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Australia's Missing: The Cases That Still Need Answers · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Appoche Production Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your hosts Adam Shann. There are crimes that leave behind
0:20
Speaker 1: trail of clues, a body, a crime scene, and eventually
0:24
Speaker 1: perhaps even a conviction. But there's another kind of mystery
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Speaker 1: that's often even harder to bear. A person walks out
0:31
Speaker 1: the door and simply disappears. No answers, no certainty, just
0:36
Speaker 1: an empty chair at the dinner table, a phone that
0:38
Speaker 1: never rings, and families caught in an endless limbo, wondering
0:43
Speaker 1: whether to hold onto hope or prepare for the worst.
0:47
Speaker 1: Australia has thousands of missing persons reports every year. Most
0:50
Speaker 1: people are found, but for some families, days become months,
0:55
Speaker 1: months become years, and years stretch into decades. Their lives
1:00
Speaker 1: are defined not by what they know, but by what
1:03
Speaker 1: they don't. My guest today dedicated much of her life
1:06
Speaker 1: to telling those stories and keeping hope alive. Nicole Morris
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Speaker 1: is the founder of the Australian Missing Persons Register and
1:14
Speaker 1: the author of Lost More True Stories of Families of
1:17
Speaker 1: Australian Missing Persons. This is Nichole's third book on the subject.
1:22
Speaker 1: She spent years documenting Australia's most enduring and baffling disappearances,
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Speaker 1: supporting families who refuse to give up, and preserving the
1:31
Speaker 1: stories of people who might otherwise be forgotten. Today, we'll
1:35
Speaker 1: explore the mysteries that still haunt Nicole, the investigations that
1:39
Speaker 1: continue to raise troubling questions, and why, even after decades,
1:43
Speaker 1: there's always hope that one you witness, one forgotten clue,
1:47
Speaker 1: or one breakthrough in forensic science could finally reveal the truth.
1:52
Speaker 1: Nicole Morris, Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann.
1:55
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Adam, it's very exciting to be here.
1:58
Speaker 1: I feel privileged to have you on my show. Considering
2:01
Speaker 1: the Selfless because you're not. I didn't understand why you
2:08
Speaker 1: got this work because you don't have a missing person
2:11
Speaker 1: in your family. You took this on yourself. When you've
2:15
Speaker 1: done this in a very selfless way, how did this
2:17
Speaker 1: all begin for you.
2:18
Speaker 3: It's been twenty one years now, so I almost can't
2:21
Speaker 3: remember a time when I didn't do it. It was
2:24
Speaker 3: when the Internet was in its infancy, and it wasn't
2:27
Speaker 3: in very many people's homes, and so there wasn't really
2:31
Speaker 3: a way for people to look up missing persons. Now,
2:34
Speaker 3: it's a very easy thing to do. You know, someone
2:37
Speaker 3: goes missing, lots of people know about it very quickly.
2:40
Speaker 3: But twenty one years ago that wasn't the case, and
2:42
Speaker 3: so I wanted to create a resource for people I
2:45
Speaker 3: had an interest in missing persons. I thought other people
2:48
Speaker 3: might have an interest in missing persons, and I felt
2:50
Speaker 3: that those people missing deserved more than to just be
2:55
Speaker 3: someone on an unfaded yellow newspaper that gets wrapped up
2:59
Speaker 3: in your fish and chips. You know, once the initial
3:01
Speaker 3: story goes out in those days, how do you find
3:04
Speaker 3: out about missing person? Accept people who write true crime books.
3:07
Speaker 3: So I thought, well, I'll just create this resource for
3:10
Speaker 3: people to be able to go and look up missing persons.
3:13
Speaker 3: And I just did it as a kind of a collection,
3:15
Speaker 3: and then speaking to the families and becoming involved in
3:18
Speaker 3: that way was sort of secondary to that.
3:21
Speaker 1: Yes, you talk about the families, because the mainstream media
3:24
Speaker 1: covers missing persons cases sporadically when it happens when there's
3:29
Speaker 1: a connection to a crime potentially, or an individual they
3:32
Speaker 1: believe is committed the crime. Otherwise, they struggle to continue
3:37
Speaker 1: to cover it, and I think that's very frustrating for
3:40
Speaker 1: the families who feel they are lost and forgot to.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, I've been updating the website this week because
3:46
Speaker 3: I've still got the website as well as the Facebook page.
3:48
Speaker 3: So I was updating the website this week. And when
3:51
Speaker 3: I do that, I go in and I just check
3:53
Speaker 3: if there's any more information out there anywhere that I
3:56
Speaker 3: might have missed somewhere, And more often than not, there's nothing.
4:00
Speaker 3: No one's ever written about these people, no one's ever
4:03
Speaker 3: taken an interest.
4:04
Speaker 2: And keep reading through.
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Speaker 3: These case notes thinking, I think this could be a homicide,
4:08
Speaker 3: and no one is where is the file, no one's
4:12
Speaker 3: looking at it anymore, and those people are being lost
4:15
Speaker 3: and forgotten, and that's really sad to me.
4:18
Speaker 1: Was there one case that really motivated you to take
4:22
Speaker 1: this on with such scale?
