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Speaker 1: Approche production. Zach's the first thing I think of in

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Speaker 1: the morning when I wake up, and he is the

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Speaker 1: last thing I think of at night. For him to

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Speaker 1: disappear without a trace, how does that happen?

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Speaker 2: Every year in Australia, over fifty thousand missing persons reports

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Speaker 2: are submitted to police. A long term missing person is

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Speaker 2: someone that's been missing for three months. In Australia right now,

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Speaker 2: there are over two thy seven hundred of them. Zach

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Speaker 2: Barnes has now been missing for almost ten years.

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Speaker 1: Every Sunday he would walk through the front door and

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Speaker 1: about lunchtime and he would be starving or hungover, or

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Speaker 1: need a change of clothes and need a recovery time

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Speaker 1: after having such a fun time with his friends, ready

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Speaker 1: for work on Monday. And that was one of the

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Speaker 1: things that triggered looking for him, because that Sunday he

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Speaker 1: didn't come home.

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Speaker 2: I wanted to take Careen back to that weekend in

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Speaker 2: November twenty sixteen, the weekend that changed their lives forever.

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Speaker 1: I think about things like the morning actually Zach went

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Speaker 1: to work on that Friday, Like we never had an

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Speaker 1: argument or anything, but that morning he slept in and

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Speaker 1: it was come I mate, I'm late. I've got a saturday,

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Speaker 1: a new job. You know, it's okay, mom, don't worry.

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Speaker 1: I'll get myself to work. No, no, I don't want

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Speaker 1: you to walk. I just get together so I can

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Speaker 1: drop you off. And he was so worried about making

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Speaker 1: me late. He got emotional about I don't want to

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Speaker 1: make you late, and I dropped him if I said

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Speaker 1: s okay, mate, you know, don't worry about it. We're fine,

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Speaker 1: and you just got to help me out here. And

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Speaker 1: that's our last conversation.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: I didn't even get time to hug him.

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Speaker 3: And so it was usually first weekends back in Newcastle.

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Speaker 3: On that twenty thirsty four days, I come, you come

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Speaker 3: and what time you get here? What time we get there?

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Speaker 3: As SEMs obviously be bombing wing to a left pretty

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Speaker 3: well and I got there Friday, I was like, oh,

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Speaker 3: I haven't heard from him. I think I went out

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Speaker 3: club with you, made to that. Then got to the

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Speaker 3: Saturday and I was going, oh, you know, Sum's going

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Speaker 3: be funny. I haven't heard from him, and I was

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Speaker 3: saying that he'd seen my snapchat story he booked at us,

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Speaker 3: so he was kicking around. I was going oh, and

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Speaker 3: then around a sudden you were going, ah, yeah, I

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Speaker 3: don't know, it's weird.

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Speaker 1: Then I got a call from his bigger brother at

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Speaker 1: six o'clock and Zach still wasn't home, and his bigger

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Speaker 1: brother said, Mum, I've missed the train. I've got to

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Speaker 1: go back to Sydney. Can you drive me back? So

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Speaker 1: I agreed to take him back, and that's when the

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Speaker 1: conversation was about Zach. It was like, cod, have you

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Speaker 1: seen Zach? You know he's not home yet. I thought

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Speaker 1: he'd be home by now. Do you know where he is?

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Speaker 1: And I thought he was with you. But then at

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Speaker 1: that point we both realized something's not quite right because

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Speaker 1: he's not back, it hasn't communicated with anybody. So on

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Speaker 1: the drive down we were just you know, what can

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Speaker 1: we do? Who can we ring? We started sending messages

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Speaker 1: through Facebook Messenger and Cody put a post on Facebook saying,

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Speaker 1: as anyone seem Zack, I'm not quite sure where he is,

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Speaker 1: and pretty much within an hour we found him. We

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Speaker 1: were told that he was in the East Maitland area,

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Speaker 1: and then we weren't so worried at that point because

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Speaker 1: we thought, oh good, he's around and then Cody asked

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Speaker 1: a friend of his to go around to the house

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Speaker 1: just to check to see if he was there.

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Speaker 2: So this is the house. Obviously, it's changed a fair

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Speaker 2: bit in three years.

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Speaker 1: He said it was renovated. Who's been renovated and it's

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Speaker 1: been sold and repurchased.

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Speaker 2: So you can see there's sort of like nineteen sixties

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Speaker 2: or seventies old firebrough houses that are sort of boxy

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Speaker 2: and on a small block.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, you can see that Zach didn't have his phone.

