Missing Niamh - 3: Episode 3: The men in the hearse

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

One day, Jack and Garth arrive driving an old hearse. Jess gets a bad feeling, but Brodie and Niamh become friends with them. By Easter, Niamh is living on a remote apple orchard and making plans to return home for a visit. She buys a bus ticket. https://missingniamh.com

When Niamh and her friend Jess started their gap year in 2002, they planned a year of adventure between finishing high school and starting university. To kick it off, they travelled with their friend Brodie from Armadale in northern New South Wales down to Batlow around 800 kilometres south. On arriving in town, the girls immediately started fruit picking. However, after falling from ladders in two separate incidents, Niamh and Brodie injured their legs and ended up on crutches. This largely confined them to the caravan park. While they recuperated, Niamh and Brodie spent their time with other campers. Most of the fruit pickers at the Batlow Caravan Park were nice,

but some were much older than them. Some were odd, and some were creepy. One day, two men arrived driving an old reconditioned hearse. You know when you get a sense of someone that you should be wary of? I had that with several people there, and those guys in the hearse were no exception. They were the people that I was like, I don't want to be near them. The day the hearse arrived was bright and sunny. In a quiet country town, the arrival of a large black hearse attracted

attention. Jess got a bad feeling from the moment she saw the car and the men inside. And then one day the black hearse arrived. And when the black hearse arrived, these two men got out. And as soon as I saw them and I saw that black hearse, I thought, they're baddies, stay away from them. And I didn't have anything to do with them. The two men in the car were Jason Nicholson, who went by the name Jack, and his mate Garth Gemmel. Jack and Garth gave Jess such a bad feeling, she vowed to avoid them. As soon as I saw them, I just got a really bad vibe and I thought, stay away from those people. And I did. I never spoke to them. I never kind of was in, like I was never in a space with them. Jack and Garth drove around a town in the hearse.

Some locals thought they slept in the back of the hearse and some thought they were staying out of town. Depending on who you talk to, you will get a different response about what the guys in the hearse were doing in Batlow and their reasons for being there. Despite what some people thought, they were indeed there to work as fruit pickers and they had actually set up a camp in the caravan park as soon as they arrived in Batlow. Brodie also remembers their arrival. Once she'd met them and shaken off her initial negative reaction, she decided she liked Jack and Garth. But then a conversation with Jack changed her mind. He had something in his possession that Brodie knew didn't belong to him.

I thought they were okay. I thought they were quite charming and, you know, interesting, really interesting guys. But he said a couple of things which made me not like him. Like one was when we complimented the car, he was like, oh, yeah, there's been 11,000 bodies that have been through there and only two of them have been alive. So I didn't like that. I found that really, really creepy. I was talking to him about magic and witchcraft and things like that, and that I'm kind of

interested in. And he was like, oh, I have something to show you. And he went to his car and he got a book and the book was like a handwritten, it was like a girl's maybe diary or book of shadows or something. It had like two spells in it but I remember thinking at the time that no person would give this to him, that he had stolen it or something and I was like, oh, I don't like you. Like I really did not trust him or like him after that. A book of shadows is a notebook used to store personal information for a magical tradition such as pagan or Wiccan. They can be filled with handwritten

notes and rituals and spells and are considered sacred tools for the ones who create them. Well, it had a girl's name in it, but it also had like spells for like, you know, rites of passage and the creed and stuff like that in it, which is handwritten and it's either passed down from a family member or, like, part of a group of women. I've only ever read about them. I've never seen one. And so I did think it was very interesting, but I knew instantly that it was something that he would have stolen or taken.

The news of the arrival of Jack and Garth in the hearse spread quickly throughout the Batlow Caravan Park. They were new people to talk to and get to know, and although some were put off by their hearse from the get-go, Nahum was always one to give people a chance. To look at, Jack and Garth were like chalk and cheese. Jack was shorter with black hair and pale skin, while Garth was very tall and had more of a surfer look with long blonde dreadlocks. I only really remember meeting them like two or three times. And yeah, I remember blonde dreads, I remember the book. I remember that there was something in one of the Blond Dreads

and they both wore long shorts and like midriff tops, which I thought was weird. They thought there was something, you know, they were really into themselves. Like I remember thinking that, that like that's not a look guys should be able to pull off. Perhaps it was her injury keeping her at the caravan park combined with boredom, or maybe it was her desire to connect with people

