Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life. The average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty people go missing every single day
Speaker 1: in Australia. For the families left behind, there are no funerals,
Speaker 1: no closure, no answers, just an unbearable silence where a
Speaker 1: person used to be. It's a grief that has no
Speaker 1: name because it never truly ends. I've seen the pain
Speaker 1: up close and so as today's guest Nicole Morris. She
Speaker 1: is a founder of Australian Missing Persons Register. And the
Speaker 1: author of three books on the subject. For years, she's
Speaker 1: been a fierce advocate, fighting to ensure that missing person
Speaker 1: cases are treated with the urgency and seriousness they deserve. Today,
Speaker 1: Nicole pulls back the curtain on what's really happening inside
Speaker 1: the investigations, inside the institutions, and inside the lives of
Speaker 1: people waiting for answers that may never come. Let's get
Speaker 1: into it, Nicole Morris, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Gary, good to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to have an interesting chat. You've certainly
Speaker 1: covered a lot of stuff in your time and being
Speaker 1: involved in missing persons, and I know from my time
Speaker 1: in homicide, and I also from reading your books and
Speaker 1: getting this sense of it, how many people are impacted
Speaker 1: in this country by missing loved ones.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just an incredible number. And it's really not
Speaker 2: a situation that's improving a lot. You know, there's almost
Speaker 2: fifty thousand people a year go missing. It's about one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty a day. And concerningly, we've got two
Speaker 2: eight hundred long term missing persons, and a long term
Speaker 2: missing person is anyone who has been missing longer than
Speaker 2: three months, So that's a huge number. So I feel like,
Speaker 2: even though I've written three books about it, it's a
Speaker 2: drop in the ocean as to how many people are
Speaker 2: out there who need their voices heard.
Speaker 1: Well, I think a lot of people. When you see
Speaker 1: reports in the media of someone that's disappeared, unless it
Speaker 1: impacts on you directly or there's something significant about the
Speaker 1: case that there's captured people's attention, we don't give it
Speaker 1: a lot of thought until it strikes close to home
Speaker 1: and it's someone that you know or associated with that
Speaker 1: just disappears.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I was sending out some early copies of the books
Speaker 2: to people on Instagram, and typically those books to grammers
Speaker 2: don't read a lot of true crime, so I always
Speaker 2: sort of say, is this do you think that you
Speaker 2: would be able to get through this sort of genre?
Speaker 2: And one of them was so enthusiastic, Oh, yes, I'd
Speaker 2: love to read this book. And then she sent me
Speaker 2: her address to send the book to, and I said,
Speaker 2: do you know what, there's a person in the book
Speaker 2: who went missing about three streets from you. And she
Speaker 2: was blown away because that had never occurred to her before,
Speaker 2: that missing people are all around us, that it can
Speaker 2: affect absolutely anyone at any time, because there's no there's
Speaker 2: so many reasons for people to go missing. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's a surprise to people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's interesting that you say that because reading
Speaker 1: your last book, Lost, there was a couple of a
Speaker 1: couple of cases that you talked about disappearances, and it
Speaker 1: sort of got my interest in it because I knew
Speaker 1: the area, I knew the time, I knew the environment,
Speaker 1: and I think when you look at the closeness of
Speaker 1: the locations where people disappear, and you think that could
Speaker 1: have been anyone, that could have been one of our
Speaker 1: loved ones. Before we start. In your book Lost, you
Speaker 1: dedicate it to Peter Rolf. Yes, I think it's appropriate.
Speaker 1: I think we both agree on that. Talk about Peter
Speaker 1: because Peter became a friend of mine. I knew him
Speaker 1: when I was in homicide. He was a great advocate
Speaker 1: for victims of crime, in particular homicide and missing persons
Speaker 1: made life hell for police, politicians and everyone else. I
Speaker 1: think would be fair the same.
Speaker 3: Because he made he'd be proud of that.
Speaker 1: They made everyone accountable. Where did you first meet Peter.
Speaker 2: It was such a long time ago. I went to
Speaker 2: Sydney for I think it was an anniversary birthday for
Speaker 2: families and friends of missing persons by the new south
Speaker 2: West government and we met at Parliament House, Old Parliament House,
Speaker 2: I think in Sydney, and he came up to me
Speaker 2: and I had known about his work because he was
Speaker 2: such an advocate, and he just came up and introduced
Speaker 2: himself and we were firm friends ever since, and he
Speaker 2: was such a supporter of what I do. I think
Speaker 2: also because he had had that personal connection with his
Speaker 2: with his very close friend, former partner, who had been murdered.
Speaker 2: But Pete also knew Stephen Jelfs who has been missing
Speaker 2: since the seventies in King's Cross, So he had that
Speaker 2: personal connection with a missing person and really went to
Speaker 2: bat for them. And he was, as you say, one
Speaker 2: of those people who just kept constantly emailing you, going,
Speaker 2: this is what we need to do, this, this is
Speaker 2: what I'm doing now, this is what we need to do.
Speaker 2: We need to keep on at them, and he just
Speaker 2: never gave up. And for his whole life he would
Speaker 2: sit beside victims in court and just provide that comfort
Speaker 2: and he helped so many people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was tireless in his work, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: he was touched by crime. I remember the case. It
Speaker 1: was his partner, Stephen Dempsey, and it was a horrendous crime.
Speaker 1: He was shot by a crossbow at Narrabeen Lakes and
Speaker 1: talk about it now with respect to what happened to
Speaker 1: Stephen and also the impact it had on Peter. But
Speaker 1: when you understand the nature of the crime, you might
Speaker 1: understand why Peter was so driven. After Stephen was murdered,
Speaker 1: his body was dismembered and placed in a fridge. Police
Speaker 1: discovered that in a fridge after the person who killed
Speaker 1: Stephen killed another person, and the investigation led to that
Speaker 1: it was horrific crime. I remember it well in the
Speaker 1: time that I was working in major crime, and you
Speaker 1: can understand someone like Peter Bean driven for a lifetime
Speaker 1: because it was a long time ago that Stephen was
Speaker 1: heard that you can understand someone like Peter Bean driven
Speaker 1: to make sure that these crimes are prevented as much
Speaker 1: as possible, or if they do happen, to ensure that
Speaker 1: they're properly investigated. Then my sense of Peter what he
Speaker 1: would make he didn't hate police. It wasn't against police
Speaker 1: or courts or whatever. He just wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that things were done properly and certainly jumping out in
Speaker 1: your book, they see some failings in systems and not
Speaker 1: necessarily blaming individuals where things have slipped through the cracks,
Speaker 1: and that was something that Peter really worked hard on
Speaker 1: to make sure that didn't occur very much.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, he was particularly an advocate for rewards, which
Speaker 2: is a controversial issue in the missing person system, but
Speaker 2: he really pushed for that. I could not count how
Speaker 2: many emails and letters he would have written over the years.
Speaker 2: Can you to say please do this, you need to
Speaker 2: do this. I'm requesting that you do this. They would
Speaker 2: have known his name very very well.
Speaker 1: I can assure you they knew his name very well.
Speaker 1: I always liked his name. There was other other people
Speaker 1: that didn't like his name. I liked his name because
Speaker 1: I knew if Peter was on the something, there was
Speaker 1: going to be change a coming and coming soon so exactly.
Speaker 2: And look what he achieved with the commission, the the
Speaker 2: you know, the inquest and the investigation into the New
Speaker 2: South Wales historic gay hate crimes. He was instrumental in
Speaker 2: getting that happening and achieved you know, wonderful things here.
