Speaker 1: Approche production.
Speaker 2: John Jasper Jensen was last seen on Sunday, the twenty
Speaker 2: fifth of June twenty seventeen by his daughters when they
Speaker 2: dropped him home at his house in Ocean Reef, Perth,
Speaker 2: Western Australia. The next day, he vanished into thin air.
Speaker 2: Has never been seen or heard of since it shattered
Speaker 2: a family apart and driven a massive wedge between two sisters.
Speaker 2: John had some medical conditions and suffered depression, but the
Speaker 2: doctor's report at the time of his disappearance said he
Speaker 2: seemed to be fine, quite chirpy. Head back to the
Speaker 2: first few episodes to hear more. Right now, we take
Speaker 2: you back to the moment that Belle arrived at a
Speaker 2: dad's house. The neighbor is out the front. It's eight
Speaker 2: thirty on Monday night. AD's garage door is wide open
Speaker 2: and there are no lights on. Darren Bell's husband is
Speaker 2: worried that there might be someone in the house. This
Speaker 2: was the same house but six years before Belle found
Speaker 2: her mum dead. Belle walks into the house and sees
Speaker 2: bloody footprints all over the floor.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I was panicking.
Speaker 3: I was I was shaking, and now I'm going to
Speaker 3: do this, and I'm trying to tell myself, I handle
Speaker 3: it better than last time. Bell, I'm so angry at
Speaker 3: myself for what I did with mom, and I was like,
Speaker 3: just handle this situation better.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I was. I was lucky that the neighbor
Speaker 1: was out the front.
Speaker 3: She was loving, you know, and obviously very caring and
Speaker 3: looking after him, and she was worried, you know.
Speaker 1: She was out the front looking stressed.
Speaker 3: And she met me there and I said, were you
Speaker 3: coming with me since I found my mom dead, you know,
Speaker 3: and she goes, of course, we're not.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful she did that.
Speaker 3: So I went and got the key because you get
Speaker 3: to keep spare key in the garage. Yeah, I went
Speaker 3: to use it to walk in the house, but the
Speaker 3: door was unlocked, and that was very unusual. That always
Speaker 3: kept his door locked. So I thought, well, hey, that's unusual.
Speaker 3: And second thing that unusual that there was no lights on.
Speaker 3: Yeah we're talking sort of eight forty probably around that time,
Speaker 3: and it was pitch black.
Speaker 1: I thought, what's going on here?
Speaker 3: Because even the neighbor would say, you always had that
Speaker 3: front light on. That's where you lived, that front land room,
Speaker 3: that's that's pretty much where he lived in his recliner
Speaker 3: and watching your TV. So anyway, Yeah, walked in and
Speaker 3: what looked like, initially this sounds odd, but sort of
Speaker 3: feathers scattered in the distance in the kitchen area. And
Speaker 3: I was like, what's going on over there? And I
Speaker 3: put the light on and then I just saw blood. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all these blood footprints pretty much. It was very in
Speaker 3: your face then, and there was there was quite a
Speaker 3: lot of blood, and I was like, what the hell
Speaker 3: has happened here? And I yelled out and and the
Speaker 3: neighbor yelled out, and I noticed it a small glass
Speaker 3: pane was broken. And at the time, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: my god, has the accidentally hurt himself. He's got in
Speaker 3: a hospital, he's got you know, what the hell has happened?
Speaker 3: I did not know million things from through your head,
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to make the same mistakes again.
Speaker 3: I just called my husband that I just had to.
Speaker 3: That was just the first thing I thought to do.
Speaker 3: And then he called the police. So yeah, we just waited.
Speaker 1: For them to arrive, and it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was really really bizarre, really really really bizarre.
Speaker 2: The garage roller door is open. Yes, there are no
Speaker 2: lights on in the house as you've turned the lights on,
Speaker 2: you walk in by yourself, and you notice blood all
Speaker 2: over the floor and a broken pane of one of
Speaker 2: the internal doors. So it's not an external door, it's an.
Speaker 1: Internal door absolutely.
Speaker 3: And there was a spa bath there foot spar set
Speaker 3: up in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: I was like, what the I did not like.
Speaker 3: Dada had actually used this particular foot spa to just
Speaker 3: you know, ic his feet, you know, but he'd have
Speaker 3: it blooded dinner, and he'd have it in the front
Speaker 3: land room, sitting in front of the TV in his
Speaker 3: declina chair. So the fact that this was sit up
Speaker 3: set up on tiles in the kitchen area, I was like,
Speaker 3: what's That's very odd.
Speaker 1: That was the first thing that was very odd.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't plugged in, and so it appeared to
Speaker 3: be like that he'd been icing his feet out on
Speaker 3: the tiles. Again, doesn't make sense if you've got numb
Speaker 3: feet and you're standing.