who were out of the ordinary. But Niamh began spending time with Jack and Garth. What was the attraction? But yeah, evil, I guess, has to be somewhat attractive, doesn't it? Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to sneak into every corner. The first night that we met them, they're like, oh, do you guys smoke weed? And like, you know, we're offering us drugs and offering us alcohol. And which was another thing too. I mean, I was 15 and they were definitely a lot older and had no problems giving me, you know, drugs, which I look thing too. I mean, I was 15 and they were definitely a lot older and had no problems giving me, you know, drugs,

which I look back now and I just think far out. Like, that's just shocking. Brodie remembers making her feelings known to Nahum about these much older men. She was really interested in them. And I said to her, I really, you know, I don't really like those guys. I never hung out with them again. And I said to her, I'm not going to be hanging out with those guys, you know. So, but I don't know, we both went into town separate times by ourselves. So

I don't know what she did when she went into town. Lisa was the next of Nahum's friends to want to distance herself from Jack and Garth. I didn't want to be around them, so I kind of kept my distance. I didn't engage with them. I felt... I just felt wary of them. There was a dominant one and he had dark... I didn't know him very well. I don't even remember their names. But it was the guy who tended to drive the car

and the other guy did seem kind of submissive. I don't know, he was like the tag along. The hearse belonged to Jack and he was the one who did most of the driving. Jack was also the one who unsettled Brodie with his book of shadows that she felt he only could have if he'd stolen it. Garth was often described as far more approachable and much friendlier, someone who was more laid back than his counterpart.

Lisa doesn't remember either Jack or Garth being overly talkative. They were kind of quiet, but they did sort of talk a bit here and there in the background. That's why I don't remember a lot of conversation. I can't, I can't actually, I remember what they looked like vaguely, but the one with dark, darker hair was a bit better looking. I mean, I don't know, this is just my perspective, a bit better looking than his tag along. So if that is what the teenaged girls thought of Jack and Garth, what did John Major, the kind man who let the girls stay in his caravan, think?

He was older than the girls and had more life experience. Yeah, Jack and Garth. Yeah, I remember them dodging. I think they were driving around selling weed to people in the caravan parks. They'd sort of come and go a lot. I didn't have anything to do with them personally in that mode. But, I mean, obviously their name came up a lot. But, yeah, they did seem pretty dodgy. They were just driving around on a black earth.

Jack was the dominant one, I think. He sort of seemed to be leading the show during most of the talking. They were working. I remember at one the talking. They were working. I know I remember at one point learning that they were working, not on the orchards where I was, on different orchards. Like I said, they'd come and go. Something about the guys in the hearse told Jess to steer clear of them too.

I went up to the pub with them a couple of times with Liam and Brodie and Joel and Dave and his friend and Sol. I never really stuck around, mostly because I was working and I was tired. But I heard that the two guys in the black hearse were selling drugs, weed and speed. And when the hearse guys crossed the line one night at the pub, Niamh's friend Joel, the academic guy she'd befriended, stood up for her. All I know is that I remember Joel once saying that he was at the pub with Niamh and one of those guys from the Blackhurst saying to him, you know, like making, yeah, making a sexual remark about Neham and Joel getting really upset and saying, why the hell are you saying that? Like, that's my friend, fuck off. Jack and Garth would be one her family would speculate on for years to come. Did she become good friends with them? Were they really as shady as a lot of people made them out to be? For now, here is what Liam's brother Kieran remembers about them.

And I guess the one thing that stood out was everybody who described Garth described him, they all seemed like they were, they liked him was a likable guy he was friendly and really approachable and everybody said they didn't really know Jack he was quiet he kept to himself didn't seem to participate and I guess one thing I racked my brains over was like why was my sister hanging around with this this guy you know didn't really strike me as the sort of guy she'd hang out with. I think that she was great mates with Garth and she was more than happy and comfortable travelling with the three of them.