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Speaker 1: His phone had broken so it wasn't working. It was

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Speaker 1: here at home. We went from not knowing where he

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Speaker 1: was all we can to be able to locate him

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Speaker 1: within an hour, to then never be able to locate

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Speaker 1: him again. This is where it has been said that

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Speaker 1: Zach departed the car by the persons that were in

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Speaker 1: the vehicle with him.

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Speaker 2: On one side as a residential area. On the other side,

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Speaker 2: it's a very short strip of land which is hard,

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Speaker 2: probably fifty meters wide, with some shrubbery and then there's

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Speaker 2: quite a large wall. And so beyond that wall is

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Speaker 2: a railway line yep. And then beyond that.

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Speaker 1: Is bushland and on the other side of that bushland

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Speaker 1: is the suburb of Method.

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Speaker 2: If you got out of the car here and you

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Speaker 2: jumped that fence and you went over the railway line

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Speaker 2: into the bush land, could you get to your house

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Speaker 2: from here?

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Speaker 1: Not from here? Okay? So this is where it's a

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Speaker 1: bit confusing. This is the address that was given to

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Speaker 1: police that he got out of the vehicle. When we

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Speaker 1: were doing early searches, we were told he got out

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Speaker 1: of the car a lot further down, okay, And that

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Speaker 1: sort of leads towards where the quarry area is where

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Speaker 1: we've done searches. There's so many different stories from there.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what's true and what's not true.

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Speaker 2: And have you been able to have a chat to

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Speaker 2: the police or to those two people to ask questions

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Speaker 2: around what actually happened and to get more of the idea.

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Speaker 1: In the beginning I had, I wasn't afraid that he

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Speaker 1: was not coming home. I just thought was concerned about

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Speaker 1: what's happened, And you know, my biggest concern was that

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Speaker 1: he was probably hurt somewhere. So I was just questioning

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Speaker 1: things like, you know, when did he get out of

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Speaker 1: the car, and how did he get out of the car,

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Speaker 1: and how did he run? Did he walk, and I

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Speaker 1: guess I did prompt a lot of questions. In the beginning.

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Speaker 1: They were happy to answer those questions, but as any parent,

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Speaker 1: you're going to keep asking. So there came a point

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Speaker 1: where they didn't want to answer any questions anymore. So,

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Speaker 1: but I believe they're fully cooperating with police.

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Speaker 4: Those closest to Zach want him to know he's not

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Speaker 4: being forgotten.

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Speaker 3: I mean, everything knew me. Let someone know you're out there,

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Speaker 3: let us know you're safe. Till the monday, one of

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Speaker 3: the girls I was out looking for Zakhi's me your message.

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Speaker 3: She's just saying like I haven't haven't really heard or

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Speaker 3: seen it from Zakia, and just give me just everything

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Speaker 3: dropped out like and I'm about to start bursting intoars.

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Speaker 3: I didn't even know why. Then I just called him.

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Speaker 3: I was like, mom, you yout reported missing.

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Speaker 1: The r Cody just started screaming and yeah. It was

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Speaker 1: like mam, get to the police station, now, get them now.

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Speaker 1: And I'm like, come down, Cody, what's wrong? Like what

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Speaker 1: do you know that I don't know? And he's like, Mom,

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Speaker 1: I don't know anything. I've just got this really bad feeling.

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Speaker 1: I can't understand me he was screaming even though he

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Speaker 1: can't can't be.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 1: The first thing that when somebody goes missing is you know,

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Speaker 1: the police can only give you four options, and the

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Speaker 1: first one is that he has he ran away, So

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Speaker 1: they look into you know, was he happy at home?

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Speaker 1: You know, did he have a reason to run away,

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Speaker 1: and those sorts of things. I ruled that out pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1: I work, my husband works, his brothers and sisters all

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Speaker 1: went to school. He has access to the house. So

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Speaker 1: if he was to run away, why didn't he come

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Speaker 1: home on that Monday when we were all out and

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Speaker 1: collect his wallet, his toothbrush, a change of clothes. You know,

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Speaker 1: he has no key card, no access, no identification at all.

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Speaker 1: Why didn't he come and get those things?

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Speaker 2: So he went out that weekend without any money.

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Speaker 1: We had money, but he had cash. So he went

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Speaker 1: to work on the Friday. After work, he went to

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Speaker 1: the friend's house that he spent the weekend with, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: he had money to socialize and have a good time with.