Speaker 1: And you know, you could slip.
Speaker 3: So that's and that had that was full of blood.
Speaker 3: That whole that whole foot spa was full of blood.
Speaker 3: And I was like, what the you know, hell's happened?
Speaker 3: But initially, again I'm just hoping, thinking and praying that
Speaker 3: it is something as simple as he has just accidentally
Speaker 3: kicked this love. Also, you know he's accidentally he'd cut
Speaker 3: himself and tried to get himself to the hospital, you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember telling that look. I said to the sergeant,
Speaker 1: I said, what can I do? Can I can I
Speaker 1: help call the hospitals?
Speaker 3: And they were like, nope, You've got We've got one
Speaker 3: number that we call and all of them.
Speaker 1: So it's all good.
Speaker 2: You didn't hear about your dad's disappearance or something strange
Speaker 2: going on at the house until late thirty at night
Speaker 2: by text. That text was from your sister. Great, when
Speaker 2: did she hear about that there was an issue?
Speaker 1: She was not the message at seven o two.
Speaker 2: Okay, So there was just a bit of time there.
Speaker 2: So essentially the neighbors saw it early in the morning,
Speaker 2: saw the door open at the garage door at about
Speaker 2: six forty five am, and then went to work. And
Speaker 2: I guess you wouldn't really, you know, for garage stores open.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether you'd make a phone call straight
Speaker 2: away to say someone's missing. You might go. I wonder
Speaker 2: why that is. It might be strange, but not necessarily
Speaker 2: any criminal activity. So I guess the navy gets home
Speaker 2: then from work that afternoon. Is that right, and the
Speaker 2: house is the same as it was.
Speaker 1: In the morning, Yes, And it hit home something's not right.
Speaker 2: So police arrive after the phone call from Darren, after
Speaker 2: you've spoken to him, and they arrive at nine to
Speaker 2: twenty three. What happens then?
Speaker 3: I was met with him at the front and I
Speaker 3: felt like, initially I put his nose out of doing
Speaker 3: a little bit, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: Because.
Speaker 3: Because Darren had obviously said that I don't know if
Speaker 3: someone's still in the house, so it was treated initially like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, you know.
Speaker 1: High priority.
Speaker 3: And then when he arrived and I said, I don't
Speaker 3: think anyone's in the house, and immediately before even going
Speaker 3: in the house, he's sort of called it off and going, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's not as bad as we think.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no one in the house.
Speaker 3: And but you know, then they go in and sort
Speaker 3: of they made their own he made his own assumptions
Speaker 3: on what had happened. I guess, you know, because they
Speaker 3: hadn't seen what they described as any sort of forced entry.
Speaker 3: There were assumptions made. You know, obviously, I was asked,
Speaker 3: you know, has he got any health issues? And I said, well,
Speaker 3: obviously the spa, but the foot spar was set up,
Speaker 3: so I did say he had the proof from Europosy
Speaker 3: and and I said.
Speaker 1: But this is out of character.
Speaker 3: This is not something that he would do, like you know,
Speaker 3: I tried. The first thing the police were told is no,
Speaker 3: you know, this is out of character.
Speaker 1: There's something wrong here. It's not right.
Speaker 2: So at ten oh seven that evening, a missing person's
Speaker 2: police investigation is commenced because either way, there was a
Speaker 2: serious concern for your dad's safety.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: What happens? Then? Do you call your sister?
Speaker 3: Well, look, she it actually haven't been major dental surgery
Speaker 3: that day that morning. So I decided to leave her obviously,
Speaker 3: rest or whatever she needs to do.
Speaker 1: And I tried calling my brother in law.
Speaker 2: How was your relationship with your sister back at that point?
Speaker 3: Look, as I said that there were issues. I guess
Speaker 3: every family has problems. That's not widely known.
Speaker 1: Is it.
Speaker 3: So there were certain things that they had put strain
Speaker 3: on our relationships, especially over the last few years. We
Speaker 3: were still seeing each other, you know, but yeah, there
Speaker 3: were issues. There were things, you know, a relationship was
Speaker 3: already becoming a bit strained.
Speaker 2: Did the police then start a search that evening?
Speaker 3: Not what they did was when they did I don't
Speaker 3: know what's called it inward outward or something like that.
Speaker 3: So they have all the vehicles starting from Dad's premise
Speaker 3: he's properly in ocean reef, and then they went their
Speaker 3: way out, so they go and scan the whole perimeter.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, I guess that's what you have
Speaker 3: to find and do in that sort of situation, is it,
Speaker 3: because we were trying to find a car at that point,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, I believe, you know, and Hilary's police,
Speaker 3: the lady there, she was great. She was keeping me
Speaker 3: in the loop and you know, keeping me informed and.
