Speaker 1: Appogie Production. Welcome back everyone. I'm sitting here with Joanie
Speaker 1: here in Brisbane. Hello yet again, I'm back episode three
Speaker 1: and we just getting now Mojo, aren't we? Joy Like?
Speaker 1: This is not natural about this episode by telling you
Speaker 1: all about a story and share with you why words
Speaker 1: are important and what your words say can impact somebody else.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of this happened to me through
Speaker 1: the journey. My brother took his own life, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think the catalyst for him doing that was the
Speaker 1: police telling us that they'd located my mother and she
Speaker 1: didn't want anything to do with us, essentially, and that
Speaker 1: was proven at the inquest to be incorrect. No one
Speaker 1: actually has ever sighted my mum or spoken to her
Speaker 1: identified her. So not so long after Mum went missing,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine engage with a psychic who had
Speaker 1: done a very accurate reading for her sister in law.
Speaker 1: Her parents had been in a car accident in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: and this psychic was able to tell her exactly what
Speaker 1: happened and sadly her dad passed away in that accident.
Speaker 1: And my friend was telling me about this and how
Speaker 1: accurate this woman was, and I said, do you think
Speaker 1: that she would help me do a reading, or we're desperate.
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm like, I don't know what's happened.
Speaker 1: I feel. It was around two thousand and four, so
Speaker 1: mom had been missing for about seven years. Anyway, she
Speaker 1: went and asked her if she would talk to me,
Speaker 1: and she said, look, I don't do it. It's not
Speaker 1: what I do. It's just something that I have in me.
Speaker 1: But I'm happy to write her a letter about what
Speaker 1: I feel and what I see. And so she wrote
Speaker 1: to me a letter and she told me that my
Speaker 1: mum was alive and living in Mare. Now. Mare is
Speaker 1: situated about six hours northwest of Byron Bay, New South Wales,
Speaker 1: so I knew about the Byron Bay connection at that point.
Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, we're talking in the same versifity.
Speaker 1: We're not talking Western Australia or Tasmania. We're all in
Speaker 1: that same pocket, which seems to be the case with
Speaker 1: my mum's situation. So she wrote that my mom's house
Speaker 1: was situated on the low side of the road, just
Speaker 1: outside town and there's a dip in the road. She
Speaker 1: wrote that my mum would sit and drink cups of
Speaker 1: tea whilst watching the mist roll over the fields. One
Speaker 1: of my mom's favorite movies was Wuthering Heights. And if
Speaker 1: my brother I'm not pretty Cliff so low, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have thought of it. It would agree to me to
Speaker 1: marry Heathcliffe now. So I imagine my mom's sitting there,
Speaker 1: drinking her cups of tea as she did, and a
Speaker 1: pretty little teacup waiting for her Heathcliff. The lady warned
Speaker 1: me in the letter not to try and look for
Speaker 1: her and said it would be detrimental to my children.
Speaker 1: That's very hard to hear, and I was more confused
Speaker 1: than comforted and told the police what she had told me.
Speaker 1: That's when the nightmare started. A reoccurring dream I had
Speaker 1: on repeat for years where Chris and I drove to Maurie.
Speaker 1: We found a house just outside of town where there
Speaker 1: was a dip in the road and it had a big,
Speaker 1: long concrete footpath that went up to the front door.
Speaker 1: And in the dream, I have Darcy on my hip
Speaker 1: as a baby, and I'm holding Ella's hand, who is three.
Speaker 1: Chris is waiting in the car. He's got the window down.
Speaker 1: As I'm walking up to the door, I knock on
Speaker 1: the door and my mum opens the door and she
Speaker 1: closes the door in my face, doesn't say anything, and
Speaker 1: I turn around and I walk back up to Cree
Speaker 1: and she opens the door and she shoots me into
Speaker 1: that while I'm holding my children. So to me, that
Speaker 1: was the detriment for me finding my mum, detriment to
Speaker 1: my children, and that haunted me for years. I could
Speaker 1: not get that dream out of my head. I even
Speaker 1: rang more a police and said, this is what I've
Speaker 1: been told, and he goes, oh, well, there is a
Speaker 1: dip in the road outside of town, so I've never
Speaker 1: driven there. I cannot bring myself to do that, probably
Speaker 1: because I'm dramatized by the dream that im on to repeat.