Speaker 1: Well, look, it's good to talk about Peter because I
Speaker 1: think the work that he does or did before he
Speaker 1: sadly passed away, shouldn't be forgotten and we need people
Speaker 1: want that to keep everyone on track. Absolutely Now talk
Speaker 1: about missing missing persons. I don't think people fully appreciate
Speaker 1: the impact that has. And the only way you can
Speaker 1: discribe it, I think try to put yourself in that position.
Speaker 1: Think of a loved one and then that loved one
Speaker 1: just disappears and there is absolutely no answers. You don't
Speaker 1: know what's happened to the person. You don't know if
Speaker 1: the person's still alive. It's like carrying it. It's like
Speaker 1: an ongoing nightmare. I think for people that have had
Speaker 1: loved ones disappeared, you've been witnessed to that more than
Speaker 1: most people in the work that you've done and the
Speaker 1: advocacy that you've done for missing persons. Can you describe
Speaker 1: the type of impact that you see from families that
Speaker 1: have lost their loved ones.
Speaker 2: In the missing person's world, we call it an ambiguous loss.
Speaker 2: That's the term that they have coined for what it
Speaker 2: feels like to have someone go missing, because you've got
Speaker 2: that loss, but you don't know why you have that loss.
Speaker 2: You can't sort of rationalize it in your mind because
Speaker 2: you know that you've lost that person, but you don't
Speaker 2: know why or where or how. So your brain probably
Speaker 2: goes into more of a trauma because you're imagining what
Speaker 2: has happened to that person and so many different scenarios
Speaker 2: and you don't have any answers. So unlike someone who
Speaker 2: dies in a car crash or a heart attack, you
Speaker 2: know you've lost that person, but you know what's happened,
Speaker 2: and so your brain can go, Okay, this is what happened.
Speaker 2: I can accept this. This is the reality of the situation.
Speaker 2: Whereas with a missing person, are they still alive, have
Speaker 2: they been murdered, did they take their own life. There's
Speaker 2: all of these scenarios that go around in your head
Speaker 2: for decades, and it absolutely destroys people. You know, marriages
Speaker 2: can fall apart, if a couple stops communicating with each other,
Speaker 2: if they've lost a child, if they've lost a brother.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it can bring people closer together, but everyone copes
Speaker 2: differently because we've all got different personalities, and some people
Speaker 2: cope better than others. I was talking to Marcia Ryan's
Speaker 2: brother Tony the other week and it struck me how
Speaker 2: he copes with his sister's disappearance. He also lost a
Speaker 2: sister in a car accident, so he's had a lot
Speaker 2: of trauma in his life that he's very He's almost
Speaker 2: casual about the way that he approaches the loss. He
Speaker 2: just sort of says, well, whatever's.
Speaker 3: Happened, I can't change it.
Speaker 2: I can just deal with it, So what's the point
Speaker 2: in torturing myself in thinking what's happened? But not everyone
Speaker 2: can get their mind there. Some people hyper focus on
Speaker 2: the what if, what if?
Speaker 3: What if?
Speaker 2: And that's absolute torture to your brain and your soul.
Speaker 2: And these families just have to live with that, often
Speaker 2: for decades, and it never goes away. You'd think, perhaps
Speaker 2: the public might think that it changes and it eases
Speaker 2: and people move on and they forget about it.
Speaker 3: But when I.
Speaker 2: Interviewed Tony Farrington, whose sister went missing in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 2: he sobbed during the interview. So did I. And it's
Speaker 2: just as raw now as it was when he was
Speaker 2: a very young man and his sister didn't come home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting how people deal with it in
Speaker 1: different ways, and those that can accept that it's something
Speaker 1: out of their control. That's very enlightened view on it,
Speaker 1: but it's not what most people can can get to.
Speaker 1: I saw the damageing homicide where the bodies haven't been
Speaker 1: recovered victims of crime, and it adds another layer. And
Speaker 1: it's hard to say what could be worse than having
Speaker 1: a loved one murdered, having a loved one disappeared and
Speaker 1: not knowing what's happened to that loved one. Can actually,
Speaker 1: it can actually be worse. I say that with not
Speaker 1: having personal experience, but just watching how the families react
Speaker 1: when they just haven't got answers and it's a torture
Speaker 1: for them and ongoing torture for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a mother of a missing woman and
Speaker 2: we know that she was murdered murdered by a husband
Speaker 2: in Victoria decades ago, and a quote that she said
Speaker 2: always stays with me. She said, I'd settle for bones.
Speaker 2: I'd settle for bones. You know, I know I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get it back. I'd just give me a bone.
Speaker 2: And that's what the Markham's got. They knew immediately Daniel
Speaker 2: wasn't coming home, but they said, we just need a
Speaker 2: little bit of him home.
Speaker 1: Well, I saw it in a variety of cases, and
Speaker 1: Matthew Levison one comes to mind with Mark and Faye Matthew,
Speaker 1: and people that listen to the podcast would have heard
Speaker 1: me talk about that particular case. But Matt disappeared and
Speaker 1: for ten years Mark and Fay didn't know what had
Speaker 1: happened to him. And when his body was eventually recovered
Speaker 1: at the National National Park south of Sydney, I was
Speaker 1: there when Matt's remains found. Mark and Fay had been
Speaker 1: there and watching us dig in a national park looking
Speaker 1: for their son's remains for I think it was four
Speaker 1: weeks all up, it might have been even even more.
Speaker 1: And the pain and the emotion I saw on their
Speaker 1: face when I had to walk from the location where
Speaker 1: we found Matt, which was only about fifteen meters away
Speaker 1: from where Mark and Fay were standing, and then tell
Speaker 1: them that, look, I think we've found Matt. And they
Speaker 1: both broke down and cried obviously, and we've talked about this,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about stuff that they don't want revealed, obviously,
Speaker 1: very emotional for them. Watching that, it was almost like,
Speaker 1: thank God, we've found him, but now it means he's
Speaker 1: never coming home because when someone disappears. My assessment of it,
Speaker 1: speaking to the families over the years, there's always that
Speaker 1: smidgeon of hope, smidgeon of hope that the person's like
Speaker 1: Matt was in his twenties, smidgeon of hope that he'd
Speaker 1: turn up at the front door of the house ten
Speaker 1: years later. Mark and Fay would have yelled at him,
Speaker 1: what have you done to us? And then given him
Speaker 1: a big cuddle. But you know, when the remains are found,
Speaker 1: that's not going to happen. But yeah, I want people
Speaker 1: and I talk about this because we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about in the podcast today is what can be done
Speaker 1: when people disappear. And a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: can be done is what you've been championing for two decades.
Speaker 1: There's an impact and we need to understand the impact
Speaker 1: of when someone just disappears. Mark and Fay would go
Speaker 1: down to the National Park on weekends with a shovel
Speaker 1: and a madic looking for Matt's remains randomly and working
Speaker 1: out theories, working on theories looking for Matt's remains, And
Speaker 1: that's how they were spending the ten years since the
Speaker 1: time Matt disappeared. So that's the type of type of impact.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, Mark and Favor are good friends of mine
Speaker 2: and they are some of my favorite people in the world.
Speaker 2: And on a personal note, I want to thank you
Speaker 2: for what you did for them because I know how
Speaker 2: much they hold you in the highest esteem because they
Speaker 2: couldn't have got through this without you.