Speaker 1: You know, what have you.
Speaker 3: But you know, I couldn't get hold of my brother
Speaker 3: in law and I tried probably about three times. So
Speaker 3: in the end, I was like, what do I do?
Speaker 3: Because my husband couldn't come searching with.
Speaker 2: Me because you've got the kids at home, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: They were in bed at home.
Speaker 3: So in hindsight, I gone, why didn't I ask the
Speaker 3: neighbor to go sit with the kids, and you know,
Speaker 3: my husband support But there's a lot of things you
Speaker 3: think of me hindsight, you know, why didn't I do this?
Speaker 1: One? Didn't I do that?
Speaker 3: So anyway, I couldn't get hold of my brother in law,
Speaker 3: which I thought was strange.
Speaker 1: So I'd been sent over to check on my father
Speaker 1: if it was all right. So that was a bit
Speaker 1: odd to me.
Speaker 3: But I got hold of my auntie, and this particular
Speaker 3: auntie was sort of like stepped up as a mum
Speaker 3: to me when my mom died, and I knew she'd
Speaker 3: drop everything, and she did. She came straight there and
Speaker 3: we just drove all the around the routes trying to
Speaker 3: on the way to hospital because again in my brain,
Speaker 3: he was a John dowein hospital. That's all I kept thinking.
Speaker 3: Nothing else made sense at that point. I guess that
Speaker 3: was the most reasonable.
Speaker 1: Thing that could have happened in my brain, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And we drove around, We went drove around to the
Speaker 3: hospital area car parks and just I don't know, I
Speaker 3: was expecting to see the cars and you have an
Speaker 3: accident on the way to the.
Speaker 1: Hospital, law, do you know?
Speaker 2: But yeah, from here on in in the story of
Speaker 2: Jasper's disappearance, you'll see that there is a difference of
Speaker 2: opinion on what happened to John Jensen. Bell and Darren
Speaker 2: firmly believed that there's something more sinister at play. They
Speaker 2: don't believe that her dad just up and vanished. Police
Speaker 2: and the coroner have a different view, and later in
Speaker 2: this episode we'll hear from the investigating officer, Joe Burr,
Speaker 2: But for now, let's get Darren Bell's husband's view on
Speaker 2: when he visited the house the next day with Belle.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, first he went to the scene where the
Speaker 4: footspar was and the broken glass and the blood, and
Speaker 4: like Bell, that did not make sense.
Speaker 2: Why that was there.
Speaker 4: Yes, we bought him this foot spar and he used
Speaker 4: to use it, but as Belle said, he did that
Speaker 4: in his recliner chair in the lounge room and watching
Speaker 4: his fox fell and normally watching golf, So I thought
Speaker 4: that was odd.
Speaker 2: Also, there was a lot of.
Speaker 4: Body footprints around from one particular foot's right heel, and
Speaker 4: they just didn't make sense. They're going in every direction,
Speaker 4: they were fire apart, they were close together. They'll sort
Speaker 4: of half half footprints on then more full footprints, and yeah,
Speaker 4: there's this broken glass, and it just didn't make sense
Speaker 4: to me how there was this brain glass. I couldn't
Speaker 4: go up and check out everything because I didn't want
Speaker 4: to interfere with the scene at all. But it just
Speaker 4: the whole scene just did not make sense to me.
Speaker 4: It did not make sense why the foot spar was
Speaker 4: out there, the footprints didn't make sense to me. How
Speaker 4: he actually cut his foot didn't make sense. Because the police,
Speaker 4: when the forensics team were there, were both there and
Speaker 4: they said, oh, well, it looks like he's been bathing
Speaker 4: his feet and he's they've been hurting so much. He's
Speaker 4: got frustrated, and he's got up and kicked this French door,
Speaker 4: and then he's cut his foot, and then he's attended
Speaker 4: to the wounds, and then he's going, well I've had
Speaker 4: enough of all this, and then he's driven now and
Speaker 4: twenty minutes to kill himself, which nowe that made sense.
