Pod Insights Unravel 08 Blood On The Tracks | Finally, a new inquest About this episode It's 2025, and the NSW Deputy Coroner is holding a fresh inquest into the death of Gomeroi teenager Mark Haines, who was found dead on the train tracks back in 1988.
As the inquest hearings spiral over a year a half, new witnesses appear with explosive allegations and police make surprising admissions.
Allan heads to Tamworth and dives back into a story that's gripped him for over a decade.
Will he finally find the answers to this mystery he's been looking for?
Blood on the Tracks is the first ever series we made for Unravel, back in 2018.
It is intended to be listened to as a whole, so we encourage you to go back to episode 1 and listen to the entire series.
To binge more great episodes of Unravel, the ABC's award winning investigative true crime podcast documentary series, search 'Unravel podcast' on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
There you'll find previous series covering various crimes and crime-related topics including solved and unsolved murder cases, forensic analysis, gangland crimes, love scammers, con-artists, drugs, terrorism, neo-nazis, and miscarriages of justice — all investigated by some of Australia's best reporters and people who know the story best.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 What do Rasputin, Tupac and Pharaoh Ramses III have in common? No, it's not the weirdest boy band ever. They all met their end at the hand of an assassin. From seizing power to silencing dissidents, Assassins unpacks the moments in which someone decides that murder is the move. Search for Assassins with Aslan Pahadi on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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0:37 Speaker 02 Just before we start, this episode contains some intense material and strong language. And a warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners, this series contains the names of people who have died.
0:55 Speaker 02 It's 4am and I'm trying to sneak out the door without waking up my kids. A lot's changed. For one, I now live in France, but it's time to head back to Tamworth.
1:12 Speaker 03 Welcome to Tamworth. Going to seek of like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the local lands and what ways on which we live, welcome fly.
1:21 Speaker 02 Something big is happening that could finally give me the answers I've been desperately looking for, for over a decade.
1:31 Speaker 02 It's been six years since I last made an episode of this podcast about Mark Haines, the Gomorrah teen from Tamworth who was found dead on the railway tracks back in 1988. If you haven't heard those episodes, go back and have a listen. We've republished them in the feed so you can binge the whole thing.
1:52 Speaker 02 Back then, I promised Mark's uncle Duck and the rest of his family I'd keep fighting for justice. And I'd keep investigating what happened to Mark. And I meant it. But I want to be honest with you and to Mark's family. I feel like I failed to keep my promise. In 2020, two years after the release of Blood on the Tracks, I stepped away from journalism. I had not been looking after myself or my mental health. I just couldn't keep reporting on all the injustice levelled at my community. And that's because I'm also part of that community. And these things are also happening to my family.
2:33 Speaker 02 I had what I now know was a breakdown. So I moved to France with my husband, started making films and had two beautiful boys. Days turned into years. Then one day, I realised how far I'd distanced myself from the case. And I felt ashamed. But the listeners of this show and everyone who followed my reporting continued to rage at the injustice of it all. They spoke up, Mark's family spoke up, and eventually, the authorities announced a fresh inquest into the death. In some ways, we're closer to the truth than ever before.
3:13 Speaker 02 And, look, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about stepping back into this story. But here I am, landing in Tamworth, ready to get some answers, to keep my promise. Could this be it? Are we about to finally find out what happened to Mark Haines?
3:53 Speaker 02 I'm Alan Clark and this is Blood on the Tracks, an update to the first ever season of Unravel.
4:04 Speaker 02 Hello.
4:06 Speaker 04 Alan.
4:06 Speaker 02 Uncle.
4:07 Speaker 04 Alan.
4:09 Speaker 02 How are you?
4:10 Speaker 04 I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
4:12 Speaker 02 How are you going?
4:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, I'm going as well as I can be.
4:17 Speaker 02 It's April 2024 and I meet Uncle Duck in Tamworth's Kmart car park, just across from the courthouse where the inquest hearings are happening. You know, it's been four years.
4:28 Speaker 04 Has it been that long?
4:29 Speaker 02 Since I was here, yeah.
4:30 Speaker 04 Bloody hell, only seems like yesterday.
4:32 Speaker 02 I know. Well, a lot of things have happened since. Duck looks so much older, tinier, hunched over, almost frail. A thick and curly silver-white afro, like a bushy halo, framing his deeply weather-beaten face. But his energy is unchanged, still very much that fiery fighter, still very much that brawler from the Morey Aboriginal Mission, where as a young bloke he would take on men three times his size. It's strange to sort of be back here and it's the last day of the inquest. I kind of feel like I've come late to the party. The coronial inquest has already started the previous week.
5:15 Speaker 02 There's a lot Duck needs to fill me in on. Are you happy with the last two weeks or?
5:20 Speaker 04 Well.
5:20 Speaker 02 Did it go how you wanted it to go?
5:22 Speaker 04 Well, it's not bloody how I wanted it to go. As I said to you, it was all them years ago. It was like a puzzle, but there was no pieces to start with.
5:34 Speaker 02 But I've heard something weird happen in court today. The coroner was handed a piece of paper and suddenly everything stopped. It's got everyone buzzing.
5:44 Speaker 04 I was a bit surprised, I dare say, that there was a call, a halt to the proceedings. But we won't know exactly what it's about until the coroner explains that.
5:57 Speaker 02 I want to find out more, but all of a sudden, a big, dirty Toyota Hilux pulls up.
6:09 Speaker 02 Out gets a slightly dishevelled handsome man, impressively juggling a pile of legal binders in one hand and rolling a cigarette in another.