Speaker 1: That's nice of you to say, And they look they're
Speaker 1: close friends. They're like family to me now. But again,
Speaker 1: inspirational people because it's not just what they did to
Speaker 1: the resolve Matt's situation, it's the amount of people that
Speaker 1: have helped. Quite often, when someone's in a bind and
Speaker 1: they need some advice, so I phine Mark and Fay
Speaker 1: and say, hey, could you speak to this person, because
Speaker 1: I think they're a wealth of knowledge how to take
Speaker 1: on the system pushing pushing.
Speaker 2: And what we were talking about before about how different
Speaker 2: people cope with different things. Mark and say could have
Speaker 2: broken apart. Instead they became glued together. And Mark didn't
Speaker 2: break down. He broke down obviously when they found Mattie,
Speaker 2: but he became angry and he's still angry, and that
Speaker 2: anger fuels his campaign and has ultimately been so helpful
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 1: Well, I haven't been the end of Mark's anger. But
Speaker 1: I've been on the anger and of anger sometimes and
Speaker 1: that was quite scary. And she'll she'll laugh laugh at that,
Speaker 1: but understandable. It's the emotions. And I keep talking about
Speaker 1: the emotions because I want people involved in anything that
Speaker 1: leads to the resolution of someone having disappeared to understand
Speaker 1: the impact. And I think we lose sight of the impact.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you another story, and I think I've spoken
Speaker 1: about it publicly, and I'm sure that they wouldn't mind.
Speaker 1: With William Tyrell, when William Tyrell disappeared his foster parents,
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot said about that. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to buy into the whole story there. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about an aspect of that investigation. When I took over
Speaker 1: the investigation, I was speaking to his foster parents and
Speaker 1: obviously they had William's room set up at home and
Speaker 1: they said to me, and I can't even remember at
Speaker 1: what stage of the investigation this was. I was on
Speaker 1: it for four years, so it was during the period
Speaker 1: i'd say in the first year or two. They've asked me,
Speaker 1: as the officer in charge, Yeah, in an emotional conversation,
Speaker 1: when do you think we should pack William's room up,
Speaker 1: and that, to me, it just sort of typified what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with here, is Yeah, at what point, at
Speaker 1: what point do you say we're never going to see
Speaker 1: this young young boy again? Do we pack his room
Speaker 1: up like that? It just broke my heart when they
Speaker 1: asked that question. I thought, geez, that really brings it
Speaker 1: home what the emotion is when someone disappears.
Speaker 2: No answers, absolutely, yeah, William's case. I'm asked about it
Speaker 2: all the time. I assume you are, and I never
Speaker 2: talk about it. I talk about it in their general terms.
Speaker 2: The loss of a child is obviously the worst thing
Speaker 2: that can happen to anyone. And I think even even
Speaker 2: when I was on Sunrise a couple of years ago
Speaker 2: and they asked me out of the blue about to William,
Speaker 2: who has never been in any of my books. I've
Speaker 2: never written about Willim, but I always think back to
Speaker 2: the very first day that I knew that he had
Speaker 2: gone missing, and I actually got a phone call from
Speaker 2: someone who was on the scene, so I got his
Speaker 2: information out there really quickly, and like everyone else, we
Speaker 2: just thought, okay, little boys wandered off wearing a bright
Speaker 2: red suit. We'll find him really quickly, and if we
Speaker 2: stripped back everything that's happened since then, and if I
Speaker 2: go back to that very first day, it was the
Speaker 2: very first information I got. So the first words that
Speaker 2: were out of the mouth of the person that was
Speaker 2: on scene who called me said, it's a really nice
Speaker 2: family and they are absolutely frantic. And that is the
Speaker 2: one thing that has kept in my brain since twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: that they were absolutely frantic, and that feeling never goes away.
Speaker 2: It never goes away. And as you said, when do
Speaker 2: you stop feeling frantic? When do you stop that feeling
Speaker 2: of We've all as parents, we've all turned around at
Speaker 2: a theme park and you thought that you're seven year
Speaker 2: old was right behind you, and suddenly they've.
Speaker 3: Been distracted and wounded off, and.
Speaker 2: That panic and that panic feeling can last for years.
Speaker 2: With the family of a missing person, you can be
Speaker 2: missing child.
Speaker 1: It's frightening. And I think any adult that has control
Speaker 1: of young children have experienced that moment of panic when
Speaker 1: you turn around and the child's not where you thought
Speaker 1: they would be, and the urgency of what needs to
Speaker 1: be done right from the start. So when we talk
Speaker 1: missing people now, a lot of missing people are found
Speaker 1: and I wanted to bunk and we'll debunk this one
Speaker 1: straight up and we might touch on it again. That
Speaker 1: the amount of people that say to me, you can't
Speaker 1: report someone missing in the first twenty four hours, and
Speaker 1: just can we hit people out of the head with
Speaker 1: the fact that yes you can. And if anyone walks
Speaker 1: into a police station and the police officer tells you
Speaker 1: we can't take a report until the person's been missing
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours, just say bullshit, Yeah, yep, it's circumstances. Manager, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: take their name and say thank you very much. Who's
Speaker 1: your supervisor. I'd like to speak to the supervisor, because
Speaker 1: it's circumstances that dictate whether how something should be be
Speaker 1: followed up. Have you with all the hundreds of people
Speaker 1: that you've spoken to that have been involved in reporting
Speaker 1: matters to the police, is that something that often comes
Speaker 1: up that people aren't taking the report or not just
Speaker 1: police not taking the report, people thinking they can't report
Speaker 1: the disappearance all the.
Speaker 2: Time, and people still say, oh, you know, this is
Speaker 2: what's happened. My roommate didn't come home, I can't get
Speaker 2: hold of brother. What should I do? Go to the
Speaker 2: police now? Oh, isn't it a bit early? Should we
Speaker 2: wait a bit longer. I don't want to a lot
Speaker 2: of people say I don't want to get them into trouble,
Speaker 2: like there's no trouble. You know, Oh, he'll be angry
Speaker 2: with me if I go to the police. So you
Speaker 2: know what if something's happened. And I remember with the
Speaker 2: Carla McBride case, they were trying to report her as
Speaker 2: a missing person.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that if you could.
Speaker 2: It was New South Wales round Newcastle. Carla McBride was
Speaker 2: a young woman who disappeared, just didn't come home. Was
Speaker 2: supposed to meet someone, a young Indigenous woman, and they
Speaker 2: tried to report her as missing. And the police said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, she's well known to us, so the sort
Speaker 2: of person she is, she'll turn up. It'll be fine.
Speaker 2: And they came to me and said what do I do?
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I'm putting and sometimes I will
Speaker 2: very cheekily put the information out there in as a
Speaker 2: means of putting the pressure on the least to take
Speaker 2: the report. So I'm like, okay, if you've seen this person,
Speaker 2: I want you to call this particular police station because
Speaker 2: then they'll be forced to take the report if they
Speaker 2: start getting phone calls about it. So they came to
Speaker 2: me and said, you know what do we do. I
Speaker 2: really think something's happened to her. And so I called
Speaker 2: the police and I said you need to take this report.
Speaker 2: And they went, oh, you know this, you as you'll
Speaker 2: turn up And I said, you need to take this report.
Speaker 2: And it ended up being one of the biggest tumicide
Speaker 2: cases that they had had she had been murdered. They
Speaker 2: should have acted sooner on that particular case. And I
Speaker 2: still have all of that information and it still upsets
Speaker 2: me that you have to insist and put aside prejudices
Speaker 2: as well. Just because someone has a criminal history, sometimes
Speaker 2: because they have a history of disappearing, that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you can't take every single report seriously and treat it
Speaker 2: on its own merits.