Speaker 1: But these are problems that you have, and this is
Speaker 1: sort of part of your subconscious self trying to process
Speaker 1: and work out what does that mean exactly and what
Speaker 1: are you supposed to do with that information. So while
Speaker 1: I appreciate people trying to help and give you the information,
Speaker 1: that whole looking for her and having consequence was really
Speaker 1: hard for me. Like that was a very hard thing
Speaker 1: for me because I took it pretty literally, like, you know,
Speaker 1: something might happen if I go digging and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you even not so long ago, I was worried about
Speaker 1: walking out of my front of my house. Yes, and
Speaker 1: you know that because I was panicking at some page.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what could happen here, like I'm
Speaker 1: poking the bear and it's left for me. And when
Speaker 1: I mentioned it to the detective on the case, she
Speaker 1: turned around and said to me, oh, well, don't worry,
Speaker 1: we've got people here. And I went, not close and
Speaker 1: not out the front of my house. You don't. So
Speaker 1: there were times when I have been quite worried about myself.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure there are other people in my same circumstances,
Speaker 1: because let's face it, if someone's gone missing and there's
Speaker 1: no answer, there's usually probably something that's gone wrong, and
Speaker 1: you know who knows, Like I won't name them, but
Speaker 1: there's plenty of cases that I know that are happening
Speaker 1: even right now, where you might not want to poke
Speaker 1: the bear. I have a fear. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: kept thinking that someone might just shoot me, Like I
Speaker 1: will just walk down my stairs and someone will shoot
Speaker 1: me to shut me up. And that's pretty horrifying, to
Speaker 1: be honest, And I'm scared even telling you that, because
Speaker 1: I don't really want to put that into the universe.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, I'm the daughter trying
Speaker 1: to find my mum. I'm not trying to bring problems
Speaker 1: to other people or cause issues for others. But if
Speaker 1: someone's done something wrong, who's fighting for mom, who's fighting
Speaker 1: for her? She has no voice, She's not here to
Speaker 1: tell us what happened. And unfortunately that means I have
Speaker 1: to suck it up and be brave and actually go
Speaker 1: and do the things that terrify me. That includes doing podcasts,
Speaker 1: you know, and talking about it openly and honestly, and
Speaker 1: having everyone judge and jury what's happened and how why
Speaker 1: I'm here and what I'm doing, so I'll never forget.
Speaker 2: When I listened to one of the episodes of The
Speaker 2: Lady Vanishes and I heard Finnan Ramichal, who was the
Speaker 2: real Ramichal, not the one in Australia that took his identity.
Speaker 2: So I'm sitting there, I'm listening to this episode and
Speaker 2: I'm hearing this man with a very thick Luxembourgish accent,
Speaker 2: French accent, German accent saying.
Speaker 1: Give me Sally Leiden, give me Sally Leiden's address. Where
Speaker 1: does Sally Leiden live, Give me the name of details
Speaker 1: of give me her phone number.
Speaker 2: Give me her address. On repeat, he kept on repeating
Speaker 2: that constantly.
Speaker 3: I want to contact Shellie Leighton. Give me the address
Speaker 3: of Shellie Leiden, address and email and all you have
Speaker 3: and telephone number.
Speaker 2: So even way back then, I felt that that was
Speaker 2: again a bit of a moment.
Speaker 1: I found that quite confronting, and I did Allison had
Speaker 1: rung him and didn't know that that was happening. So
Speaker 1: when everyone else is listening to it for the first time,
Speaker 1: I was listening to it for the first time as well.
Speaker 1: So at the Sydney show, Chris and Adele from Search
Speaker 1: Shog Sydney came along. They're in the uniform and so
Speaker 1: people knew who they were, and I think at that
Speaker 1: point they also met a lovely lady named Mindy and
Speaker 1: she's now working on the Deer Rechelle podcast. So there's
Speaker 1: lots of connectors through this space when people come together
Speaker 1: and help each other. And I was talking to them
Speaker 1: about a situation where a phone call had been made
Speaker 1: to crime stoppers very very early on, and this is
Speaker 1: way before any media or anybody really knew about my
Speaker 1: mum's case and a guy had rung. What he actually
Speaker 1: says in the report is that a woman by the
Speaker 1: name of Marion who went missing from northern New South
Speaker 1: Wales is buried near the bike track on Niagara Street
Speaker 1: in Armadale. And when I read the report that was
Speaker 1: in the brief of evidence, I was quite disturbed by
Speaker 1: the fact that the first initial officers from Armidale didn't
Speaker 1: do a search. They just went and did a door
Speaker 1: knock on an address which was noted which will keep confidential,
Speaker 1: and they spoke to a gentleman who had been named
Speaker 1: as the person and an interesting name. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like an abbreviation if I can sort of use not
Speaker 1: the real name that we've got because I want to
Speaker 1: keep that identity private for the person. But let's say
Speaker 1: Daniel and someone calling him Danny, right, so that kind
Speaker 1: of scenario. Anyway, they went to the house and spoke
Speaker 1: to this man. He's like, well, he has a home
Speaker 1: line that has restrictions on it so he can't ring out,
Speaker 1: but he can only receive calls, so it couldn't have
Speaker 1: possibly been him who made the one eight hundred call
Speaker 1: to crime Stoppers and they sort of just took that
Speaker 1: and went Okay, then no problem, and I think the
Speaker 1: notation says, oh, well, there was nothing really to follow
Speaker 1: up on, so no further action required at that point.
Speaker 1: And they linked it to my mum because my mum's
Speaker 1: name was Marian and she was no one to be
Speaker 1: missing from northern New South Wales. But that was about
Speaker 1: the end of it. And then when Gary Sheen took over,
Speaker 1: he actually did another pull up of that and said
Speaker 1: to me, I've found this in the file. I've asked
Speaker 1: my commander if I can go out and do a
Speaker 1: search with a Cadava dog. And this is where it
Speaker 1: gets a bit messy, because he told me that he
Speaker 1: went out for a day and it rained and they
Speaker 1: found nothing. And then when Channel seven interviewed him, he
Speaker 1: said they'd gone out for two days and had ses
Speaker 1: helping them, and then in another report says it was
Speaker 1: out for three days. So I'm like, okay, well, was
Speaker 1: it one day, two days or three days that you
Speaker 1: went searching? It was very unclear to me, and so
Speaker 1: I think that was probably the drive for me to go.