4:25
Speaker 3: I think what sparked my interest in it was the
4:29
Speaker 3: case of Susan Eisenhood, who was missing for quite a
4:33
Speaker 3: while and then her remains were found. Coincidentally, her remains
4:37
Speaker 3: were found very close to where I grew up, so
4:39
Speaker 3: that was kind of a coincidence that I didn't really
4:42
Speaker 3: I think at the time I must have been a teenager,
4:45
Speaker 3: and I probably I would have been aware of it
4:48
Speaker 3: because it wasn't very far away from where I lived
4:50
Speaker 3: when they found these remains. But then years later, in
4:54
Speaker 3: two thousand and five, I saw an SBS documentary with
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Speaker 3: her nephew who was trying desperately to match these remains
5:01
Speaker 3: that had been found with his aunt's missing person report
5:04
Speaker 3: and how difficult it was for him. So that kind
5:07
Speaker 3: of spurred me on, and I still took to Dylan today.
5:10
Speaker 3: So he's still trying to finances about Susan because it's
5:13
Speaker 3: never been solved, and of course she may have been
5:16
Speaker 3: another Malat victim. So and you know, the spotlight is
5:20
Speaker 3: now on that again and he never seems to go away.
5:24
Speaker 3: But then again, you've got so many unsolved cases out
5:27
Speaker 3: there that need.
5:29
Speaker 1: It's also highlighted. You're also highlighted in the back of
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Speaker 1: the book the number of women that went missing between
5:37
Speaker 1: about nineteen seventy eight and nineteen eighty in New South Wales,
5:42
Speaker 1: and we're seeing Jeremy Buckingham with his Lower House inquiry,
5:45
Speaker 1: which is becoming an Ivan Malatt inquiry quickly. How many
5:49
Speaker 1: of these cases do you believe could be connected to
5:52
Speaker 1: Malat or on the other hand, if we focus on Malat,
5:57
Speaker 1: so exclusively as the always the coupert.
5:59
Speaker 3: Do we let others go exactly? And that that is
6:02
Speaker 3: always my point. And running the Facebook page with so
6:06
Speaker 3: many followers who make so many comments, every time I
6:09
Speaker 3: put any missing person up, someone will inevitably in the
6:12
Speaker 3: comments say, oh Malatt, And I'll sometimes point out, well,
6:16
Speaker 3: you know, he was in prison for two years when
6:19
Speaker 3: this person went missing, so it couldn't have been him.
6:22
Speaker 3: But people think that he's the only predator in Australia
6:25
Speaker 3: and that is not the case at all. There were
6:28
Speaker 3: at least probably three or four others who absolutely could
6:31
Speaker 3: have been responsible, and so it's difficult.
6:34
Speaker 2: I'm all so cautious about kind of lumping them all
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Speaker 2: in together.
6:37
Speaker 3: I think every missing person deserves to have their own
6:40
Speaker 3: individual set of circumstances really examined.
6:44
Speaker 2: Rather than saying, yeah.
6:45
Speaker 3: Serial killer, serial killer, serial cler you know, have to
6:48
Speaker 3: look at everything. You have to go and look at husbands,
6:52
Speaker 3: you have to go and look at all kinds. There's
6:53
Speaker 3: all kinds of different reasons why people go missing, and
6:56
Speaker 3: it's not definitely wasn't alive and Malatt.
7:00
Speaker 1: Sure because Malatt was a trophy keeper. And I remember
7:03
Speaker 1: Clive Small saying that Yeah, seemed to have been able
7:06
Speaker 1: to account for the trophies that he did keep. They
7:09
Speaker 1: were to connect those to the victims in Bilanglo State
7:12
Speaker 1: Forest and five who looked obviously was he headed the
7:16
Speaker 1: task force into ma Lap. He believed there was another
7:19
Speaker 1: serial killer or two operating between will and Lawrel and
7:23
Speaker 1: Newcastle in the similar period you've raised in relation to
7:27
Speaker 1: Tanya Farrington and the Neville tween, who is almost certainly
7:32
Speaker 1: the murderer through the Adams around the same time. Yes,
7:36
Speaker 1: so yeah, he's worth. He's obviously dead.
7:38
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, yep, they're all dead.
7:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if he worked in combination with others as
7:43
Speaker 3: well twenty.
7:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, Gary batt being one, and another one Raymond Johnson,
7:48
Speaker 1: I believe.
7:49
Speaker 3: Evans, Yeah, and Lenny Evans. Lenny Evans was the one
7:54
Speaker 3: who bragged about taking a girl from Crow's nest when
7:57
Speaker 3: he was in prison. So that's the only tenuous link
8:01
Speaker 3: we have between them and Tanua.
8:03
Speaker 1: Well, and how many girls went missing from Crow. I
8:05
Speaker 1: mean Tanya did go missing from Colos.
8:06
Speaker 3: Next absolutely, but if we look at it geographically, when
8:10
Speaker 3: her inquest came about, the police said okay, well, let's
8:14
Speaker 3: get all the girls missing from this same geographical area
8:17
Speaker 3: and put them all together, put this forward to the coroner.
8:21
Speaker 3: But her family rightly said, well no, because Tanya was
8:25
Speaker 3: a fourteen year old schoolgirl who had absolutely nothing in
8:28
Speaker 3: common with the other girls who went missing from the
8:32
Speaker 3: same geographic area that they were kind of trying to
8:34
Speaker 3: link her to because they were looked at as possibly
8:37
Speaker 3: being drug couriers. They had a New Zealand link and
8:40
Speaker 3: they were drug couriers, and her family were very adamant
8:43
Speaker 3: that they didn't want Tanya's name to be linked with
8:45
Speaker 3: that because she had nothing to do with anything like that.