Speaker 1: That's right, you need to look at each case in
Speaker 1: the usually. But you talk about taking the reports. One
Speaker 1: thing in homicide that the advantage we had if there
Speaker 1: was a homicide and the body was found straight away,
Speaker 1: that's a huge advantage because we're straight onto it. We're
Speaker 1: onto all the inquiries that need to be done. Where
Speaker 1: information can be lost when someone disappears and it's reported
Speaker 1: to the police, and then we find no inquiries have
Speaker 1: been done about the disappearance, and then you know, it
Speaker 1: might be a month or so later that the body
Speaker 1: turns up. We're playing catch up, catch up. That could
Speaker 1: have been We could have been on top of it
Speaker 1: right from the start, and that's where mistakes are made.
Speaker 1: Give we talk missing persons, Give us a sense of
Speaker 1: what constitutes a missing person in your mind. Give some
Speaker 1: examples of different types of situations where it's quite appropriate
Speaker 1: for someone to be reported as a missing missing person.
Speaker 2: I have quite a broad speed victrum of what a
Speaker 2: missing person is, and often feel that I need to
Speaker 2: correct others about it. Who comes to me and say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, that's not really a missing person. I think
Speaker 2: it applies to anyone, even people who are lost at
Speaker 2: sea whose body is almost certainly never going to be recovered,
Speaker 2: and that as an aside, sometimes happens. Sometimes you'll get
Speaker 2: a bone washed up. I was reading the story about
Speaker 2: Martin Tan this week, who the coroner has just declared
Speaker 2: that he went missing in the ocean in Perth. One
Speaker 2: of his dreadlocks washed up later on a beach. But
Speaker 2: he's still a missing person, even though we're probably never
Speaker 2: going to find him. He will remain missing until we
Speaker 2: find some of his body. And that applies to all
Speaker 2: missing persons. So someone who to me a missing person
Speaker 2: is someone who disappears unexpectedly, who is not where they
Speaker 2: are meant to be, who does come home from work,
Speaker 2: who was last seen in this particular location, and then
Speaker 2: suddenly it's not there anymore. You can't contact them, No
Speaker 2: one in the entire family can contact them. It differs
Speaker 2: from someone that you've just lost contact with, who might
Speaker 2: sort of have moved on and done something different with
Speaker 2: their life. A missing person disappears unexpectedly, and if you
Speaker 2: have concerns about their welfare, that's a missing person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, because I think that's another thing to consider.
Speaker 1: But it's a circumstances. And if someone we have people
Speaker 1: reporting a missing person when they haven't turned up for work. Now,
Speaker 1: people might say, well, you just see a work colleague,
Speaker 1: how can you report? But if that person diligently turns
Speaker 1: up to work every day and then stops turning up
Speaker 1: to work, well yeah, there can be concerns.
Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely, and it should be enough for a
Speaker 2: welfare check. It should be enough for police to just
Speaker 2: go and knock on the door and go, OK, we've
Speaker 2: had concerns.
Speaker 1: You go the welfare check. I honestly think sometimes you
Speaker 1: can create more work for yourself not doing the most
Speaker 1: obvious thing, you know, if someone's disappeared, like, don't fob
Speaker 1: the person off coming into the police station. Just take
Speaker 1: the report and make some initial inquiries, and I think
Speaker 1: in the long run that's going to serve better statistic statistically. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is I got it. We're talking the other day,
Speaker 1: but I think this was from the AFP website. About
Speaker 1: fifty thousand missing persons reports are received by police in
Speaker 1: Australia every year, with half of those reports relating to
Speaker 1: people age between thirteen and seventeen. So is that you've
Speaker 1: been in this field for twenty years or two decades?
Speaker 1: Fifty thousand that seems to be fairly fairly consistent.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, yep, for sure. I'm actually surprised that the
Speaker 2: number isn't higher. I thought it was around fifty six thousand,
Speaker 2: so two thousand makes me feel a little bit better.
Speaker 2: But as I said, the long term missing numbers are
Speaker 2: very high, and I think I'm seeing a trend. As
Speaker 2: you said that half of those are young people, and
Speaker 2: I'm seeing a trend of those average ages of the
Speaker 2: teenage runaways dropping dramatically, So I've regularly got eleven year
Speaker 2: olds going missing, which is horrifying to me, absolutely horrifying.
Speaker 1: That's concerning now. Statistically, most people reported missing are located
Speaker 1: within a short period of time, So would that would
Speaker 1: be fair? I'm looking at some of the other things here.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that before that a long term missing person
Speaker 1: is considered missing for more than three months. How do
Speaker 1: you think they've come to that sort of timeframe. What's
Speaker 1: your take on that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. That kind of used to be
Speaker 2: the criteria in my head because I've got the website
Speaker 2: and I've got the Facebook page, So people who are
Speaker 2: missing immediately go on to the Facebook page. Once they've
Speaker 2: been missing a long time, I'll move them to the website,
Speaker 2: which is a more permanent spot for them so that
Speaker 2: we can continue to make appeals for them, but perhaps
Speaker 2: not on a daily basis, but sometimes I will move
Speaker 2: them over sooner than that if I think the circumstances
Speaker 2: are that, I don't think this person is going to
Speaker 2: be found, So yeah, three months I think is just
Speaker 2: a number that they've picked, as in, okay, it's probably
Speaker 2: definitely going to be a long term missing person.
Speaker 1: If it's three, well it's not someone that's gone for
Speaker 1: the two week holiday or someone that's yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And if there's a physical search for a missing person,
Speaker 2: generally they're going to find that person within a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks.
Speaker 1: They talk on the website here about the many reasons
Speaker 1: people go missing, including mental illness, miscommunication, misadventure, domestic violence,
Speaker 1: been the victim of crime. So that's abroad. But that's
Speaker 1: pretty well sort of covers it. That covers the type
Speaker 1: of things.
Speaker 2: I think so most I think the general public thinks
Speaker 2: that victims of crime is the number one reason, and
Speaker 2: it's not.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing that you look at. Initially, if
Speaker 1: someone disappears, you think the worst, but often it doesn't
Speaker 1: turn out. I'm hardened here by the fact that they
Speaker 1: point out you do not have to wait twenty four
Speaker 1: hours to report someone missing. We'll say that one more time.
Speaker 1: You do not have to wait twenty four hours to
Speaker 1: report someone missing.
Speaker 3: Minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lot, isn't it When you break it
Speaker 1: down that many people and tell me, and we touched
Speaker 1: on it earlier, But just tell me about the type
Speaker 1: of impact on families. Pick some cases you've talked about
Speaker 1: where people have their lives have been changed forever because
Speaker 1: of someone having disappeared.
Speaker 2: I work in dementia care, so I work in secure
Speaker 2: unit in a nursing home. So I think I do
Speaker 2: a pretty good job of keeping my people safe and
Speaker 2: imagine if one of my people were to go missing. However,
Speaker 2: I did have one who went missing, and I know
Speaker 2: that his family won't mind me telling this story because
Speaker 2: they told it at his funeral that I went to
Speaker 2: on Monday. A beautiful man, a farmer who just loved
Speaker 2: being out in the fields and loved his dogs and
Speaker 2: loved his horses, and strong as a knox, but in
Speaker 2: a nursing home with dementia, and he smashed his way
Speaker 2: through the back gate with his wheelly walker, smashed the
Speaker 2: padlock off the back gate and managed to get all
Speaker 2: the way down across the New England Highway and got
Speaker 2: himself down.
Speaker 3: To the pub.