Speaker 1: If my mum's body is there, I want to go
Speaker 1: and investigate it myself. So that sort of probed me
Speaker 1: into the idea of if I could make that happen,
Speaker 1: that would be amazing. And when I was talking to
Speaker 1: Chris and Adell about it, they were doing a search
Speaker 1: for another woman in Queensland because they're based in Sydney,
Speaker 1: and being that this was in Armadale, they were suggesting
Speaker 1: that maybe they could stop on the way home on
Speaker 1: their way back and we could do a dog search there.
Speaker 1: So that's how that whole thing sort of started. And
Speaker 1: I asked Journey again if you would come with me,
Speaker 1: and she said yes, of course. So you know, that
Speaker 1: was something that we were doing in the background. Nobody knew, who,
Speaker 1: had no media following us. We just did it in
Speaker 1: our own time, and I was trying to process it,
Speaker 1: and Chris Darcy actually turned around and said to me,
Speaker 1: he goes, family don't usually do this. Now. This is
Speaker 1: not normal that you are here looking for your mother's body.
Speaker 1: This is not normal, And I said, well, I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm a normal person, but especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to this. But I just for myself, I needed to
Speaker 1: do it to know that I can put it to
Speaker 1: rest and know we've done the job properly. Well, I
Speaker 1: just racked up at my local shopping center where there's
Speaker 1: a kmart. I'm going to go in and see if
Speaker 1: I can purchase a high viz vest for me and
Speaker 1: one for Chris. As tomorrow morning at four am, will
Speaker 1: be making our way down to Armadale to do a
Speaker 1: search with search dog Sydney, and Joanie is joining us
Speaker 1: as well, so she's just about to jump on a
Speaker 1: flight heading up to Newcastle where she'll stay the night,
Speaker 1: and then she's going to drive from Newcastle up to
Speaker 1: Armadale and meet us there in the morning. I know
Speaker 1: Chris and Adele and the team with their dogs have
Speaker 1: been out there already today and pop the drone up
Speaker 1: to get lots of images and map out where we're
Speaker 1: going to be searching tomorrow and the next day. Mix
Speaker 1: of emotions as I start this next part of the
Speaker 1: journey to find my mum and see if that crime
Speaker 1: stop is call that came in to the Armadale area
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight has any legs and so
Speaker 1: began a crazy journey. So for me and Chris, it's
Speaker 1: about a six hour drive and we were trying to
Speaker 1: aim to be in Armadale by about ten o'clock being realistic,
Speaker 1: so I think we were up very early, around quarter
Speaker 1: to four in the morning. Chris is just filling up
Speaker 1: the car withst and petrol as we make our way
Speaker 1: down to Armadale. I can tell by the bags onto
Speaker 1: my eyes. I have not slept at all last night,
Speaker 1: and I woke up at about twenty past three. I
Speaker 1: had a really bad vertigo and I was very wobbly.
Speaker 1: Had to hold on it's everything while I went to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I'm feeling quite nauseous right now, actually don't
Speaker 1: feel very well. I'm not sure I feel like driving
Speaker 1: for the next six hours. But anyway, we'll see how
Speaker 1: we go and try and have a sleep here. Hopefully
Speaker 1: the nausea goes away. So we just stopped to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. When I got into the bathroom, there
Speaker 1: was a young girl in the toilet who had just
Speaker 1: come out. There was another lady who was bending over
Speaker 1: the toilet when I walked in there. Anyway, I've gone
Speaker 1: in closed to my cubicle door and I've tried to
Speaker 1: push the toilet rob containing back up into the wall
Speaker 1: and it made quite a loud bang, and this woman
Speaker 1: started having a go at This young girl and started
Speaker 1: saying I've got a I've got a gun. I've got
Speaker 1: a gun that's in the car. The police think I'm
Speaker 1: going to shoot somebody. My heart does not need this
Speaker 1: sort of thing in the middle the morning as I'm
Speaker 1: on my way to Armadale. That was a moment in itself.
Speaker 1: I've thought I was going to have a heart attack,
Speaker 1: but anyway, I survived once again. And you know, we
Speaker 1: saw the sunrise come up and we were just on
Speaker 1: a mission to find mum. And I don't know, it
Speaker 1: was a weird feeling as I approached it, but I
Speaker 1: sort of just seemed to remove myself from the reality
Speaker 1: of what I'm actually doing and just put my cap
Speaker 1: on and go on a search mission. I'm not the daughter.
Speaker 1: I'm just on a search mission to find the answers.
Speaker 1: And we were a little bit late. It took us
Speaker 1: a bit longer to get there than we thought.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, I'm flying from Victoria up to Newcastle and
Speaker 2: then I'm staying overnight and then hiring a car to
Speaker 2: get from Newcastle to Armadale. Well, here I am at
Speaker 2: the airport, ready to jump on the long term parking
Speaker 2: bus and.
Speaker 1: Head in to fly to Newcastle once I forward was
Speaker 1: closed while phones must be switched off the flight road
Speaker 1: and laptops stored away inside the bags take off the landing.
Speaker 1: We can assist you with anything. Don't hesitate to her.
Speaker 1: Let's get a quiet of us.