Speaker 4: But I was looking at the glass and I was like,
Speaker 4: he's cut the back of his heel. You're saying he's
Speaker 4: kicked this glass door, But if he was, it didn't
Speaker 4: look like he was a big six foot so I
Speaker 4: was thirteen shoe. I couldn't see how he physically could
Speaker 4: have got his foot that far through the panel or
Speaker 4: the door to cut it. The only what had made
Speaker 4: sense to us is if he was traveling backwards that
Speaker 4: he cut his heel on this door, which then sort
Speaker 4: of threw the police theories into question. It's like, well,
Speaker 4: he hasn't walked up and kicked this door. He's somehow
Speaker 4: broken this glass on the door some other way and
Speaker 4: cut his foot. And so, really, the logistics of me
Speaker 4: and I try to be quite analytical at times, I
Speaker 4: just couldn't not and still to this day when I
Speaker 4: look at the photes figure out how he actually cut
Speaker 4: his foot. So it didn't make sense to me. Our
Speaker 4: initial thought was he didn't do this. Something's happened and
Speaker 4: untoward to him, and it's been made to look like
Speaker 4: he's done something, and it did look like it, but
Speaker 4: the actual and no one can still tell me this
Speaker 4: day how he's actually cut his foot to it. Logistically,
Speaker 4: I just don't see how it's happened. And yeah, and
Speaker 4: why would he be bathing his feet on a nice
Speaker 4: water on tiles just doesn't make sense. And so, yeah,
Speaker 4: the whole scene didn't make sense to me. And we're
Speaker 4: trying to explain this to the police. But at the
Speaker 4: time but it was just falling on deaf years. Was
Speaker 4: more like, you know, looking down at us, saying leave
Speaker 4: it to the experts sort of thing. And every time
Speaker 4: Belle tried to say something that my father wouldn't have
Speaker 4: done this, you know, we've been through this with my
Speaker 4: mother to a certain degree and whatever else when we've
Speaker 4: had conversations, and he just almost laughed at Belle and well,
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean anything, and it's like to do with that,
Speaker 4: it actually does mean something. So, yeah, the whole whole
Speaker 4: thing didn't make sense. Not once was I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that he's had a bad day and he's gone off
Speaker 4: to kill himself sort of thing. And yeah, and then
Speaker 4: we find out the cars bound up in Lanceton and
Speaker 4: then the story goes from there.
Speaker 2: On Tuesday, the twenty eighth of June, the media starts
Speaker 2: covering the story In Perth. Darren and Bell both make
Speaker 2: pleas to the public for information or possible sightings of
Speaker 2: John or his car.
Speaker 5: Jahn's neighbors raised the alarm yesterday when they noticed the
Speaker 5: elderly man's garage open and his car missing. He hasn't
Speaker 5: been seen since Sunday, and his family are understandably worried.
Speaker 4: Any information from the great appreciated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a beautiful granddad. Thanks funny one.
Speaker 5: Now they say it's completely unlike the widower to go
Speaker 5: out for so long without making contact. John's wife died
Speaker 5: six years ago. He lives alone. He's described as one
Speaker 5: hundred and eighty five centimeters tall, large build with graying hair.
Speaker 2: And then that evening a breakthrough. Jorn's car is found
Speaker 2: in Lancelen outside a pub. Well.
Speaker 6: The discovery of John Jensen's car outside the Lancelon Beach
Speaker 6: Hotel is a big breakthrough in the police search for
Speaker 6: the missing Ocean Reef grandfather. The sixty eight year old
Speaker 6: hadn't been seen since Sunday, after all lunch.
Speaker 2: So at eight ten that evening, you get a call
Speaker 2: from police that.
Speaker 1: Was to say that the media release that we did
Speaker 1: you know you had worked.
Speaker 3: Obviously that was widely spread and the car was located
Speaker 3: up in Lanceln. I was shocked because you know, that
Speaker 3: place had no connection or relevance, you know, to our family.
Speaker 1: But obviously I received news like that.
Speaker 3: So the first thing I tried to do is a
Speaker 3: former sister to keep her in the loop and let
Speaker 3: her know to be told that she's already halfway up there,
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, okay, So I ran the
Speaker 3: I ran the police back. I rang her back, and
Speaker 3: I said, look, she's actually she's actually got a way
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 1: I remember every Asian with the whole shit. That's not good.
Speaker 3: You know, she's going to get there before Lancelop police
Speaker 3: can get there because there was a bit of delay
Speaker 3: I think of availability up and you know, Lancelom police,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, that's that's what happened. She ended up
Speaker 3: going up there with her girlfriend slash alibi at the time,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Apparently she said that her friend had had a dream
Speaker 1: that he was north, so they headed north.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they got there.
Speaker 2: So your sister, Just for clarity, your sister hadn't been
Speaker 2: contacted by police before you to tell her.
Speaker 3: That, no, no, no, I guess I was in contact.
Speaker 3: I was the person, and so they were just lasing
Speaker 3: with myself and I was just making you know, I
Speaker 3: kept her in the loop with any information, and that's
Speaker 3: what I did.
Speaker 2: Lancelot is a small fishing town one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: seven kilometers north of Perth in w A. It's a
Speaker 2: beautiful part of the world and I know because I
Speaker 2: grew up there as a kid in the late seventies.