Neham told her sister Fanula about the two men when they talked on the phone. She told me about them on the phone and she, I remember her saying Garth was really nice. He was a really cool guy and, like, I remember her talking about lots of the people she met down there and she talked about these two guys and I remembered Garth's name. I don't remember her ever saying Jack's name. I think that she was hanging out with him because he was friendly and the other guy was the guy that drove the car and she was out on a farm handing to know someone that had a vehicle. Despite any

reservations others may have had, Neham started spending time with the Jack and Garth. On Saturday the 23rd of March, around 2am, there was a disturbance in Neham and Brodie's caravan. As Neham told it to others, a resident of the Batlow Caravan Park came into their caravan uninvited. This was not the first time he had disturbed the girls. Nahum had previously phoned her mother Anne complaining about the man, who often roamed the caravan park with a beer in his hand, going in and out of other people's caravans. Nahum was also sure he had stolen money from her before. She tried to get the man to leave but he refused, resulting in a loud confrontation between the pair. The next morning, Niamh and Brodie were

told by the park manager that they had caused the disturbance that had woken those around them and they would have to leave. Niamh and Brodie were angry because they had complained before to the manager about the man, but nothing had been done But when one door closes, another always opens Niamh and Brodie found another place to stay, out of town at the Yard Rosson Orchard, where they were both working at the time. The Casefile team have been working with Niamh's family for the last three years, piecing together what happened in Batlow in 2002. In piecing together history, we must consider perspective. Every person there at the time will have their own version of events. Here's how Jess remembers it. She didn't think it was just the single incident that caused Niamh and Brodie to be asked to leave the caravan park Rather, she said, it was their persistent partying that led to their eviction

Eventually what happened, Niamh and Brodie and I got separated Because Brodie and Niamh had been, they were too noisy in the caravan park and then one night the caravan park owners came and they said, right, that's it, you three girls get out. And I said to the owner, I've been working, I'm not getting out. And they were like, that's fine, you can stay, but Brodie and Liam and you have to go.

Definitely wasn't one incident, it was definitely the reason that they got kicked out was because they were persistently, you know, doing things throughout the day and the night and just, I guess they were having parties. Now we are going to look at what Brodie remembers about what happened. Yeah, we had a party and it was like, not really our party. It was just that a bunch of people came and we were just all having a few drinks and stuff like that. And yeah, the next morning, the owners of the caravan park blamed us for it. But, and yeah, kicked us out. They were like, oh, you guys kept everybody awake last night. And yeah, but it wasn't really our fault. Like we, we didn't, we weren't like, oh yeah, let's have a party kind of thing. So we just thought that was really unfair and we couldn't

believe that they were kicking us out when we had like nowhere to go. And so we had to take all of our stuff to work with us and then that's when we saw our boss probably midday or something and said like oh is it all right if we like camp and he was like oh I've got a caravan you can stay here it's fine and like he took us around on the tractor with all of our stuff and it was such it was full of spiders and really old and really dirty and me and them spent the whole afternoon cleaning it and trying to make it kind of livable but yeah it was all right. We stayed there for probably a week I would say. Penny and her husband Trevor ran the Batlow Caravan Park. The couple had arrived in Batlow in the mid-1990s. Their plan was to stop over on their round Australia trip. However, they both loved the town and ended up running the Batlow Caravan Park.

Their stopover in Batlow lasted 26 years. During their time running the park, especially in the early days, Penny and Trevor did whatever they could to bring the pickers in the park together and to help them out when they got to town. They would rise at 4am to do a barbecue breakfast. They'd call around to the orchards to find work for the backpackers who had no work. And because most pickers didn't have vehicles, Penny and Trevor would drive their van around in the morning and drop them off at the orchards, then collect them at the end of the day. Penny recalls that Neham actually approached her in the days prior to that final party and spoke of leaving the caravan park. Neham said that she and Brodie were planning to go and stay at the Ardrossan Orchard where they were working. Neham told Penny that they would be leaving on Saturday morning, March 23rd,

and the night before, the Friday night, they had their party. Come the Saturday morning, I had probably three different camps turn up on me doorstep to tell me, please do something about the party that went on last night all night because we did have some that came through that were there to earn money not party. Anyway it was from her, she was living in a caravan at that stage and it was from her caravan. They said oh they partied all night, had doors banging, carrying on, that no one in that area could get any sleep. So I waited till 10 o'clock because that was book out time

and there was no sign of them moving. So I went over and knocked on the door. No one answered the door. Inside a sleeping bag, jumping like a kangaroo she was. I can see it as plain as day. And I said, I'm just here to let you know it's 10 o'clock and that's the book out time. Oh, she said, we've changed our mind.

We're not going. I said, well, I've just changed it back for you. You are. I said, we don't put up with the party and that went on here last night. It was obviously their farewell party or something. I said, I've had people on the doorstep this morning complaining about that. So I said, I'm sorry, but we can't put up with that. Which in turn, she turned around to blame other people that were coming to and from their caravan and so forth. I said, all right, they may have been the ones at fault.

