Pod Insights Unravel 08 What Became of Jack? | BONUS Behind the scenes About this episode Journalist Rob Burgin breaks down his approach to investigating What Became of Jack? with Stephen Stockwell, host of the ABC's true crime podcast, "The Case Of."
Stocky asks Rob about the challenges he had reporting the story, what he thinks of the evidence, and what's next for the people at its centre.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
0:07 Speaker 01 Hey Unravel listeners, Rob Burgin here. We thought we'd do something a little bit different for this bonus episode. In a moment, we've got a special guest who's going to turn the questions on me and grill me a little bit about what went on behind the scenes in creating what became of Jack. But first, I wanted to quickly answer a few questions some of you have. Thanks to everyone who's got in touch or commented on the podcast. I know a lot of you are really invested in this and your feedback means a lot to us. There's a question here from Diane about a rumour that Jack was taken two hours north of the fixed crossing area. Diane wants to know if I asked Jack's ex-girlfriend Carly about that theory because it was said to have originated from her.
0:48 Speaker 01 Now, I did put this to Carly and she responded by saying that a friend of hers that she trusts, they'd received a tip-off that Jack might have been taken a few hours away. Carly says a friend seemed convinced that this was true. But I looked into this and ultimately couldn't get my hands on any strong evidence to support that theory. What I do know though, is that Carly has continued to pass on information that might be useful to the police. We have one more question from Tom and Tom asks, wouldn't Jack's bank statements corroborate the story of him being at the Kilkeven Hotel? So this refers to episode three, when you heard from Sue, who believed that she spotted Jack at the Kilkeven pub in the week before he went missing.
1:31 Speaker 01 Sue says she was convinced it was Jack, but it's pretty hard to be certain. I've asked Jack's family several times about the bank records, but they seem reluctant to access them or to make them public. They say it's confronting and kind of like it would signify that they've given up all hope of Jack being out there alive somewhere. But police almost certainly already have that information and it seems like it hasn't led to any major breakthroughs or finding Jack. Again, thanks for all your questions and interest in the story. If you saw anything the night that Jack disappeared, get in touch or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
2:12 Speaker 01 So now I want to introduce a very special guest to ask me some questions. It's the host of the ABC True Crime podcast, The Case of Stephen Stockwell.
2:21 Speaker 02 Thank you, Rob. I am actually pretty excited to be let in on this episode because I have so many things I would like to know about this, so many things I want to unpack with you. The first of which is, what do you think happened to Jack?
2:35 Speaker 01 I've got to be honest, Stocky, my mind on this has changed every 48 hours for the last 18 months and it kind of continues to do so. But I think at this point, there's half a dozen different theories which, which sit with me. And I think, you know, 50% of possibility is that he has got lost. And he wouldn't be the first person in that area to go missing and to not be found for an extended period of time, although this is quite exceptional with this case. I think there's maybe a likelihood that someone else entered Fix Crossing at night time and may have interacted with Jack there. I think the people that he was around that night may know
3:16 Speaker 01 more about what occurred. I think that he may have gone missing on purpose. I think that's a very unlikely scenario with how much publicity this story's had and the amount of torture that the family's gone through, that Jack's not the kind of guy that would dismiss those feelings. I do get the sense that Jack is a bit of a prankster. It wouldn't have surprised me if for a day or two, he went missing on purpose because he wanted to mess with people's heads a little bit. But I just can't see it playing out for as long as it has. And over and over again, people point to that relationship that he had with his sisters. And, and then maybe he has just
3:57 Speaker 01 met with a random act, walking either the dirt road back into town or the highway, and just come across someone who might have been angry or in the wrong state of mind, or they may have made a mistake and needed to cover it up quickly.
4:13 Speaker 02 There are so many people you have spoken to. What's it like working on a story like this? It must be so hard with so many people and so many different rumours swirling around.
4:22 Speaker 01 I think it does come with its difficulties, but I love to do things in journalism that I'm passionate about. And I think that's what the craft should be chosen for, is to help people that are genuinely in need and things that you are passionate and intrigued about. And that's come through in this story. It's It's definitely tough not to be led down certain ways of thinking by how close you need to become to different people in this story. You start to think like them to a certain degree as well. But ultimately, that discipline in journalism comes from having to be objective and see the story from multiple viewpoints all at once, no matter how conflicting they can be. And, you know, we've got some very, very different perspectives in this story
5:05 Speaker 01 from a mum who is completely anti-drugs to some people who are well sort of integrated in that society and, you know, never the twain shall meet except on this podcast.
5:19 Speaker 02 Hmm. You had, you know, this kind of wild citizen sleuth thing happening with this story as well. You had so many people with so many different ideas and suggestions of what might have happened. Does it kind of erode a bit of your trust in people and their stories doing something like this?
