Missing Niamh - 4: Episode 4: The missing person’s report

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

When Niamh fails to use her bus ticket on Easter Sunday, her family report her missing. Her brother Kieron travels to Batlow to search for his sister and finds that a mix-up with the missing person’s report means the police aren’t looking for her. https://missingniamh.com

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RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. Please note that some names in this episode have been changed. Additionally, some audio clips are voiced by actors reading from statements or transcripts. 18-year-old Niamh May was left alone at the Ardrossan Orchard after her friend Brodie headed down to Melbourne with some people she'd met on the fruit-picking scene at Batlow. Niamh had made her own plans to meet her sister Fanula and brother Kieran in Sydney on Easter Thursday, then travel with them for an Easter family catch-up in her hometown of Armidale. Despite booking a bus ticket, Niamh did not get into town in time to pay for it

and the ticket was on sale to someone else. Niamem instead booked a ticket to Sydney on Easter Sunday, and with all her friends gone, she worried about how to fill the few days before she could leave town. She spent some time with Jack Nicholson and Garth Gemmel, two of the few people she knew with a car. Jack and his friend Garth had arrived in town the week before driving an old hearse. Opinions on Jack and Garth were divided, some found them creepy and avoided their company, but Niamh clearly didn't get the same vibe from the men in the hearse because she began spending time with them. Lisa was the last one of Liam's friends to leave Batlow. She headed off in the early hours of Thursday the 28th of March. A sudden and frightening

sense of foreboding had come over Lisa and her boyfriend Jesse. And then probably one of the biggest regrets I have is that, and this is weird, I can't explain this, but the following morning, Jesse and I woke up at the same time in a fright. 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 I can't explain that, but it was just this weird thing that happened. And we both just packed through everything in the back of the car. It was, nothing was packed properly. And it was like we were in, yeah, a fright. And we started driving. And as I was driving, we were just driving out

till we were about 10 Ks out of Batlow. I was like, we should go and get Niamh. And I never said anything. And I always regret that. But even if she had have gone back for Niamh, Lisa knew that her friend had booked her own ticket out. And so, because Niamh had her own plans, Lisa doubted whether her friend would let them take her away. I remembered thinking about her being alone and I remembered going, we should go and get her. But then I was thinking, she's just going to turn

around and tell me to fuck off and tell me that I'm coming tomorrow and I'll do it my own way because that's what she was like. And so I didn't say anything. We just packed up and left. So instead of heading north to reunite with her family as she had initially planned, Niamh ended up spending Good Friday in Ginjellic, about an hour's drive south from Batlow. She got a lift there from Jack and Garth and spent the night camping on the banks of the Murray River with both of them, as well as many other people enjoying their Easter break. Jack had promised to take Niamh back to Batlow in time to catch her bus to Sydney on Easter Sunday. Even so, she was worried about getting back to the bus on time.

She had said as much to her family when she called them. Meanwhile, Fanula and Kieran drove from Sydney to their Armadale family home as planned, where they spent the Easter weekend with their parents Anne and Brian and sisters Tamsin and Susan. The members of the May family who had been able to travel home had a nice Easter together. By Easter Sunday evening though, small seeds of concern began to grow among the May family. It began as just a small feeling of worry that something wasn't quite right. Even though she'd missed the family catch-up, Niamh had plans to make her way to Fionnuala's place in Sydney. Her mum Anne expected her to call once she got there. All the other family came home here and it was sort of the usual chaotic weekend with

everybody coming and going. And on Sunday night, or Sunday anyway, late Sunday, I thought it a little bit strange that she hadn't rung because I thought, well, normally you'd expect that she'd ring the minute she got home because she wanted to be part of the mob here. It was a bit odd. And alarm bells started to ring and I didn't say anything because I didn't want to worry the rest of the family so. When Nahum didn't ring home, Fenola tried to ring her. So I was in Armidale and I rang my house in Sydney on Easter Sunday night to check that she'd arrived. I'd left a key out for her and I'd warned one of my flatmates who was home that she

was coming and he answered and said she's not there and so I rang again later she still wasn't there. And perhaps with a parent's intuition when they couldn't get on to Niamh her dad Brian feared something had happened to her. Although she used to ring us reasonably frequently on pay phones in those days. The mobile phones were a very new item and she didn't have one and we didn't either. So she'd ring us here at the house on the landline and keep us up to date with what she was doing and what was happening in her life and saying what her intentions were and so forth. And that's why we were alarmed when she didn't arrive in Sydney to Fionnuala's place as planned. We knew straight away that it wouldn't be a deliberate choice on her part, that something must have happened to her.