If you couldn't have got rid of them, you could have come across and woke us up and said, please come and tell these people to leave us alone. But I said, you didn't do that, you kept partying. So I said, it's a bit pointless blaming anyone else. It's your caravan. You're responsible for what's happened here. So with that, they did, they packed up and they left. Oh, she'd picked up her stuff off me and so forth. That may have been the last time I think that I saw her. I can't remember. Oh, she may have been the last time I think that I saw her.

I can't remember. Oh, she may have come back through again, visiting someone down there. But that was the last time I sort of had a conversation with her. But I know she used to be friends with these ones that were flying around in this bloody old hearse. And that's probably as far as it goes with me. Penny said that she never had any trouble with Nahum or her friends and that the final party was the only time that they ever received a complaint.

That's the only time I can remember her being involved in any complaint and you would get complaints quite frequently for, you know, you'd only want to have someone cough or sneeze next door and you'd have some of them that had complained they couldn't sleep. Jack and Garth attended that final party. They invited themselves along after they saw the girls fire-twirling. Yeah, we were fire-twirling out the front and they came down and they, like, parked right next to us and got out and they were like,

oh, we could see you fire twirling from the lookout because they were up at the lookout. And so we decided to come down and just say hi and... To Brodie, it felt like Jack and Garth had pushed their way into their caravan that night. We hadn't invited them over and so they had just decided to come into our caravan and they were just drinking and being really loud. And I think at one stage we did say to them, we have to work in the morning.

And that's why I think me and them were really upset when we got kicked out because we felt like we had kind of tried to do the right thing. But, you know, yeah, it was just one of those things. Lisa and Jess stayed on at the Batlow Caravan Park when Niamh and Brodie moved to Ardrossan Orchard. An email sent by Niamh to her brother Kieran on the 22nd of March 2002, which was the same night as that party that led to their removal from the caravan park, seems to support what Penny told us. That Niamh and Brodie were already planning to leave Batlow Caravan Park of their own accord. Kieran reads the email that Niamh sent that day.

Hey peoples, how goes it? Everything here is fine and dandy. God damn the weather is good. Well, it's fucking freezing at 5.30 in the morning when I get up and the nights are getting pretty damn chilly, but the days are perfect. I'm not going to the Blues Fest anymore because I'd better save my money so I can get out of here sooner and have more money to do it with. I got a new job at the most awesome orchard. Brodie and I suck, but the work's heaps easier there because the trees are less bushy, not so tall and more spread out. We don't have any arsehole quality controllers breathing down our necks all the time either and the tractor drivers are really nice. We're moving into a caravan out there about 15 minutes drive out of town just on a little block with a few other

caravans and a cabin and amenities. We'll save heaps of money out there because rent's cheaper and we won't be so close to the takeaway shop in the pub. One thing that's a pity about leaving the caravan park in town is that I won't see all the cool people we've met there all the time. Oh well, I'll see them on the weekend at the pub. Anyway, I'm planning on cruising to Sydney or Brisbane in the next two weeks. ASAP. I'd better go now, the nets are rip off down here. Niamh. Easter was approaching and as soon as Kieran read the email, he replied telling Niamh he was driving to Armidale with Fanula to spend Easter at home. He told Niamh that if she could make it to Sydney by Good Friday, which was one week away, that she could catch a ride with them.

It was an option that Niamh eagerly accepted. Ardrossan's Orchard was much further out of town than the Batlow Caravan Park. It was about 10 kilometres away and the roads into town were winding and hilly. Ardrossan Orchard had a small area set up for pickers to stay. There were a couple of caravans, a cabin, an amenities block and a communal barbecue area. The caravan Niamh and Brodie were given had no power, so if they needed any, they had to go to the cabin where another worker was staying. Compared to Butlow Caravan Park, the Ardrossan Orchard accommodation was in the middle of nowhere. Given that Niamh was now isolated and didn't have access to a vehicle, it meant she was dependent on anyone who could give her a lift into town. Given that Neem was now isolated and didn't have access to a vehicle,

it meant she was dependent on anyone who could give her a lift into town. That included Jack and Garth and their hearse. Not only that, it meant Jack and Garth could drive to see her whenever they wanted, and chances were she'd be there. We travelled to the area to check it out for ourselves. It was really interesting just seeing where Neem was staying at Ardrossan. It is in the middle of nowhere. So Lisa and Brodie definitely weren't exaggerating a jest too, I think, when they said that there was nothing out there, because there is nothing out there.

