Pod Insights Unravel 05 What Became of Jack? | Whispers About this episode Jack’s mum gets a shocking tip-off from a scared community member. With the rumour mill in overdrive, ABC journalist Rob Burgin tries to decipher what’s true and what’s not about the disappearance of Jack McLennan.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 A confession, a memory, a lie. What if all three could be wrong? Forensic is a new series from All in the Mind, unpacking the hidden psychology of crime solving. Why innocent people confess? How memories can be rewritten? The science behind true crime. All in the Mind: Forensic. Search for All in the Mind on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
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0:37 Speaker 02 Just before we start, this episode contains some strong language.
0:42 Speaker 03 Hey, here goes nothing. Um, bear with me, I might just finish this and not go through with it. It's been quite a while since I've done a live.
0:50 Speaker 04 A woman is sitting in her car on the side of a road in Tasmania and talking to her phone's front camera. She's broadcasting this video live on Facebook.
1:00 Speaker 03 Probably just lazy about it, I don't know. Anyway, um, been umming and ahhing about doing this one all day because I wasn't sure. But, um, back to Jack.
1:09 Speaker 04 She's posting an update on Jack McLennan's case to her more than 6,000 followers. She's one of the most active members of the online community that sprung up to look into his disappearance. She's got a kind of alternative vibe with wild orange hair, tattoos on her arms and bangles that shake as she speaks. Her name is Faith To Carlets.
1:31 Speaker 03 Many of you will think, oh no, I've gone crazy. I've probably lost the pot again. But no, I assure you it's not that. Um, I'm sane.
1:38 Speaker 04 Faith gets distracted from a livestream for a bit when another car pulls up next to her and starts doing a massive burnout.
1:46 Speaker 03 Headed by those three. Oh, I'm not going through all that. This is all about Jack. Long story short, bit of a burnout. Yeah, boy.
1:56 Speaker 04 Faith first began posting online about Jack's case about two and a half months after he disappeared. Since then, it's clear she's become deeply invested in his story and she's actively investigating the case and chasing down her own leads.
2:10 Speaker 03 There's a couple more names now to add to that batch.
2:14 Speaker 04 The livestream is blunt and forceful. In an attempt to shake new pieces of information out about the case, she speaks directly to certain people, naming them and putting the pressure on them to come forward and tell Jack's family anything useful.
2:28 Speaker 03 Can you contact Kelly? Um, you can try me, but as I said, I've got some weird issues going on at the moment. There's no reason why you can't, um, contact her.
2:39 Speaker 04 The Facebook Live lasts for around three minutes before Faith signs off with a shout out to both the Jack's parents.
2:46 Speaker 03 We've got to find Jack for this, this family. Well, I'm gonna go now. These boys are gonna come out, I'm totally smoked out. But, um, yeah, Jack made me do this. Love you, Carol. And Ross, if you see this, mate.
3:02 Speaker 04 I've been following Faith's videos for a while and among all the online noise about Jack's case, her posts stand out. A lot of what I've read seems baseless and highly defamatory and I've seen the way it can hurt people in the real world. But some of face digging has mirrored my own. Like me, Faith's also really interested in Jack McLennan's trip to this drug house in the town of Wondi. And as I searched through the swamp of online rumours about what happened to Jack the night he disappeared, there are these names, addresses and other allegations that she's posting, which I'm finding hard to ignore. I think it's time I dived into the rumours swirling in the towns around Fix Crossing to try and sort out what's true and what's not.
3:48 Speaker 04 I'm Rob Burgin and this is What Became of Jack, the latest season of Unravel.
4:09 Speaker 04 After Jack McLennan disappeared, police provided updates to the public on a semi-regular basis. But after about three weeks, the updates dried up, and they've only given a handful of public comments on the case since. In that information vacuum, online speculation has spread almost totally unchecked. There are almost a dozen Facebook pages that have provided updates on Jack's case at various points. And the comments under many of these posts are like a free-for-all. People are just wildly speculating on what they think happened to Jack and who they think is responsible. Faith's not the only person fueling this fire, she's just one of a huge cast of online characters who flooded these online spaces.
4:54 Speaker 03 This is Jack McLennan. He was 27 years old, 185cm tall.
5:01 Speaker 04 There are YouTubers as far away as Scotland following the story. For Jack to go radio silent was highly unusual. There are shows out of Canada and the US.
5:12 Speaker 05 Jack McLennan vanished without a trace on the Sunshine Coast.
5:15 Speaker 04 There's even a true crime TikTok guy that's following this case.