8:47
Speaker 3: So I think geographically she's sort of the only one
8:52
Speaker 3: from the Crow's Nest area because the other girls missing
8:56
Speaker 3: from that same similar area I think were totally different.
9:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now you've made a point of saying you don't
9:02
Speaker 1: want to bash the cops, and I appreciate that. I'm
9:04
Speaker 1: a bit with you. Good cops and there are bad cops.
9:06
Speaker 1: There are cops that are lazying in others who are
9:08
Speaker 1: incredibly competent and busy. Do you think in these these
9:11
Speaker 1: longer term cases they do drop the ball And the
9:14
Speaker 1: longer it goes, the harder it is to see these
9:17
Speaker 1: cases revive.
9:19
Speaker 2: I think it's good.
9:20
Speaker 3: Some of the states are now doing inquests into those
9:24
Speaker 3: cases from the seventies, which is really good, and we're
9:27
Speaker 3: getting results from way back when, you know, the Lin
9:31
Speaker 3: Dawson case was the nineteen eighties, and the Susan who
9:34
Speaker 3: was missing in Susan Lincoln, Western South Australia just got
9:39
Speaker 3: a conviction or an arrest in her case as well.
9:42
Speaker 2: So you've got a lot of cold.
9:43
Speaker 3: Cases still being solved today, which is obviously modern day
9:47
Speaker 3: policing that's solving those cases. But I think sometimes it's
9:52
Speaker 3: just put in the two hard basket. If you've got
9:54
Speaker 3: no witnesses, if you've got no one else to re examine,
9:58
Speaker 3: you've got and courts need that hard evidence. Courts need,
10:03
Speaker 3: you know, very conclusive before you can even bring someone
10:07
Speaker 3: up on charges. You need to be really sure about
10:09
Speaker 3: what you're doing, and it's really hard to find that.
10:12
Speaker 3: In many ways, the Lin Dawson conviction was a miracle
10:15
Speaker 3: because you've still not got her remains, so you've got
10:18
Speaker 3: very circumstantial evidence and most in most cases, I don't
10:22
Speaker 3: think judges like that, so it's really hard to get
10:25
Speaker 3: results in those cases. And then there's all these secondary
10:28
Speaker 3: issues like not finding remains. But have we found the
10:32
Speaker 3: remains and have we just not identified them? As I
10:36
Speaker 3: said in the book, hundreds and hundreds of bodies lying
10:39
Speaker 3: in the morgue in Sydney unidentified. So I'm making appeals
10:43
Speaker 3: for missing persons that were found decades ago. So maybe
10:47
Speaker 3: they do have that physical body of evidence literally and
10:52
Speaker 3: we haven't identified them because there's no funding to do it.
10:55
Speaker 1: And you talk about in this context, Luca Man, tell
10:59
Speaker 1: me about that story.
11:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I still can't believe that no one has come forward.
11:03
Speaker 3: This was a skeleton that was found in two thousand
11:05
Speaker 3: and three in our Luca in northern New South Wales. Tragically,
11:09
Speaker 3: it appears to be a young man who has taken
11:12
Speaker 3: his own life, so they've only just found skeletal remains.
11:16
Speaker 3: The police officer I spoke to said, you know, we
11:18
Speaker 3: will never rule out completely rule out a homicide, but
11:22
Speaker 3: it looks like he has taken his own life. So
11:25
Speaker 3: all we've got is is a skeleton and some clothes.
11:30
Speaker 3: And so the police said to me, can you put
11:34
Speaker 3: out the image of these clothes? And I have done
11:36
Speaker 3: that for twenty one years and no one has come forward.
11:43
Speaker 3: No one has come forward to say that might be
11:45
Speaker 3: my son, that might be my brother. How is that
11:48
Speaker 3: possible that this young man has been completely unnamed for
11:52
Speaker 3: all of that time.
11:54
Speaker 1: So sad, genuine mystery. And the other mystery, of course,
11:58
Speaker 1: is it sounds like they've got decent DNA from those remains.
12:02
Speaker 1: One would assume, yep, we are seeing is now of
12:06
Speaker 1: this nature being solved through forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Yes,
12:11
Speaker 1: I was involved in the case in New South Wales
12:13
Speaker 1: the jawbone from your minor, which was identified finally as
12:16
Speaker 1: Henry George Coleman had fallen off the cliff in nineteen
12:19
Speaker 1: eighty and it was only solved through that means. And
12:22
Speaker 1: you wonder why they're not doing more of these in
12:24
Speaker 1: New South Wales? Is it cost? Well? What's going on?
12:28
Speaker 3: The police said to me that it's actually a last
12:30
Speaker 3: resort forensic tool, investigative tool, and I wonder is it
12:35
Speaker 3: because of the privacy concerns. I've done my own ancestry profile.
12:41
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people have. I found my
12:42
Speaker 3: grandfather through ancestry and a whole family in America that
12:46
Speaker 3: I didn't know existed, So I think it's wonderful. But
12:50
Speaker 3: there are a lot of people who have that. You know,
12:53
Speaker 3: they're going to store our DNA, They're going to accuses
12:56
Speaker 3: of crimes we haven't committed.
12:57
Speaker 2: They're going to use our you're going.