6:20 Speaker 02 Jalal Raz is with the Aboriginal Legal Service and he's on Uncle Duck's legal team. I can tell straight away he's not a typical lawyer. He's very cool in a laid-back kind of way and when he speaks, it's soft but engaging.
6:36 Speaker 05 Hey, we just need about five, 10 minutes before Uncle's ready to chat with anyone?
6:41 Speaker 02 Yeah. I'm pretty keen to catch up on the inquest so far and what's next. So I jump in the car with Duck and Jalal and we head back to Duck's shed.
6:50 Speaker 04 This is my office.
6:51 Speaker 05 I know, wow, it's changed a bit. That's a deadly safe room.
6:56 Speaker 02 The shed's packed with knickknacks, opossum skin and a didgeridoo in one corner. Repurposed kitchen cupboards and an old metal filing cabinet line the walls, while random watercolour landscape paintings from Vinnie's bring colour to the brown brick. By now, Jalal's spent a lot of time in here.
7:15 Speaker 05 It feels like a sacred place, so much struggle and pain and you just feel all of that various emotion on the walls.
7:23 Speaker 02 I know this shed pretty well. It's Duck's special spot where he likes to work. I sat here for the first time over a decade ago, smoking cigarettes and drinking endless cups of strong coffee with Duck.
7:38 Speaker 02 Jalal tells me Mark's case is famous in legal circles and that a lot of people have heard about it because of this podcast. But nothing could have prepared him for meeting Duck.
7:50 Speaker 05 He's such a character. I had to sit down and try and get his affidavit onto paper and it took hours and hours and hours and late-night calls and visits into Hamworth because he made it clear, like, he won't see Mark's case confined to, you know, two days in 1988 or a police investigation between 1988 to 1989. He sees Mark's death connected to, you know, the deaths of other Aboriginal people.
8:28 Speaker 06 Yeah, it's contextual, right? Because you have to say, where did this start?
8:31 Speaker 04 Yes, we have. And similar to the referendum for an Aboriginal voice to federal parliament. It was defeated. You know, it just, it makes me think how history is since the occupation. Some things have changed, but a terrible lot of things haven't.
8:58 Speaker 02 Jalal has a lot of respect for the dedication Duck has to finding answers.
9:03 Speaker 06 Six months I've been involved in this. He's been involved in this for 36 years and he's met 20, 30 people like me and many more who've come in and then have left and he's still been there, holding the fort.
9:20 Speaker 02 It's a little bit strange hearing Jalal. Because I remember being in the same position, sitting in Duck's little shed, feeling suffocated by mountains of loose paperwork and legal documents. Duck talking a million miles a minute.
9:36 Speaker 06 Uncle Duck arm wrestles you like, like, you know, like a very strong and formidable wrestler, saying, "You will not confine me. This, this is bigger. You must take notice."
9:54 Speaker 02 Jalal's been guiding Duck through this two-week inquest. But getting to this point has taken decades of fighting. It's been a monumental undertaking. It was fairly obvious something was brewing months earlier. When I received a subpoena asking for access to the research and notes I'd made for Blood on the Tracks.
10:15 Speaker 02 Not long after that, we got confirmation that a fresh coronial inquest would investigate Mark's death. That's when I reached out to Uncle Duck again.
10:24 Speaker 06 Hey, Uncle Duck, how are you?
10:27 Speaker 04 Oh mate, it's been a long day.
10:31 Speaker 02 After Blood on the Tracks, our yarns had become a little less frequent. With whole oceans between us, it was easy for life to sweep us away. But like always, it was like no time had passed at all. And we started talking regularly on the phone. Late at night in France and Uncle Duck drinking his morning black coffee in Tamworth.
10:52 Speaker 04 The rain around me is an ocean, well, it avalanches. Okay, it's like I'm caught in a bloody crevice and there's been a bloody avalanche.
11:01 Speaker 02 Duck and his family weren't doing so great.
11:03 Speaker 04 And then I go over to my brother every Saturday to give him a bloody Ozempic bloody needle for his diabetes. He's bloody gone blind deaf. To me Sister Bob, you know Sister Bob?
11:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, I do. How is she doing actually?
11:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, she ended up with stage four bloody cancer.
11:27 Speaker 02 Oh no.
11:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:30 Speaker 02 Like so many of our mob, life had become pretty hard. But this inquest had offered up some hope for all of Mark's family. Finally, authorities were listening after decades of silence. They were going to examine evidence and compel witnesses to speak. Then, just a few weeks before the inquest was due to start, Duck's mood shifted. Things got dark. Today is Monday, the 25th of March. I got up quite early because I wanted to chat with Duck. We spoke for a bit over an hour and a half. And, you know, he was just so frustrated, angry,
12:13 Speaker 02 a kind of very, ah, fuck the world mentality. He was also kind of, well, he was pissed off with his lawyers. He was pissed off with me. I think he was pissed off with everyone, the whole process, the police. Um, he feels like there's not enough time. And he feels like, uh, his legal team is not doing kind of everything they can to sort of explore all of his theories. I don't think he's going to get the sort of answers he wants. That's the kind of sinking feeling I'm getting.
12:47 Speaker 02 Before the first day of the inquest in April 2024, Uncle Duck held a smoking ceremony on the train tracks where Mark's body was found in 1988. A practice to cleanse and heal, clear bad spirits.
13:04 Speaker 02 The coroner, along with the lawyers and court staff, watched on. Then they all made their way to the courthouse where the inquest began.