5:19 Speaker 06 And they found other belongings of Jack kilometres away, in different directions.
5:26 Speaker 04 Sometimes these people seem vaguely sensible, and like they're actively trying to push the investigation forward. We were very keen to develop a timeline of Jack's disappearance. But other times, things get totally unhinged.
5:39 Speaker 07 Many began to link it to the legend of the Yaoi, Australia's version of Bigfoot. If this unknown being killed Jack, it would imply a chilling level of intelligence.
5:53 Speaker 04 These people seem to have no hesitation, throwing blame around and pointing fingers. I've seen and heard people get accused of doing stuff that I simply know they didn't do. I met people around Fix Crossing who've been abused on the street over things that have been said and written about them online. And I know more than one person who seems to have left town because of all this stuff. Some of it genuinely makes me cringe when I open it. At best, it feels irresponsible. It all just adds to this swirling loop of poor quality information and speculation. But the difficult thing is that among it all, there are nuggets of truth, small leads worth chasing and community advocates like Faith Takalitz, who are at least worth chatting to.
6:45 Speaker 03 Hi, Champion.
6:47 Speaker 04 How's it going? Faith Takalitz and I have spoken many times in my investigation, and we've got to know each other pretty well.
6:54 Speaker 03 I'm all right. How are you?
6:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, not too bad. Sometimes she sends me things that can be helpful. Now it's been more than a year since both of us have been playing detective on this case. In lots of ways at its core, my reason for looking into Jack's story is pretty simple. I'm a journalist and he disappeared in my patch. But when it comes to Faith, she lives in Tasmania and up until Jack disappeared, she had no connection with him or his family. So how did a woman living across the other side of the country become so invested in his disappearance?
7:30 Speaker 03 Well, sadly, I didn't hear about Jack's case until quite late.
7:35 Speaker 04 Faith first got looped in by Jack's dad, who lives near her in Tassie. Jack had been missing for more than two months by that point, and she hadn't heard anything about the case on the news.
7:46 Speaker 03 And that's just not good enough. A lot more people should have known about it.
7:49 Speaker 04 The story instantly struck a nerve because just four years earlier, Faith had lost her own son when he was run over by a car driven by his girlfriend. Her son was 26 years old, just one year younger than Jack when he disappeared.
8:02 Speaker 03 Him being sort of close to the age of my son, and I just can't imagine how Kelly would be. Going through her day to day without knowing where her boy is, that broke my heart. I thought, maybe I can go over there and help this mum somehow.
8:17 Speaker 04 Faith was gearing up for Christmas with her family, but she says come Christmas Eve, she left her kids and husband behind in Tasmania and flew to Queensland.
8:26 Speaker 03 I just jumped on the plane because something drew me here. I think I put up a post to say that I've arrived in Queensland to come up to have a chat about Jack McLennan with mum.
8:37 Speaker 04 Faith and Jack's mum Kelly barely knew each other. They'd only chatted once or twice on the phone, but when they met in person, the bond was clear.
8:45 Speaker 03 Immediately, because they hug and embrace, I know it sounds, there's just this instant connection and even leaving her, we had tears.
8:53 Speaker 04 She began working to help Kelly and Ross with their search for Jack and updating her followers on Facebook.
8:59 Speaker 03 These people are waiting for their son to come home, mate, and you're piss farting around with saying you can't get statements from this, that and the other.
9:06 Speaker 04 Faith shot from the hip, naming specific people around town, often without proof. And she mentioned the leads she was following in the background.
9:15 Speaker 03 I'm just going to reel the names out, okay, so Chris Duke, Kid Twyla, and there's a lot of other people, a lot of other people involved.
9:27 Speaker 04 Faith's extremely passionate in her videos and unlike a lot of other commentators on Jack's case, she doesn't hide behind aliases, private accounts or generic page names. She's there, putting her own name and her own face to what she says.
9:43 Speaker 03 I get incredibly frustrated when I see things not going right or when I see people acting too slowly when something really needs to be done. I don't mind jumping in now and being assertive and saying, hey, and putting my hand up.
9:55 Speaker 04 But the thing is, there's just not a lot of evidence behind some of what Faith says in her videos and some of those things have been picked up by people in her online community and then used to target other people around town. It's a messy kind of help, but because there was no obvious progress in the police investigation, Faith's efforts were appreciated by Jack's family. She's strong and then she's vulnerable. We understand that both of us are suffering some loss and we can...
10:27 Speaker 02 Come together with that. So we formed a really good friendship. She would ring people on my behalf and it did irk the police, but she would ring when she knew that I deserved an answer to something because she'd been down this road. And she was saying to them, come on, do this and that. And they didn't like it.
