Pod Insights Unravel 06 What Became of Jack? | Duke Speaks About this episode The last known person to see Jack alive finally breaks his silence. Chris Duke speaks in detail for the first time, laying out his version of what happened the night Jack McLennan vanished and revealing new details about Jack's last known moments.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Sarah Konoski here. Each and every crime has a story behind it.
0:05 Speaker 01 I was asleep and then I felt this really intense burning.
0:09 Speaker 00 On Conversations, I've met ex-criminals, detectives, crime reporters, victims of crime, and the wrongfully accused.
0:17 Speaker 01 More grenades start coming in and then I hear from a loudspeaker that it's the police.
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0:36 Speaker 03 Just before we start, this episode contains some strong language.
0:41 Speaker 04 In the initial days after Jack disappeared, his mum was desperate for any clue at all about what had happened and where he was. The obvious place to start was to ask the last person to see Jack alive. The man who'd been with him that whole afternoon and evening, his workmate, Chris Duke. And at the start, Chris seemed happy to chat. He spoke with Jack's mum on the phone at least three or four times. But soon, he stopped answering the phone. And before long, rumours started swirling in the community about Chris's drug use, his criminal record, and his possible involvement in Jack's disappearance. Jack's mum and his dad, Ross, became suspicious of Chris.
1:25 Speaker 04 Ross stewed on the things he'd heard and the fact that Chris was avoiding speaking with him and Kelly. Chris was the last known person with his son. Chris was supposedly the one that helped get drugs that night. So Ross decided to call him again. And this time, Chris picked up.
1:43 Speaker 05 I rang him up and said, "Chris?"
1:49 Speaker 04 To begin with, Chris didn't say anything.
1:52 Speaker 05 And I went, "Chris?" And he said, "Who have I got?" And I told him who it was. I said, "It's Jack McLennan's father, Ross."
2:02 Speaker 04 Now that Ross had got through to Chris, he wasn't going to waste the opportunity. Ross didn't know what happened that night. All he knew for sure was that Chris was there. So he decided now was his opportunity to put the worst to him. And he was going to come in hard.
2:18 Speaker 05 And I immediately said, "You murdered my son." And then there was just silence.
2:27 Speaker 05 And I mentioned that I'm gonna find you and I'm gonna skin you alive.
2:34 Speaker 04 Ross told Chris to remember his voice and that he was gonna come find him.
2:38 Speaker 05 Still silence.
2:41 Speaker 05 And that was the end of the phone call. I had nothing more to say.
2:45 Speaker 04 But Ross didn't leave it there and he called Chris one more time.
2:49 Speaker 05 And when I rang up, I said, "Chris, it's Ross McLone. How are you, mate?" I said, "Don't call me that. Don't call me that. My son called you that and look what you've done."
3:04 Speaker 04 Ross accused him again of being involved in Jack's death.
3:07 Speaker 05 This is the only time he spoke and he said, "I don't know where he is."
3:13 Speaker 05 So I said once again, "Well, um, we've heard differently and uh...
3:25 Speaker 05 When I find you, I'm gonna beat on you like a drum."
3:32 Speaker 04 Since Jack disappeared more than a year ago, Chris Duke's been one of the most central characters in this story. He's been tied up in countless rumours about what happened on Jack's last known night. He's been accused of everything from not talking enough to lying when he does, of pushing Jack to do drugs and maybe putting him in a dangerous situation. He's been accused of covering up for someone else or maybe even killing Jack himself. What's clear is that Chris likely spent more time with Jack on the night he disappeared than anyone else. But he's never spoken publicly about the details of what happened that night. We've never heard his side of the story.
4:15 Speaker 04 So now I really wanna ask him, what happened on the last night Jack was seen alive?
4:22 Speaker 04 I'm Rob Bergen and this is What Became of Jack, the latest season of Unravel.
4:38 Speaker 04 It's taken almost a year to get Chris Duke to agree to meet with me, and even longer to get him to agree to a recorded interview. The spot where he and I have organised to speak, it's out the front of a school. It's school holidays and a Saturday, so it's pretty quiet. I get there early and just kind of sit there thinking about how far this investigation's come, how much of it revolves around Chris, and whether he'll actually turn up.
5:08 Speaker 04 Alrighty, so what I'm feeling right now is probably a duty, a responsibility, and I know this probably comes from being a sports reporter and quite a logically minded person rather than a dramatic presenter, but I know at this point you're supposed to say my heart is racing and I'm really nervous and I could potentially be in danger. But I actually feel like there's a responsibility to the family to make sure that I get the maximum information that can help and remove doubt in this case.
5:47 Speaker 04 It's been so much effort to get to this point today. At times, Chris has been really hard to get a hold of. He's sometimes responsive to texts, but hardly ever answers the phone. I actually got hold of him a little while ago, but he said he'd had a few too many drinks and he didn't want to be recorded. This time, I'm really hoping he comes through. It's not long after breakfast time, but it's already hot. I haven't had a chance to gather my thoughts when I notice Chris and another bloke striding towards me. It looks like Chris has come with a mate for support. He tells me they've walked from a few blocks away, but he's cautious not to give away the exact location.