13:15 Speaker 02 Deputy State Coroner Harriet Graham is in charge of the inquest. She's a small woman but has earned herself a formidable reputation when it comes to scrutinising police. She's also become known as someone who actively puts victims' families at the centre of the inquest. As the inquest got underway, the ABC's Tamworth reporter Max Tillman was sent along to watch. It's a much bigger story than just the death of Mark. It's got a lot more to do with Tamworth, I think, and Tamworth has carried it for 36 years as a town. It's not just, you know, the family that have carried that burden.
13:59 Speaker 02 I think in a lot of ways, all of Tamworth has. It's part of the mythology of the whole region. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a theory. And when they find out that you're a reporter and that you're new to Tamworth, it's effectively part of the welcome package. Mark's family have maintained from day one that his death was never properly investigated because he was black. After covering cases like this for years and spending a lot of time in different communities, I can say it's emblematic of the treatment of Indigenous victims of crime right across the country. The handling of Mark's case by the local police and their attitudes to Mark's family
14:43 Speaker 02 is an unhealed scar that stretches across the town still. People are very proud of Tamworth, but at the same time, Mark's story is a dark side. And that duality is a really big part of being in this region, you know.
15:03 Speaker 05 Drought, its bountiful harvest. It moves between these really extreme elements. And I think Mark's story is intertwined in all that.
15:17 Speaker 02 In the first week of the inquest, there was testimony from a bunch of experts.
15:21 Speaker 05 The first week of the inquest really seemed to focus on where Mark was found and the mechanics of the trains, how Mark could have sustained his head injuries.
15:35 Speaker 02 It was dense and detailed. Nothing new came to light despite long days of questioning.
15:40 Speaker 05 I really struggled, first of all, to keep up because so much of it was really, really technical. But, you know, we were just thinking, when are we going to get to how Mark ended up there? That was a difficult first week.
15:54 Speaker 02 Remember, the initial police position was that Mark made his way to the railway tracks and lay down of his own volition. Now, that theory supposes that after walking onto the tracks in the pitch blackness, Mark laid on the tracks, put a box on his chest, and placed a neatly folded towel under his head, then waited for the train. So at the inquiry, the experts reexamine the evidence. The apparent lack of blood at the scene, the fact that Mark's shoes were clean, despite the fact he would have had to walk through rain and mud to get to the train tracks, and the towel found under Mark's head.
16:35 Speaker 02 The first police officers on the scene thought the towel looked like it was put there deliberately. But no one knows where it went. It was never taken into evidence and it just disappeared. Same as the Tirana, the one the police believe Mark stole.
16:53 Speaker 02 That car was left to rot on the side of the train tracks for weeks. It was never taken into evidence and never fingerprinted or even properly examined. The family's lawyer, Jalal Razi, said all it amounted to was that the police theory isn't credible.
17:09 Speaker 06 It's not serious. This could have been Mark placing himself on these tracks. Someone who couldn't drive a car, had allegedly some argument with his girlfriend and decided as a result of that to drive out in a manual car with limited fuel and lie down on train tracks, put a towel under his head and maybe a box over the top of him. How was that ever taken seriously?
17:36 Speaker 02 Finally, here was a chance to really interrogate why, on the surface, there were so many missed opportunities. Next, the first police officers on the scene in 1988 were called to give evidence. They've never spoken publicly about the case before and have rejected my request for interviews over the years. So I was pretty keen to hear what they had to say. But when questioned, they didn't add anything new. Former senior constable Gordon Gaya said while the police thought the towel was strange at the time, to this day, he doesn't necessarily view it as suspicious. And still, no one knows where that towel went.
18:17 Speaker 06 No one's clear. No one supposedly has a memory of this very significant case. No one's even clear on who the officer in charge of the investigation was and how different decisions were made and what the order of hierarchy was. How could that not be known? Like, how were we here, this investigation with all of this time? What records were kept, what were not kept, where things were stored. The coroner was, you know, seemingly scratching her head and asking for further checks to be done.
18:53 Speaker 02 The first week of evidence also shone a light on the relationship between the police and the Aboriginal community in Tamworth during the 80s.
19:02 Speaker 02 At the inquest, Constable Gaya admitted that police may have referred to Coldale, the black side of town where Mark was living, as Vegemite Village.
19:13 Speaker 02 It was derogatory, Vegemite, obviously being black.
19:17 Speaker 06 There was some acknowledgement by Officer Gaia about the phrase Veggie Village and that being horrible, you know, racist, a reference to Aboriginal people and their skin colour. And it was just so normalised.
19:33 Speaker 02 The thing is, it's still pretty common to hear Coldell call this today. I've heard it heaps of times over the years while in Tamworth. For Duck, this attitude just cements his belief that because Mark was black, the case was given less attention and fewer resources.
19:51 Speaker 06 If he was a white boy.
19:52 Speaker 04 Well, we know that it were, this matter would have been treated differently.
20:00 Speaker 02 To the people in the courtroom, it felt like things were going around in circles. There didn't seem to be any traction, no answers, and the first week of the inquest was swallowed up pretty fast. It ended with a whimper.
20:20 Speaker 02 In the second week, we heard from Tanya White, Mark's girlfriend at the time of his death. But her story remained the same.
20:29 Speaker 04 So, once I heard that, I started to think, is this just going to be the prevailing theme? Are we just going to hear a lot of no's or I don't remember?