Speaker 2: That's where I that's where I rescued him from, was
Speaker 2: the pub and got him back to the nursing home.
Speaker 2: But that's an example of a case where you know,
Speaker 2: don't wait an hour to report them as a missing person.
Speaker 2: If you can't find them in ten minutes, you call
Speaker 2: the pies.
Speaker 1: In those service immediately. Circumstances and like a dementia patient
Speaker 1: or a young child that's at that critical time, that
Speaker 1: early time that if you can't can't find the child
Speaker 1: or someone like you've just described, yeah, let's get get
Speaker 1: people onto it straight away.
Speaker 2: So, yes, Ray Speachley. The impact that it hasn't had
Speaker 2: on his family, his wife is she told me straight out,
Speaker 2: she's refusing to die until his remains are found. So
Speaker 2: she's a very stoic woman, very pragmatic woman, but she's
Speaker 2: devoted to him. She can tell you to the minute
Speaker 2: how long they've been married. That's coming up to sixty
Speaker 2: eight years this year that they've been married. And she
Speaker 2: is just so determined that to find out before she goes.
Speaker 2: And their daughter has organized over thirty searches for her father.
Speaker 2: So when the official police searchers finished and they said
Speaker 2: there's no nothing more we can do. It's the terrain
Speaker 2: is too rugged, she said, right, well then I'm going
Speaker 2: to do it. And so she has then spent she
Speaker 2: was down there this week tramping through the bush looking
Speaker 2: for her dad's body. I can't imagine doing that, but
Speaker 2: she's done it more than thirty times because she feels
Speaker 2: this need to. She feels the families feel a helplessness
Speaker 2: because they and that's the thing that they say to
Speaker 2: me all the time is what should I be doing?
Speaker 2: What more can I do? Should I be walking the
Speaker 2: streets and sticking posters on lamp posts? Should I What
Speaker 2: can I physically do? And so she says, well, what
Speaker 2: I can physically do is go out there with a
Speaker 2: machete and cut my way through the bush and try
Speaker 2: and figure out which direction he went in and maybe
Speaker 2: find his body.
Speaker 3: That's all she wants thirty times.
Speaker 1: That's the sad thing, isn't it Because my take on it,
Speaker 1: it's like they're almost letting down the person that's disappeared
Speaker 1: if they don't do everything they possibly possibly can.
Speaker 3: The survivor guilt yep.
Speaker 1: And you talk about these people, it just gives me
Speaker 1: flashbacks of different cases like Ian Draper. He disappeared and
Speaker 1: his mum, a beautiful, beautiful lady, just wanted answers, and
Speaker 1: that was tied up in a major murder investigation. I
Speaker 1: was involved in it, and we couldn't give the answers.
Speaker 1: It was certainly suspicious in the circumstances in which he disappeared.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a criminal. His closest association with criminal aspect
Speaker 1: was he was a witness of a murder trial and
Speaker 1: he finished work at a club and that was the
Speaker 1: last time he was seeing and his car was found
Speaker 1: the band and out the front of an outlaw motorcycle
Speaker 1: gang's clubhouse that had been wiped down, and a lot
Speaker 1: of suspicion attached. But we've never been able to bring
Speaker 1: answers for and Draper's family, and there's stories like that.
Speaker 1: I just remember how much pain that they carry just
Speaker 1: wanting to find out what's happened exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's a frustration and it's a guilt. Tony Farrington
Speaker 2: has enormous guilt because he couldn't protect his little sister,
Speaker 2: and a lot of them think, well, how can I
Speaker 2: go on with my life? How can I have happy moments?
Speaker 2: Lauren Whitehead's daughter felt guilty that she got married without
Speaker 2: her mum being there. She felt like she should have
Speaker 2: delayed the wedding until she was found. But you can't
Speaker 2: do that forever. And as you said, sometimes they keep
Speaker 2: the rooms exactly the same.
Speaker 3: They refuse to move.
Speaker 1: House because they might might I've seen that, because they
Speaker 1: might come home. Like how sad is that?
Speaker 2: I know exactly, Kay Dockerty's brother bought the family home
Speaker 2: just so he would stay there, just in case k came.
Speaker 1: Home one day, leaving the light on for them to
Speaker 1: come home.
Speaker 3: Leaving the light on.
Speaker 1: That's it, the Australian Missing Persons Register. Now you set
Speaker 1: that up. How long ago? Why twenty one years ago?
Speaker 1: How quickly time flies? What got you interested in this aspect?
Speaker 1: And tell us what the aim of the register is
Speaker 1: all about.
Speaker 2: I think it's it was I'm asked this question a lot,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I never answer it adequately.
Speaker 1: I think it's okay, well, you're not going to get
Speaker 1: away that here, We're going to get right down to it.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay. I think it's just my nature. I think
Speaker 2: I'm a curious person and I'm interested in human nature
Speaker 2: as you are. You are interested in the mind of
Speaker 2: a killer. I am interested in the mind of those
Speaker 2: killers who might take a missing person, and in the
Speaker 2: minds of a missing person who voluntarily goes missing. It
Speaker 2: was the curiosity factor of what happens to a person
Speaker 2: and what is the story? And so I grew up
Speaker 2: reading mystery books, and then I would sneak in and
Speaker 2: get my mum's true crime books. And I read the
Speaker 2: book about the Truro murders by Amry Makita, who was
Speaker 2: the mother of one of the victims, and I felt
Speaker 2: compelled to write to her because I was just so
Speaker 2: sad about what had happened to her daughter, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to say that let her know that her story
Speaker 2: had touched me. I was around I was teenagers, about
Speaker 2: the same age as Amory's daughter Juliet when she was
Speaker 2: murdered by the true serial killer. And then Amory wrote
Speaker 2: back and we corresponded a few times, and that really
Speaker 2: touched me because I thought, oh, and she got some
Speaker 2: comfort from hearing that from me, And I think that
Speaker 2: kind of just spurred me on to have that It
Speaker 2: wasn't just a morbid curiosity or a fascination. It was
Speaker 2: I really cared about these people. And then in two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, I watched a documentary about missing persons
Speaker 2: that mentioned that there was no national database for missing persons.
Speaker 3: And that was the time when.
Speaker 2: The Internet was just starting and not many people had
Speaker 2: it in their homes, but it was obvious that the
Speaker 2: Internet was going to take over the world, and so
Speaker 2: I sort of went looking on the internet for information
Speaker 2: about missing persons and there wasn't any. And I had,
Speaker 2: by that stage built up quite a large library of
Speaker 2: true crime books and there was a lot of information
Speaker 2: about Australia missing persons in those books. So I would
Speaker 2: literally photo copy the photos from the books and then
Speaker 2: scan them in an old scanner and then upload them
Speaker 2: to a website. And I taught myself how to make
Speaker 2: a website and thought, well, there needs to be a
Speaker 2: resource for people. How do people know that these people
Speaker 2: are still missing if there's nothing available? So I thought
Speaker 2: I would just create that, and so that's how it
Speaker 2: really started. It was just a collection of information for
Speaker 2: people to access as a resource. And then one day
Speaker 2: the mother of a missing young man contacted me and said,
Speaker 2: can I add my son to your website? He's been
Speaker 2: missing a couple of weeks. And I was so taken
Speaker 2: aback by that. It was like, Oh, this is a
Speaker 2: real person, this is a family. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to do this, and I think I asked my mum,
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know what to say to these people.
Speaker 2: And she said, just be yourself, just you know, you
Speaker 2: don't need to be a professional, because you're not a professional.
