened. And then he hangs up.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  When the inquest into Simone's death was held in 2007, for some reason, Gus Parker wasn't asked to appear. I find this really hard to understand. As far as I can tell, there was no mention of Phil Lenton or Tomo's information at the inquest. It seems to me that if Gus was the worthy line of police inquiry at the time, at the very least, it's something that should have been put on the table in that inquest. It feels like an oversight.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  So I've just spent an hour or more at doing a bit of work at the cafe near the police station in Lismore. After a few people told me that was where some of the detectives go to get their morning coffee. And I was hoping to bump into Dave Mackey, the detective, who has been involved with the Simone Strobel investigation since 2005 and who arrested and charged Tobias with her murder in 2022.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  Because I really want to just sit down and have a chat to him and see if he'll talk for this podcast. He's a pretty important person in the story. No luck, he wasn't there. Really wanted to have the opportunity to have his say. And I have some questions that I need to ask him about certain decisions that were made during the investigation. In terms of who to look at, which suspects to put the most heat on. I try going to the police station to talk to Detective Mackey as well, with no luck. I'll have to try to contact him again after I leave Lismore. So I keep looking into the other people who allegedly confessed to killing Simone.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  The next two are actually brothers, Alan and Thomas Green. Now I'm going to go for a drive in Lismore. I am driving to the home of one of those other persons of interest to see if they're there, a guy called Alan Green. The police did get some statements back in the day from quite a few people alleging that he and his brother had admitted involvement in Simone's death. He's denied that when he's been formally interviewed, I should say. So see how that goes.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  This is what I know about Alan and Thomas. On the night Simone disappeared, Alan and Thomas had been drinking. Alan admitted to taking drugs that day too. They were in their late twenties and were at a notorious block of units well-known to local police.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Alan Green says he and Thomas were part of a group that walked into Lismore's CBD, down the road running past the Botchy Courts, the drinking hangout and the Totem Forest Stones. According to the Germans, Simone left the campsite at around 11:30 to 11:45pm and walked towards the road running alongside the caravan park. The Green brothers had arrived in the CBD by 12:30am because they show up on CCTV cameras outside night spots in Lismore from that time onwards.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  So if the Greens are thought to be walking in the area sometime late in the evening, it's possible they could have crossed paths with Simone on their way into town.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  If the Green brothers were in the area at that time of night, I really want to ask them what they were doing and what they saw.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  To begin with, I drive past the place where I'd heard one of them lives with a plan to go back later and knock on the door. But when I mentioned my plan to a few locals, they warned me to be careful as the Greens have serious criminal records. I decided it's probably best to take the safe option and keep trying to reach them on the phone. I managed to get a hold of Thomas Green's number. We don't talk for long. When I mention I want to talk about the Simone Strobel case, he tells me to go away and hangs up.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  After all that, I'm not able to get answers from either of the brothers about that night. So all I have is what other people have said about them. And it's pretty interesting.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Police got a report from a man who claimed to have run into them at the Oval behind the Botchy Club. This man said the brothers told him they'd run into a German girl and killed her. He added that they'd warned they'd kill him too if he told anyone about it. At first, he said it happened the night Simone went missing. But when he went to give a formal statement to police later on, he said his conversation with the Greens happened the weekend after Simone was found. And initially, he'd mixed up the name of the Oval with another one nearby. But he maintained the brothers had said they were involved.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  In the days, weeks and months after Simone's death, police continued to receive reports from the public alleging the Green brothers were involved.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  On the night in question, Thomas Green hitched a ride out of Lismore around 4am. Thomas said his brother was meant to go too, but he didn't. Alan Green stayed in Lismore and Alan told police he ended up sleeping at a friend's tent at the caravan park. When they were questioned by police, both Thomas and Alan Green denied killing Simone. They were suspects in the early days of the investigation. Detectives followed up on the reports and they interviewed the brothers more than once. They also bugged one of their phones, but say they didn't find anything to incriminate them. In the end, police said Simone didn't have any injuries

• 25:42Speaker 03

  that were consistent with what the Greens had reportedly said. And they concluded that the brothers had been drunkenly bignoting themselves. Police said they were both regular drug users at the time. The brothers denied ever saying they were involved at all.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  I'm disappointed I couldn't get in contact with the Greens to ask them about all this myself. I've now tracked down or exhausted my leads on three of the four men who were seen in the area on the night and allegedly said they were involved. So far, I haven't had much luck getting any of these men to talk to me. I guess that's not really surprising if they're worried about having the finger pointed at them. There's still one man I'm yet to try and speak with. His name is Jamie Vidler.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Of all the men who were reported to have made confessions, I find the story around Jamie Vidler the most disturbing.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  Two days before Simone went missing from the caravan park, Jamie was arrested in Lismore's CBD after two women reported him and another man to police, saying they'd been stalking them. The women sought refuge in a cafe while Jamie, shirtless and seemingly drunk, waited outside with the other man.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  Jamie was already on bail at this point in relation to another incident and police charged him for breaching his bail conditions. He actually had a criminal record stretching back to 1996, including a decent stint in jail for a violent attack on a man outside a pub.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  But after the stalking report and the breach of bail arrest, he was allowed to return to his tent at the Lismore Tourist Caravan Park. He was living there at the time Simone was killed.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  Remember Heath, the guy who was saying the caravan park was a dodgy place? He'd been seeing Jamie around the park in the days before Simone went missing. The day after police found Simone's body, Heath saw Jamie sitting with a few of the other park dwellers. So he decided to sit down and have a drink with them.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  From where they were sitting, the group could see Lismore residents placing flowers and lighting candles at the place where Simone's body was found.