The May family went to bed on Easter Sunday night, trying not to worry. But it was a restless night for them all. For her mum Anne, Monday brought the real concern. On Monday, she still hadn't rung. There was just no trace of her. So we were quite concerned. And by then, Fionnuala and the other families had got back to Sydney and they were worried too, because she hadn't turned up. Fionnuala had left stuff for her in her flat in Sydney. She hadn't arrived. So we thought, woo, we knew things were wrong then. And my feeling immediately was that she wasn't playing games.

She hadn't run away. She hadn't done anything strange. It was bad news from the beginning. Fanula called her house first thing Monday morning. Niamh hadn't arrived. When Fanula returned home later that day, Niamh still wasn't there. Fanula and Kieran soon realised she hadn't been there at all. Easter Monday was the long weekend. So we got back to Sydney and I'd dropped Nully off in Chatswood outside her share house. And I remember you realising that I think the key

and the money that you'd left for Nanny was still in the garage. And I don't know if you came back over to the car and told me or not. I can't remember. But we both sort of think that's a bit weird. And then obviously that night you called mum and sort of said, look, she hasn't shown up. She's not at my house. And then the next I was aware of what was going on was on the Wednesday. So Tuesday went by and I guess mum tried to make a few inquiries with some of her friends to find out. I went back to work on Tuesday.

I kept ringing mum. I sent her an email saying, where the fuck are you? And she'd sent a group email. And so I replied all to that saying, hey, guys, you know, this is what's happened. If anyone's heard from them, can you let us know? Just a bit worried about her. Mum hadn't slept basically since Sunday.

Mum knew immediately something was wrong. I mean, we all knew something was up, but to start with, I was a bit like, oh, maybe she's, you know, met some other travellers and just decided to get a lift and she's taking longer than expected or maybe she got drunk and slept in and missed the bus. On Wednesday the 3rd of April, certain that they would have heard from Niamh by now if there was nothing wrong,

Brian and Anne filed a missing persons report at Armadale Police Station. I started to put together a photograph and description and all the information that I thought the police would need and I went down on Wednesday morning, reported it to the police and they said, you know, usually they turn up within a certain time and I said, yeah, but I don't think this is normal. Anyway, we handed in all that.

The police here faxed it to Batlow, which was where she had been. So we contacted the bus company and told them to contact the police with the information to see whether she'd travelled. So the bus company, Ferns in Wagga, said, yeah, she'd travelled. The missing persons report given by Niamh's parents in Armidale was faxed to the Batlow Police Station with the expectation that the local police would begin investigations in the area where Niamh was last known to have been. Kieran began his own investigations as soon as his mum told him she'd reported Niamh missing.

At this point in time, Kieran was of the belief that Niamh had travelled to Sydney entirely by bus. He was unaware of the connecting train at this early stage. Anne had contacted the bus company and they said Niamh had used her ticket. Central Train Station also has a regional bus service, and that's where Kieran's investigation began. Mum called me Wednesday night, and by now she'd already been to the police and lodged a missing persons report, because she was obviously clearly concerned. None of her friends who'd been with her in Batlow were with her

or knew who she might be with. They'd all made suggestions. And mum's a pretty calm, very calm person, but I could tell just from the tone of her voice that something wasn't right. And she was saying, look, she's supposed to have travelled on this CountryLink ticket and We've lodged a report. Here's the event number.

Can you see if you can find out anything further? And when I got off the phone, I was dazed. I knew I couldn't drive. My flatmates were out, so I called a friend who lived down the road and just said, look, can you come and pick me up? I need you to drive me to Central Station. She's like, why? And I said, look, I'll tell you later.

I can't talk about it now. I just couldn't put into words what I was feeling. So she dropped me off outside Eddie Avenue and there was a shop front, police shop front in the downstairs section next to the coach lockers. And I went in there and there was a young constable behind the desk with his arm in plaster and gave him the event number and said, look, here's the event number. My sister's been reported missing. I need your help. We think that she's traveled to Sydney. Is there any way that we can confirm that? And he was, I guess he was probationary, he was learning. So, you know, typing with one finger and when things didn't quite pan out with the event number, he'd disappear behind a partition and ask for advice and come back. And this went back and forth for five or ten minutes.

And they were busy at the time, meaning they didn't have staff to physically come out and do anything. But I asked about security cameras where the buses arrived all along Eddy Avenue and under the archways and there were none. So there was no video footage from that area. I then approached the security guards at Central and I had a picture of my sister and, you know, she'd travelled three days prior. And I asked them if they'd seen her.