Speaker 2: Just just talk to her. And so I added this
Speaker 2: young man photo to the website and the basic information
Speaker 2: that she had given me. And then he was found
Speaker 2: not long after and he had taken his own life,
Speaker 2: and I was absolutely shattered. I was how can I
Speaker 2: talk to this woman now? How is this? I can't
Speaker 2: do this, this is crazy. And then I did and
Speaker 2: she was just so her overwhelming emotion was gratitude, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe that, you know, you've just lost your son.
Speaker 2: And she was just like, yeah, but you helped me.
Speaker 2: You were there and you put his photo up, and
Speaker 2: you tried to help me. Thank you, thank you. And
Speaker 2: that blew me away, like wow, okay, And so I thought, well, okay,
Speaker 2: maybe then I can help other people. So I sort
Speaker 2: of said, well, if you have a missing person, put
Speaker 2: my email address on there. And then that's really where
Speaker 2: it started. And then later when Facebook was invented, that
Speaker 2: became a way of getting the information out very quickly
Speaker 2: to a lot of people, so missing person's information could
Speaker 2: be disseminated within minutes of it being uploaded, and then
Speaker 2: very gradually law enforcement grew to understand that I wasn't
Speaker 2: some crazy woman to get notoriety, and they would then
Speaker 2: start to refer people. So people would go into a
Speaker 2: police station report their person missing and say what do
Speaker 2: I do now, and they would say, okay, here's Nicole's information.
Speaker 2: Go and talk to her and she will get the
Speaker 2: information out for you. So it's sort of snowballed really
Speaker 2: over the years without me realizing it.
Speaker 1: The register, so it's sort of grown organically.
Speaker 2: Then, yeah, it really did. I didn't end up you know, sorry.
Speaker 2: I didn't start thinking this is what I want to achieve.
Speaker 2: It just sort of what do people need me to do,
Speaker 2: and I'll do that. So it became I'm not a
Speaker 2: trained psychologist. I do have some mental health qualifications, but
Speaker 2: I'm not a psychologist, and I'm not going to sit
Speaker 2: down and say this is how I help you get
Speaker 2: through this. It's more tell me what you need me
Speaker 2: to do, and I can refer you to psychologists. You know,
Speaker 2: New South Wales Missing Persons has a section. They've got
Speaker 2: a psychologist on staff who specifically deal with missing persons
Speaker 2: so I can refer them to that I can help
Speaker 2: them through the coronial process, which I understand fairly well now,
Speaker 2: and so it's.
Speaker 1: Practical and it's ongoing. So if I if I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: my brother has disappeared, haven't haven't seen him for months,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. I've reported to the police.
Speaker 1: I've said, well he's an adult, we'll take the report,
Speaker 1: but there's not a lot we can do. I reach
Speaker 1: out to you, and what sort of advice do you
Speaker 1: provide me or what sort of assistance can the register help?
Speaker 2: I would say, I don't feel that you can't ask
Speaker 2: the police for updates because I think sometimes people feel
Speaker 2: that they feel a bit intimidated by the police and
Speaker 2: they feel like they're bothering them. But as you say,
Speaker 2: adult males are sort of the lowest priority for police
Speaker 2: to investigate, which is very frustrating to me. And the
Speaker 2: reality is that most people don't just take off for
Speaker 2: months and stop contacting him, single person in their lives.
Speaker 2: How are they existing if that's what they've done. So
Speaker 2: I say, keep pushing and if you have concerns, then
Speaker 2: keep on it. Sometimes there's a physical search that they
Speaker 2: can do more and more families are doing that themselves.
Speaker 2: And just this week there was another search for Patrick
Speaker 2: leider Key in northern New South Wales and they found
Speaker 2: his wallet. After over a year of him being missing,
Speaker 2: they've just suddenly found his wallet. So these community searchers
Speaker 2: can be extremely valuable if you have some idea of
Speaker 2: the area that they've gone missing in. But it's Sally
Speaker 2: laid and said to me the other day, it's the
Speaker 2: squeaky wheel syndrome. If you keep on at them, they
Speaker 2: will listen to you and respond more. And so it's
Speaker 2: a difficult conversation to have if I say to a family,
Speaker 2: just be annoying and ring them and keep on at them,
Speaker 2: because that's when they will say, okay, this we really
Speaker 2: need to do something here because this family is frantic.
Speaker 1: Well, Sally's quite right. We had her on the podcast
Speaker 1: and mother Marion Barta that disappeared and again she just
Speaker 1: had to keep pushing and pushing. So if someone comes in,
Speaker 1: the advice that the Australian Missing Person's Register could provide
Speaker 1: is advice as to what your rights are, what you
Speaker 1: can do. And I'm glad that you say that. You
Speaker 1: tell people and it seems like a simple thing. But
Speaker 1: I've seen it time and time again, and it's not
Speaker 1: the criticism of police. It's just this barrier that members
Speaker 1: of the public, and quite often people that are dealing
Speaker 1: with missing persons, have never had dealings with police, save
Speaker 1: a parking final something like that, so they think they
Speaker 1: haven't got the right to go into the police station
Speaker 1: and say I want answers. Can you tell me what's
Speaker 1: going on with the investigation, So that simple bit of
Speaker 1: advice is good. What about just on the red so
Speaker 1: people know about it if someone provides further information. Is
Speaker 1: there any linkage that is done through the register if
Speaker 1: someone disappears?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if I will absolutely. I have a
Speaker 2: good working relationship with the National Person's misinc Coordination Center,
Speaker 2: so I talk to them all the time and pass
Speaker 2: on bits of information and they can update me with
Speaker 2: bits of information, which is really good. I ask a
Speaker 2: family for as many photos as possible, because people can
Speaker 2: look vastly different if they've changed their appearance. If they're
Speaker 2: still out there and they've changed their appearance, so as
Speaker 2: many photos as possible. I was just thinking about a
Speaker 2: case that I was dealing with last night of a
Speaker 2: woman and I ask an awful lot of questions of people.
Speaker 2: Possibly I don't know if the police ask as many
Speaker 2: questions as I do, but I need to know everything.
Speaker 2: And so we were talking about she her partner went
Speaker 2: missing from Tasmania and was last heard from in Victoria,
Speaker 2: and so I would I just asked her a lot
Speaker 2: of questions. How did he get there? Was it the
Speaker 2: spirit of Tasmania? Did he fly and then ended up?
Speaker 2: The police found his car in a near a lookout,
Speaker 2: So the police are assuming that he has taken his
Speaker 2: own life. She doesn't think that. And so I've said,
Speaker 2: just through asking all of these questions, I said, okay,
Speaker 2: so where did he rent the car from? And she said, no,
Speaker 2: he bought the car And I said, he bought a
Speaker 2: car and then jumped off a cliff. Is that what
Speaker 2: you're telling me? So immediately that's hang on a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 2: perhaps the police have this wrong. Who buys a car
Speaker 2: and spends all that money?
Speaker 1: And then there's a subtle difference to renting a car
Speaker 1: and buying a.
Speaker 2: Car, and yeah, exactly, if you're not intending to continue
Speaker 2: your life, why are you going out and buying a car.
Speaker 2: So by asking all of those questions, I get a
Speaker 2: lot more information and then can and every tiny little
Speaker 2: bit of information. Sometimes you hear something and go, oh,
Speaker 2: hang on a minute, radio, now that changes everything. You
Speaker 2: said that they were heading to in this direction, but
Speaker 2: you know they didn't like to drive, so they've actually
Speaker 2: taken public transport, and so radio, then I need to
Speaker 2: focus who was and send out a message and saying,
Speaker 2: was anyone on this particular train station on this date?