6:30 Speaker 04 Chris is wearing aviator sunglasses and he's got a polo shirt on. I can see already he's sweating quite profusely and looks nervous.
6:41 Speaker 04 When we sit down at the table, we are so close that our knees are almost touching.
6:49 Speaker 04 I ask Chris's mate if he could sit a little way away, and then I press record to make sure I get everything possible on tape.
7:00 Speaker 04 I just pop these on because they help them pick up the background noise if there's any, so. Yeah, if you can say, "Hi, my name is..." and explain.
7:07 Speaker 06 Hi, my name is Chris Duke. Um, I'm a family man, a worker man, devoted family man, um,
7:16 Speaker 06 a loyal mate, that's about it.
7:19 Speaker 04 I feel like I need to find a way to ease into this interview. I don't want to confront him at the start with something that might make him shut the whole exchange down early. If you could think of the perception that you think of having yourself and what the public has of you, how would you like that to change?
7:38 Speaker 06 Well, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. Like, I've been a silly bugger, you know, like a lot of people, but, um, I don't want them to think of me as a monster because I'm definitely not.
7:48 Speaker 04 Instead of asking Chris directly about what happened that night, I'm thinking the best way to work into this conversation slowly might be to ask him about everything that led up to that night. Like, what are all the things in Chris's life that led up to him being out there with Jack at Fix Crossing in the middle of the night and on a bender?
8:12 Speaker 04 It turns out like me, Chris grew up in Housing Commission. But while I was in Brisbane, he was up in Deception Bay, a coastal suburb about 30Ks to the north. He says it was a pretty rough place to grow up as a kid, and I believe him.
8:27 Speaker 06 There's a lot of fights and a lot of stuff like that. I grew up, I've been gang-bashed many times, you know, like, um, yeah, it's pretty rough. You grow up pretty tough down here, in a way, you know?
8:39 Speaker 04 Things got even harder when his parents separated.
8:42 Speaker 06 It was pretty hectic when they split up and wrecked me, you know, like, they finally built their own house and, um, and then that all went away. And then I suppose that's when, you know, a new man coming into my mother's life, we didn't get along at all, never have, um. I don't know, I suppose that's what affected me a bit.
9:00 Speaker 04 As a teenager, Chris fell in with a crowd that introduced him to drugs.
9:04 Speaker 06 I smoked pot when I was 13 and that's where it sort of went from, pot and cigarettes. I'd use it to self-medicate normally when I was depressed. You know, you have a joint to make yourself feel happy.
9:15 Speaker 04 When he was about 14 years old, he tried harder drugs for the first time.
9:20 Speaker 06 People was hanging out at the time, that's what they would do, and you're inquisitive, you want to try it. It makes you feel like Superman, you're like, "Holy fuck." This makes me feel great. I feel happy. I feel happy for once.
9:35 Speaker 04 It's fair to say Chris didn't thrive at school. I'm told in about year nine, he dropped out. He did a few random jobs and much later picked up a construction apprenticeship. But he struggled to stay out of trouble. I'd already looked into Chris's background and found he'd faced charges for things like driving under the influence and theft. But now, Chris starts to list off other things he's got into trouble for over the years. Like this one time, he got done for break and enter.
10:05 Speaker 06 I robbed a house drunk. It thought would be a great idea and the next morning I decided to go take it all back. So I wheeled it all back to the house, I knocked on the front door and I apologised and then the coppers picked me up soon after that.
10:19 Speaker 04 How, how old were you when you did this stuff?
10:21 Speaker 06 Ah, like eighteen, I think, yeah.
10:25 Speaker 04 Chris tells me about another incident where he threatened a guy with a knife. Chris says this guy drugged Chris's girlfriend and Chris was just trying to give him a scare.
10:35 Speaker 04 Most of these stories, Chris laughs off, as if he's downplaying it or just recognising the stupidity of some of the things he's been involved in. But he does admit, there's a common theme with a number of these things, and that's that either alcohol or drugs were involved.
10:52 Speaker 06 I did play up on drugs. I was a weekend warrior at some points in my life. I've had drinking problems as well, you know, I drink a lot. I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth.
11:04 Speaker 04 Sometime around 2008, Chris hooked up with someone he knew from school. Her name was Danielle and she became his long-term partner. They started having kids together, but even as their family grew, Chris's behaviour got more volatile and at times aggressive. Danielle eventually kicked him out of the house.
11:27 Speaker 04 I can't help but wonder if maybe that darker side of Chris reared its head on the night that Jack went missing. The one that's more prone to violence and angry outbursts. Could Jack have gotten on his bad side? Maybe he said the wrong thing at the wrong time. After all, some people say that Jack could be a bit of a smart arse at times. And on top of that, based on Chris's track record, can I really trust everything he says? I want to check everything I already know and see how that matches up with his version.
12:00 Speaker 04 So that week, you were trying to sort things out with your wife. How does it come to a point where you're like, hey, Jack, we're going to hang out on Friday?