12:59
Speaker 3: To clone us. You know, there's a lot of crazy
13:02
Speaker 3: ideas out there. So I honestly can't remember what consense
13:06
Speaker 3: I ticked when I did my own profile.
13:10
Speaker 2: I don't.
13:10
Speaker 3: I may if they had asked, you know, is it
13:14
Speaker 3: okay if we upload this to a police database one day?
13:17
Speaker 3: I probably would have care fine, because I have nothing
13:20
Speaker 3: in my life to hide. But maybe there are consent
13:23
Speaker 3: to issues to do with when people upload their DNA,
13:27
Speaker 3: they do or don't consent to that information being used
13:30
Speaker 3: for other things.
13:31
Speaker 2: Maybe, well that's right.
13:33
Speaker 1: Of course, there's ancestry. There's also jed match, which is
13:35
Speaker 1: open source and people can yeah, and I would urge
13:38
Speaker 1: anybody listening who's got a relative in their family to
13:41
Speaker 1: lodge their DNA with jed match because that can be
13:44
Speaker 1: accessed by law enforcement and other researchers without the privacy issues.
13:48
Speaker 1: And I hope one day that ancestry goes the same way.
13:51
Speaker 1: And of course you don't want Uncle Bill to be
13:54
Speaker 1: exposed as a criminal. And so forth. But you know,
13:57
Speaker 1: there are public interests beyond that in solving this cases.
14:00
Speaker 1: One would hope that, but it is such a mystery
14:02
Speaker 1: that nobody from this young man's family has come forward.
14:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, the police officer said that it's possible. I mean,
14:12
Speaker 3: it's possible he doesn't have a family.
14:13
Speaker 2: It's possible.
14:14
Speaker 3: You know, there are people whose parents die when they're
14:18
Speaker 3: young and they've got no one else and they kind
14:20
Speaker 3: of drift through life and so they've got no one
14:22
Speaker 3: to match it to. If he's a foster kid or
14:26
Speaker 3: if he's from overseas. But you know, even from overseas,
14:29
Speaker 3: I get a lot of families who who will contact
14:32
Speaker 3: me and say, oh, you know, I have someone missing
14:34
Speaker 3: in Australia.
14:35
Speaker 2: But yeah, he said that it's possible.
14:38
Speaker 3: He may be from kind of a disconnected family who
14:42
Speaker 3: might not be the type of people who would upload
14:45
Speaker 3: their DNA to one of the matching sides. So that, yeah,
14:50
Speaker 3: there are families that just wouldn't occur to them to
14:52
Speaker 3: do that, families who wouldn't care to do that. So
14:55
Speaker 3: it may be a situation like that. I can't imagine
14:58
Speaker 3: that there could be any loving, caring, close family out
15:01
Speaker 3: there who is just completely underw where that the young
15:07
Speaker 3: man has not been seen in what twenty five years
15:11
Speaker 3: or something now, So.
15:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I think, as one famous detective says,
15:16
Speaker 1: the answers in the file, and I suspect that there
15:19
Speaker 1: may be a file somewhere that they could yield the
15:21
Speaker 1: answer and one one would hope. And I think it's
15:24
Speaker 1: quite poignant in that chapter in the book you talk
15:26
Speaker 1: about the detective involved, Graham Burke, who he retired without
15:31
Speaker 1: an answer yes to that mystery. And I think I
15:34
Speaker 1: know several coppers in the same boat where they retire
15:39
Speaker 1: not knowing and it's I mean, it's the burden is
15:42
Speaker 1: much heavier on the family, but certainly it's unfinished business
15:45
Speaker 1: for these police and they want an answer as much
15:47
Speaker 1: as the family.
15:48
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah.
15:49
Speaker 3: And he wasn't able to include all of the other
15:52
Speaker 3: information he gave me in the book, but he told
15:54
Speaker 3: me there's probably as well as a Lucman, there's probably
15:58
Speaker 3: three cases that he was not able to solve that
16:02
Speaker 3: will haunt him, I think until he's able to.
16:04
Speaker 2: Do something about them.
16:06
Speaker 3: There are some amazing police officers out there who just
16:08
Speaker 3: really go above and beyond, and you know, in retirement
16:12
Speaker 3: still think, Yeah, I wish I'd been able to solve
16:14
Speaker 3: that one. I wish, you know, I wish I had
16:16
Speaker 3: an answer for that one. It bothers him. I can
16:19
Speaker 3: tell it's still really bothers him.
16:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've got about half a dozen missing person's cases
16:23
Speaker 1: that I follow and I tried to keep you know,
16:26
Speaker 1: putting back into various media, and you do talk. I mean,
16:29
Speaker 1: for Lucille Butterworth in Tasmania nineteen sixty nine disappearance a
16:33
Speaker 1: good example of that, where they know pretty much what
16:36
Speaker 1: happened to her, but they can't imprinted on Jeffrey Charles Hunt,
16:40
Speaker 1: who's almost certainly the killer of Lucille, and the detectives involved,
16:45
Speaker 1: they're still working it. They're still talking to the families.
16:49
Speaker 1: And I think you find yourself in a similar position
16:53
Speaker 1: where you're talking to the family all that you continue
16:56
Speaker 1: these conversations, and it's not without an emotional.
17:00
Speaker 2: Ceremony, catching a couple of things.
17:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not without its emotional burden. So how do
17:04
Speaker 1: you find that thing of continuing to follow these cases,
17:08
Speaker 1: continuing to liaise with families, and without trying to build
17:13
Speaker 1: false hope but keep things going.
17:16
Speaker 2: It's really difficult.
17:17
Speaker 3: I think I try to maintain a bit of a
17:21
Speaker 3: bit of a boundary because I have to think this
17:24
Speaker 3: is not happening to me, this is not happening to
17:26
Speaker 3: my family. I need to have that sort of professional
17:29
Speaker 3: even though I don't do this professionally, I suppose after
17:32
Speaker 3: doing it for such a long time, there's a certain
17:35
Speaker 3: persona I have for missing persons families that I keep
17:39
Speaker 3: separate from my own family life because I couldn't do
17:43
Speaker 3: it if I just kept breaking down and letting this
17:46
Speaker 3: destroy me, so I would be of no use to them.
17:50
Speaker 3: So it's really difficult to keep that separate, but it's vital,
17:55
Speaker 3: and I think there are because I try to not
17:59
Speaker 3: have cases that I focus on more than others, like
18:03
Speaker 3: the people. People often say about the books, Oh, I've
18:07
Speaker 3: never heard of any of the cases in the book,
18:09
Speaker 3: and I go awesome, because those are the ones that
18:12
Speaker 3: I want people to know about. And it's those really
18:16
Speaker 3: forgotten ones that are still so important to me. So
18:19
Speaker 3: they're all equally as important. And it's difficult because there's
18:24
Speaker 3: so many as well, you know there's in Australia, there's
18:26
Speaker 3: two thy eight hundred, and it's really hard to keep
18:29
Speaker 3: your head around all of those cases, because it's just
18:33
Speaker 3: a crazy number. But yeah, you have to try and
18:37
Speaker 3: keep a little bit of information about all of them
18:39
Speaker 3: at the same time.
18:41
Speaker 1: And then dealing with the families. I mean, of the
18:44
Speaker 1: fourteen cases you look at in your fabulous book, I
18:47
Speaker 1: only know a couple of them. I know I Luca Man,
18:49
Speaker 1: I know Sherry Westall. And you've gone to extraordinary lengths
18:55
Speaker 1: talking to family, reinvestigating, almost as if a detective yourself,
19:00
Speaker 1: and you're not you Actually your day job is you
19:03
Speaker 1: work in the secure dementia award of an age care.
19:06
Speaker 2: Facility, exactly exactly.
19:09
Speaker 3: I think they sort of complement each other, you know,
19:13
Speaker 3: of a day, I keep people safe and I stop
19:15
Speaker 3: people from going missing, and I have that professional, you know,
19:20
Speaker 3: nursing background and able.
19:22
Speaker 2: To talk to them like that.
19:24
Speaker 3: So I think that does really help at the book launch,
19:28
Speaker 3: which the book launch is next week, and there are
19:31
Speaker 3: going to be several families of missing persons there, and
19:34
Speaker 3: dealing with them in person is a whole other ballgame
19:38
Speaker 3: of you know, I can work easily messaging and phone
19:42
Speaker 3: calls and all of that, but seeing someone and giving
19:44
Speaker 3: someone a hug is a very emotional experience for me,
19:47
Speaker 3: and I feel very privileged that they're all going to
19:50
Speaker 3: be there, and I think it's also I'm really glad
19:53
Speaker 3: that I'm able to have them all meet each other
19:57
Speaker 3: as well, because I don't have a missing person, but
20:00
Speaker 3: they all uniquely understand what it's like. I live in
20:05
Speaker 3: where we've just had the most horrific tragedy that affected
20:08
Speaker 3: the whole of Australia. Felt for Jana Armstrong being missing
20:13
Speaker 3: who left behind her.
20:14
Speaker 2: Little baby just a week ago.
20:16
Speaker 3: A week or so ago, she was found, you know,
20:20
Speaker 3: within a very short space from where I live, and
20:24
Speaker 3: I was out into and by searching for her, and
20:27
Speaker 3: so I've been able to reach out to her family
20:29
Speaker 3: and say, hey, I'm right here, use me for whatever
20:32
Speaker 3: you need. So that has been very I felt like
20:36
Speaker 3: I could do something on a practical level for them.
20:39
Speaker 3: But also if the people that come to the book launch,
20:44
Speaker 3: we'll be able to connect with each other, because only
20:46
Speaker 3: they understand I don't understand, they understand really what it's like.
20:51
Speaker 1: Sure, we all hope in the media that when we
20:53
Speaker 1: do these stories or write books, that someone will come
20:57
Speaker 1: forward with that new piece of information that solves the puzzle.
21:02
Speaker 1: Have you seen that working in action in a positive way.
21:06
Speaker 3: It's really hard because when you write about cold cases,
21:09
Speaker 3: cold cases are really almost impossible to solve. As I said,
21:12
Speaker 3: it's a miracle when you get a conviction after such
21:15
Speaker 3: a long time. But I think the hope is always there.
21:19
Speaker 3: What the first book's definitely achieved was in Vanished, I
21:24
Speaker 3: spoke about sixteen year old Norman Lawson, who was exactly
21:28
Speaker 3: the same age as me, about a month apart we
21:30
Speaker 3: were born.
21:31
Speaker 2: So I always think of Norm.