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Speaker 1: So there was no need for him to come home

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Speaker 1: and get his wallet because he wasn't going to the

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Speaker 1: cloud ball or places like that. He just was hanging

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Speaker 1: out there. Option to his misadventure. Did something happen to him,

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Speaker 1: you know, on his way home? Did he have an

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Speaker 1: accident or things like that. So we did many many

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Speaker 1: searches in the early days because if he had hurt

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Speaker 1: himself on the way home, surely we would have found him.

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Speaker 1: Like we've found no evidence of him whatsoever. So there's

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Speaker 1: no shirt, no shoes, no torn belongings, no, not a sign.

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Speaker 1: So he's not hurt himself there by accident. So to me,

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Speaker 1: that ruled out sort of misadventure.

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Speaker 4: This area is an old quarries and then there still

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Speaker 4: a railway line with yep, so I imagined to get home,

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Speaker 4: if he got out anywhere along this road, he would

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Speaker 4: take this route.

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Speaker 1: This is an area that we could searched well. When

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Speaker 1: they talk about things like misadventure, I imagined in my

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Speaker 1: mind that he could have been running along here and

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Speaker 1: either slipped and fell on into the quarry or you know,

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Speaker 1: fell down a ledge or This is why we were

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Speaker 1: looking out here. Spent many nights and afternoons just sitting

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Speaker 1: out here, thinking and looking and contemplating.

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Speaker 2: Has the police searched this stererea?

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Speaker 1: They have, but to what degree I'm not one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent sure, he would put a halfway to the railway.

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Speaker 1: Couldn't run and slip and fall down there and you know,

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Speaker 1: end up in the water.

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Speaker 2: We're at the top of a dirt mound and in

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Speaker 2: front of us is what looks like a massive dam,

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Speaker 2: but it's an old quarry that's obviously been filled with

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Speaker 2: water over a period of time, and it looks to

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Speaker 2: be deep.

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Speaker 1: Do people swim in this s No, it's quite deep

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Speaker 1: and there's a lot of debris and stuff under the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the water.

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Speaker 2: Has the quarry ever been dredged and.

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Speaker 1: It's never been dredged. They did have divers here. I

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Speaker 1: think they search the top of the water sonically, but

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Speaker 1: nothing was found.

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Speaker 2: As we come down from the top of the dirt mound,

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Speaker 2: we walk down a small overgrown path towards the train line.

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Speaker 2: While we try to navigate the bumpy and unpredictable track,

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Speaker 2: we realize Karen knows this bushland really well.

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Speaker 1: I haven't been here for about a year, so it's

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Speaker 1: feel quite weary being vacuum now many nights on that

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Speaker 1: mounded dirt, just wandering back then there was actually a

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Speaker 1: break in the fence. Yeah, so you can easily cross

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Speaker 1: to the other side on a long the train tracks.

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Speaker 1: So I envisioned that if you cross the tracks and

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Speaker 1: just kept going that direction and about ten or fifteen

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Speaker 1: minutes are in Medford and you can cross that bushland

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Speaker 1: to get home. So very logical he would have tried

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Speaker 1: to go home that way. But was he doing it

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Speaker 1: of his own free will or was somebody you know,

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Speaker 1: was somebody behind him?

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Speaker 2: Or had he ever gone through this bushland before? Do

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Speaker 2: you know?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a regular stop. All the boys used to

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Speaker 1: that've got friends sort of in thought that this is

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Speaker 1: the route that they would take. We've searched all of

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Speaker 1: that bush. Yeah, completely turned it.

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Speaker 2: That's substantial bushland though, that one, isn't it yep? And

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Speaker 2: how long does that go? Four? Ten to fifteen minutes?

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Speaker 1: Yep? And that bush goes right to the other side

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Speaker 1: of the highway. So this is where we thought if

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Speaker 1: misadventure was involved, you know, was he running if he

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Speaker 1: say he was experimenting with drugs and wasn't quite thinking straight,

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Speaker 1: you know, did he get disorientated and forget where he

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Speaker 1: was and fall or trips? So that's why we were

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Speaker 1: sort of looking down that track or that line of thinking.

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Speaker 2: Karen, do you know, if there's CCTV around this area,

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Speaker 2: not here, that's.

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Speaker 1: Not there is at the railway station, and he never

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Speaker 1: went to the railway station. So the other two options

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Speaker 1: we've got is suicide and foul play. I think about

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Speaker 1: that a lot. Zach didn't struggle mental health issues. You know,

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Speaker 1: he wasn't back and forward and telling me if he

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Speaker 1: had concerns. If he had taken his life, it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be something that I would be embarrassed about. It would

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Speaker 1: be it's a decision he made. It was his own choice.