A few caravans at the time, which aren't there now, the cabin, but there's no way Neem would be able to walk to the main road to hitch a ride. No chance. It's just too far off the main road to hitch a ride. No chance. It's just, it's too far off the main road. And it's uphill. And it's all uphill as we're driving now, look. We will be back after a short break. On Monday the 25th of March, only a week after starting work at the Ardrossan Orchard,

Niamh and Brodie didn't turn up for work. When they did turn up for work on the Tuesday, they were dismissed for not showing up the day before. Niamh kept the sacking to herself, instead telling her family she was let go because there wasn't enough picking work to be done. Despite losing their job there, the two girls stayed on in the caravan at Ardrossan Orchard while they made their Easter arrangements. Jess remembers planning the next leg of her and Niamh's adventure. We started to make plans for Easter and Nem was going to go to Sydney and spend Easter with her family. And I was going to go to Coffs Harbour slash Byron Bay and be with my family. And then we would both meet in Brisbane. And that was, you know, where we would stay with some of our friends that had started

uni and had started a share house. Neham was excited to be reuniting with her family over Easter. She planned to meet Fanula and Kieran in Sydney and the three of them would then travel the six hour journey by car to their family home in Armidale. It was to be a bit of a family reunion because two of Niamh's sisters who lived in Brisbane were also coming home for Easter. Niamh made a reservation for a CountryLink ticket to travel from Batlow on Easter Thursday the 28th of March 2002. It was all sorted, she would catch a bus from Batlow to Cootamundra railway station. From there, she would then take the train from Cootamundra to Sydney. But like the trip down to Batlow, things didn't go as planned. According to Fanula,

paying for the ticket was a matter of the timing of her fruit-picking wages. And so her travel arrangements, she booked a CountryLink ticket. So she'd made a reservation, but she was waiting on her next paycheck from the orchard and she couldn't pay, she didn't have a credit card, she couldn't pay it over the phone. Obviously, you didn't book things on the internet back then, or maybe you did, but she didn't have access to the internet. Because Niamh couldn't pay for the ticket in time,

it was sold to someone else. It came as a huge blow because she was really looking forward to the Easter break with her family. I can't help but wonder, like, going from, like, being top of the school sort of thing and, like, so focused on the HSC and getting out of Armidale was her you know big focus I've always just kind of thought it's almost like she lost that focus a little bit I don't know I mean and then like when she planned to come to Sydney she was you know then had something to look forward to. Undeterred Niamham bought the next available CountryLink ticket, which was for Easter Sunday

on the 31st of March. In what has become a bit of a puzzle, the store clerk from the IGA in Batlow remembers Neham coming in on the Thursday before Easter and paying cash for her ticket at the student concession price of $36.60. But on that same day, there was a charge on Neham's bank statement from the IGA for $81.20, which overdrew her account. We have been left to wonder if perhaps Neham had to leave her debit card details when she originally booked the ticket and was accidentally charged electronically as well for the adult fare of $79.20. If there was a booking fee or bank card fee of $2, that would explain the $81.20 charged to her account that same day. Whatever the explanation, it left her broke. She had a ticket home,

but no money for her last few days in Batlow. Just as Niamh had plans to leave, many other fruit pickers in Batlow had the same idea to head off for the long weekend. In the lead up to Easter, the streets of Batlow grew quieter. First of the group to leave was Jess on Tuesday, March 26, the day her two friends lost their jobs at Ardrossan Orchard. I met a girl called Fern from Western Australia and she had a van and she had offered to give me a lift from that low up to Coffs to see my family

and then my family friend was going to you know I'd go to Byron and be with his family and then go on to Brisbane and then I'd meet Liam there and Brodie had decided to go with Natalie and Bruce to Melbourne perhaps to pick grapes. And yeah, Niamh had arranged to catch the train or something. When Brodie left around the same time as Jess to head to Melbourne with fellow fruit pickers Natalie and Bruce, Lisa was worried that with Brodie gone, Niamh would be alone out at the Ardrossan Orchard. That was when I sort of became worried about Niamh because then she was out there by herself. And also the caretaker, the guy who was living in the cottage, he left as well. He was away and she really was out there in the middle

of nowhere by herself with no car or communication. Everyone started fracturing off pretty quickly. Lisa says that the mass exodus from Batlow was not just about the Easter break and people wanting to get away. The fruit-picking experience was hard, and once the young pickers could tick it off their list, they happily moved on. I think also they were getting over it. I think there was sort of a sense of, you know, we've been here,

we've done this, we've partied. I think also when Niamh and Brodie left the caravan park, it sort of also splintered things and then it became harder for people to be getting together and doing stuff because they weren't allowed in there anymore. With the three friends heading in different directions, was it because of tension? Here and there, yes.