Speaker 3: You might have seen this.
Speaker 1: Person with law enforcement agencies and you know it's a
Speaker 1: national register. Are you having a lot of success dealing
Speaker 1: with law enforcement agencies? Are you've been around for a
Speaker 1: long time. Are they seeing you as a something a
Speaker 1: useful tool that can complement what they're doing they do?
Speaker 2: Now, I think it's and I don't like to speak
Speaker 2: in general terms about police because I can't just say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: the police are supportive of what I do, and some
Speaker 2: aunts some I just think it's ridiculous. You know, leave
Speaker 2: the policing to us, and that's fine. But I think
Speaker 2: after doing it for so long, they now get they
Speaker 2: understand what I do, and that's why I think now
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 3: A good relationship with them.
Speaker 2: But back then it was like, why do you want
Speaker 2: this there was There have been amazing police officers over
Speaker 2: the years who have really embraced it and worked with me,
Speaker 2: and because there and sometimes I had There was one
Speaker 2: woman who was actually the subject of an age enhanced
Speaker 2: image who went missing in Western Australia and her boyfriend
Speaker 2: started messaging me saying some weird sort of things like
Speaker 2: or you know, her parents really still looking for her,
Speaker 2: and I would and I just kind of thought something's
Speaker 2: going on here, and so I engaged with him at
Speaker 2: the same time called the police and said something's happening here,
Speaker 2: and they said, all right, keep talking to him. And
Speaker 2: it turned out he was with her. She had been
Speaker 2: missing for years and he was with her at that time,
Speaker 2: and he was trying to figure out if he could
Speaker 2: trust me because he felt like she should make herself known,
Speaker 2: but she didn't want to. So it was very subtile.
Speaker 2: And so I worked with the police over all of
Speaker 2: this time and got her home. So that was an
Speaker 2: incredible result. And that was an example of working directly
Speaker 2: with the police. So the police could have said, leave
Speaker 2: it to us, this is not this has nothing to
Speaker 2: do with you, don't be ridiculous. But the fact is
Speaker 2: that he trusted me and built up that trust with me,
Speaker 2: and I was then able to get her home by
Speaker 2: working in conjunction with police. That doesn't always happen, but
Speaker 2: that was a really great example of them trusting that
Speaker 2: I wasn't some lunatic.
Speaker 1: Well, I think police are becoming more open minded to
Speaker 1: the fact that they've got the work. We've all outside
Speaker 1: agencies or outside groups to get the proper result. Very
Speaker 1: much was the case going back decades and way before
Speaker 1: that that nothing to see here, don't worry about the
Speaker 1: police have this in hand. But the world has changed.
Speaker 1: The world has changed, and social media has changed. Before
Speaker 1: police could control the narrative with the traditional media about
Speaker 1: what information goes out and what information they hang on to.
Speaker 1: But the world has changed, and I think police, and
Speaker 1: this is my sense, I'm looking from the outside now,
Speaker 1: our learning are coming to terms of the fact that
Speaker 1: society has evolved, and they've got to evolve with society
Speaker 1: and use whatever tools can bring the right results to
Speaker 1: an investigation or an inquiry.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: I think it has been a long period of trust though,
Speaker 2: and I think they and I've never tried to sort
Speaker 2: of say, oh, yes, I'm investigating this case. That's not me.
Speaker 2: It's not my job. I'm not trained to do that.
Speaker 2: I just want to help.
Speaker 1: Well in defense of the police, and having been involved
Speaker 1: in the police, the amount of people that reach out
Speaker 1: some wacky ideas and I'm just thinking some of the examples. Now,
Speaker 1: if I told people, they just wouldn't believe it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it usually starts if I get an email or text
Speaker 1: or communication in any way that starts off with I
Speaker 1: had a dream, and usually that's morning that they are in.
Speaker 1: I don't write me off as being mad, but I yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so I would imagine you would get in undated with
Speaker 1: that type of type of stuff.
Speaker 2: Please please tell the police that they're they're in a
Speaker 2: shed in a field in a town that starts with
Speaker 2: w oh okay, absolutely fine. I had one woman who
Speaker 2: said I gave a police information that they were somewhere
Speaker 2: on a beat in between Sydney and.
Speaker 1: Woollongong narrows it there and.
Speaker 2: They haven't acted on my information. Really, okay, they have.
Speaker 2: That's terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the other thing, in fairness that the police
Speaker 1: have got to deal with. And you know, we get
Speaker 1: pictures of the missing person out but I referenced say,
Speaker 1: the William Turole case. That's when I was leading the investigation.
Speaker 1: There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds I think, and
Speaker 1: I'm going back now, but over five hundred reported sightings
Speaker 1: of Wim and possibly a lot more. It got to
Speaker 1: the point where it became ludicrous. Three or four years
Speaker 1: after William had disappeared, someone would report that they saw
Speaker 1: a child in a Spider Man suit. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was it must be William because he's wearing a Spider
Speaker 1: Man suit. So that that can become problematic. But there's
Speaker 1: ways of dealing with it. You can sift through the information.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a lot going on there. There has
Speaker 1: been a lot of criticism of policing in the way
Speaker 1: that they deal with missing persons, and that's come out
Speaker 1: in coronial inquests and parliamentary inquiries, and again not attacking individuals,
Speaker 1: but some of the things that have been identified as
Speaker 1: systemic failings in the way police have handled missing persons
Speaker 1: investigations include delayed initial responses, inadequate evidence collection, poor communication
Speaker 1: with families, which I see in your book seems to
Speaker 1: come out time and time again, and systemic under resourcing.
Speaker 1: So again not blaming the individual but we just don't
Speaker 1: have the police in numbers. But breaking down those areas
Speaker 1: that I've identified or just mentioned there, we're talking delayed
Speaker 1: initial responses. What's your take on that.
Speaker 2: I was reading a coroner's report this week, and again
Speaker 2: it was an adult, and I think that's the They
Speaker 2: just kind of go, oh, yeah, okay, we'll write down
Speaker 2: the details, but we won't do anything about it, which
Speaker 2: is really frustrating, and I think that they kind of
Speaker 2: have in their head, Oh, we'll give it a couple
Speaker 2: of days and if he comes back, then we won't
Speaker 2: need to have done anything about this report. Otherwise we'll
Speaker 2: look into it later. And by that stage, you CEECTV
Speaker 2: has been wiped and your taxi driver doesn't remember who
Speaker 2: he picked up four days before or last week. And
Speaker 2: so that delayed initial response can be catastrophic because people
Speaker 2: forget things and you've not got that. As you said
Speaker 2: that those the evidence you're playing catch up when you
Speaker 2: realize you do need to do something and that person
Speaker 2: is still missing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, inadequate evidence collection. Well we're touching on that. Then
Speaker 1: that quite often happens when it's not the necessary steps
Speaker 1: that needed to be taken weren't taken. And I should
Speaker 1: clarify here we're talking about the negative side of things
Speaker 1: for a flip side of it, because and you've identified
Speaker 1: some police investigations have been spot on right from the
Speaker 1: start the moment someone's reported missing, they've done what needs
Speaker 1: to be done. Poor communication with families. I go on
Speaker 1: about that a lot when I'm talking policing aspects in
Speaker 1: the simplest thing, and I get contacted a lot with people,
Speaker 1: even though I'm out of the police, talking about issues
Speaker 1: they have with police, and invariably it comes down to
Speaker 1: poor communication and not that they don't understand what they're saying.