12:09 Speaker 06 So I was heading over to see Danielle and the kids and spend some time with them.
12:15 Speaker 04 At this point, Chris had kind of been living out of his car. He was still working in his construction job, but he'd also been trying to get on top of his substance abuse issues. On this day in particular, he'd just been to see a counsellor.
12:28 Speaker 06 So it's a counselling, mental health. So also alcohol abuse, drug abuse, stuff like that. There's just things I've always been working on. So they help you with that and they help you get over that period and give you mental tools to deal with it. So like coping with not having my family around me all the time, that was, that was the main one.
12:48 Speaker 04 Danielle agreed to have Chris come over to her place to spend some time with the kids. And it's as he's driving there that he gets a phone call from Jack.
12:59 Speaker 06 He said that him and his girl had a, had a big fight. He had to go to the police station and I up for a chat and a beer.
13:07 Speaker 04 According to Jack's mum, this is when Jack visited the police to ask about his rights to the house he'd been living in with Carly.
13:14 Speaker 06 He sounded upset, yeah. If you've got to go to the police station, mate, you're upset anyway. You know what I mean? No one wants to be involved with the police at all, you know, unless it's a, a good thing.
13:23 Speaker 04 Chris feels torn. On the one hand, he's walking on incredibly thin ice with his family. He'd planned to spend a family Friday night with them to prove that he can be a good dad and partner. But on the other hand, his mate's sounding pretty desperate and he's just reached out for help. So Chris has to make a decision.
13:44 Speaker 06 I said, yeah, you know, I couldn't say no. The bloke needed someone to talk to, so.
13:49 Speaker 04 Chris invites Jack to meet him at Danielle's place.
13:52 Speaker 06 And Danielle, being the person she is, said, yeah, that, okay. Um, obviously she wouldn't have been extremely happy about it because it was supposed to be an us thing, but.
14:01 Speaker 04 And it's this decision of Chris's that leads to a chain of events that changes everything for Chris, for Jack, and all of Jack's friends and family.
14:14 Speaker 07 I didn't even know that Jack was coming over till five minutes before he was knocking on the door.
14:20 Speaker 04 Imagine that's come as quite a surprise.
14:23 Speaker 07 Yeah, it did, yeah.
14:25 Speaker 04 Danielle also agreed to speak with me about what happened that day. For me, her account is a crucial way of checking Chris's version. She says she definitely wasn't thrilled Chris had invited Jack over. And this is how she remembers it.
14:40 Speaker 07 I was firstly thinking, why are you inviting your friends to my house? Like, if you want to hang out with your friends, go, go to the pub or go, you know, like, don't bring your friends over here. And yeah, then Jack was pretty much knocking on the door. So I let Jack in.
14:59 Speaker 04 Chris and Jack go out the back and they chat for a bit. Then around 1:30pm, they head to the local bottle shop to pick up some more booze. This is the same bottle-o that'll capture them on CCTV and record the last known video footage of Jack McLennan alive. Jack and Chris grab some drinks and head back to Danielle's, where she overhears the two of them chatting.
15:21 Speaker 07 They were talking out the back and, yeah, I, I popped out here and there. And, um, he had had a couple of issues with his girlfriend, Carly.
15:33 Speaker 04 Danielle hears Jack talking about how he and Carly had been arguing and how Carly wanted him to leave the house.
15:39 Speaker 07 And when you looked outside, the car was full of plastic, like, plastic bags full of all of his belongings, like, to the window. So you could clearly tell that he wasn't in a good spot.
15:54 Speaker 04 Danielle had her own issues with Chris. At this stage, she was pregnant with their fourth child. And she was getting worried about where this afternoon with Jack might lead. She'd seen alcohol and drugs take control of Chris many times before.
16:08 Speaker 07 Like, he just gets stuck in this, like, state. And it takes him hours to snap out of it. It's, yeah, it's terrible.
16:16 Speaker 04 And could he sometimes say things that he regrets or do things that he regrets?
16:22 Speaker 07 You can't get much sense out of him at all when he's in, in a trance.
16:28 Speaker 07 You can talk to him, but he won't, he'll, he won't answer you. He'll say, like, yes or not. You can't have a conversation with him.
16:37 Speaker 04 And when he's like that, can he be violent?
16:41 Speaker 07 He'll only get violent or cranky during the come down phase of it.
16:49 Speaker 04 Danielle watched Chris and Jack drink and chat in the backyard. Then around 2:30 to 3pm, the two of them got up, announced they were heading out to Fix Crossing and just left. Danielle was hoping for the best.
17:01 Speaker 07 I didn't, you know, like, I just thought, oh, yeah, they'll, they'll have, have their, like, a few beers, whatever. They'll go there and then, you know, they'll go to work on Monday and everything will be back to normal.
17:17 Speaker 04 Chris says he and Jack got in the car to drive out to Fix. This was going to be their first visit to the water hole. It was supposed to be relaxing.
17:26 Speaker 06 Instead of going to the pub or going to create bigger problems, I go out bush and Fix is just down the road. It was a hot day, let's go for a swim and jump off some rope swings, get a bit of adrenaline going, um, have a bit of fun, talk a bit of shit. If we want to have a whinge a bit of girls, we can, you know, without it blowing up in our face, um, and that was about it, yeah.