Speaker 4: Wanted a lot of minutes and should be touching the
Speaker 4: ten and.
Speaker 2: So traveling through all of I think it was a
Speaker 2: three and a half hour drive, I think, so that
Speaker 2: was organized very quickly.
Speaker 1: So that was, yeah, basically a flight, a flight.
Speaker 2: For me and overnight stay and then traveling up just
Speaker 2: because we wanted to be together to do it.
Speaker 1: And so Joni, you know, coming and helping me every
Speaker 1: time is you know, more flights, more car higher and
Speaker 1: for us as well, like we have the expense of
Speaker 1: driving there, and yeah, Jodah, we've got a big room
Speaker 1: this time, and n bumped in with Chris and I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep in the same bed, you know, I'm share
Speaker 1: her home room. But doing it together and then taking
Speaker 1: people out for dinners and saying thank you for being
Speaker 1: so grateful for their efforts, because people are doing it
Speaker 1: all based on their donations as well, you know, that's
Speaker 1: how they run their business is on donations. Something I've
Speaker 1: always asked you this, but you should tell people like
Speaker 1: why are you doing this? Why are you helping?
Speaker 5: Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Well, basically, I'm just an extremely determined person who does
Speaker 2: things until the end. That is all I can honestly say.
Speaker 2: So when my mother in law came to me, her
Speaker 2: grandmother went missing, as you know, so we spent fifteen
Speaker 2: years of our lives getting from point A to point
Speaker 2: Z where we did locate her. So finding her and
Speaker 2: getting to the end of it is that's just what
Speaker 2: I'm like.
Speaker 1: I'm like a dog with a bone.
Speaker 2: I don't leave things until they're actually wrapped up or
Speaker 2: and we've spoken about this many times, if you need
Speaker 2: to wrap this up, or if you need to do
Speaker 2: other things and then come back to it. So I
Speaker 2: guess that is my motivation, as you know, like I
Speaker 2: enjoy gathering facts information together. I love going through things,
Speaker 2: and I love pulling everything in and working it out simple.
Speaker 1: I think I remember you saying to me once, because
Speaker 1: I've asked you this quite a few times, and you
Speaker 1: said to me that most bizarre thing ever, you kind
Speaker 1: of felt a bit responsible because you found the ad
Speaker 1: in the period. That is true.
Speaker 2: So basically, and this is why people query me often,
Speaker 2: you know, what are you doing this for? So basically
Speaker 2: I was a podcast listener. I was listening around, I
Speaker 2: was listening to everything. I enjoyed it. It was like
Speaker 2: my hobby, like a lot of other people are. But
Speaker 2: when I was sitting there that night having a little
Speaker 2: search around in all my little databases and that that
Speaker 2: I had learned how to do because of searching for
Speaker 2: Chris's great grandmother, that ad popped up, and I knew
Speaker 2: at that point in time my life was just going
Speaker 2: to change.
Speaker 1: I knew it straightaway. That was the golden ticket. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So basically I thought to myself at that point, Okay,
Speaker 2: your podcast, if there was no actual outcome as such,
Speaker 2: like there was no way forward, your episodes would have
Speaker 2: been done in however many you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we were saying there was probably seven episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so unless we find something and we found it, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you found it.
Speaker 2: So therefore I feel as though, Okay, I've basically thrown
Speaker 2: this big bomb into your life. So therefore I feel
Speaker 2: as though I need to as much as possible actually
Speaker 2: see this through to the end.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm still here. And I think from my
Speaker 1: point of view too, Like you've given so much to
Speaker 1: me and the case that I feel like I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring you on this journey with me to see
Speaker 1: it through, because in my world, it would be pretty
Speaker 1: horrible to sit there and go, well, you've done all
Speaker 1: of this, you've found all of these things for you
Speaker 1: later I'm out. So for me, I know that finding
Speaker 1: an answer and getting to the end as best we
Speaker 1: can is really important for you too. You know, we've
Speaker 1: been friends for six years now, so yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we've learnt a lot about each other and I know
Speaker 1: who you are as a person and I'm really grateful
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. Your husband, who's super supportive,
Speaker 1: you know, and who is a bit like my Chris Prier.
Speaker 2: And look, it's not something that I ever visage like
Speaker 2: I know at times we'll talk on the phone. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're two states away from each other, and it is
Speaker 2: quite bizarre, like when you actually think about it, a
Speaker 2: lot of my friends have focused in my local area.
Speaker 2: I'm in a rural area. But for some reason we've
Speaker 2: just come together and we're on a mission. So it's
Speaker 2: no more complicated than that.
Speaker 6: Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm very grateful that you're here still. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean if we talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: happened in the dog search. Right when we arrived, Jonie
Speaker 1: and Adele were already doing a scale of one area
Speaker 1: and Chris Darcy greeted myself and my Chris and we
Speaker 1: spent the day in Armadale.
Speaker 6: We finally made it. Are you going, jeez, Louise, counce.
Speaker 1: The dogs there?
Speaker 7: The dogs are just coming around the bend.
Speaker 1: Okay, so is this the actual bike track here?
Speaker 4: That's why have the bike tracks?
Speaker 1: Okay, the second five.
Speaker 5: Track before searching.