10:44 Speaker 05 Um, I appreciate the family, uh, the family and what they're going through at the moment. That must be harrowing to think, to think of what they're going through and apply that to my own family circumstances. I would only be feel the same, frankly.
10:58 Speaker 04 Shane Pryor is the president of the Queensland Police Union. And while he says he can't comment on Jack's case specifically, he says police in the area Jack disappeared are massively under-resourced. The region's known as the South Burnett.
11:12 Speaker 05 Currently, the South Burnett experiences crime rates exceeding most metropolitan areas within the South East. However, an under-investment in developing the workforce in the South Burnett has overstretched the investigative units, where the police service relies on unpaid overtime of these talented investigators and frontline staff to achieve these results.
11:36 Speaker 04 I've put this to Queensland Police, but they didn't respond to my specific questions. They said, as the investigation is ongoing, it'd be inappropriate to make further comment. Shane says when something big goes down in a region like the South Burnett, for example, a complex missing persons case, experienced investigators are thin on the ground.
11:56 Speaker 05 If you're understaffed from the outset and you have got an investigation that has just come in that requires urgent attention, you're going to have to call staff in, which means it's going to affect the day-to-day business as usual roster that's already in place. So that is a very hard proposition, especially if we need to chase up leads very quickly.
12:16 Speaker 04 The towns around Fix Crossing are two to three hours from larger cities in all directions. There's Twumba, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Bundaberg. I've spoken to people who say that when it comes to dealing with any government services, not just the police, it can feel like the South Burnett sort of falls between the cracks. Sometimes I feel like this is why when people around here see slow progress in Jack's case, they feel like they have to take the law into their own hands. But Shane Pryor has a warning for anyone speculating about the investigation into Jack's case.
12:51 Speaker 05 Those offering criticism that just because they don't see a large scale public response or actions in the matter doesn't mean that strategies are not currently being used and being worked on behind the scenes.
13:09 Speaker 04 In early 2025, all outward signs of the police investigation were that it was slowing down.
13:16 Speaker 04 Jack's family had started getting fewer updates from police and officers had stopped doing media interviews about the case. It was in this environment that Faith Takalit started looking into it. And pretty soon she found something that lit a fire under her and Kelly's investigation.
13:35 Speaker 04 I should say this was all happening totally separate to the police investigation and without police approval. It was a tip Faith got about that house where the drugs were sold in Wandai. The house Jack and his mate Chris might have visited the night that Jack went missing. And the two started hatching a plan.
13:52 Speaker 03 We were told, don't go there, you'll get killed, you'll get shoved. I was freaking out. Kelly, I don't think was. Once you've lost your child, there's nothing for you to be scared of any longer.
14:03 Speaker 04 Faith and Kelly decide their best bet to get concrete answers about what happened that night is to go back to the house and knock on the front door out of the blue.
14:12 Speaker 03 And I said to her, look, fuck it, let's go do it.
14:16 Speaker 04 So just to recap for a sec, I've looked into this house and all the people who lived in there at the time Jack disappeared. There's Kit, who has a long criminal record for theft, drug offences, assault, and in one case, discharging a loaded firearm during a nighttime home invasion. There's Kit's then girlfriend Twyla. She's got a bunch of convictions for drug offences too. And then there's Kit's mum Edna, who seems to have no role in any of this. I've spoken at length with Edna on the phone, but not to Kit and Twyla. I've established that Jack and his mate Chris went to the house on the day he disappeared, and they likely bought and took drugs while they were there.
14:59 Speaker 04 But when I went to the house to find out more, I got turned away and left empty handed. When Faith and Kelly went there though, things turned out very differently. Someone recorded the interaction, and now I've been sent the recording.
15:20 Speaker 00 Hello.
15:23 Speaker 04 Hello. Hello. The recording can be a bit tricky to follow, so I'll talk you through what you're hearing.
15:31 Speaker 00 Hello, mummies.
15:32 Speaker 04 Hello. Kelly and Faith walk up the path to the front door. After it sounds like they've been greeted by some dogs, an older woman comes out to meet them. Someone's hand is covering the lens, so you can't see anything. But amidst everything in this rough recording, I can hear the voice of Kid's mum Edna as she emerges from the house.
15:53 Speaker 00 Oh, good.
15:55 Speaker 04 Kelly tells her why she and Faith are there.
15:57 Speaker 00 We're just wanting to talk to someone. Apparently my son was here the night he went missing. We're just hearing that from a lot of people, so as a mum, I just want to know more information about that night.