Speaker 2: I would sit outside the pub John's car was discovered
Speaker 2: at waiting for my dad to finish his beer while
Speaker 2: me and my brothers ate sand boyd chips and drunk
Speaker 2: soft drink. It's a sleepy town of under one thousand people.
Speaker 2: Around Christmas time, the town's numbers swell to almost triple that.
Speaker 2: It was originally called by its Aboriginal name on Gare,
Speaker 2: but was renamed in the early nineteen fifties. Lancelom is
Speaker 2: also a very close knit town, especially in the winter
Speaker 2: months when the wood ducks or out of town visitors
Speaker 2: as the locals would call them, leave. It's an unusual
Speaker 2: place to head unless you're heading there for a reason.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know from Bell if Lancelom was a
Speaker 2: place her dad had been before, or if it was
Speaker 2: a place of significance.
Speaker 3: Look again, these friends, you know that I regularly saw
Speaker 3: ken Engezer. They loved you know, I loved going on there,
Speaker 3: and they drives and that will close with dad.
Speaker 1: You know, they had a really good relationship.
Speaker 3: So they kept on saying come on, come on, yes,
Speaker 3: but we'll come for a drive on a Sunday drive
Speaker 3: and come and have lunch with this and so yeah,
Speaker 3: they had actually gone to that Lancelon Beach Hotel before
Speaker 3: and had lunch there as a passenger. He was obviously
Speaker 3: taken up there, and there was the second time, you
Speaker 3: know they visited the pinnacles and then went and had
Speaker 3: another bite to week, So technically he'd been there twice.
Speaker 2: Had he ever been to the Lanceln Beach Hotel?
Speaker 1: Not prior to that? Only with only with Kennan Gezer.
Speaker 2: This is a question that I think is different for
Speaker 2: your answer will be different to some of the answers
Speaker 2: that in the coroner's report, But I'm going to ask
Speaker 2: it anyway. In your opinion, could your dad drive?
Speaker 3: No? No, especially after that fall.
Speaker 2: No, When was the last time he drove? If he
Speaker 2: had a driven on that day, let's just say that, Okay,
Speaker 2: maybe he did drive on that day in the twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: When was the last time before the twenty fifth of
Speaker 2: June twenty seventeen, you see your father drive.
Speaker 3: The fifth or sixth of March when he was going
Speaker 3: to play that try and play that nine holes of golf.
Speaker 1: And know this is all bat duck by friends and
Speaker 1: email as well yep.
Speaker 2: And in that period had anyone else seen him drive
Speaker 2: from March through too.
Speaker 1: Apparently the neighbor said she had seen him a few weeks.
Speaker 3: Before, you know, and I thought that was odd, but
Speaker 3: you know, because my sister was, you know, sort of
Speaker 3: stepped up to the care of role, so she was
Speaker 3: taking him to all his appointments, especially after the fall,
Speaker 3: because you know, he couldn't drive, you know, it was
Speaker 3: his right hand. You know, Dad was even saying I
Speaker 3: have to learn and want my bum with my left.
Speaker 1: Hand, ben't he And you know he couldn't.
Speaker 3: He was not driving, Okay, after this ball in April,
Speaker 3: he was not driving.
Speaker 2: Was it a manual car or automatic car?
Speaker 1: It was automatic automatic? Okay.
Speaker 4: We actually have an email tiede that boat sister, which
Speaker 4: he obviously at this time wasn't even one thing you're
Speaker 4: typing because of his barely broken wrist, but it clearly
Speaker 4: explains that he's not able to drive to well after
Speaker 4: that date.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it worked out that he was officially able
Speaker 3: to drive around the fifteenth.
Speaker 2: Of July, Okay, and that's primarily because he's broken right.
Speaker 3: Correct, Yeah, because he was actually still wearing a brace
Speaker 3: at the time.
Speaker 1: He went missing.
Speaker 3: So the cars have been removed, but he was still
Speaker 3: wearing an armbrace, a black Armbros.
Speaker 2: Your dad wore glasses, he did? What did he wear.
Speaker 1: Glasses for reading and driving? You know?
Speaker 2: And were the glasses found in your dad's car when
Speaker 2: the car was found in Lanston.
Speaker 1: No, they were next chair where he used to keep them.
Speaker 2: In the house. In the house, Bell and Darren believe
Speaker 2: that it would be near impossible for Jessper to drive
Speaker 2: one hour and seventeen minutes from his house to Lancelin
Speaker 2: with a broken wrist, his medical issues and what would
Speaker 2: seem to be a badly please foot. First Class Constable
Speaker 2: Joseph Burr was the investigating officer at the time of
Speaker 2: the Current's report in October of last year.