20:40 Speaker 02 But after Tanya, someone no one was expecting or prepared for appeared out of the blue and dropped a bombshell. Rodney Paul Lavender was not on the witness list and voluntarily asked to appear.
20:56 Speaker 02 In his late 50s, Lavender's an imposing figure, tats on both of his biceps, a fairly hard face, and has had a few run-ins with local law enforcement over the years. Lavender knew Mark through mutual friends. One of those friends was Mark's best mate, Glen Mannion.
21:16 Speaker 02 In fact, you've actually heard from Glen before. Thanks for agreeing to have. No worries, man. You might remember, in the final episode of Blood on the Tracks, I landed a big interview with someone we called Greg. Well, Greg is the pseudonym we gave to Glenn Mannion. So I'll just ask you one last time, did you have anything to do with Mark's death? Absolutely not. Were you there on the train tracks when Mark died? Absolutely not.
21:46 Speaker 02 In 2016, police took a statement from Lavender. He claimed that he and Glenn were at a party on the night Mark was killed. In that statement, Lavender says Glenn disappeared during the night, then, quote, "The next morning, Glenn turned up at work late and was acting funny." Lavender heard Glenn had rolled a little white car, but says Mark's name wasn't mentioned. But here he is at the inquest, many years later, with a different story.
22:17 Speaker 04 He essentially took the stand and said that, "On the morning of January 16, at about 6 o'clock AM, he'd seen Glenn Mannion, looking shaken and upset. He'd seen him with cuts and scratches. And then, he said to the court, Glenn telling him, "Stoney is dead, and I think I killed him."
22:45 Speaker 02 Stoney was Mark's nickname. Max, who was watching, says the entire courtroom seemed to take a collective breath.
22:53 Speaker 04 I remember looking across and just being completely stunned. I don't think I actually wrote those words down until a few seconds afterwards, because I thought, have I fallen asleep? And, you know, this is in my imagination.
23:11 Speaker 02 Lavender never mentioned anything in his 2016 statement about Glenn saying, quote, "I think I killed him." But now, he was insistent that's what Glenn said.
23:23 Speaker 04 He was very certain of what he heard. And he was more than willing to acknowledge there are other parts of that sequence of events that he can't recall.
23:31 Speaker 05 But he was certain that he definitely saw Glenn that morning and he heard those words, "Stoney is dead and I think I killed him."
23:40 Speaker 02 Then, it was Glenn Mannion's turn to give evidence.
23:43 Speaker 05 There was a lot of myth around Glenn, but then I saw him in person for the first time and he is an imposing figure. He's a very tall man, he's very broad, he has these really noticeable blue eyes.
23:58 Speaker 02 Max tells me Glenn was composed and measured in his responses. First, he was questioned about his military service. Why did he sign up just weeks after Mark died?
24:10 Speaker 05 Maybe those two dates aren't connected. Maybe Glenn did want to be a soldier. It's, you know, it's not, we can't get into his head. But on first glance, it was, it was interesting that there was such a short amount of time between.
24:25 Speaker 02 The court then heard he returned to Tamworth six years after his military service and developed a heroin addiction. More questioning about Glenn's life followed, but before the court could really delve into the accusations made by Lavender, things came to a screeching halt.
24:43 Speaker 05 So it's about three o'clock in the afternoon on day eight of the inquest, on the day that Glenn was giving his evidence.
24:53 Speaker 02 Max was sitting in court furiously taking notes when all of a sudden, someone passed a piece of paper to the coroner.
25:00 Speaker 05 Suddenly, there was a bit of a commotion, there was notes passed around and suddenly Glenn was just excused and he's left court. It just felt like everything was leading up to this moment where Glenn was going to have to answer a lot of questions in public and suddenly that comes to this really dramatic halt. There was nothing I could have anticipated, so it was, yeah, shocking.
25:30 Speaker 02 No one seemed to know what was going on and to this day, we still don't know what was on that note. But Coroner Harriet Graham did tell the court that Glenn Mannion was excused for the day, but not excused from giving evidence in the future.
25:46 Speaker 05 We heard that it was anticipated that new evidence or new developments were going to...
25:52 Speaker 02 We were not told what they were.
25:57 Speaker 02 There's obviously a lot of theories that have been thrown around about what that new development could be.
26:04 Speaker 02 But we do know that it's significant enough that this inquest has now been set down for another five days of hearings in late October in Tamworth. That means everyone would have to wait six months to hear Glenn Mannion respond to the allegations made against him.
26:24 Speaker 02 I saw it all happen in court, and there was a bit of a strange vibe, but it got stranger. Coroner Harriet Graham said that the case would be removed from the Oxley Area Command and handed over to homicide in Sydney. That meant the case was no longer in the hands of the local detective Craig Dunn, the detective who'd been in charge for years. In court, I was sitting just behind Detective Dunn, and when he heard this, he abruptly stood up and strode out of the courthouse during the address, not looking too happy. Then the hearing was adjourned until October. But before we all left, Uncle Duck, who'd been sitting pretty restlessly behind his
27:07 Speaker 02 legal reps, stood up to address the coroner. By the way, Uncle Duck's real name is Don Craigie, so Max calls him Don. Don stood for the first time in that court and spoke directly to the coroner. And you could feel that energy in the room, that this suddenly became a conversation between two people that everyone was just present for. And it was when Don started to talk about the fact that there are members of the family who may not live till October, that's the first time that he broke down and became really emotional.
27:50 Speaker 02 And the coroner even said afterwards, there'll definitely be two people.