16:12 Speaker 04 Edna heads back into the house, but then, about a minute later, Kid and Twyla walk over to Kelly and Faith. Here we go, here it is, he's coming now. Shit.
16:26 Speaker 00 Oh, hey Twyla, how you going? How are you, mate?
16:31 Speaker 04 Kelly doesn't waste any time and jumps straight into asking.
16:34 Speaker 00 Um, mate, I know my son was here on the night he disappeared, so can you tell me a little bit about that? I'm his mum.
16:40 Speaker 04 Then, for the first time, I hear Kid's voice.
16:44 Speaker 00 You met him, you know he's a good person? Yeah, he was, we liked him, yeah. And I'd joke about his arms, he had massive arms.
16:50 Speaker 04 For a while, everyone kind of talks over the top of each other, and it's frustrating I can't just jump into the conversation myself. But after a while, I can hear Kid confirm what I'd heard elsewhere, that Jack and his workmate Chris Duke definitely came to the house. Then I hear him say something new, that Jack and Chris actually came to the house twice on the Friday.
17:13 Speaker 00 They'd come at lunchtime? Yeah. And I think Jack waited at the front.
17:17 Speaker 04 He says the first time Jack and Chris visited was around lunchtime. Jack waited out the front while Chris went inside.
17:25 Speaker 00 You know, I didn't even see.
17:26 Speaker 03 Being more anything then.
17:28 Speaker 04 Kid says Chris came in, they had a beer and then he left. But Kid then says later that afternoon, Chris came back and this time, Jack gets out of the car and the two of them walk into his shed out the back. Kelly asks what happened while they were there and Twyla answers that Jack ate dinner with them.
17:46 Speaker 02 And because I got dished it up and then he goes, oh, what's for dinner? And I said, would you like a plate? And he goes, oh, yeah.
17:52 Speaker 00 He's always hungry, yeah.
17:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, and he ate it.
17:56 Speaker 04 Kelly's heard the stories that Jack was here that night to score drugs. And it's pretty clear that she doesn't want to tiptoe around this issue. Because she starts asking some pretty blunt questions.
18:07 Speaker 00 So what the fuck drug did he get that night?
18:09 Speaker 03 He was coming here drinking.
18:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, but I know I was told he was given three pints of ice.
18:14 Speaker 03 He got it himself.
18:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, I know, I know that. Do you remember giving him two or three pints that night?
18:20 Speaker 03 Oh, he had them.
18:21 Speaker 00 Mate?
18:22 Speaker 03 They were there.
18:23 Speaker 04 It's a bit hard to make sense of what Kid and Twyla are saying here. They're happy to say to Kelly that Jack did have drugs on him that night, but they're not giving up any clear information on where they came from.
18:34 Speaker 00 You had it on him, but you didn't see him take it?
18:37 Speaker 03 No, I did not, and that's what I said to the police, I physically did not see him.
18:41 Speaker 00 Have the drugs?
18:42 Speaker 03 Have any.
18:42 Speaker 00 So they only together took three pints, like there's no more you reckon? Or was it more than the three pints?
18:47 Speaker 03 No, there was, there was only three pints in the bottle, but they could already have some.
18:52 Speaker 00 So Duke was more off his face than Jack, you reckon?
18:54 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
18:55 Speaker 04 Kid then says something I find a bit strange. He says that Jack paid for his drugs, as in Jack paid for Kid's drugs. Which if they didn't know each other, is truly a weird thing to do. No one does that.
19:08 Speaker 00 So he's.
19:08 Speaker 03 Jack paid for mine.
19:09 Speaker 00 Did he?
19:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, like Jack, I had nothing. Duke was already off his guts and then Jack went, here's a hundred dollars.
19:17 Speaker 04 Kid and Twyla don't talk about anything hostile or violent happening that night. They also say Jack didn't seem totally off his head. But what they do say is that Jack was on his phone a fair bit while he was there.
19:30 Speaker 02 He was like scrolling with something.
19:32 Speaker 03 He was arguing with someone in the backyard?
19:34 Speaker 02 In the back corner, he was, he was arguing like on the.
19:37 Speaker 03 On the phone.
19:38 Speaker 02 Okay.
19:38 Speaker 03 Could that be Carly, could it?
19:39 Speaker 02 It was Carly, yeah.
19:41 Speaker 03 Oh, okay. Was it the ex? It was the ex. Whoever he's arguing with. Yeah, it was a female. Yeah, it was a guy.
19:47 Speaker 04 We know that Jack was texting with Carly the night he disappeared and he did call her around 6pm. So this lines up with what we've already heard about the timeline of that night.