21:33
Speaker 3: And he went missing in Kakadu in nineteen eighty six
21:37
Speaker 3: and completely forgotten, absolutely completely forgotten until I wrote his
21:42
Speaker 3: chapter because his brother and sister came to me and said,
21:45
Speaker 3: you know, thank you for not forgetting our brother. And
21:48
Speaker 3: I said, okay, let me tell his story. And now
21:51
Speaker 3: Northern Territory Police have put up a five hundred thousand
21:54
Speaker 3: dollar reward for information about Norman. So I'm saying that's
21:59
Speaker 3: such an achievement from the book coming out. And they've
22:02
Speaker 3: done the same thing with Rickby Fielding who was missing
22:04
Speaker 3: in Western Australia, so for all Western Australian missing persons,
22:09
Speaker 3: five hundred thousand dollar rewards, So they're starting to take
22:12
Speaker 3: it seriously and I think it is that squeaky wheel.
22:14
Speaker 3: It is the cases that you say, don't forget, don't forget,
22:18
Speaker 3: don't forget that they go okay, right, let's do something.
22:21
Speaker 3: So while we haven't found anybody yet, there's always that hope,
22:26
Speaker 3: and there's always you, always inching towards something else happening,
22:29
Speaker 3: and maybe five hundred thousand dollar reward will prompt someone
22:33
Speaker 3: to come forward and say, oh, yeah, hang on, I
22:35
Speaker 3: do know something. So even even today in that there's
22:38
Speaker 3: a story in the book about Mervyn Rushton who was
22:41
Speaker 3: missing from Lithgow, and I was just before I spoke
22:44
Speaker 3: to you, I was having a look at the comments
22:47
Speaker 3: on a newspaper article that I am an interview I
22:50
Speaker 3: did earlier this week, and someone in the comments said, oh,
22:53
Speaker 3: I think I might know something.
22:54
Speaker 2: Who do I talk to?
22:56
Speaker 3: Yay, And he's been missing since I think nineteen ninety
23:00
Speaker 3: one something like that, So that if this person has
23:04
Speaker 3: a little bit of information, that's what it's all about.
23:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I've seen rewards work and I've seen
23:09
Speaker 1: them not work. I think so many of these missing
23:12
Speaker 1: persons cases are connected to a crime, and there are
23:16
Speaker 1: people who are protecting the culprits, and I guess you'd
23:20
Speaker 1: want to reach out to those people and say you
23:22
Speaker 1: can make a report, even if it's belatedly. Police are
23:28
Speaker 1: not interested generally in prosecuting people who've held onto a
23:31
Speaker 1: secret for too long, so it's never too.
23:34
Speaker 3: Late, exactly exactly. Sometimes there's indemnity for those people as well,
23:39
Speaker 3: even if they've been involved in the crime. There's indemnity
23:42
Speaker 3: on the subject of rewards. In the missing person's world,
23:46
Speaker 3: people are certainly still upset that there are varying amounts
23:51
Speaker 3: for varying different missing persons. They think they're missing person
23:55
Speaker 3: is deemed worth less than another missing person.
23:59
Speaker 2: So I think that that's something that really needs to change.
24:02
Speaker 3: It needs to be, as I said, Western Sholian Police
24:05
Speaker 3: blanket across the board, five hundred thousand for everybody. New
24:08
Speaker 3: Southwest Police, I think need to lift their game. Because
24:11
Speaker 3: they've got some of fifty thousand dollar rewards, some are
24:13
Speaker 3: one million dollar rewards. How can they justify that to
24:17
Speaker 3: a family because the loss is exactly the same for
24:20
Speaker 3: both of those families.
24:23
Speaker 1: A lot of this does come down to publicity and
24:25
Speaker 1: the willingness of families to continually get into the media.
24:29
Speaker 1: Agitate correct risingships. Journalists look at the Sheryl Grimmer case
24:33
Speaker 1: in New South Wales very Meadow where her brother Ricky. Now,
24:37
Speaker 1: she's done an amazing job in keeping that story in
24:40
Speaker 1: the media. He's done a million podcasts. He's got indefathorable
24:44
Speaker 1: energy in the quest for justice. But not everyone's like Ricky,
24:50
Speaker 1: and its taking a toll on him. You've seen it
24:53
Speaker 1: from the inside, the toll it takes, but it also
24:55
Speaker 1: must have taken an emotional toll on yourself as you
24:58
Speaker 1: continue to try to advocate for them.
25:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I think.
25:06
Speaker 3: I mean, no one forced me to do this, So
25:09
Speaker 3: I think if I started to complain in any way
25:12
Speaker 3: about it, that would make me pretty terrible persons. So
25:15
Speaker 3: it's I've never taken a cent for doing it from
25:18
Speaker 3: a family, you know, I would. I don't fund raise,
25:22
Speaker 3: I don't do any of those things. It's something that
25:25
Speaker 3: I said, right, I would just like to do this
25:27
Speaker 3: with my life.
25:28
Speaker 2: I would just like to help people.
25:33
Speaker 3: And so because I took that on myself, I would
25:37
Speaker 3: feel bad about saying about complaining about it so or
25:41
Speaker 3: suggesting that it is detrimental to me, because if it
25:46
Speaker 3: really was, then I just wouldn't do it. I can,
25:48
Speaker 3: and I would stop, and if it really had a
25:51
Speaker 3: bad effect on my family, like if they said this
25:54
Speaker 3: takes too much time away from us.
25:56
Speaker 2: So it's a balance of all of that. It's a
25:58
Speaker 2: balance of.