27:57 Speaker 04 On October 28, when the inquest returns to Tamworth, and one of them will be me, and one of them will be you, Don.
28:08 Speaker 02 After the adjournment, Duck spoke to the waiting media.
28:11 Speaker 04 Well, I dare say, you just wanna know whether I'm happy about the adjournment. No, I am not. I am disappointed, to say the least. And I don't think I can say too much more at this particular point. But other than that, thank you very much for being with me and my family on this long and arduous journey.
28:40 Speaker 02 From there, I spent a week with Duck, Jalal and Max, trying to get my head around everything. The inquest might have been on pause, but there was still a lot of ground to cover. That's when Duck tells me we're going for a drive.
28:56 Speaker 02 This is classic Uncle Duck, unable to stop investigating. I've missed doing this with him, chasing leads, even if they lead us down dead ends.
29:05 Speaker 04 Well, we're gonna go for a ride out the road, in and out the road.
29:08 Speaker 02 Duck says Lavender's family used to own a farm that was also a car wrecking yard. Ever since Lavender's appearance at the inquest, Duck's been itching to get out there. We drive out of town on unsealed roads that slice through farms and quarries.
29:26 Speaker 04 Yeah, we're going to the left, to the left.
29:29 Speaker 02 Lavender's name's been floating around the case for years. Lavender and Mannion were mates when Mark died. Years later, Lavender worked for Glenn at Mannion Drilling, Glenn's family's business, before they had a falling out. Duck says the inquest was the first time he's actually seen Lavender in person. Now Duck's got more questions for him, so we're heading out to Lavender's property. On the way, we drive past the train tracks.
30:05 Speaker 02 We knock on the door, but Lavender's not home. I'm kinda relieved. But once again, it feels like a dead end.
30:18 Speaker 02 I gotta say, Lavender's testimony about Glenn Mannion seemed like the first big new piece of evidence we'd heard in a long time. But like so many things with this case, there's just no concrete proof that it's true. He gave a statement to police back in 2016. Why didn't he tell them about Glenn's alleged confession back then? Why come forward after all these years of staying silent? I managed to get Lavender on the phone, and he told me that he appeared at the inquest because it was the right time and he wanted to help Duck. He said he didn't speak up sooner because there's been bad blood between his family and the local police, and he doesn't trust them.
31:02 Speaker 02 I told Duck, but like always, he just took it in his stride.
31:06 Speaker 04 Look, I'm taking all these witnesses, the evidence with a grain of salt. Like I said, you know, a picture is forming, but it's still fuzzy.
31:18 Speaker 02 After a week of talking, chasing leads and reminiscing, it was time for me to go home and wait for the next set of hearings.
31:33 Speaker 02 So I just left Uncle Duck. I just said my goodbyes because I'm flying back to Sydney and then back to France tomorrow. And I'm feeling quite emotional, actually. I think saying goodbye gets harder and harder because I've watched him get older and older. You know, we went around and we saw Auntie Barb, who is Uncle Duck's older sister. And she has stage four cancer at the moment and it's not looking too good for her. Auntie Barb actually said to me, you know, "I won't be here when we find out."
32:17 Speaker 02 And that just really hit me right in the gut. Even just getting emotional right now, like talking about it, how much longer? How much longer do they have to wait?
32:32 Speaker 02 What was supposed to be one more block of hearings, turned into three more blocks of hearings over another year and a half. I'd stay up late in France on the phone with the ABC's Tamworth reporter, Max Tillman, who diligently sat in court every day. He told me we heard from Eddie Davis, who you might recall Duck's always been a bit suspicious of.
32:56 Speaker 05 Rumours of his involvement had followed him from 1988. He's obviously a much older man now. And you could almost detect how much of a weight that he'd carried over all those years, particularly when he just categorically denied having any involvement.
33:16 Speaker 02 Eddie didn't have anything new or noteworthy to add. And at the end of his evidence, he surprised everyone by standing up, looking Duck directly in the eye and speaking to him from one blackfellow to another.
33:31 Speaker 05 They maintained eye contact the entire time. And Eddie essentially said that he had nothing to do with Mark's death. He was incredibly sorry and empathetic to the family who'd had to go through this for all these decades. And ultimately, he said, "I would have never harmed and certainly never killed another Aboriginal man." And it was quite an emotional moment. I know that Chris McGory, counsel assisting, was choked up and brought to tears. And I don't consider myself a particularly emotional person. But even now, when I think about it now, I still get a lump in my throat.
34:13 Speaker 02 But the person we were all really waiting to hear from again was Glenn Mannion. After his earlier appearance of the inquest had been suddenly cut short, Max and I agreed that the wait for him to come back felt interminable.
34:28 Speaker 05 I think that we had really high hopes for when Glenn returned because so many questions were about Glenn and so many of those witnesses were within Glenn's orbit that it just felt that it would be somewhat of a natural conclusion when he reappeared and so many of these things would be put to him.
34:48 Speaker 02 And while the wait dragged on, Mark's family's worst fears were realised.
34:55 Speaker 02 Arnie Barb, who wanted to make it to the end of the inquest, died of cancer.
35:02 Speaker 02 Six months later, but still long before the inquest was due to end, there was more terrible news.
35:11 Speaker 02 It's Monday, I've just put my kids to bed. I come downstairs and then I get a message saying that Uncle Duck's son, Don Junior, was killed over the weekend in an accident with a truck.