Speaker 7: Yeah. So I'm a senior constable. I work at the
Speaker 7: Homicide Squad. We have a team in the Missing Person
Speaker 7: Unit that's me and five others, and we are responsible
Speaker 7: for overseeing the long term missing personal investigations in Western Australia.
Speaker 2: And so you've worked on the John Jensen case for
Speaker 2: how old?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I took over from the previous investigating officer, probably
Speaker 7: is around the start of twenty eighteen. I believe. So
Speaker 7: we're coming up to just less than three years really
Speaker 7: since I took over that investigation.
Speaker 2: And so you would have been really important in the
Speaker 2: delivery of the brief to the coroner, Is that right?
Speaker 7: Yeah? So I was responsible for writing the report, collating
Speaker 7: all of the information that we had collected, and making
Speaker 7: sure that was delivered without any I hope, without any
Speaker 7: bias at all to the coroner, so that an informed
Speaker 7: decision could be made.
Speaker 2: How long have you been a police officer for I've.
Speaker 7: Been a police officer now for just over ten years,
Speaker 7: five years in the UK and then I transferred over
Speaker 7: to the Western Australia Police in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: And you've done a bunch of missing person's cases, I'm
Speaker 2: guessing yeah.
Speaker 7: So, I mean I've always been in and around missing
Speaker 7: per case throughout my ten year career in I think
Speaker 7: it was around November twenty seventeen are transferred to the
Speaker 7: missing person unit. So it's just been just over three
Speaker 7: years now that I've solely dedicated my time to missing
Speaker 7: personal investigations.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about what police did once they found
Speaker 2: mister Jensen's car.
Speaker 7: The investigation in those early days changed as thin as
Speaker 7: that vehicle is located because what that what they gave
Speaker 7: us is the last known position. Obviously, he physically could
Speaker 7: not necessarily be put there, but there was a reasonable
Speaker 7: suspicion formed at the time that he had taken his
Speaker 7: own vehicle to that location, and as such, that vehicle
Speaker 7: was seen as the last known position, and as such
Speaker 7: a search was initiated from that vehicle and some distance
Speaker 7: away from that vehicle. So that area is a coastal location.
Speaker 7: The actual car park is right next to the beach,
Speaker 7: so the search took place on land, and there was
Speaker 7: a marine search and rescue operation covering the ocean there,
Speaker 7: so it was quite an extensive search. The mapping that
Speaker 7: was initiated at the time was pretty extensive, and I
Speaker 7: believe that that area was very well covered by search
Speaker 7: and officers and supporting units. At the time.
Speaker 2: There was some CCTV of Jasper's car dright or reported car.
Speaker 7: I should say, well, obviously we had what we had
Speaker 7: is we had a last position where we believed just
Speaker 7: as the vehicle was prior to going to Lanston, so
Speaker 7: that was his home address in Ocean Reefs, and then
Speaker 7: we had his vehicle in position in that car park
Speaker 7: in Lancelin that was believed to be where he had
Speaker 7: then taken off from his vehicle. So we or officers
Speaker 7: that were investigating at the time, they tried to track
Speaker 7: that vehicle back and they managed to obtain CCTV of
Speaker 7: what is suspected to be mister Jensen's vehicle leaving or
Speaker 7: going in the direction one would believe the vehicle to
Speaker 7: travel if he was traveling away from time address, and
Speaker 7: later some further CCTV from a different address that is
Speaker 7: again believed to be or suspected to be mister Jensen's
Speaker 7: vehicle traveling up towards lance On this CCTV footage, you
Speaker 7: can't see who is in the vehicle, and you also
Speaker 7: can't see the regio of the vehicle, and you can't
Speaker 7: even the quality is not great to the point that
Speaker 7: you can't even identify that it is his vehicle. But obviously,
Speaker 7: what we do know is that his vehicle at some
Speaker 7: point left his home address and then was located in Lancelin.
Speaker 7: So that is the two CCTV clips that were obtained,
Speaker 7: they would cover the route most likely or suspected to
Speaker 7: have been traveled by that vehicle. So although we can't
Speaker 7: one hundred percent say that's mister Jenson's vehicle. I personally
Speaker 7: suspect that to be his vehicle, and no other footage
Speaker 7: was located that could suggest otherwise.
Speaker 2: And so that footage was obtained via CCTV camera and
Speaker 2: obviously timestamps. So it was early on the morning of
Speaker 2: the twenty sixth of June.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was. There was a slight issue with the
Speaker 7: second I mean, did I deal with a lot of
Speaker 7: CCTV and it's quite vital in a lot of investigations,
Speaker 7: but unfortunately, quite often the time stamps are out on
Speaker 7: CCTV systems. So the best we we could actually formulate
Speaker 7: is that the clip where he's leaving or we believe
Speaker 7: his vehicle is leaving his home address or close to
Speaker 7: his home address, we believe that to be in the
Speaker 7: early hours of that Monday, and the next clip is
Speaker 7: when it's light in Lanceling, So we're unable to get
Speaker 7: an exact time on that clip, but it was in
Speaker 7: and around the time you would expect his vehicles to
Speaker 7: be traveling up there.