25:59
Speaker 3: Saying because my children were really little when I started this,
26:02
Speaker 3: and so I thought, well, my priority is to be
26:05
Speaker 3: their mum, and so I had to balance having children.
26:09
Speaker 3: I've had to balance working, giving time to my husband,
26:12
Speaker 3: and so I just try to do things that I
26:16
Speaker 3: enjoy to balance out all the awful things in my life.
26:21
Speaker 3: So you know, I travel and do happy things and
26:25
Speaker 3: not just focus on this terrible, terrible world that's out there.
26:30
Speaker 3: It's very easy when you do this kind of thing
26:33
Speaker 3: to look at and I'm sure you would feel the
26:36
Speaker 3: same way. You look at the world and just think
26:39
Speaker 3: that everyone is a terrible person and that there's danger
26:42
Speaker 3: and evil everywhere. But you can't think like that. I
26:45
Speaker 3: think the world is basically a good place.
26:48
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I think in my world, I think it's probably true,
26:52
Speaker 1: probably true. I think that, Yeah, I've got a somewhat
26:55
Speaker 1: journdiciet view of the world having a couple of the
26:57
Speaker 1: things I have, But I mean I note that you
26:59
Speaker 1: do a couple of things to distract from these things.
27:01
Speaker 1: You watch funny YouTube videos to chase away the horrors
27:05
Speaker 1: in your head, and you frequently watch a large number
27:07
Speaker 1: of a rail crossing in rural Japan.
27:09
Speaker 2: I do.
27:09
Speaker 1: I must try that, I do.
27:11
Speaker 3: I'm so obsessed with it. They had this thunderstorm there
27:14
Speaker 3: the other day.
27:15
Speaker 2: And it was fascinating.
27:16
Speaker 3: I'm just watching this amazing and what a world we
27:19
Speaker 3: live in where you can just log onto your computer
27:22
Speaker 3: and watch a rail crossing on the other side of
27:24
Speaker 3: the world, just from the comfort of your own home.
27:27
Speaker 3: What an amazing world we live in and you can
27:29
Speaker 3: log into watching I watched bears in Alaska the other
27:33
Speaker 3: day on a live cam and it's I just have
27:37
Speaker 3: a very positive view of the world. I think so,
27:39
Speaker 3: and that really helps with this work. And you have
27:43
Speaker 3: to I just think the world is an amazing place.
27:45
Speaker 1: I think you're right. So, if you could change one
27:48
Speaker 1: thing about the way Australia approaches missing persons, what would
27:51
Speaker 1: it be.
27:52
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a difficult question.
27:54
Speaker 3: The feedback that I get from the families would be
27:58
Speaker 3: that they frequently feel that after the initial investigation into
28:02
Speaker 3: a missing person that they're forgotten. So it is actually
28:07
Speaker 3: I believe it used to be, and I don't know
28:09
Speaker 3: why it wouldn't be anymore, but it used to be
28:12
Speaker 3: protocol for police to maintain that contact with a family,
28:18
Speaker 3: no matter how long it takes, no matter how long
28:19
Speaker 3: someone has been missing, even if they don't have any
28:22
Speaker 3: news to report, but just keep that contact up. And
28:25
Speaker 3: they're not doing that, so that from the feedback I
28:29
Speaker 3: get from the families, almost all the families say I
28:32
Speaker 3: haven't heard from the police in years. I could almost
28:34
Speaker 3: put the words into their mouth. And even when they
28:36
Speaker 3: request contact. I requested contact for a family the other
28:40
Speaker 3: day and I chased them up and I went through
28:43
Speaker 3: the AFP with that and they sent the request onto
28:46
Speaker 3: New South Plus Police and I followed up with that family, yes,
28:48
Speaker 3: and I said.
28:48
Speaker 2: Have the police called you? No?
28:51
Speaker 3: And that is the frustrating thing because they feel forgotten,
28:55
Speaker 3: and once they feel forgotten because there's it's only police
28:58
Speaker 3: investigating their missing persons. So if that person, if that
29:02
Speaker 3: organization isn't communicating with the family, then they have nothing.
29:07
Speaker 3: Then no one is investigating their missing person. Everyone has
29:11
Speaker 3: forgotten their missing person except for them. So I think
29:14
Speaker 3: if I could change one thing. It would be that
29:17
Speaker 3: they need to adhere to their own protocol, because I'm sure,
29:20
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure that that's in their stand uperating procedure,
29:23
Speaker 3: that they're supposed to get back to the families with
29:26
Speaker 3: as much information or no information, or just say hi,
29:31
Speaker 3: we haven't forgotten you. Hi, I'm the new case officer
29:34
Speaker 3: in charge of the case. I'm retiring here, I'm handing
29:37
Speaker 3: it over to this person. Just the smallest bit of information.
29:41
Speaker 1: That's a very good point, and I've heard this many times.
29:43
Speaker 1: Communication is the hardest thing for communicators even and for police,
29:48
Speaker 1: and missing person's cases is a really good case in
29:51
Speaker 1: point about that. So, after everything you've seen over the years,
29:55
Speaker 1: is there one missing person's case that keeps you awake
29:58
Speaker 1: at night?