19:57 Speaker 03 And so Jack didn't give any other info, like say where they were going that night, he just didn't talk much? No, I spoke to him, but like I was going through like girl dramas and so was he, he said. And me and him mainly spoke about that because he could hold a civil conversation.
20:13 Speaker 04 Then, Kit and Twyla say after that, Jack and Chris leave their place, no problems.
20:18 Speaker 03 But yeah, if you say that, no, you left here and all. Yeah, yeah, you left here.
20:23 Speaker 02 Yep.
20:23 Speaker 03 In like good spirits, we were laughing and joking.
20:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, as we were walking up the driveway.
20:28 Speaker 03 Like when they left here, it was like I found.
20:30 Speaker 02 About 8.30 and then.
20:32 Speaker 03 They left here at 8.30. At night, yeah.
20:34 Speaker 02 At night, about 8.30 and because he had finished dinner. And then he, they were joking about going for a drive and he gave me a, well, gave me a hug and said, oh, we'll catch up again. Um, and thanks for your hospitality and.
20:47 Speaker 03 Where were they going for a drive, do you know that? Like which way were they headed? Um, like we didn't know.
20:53 Speaker 04 The recording goes for nearly an hour and after all that talking to Kit and Twyla, I can hear Kelly sounds exhausted and wounded by what she's heard. And she seems totally unsure of how to keep digging for more information. So she wraps things up and keeps it friendly in case they need to come back.
21:11 Speaker 03 Now I'll have to go back to searching if this now. Thank you again, thank you again. We'll probably, we'll probably will come back. That's going to be me and the other stories. Just come on off.
21:20 Speaker 02 Yay.
21:21 Speaker 03 If there's anything.
21:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, thanks.
21:24 Speaker 03 Thank you. Thank you very much. See you, doll.
21:27 Speaker 02 See you.
21:32 Speaker 04 After listening to the recording, I have to admit, I'm a little conflicted. Kid and Twyla seemed cooperative and they seemed to care about what happened to Jack. But they definitely danced around Summer Kelly and Faith's questions. If I take what they did say though, and match it up with what I already know, I'm starting to get a better picture of Jack McLennan's final movements.
21:58 Speaker 04 So here's what we know about where Jack went on the day he disappeared. By the way, it's worth remembering all these places are only about a five-minute drive along the main highway from each other. At around 1.30pm, he goes to the bottle shop in Mergon with his mate Chris. Later, Jack and Chris go to the Wandai House. Chris goes inside, maybe to buy some drugs. Jack stays outside. This would have been around 3pm. Next, the two mates head out to Fix for a swim. Then, they drive back into Wandai to Kid and Twyla's place sometime around 5.30pm. This time, Jack comes inside. They maybe buy drugs and they certainly take them around this time.
22:40 Speaker 04 Kid and Twyla see and hear Jack arguing with someone on his phone. And then at around 8.30pm, despite the fact they'd been drinking and taking drugs, they then get in the car and drive back along the highway and head out to Fix one last time. They've been back and forth between Fix Crossing and the Wandai House. By this time, it seems likely that the two friends are feeling the effects of what they've taken. Jack's last text to his ex Carly is time stamped 9.49pm. And then, at around 10pm, according to Chris, Jack disappears.
23:18 Speaker 04 The main question now is, was there some other later chapter to this night that we still don't know about? Like, did Jack return yet again to the Wandai House? Or to wherever he got his drugs? Or could he have made a connection through that house to someone else he met up with later that night? I'd love to ask Kit and Twyla these questions myself. But I soon learned that Kit is facing a bunch of more recent unrelated charges, and he's pretty hard to track down. Meanwhile, Twyla's not answering my messages. It seems like all my leads with the Wandai House are drying up. I don't know where to turn next. That's until out of nowhere, I get a call about something that's happened to Kelly. It's a shocking new lead.
24:06 Speaker 04 A bit after Kelly visits the Wandai House, she's sitting at a local pub in Mergan. She's been on her feet for hours, trawling through the bush, doing yet another search looking for Jack. That's when a complete stranger approaches Kelly and taps her on the shoulder.
24:24 Speaker 03 She said, "I have to talk to you because I'm sick of seeing you searching." And this lady said that her friend had information. And it was serious information. And she says, "Stop looking where you're looking."
24:40 Speaker 04 What was your feeling as this lady's telling you that her friend might know more information?
24:47 Speaker 03 It was scary because this woman sounded so upset. I don't know who she is. I just know she had information to do with what had happened to Jack. She'd heard through a grapevine. And she said she had evidence which she was taking to the police.