I think that her and Brodie had sort of been together and, you know, I think there was a bit of before the end, before Brodie left, there was definitely a bit of tension which may have propelled her to leave when she did, when the opportunity arrived. And with, I think when you're, you know, living in a caravan in a small space, you're living on top of each other for weeks on end, it's kind of natural that you start to piss each other off a bit.

And I think that, yeah, there were little things definitely that happened. But overall, I think everyone would have, with some time and space, still walked away and been friends. It wasn't like there was any major blowout. Brodie felt that Niamh wanted her to stay, more so she wouldn't be left there alone. But the opportunity to travel to Melbourne had come up unexpectedly and Brodie jumped at the chance. Yeah, when Natalie and Bruce turned up, they came out to visit us, which was awesome, because we felt pretty isolated. So yeah, Natalie and Bruce were there the night the party happened as well. They were there all the time. They were really, really cool.

And, yeah, they turned up to visit us and they're like, oh, well, we're going to go to Victoria. Do you girls want to come? And we were like, oh, when are you leaving? They're like, right now. And I was like, yep, I'm coming, you know. And she was like, oh, I can't. She was like, I can't go.

Like, I have to go to Sydney. I'm going to Vanilla's can't, she's like, I can't go, like, I have to go to Sydney, I'm going to Vanilla's place, and she's like, please don't leave me here, and I was like, well, I'm really sorry, but I don't have anything to go back to, and I can't come to Sydney with you, I can't stay at Vanilla's place with you, so this is a good opportunity for me, so I have to take it, you know, and yeah, so I left with them. Even though Niamh would be alone for several days, Brodie made her decision knowing that Niamh had plans of her own to go to Sydney, then on to Armidale for a family Easter celebration. As far as I remember, she had it all planned out. She was going to go to Fionnuala's and she was going to go to uni and that was all planned, you know.

She had a good plan and she was the type of person that if she had a plan she would stick to it. Lisa was the last of the group of friends besides Niamh to leave. She left on Thursday the 28th of March but remembers catching up with Niamh. They decided to have a barbecue the night before Lisa left. We went to the pub for lunch. It was like old times. I kind of, it was really good. She was happy.

She was smiling more. She was talking about coming to Sydney, about starting her life there. She was saying, I'm going to quit smoking. I'm going to, she was sort of talking about wanting to sort of turn over a new leaf and she was getting excited about that. And it was really good to see her just in a more positive mind frame because she'd been, the conversations that I'd had with her in the two weeks, she'd been really stuck in this kind of darker place. She invited Jesse and myself, Jesse was my boyfriend at the time, to her place the following night for a barbecue

and she was inviting those two guys who had the hearse and at the time I'd kind of said, yeah, okay, sure, we'll come. But I'd seen them around the caravan park and Neem had been off with them, but the small amount that I'd had to do with them, I don't know, I just felt I didn't want to be around them. I was worried about them. And Niamh was just so, she just thought in a way she was invincible. I think she just kind of, she didn't, her radar wasn't there at the time.

So with the departure of her friends, Niamh was left by herself in the middle of country New South Wales at Ardrossan Orchard. She phoned her mum, Anne, and sister, Fenula, to tell them that she wouldn't be able to make it home in time for Easter like she had hoped. Niamh still planned to stay at Fanula's place when she arrived in Sydney on her new arrival date of Easter Sunday, March 31. Because Fanula would still be in Armidale at their parents' house for Easter,