Speaker 1: I wonder where exactly they noted about the entire area
Speaker 1: with the drone yesterdays giving the dog's nose and sped
Speaker 1: to do their job very good. You know, we had
Speaker 1: a lot of people onlookers walking up and down the
Speaker 1: street looking at us as what are you guys doing?
Speaker 1: Why are you here? And we were getting a bit panicky,
Speaker 1: like especially when the drones went up, because Chris had
Speaker 1: actually got approval from the airstrip to put the drones
Speaker 1: up so that they could do mapping. So they actually
Speaker 1: put the drones up and map out a whole area.
Speaker 1: And then the dogs actually have these little GPS collars
Speaker 1: and they're different colors for each dog, and then they
Speaker 1: can see exactly where the other dogs have walked. So
Speaker 1: it's quite a phenomenal system that they've got going on,
Speaker 1: and you know, it just made me feel better being there.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to go there and see it, but
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it by myself. So it's
Speaker 1: very interesting with the cadaver dogs because they're obviously smelling
Speaker 1: a scent, they're following their noses. Where at the Training
Speaker 1: Academy of Search Dogs, a volunteer organization that teaches dogs
Speaker 1: and handlers to find missing people.
Speaker 4: We've been called into quite a few missing person searches,
Speaker 4: both live and deceased. However, most of our work at
Speaker 4: the moment is for human remains detection of the long
Speaker 4: term missing.
Speaker 1: We were walking along their joney and on the other
Speaker 1: side of the bridge, Chris and Rufus heading to the
Speaker 1: other side of the bridge because remembering too, it's difficult
Speaker 1: to work out when someone says the left, but you
Speaker 1: can see here too, like it's quite denseer. There's obviously
Speaker 1: being water that's come over the bridge, and I'm guessing
Speaker 1: these I think it's got the measurement here for when
Speaker 1: it floods.
Speaker 6: And they've actually got like a closed.
Speaker 1: Gate on either side of this causeway here, so obviously
Speaker 1: does flood. So when you look at that street, there's
Speaker 1: actually one of those flood zone poles. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: instant I looked at that and I thought, that's a
Speaker 1: flood zone like that floods. If they've got that sign there,
Speaker 1: that's telling us that this is an area that definitely floods.
Speaker 1: And I was walking and I stood and looked over
Speaker 1: and just had a moment by myself in that space
Speaker 1: and looked at the reeds below me, and I could
Speaker 1: see the water and the reeds were all bent over,
Speaker 1: and in my heart, I was like, if her body
Speaker 1: was here, it's probably been washed away. If they've dumped
Speaker 1: dead body in the water, it's potentially been washed away,
Speaker 1: And how will we ever find her if that's the case.
Speaker 1: So I sort of had this moment once again. You know,
Speaker 1: we letterbox drive dropping. I've got Sonya's cards that she
Speaker 1: made Eko, you know who spent all this money making
Speaker 1: these beautiful glossy, double sided hard cardboard brochure. I just
Speaker 1: went and put them in all the mailboxes, thinking if
Speaker 1: someone saw anything it would be helpful to know. We've
Speaker 1: got like a little blurb on the back, and there's
Speaker 1: a QR code on here as well, so people can
Speaker 1: actually scan that and find out what's happening. And I'm
Speaker 1: just getting easy in people's mailboxes just to bring some
Speaker 1: awareness to the local community that my mummy is a
Speaker 1: missing person. We are getting a lot of attension, so
Speaker 1: a little weird feeling, but hopefully, you never know, people
Speaker 1: might actually start talking a little bit. It's not a
Speaker 1: very a huge town, so these guys don't look like
Speaker 1: they get much because there's cobwebs, they're mailbox you know.
Speaker 1: One of the things I really wanted to do, which
Speaker 1: sort of stems back to that dream that I kept having,
Speaker 1: was something I've thought about for a long time because
Speaker 1: I had another cleavoyant tell me, actually too Clevelance tell
Speaker 1: me them they could see my mum was buried under floorboards,
Speaker 1: and so the drama of that in itself is quite
Speaker 1: hard to fathom with because you think that she's been
Speaker 1: murdered and someone's done something to her, right, and that
Speaker 1: was very early on, when I'm still trying to grapple
Speaker 1: with the police telling me she's alive and well and
Speaker 1: doesn't want anything to do with me, and just me
Speaker 1: knowing something was not right. Later in that day, we
Speaker 1: made the brave decision to walk up to the house
Speaker 1: that we knew to be the point of.
Speaker 2: Entry stiff you like, So just where the alleged crime
Speaker 2: Stoppers caller came from was the house that we actually visited.
Speaker 2: We'd spied it a few times during the day, hadn't
Speaker 2: we Like, we were kind of as we're doing a
Speaker 2: little bit stopping, we're kind of looking around. We've done
Speaker 2: as much work as we can on who's currently living
Speaker 2: there now to sort of know what we're going to
Speaker 2: be facing.
Speaker 1: And once again I was in that position of going,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to go and knock on these
Speaker 1: people's door if they have no idea of what this
Speaker 1: is about or have anything to do with it, and
Speaker 1: upset them and make them feel like something's happened and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But we didn't enter the premises. The lady was actually
Speaker 1: already in the garden.
Speaker 5: Hello, how are you? My name is a girl.
Speaker 1: I'm from Searchgog, Sydney. So what we do is we
Speaker 1: look for missing people.