25:07 Speaker 04 This woman who apparently had more information, we can't name her for legal reasons, so we're gonna call her Janet. The idea that Janet might have handed information to police, that really made Kelly pay attention. On the one hand, Kelly's excited that there's a new lead with some real promise. But on the other hand, she's exhausted. It feels like there's no end to the number of theories out there, and she wonders if this is just another false lead. Kelly's new mate Faith Takarletts can see that she's struggling, and tells Kelly she'll chase the lead up for her.
25:41 Speaker 04 Faith's given an address for Janet, and she drives over to her place to try and speak to her in person. Faith's running through the questions she wants to ask Janet in her head, but she knows Janet isn't expecting this visit, and Faith's got no idea what kind of situation she's heading into.
25:56 Speaker 03 I thought I was gonna probably get beaten up.
25:59 Speaker 04 Faith's retelling her what happened next, it jumps around a bit. So, keep in mind that this is hard to verify, and this is Faith's memory of how it went down. Faith arrives at Janet's house. She parks out the front and gets out of the car to go to greet her.
26:14 Speaker 03 Went up to the door, knocked on the door but no answer. So I went back, sat in the car for a minute or two. I thought, what am I gonna do here? So I just left her a note, asking if she could give me a call. And, yeah, she came out as I was leaving the note.
26:29 Speaker 04 Faith explains who she is and what she's doing there. But Janet's stunned. Janet asks Faith how she got her name and address, and who told her that she knows something about Jack's disappearance. And what was her facial expressions and demeanor telling you at that point?
26:45 Speaker 03 She was a mess, mate. She was... I felt like she needed a hug. She kept going on and on about how I'd found her address, and how I even knew her. She said that she'd spoken to no one at all in weeks. She hadn't been to work for four weeks. When she went to the police station to give this information, they had actually snuck her in and out of the back door. She was very nervous about what we were talking about, almost to the point of whispering.
27:14 Speaker 04 Janet starts to chat with Faith, but doesn't tell her anything specific about Jack.
27:18 Speaker 03 She said, "Look, can I just leave and don't come back?" And she let me know that she was working with the police and everything would be fine anyway I left, but I didn't feel comfortable with that.
27:30 Speaker 04 Faith fills Kelly in on what happened, and suggests maybe Janet will open up if Kelly goes back with her, so that they can speak mother to mother. So later that day, Faith says she rocked up at Janet's house again, this time with Kelly in tow.
27:44 Speaker 03 We went back together and knocked on the door. And I said, "Look, can you just... here's Kelly. Can you please speak to her?" And she said, "Yes, all right, but not near the house." So we went down her front steps, and then sort of walked up the street a bit, and stood on the footpath, and stood there talking for probably about an hour and a half.
28:02 Speaker 04 According to Faith, it's raining at this point, but they keep talking on the street regardless. Kelly can clearly see that Janet is nervous.
28:12 Speaker 03 I could see her body was shaking. And she said she had had sleepless nights. It was sort of getting at her all the time. And I thought, wow, this is, she's not just casually saying, I've heard this on the grapevine. She believed her story. She just told me that if the story got out and they knew it was her, her life would be in jeopardy. She's obviously frightened of something.
28:35 Speaker 04 Faith then launches into the hard questions. What does Janet know about what happened that night and who told her? According to Faith, this is when the conversation gets really interesting. Janet says the story she's heard comes from her own son.
28:51 Speaker 03 She wouldn't give me details of what had actually happened, but she just said that my son helped carry Jack's body.
29:02 Speaker 04 When I first heard about this whole scenario, I kind of did a double take. I was like, what? That is a pretty massive development.
29:11 Speaker 03 And she's adamant about that. It took three people to carry Jack's body because he was so heavy.
29:18 Speaker 04 So just to lay the story out. According to Janet, her son and two other men helped move Jack's body to Kimbombi. That's a town about half an hour's drive away. It's a pretty desolate place at the beginning of a long four-wheel drive track. And it's surrounded by a bunch of far-reaching farmland and bush. The biggest attraction there is a hidden waterfall called Kimbombi Falls. When I first heard the story that Jack was killed and taken here, I've got to say, my first instinct was that the logistics of it all sounded a bit far-fetched. But when Faith and Kelly hear this, they're shocked. They feel like Janet wouldn't just make this up.
29:57 Speaker 03 There's no doubt in my mind that I was speaking to a woman who was petrified for her son's life and her own. No doubt.