Niamh organised for her to leave a key out so she could get into Fanula's house. The plan was to wait for Fanula to return home and then think about where she wanted to go next. Yeah, she was just crashing at mine that night and then we were coming back the next day and then she was going to stay with me and work out what she was going to do next. She wanted to work and save up some money, maybe do a little bit of overseas travel before then starting uni the next year. With all her friends gone and Nahiamh stuck out at Ardrossan Orchard in a caravan with no electricity, no mobile phone and no reception even if she'd had one, the next couple

of days looked to be pretty lonely. Niamh must have found the isolation harder, knowing she was missing out on her family gathering ten hours north, but it might as well have been a million miles away. The wait for her country link ride on Easter Sunday left her with four days to fill with nothing to do. But Jack and Garth were still around. On the morning of Easter Thursday the 28th of March, Jack was sacked from the orchard where he was working for bruising the apples. He left Garth at the orchard working and headed into town in his hearse. Outside the IGA, he spotted Niamh. She'd got a lift into town with one of the Ardrossan fruit pickers who hadn't left Batlow for the Easter long weekend yet.

Niamh was waiting outside for the IGA to open so she could pay for her new bus ticket home on Easter Sunday. Jack pulled over and the two got talking. Because he'd been sacked, he had an unexpected free day and so did Niamh. She suggested they go to Adelong Falls and check it out. They went there, took some photos, and came back. They then checked out a few other sites around Batlow, including local landmark Blowering Dam. Jack told Niamh that he and Garth and some other pickers were headed to Gingellic the next day, which was Good Friday and a public holiday. Gingellic is a small country town on the Murray River, with national parks and scenic reserves. It's about 80 kilometres, or an hour's drive, southwest of Batlow. Jack asked Neham to come with them On what would be the last time Neham's mum Anne spoke to her

Neham told her about her plans When Anne mentions Jack she refers to him by his proper name Jason Nicholson And then one of the pickers Jason Nicholson who had an old hearse, persuaded her to go to Ginjellic for the weekend because all of the remnant pickers, they were dispersing at that stage. So what she did was she wasn't going to go because she was worried about missing the bus.

This Jason Nicholson persuaded her to go to Gingellic because he promised to bring her back on Saturday so she could catch the bus on Sunday morning and she had it teed up to stay with a couple of the other pickers who hadn't gone down. So that was all right. After speaking with Anne, Niamh called for Nuala to tell her about the plans as

well. So she said, oh yeah, they're going camping down there. But if I go with them, I don't know how to get back in time for the bus on Sunday. And then I can't remember if she told me at the time or she told mum, because she spoke to mum on the same day, that Jack had said, yeah, if you come with us, I'll give you a lift back. And so it had ended up that the arrangement was she was going to get a lift from him to Batlow and she was going to camp at the caravan park at Batlow on the Saturday night and then get on the bus on Sunday morning, travel to Cootamundra, jump on the train, come to Sydney.

When Nahum's plans to come home for Easter were thwarted, she seemed a little worried. So I just remember her feeling a bit stranded at that stage on that phone call on the Wednesday. She was a bit stranded because she couldn't get the bus out and she was just a bit worried about what she was going to do for the next three days waiting until she could get the bus to Sydney. And obviously, like, in hindsight,

Kieran and I should have just gone and picked her up. But it didn't make sense because Tumut was, like, six hours southwest and Armadale was six hours north, and we were meeting up with, like, other family from Brisbane and stuff. So obviously we had no idea that this would happen. But, God, if we had gone and got her, then it wouldn't be an issue. For the stranded young woman, anyone with a car would have seemed like a godsend.

To be honest, she was probably just hanging out with him because he had a car. Got to get lifts around the place. Because that was her frustration with not being able to get into town to pay for her ticket. Because she was staying in this caravan on some farm doing the picking and you had to basically bludge a lift into town with somebody to go shopping or go use the public phone to call us or anything like that.

Some people believe in fate. They believe things happen for a reason. Others don't. Shortly before Lisa left Batlow, never to see Niamh again, she had an encounter that would forever stay with her. We're drinking beer and, you know, probably, and she was doing her tarot cards. She was into doing tarot cards at the time. And she laid it out and she went, holy fuck, holy fuck.

And I was like, what? And she was like, shit. She was like, something really bad is going to happen to me. And I was like, what are you talking about? I was like, they're just cards, like stop going on with, you know, I was being, saying your life is what you make it, you know, you don't have to listen to that kind of blah, blah, blah. But she was really, she was like, no, something really bad is going to happen to me.

And that was about four days before she went missing. Next time on Missing Niamh. We sat up in the tent and it was like... And we just felt really scared and we turned to each other and we said, we have to get the hell out of here right now. And alarm bells started to ring and I didn't say anything because I didn't want to worry the rest of the family.