• 28:18Speaker 04

  What we talked about was Simone. You know, the speculation, you know, the uncertainty of what had happened. That was the conversation I recall.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  Heath said Jamie started talking about seeing the Germans after they arrived.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  He told us that he'd moved his tent away from the Germans. And that's probably why I hadn't noticed him so much until once he'd moved his tent, it was more in a predominant spot. And it was also in a spot where he could see all the, where all the action could be seen from as far as the search goes.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  He said Jamie told him he'd seen Simone and Toby fighting. And then Heath says Jamie came out with something that still haunts him about killing Simone.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  He pretty quickly went into, I killed the Nazi bitch. My family's from Hungary and I hate Germans.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  He was enraged. He was like spit at the corner of his mouth sort of thing, like emotional. He was like really angry and, and really shooting off at the mouth, I guess you would say. And then, like, after he'd repeated that he'd killed her a few times, he started bawling his eyes out. And I was just like, oh gosh, maybe he actually really has done it. You know, I'm sitting with someone who's potentially a murderer.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  A few days after that conversation, Heath Tunstall gave a statement to the police. Another guy who was there also reported it and made a statement. But when Heath went back to ask Jamie about it again, he says Jamie denied ever saying it. Heath even tried bringing up how Simone's family must be feeling to try to get a response.

• 30:12Speaker 04

  I remember him, what's the word you would use, wincing? Like, his face kind of like tightened up.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  And then I remember him moving the subject, like trying to move the subject away, yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  He was just stonewalling, basically. I think he may have forgotten what he'd said. If not forgotten, pushed it to the back of his mind sort of thing. And when I first asked, I could see there was like a bit of a startled, oh yeah, that's right. I opened my mouth the other night.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  On the night Simone went missing, Jamie was seen on a CCTV camera in the Lismore CBD just before midnight. So he could have also crossed paths with Simone after she left the caravan park.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  And there's something else. The morning after Simone went missing, Jamie saw Katrin Sukful standing at the camper van outside the caravan park and approached her. She was by herself while Jens and Toby had gone to the police station to report Simone missing.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Jamie went up to Katrin and propositioned her for sex, which made her feel really uncomfortable. She rejected his advance and he moved on.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  This all sounds quite disturbing. But by the time of the 2007 inquest, police no longer considered Jamie a person of interest. They thought that he, like the Green brothers, was trying to look tough by saying he'd killed Simone. Jamie actually knew the Green brothers. Remember Alan Green said he'd stopped by a friend's tent the night of Simone's death? Well, that was Jamie's tent. There were other people who say they were at Jamie's tent that night. One of them gave him an alibi, although Jamie hadn't initially mentioned that person being at his tent when he was interviewed by police.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  None of this answers all of my questions about Jamie. So I find his number and give him a call.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Hello, is that Jamie? Hey Jamie, my name's Richard Baker. I'm a journalist with the ABC. Apologise about calling a late hour, but didn't want to disturb you if you're at work. I was entirely ready for him to hang up the phone. The others hadn't wanted to talk to me, not even if I wasn't recording. But to my surprise, Jamie stayed on the phone. He didn't agree to be recorded, but he talked to me briefly about the case.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Jamie said he understood why police had to look into him at the time, because he'd been in trouble with the law. But he said local police had told him pretty early into their investigation that they didn't think he was responsible. He said he wasn't involved in Simone's death. Jamie denies ever saying he killed Simone, or any of the things Heath Tunstall claims he did, and says Heath is making it up, including the bit about calling Simone a Nazi bitch.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  He also said he might have said something about shooting Germans in a video game he'd been playing, but he wasn't talking about Simone. He told me he'd always believed Toby was responsible since the first day she was missing, when Toby went to Jamie's tent to ask if he'd seen Simone. I try to line up a face-to-face interview before he has to get off the phone. I could come and grab a coffee with you tomorrow if you want, if you've got time. I leave Lismore Friday afternoon.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Jamie agrees to meet me for a chat. Finally, I'll have the chance to put some of my questions direct to him. The morning we're supposed to meet, I text him and at first I don't hear back. When I do, it's bad news. This is proving to be a very, very frustrating road trip in Lismore. I just got a very short text from him saying, "I've decided to give it a miss." So that's really frustrating. I'm not sure what's happened there. But yeah, I just wrote back to him and said, "That's a shame. Can you tell me what changed your mind?" But I haven't heard anything back. And I called him again and he didn't pick up.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  So yeah, not sure of my chances. You know, from their point of view, I guess they're going over what's the upside in talking to me.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  But yeah, it's pretty frustrating.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Without being able to talk to a lot of these alleged confessors, it's hard to go further in investigating them. In the end, I've found nothing to prove that any of them were involved in Simone's death, and neither have police. Maybe, as police think, some of them were lying, or at least exaggerating. Like Toby, police weren't able to link these people to the crime scene.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  But what I can say is, after spending some time in Lismore, I feel totally mystified about how all these people were confidently ruled out by the police. How were they completely eliminated as suspects so early? Why did none of them even appear at the 2007 inquest? Why was so little evidence heard by the coroner about them? What made the police so confident that Toby and his sister were considered the only real suspects?

• 36:10Speaker 03

  The only way to get answers is to ask the detectives themselves. That's next on Lies in Lismore.

• 36:40Speaker 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 the sides of the story yet.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  If you saw anything that night in Lismore, or if you know someone else who did, get in touch. Unravel true crime at abc.net.au or you can call Crime Stoppers on 1-800-333-000.