35:36 Speaker 02 I'm completely just shaken by it. I can't imagine what this is going to do to Uncle Duck. Like, what a cruel world, what an absolute cruel world. It's a stark reminder of how long it's taken to get to this point, and there's still no end in sight. But despite it all, Duck keeps showing up and clinging to hope.
36:02 Speaker 04 It knocked me down for a while. It's taken a lot on me and then also on my family. I made promises to Mark's mum and dad, the whole family. Yeah, that for them, I will deal with this. Personally, my family, I dare say they missed out a lot of time with me and I missed out a lot of time with them.
36:33 Speaker 02 In April this year, the inquest kicked off again, this time in Sydney. Duck made the five-hour trip from Tamworth and everyone thought, this must be the one, the last sitting. Surely we'd get some answers. We heard from Glen Mannion's ex-partner Kathleen Arthur. She alleged Glen had once drunkenly told her he was involved in Mark Haines's death. We first reported this in the original season of this podcast, but we didn't use her name. Now that she's speaking at the inquest, we can finally reveal who she is.
37:11 Speaker 02 Next, scrutiny fell on the police and their handling of Mark's investigation.
37:18 Speaker 02 A name cropped up that both Max and I had heard before. We can only use his last name, Mr Edmunds.
37:27 Speaker 05 That we've heard so far is about Edmunds. Does that name ring a bell for you? Absolutely, yeah. He's friends with Mark, he's also friends with Glenn Mannion. Interesting that they've come up today, absolutely. There is a history.
37:42 Speaker 02 Mr Edmunds made a statement to the Aboriginal Legal Service in July 1988, six months after Mark's death.
37:51 Speaker 02 In it, he claimed he'd heard a rumour that Mark had been murdered and the motive had to do with drugs. Mr Edmunds was just a teenager at the time.
38:00 Speaker 05 It was established that he knew Glenn around the time of Mark's death. In fact, they were the same age, they socialised in similar social circles. So he was intimately involved in the case, going as far as actually being a part of the brief of evidence to begin with.
38:19 Speaker 02 But years later, Mr Edmunds became a cop and was eventually put in charge of the investigation into Mark's death. Despite his friendship with Mark and his connection to the case, Mr Edmunds' boss appeared at this inquest and he said at the time they saw this as a benefit.
38:37 Speaker 05 Essentially, his argument was he actually saw it more as an advantage that Edmunds was so familiar with the cast of characters. And the fact that he knew a majority of the people involved was a benefit to the case. So I think that there was quite a great deal of conflict, particularly it gave you a very clear insight into what what that police station was like, even in the late 1990s.
39:07 Speaker 02 The boss told the court that now, with the benefit of hindsight, Mr Edmunds should never have been on the investigation.
39:14 Speaker 05 To add to all this is the fact that when there was another fresh look. At the case in nineteen ninety nine, Glenn Mannion was not re-interviewed. It did raise a lot of questions as to were there potentially any gaps in that re-investigation.
39:31 Speaker 02 Mister Edmonds was also questioned at the inquest, but it was a closed court, so we don't know what he said. Max asked him for an interview outside the court, but he didn't want to talk. Look, at any rate, it's a really significant insight into how this case was handled. Now, everyone's just waiting to see Glenn Mannion.
39:51 Speaker 05 I think that we had really high hopes for when Glenn returned. I certainly thought that that was probably going to be as close as we could get to a high point of the inquest.
40:05 Speaker 02 And a year after he first appeared, he finally takes the stand.
40:12 Speaker 02 Glenn's a tall bloke with a pretty solid build. Now in his fifties, he has quite a presence. I remember sitting down with him for Blood on the Tracks and being struck by the intensity of his stare. Glenn's asked directly if he ever told Lavender, quote, "I think I killed Stony", or if he had cuts and bruises on him the morning of Mark's death.
40:38 Speaker 05 He just categorically denied that conversation had ever happened.
40:42 Speaker 02 After all the anticipation, it quickly becomes apparent that we're not going to get much from Glenn. He bats away the majority of questions with a clipped and curt, "I do not recall".
40:54 Speaker 05 There was certainly a lot that we had been wanting to see Glenn answer. And maybe we were foolish to think that he would he would answer it with with that much sort of clarity and candour. But there was certainly a lot of disappointment from our perspective that his answers to almost every single one of those questions were uniformly, "I don't recall" or "I don't remember". But it did certainly feel as though there were moments where the whole courtroom was slightly frustrated.
41:28 Speaker 02 Even when asked to share good stories about Mark, one of his best mates, he either didn't remember or failed to give any real emotive detail.
41:37 Speaker 05 From what I've heard in court, I've struggled. To see the intimacy of that bond between him and Mark. Because it certainly doesn't come across in the evidence that he gives. Um, everyone else who knew Mark will at some point in their evidence describe how friendly and bubbly he was. But from, from my perspective, sitting in that court every single day, you never really did get the impression that they were all that close, at least from, from what Glenn said.
42:10 Speaker 02 All of this gets under Doc's lawyer's skin.
42:13 Speaker 05 For a number of relatively hostile exchanges between particularly Jalal Razi, um, and, and Glenn, in fact, one thing Jalal said to him really, really stood out, said, you know more than what you're telling this court, uh, but whatever it is, you're hiding it. To which Glenn replied, I'm not hiding anything, anything I know, I will tell you. And at that point, Don actually stood up in court in a very similar instance to when he had been addressed directly by Eddie Davis back in October. And a similar thing happened here. Um, and it was really the last exchange that Glenn made before he finished giving his
42:55 Speaker 05 evidence, but when Doc stood up, Glenn was actually asked to, by Jalal, to adre- address Don directly. Um, and all he said is, I hope you get answers, I really do. And that was essentially the end of, uh, the end of his evidence.