17:49 Speaker 04 But before they get to Fix, Chris says Jack asked him for a favour.
17:54 Speaker 06 He asked me if I could get under, like, like acid or something like that. And I said, no, the only thing I can get is gear.
18:01 Speaker 04 And when you say gear, specifically, you mean?
18:04 Speaker 06 Meth.
18:06 Speaker 04 So according to Chris, meth wasn't Jack's first drug of choice. It was just what he could get his hands on. But Chris tells me Jack wasn't exactly forced to take drugs that night. He says it was his idea to get them and he took them willingly. So Jack was the one that was pushing for it?
18:23 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, he wanted something, yes.
18:26 Speaker 04 Looking back now, Chris says he has huge regrets.
18:29 Speaker 06 I should have said no. But I've been in his hurt and I know what it's like to self-medicate. I wasn't going to judge the man. Um, so I said, yeah, I can help you get something.
18:43 Speaker 04 Chris makes himself sound almost generous here, as if he's just getting drugs to help out a mate in a crisis. But he also admits he kind of couldn't resist.
18:54 Speaker 06 Like I said to you once before, mate, when you put a lolly in front of a baby, the baby wants it. And that's what addiction's like.
19:00 Speaker 04 Chris knows this will not go over well with Danielle. So he lies and he says he and Jack are off to fix to go fishing. Danielle can smell bullshit.
19:10 Speaker 07 I knew it was a joke because he didn't even have any fishing rods.
19:14 Speaker 04 But despite this, she hoped Chris would do the right thing, especially considering he'd made a promise to the kids.
19:21 Speaker 07 He told the kids that he wasn't, he wasn't going to be going and doing drugs today. Which was a complete lie because he went straight there to do it.
19:38 Speaker 04 Chris confirms what I'd pieced together myself. From here, they take Chris's car and they drive to a house where Chris knows they can score some meth. It's the house in Wandai, Kid and Twila's place. As they arrive, Chris hops out, but he tells Jack to stay put in the car.
19:56 Speaker 06 I didn't want to take him in. I don't know, it's, you don't want to take new people in, if you know what I mean, but, um, so I didn't.
20:03 Speaker 04 Chris heads into the Wandai house alone and he buys a small amount of meth.
20:07 Speaker 06 So we've got, um, just a little bit, $50 worth, one point.
20:12 Speaker 04 I've heard Jack and Chris had up to three points of meth between them that day. So this must be their first dabble. After picking up the drugs, Chris and Jack drive into Fix. It's now after three in the afternoon and the strong Queensland sun is still blaring. So they decide to cool off and they have a swim in the creek. Then, for the first time that day, Jack takes some meth. According to Chris, they share it, half a point each. Jack bombs his, meaning he wraps it in a little cigarette paper and swallows it. Chris says the amount they took was pretty small, just enough to get them both buzzing, but not enough that his family would notice.
20:53 Speaker 04 It does get him feeling a little brave though, so he sends Danielle a message.
20:58 Speaker 07 He sent through a couple of photos of him at Fix Crossing, you know, like he'd been swimming. And yeah, just basically, oh, he was just being a bit of a smart arse, rubbing it in my face a bit. Like, I'm at Fix Crossing, you know, like, here we are.
21:16 Speaker 04 Chris shows me one of these photos, and when I see it, the significance isn't lost on me. This is the very last known photo of Jack before he disappeared, taken just hours before he vanished.
21:31 Speaker 04 Jack's mid-air, swinging off the rope swing that hangs over the creek. He's shirtless and you can see how all that time in the gym's paid off for him. He's got his signature black cap on backwards, the same one that had been discovered by police in the days after he disappeared. And I guess this explains how it got wet. After the swim, Chris and Jack make their way back to Danielle's, and Chris starts to realise just how bad he's messed up.
21:59 Speaker 06 I made a terrible mistake that day, a terrible mistake.
22:02 Speaker 04 Chris had earlier promised his daughters he wouldn't take drugs. Now here he was, high on meth, standing right in front of them. What did she say to you?
22:12 Speaker 06 Yeah, um, you promised not to do it. And I did, and I broke the promise. And that hurt a lot. She wants me to do the best I can. She's unbelievable.
22:30 Speaker 06 Great kid, smart kid. Um, she wants her father to do the best he can. You know, I broke, I broke that trust that day and I regret it a lot.
22:42 Speaker 04 So you, everybody, I guess, has gone into this thinking about what's going on in Jack's life, but the stakes are pretty high for you as well.
22:49 Speaker 06 Hundred percent. It's my family, you know, I've raised these kids. I've been with this woman since I was 18 years old. I love her with all my heart. Um.
23:01 Speaker 06 Some of the stupid shit I've done, I'm surprised she even stayed with me, but she did, she loved me back. And like I said, if I had a time machine, I'd go back and change it.
23:12 Speaker 04 Chris realises they're not welcome there anymore, so he tells Jack it's best they head back out to fix.