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Speaker 1: But again, he left a vehicle. He had no access

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Speaker 1: to transport, Like, he didn't have a car to drive away.

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Speaker 1: Like you hear stories where people drive to a national

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Speaker 1: park and or they drive to a motel, or you know,

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Speaker 1: they go somewhere private, but they know they'll be found.

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Speaker 1: Like he had no access to that. So how is it,

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Speaker 1: sue side, I can't fathom.

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Speaker 2: That Karen wondered whether Zach was experimenting with drugs. Eighteen

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Speaker 2: year olds like to push boundaries, to try new things,

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Speaker 2: to experiment. Does she think drugs played a role in

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Speaker 2: that weekend?

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Speaker 1: That's a hard thing to say. I mean, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of drugs in the community. I guess with the

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Speaker 1: young ones, it's more. You know, they smoke marijuana. Festivals

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Speaker 1: are quite big, so things like pills and things they

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Speaker 1: might pop. I mean ice is in the area as well,

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Speaker 1: so you know, we're not ignorant to know that that's

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Speaker 1: out there. Zach was certainly very social. He was a

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Speaker 1: typical eighteen year old that was experimental. So to say,

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Speaker 1: did he not try drugs? Of course he did. I'm

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Speaker 1: not naive enough to think that he wouldn't have. But

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Speaker 1: if he did, it was on a very social level.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't a drug addiction, So you know, I would

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Speaker 1: firmly state that I do not believe he had a

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Speaker 1: drug habit.

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Speaker 2: The final theory is foul play.

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Speaker 1: I have thought about this and over and over, like

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Speaker 1: Zach's the first thing I think of in the morning

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Speaker 1: when I wake up, and is the last thing I

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Speaker 1: think of at night. So and I think of all

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Speaker 1: of those instances, like for him to disappear without a trace,

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Speaker 1: How does that happen? You know, is there's got to

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Speaker 1: be more involved, and I think it seriously needs to

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Speaker 1: be looked at. I'm probably aware of every single missing

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Speaker 1: person that's out there I'm aware of their journey. I'm

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Speaker 1: aware when they get found, I'm aware when they don't

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Speaker 1: get found. I'm aware of body's being found. So why

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Speaker 1: do some get found? Like when Zack went missing, there

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Speaker 1: probably would have been about ten other people that went

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Speaker 1: missing around about the same sort of three month period.

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Speaker 1: So majority of the people when Zack went missing were

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Speaker 1: out and tragically some of them had lost their lives

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Speaker 1: and others had just turned up. So why didn't we

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Speaker 1: find if Zak had taken his life, why didn't we

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Speaker 1: find him too? That's a question I ask myself. So

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Speaker 1: I have to question what other things could have happened?

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Speaker 1: So how could we have no information? You know, is

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Speaker 1: it someone covering up something that happened because there's no trace?

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Speaker 1: So I guess is that for our play?

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Speaker 2: What do you believe happened?

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Speaker 3: Oh, I'd love to know, speculated on Hydromanion. Things really good?

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Speaker 2: Now? Yeah, I'm sure.

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Speaker 3: Perfectly nothing, Bader.

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Speaker 1: I believe that somebody has hurt Sack. And as much

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Speaker 1: as I want to believe he's out there and I

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Speaker 1: want to believe he's going to turn up and this

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Speaker 1: nightmare is going to go away, reality is now three

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Speaker 1: years on without one sighting, without one confident sign of

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Speaker 1: life out there, I have to come to the hard

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Speaker 1: fact that he's not coming home. So I just I

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Speaker 1: just want to find what happened, and you know, Zach

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Speaker 1: somewhere and we deserve to know what happened to him

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Speaker 1: that day.

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Speaker 2: In the next episode.

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Speaker 1: Twice a year we lose it as a family. May

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Speaker 1: is when Zach's birth the year and Novembers when he

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Speaker 1: went missing, so we just sort of recover from one

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Speaker 1: and then we get smashed. The kids, the youth. There

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Speaker 1: was hundreds of them there to see them hugging each

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Speaker 1: other and crying about Zach. It didn't impact us, only

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Speaker 1: it impacted the community.

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Speaker 2: What happened to Zach. If you have information that could

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Speaker 2: help police, call crime Stoppers on one eight hundred, triple three,

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Speaker 2: triple zero. Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting

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Speaker 2: and they're completely engaged. More than ten million Australians listen

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