43:12 Speaker 02 Glenn's evidence was over. Max asked him for an interview after every court appearance, but he refused. And now he was walking out of the courtroom for the last time and leaving behind him so many unanswered questions.
43:28 Speaker 05 And unfortunately, they, at least from the coroner's perspective.
43:33 Speaker 05 They will remain unanswered because Glenn finished his evidence, jumped into a cab and went straight to the airport and flew to Brisbane. And I, from at least what I've seen, I can't anticipate Glenn really agreeing to talk much more about this.
43:55 Speaker 02 There's only one person left to take the stand, Uncle Duck. He's been waiting nearly forty years to sit in that seat and have his say. I watched the video link from France. He looked so diminutive but defiant, and those expressive eyes were wildly scanning everyone in that room. From his first answer, it became pretty clear to me that Duck's style of talking, his meandering anecdotes and stories, his passion, doesn't fit neatly into the court system. I think Don's natural way of talking can often be quite allegorical, I'd say.
44:37 Speaker 02 The first time that anything Don's ever said has been like really, really genuinely scrutinised. And I can imagine that that would have been really, really stressful.
44:50 Speaker 02 For two whole days, Uncle Duck was grilled by the police barrister, Stephen Russell. They allege that he did his own investigation and withheld evidence, which Duck flat out denied. Duck and his brothers have always maintained that they went out looking for answers back in 1988, after the police told them to ask around. There is a sort of line of like, sort of thinking from him as well as like, well, this is all becoming about me now. I wouldn't have had to do these things if like we had the support of the police. All of this took Duck by surprise. He thought he was here to honour Mark, the quiet, kind-hearted boy who adored his family,
45:36 Speaker 02 to help people understand the huge impact losing him has had on the family and the community. But it's the job of police barrister Stephen Russell to represent the force, and it felt adversarial. He asked Duck to directly address a police officer who's part of the investigation into the death of his nephew Mark. Stephen Russell stood up and he said, "Well, Mr Cragley, there is actually a member of the New South Wales Police Force who is currently investigating your nephew's death, and he's sitting in the court now, so could you look at him and say that you do not have confidence in him?" And Don squared him up and said, "I do not have confidence."
46:21 Speaker 02 It just sort of feels almost unseemly that you would ask an Aboriginal person, whose family member was a victim, to look at a police officer and tell them that you have faith in them. After two days of gruelling questioning, Duck left the stand looking exhausted and brow-beaten. I rang him later to see how he felt about it all.
46:46 Speaker 04 They sprung that on me. I wasn't expected to appear until later on after, but no, they wanted to hear from me, and they heard from me.
46:59 Speaker 04 There was all kinds of bloody innuendos running around the place, and I was there to vindicate myself as well.
47:09 Speaker 02 It's October 2025, and we've now reached the final week of this marathon inquest.
47:17 Speaker 02 But there's still more surprises in store.
47:19 Speaker 05 I just gave the evidence to my best recollection of what happened on that night and what I saw, and that's all I can do, mate.
47:28 Speaker 02 A man called Jason Cupid got up in front of the court and said he's been holding back a secret.
47:34 Speaker 05 I should have come forward years ago, and it's been...
47:39 Speaker 05 Don't get me crying again.
47:40 Speaker 02 I know it makes for good TV, isn't it? But, um, yeah. This is Jason Cupid talking to the media after he gave evidence. Max was in the courtroom that day.
47:53 Speaker 05 What he essentially alleged in court is that he was walking down Hillview Road sometime between 3 and 3.30am on the morning. When, as he's crossing the road, he sees this white Tarrana come tearing up the street. And he told the court that it essentially almost knocked him off his feet. And he said that in the driver's seat was Glenn Mannion. Glenn Mannion's yelled out, "Cupid, get off the road, you fuckwit." And he said that there was someone in the passenger seat. And there were two people in the back of the car.
48:29 Speaker 02 Jason told the court he couldn't identify the people in the passenger seats of the car. But he was absolutely sure it was Glenn Mannion driving.
48:38 Speaker 05 He even had a bit of an outburst in court where he said, when talking about Glenn Mannion, he said, "He's guilty. He's guilty as sin."
48:46 Speaker 02 Mark, Glenn and Jason all knew each other back then. They were the same age. They all played footy together. But Jason said while he and Mark were friendly, he never got along with Glenn.
48:59 Speaker 05 He did raise the fact that Glenn and him had effectively fought over a girl in high school.
49:05 Speaker 02 Later, when Jason Cupid spoke outside court, he said the moment he decided to come forward was when Glenn Mannion gave evidence earlier this year. Remember, Glenn categorically denied being there on the train tracks that night. After Glenn said he wasn't driving the white Tarrana, Jason said he couldn't stay silent. If he didn't do it directly, he knows what happened and he was involved in what happened. In the end, the last words at the inquest went to the police. Detective Craig Dunn was in charge of Mark's case for years. And we got to finally hear his theory about what happened to Mark.
49:48 Speaker 05 He is very much of the belief that there were two white Tarranas involved. A crash has occurred. Mark has been seriously injured and he's been placed on that, on those train tracks.
50:02 Speaker 02 It's a theory I've heard before, that there were two cars involved. And it all pretty much lines up with our investigation while making blood on the tracks. In some ways, it felt like a satisfying conclusion. But then the next witness had his say and it felt like I was right back at the beginning.