Speaker 1: That's basically they're not passing on information that if they
Speaker 1: had passed that information on it would put the family's
Speaker 1: mind to these or just updated on what they're doing.
Speaker 1: What's your take on that, Well, just.
Speaker 2: This week I had a family of a long term
Speaker 2: missing person say we'd really like to speak to whoever
Speaker 2: has the file currently because they haven't heard from police
Speaker 2: in years. And that's pretty typical. And so I went
Speaker 2: to the Federal Police and said, could could you ask
Speaker 2: whoever has the file give this family a call? And
Speaker 2: they said, okay, what's his phone number? I said, right, okay,
Speaker 2: here is the phone number. Why don't you have that?
Speaker 2: And why don't New Southo's police have that? And if
Speaker 2: you had found her, how are you going to call
Speaker 2: him and say that you had found her? Why don't
Speaker 2: you have the contact details for these families. It doesn't
Speaker 2: make a lot of sense to me. And it's the
Speaker 2: communication is so vital because the families feel, they literally
Speaker 2: feel that they have been forgotten, and in many cases
Speaker 2: they have been forgotten. If there's if the case hasn't
Speaker 2: progressed at all, just a little bit of communication between
Speaker 2: police and families, even once a year. I'm the speechlea
Speaker 2: case that I mentioned before, there was a police officer
Speaker 2: who would call every year and say, I haven't got
Speaker 2: any information, but I just needed to tell you that
Speaker 2: I haven't forgotten him.
Speaker 1: It's appreciated this. Yeah, that's the difference. That type of
Speaker 1: communication can make the systemic under resourcing. I know just
Speaker 1: from my time, and I can only speak in regards
Speaker 1: to New South Wales Police, but the Missing Persons unit
Speaker 1: needed an overhaul. And that's a kind way of saying
Speaker 1: that there were things that weren't being done that needed
Speaker 1: to be done. I've been away from it for years now.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I got the sense that was
Speaker 1: being linked more closely with the homicide unit, working with
Speaker 1: the homicide unit, and I think they learned from their mistakes. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because these are historic matters, some of the mistakes are
Speaker 1: still carrying through to today. But I get the sense
Speaker 1: that they're starting to understand the importance of treating missing
Speaker 1: persons properly. There's a parliamentary inquiry running at the moment
Speaker 1: in New South Wales, Parliamentary Inquiry about Missing persons and
Speaker 1: on the mid North Coast of New South Wales. Your
Speaker 1: observation of things, do you think we are getting better
Speaker 1: at it? Do you think we're starting to understand the
Speaker 1: importance of We're chipping away and starting to realize, okay,
Speaker 1: we need to take these cases more seriously to start with.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: And something that has come out of the parliamentary inquiry
Speaker 2: that has astonished me is that suddenly there's hundreds of
Speaker 2: new cases that have appeared on the National Missing Persons
Speaker 2: Coordination Center website. So all of these cases, I don't
Speaker 2: know where they've been all these years. I guess in
Speaker 2: a dusty file somewhere and suddenly they've said, Okay, we
Speaker 2: need to be thorough about this inquiry, and so we're
Speaker 2: going to pull all of these cases out and make
Speaker 2: sure that everyone is aware that these people are still missing.
Speaker 2: So I've added so many people to the register just
Speaker 2: in the last couple of months, which is really good.
Speaker 2: My concern is if the inquiry is going to focus
Speaker 2: on is not going to take each case individually. I
Speaker 2: think that's my only concern because there's for every missing person,
Speaker 2: there's a different reason why they've gone missing, and I
Speaker 2: think we need to you know, this woman has been
Speaker 2: killed by her husband, this woman was taken by a
Speaker 2: serial killer. This woman wandered off into the bush and
Speaker 2: was lost, so we can't. It concerns me if they're
Speaker 2: being lumped together and not looked at individually, because I
Speaker 2: think that's really important.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the key word is looked at. That's
Speaker 1: how they may need to be assessed, and there needs
Speaker 1: to be a triage of a system going through that
Speaker 1: they Okay, this one needs attention, This one is an
Speaker 1: area of concern. We need to focus our resources there.
Speaker 1: From my learning through policing the importance of starting something
Speaker 1: off properly, it always leads or nine times out of
Speaker 1: ten leads to a successful result in the end, if
Speaker 1: it's done properly from the start. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: when we're talking missing persons, you've got i know, in
Speaker 1: the unidentified remains, Like if someone's missing and let's say
Speaker 1: it has to wait, that might be fair enough to
Speaker 1: wait for the three months till they become a long
Speaker 1: term missing person if the circumstances don't dictate it being
Speaker 1: put at the higher level straight away DNA from family members,
Speaker 1: so if remains are found, as simple as that that
Speaker 1: they can check who belongs to the remains and potentially
Speaker 1: put family's minds to these, like if they're finding out
Speaker 1: what's happened to their loved one.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: There's a case that I've written about in the book though,
Speaker 2: where the family provided DNA and police lost it, and
Speaker 2: so they provided DNA again, and then the police came
Speaker 2: back to this family a third time and said, oh,
Speaker 2: we need to take DNA and the missing woman's brother said,
Speaker 2: you've got it twice. Why and they said, oh, because
Speaker 2: it's gone missing again and they said, then I'm not
Speaker 2: doing it, and which you can understand you'd think, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, you have to do it because what if
Speaker 2: they find a body? But you can understand their frustration
Speaker 2: and their lack of trust in the police if that
Speaker 2: isn't being followed through. So it's there are protocols and
Speaker 2: checklists that need to that need to happen, but they
Speaker 2: also need to be taking precious care of this evidence.
Speaker 2: And Jan Speechley said the same thing about her husband.
Speaker 2: She had to for some weird reason, she had to
Speaker 2: approach Camberra Hospital herself and say I would like the
Speaker 2: hospital medical samples of my husband's DNA so that I
Speaker 2: can give this to the police. Why aren't the police
Speaker 2: doing that? Why did Jan have to go to the
Speaker 2: hospital and say I need my husband's DNA. That's crazy
Speaker 2: to me that there are certain things, the protocols that
Speaker 2: police need to follow to minimize the distress to the family.
Speaker 1: I think if we put the protocols in place and
Speaker 1: the operating procedures, that takes away and you've touched on it,
Speaker 1: and I know it's you'll have some dedicated, good police
Speaker 1: and you'll have some that drop the ball more times
Speaker 1: than not. But if you've got the protocols in place,
Speaker 1: the system in place that prevents it because sometimes it's
Speaker 1: a lottery. You walk into the police station. That depends
Speaker 1: which police officers standing at the counter of what dictates
Speaker 1: the response you're going to get from the complaint. But
Speaker 1: the way to overcome that and ensure a good quality
Speaker 1: is putting systems, systems in place. And look again, watching
Speaker 1: from the outside, I get the sense that they're waking
Speaker 1: up to the situation that we've got to make sure
Speaker 1: that we do things properly, and I hope they are
Speaker 1: because it's for everyone's benefits. How about we take a
Speaker 1: break now. When we come back, we'll talk about some
Speaker 1: of the many cases that you've dealt with over the
Speaker 1: years and the cons you've had with the families. We'll
Speaker 1: look at ways of improving it and just breaking down again,
Speaker 1: just digging into missing persons, what constitutes it, how we
Speaker 1: should approach it, and a whole other range of things.
Speaker 1: So let's take a break and we'll be back shortly.
Speaker 1: Wonderful cheers,