29:59
Speaker 3: I would almost feel like I was playing favorites if
30:02
Speaker 3: I had one. I think, obviously because of the friendship
30:06
Speaker 3: I have with the Farrington family, Tanya's case has always
30:09
Speaker 3: been really important to me. Having written about Barbara Brown
30:13
Speaker 3: in this book, I became so obsessed with this girl,
30:16
Speaker 3: and there was so much that I wasn't able to
30:19
Speaker 3: put into the book because of you know, there would
30:22
Speaker 3: have been a book this big, all of her travel memories,
30:28
Speaker 3: and she wrote these amazing funny letters home to her family.
30:32
Speaker 3: And so Barbara has become really important to me, and
30:35
Speaker 3: I just feel like such an obligation to keep saying
30:40
Speaker 3: her name so that everybody knows about this wonderful girl.
30:47
Speaker 3: So it's really hard to kind of pick a few
30:50
Speaker 3: of them. Stephen Goldsmith's case is still really important to me. Possibly,
30:56
Speaker 3: you know, I've come to know his family really well
30:58
Speaker 3: in the UK. His dad recently died and that was
31:02
Speaker 3: just so sad because his dad died knowing what happened
31:05
Speaker 3: to Stephen Goldsmith. A personal connection to the case because
31:08
Speaker 3: Stephen did work into Umbar, which is close to where
31:12
Speaker 3: I live, and we share a birthday, so his mum
31:17
Speaker 3: and I have always been really close. So there's a
31:19
Speaker 3: few cases that will always be close to my heart
31:24
Speaker 3: because probably because I've gotten to know their families so
31:27
Speaker 3: well and have had that personal connection with the families
31:31
Speaker 3: and for so many years. Once you've been friends with
31:36
Speaker 3: a family for over twenty years, then that they're like
31:39
Speaker 3: family to you as well.
31:41
Speaker 1: Correct And if someone's listening today that knows something about
31:46
Speaker 1: a disappearance, no matter how long ago it was, it's
31:49
Speaker 1: never spoken to police, What would you say directly to them?
31:53
Speaker 3: Sometimes I find out that the reason that people don't
31:57
Speaker 3: go to the police. And I've had people say this
32:00
Speaker 3: before about quite well known cases. They've said, Oh, we
32:04
Speaker 3: didn't think anyone was still looking for them, or we
32:06
Speaker 3: didn't think anyone still cared that they were still missing.
32:09
Speaker 3: And once they heard that personal story by a family,
32:15
Speaker 3: their conscience was kind of pricked and they said, oh, oh, okay,
32:20
Speaker 3: someone does love them, someone is still you know, cares
32:24
Speaker 3: about this person. Oh well, all right, then I should
32:26
Speaker 3: do the right thing. So that's what I would say,
32:29
Speaker 3: do the right thing. I know that it can be scary.
32:32
Speaker 3: I know people have concerns about their own personal safety.
32:37
Speaker 3: Crime Stoppers is set up in such a way that
32:39
Speaker 3: you can stay anonymous through the whole process.
32:42
Speaker 2: You can even claim rewards and stay anonymous.
32:44
Speaker 3: They've got these code things and they can sort it
32:47
Speaker 3: all out. But they just need your information because otherwise
32:52
Speaker 3: they're going to You're going to die with that information
32:55
Speaker 3: and then no one will ever know. And you've had
33:00
Speaker 3: the ability to solve a case and to give someone
33:04
Speaker 3: back their family. And if you don't do that, I
33:06
Speaker 3: can't imagine a lower kind of person to refuse to
33:09
Speaker 3: do that, to refuse to give the family back their person.
33:13
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Nicole, you've been nominated twice to be Australian of
33:16
Speaker 1: the Year. You haven't won it yet. I think that's
33:18
Speaker 1: a I think that it was rigged. You should have
33:20
Speaker 1: won next time. I think you've won the next step
33:23
Speaker 1: and win it. Thank you for your work and this
33:25
Speaker 1: book is fantastic.
33:27
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. That is so kind of you.
33:29
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks for your time. Today's all right. The
33:32
Speaker 1: book is lost. More true stories from families of Australian
33:36
Speaker 1: missing persons. The author Nicole Morris. I'm going to put
33:39
Speaker 1: links to the book in the show notes, but she
33:43
Speaker 1: makes a very good point. In every case, someone knows something.
33:49
Speaker 1: And when you read this book and the way Nicole
33:51
Speaker 1: has written it, it brings the families to life, not
33:54
Speaker 1: just the day they lost their loved one, but you
33:57
Speaker 1: get a comprehensive picture of the loved ones, the people
34:02
Speaker 1: that the families, and that may these stories so compelling
34:07
Speaker 1: and if you are doubting whether people still care, have
34:10
Speaker 1: a look at this book, read the stories. It's fantastic
34:13
Speaker 1: and you can help. If you know anything, call crime
34:17
Speaker 1: Stoppers one one hundred, triple three, triple zero. Some people
34:22
Speaker 1: don't trust crime stoppers or the police. I get that
34:26
Speaker 1: for various reasons. You can always email me as well,
34:28
Speaker 1: Adam Shanner, writer at gmail dot com, and I'll handle
34:31
Speaker 1: your information with sensitivity and confidentiality. But first of all,
34:36
Speaker 1: go to crime stoppers. It is a proven way to
34:39
Speaker 1: solve these matters. This has been Adam shan for Real Crime.
34:43
Speaker 1: If you want to follow me on Facebook, I'll put
34:45
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes as well, and also
34:48
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34:50
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