50:23 Speaker 05 Peter Rudens, who's a detective with the Unsolved Homicide Squad. He essentially said that of all the theories as to what happened to Mark, the one theory that he believes is plausible is that it was a suicide.
50:40 Speaker 02 A few years ago, Mark Haines's case was given to Unsolved Homicide in Sydney. And Detective Peter Rudens was tasked with forensically looking over all the evidence.
50:50 Speaker 05 So the interpretation that I got was that he is purely looking at the facts presented to him. And regardless of the evidence that Mark couldn't drive, regardless of all these other eyewitness accounts, what he can read from the brief does not exclude the possibility that Mark made his own way out there that night.
51:14 Speaker 02 But in response to his evidence, Deputy Coroner Harriet Graham made a pointed comment.
51:19 Speaker 05 There was one moment where she actually said to Detective Sergeant Rudens, "I can see no evidence to suggest that Mark's death was suicide or a self-inflicted death."
51:29 Speaker 02 It looks like homicide haven't strayed too far from the theory that Mark's death was a suicide or misadventure. I thought it might be a blow for Don, but as usual, he stood on the steps of the courthouse, remaining steadfast in his beliefs. Ready for the next step on this long road toward justice.
51:49 Speaker 04 I've heard it for nearly forty-odd years and put it this way, if I believed that or the family believed that, we would not be here today.
52:00 Speaker 05 How do you feel, knowing that we're getting to, we're getting to the end of the road, at least in terms of the process?
52:07 Speaker 04 Mate, as I've also said previously, when one journey ends, another one may begin.
52:14 Speaker 05 Beautiful. Thank you, Don. That's all we know.
52:16 Speaker 02 Thank you.
52:18 Speaker 02 The inquest is finally over. And the coroner will return next year with her findings. So this is the end of our story for now.
52:28 Speaker 02 I think we always knew that getting answers or some form of real justice from this inquest would be a long shot. But there's still hope.
52:38 Speaker 02 I'll leave the last words to Ron and Lorna, Mark's brother and sister.
52:44 Speaker 02 They don't often speak to the media, but they wanted to have their voices heard. For them, that horrible day back in 1988 feels like yesterday.
52:56 Speaker 05 I still remember the day when you passed away. The police come to the door. You were at work. It was just me and mum at home. They come to the door, mum knew straight away when she seen them. And when they said, Mark, mum just dropped to the ground and she cried. And I just dropped to the ground with her, I cried with her. It was just so hard.
53:20 Speaker 05 Losing your brother, losing your son.
53:23 Speaker 02 They thought the world of their big brother Mark, especially Ron. As a 15-year-old kid, Ron remembers visiting the morgue with his mum to see Mark's body. It's an image that's haunted him every day since.
53:38 Speaker 06 When I went to the morgue with mum, me and mum, you know, we couldn't recognise these bodies, face.
53:48 Speaker 06 And that really took a lot out of me all these years and it still goes on today. It never leaves my mind and that mum wanted me to go with her.
53:59 Speaker 02 Ron and Josie, Mark's parents, were never the same after his death. They both died heartbroken with no answers.
54:08 Speaker 02 Ron and Lorna, who will continue to fight for justice, are glad that Mark's case is in the public eye. But they wonder why it's taken three decades for people to pay attention. Everyone's talking about it. Why couldn't they talk about it back then? That upsets me. They could have talked about it before.
54:27 Speaker 00 But no one talked about it, but now they bring it all up. Now they're all talking about him. We wanted, everyone to talk about him when he passed away. No one did, because he was just another little black fella.
54:41 Speaker 02 Whatever happened on that dark rainy night on the train tracks has forever changed Ron and Lorna.
54:49 Speaker 02 There's barely no one alive without grief and trauma.
54:53 Speaker 06 And we just want to know the truth and why.
54:57 Speaker 05 Clagia.
54:58 Speaker 06 Clagia, yeah, Clagia. It's really hard to listen to everything. But we need to.
55:08 Speaker 06 We need this, eh, Ron? It's helping us.
55:13 Speaker 06 It's a lot to take in.
55:17 Speaker 06 Takes a lot out of us going to court every single day, but we go for Mark, Mum and Dad. We go for them three, eh?
55:29 Speaker 06 And then I think of Mum and Dad and Mark.
55:34 Speaker 06 I miss them so much.
55:42 Speaker 02 This is the last episode of Blood on the Tracks, for now. Make sure you hit subscribe or follow on the Unravel Podcast, because we'll be back next year when the coroner releases the findings of the inquest. This season of Unravel is hosted and reported by me, Alan Clark. We've been making this story on Gadigal and Gomorrah country. Our supervising producer is Yasmin Parry. Sound design by Tim Simons. Theme and additional music by Martin Peralta.
56:16 Speaker 02 A special thanks to Max Tillman, James Paris and Rudy Brammer for their help with this episode.
56:23 Speaker 02 Eric George is our manager of podcasts and our executive producer is Tim Roxburgh.
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56:59 Speaker 05 In 1999, South Australian police found a dozen bodies in a disused bank vault and an Adelaide backyard. What's believed to be Australia's worst serial killing. Three men were convicted of 11 murders and one of them is about to get parole. In the case of Snowtown parole, we look at why James Lasarkis gets this opportunity and how his reintegration after a quarter of a century will be managed. Search for the Case of Podcast now on the ABC Listen app or wherever else you get your podcasts.
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