30:05 Speaker 04 At certain points during the conversation, Faith tries to shield Kelly from the more gruesome details.
30:10 Speaker 03 I actually would pull Kelly into my chest and cover her ear so she didn't hear those things. It wasn't stuff that I would think that Kelly needed to hear. She confirmed, no, he hadn't been dismembered or tortured, but that he had, yes, I mean, he was dead and he'd been carried.
30:28 Speaker 04 Then Janet drops another bombshell. She tells Kelly and Faith that there's a recorded conversation between her son and the two other men.
30:36 Speaker 03 She refused to let me listen and because she said that they were with the police and that the police will be acting on them and that she thought things were going to be okay. She felt like that she'd had enough information that basically she was under the impression something was going to happen very soon herself.
30:53 Speaker 04 Faith can see Janet is getting increasingly agitated and so they end the conversation. And Faith and Kelly leave.
31:00 Speaker 03 When we walked away from there, in my heart and soul was like, this is it, we've got them, this is it.
31:06 Speaker 04 After meeting Janet, Faith keeps her ear to the ground. She reads the local papers and watches the news. But there's nothing, no developments on Jack's case and certainly no one being arrested or charged for being involved in his disappearance. Police are saying nothing. Then, about a week and a half later, Faith swings back by Janet's house and is stunned by what she sees.
31:31 Speaker 03 She'd moved out.
31:32 Speaker 04 Both Janet and her son seem to have left town.
31:35 Speaker 03 Never to be seen again. Aside from face to face speaking, we didn't have any contact at all.
31:41 Speaker 04 By this point, Faith's been travelling back and forth between Tasmania and Queensland for weeks. Her family's fed up and call on her to come back home.
31:49 Speaker 03 I actually came back to Tasmania thinking I'm going to see something on the news or I'm going to get word from Kelly that they've come and said, you know, this is what's happening. Yet, nothing's coming from it. Nothing, nothing at all.
32:04 Speaker 04 I tried searching for Janet and her son. I found multiple phone numbers, but when I called, they either rang out or had been disconnected. I also looked into the two men who supposedly helped move Jack's body. I have their names, but for legal reasons, I can't name them. One of them's denied any involvement, the other's pretty hard to get in touch with. And besides, beyond this rumour, there is no evidence that either of them had anything to do with it. Which brings me to the recording. This is the one that Janet had supposedly handed to the police and which I've been told details how three men disposed of Jack's body.
32:43 Speaker 04 I haven't been able to get my hands on it. But to be honest, I'm a bit sceptical that it is what Janet says it is. Because if it was a credible admission of such a serious crime, surely there would have been arrests or bigger developments in the case by now. When I asked Queensland Police about it, they didn't respond to my question directly and said, as investigations are continuing, it's inappropriate to comment. So in the end, I was left wondering if there was any truth to this lead at all. Had Janet's son really been involved in moving Jack's body? Or had Janet just accidentally misinterpreted a conversation that she'd overheard? Or bizarre as it sounds, is it possible she just made the whole thing up?
33:32 Speaker 04 I've watched rumours like this one that swirled around Janet and her son making their way onto Facebook. And the longer this mystery goes on, the more Jack's mum Kelly seems to be fueling that fire in her understandable desperation for answers. At one point, Kelly uploads a terse and pointed video to Facebook, talking directly to Janet and pleading with her to come forward.
33:55 Speaker 01 I know your son knows a lot of stuff and you named some people.
34:01 Speaker 01 It's just been too long. I mean, I've tried to protect people, but come on, you imagine not seeing your child for 16 months. It's enough. I can't keep keeping you guys all safe. My son's not safe. He wasn't safe. He's not found. He's not home. So I can't keep protecting you all. And you did tell me information. You started telling me the truth. You want the truth to be told. Don't go and hide now.
34:26 Speaker 04 And Faith Takaritz definitely hasn't slowed down either. She continues to make pretty pointed accusations and remarks online about Janet, Kid and Twala, and the last man to see Jack alive, Chris Duke, all without much to support them. For Faith, it's like a way of keeping various theories in the conversation. Since she started looking into Jack's case, her number of followers has doubled. She's now up to 12,000 and she's called on all of them to take the sleuthing into their own hands. She's even gone a step further and cold-called one of the main detectives investigating Jack's disappearance, recorded their conversation and included the whole thing in a brazen post to Facebook.
35:11 Speaker 06 Hello, Chris Wheatley.
35:12 Speaker 03 Hi Chris, it's Faith DeCarlets from Tazzy. How are you?
35:15 Speaker 06 Hi, good thanks.