23:19 Speaker 06 To a quiet place, safe place. Um, and that's when he asked if he, if he could get some more. I said, we can, but it's probably not a good idea.
23:28 Speaker 04 It doesn't take much to convince Chris, now that both of their relationships are in ruins. So for the second time that day, they drive to the Wondi house.
23:38 Speaker 06 So we went back this time. Um, I said, well, if you come in, like you get your own shit.
23:42 Speaker 04 Chris's earlier concerns about not bringing anyone else inside seem to have flown out the window. It's around 5:30 PM when he and Jack enter the Wondi property. So how many people were there?
23:55 Speaker 06 Bugger all. From memory, I think it was just, um, me, the bloke and the girl.
24:02 Speaker 04 The bloke and the girl being Kid and Twyla. Then Chris and Jack buy some more meth. According to Chris, Jack bombs a little bit of his. And so usually with that, it, it comes out slower.
24:17 Speaker 06 Yeah, he, he would have felt it, but yeah, he would have hardly felt it, so to speak. Yeah. Because he, he didn't eat the whole bag either, you know what I mean? He only had a little bit.
24:25 Speaker 04 But this time, Chris injects, which he says wasn't exactly his decision.
24:31 Speaker 06 I was offered a, a, a bit and I felt obliged. I, I said that I didn't want it, but I felt obliged, you know, I've just brought a new fellow there.
24:40 Speaker 04 I don't really understand why he would feel obliged to shoot up drugs right then and there. Maybe Chris didn't wanna come off as judgy or like a snitch. Maybe in a situation like this, he felt it was safer to kinda play it cool.
24:54 Speaker 06 I know, I suppose it's just something we've always done. You know, like you don't want people thinking that you're out to get them in trouble or anything like that, so. Yeah, you know, if we've all done drugs together, we've all done drugs together.
25:09 Speaker 04 I can't tell if Chris is being honest here, or again, if he's just trying to downplay his bad decisions. But either way, this time around, the meth completely knocks his socks off.
25:20 Speaker 06 It was a lot bigger dose than what I'd ever have, um, and I was, you know, I was lit up like a Christmas tree.
25:28 Speaker 04 According to Chris, they hang at Kid and Twilis for a while, not doing much of anything. No one was violent, no one was arguing, it was just a handful of people talking shit and doing drugs.
25:40 Speaker 06 It was just normal chit chat, like there was nothing antagonising or, yeah, there was nothing going on like that.
25:48 Speaker 04 The sun goes down, and it's around eight thirty at night when Jack and Chris leave the Wandai house. They head back to Fix Crossing for the third time that day. Much of what I've heard so far is in line with what I've been able to figure out myself. But what happened next is something only Chris really knows about, and that's what I wanna dig into now.
26:14 Speaker 04 They park up and Chris gets to work cleaning his car. It's a weird habit of his, something he does when he's high.
26:21 Speaker 06 When you're on the gear, you tidy up everything. It could be a grain of salt, you pick it up and get it out of your carpet or anything like that, um. So that's what I was doing.
26:30 Speaker 04 Two other cars arrive, and they pull up in another section of the picnic grounds. Chris keeps cleaning his car and says he can understand if at this point Jack starts getting a bit bored.
26:40 Speaker 06 I was busy cleaning, like that'd be boring as shit, especially if he's wanting to have a good time, um, and get over whatever the feelings he's having. Yeah, that would be, watching your mate tidy his car, I mean, I'd be like, oh, fuck this, I'm out, like, yeah. I would have done the same thing, but I would have told, like, I'm out, you know?
26:59 Speaker 04 At one point, Chris remembers overhearing Jack talking to someone, so he pulls his head out of the car and spots Jack down by the shed, about 30 metres away. Chris assumes Jack must be on the phone, but to who, Chris doesn't really know. Maybe it's Carly and that Jack was just trying to patch things up with her. But I reckon it's also possible he could have been on the phone to his mum Kelly and his sister Sydney. They've told me that they spoke to Jack around 9pm that night, but I can't actually say for sure. Chris tells me that later during the night, Jack walked over to him, held up a little drug bag and asked, "What should I do with this?"
27:40 Speaker 04 According to Chris, even though there's a fair amount left, he tells Jack to ditch it.
27:45 Speaker 06 You better have thrown it in the fucker water.
27:49 Speaker 06 Yeah.
27:50 Speaker 04 Is it a little bit ironic, given you struggled a bit with it yourself?
27:54 Speaker 06 Yeah. I tell everybody that. I don't condone this shit. My own superpowers, my own superpower, it's the nastiest thing. It'll get, it'll turn a, you know, one of the perfect people in the world, you turn him into a drug addict. You know, it gets you that quick. So it's nasty stuff. I don't like it.
28:13 Speaker 04 I wondered if this was the same drug bag that was later found inside Jack's wallet. But the one that was discovered was empty. So what happened to the rest of the drugs? Did Jack throw them out like Chris suggested? Or did he finish the rest off?
28:31 Speaker 04 According to Chris, it's around 10pm when he snaps out of his cleaning trance and reckons it's time to call it a night.