Speaker 8: Sally here, her mother went missing back in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then Chris goes in and does the search,
Speaker 1: and as we're standing at the front, the granddaughter rocks
Speaker 1: up and she's like, Hi, what's happening, And so she
Speaker 1: sort of negotiates with us and says, oh yeap. Nana
Speaker 1: says it's fine. So I'm going to myself, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: this is potentially the house that has been nominated in
Speaker 1: the crime stoppers call. And I've always had a vision
Speaker 1: of that house in my head. I could actually see
Speaker 1: the house. Looked nothing like my vision, I want to say,
Speaker 1: but it was really vital. And I asked Chris if
Speaker 1: he could take Rufus the dog underneath the house and
Speaker 1: just to do a search, just so I could walk
Speaker 1: away from that space and go, I know that's been checked.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: We were just hoping maybe we could just let the
Speaker 1: dog come up and have a sniff around and see
Speaker 1: if there was any trace of her. There's half a
Speaker 1: million dollars up for grabs. If you found her.
Speaker 3: He'll learn a bit.
Speaker 1: Thank you for doing that, Ankaya never as you say.
Speaker 1: And the lady remembered the police coming and verified for
Speaker 1: us that her husband had passed away. The next time,
Speaker 1: they came, which is what we knew because what was
Speaker 1: in the report. So we had the right family, we
Speaker 1: had the right information, but we still are not confident
Speaker 1: today that they had the right person ad with somebody else.
Speaker 1: And that was a big day. I was exhausted, plus
Speaker 1: I had still was not feeling very well, and Adele
Speaker 1: actually had to do some work so she didn't come.
Speaker 1: But we took Chris out for dinner and we were
Speaker 1: sitting there and you had gotten alerk come through. So
Speaker 1: for those of you who don't know, Joni has got
Speaker 1: this really great thing which I'm sure other people know
Speaker 1: but I didn't know about it, which is a Google
Speaker 1: trendsearch and you can actually put in code words and
Speaker 1: it actually will bring up information for you. And she
Speaker 1: alerted me to the fact that a letter had been
Speaker 1: sent to the Attorney generally New South Wales from New
Speaker 1: South Wales Police an overview of what the coroner had
Speaker 1: said at the findings. So when you have a finding
Speaker 1: from the coroner, the police have six months to formally
Speaker 1: let the Attorney General know what has happened to your
Speaker 1: person and they literally take it right up literally the
Speaker 1: last minute. I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked to
Speaker 1: see that they had removed the words of the coroner
Speaker 1: on that document that went to the Attorney General's Office
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, it wasn't just mum. It was
Speaker 1: multiple cases, wasn't it. So the letters were basically exactly
Speaker 1: the same written. That was just almost and it was
Speaker 1: just you know, we did a review of the findings
Speaker 1: for that year, so the actual words that were removed
Speaker 1: from the letters was ongoing investigation, so it was monitoring
Speaker 1: and review only. So basically the coroner sends their findings
Speaker 1: recommendations to the New South Wales Police and the letters
Speaker 1: that are actually sent to the Attorney General removes the
Speaker 1: word investigate. We were sitting there eating and we're talking
Speaker 1: about it and you were like, oh my god, there's molden. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not just you. I didn't know that the New
Speaker 1: South Wales Police had sent anything to the Attorney General's Office,
Speaker 1: and then I was quite concerned because that language is
Speaker 1: very different. So the coroner is saying, and she says,
Speaker 1: at the end of her findings, I am leaving it
Speaker 1: with the New South Wales Homicide Investigation Team for ongoing investigation,
Speaker 1: review and update.
Speaker 4: I recommend that the new South Wales Commissioner of Police
Speaker 4: calls the investigation into the death of missing person Flora
Speaker 4: Bella Natalia at Marian Ramcol formerly known as Marion Barter
Speaker 4: to be referred to or to remain within the State
Speaker 4: Crime Command Unsolved Homicide Team for ongoing Investigation, review and monitoring.
Speaker 1: And then they took out the words ongoing investigation and
Speaker 1: then I remember hearing about it. We'll just do an
Speaker 1: update in a review. And here's the cracker. Guys, they
Speaker 1: don't have to update review for the first five years
Speaker 1: after an inquest. They don't have to tell me a thing.
Speaker 1: And because the case is open but inactive, unless any
Speaker 1: new information becomes available to them, and guess who gets
Speaker 1: the new information. We have to give it to them
Speaker 1: for them to do something unless it falls in their lap,
Speaker 1: they're not looking for it. So it puts us back
Speaker 1: in that position where you're back to the families haveting
Speaker 1: to go to, the media, haveting to do. You know
Speaker 1: what we do. Even my lawyer said to me at
Speaker 1: the end of the inquest, he goes, the media might
Speaker 1: be your best bet, Sally, and I'm like, I'm tired.
Speaker 1: I'm tired of having to go to the media, Like
Speaker 1: you know, I'm very grateful for it all, but it's
Speaker 1: exhausting and very stressful to have to put your whole
Speaker 1: life out in the world and have people you know
Speaker 1: trying to help you. That that can be it's as
Speaker 1: great as it is, it can be very hard and
Speaker 1: and very exhausting as well. Okay, So then the next
Speaker 1: morning we tried to get some sleep that night and
Speaker 1: we said goodbye to you because you went off on
Speaker 1: your merry way down it to new and Chris and
Speaker 1: I went with Adele and Chris followed them out to Inverrel.