5:37 Speaker 01 It does to a degree, but it also makes me think about the human mind and how we tend to remember situations, but also what we think of people. And what I found really interesting with this is that I believe that aside from Jack's family, maybe I know him better than anyone over the course of his life because I've heard about what he was like as an infant. I've heard about what he was like when he went to primary school to high school, his first love, his moments after where he lost his grandma, finding a purpose in life, then when he went to work in gyms and what he went through there and meeting other girls, et cetera. And then, you know, the love of his life, Carly, that he has this long-term relationship with. And even in that situation, there's so many
6:21 Speaker 01 accounts of who Jack was. Like, if you talk to one person who went to a party where they met Jack, he's this person. But then you talk to someone else who went to another party that was only a few weeks after that, and they talk about Jack, you know, like he was that kind of person. So that is really difficult. And Carly herself, I think, is open to the same interpretations. It got some very polar views of, oh, yeah, Carly's lovely to talk to and she used to bring me recipes, et cetera. And then other people would say, oh, I've found her really difficult to get to know and she doesn't want to converse in any way. And then that kind of replicates itself across many of the characters in these stories.
7:04 Speaker 02 Hmm. What do you think about the way that people online become interested in cases like this? Because this grew a massive online following. Now, why do people want to unpick it, discuss it, spread rumours?
7:18 Speaker 01 Well, I kind of count myself amongst that group. And one of the things I've had to do over the course of this investigation is kind of resolve how much I am that type of person and how much I'm not, and where I sit in relation to all of it. The way I describe it is, I observed Kelly's pain, and to me, it was almost like watching someone burning in a house fire. And you want to break in and grab that person and bring them out of it with whatever power that you have possible. And, you know, same goes for Ross, I'm not diminishing anyone's pain that they've gone through, but just because Kelly was the first person I came into contact with around this story. And I think that's what a lot of people who have weighed in and made accusations, et cetera, are responding to.
8:03 Speaker 01 They want to help someone, but perhaps they don't have the journalistic training to, you know, leave out some of the defamatory comments.
8:14 Speaker 02 What do you think drives this, this kind of environment? You know, you have so many stories appearing online. Where does that come from?
8:21 Speaker 01 I think it comes in this instance particularly from the silence, from the police and from authorities, you know. After it went past Queensland Police, people have reached out to the justice minister, is the local minister out there, then you've got the police minister. So all these people have kind of been asked for answers and to make a statement. And everyone's pretty wary of touching it. And you understand on one hand why that's the case. And I do know that the Queensland Police wanted to quell all the speculation that was occurring. But I think in that vacuum that's created, then other people step forward who have a louder voice, and they're going to broadcast whatever their thoughts are
9:02 Speaker 01 on this matter. And that's pretty dangerous to a degree. I think people deserve not to know everything that's happening in the investigation, but they deserve to know that justice is being done somewhere along the line. Otherwise, they just lose complete trust in the system. And the higher than usual crime rates, the feeling of having just a handful of police officers at your call, that's a situation that can spiral really quickly.
9:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we were talking about halfway through the series on the on the case of, you mentioned, you know, as well as justice being done, people kind of need to see that justice is being done as well, giving them that kind of comfort that things are happening, the wheels are turning. I mean, do you think the police are doing enough?
9:47 Speaker 01 I think that's a really tough one to answer because nearly all the way through this, I've received very short responses which have said it'd be inappropriate to comment, or that the family is receiving the support that it needs, and we will not be commenting any further on this investigation. So it's really hard to know from the little bits I've been able to sniff around the outskirts. I would say, yes, there is a wealth of work being done behind the scenes, but perhaps some of that is making up for work which wasn't initially done. And now we've got this situation where everyone has to be quiet about what's occurring, perhaps to protect the integrity of the case. But you have a
10:28 Speaker 01 family and all this army of support behind them now, you know, we're talking more than 5,000 people have joined these groups. They all want answers and they're not getting them. So there's just anger that builds upon anger and speculation that builds upon speculation.
10:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I mean, it's easy for us to look back now and go, oh, well, why wasn't this done in X way at X point? But, you know, putting yourself in the shoes of police at the time that Jack goes missing, you know, you've got a young guy broke up with his girlfriend. You know, you can see how in their minds, they may be thinking, oh, this guy's just wandered away, he'll show up in a week or two. I mean, what are some of the things early on that they may have done differently, or they could have done differently if it was approached in a different way?
11:09 Speaker 01 I think the forensic testing of all the items which has found, they're obviously caught in a huge backlog that we have in Queensland at the moment, and you're going to find that as a recurring theme over and over with any, you know, cold cases or suspicious cases such as this, where there's an undetermined outcome. So all those things have waited months and months. People are not sure if they were done properly. And then because of the late start to the search and people thinking, you know, maybe Jack's just gone off with a different girl for the weekend, or he's out partying with someone. Um. There was this thought, maybe he wasn't really missing until the Monday. And then three days of the heaviest rainfall that that area received that month followed
11:52 Speaker 01 straight after that. So there are traces which may have vanished.
11:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think the the rain kind of resonates with me because one of the things, I think it was in the first episode of of What Became of Jack is one of his sisters just talking about hearing the rain and being so worried about what that's going to mean for the search, what it's going to wash away and what what's going to make harder for them.
12:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, at that point, right, where they're wondering about where he is, their thoughts are, he's got a broken leg and he's in a ditch because it's really undulating territory. We're now at a point where eighteen months later, we still don't know where Jack is. Imagine all the possibilities that those people have had to think about. Your mind can fill that with some god awful scenarios, you know, and the more that the rumours feed into that, the more it plays with people's minds.
12:40 Speaker 02 How is, how's the family at the moment? How have they been through this process and and how's your relationship with them?
12:45 Speaker 01 I do feel close to to Kelly and to to Sydney and to Bella and Ross. Um. And a lot of the people that have helped out, their neighbours, et cetera, all these people are just average folk who are going through really awful scenarios that are hard to put yourself in that position. Like, I feel fairly exhausted after this, but it's not a touch on what they're doing. And, you know, because I speak to Kelly at all times of day, you can get her where she's hardly slept at all or where she needs to sleep through the middle of the day because um her mind's been playing games on her all night.
13:23 Speaker 01 I think personally, I've observed her change a lot in the the sort of eighteen months that I've known her. I think part of the difficulty is here, she feels that she has no reason to be around her long term friends. And that's a really painful thought, but she thinks she's not the same person anymore and she doesn't have the same joy and the same topics to talk about. So it's almost as if she's met a new group of people who are there and. Want to know more about Jack and they kind of feed the cycle a little bit. I guess you've got to balance that against what's what's a mum or a father going to do in a situation like this? You want to feel like you've exhausted every single possibility.
14:06 Speaker 01 And if your privacy and your mental health suffers as a result, I'm I'm guessing that that's the consequence. They're willing to pay, which is, you know, really tough equation.
14:17 Speaker 02 Do you think they're confident that he's out there still?
14:19 Speaker 01 Kelly said to me that there's always going to be five to 10% of her that will think that Jack's alive, no matter what. And as awful as it is on one level, if he's decided that he wants to cut contact with everyone that he knows and he can't speak to his mum for whatever reason, she said that that is the best scenario. Because she wants to know that he's alive and he's well, but they've never been able to have any sort of funeral or putting Jack to rest, anything along those lines. And I don't know when they would be able to bring themselves to hold something like that. I kind of had a little bit of a disagreement with Kelly at one point because
15:01 Speaker 01 they had a candlelit celebration for Jack's life about four months after he went missing. And I did refer to it as a vigil and Kelly took exception to that because she said like vigil suggests that Jack is dead and that's not how it should be framed.
15:18 Speaker 02 Rob, do you regret stepping into the hornet's nest?
15:22 Speaker 01 Not at all, not for a second. I trusted my heart in approaching the story. I felt that it might struggle to get a wider audience if it wasn't on the ABC. I know how much the ABC values regional stories, particularly in an area like this that gets so often ignored and and undervalued. Certainly, it's it's come with difficulties at times, but I've just done. What I felt was the right thing in my heart and over the publication of this series, sure, there's, there's been big difficulties with myself and Jack's family about some things that are coming out that they'd rather were not out in the public domain. But I've also had conversations with Kelly where she said, you know, we'll stay friends
16:07 Speaker 01 forever. We've been through an experience that is just so far removed from what most people will ever encounter. And I think I've done it respectfully. I, I also want to tell the truth as I see it. And some of the topics that we cover in this series, like drug use, like domestic situations, they're things that I've, I've had an experience of in my own life and that I've kind of had to remonstrate. And I almost feel like this series is a little bit of an, an ode to my own mother, my late mother, who I never got to talk to about some of the things I did and went through in my twenties and be able to atone and, and reveal
16:51 Speaker 01 those. And I've said this to a couple of people who are close to the story is 27 was probably my jerk phase in life. And, you know, maybe Jack was in his jerk phase and he just needed someone to tap him on the shoulder and say, mate, you'll get through this if you just keep your head about you and you don't do this and you do this instead. And it's probably a really sad reflection on this story that Jack didn't have that angel sitting on his shoulder that could do that.
17:22 Speaker 02 Hmm. It's an incredible series, Rob. You've done a wonderful job with, with what became of Jack. And yeah, thank you so much for kind of taking us behind the curtain in this episode.
17:32 Speaker 01 Cheers, Stokky. Thanks for listening.
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