Speaker 2: And as you've mentioned, there was no way to be
Speaker 2: able to tell if John was driving that car or
Speaker 2: someone else was driving that car.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, I was unable to confirm during the investigation
Speaker 7: who was driving that big or even how many patterns.
Speaker 1: In that big.
Speaker 2: John didn't have a mobile phone, so you weren't able
Speaker 2: to ping it or trace it or do anything like that.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 7: Unfortunately not That's usually an important investigative action for us.
Speaker 7: But yeah, unfortunately, he didn't have a mobile phone. I
Speaker 7: think he had a hands me down phone that was
Speaker 7: given to him in the past, but that wasn't something
Speaker 7: that he carried with him.
Speaker 2: Joe. Were there any other persons of interest in regards
Speaker 2: to the case of him going missing?
Speaker 7: No, there I can honestly say that that during the investigation,
Speaker 7: there's there's been There's been nothing, no evidence that has
Speaker 7: suggested anybody else was physically or even planning any involvement
Speaker 7: in this disappearance. So in terms of persons of interest,
Speaker 7: as with any missing personal investigation, you have to look
Speaker 7: at any any feasible outcome, so you might you might
Speaker 7: formulate some possibilities and look into certain routes, but there
Speaker 7: wasn't anything that stipulated to me or any evidence that
Speaker 7: was located suggested anybody was involved.
Speaker 2: And with that evidence, if there was someone you're investigating,
Speaker 2: would that evidence include you pinging their mobile phones to
Speaker 2: see there whereabouts on the morning, et cetera.
Speaker 7: We we can if we're doing investigation and we think
Speaker 7: that there's a possibility that somebody was in company with
Speaker 7: a miss in person, we there is legislation that allows
Speaker 7: us to investigate and look into the phone records of
Speaker 7: other people. Obviously we have to we have to make
Speaker 7: sure that we can form with privacy law on that.
Speaker 7: So only if we can start to formulate some kind
Speaker 7: of possible route or journey that he may have taken
Speaker 7: with somebody else, do we start to have a look
Speaker 7: at that. But we're usual these things not only to
Speaker 7: include people in an investigation, but also to rule it out,
Speaker 7: so you're not focusing on areas where you it's going
Speaker 7: to lead to a dead end. You know, there's all
Speaker 7: these possibilities that we need to look at, and sometimes
Speaker 7: that's a helpful tool for us to lose a reasonable
Speaker 7: suspicion that somebody else is involved.
Speaker 2: So knowing that Lancelom Beach Hotel, I know that area
Speaker 2: pretty well. There's a caravan park behind the hotel, there's
Speaker 2: a beach pretty much, you know, maybe one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty two hundred meters away, which sort of has some
Speaker 2: shrubberry and bushland really you know beachy style of spring
Speaker 2: bushes as we used to call them growing up in
Speaker 2: that town. Were police dogs used to see whether there
Speaker 2: any evidence of mister Jensen walking down to the beach
Speaker 2: or anywhere else.
Speaker 7: Yes, search dogs would have been used, I believe by sees.
Speaker 7: They usually use search dogs, and we usually have mounted
Speaker 7: officers there the areas. These guys, the sees and the
Speaker 7: assistant officers and assistant units are very experienced in covering
Speaker 7: areas and ensuring that areas are completely saturated prior to
Speaker 7: moving on. So there wasn't any evidence of him being
Speaker 7: in the location or any articles that belonged to mister
Speaker 7: Jensen being there. So unfortunately, I can I can look
Speaker 7: back at that search and you know, I can't criticize
Speaker 7: that search. That search was very intensive and very thorough
Speaker 7: from what we can see from the report. So I
Speaker 7: like to think that if mister Jensen was there, or
Speaker 7: any article was there, then we would have located it
Speaker 7: on the day. Unfortunately, we have the dynamic of the
Speaker 7: marine search now that's very different to a land search
Speaker 7: because you have the random nature of the ocean, and
Speaker 7: you can look at tidal predictions. You can look at that.
Speaker 7: There is modeling that takes place to predict if something
Speaker 7: or somebody goes into the water, where they may end up.
Speaker 7: But due to the Iraqic nature of the ocean there
Speaker 7: and the amount of variables such as marine life, such
Speaker 7: as the tides, it's very difficult to determine exactly where
Speaker 7: someone will go if they are to go into the water.