Speaker 1: And the reason we went to Inverrel was because there
Speaker 1: had been during the podcast a gentleman had gone into
Speaker 1: a police station in Penrith, I believe, and said that
Speaker 1: he had coordinates of a location of where my mum's
Speaker 1: body was buried, and that happened to be in Inverrel.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've got connectors as well, don't We
Speaker 1: to Inverrel with people who live in in Verrel who
Speaker 1: we know had connections in Byron Bay, and we were
Speaker 1: just our brains were just going a million miles an hour.
Speaker 1: So what's interesting in this location is that there's a
Speaker 1: family connection with a lot of the same family who
Speaker 1: are also connected to dog food manufacturing in Byron Bay,
Speaker 1: and there's a connection there with the delivery driver for
Speaker 1: that dog food company who told everybody he was one
Speaker 1: of the owners of the company, but in fact he
Speaker 1: was just the driver and he has a connection.
Speaker 5: So he thought that was quite an odd coincidence that
Speaker 5: this popetive location is that as such, so at least.
Speaker 1: Doesn't look like a standard house. It actually looks like
Speaker 1: multiple small dwellings dwellings. The police have been here and
Speaker 1: spoken to them and they just had a look around.
Speaker 1: They didn't actually do a dog search or probing or
Speaker 1: anything like that, and he just said reported back that
Speaker 1: it didn't look like there was a grave.
Speaker 6: Fare, to which I went, well, that's really good looking.
Speaker 1: Thank you. If you're going to take all the gilatic
Speaker 1: come out here, I would have thought you would actually
Speaker 1: probably do a proper search of the area. In What
Speaker 1: year was that that was recent it came out here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like twenty twenty one, so we're looking at it's twenty
Speaker 1: two years.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Clandestin engraves do change considerably in that amount of time, and.
Speaker 1: It would be very difficult to recognize from an untrained
Speaker 1: why I always feel like it was the same with
Speaker 1: Finan Ramika. When we were driving to his house, I
Speaker 1: was saying to the team, you know, it got to
Speaker 1: be conscious that these people have forgotten nothing to do
Speaker 1: with my mum's disappearance at all when sort of coming
Speaker 1: into their space, and so just for knowledge, this is
Speaker 1: for location here. Yeah, hello, how are you snucky? How
Speaker 1: are you? That's good?
Speaker 8: My name's a Dalom from Search Dog City and we're
Speaker 8: currently in the area doing a search for a missing
Speaker 8: person and this is Sally and it's actually her mother
Speaker 8: that we're searching for.
Speaker 1: She said, no problem, just keep the dogs away from caddle,
Speaker 1: that's her main concern. I said, well, the cattle are
Speaker 1: actually down the front gate. We'll make sure we're and
Speaker 1: he's on the lead. Anyway. She said that the police
Speaker 1: had been twice. What didn't That's interesting, which is interesting
Speaker 1: because the dates she gave are like a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Yep was the last time, and they came a few
Speaker 1: years before that, So that's very interesting. Why were they
Speaker 1: coming twice and why were they coming before those coordinates
Speaker 1: were handed in before the cause If you couldn't give
Speaker 1: dates all right, she wished me well in my search.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's nice that people actually.
Speaker 8: Very accommodating the.
Speaker 1: This must be very weird for them, you know, to
Speaker 1: go why would there be coordinates on my property like
Speaker 1: that is a weird, weird situation.
Speaker 6: So set the noise of the camera taking photos from
Speaker 6: the drone.
Speaker 7: Yeah right, it's all right, all right, Well we'll just
Speaker 7: gone this snapping and have a look check it all out.
Speaker 1: So what I'll do is definition. So meanwhile I'm going south.
Speaker 2: So essentially the wonderful Ballan, a retiree, did a bit
Speaker 2: of a map of the family group of the man
Speaker 2: in Armadale whose house was supposedly connected to the crime
Speaker 2: stoppers call. So I then on my way back down,
Speaker 2: did actually meet up with the wife of another family
Speaker 2: met with a similar name, just to check as to
Speaker 2: whether she'd ever heard anything about this, whether there was
Speaker 2: any connection there, etc. And so I did that on
Speaker 2: the way down. There was no results, so she had
Speaker 2: no idea. There was no connection there. They were separated,
Speaker 2: so there was no alliances or anything like that. So
Speaker 2: then I just continued my way down, went through Cessnock,
Speaker 2: which is where mister Blum lived, and his family members
Speaker 2: lived for an extended period of time, so visited there,
Speaker 2: had to look at the house, knocked on the door,
Speaker 2: attempting to find the neighbor who signed the passport under
Speaker 2: his new name. He had passed away, so again we're
Speaker 2: just dealing with time. So none of the neighbors around
Speaker 2: that surrounding house knew anything about it because they were
Speaker 2: knew they had no idea and then just went in
Speaker 2: and had to look at the records in the cesnot
Speaker 2: library and no joy there.
Speaker 1: So down I went back down to new Castle. You
Speaker 1: were by yourself too.