28:37 Speaker 06 We got the, um, the car started and, um,
28:44 Speaker 06 I yelled out, like I yelled out to him, "Alright, let's get going."
28:47 Speaker 04 Jack starts walking over to him and Chris decides to play a little joke.
28:52 Speaker 06 And me being a shitstorm, I'm like, "Ooh, behind ya."
28:55 Speaker 04 Jack took the bait and turned around to look.
28:57 Speaker 06 And I started laughing and I turned around and went back to my car and just started like tidying up the last few things and right, I should probably think about getting out of here and going somewhere for the night, you know.
29:10 Speaker 04 Chris calls out to Jack again that it's time to go, this time for real.
29:15 Speaker 06 Let's get out of here, you know, I yelled out, thinking that he might still be over at that shed or something like that. Like I was yelling, like, Jack, hey, let's go, knucklehead, or, you know, let's go dickhead. Um, you know, as you do as blokes, not that he's a dickhead, you know, but, um, let's go, mate, let's go. And nothing.
29:39 Speaker 06 So I called out for him everywhere, fucking hell, and I've got a big voice, so I'm yelling. So I grabbed the torch out of my car and I'm spotlighting around everywhere and I'm yelling out and then it all started to get weird. You know, very weird, like, where the fuck is he going?
29:55 Speaker 04 Chris wonders if maybe Jack's pissed off with his earlier joke, or maybe got sick of him and his obsessive cleaning. And maybe just headed off without saying anything.
30:05 Speaker 06 I figured maybe he's got another girl picking him up or a mate or something like that, but he hasn't told me, so I'm gonna hang around, you know. I felt obliged, I need to stay there and wait for this bloke, like, I don't know where the fuck he is.
30:19 Speaker 04 So Chris waits and waits.
30:22 Speaker 06 All I could hear was, like, I was listening, all I could hear was animals in bushes, um.
30:28 Speaker 06 Couldn't see nothing, no one was coming.
30:31 Speaker 04 He stares into the pitch black that surrounds him and thinks, surely Jack hasn't just wandered off into that.
30:37 Speaker 06 I would never have thought he would have went in the bush, because if anybody that is a bush person knows that there's fucking spiders, mosquitoes, you don't know where you're walking, like, why would you do that? And Jack seemed like a logical bloke, I doubt he would have went through the bush. That's, that's my opinion, yeah. When there's a road there and there's not much, it would have, it would have taken me less time to walk up the road into Ficks and then walk the highway back to town. Um, than going through that scrub. It's a, it's a, it's a river system, you know what I mean? Like, you could fall off a cliff or something like that, you know, like, why, it's not logical, it's not logical, especially with the ease of going up the road and then going up the highway.
31:22 Speaker 06 Doesn't make sense to me.
31:31 Speaker 04 Jack was now gone. Chris has been consistent with me about what happened here and when. But online, all sorts of wild rumours have swirled about Chris without any evidence to support them. There's a rumour that Jack hit his head and that Chris helped get rid of the body. There's even a rumour that Chris killed Jack himself.
31:54 Speaker 04 Chris has never publicly spoken about what happened after Jack disappeared, or responded to these accusations, until now. So we'll probably have to go through a few things that are tough to hear, but I want to address the things that were said. Was Jack 100% conscious the whole time that you were around him?
32:12 Speaker 06 Yeah, 100% he was. Yeah, definitely.
32:14 Speaker 04 So he was never knocked out or he was never...
32:16 Speaker 06 No, no.
32:17 Speaker 04 There was a big one that went around about a conspiracy to carry Jack's body and hide it, and it involved yourself. And they said that someone confessed that this had taken place.
32:29 Speaker 06 Yeah, no. I haven't even heard that one, but no, definitely not. If someone asked me to come and carry my mate's body, first thing I'd do is bash the shit out of him and take him to the police station myself. Straight away.
32:43 Speaker 04 People say, "Did you murder Jack?"
32:45 Speaker 06 No, definitely not. Fuck no, I'm not a killer.
32:49 Speaker 04 Do you know any...
32:50 Speaker 06 If I was gonna kill somebody, would I do it? It'd be pretty stupid. Do you know what I mean? He's coming to me, we're in my car, da-da-da-da. Like, that's pretty fucking stupid. Do you know what I mean? I'm not a killer. I could be a dickhead, but I'm not a killer.
33:16 Speaker 04 I've gone back and forth about my feelings towards Chris. Listening to him, I'm analysing in real time every single pause and change of tone in his voice. And hearing him flat out refute the worst of the allegations against him, to me, he seems believable.
33:33 Speaker 04 But there's still a bunch of things that he's done that don't really make any sense to me. Like, why does he end up with Jack's car keys the next day? Why does he have Jack's hat in the days afterwards? And why does he then decide to get rid of it by ditching it in a hedge? Rather than somewhere more obvious where Jack could find it, like the bonnet of his car? Or the front fence or something? I really wanna hear the detail in how Chris explains these things.