Speaker 7: So that was another dynamic that was facing them on
Speaker 7: the day and they searched it or sorry, the days
Speaker 7: of search, and they did as good a job as
Speaker 7: they could have done.
Speaker 2: Ugly Bell agrees that the search for a dad once
Speaker 2: she arrived in Lanceland that afternoon was without faults.
Speaker 3: Oh look does the sea search up in Landslon. I
Speaker 3: can't fault it, you know they I was even told
Speaker 3: if he was up here, we would have found him.
Speaker 1: You know, it was extensive.
Speaker 3: I want to thank all of the volunteers, you know,
Speaker 3: seventy honest yes people. What I mean you watch you
Speaker 3: watch them all horses and dogs, and I mean it's crazy,
Speaker 3: you know, you think all these people were trying to
Speaker 3: help find my dad. And at the time I always
Speaker 3: felt a disconnect. I didn't feel like Dad was up
Speaker 3: in Lancelin. So I was very grateful and I kept
Speaker 3: telling them police that I'm like, this is I want
Speaker 3: you to Can we not have just can we not
Speaker 3: focus on ocean reef as well? Like? But unfortunately, because
Speaker 3: the car was found there in Lancelin, the focus was
Speaker 3: in Lanceloin and they were told that they have to
Speaker 3: go off the first thing that I was told. They
Speaker 3: got off the first thing they're told, which was that
Speaker 3: my dad was suicidal. And I was like, what My
Speaker 3: heart sunk when my brother law said I had to
Speaker 3: tell him that, I had to tell him.
Speaker 1: That, and I'm like, what the heck are you doing?
Speaker 3: I didn't understand. And unfortunately that's what they were told
Speaker 3: up there. And I believe that that formed the.
Speaker 1: Tone of the tone, focus or whatever the investigation.
Speaker 3: You know, he was just saying even though two days,
Speaker 3: you know, he's reported from his doctor that he had
Speaker 3: no suicidal tendencies and you're not depressed, He's feeling fantastic.
Speaker 3: You know, they've taken the views of one person, you know,
Speaker 3: and when you have two daughters, I don't think they
Speaker 3: should do that. I think they should always talk to
Speaker 3: all family members, especially in situations not this. If you've
Speaker 3: got chalk and cheese, like, come on, black and white,
Speaker 3: talk to both of them, try and find out there's
Speaker 3: something wrong here. Let's surely you know, one of them
Speaker 3: saying something's wrong, something's wrong, jumping up and down. And
Speaker 3: we had a big meeting on that last day of
Speaker 3: the search with three senior senior officers. Probably I mean,
Speaker 3: there's no record of this particular meaning on the file
Speaker 3: and the brief, but we were like, what is going on?
Speaker 3: And we were told you know that I don't know,
Speaker 3: you've got magical power, magical powers, and you know, it's
Speaker 3: amazing what people want to do when they would want
Speaker 3: to give up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing. Because I was saying, you couldn't
Speaker 1: have driven that far.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it was almost like that story of you know,
Speaker 3: you've been bitten by bloody Spider and you've got these
Speaker 3: special powers.
Speaker 1: It's like I was like, well, what is going on here?
Speaker 3: I was confused, But I was also told this has
Speaker 3: never happened before, and that was a known suicide location
Speaker 3: and there was going to be a massive investigation because
Speaker 3: I was told by them up there that if we
Speaker 3: if he was up here we would have found.
Speaker 2: Him in the next episode.
Speaker 7: The initial assessment of the investigation that continues to this
Speaker 7: day is that no evidence of any criminality has been located.
Speaker 3: It was odd that there was no blood at all
Speaker 3: found from this one particular area. You know, if he's
Speaker 3: walked out of the house, there would have been blood
Speaker 3: either through the lounge on the carpet, or through the tiles,
Speaker 3: or in the football of the the car, especially after
Speaker 3: driving an hour.
Speaker 7: It would be prudent now to look back and be
Speaker 7: able to swab the football, for example. But the critical
Speaker 7: decision at the time was that that was not necessary.
Speaker 7: And I haven't seen any corroborating evidence that says that
Speaker 7: would show anything different to what we currently have.
Speaker 2: What about your dad's bank accounts? Were they touched?
Speaker 1: That's a tricky one, that's true, and I've got to.
Speaker 3: Be careful what I will say. And I think it's
Speaker 3: important to say this, and I have a right because
Speaker 3: this is my dad.
Speaker 1: This is my story.
Speaker 3: This is what happened the friday before my dad went missing.
Speaker 3: I popped in on my way home from work. I
Speaker 3: was holding an AGM slip in his hand, and he's
Speaker 3: in bety. This person is a stole of my money.
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