Speaker 2: I was by myself, but I guess probably twenty years
Speaker 2: social work Cross's intervention. I've never ever been injured. I've
Speaker 2: always gotten myself out of sticky situations, so I wasn't
Speaker 2: really that concerned.
Speaker 1: Driving home, I was a very long day, way longer
Speaker 1: than I was sort of anticipating, because we'd gone out
Speaker 1: in Virel and then we had to go all the
Speaker 1: way back to Brisbane, you know, just to be able
Speaker 1: to reflect and be very grateful for the opportunity of
Speaker 1: the help that was given to us. And I ticked
Speaker 1: those boxes like we checked. There was no sign of
Speaker 1: my mum anywhere. And I think it's a very hard
Speaker 1: thing to sort of process in the world of the missing,
Speaker 1: because how devastating it is to think that you want
Speaker 1: to find your missing mother's bones in a lake or
Speaker 1: in a creek or in a cow paddock, but you
Speaker 1: desperately want to find them so that you can have
Speaker 1: peace and you can know that you've done everything you
Speaker 1: possibly can. And I think I've just said that for
Speaker 1: so long, like I'm only doing this so my kids
Speaker 1: don't have to you know, I'll do the best I
Speaker 1: absolutely can to get the answers. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: a bit of a box ticking exercise at this point too,
Speaker 1: where we're just going, right, we didn't needed to do that. Bang,
Speaker 1: let's ticket, let's go. We've done that. Move to the
Speaker 1: next thing, and I can put that at rest. I
Speaker 1: can go, Okay, we did it, We've done it. I'm satisfied.
Speaker 1: I've done it myself. I'm at a point I don't
Speaker 1: trust anybody anymore. There are people I do trust, obviously,
Speaker 1: company excluded, but I've been let down, I've been disappointed.
Speaker 1: I've been promised with no results, and that's very draining
Speaker 1: on a human body and a human soul because it
Speaker 1: depletes you of your energy, and so it is important
Speaker 1: that we go through these processes. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: mentally good for my health to do this, and I
Speaker 1: think my husband particularly and my eldest daughter, she sees
Speaker 1: that is important for me. She's like, right, I know
Speaker 1: you have to do this because it's important for you.
Speaker 1: So having the support of them is amazing as well.
Speaker 2: I think that because what I've noticed over the time
Speaker 2: is that one incident or one situation you might have
Speaker 2: heard two or three or four or five or six
Speaker 2: different versions of that. So therefore it's sort of taught you. Okay,
Speaker 2: if I don't do it myself, then.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to really know.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many times we've picked through things over,
Speaker 2: especially over the phone, pick through words, pick through sentences
Speaker 2: to find out, Okay, is this accurate? Is this actually true?
Speaker 2: Was that a typo? How many typos have we come across?
Speaker 1: Too many?
Speaker 2: So it's just spelling dais problems, errors, two different versions
Speaker 2: of events, and so therefore you sort of think to yourself, Okay,
Speaker 2: you I think over this whole period has come to
Speaker 2: a point where you're like, like, if I don't see
Speaker 2: it myself. If I don't do it myself, if I
Speaker 2: don't read it myself or confirm it directly with that person,
Speaker 2: then I'm not trusting that. That's why I think you
Speaker 2: have to be constantly doing things yourself and seeing things
Speaker 2: with your own eyes, which.
Speaker 1: And some people have referred and said, you know, you
Speaker 1: try to control the narrative. I'm like, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to control anything, but I'm trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: the information is correct, the information is true and fact checked,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, there's too many
Speaker 1: things that haven't been done and I'm left to pick
Speaker 1: up the pieces because some people just come in, drop
Speaker 1: a bomb and leave and then I'm left to deal
Speaker 1: with it. That's right.
Speaker 2: And also what we found too is one wrong move,
Speaker 2: so one wrong piece of information and you are going
Speaker 2: mentally down a whole nother track, and so it takes
Speaker 2: time to actually pull your own self back onto the
Speaker 2: truth of the matter. I think there's just so many
Speaker 2: different roads that you could go down with this, it's
Speaker 2: quite maddening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you've got to have fact Everyone talks about
Speaker 1: the rabbit holes that we've been down. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: plenty of them.
Speaker 2: In the next episode of The Missing Matter Well where
Speaker 2: this is a big episode because we're going to tell
Speaker 2: you why the why Joanie and I are continuing on
Speaker 2: this journey and what have we found that we have
Speaker 2: not told you yet.
Speaker 1: So before we go, I just like to give a
Speaker 1: shout out to Adele and to Chris Stacy from Search
Speaker 1: Dog Sydney. We couldn't have done that search without you, guys,
Speaker 1: and I'm really grateful for your energy, your professionalism, your enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: and your understanding of what it is to have to
Speaker 1: do such a task in looking for a missing loved one.
Speaker 1: You guys are second to none in this area, and
Speaker 1: I'm really grateful for all your efforts and your kind
Speaker 1: and giving me the opportunity to do something that I
Speaker 1: really needed to do, so I'm really grateful for that.
Speaker 1: We've actually popped the Search Struck Sydney link in our
Speaker 1: show notes, so if you'd like to pop along, go
Speaker 1: and check out their Facebook page. They do work off
Speaker 1: donations as well, so I'm sure any offering would be
Speaker 1: very much appreciated in this space. Thanks again, guys,