34:03 Speaker 04 According to Chris, here's what happened. To set the scene, it's now the early hours of Saturday morning and Chris says he's been waiting around three hours at Fix for Jack to turn up. I've got no way of verifying what happens during this period. But Chris says he was just hanging out at the car, calling out Jack's name? And bugging out, listening to the sounds of the bush. By 1am, Chris decides he's waited long enough, so he hops in his car and drives out of Fix. But now, he says, he's kicking himself for the decisions that led him here. Instead of spending the night watching a movie with his kids as planned? He's ditched them to get high with a mate who's now disappeared.
34:45 Speaker 06 It's 1 o'clock in the morning. You're a dickhead. Why did you do this?
34:50 Speaker 04 Chris then makes another not-so-great decision. He drives back to Danielle's place in the middle of the night.
34:56 Speaker 06 Felt as though I had to go and make up with Danielle because I fucked up. And see if I can get some sort of relationship back.
35:06 Speaker 04 He arrives to see Danielle standing on the front porch, smoking a cigarette. When Danielle spots Chris, she puts out a ciggy, walks back inside and locks the door behind her. I've asked her about this incident and she's confirmed it's true.
35:21 Speaker 06 As soon as I got to Danielle's place, she... She didn't want nothing to do with me.
35:26 Speaker 04 Chris runs up and starts banging on the door and knocking on the windows.
35:31 Speaker 06 Like a dickhead, I turned the power off so that she'd come out and talk to me, but she didn't. She just called the cops on me straight away, which is fair enough.
35:39 Speaker 04 Chris is kinda laughing the whole thing off, but I can imagine Danielle wasn't happy, maybe even scared. Here's a former partner and father to her children, high on drugs, circling the house and turning the power off in the middle of the night. When the cops arrive, Chris bolts over the back fence at Danielle's place and hides out next to a Jehovah's Witness church, just one house down the road.
36:03 Speaker 04 Chris's car is still out the front, so as he waits for the cops to leave, he cracks open a beer.
36:08 Speaker 06 I just sat there drinking a beer and feeling sorry for myself, I suppose. I probably sat there for an hour, because they just kept, so they didn't get out of the car, I was right there. And I could see them, but they didn't see me, and they didn't get out of the car, but they just kept circling around. And I'm like, I do not need to get charged, you know, tonight for anything stupid. So, um, I just waited out there and then as soon as I noticed that they were gone, I jumped in my car and got out of town, went back to fix. Stayed there and, yeah, depressed as fuck.
36:39 Speaker 04 Chris just sits there out at fix by himself, waiting for dawn. When the sun comes up, he checks his phone, no messages or calls from Jack. Chris thinks it's a little weird, a bit rude even, that his mate hasn't even bothered to let him know where he's ended up. To start with, Chris isn't exactly worried.
36:58 Speaker 06 He's a grown man, I don't take kick tracker, I've never kept checking me mates, you know, they're grown men. Yeah, I didn't really think anything of it.
37:06 Speaker 04 But pretty soon, he's calling around, trying to figure out where the hell Jack went. He buzzes Trent, that's Jack and Chris's work supervisor, and he says, no, I haven't seen Jack. Chris also messages Carly, Jack's now ex-girlfriend, and she says she hasn't seen him either. Chris even heads back to the Wandai house, kid and Twyla's place, where they'd scored the drugs from.
37:29 Speaker 06 Has he come back? Have you seen him? No, no, no.
37:32 Speaker 04 Then, around midday, Chris heads back to Danielle's place, not to patch things up, but to move Jack's car.
37:39 Speaker 06 Danielle, um, was up me to come and get the car. Because it was parked at the front of their house.
37:46 Speaker 04 Now, this might sound a bit sus. Why would Chris have Jack's car keys? Well, according to Chris, when Jack met up with him the day before, Jack left his car at Danielle's so that the two of them could drive around town in Chris's car. And he left his keys in the passenger side footwell of Chris's car for safekeeping. So Chris does what Danielle asked him to do, and he goes and moves Jack's car away from Danielle's place. By this point, he says he feels horrible. Not only is Jack missing, but his original plan to spend the Friday night with his kids has gone down the toilet. And he doesn't know when he'll next see his family.
38:25 Speaker 06 Like I've ruined my family opportunity by being a dickhead.
38:31 Speaker 06 And that's, that hurts a lot, you know?
38:34 Speaker 04 What Chris says he does next answers one of the other persistent questions people have about one of the clues which Jack left behind. His hat. The one that was located by police days after he disappeared, near a church in Mergan. Chris says he can explain. And he tells me he found it in his car that morning when he went to pick his dog up from Danielle's place.
38:56 Speaker 06 I've opened up the boot to clear some of my tools out of the way so I can put the dog in the boot. And here's this bloody wet hat sitting in the back of the car. And we all know what wet clothes does in the cars.
39:05 Speaker 04 And Jack's hat being wet, you've showed me a photo. He actually did go swimming in that day.
39:10 Speaker 06 That's correct, yeah.
39:11 Speaker 04 So that's unusual. Not most people wear their hat swimming.