35:16 Speaker 03 Mate, what on earth is going on?
35:20 Speaker 06 Um, I'm not the family, I was on the phone.
35:23 Speaker 03 I don't, I'm, listen, listen, I know, look, I'm not fussed about that. I know that Jack's deceased. You've done nothing about this. What is, what is going on?
35:34 Speaker 03 Are you there?
35:38 Speaker 04 Watching this unfold, I couldn't help but wonder if blasting this all over Facebook is actually doing more harm than good. Could all this citizen detective work be impeding the police investigation? And could it potentially scare off people like Janet and her son even more? Pushing people with useful information into hiding? I know that since Kelly and Faith started being more pointed and public about their critique of the police investigation, Queensland Police have given only limited updates to the family on the case. In a way, I get that, because it makes sense that they want to keep certain parts of their investigation out of the public eye. But the result of that is that to Kelly, it then seems like there are no substantial updates.
36:23 Speaker 04 And she feels like it's up to her and Faith and everyone else to push the case forward. It's messy and it's complicated. I wanted to put this to Faith and see how she reflects on her role in all of this. Do you think this story needed you and that you played an important part?
36:41 Speaker 03 Um, I personally think I needed this, which is probably a sick, twisted thing to say. But selfishly, looking for Jack became what I was doing. So it was making it easier for me to live my life without my son. And, gosh, this is sounding terrible, but um, I've also got a beautiful new friend. But at the end of it all, I don't know, mate, that's sounding terrible and selfish.
37:17 Speaker 04 You your husband had to say to you at one stage, like, you you might need to reel it back in, or, you know, that maybe you were displacing your trauma a bit.
37:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, he did say that. And also, my, one of my daughters said to me, oh, you have got your own kids too. Like, in a nice, friendly way, but she was more or less saying, look, you know, hey, and bear in mind, I've got grandkiddies over here, and I just jumped on a plane and and left them all, Christmas Eve, so it was a bit of a shock to everyone. Um, yeah, I feel like, I actually feel like my big mouth did help out. Because I raised the awareness on Facebook.
37:54 Speaker 04 At times, I completely disagree with how faith goes about things. But I've also seen faith in many different lights. I've had breakfast with her while she's gushed over photos of her grandkids. I've listened to her talk candidly about her mental health battles, and I've even seen her try to protect people in this story who absolutely hate her guts and think that she was out to get them the whole time. One part of me feels like faith operates how I might have operated in a parallel universe. One where I didn't study defamation law at university or didn't work according to the A B C's code of ethics. We both want the same outcome. We just have very different methods of getting there.
38:37 Speaker 04 To me, it feels like faith is someone who lives by the motto, all is fair in love and war. And when it comes to a missing son, it's definitely war. And in war, there are often innocent victims who then get caught in the crossfire. Early on, there was a photo of Chris Duke's kids that went up online. Was that something that you regretted?
38:59 Speaker 03 Absolutely. Yep. So I put, I just madly, like a mad woman, tried to find anything that I could of Chris Duke, just so we could see what he looked like as a person and found his Facebook profile, took a screenshot and put that up on Facebook. Not even thinking, and and it is a terrible thing to do. Um, the the two little kiddies were in there. And another woman rang me and said, look, you know, the kids are on that. And immediately I pulled over, I said to her, look, I apologize, and I took it down immediately because, you know, I'd never wanna, I'm not gonna upset people about their children. So, yeah, I do, I have regret for that, for sure.
39:37 Speaker 04 How invested in this will you stay until the end?
39:42 Speaker 03 I'm in it forever now, mate, I think. I really tend not to get along with women too well, but Kelly and I have some sort of extremely bizarre bond there now where she'll be a friend for life. I'm definitely not going to go anywhere until Jack's found. So I'm in it for the long haul.
40:10 Speaker 04 With all the social media noise and the people closest to the story either refusing to talk or running away, it feels like my investigation has hit rock bottom. It starts to feel like I'm never going to get answers and I'm losing hope that Jack's family might ever know the real story of what happened to their son. But it's at this point that I receive a totally unexpected text. It's from Chris Duke. 14 months after Jack went missing, he says he's ready to talk in person. And this time, he's going to give me the full story about what happened the night that Jack disappeared. He wants to go public with everything he knows because he says the speculation has gotten way out of control.
40:53 Speaker 06 I don't know where he went. I wish I could. I wish I could help so much more for myself and for Jack, but I can't. There's only so much information I can give because it's all I know.
41:05 Speaker 04 That's next episode on What Became of Jack, the latest season of Unravel.
41:26 Speaker 04 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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