39:14 Speaker 06 No, yeah, that was like, we were just having a bit of, you know, we were trying to be kids, trying to have a bit of fun, trying to get all the bad stuff out of your head. Um, yeah. That's how I am, man. Like, that's how I operate.
39:26 Speaker 04 When Chris finds the wet hat in his car, he's not impressed.
39:30 Speaker 06 So I've cracked the shits, I've grabbed the hat and threw it into the hedges at the Jehovah Witness place, because that's where I parked up. Yeah.
39:36 Speaker 04 That to me seemed like a bit of a strange thing to do if my friend went missing to throw the hat out.
39:41 Speaker 06 Well, at that point, I didn't think he was missing. I just thought he fucked off somewhere. Going partying with somebody, going to his mate's place, someone that was less boring than me, so, yeah.
39:52 Speaker 04 But as the hours drag on and there's still no sign of Jack, Chris's frustration turns to worry. He's already at a low point and he knows the come down would topple him over completely. So he takes some more meth to keep the high going.
40:06 Speaker 06 I didn't want to come down until he popped up, you know, coming down, your mate's missing, it's recipe for disaster. You'd go into a depressive stupor, you know, and anybody that's ever experienced it will know what I'm talking about.
40:19 Speaker 04 Over the next few days, he says he returns to Fix Crossing over and over again to try and find Jack. One time he's out there, he arrives to find police searching the area around Fix.
40:30 Speaker 06 So I went straight up to the police, I'm like, hi. I'm Chris, oh, righto. So then they searched, they asked if they could search my car. I said, sure, go for it.
40:39 Speaker 04 This is the first time I know of that Chris speaks to police.
40:43 Speaker 06 Search my car, not a problem at all. Um, and then I run them through where we were and like, like what happened and all that sort of thing. I run them through exactly what I told you. Um, and that was about it.
40:57 Speaker 04 Chris finds nothing at Fix that could help the investigation and police find nothing in his car. Chris says he's been interviewed over and over again by police.
41:06 Speaker 06 A lot of phone calls. I've been interviewed by Twumba C I B. I've been interviewed by Brisbane C I B. I've been interviewed by Mergan C I B. I have been interviewed by the detectives in Mergan. I've been interviewed, uh, a phone call with the King Roy C I B. Yeah, just coppers after coppers after coppers. It's been ridiculous.
41:25 Speaker 04 Chris tells me he's trying to help the investigation. He's handed the police almost everything, including his phone and laptop. And after all the interviews, all the searching, he just doesn't know what else he could do.
41:38 Speaker 06 They've, uh, forensic searched my car. I've answered every question I can to fool them, you know what I mean? Like, yes, this is where I was and I, I, there's nothing else I can do, man, because I don't know where he went. Um, I wish I could, I really do. I wish I could. I wish I could help so much more for myself and for Jack. But I can't, you know, there's only so much information I can give because it's all I know.
42:04 Speaker 04 Did you feel a sense of guilt?
42:07 Speaker 06 Um, well, you always do because people, people are blaming you. So like, I feel guilty that I was the one on the drugs with him, you know? So of course you feel that, that bit of guilt, you know? If I just just said, no, no, we're not doing that, man. Have a few beers and fuck off, back to where you go. It could have been completely different, but I, he's also a grown man. You know what I mean? I can't take responsibility for a grown adult. And I've got to keep telling myself this because it's killing me. Like, it's really wrecked me. Like, he's a grown man. Like, he makes his own decisions. Okay? I can't, I'm not taking responsibility for his decisions. I can't. It's wrecking me.
42:50 Speaker 04 Chris and I have been speaking for more than two hours at this table in front of the school. He's been emotional at times and he hasn't tried to avoid a single one of my questions. What he said also lines up with almost all of the things I'd established about the day that Jack disappeared. But he's added in a lot more detail about that day too, some of which doesn't reflect well on him. I've pushed him on some of the strangest elements in his story, like why he got rid of Jack's hat and why did they go back repeatedly to Fix Crossing? I've put to him some of the most serious rumours I've heard circling around town. And when I asked Danielle if she thinks he could have killed Jack, she said, no, he's not smart enough to get away with it and he couldn't keep a secret that long.
43:35 Speaker 04 His answers are a bit vague at times, but it feels to me like this is more a result of him being drunk and on drugs that night than a deliberate attempt to dodge and weave. Since that night, Chris tells me he's racked his brain time and time again as to what happened to Jack, toing and froing over his own theories. And he keeps returning to something that happened when he and Jack were out at Fix Crossing.
43:59 Speaker 06 They come in together, so two sets of headlights.
44:02 Speaker 04 Remember, two other cars were out at Fix when Jack disappeared. By the time Chris realised Jack was gone, only one of the cars was still there. Like many people I've spoken to, Chris doesn't think Jack just wandered off from Fix. He thinks maybe something's happened with one of these cars. That's your greatest suspicion?
44:23 Speaker 06 The car.
44:26 Speaker 06 I think so, yeah.
44:28 Speaker 04 So who was in those cars? And how will Jack's parents respond to this theory? And everything else Chris has said? That's next episode.
44:44 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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