And of course, they said, no, they're all concerned. They said, you need to talk to the station master's office. We've got cameras for the concourse and the train platforms. They might be able to help you. And then when I approached them, it was obviously late at night. There weren't many staff around. And privacy laws had recently been enacted in New South Wales. So the first response you get from anyone when you ask questions,

you know, can I see video footage or I've got a concern about my sister or anything else is, oh, look, privacy laws, we can't talk to you about it. You need to make a formal request or it needs to go to the police first. So that night I guess I left a little bit frustrated because there was no way I could get access to anything. I'd called mum and said, look, you need to get the police in Armidale to call the police at Central Station to have them go and physically talk to the station manager and request to view the footage. I can't view it, but the police can. Kieran then found out from Anne that Niamh was

supposed to have arrived in Sydney by train, not bus. Niamh was booked on a CountryLink bus that departed from Batlow on Easter Sunday. The bus would then drop her at Kootamundra train station to catch the train back to Sydney. They needed to find out for certain whether Niamh had used her ticket. When Anne first contacted CountryLink over the phone, they told her Niamh had used the ticket. If she used her CountryLink ticket, it would narrow down the places to start looking for her. The next day, Thursday April 4th, Kieran went back to Central Station to continue the search. Vanula describes his frustrations at trying to get a straight answer. They obviously contacted the bus company. I think Kieran went to Central Station and to Country

Link and said, this is what's happened. We need to know where my sister is, so can you tell us if her ticket was used? So somebody's looked on the system, her name's attached to a ticket and they're like, yep. Through some goings and back and forth between the security people and CountryLink, they then worked out, they finally looked into it properly and CountryLink then confirmed and also spoke to the driver, the bus driver, that she did not get on the bus.

I think he got a bit frustrated and may have not been as polite as possible because in the end he felt bad and got flowers for the person. I remember he went and bought flowers and said sorry to them. But that was how we established that she had not actually travelled. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the oil. I think she took pity on me and took me to the side because I was pretty emotional and I went back and got flowers

and said, look, I'm really, really sorry. But, yeah, so that mum had received that information over the phone from either CountryLink or the people in Kuta or whoever who'd said, yeah, yeah, she's traveled on that ticket sort of thing. And that's why we went there because this girl had arrived in Sydney and hadn't been seen since obviously arriving at Central. And we were freaking out, fearing the worst, going, oh my God, where the hell is she?

Obviously, she's got money, shelter, everything else else and she never made it. She could be anywhere in Sydney. Something could have happened to her. So that's why I went there straight away. That was the presumption was that she'd made it. And it wasn't until the Thursday in the ticket office that the lady actually looked up in the system and said that ticket wasn't used. If she did come to Sydney, it wasn't on that ticket. So the train ticket was never used. The bus ticket from Batlow to Cootamunch was never used. If she'd travelled to Sydney, it wasn't on that ticket. So there was a chance that she'd never come to Sydney.

But learning that she hadn't used the ticket just led to more questions. To check that Niamh definitely hadn't caught the ticket just led to more questions. To check that Niamh definitely hadn't caught the train into Sydney, the CCTV was checked anyway. They did actually follow up and check that footage and they couldn't find any sign of her. Because Niamh hadn't been captured on CCTV at Central Station and her ticket home hadn't been used, Kieran considered the possibility that his sister had never left Batlow. He needed to get down there straight away to see if he could find her. I got a call from dad late, probably 11 o'clock that night, and dad had said, I'm going to fly down to Sydney. The first flight is tomorrow afternoon and then we'll go to Wagga.

I'll fly to Wagga or we can drive together. I want to come down with you to Batlow and find out what's going on. And I sort of discouraged him. I thought that it'd be better if a young person went down there and asked questions. And they were already doing so much legwork from Armidale that it would be easier with phone connections if they stayed up there and followed stuff up and I would follow stuff on the ground and I basically said, look, I'm leaving first thing in the morning. I need to get there soon. I don't want to wait until the afternoon or the night. So I basically got up in the morning, grabbed the bag, grabbed a doona and jumped in the car and left. Kieran arrived in Batlow on Easter Sunday for the first leg

of her trip to Sydney, it seemed like the best place to start searching for her. Just past Yass on the way, just past Gundagai on the way down to Batlow, I got a message from mum and dad. They mentioned everybody had talked about some guy in a hearse, but nobody really knew his name or who he was. But he'd been out at Ardrossan, which is where she'd last been staying and fruit picking. And they mentioned a couple of other leads. The information from his parents gave Kieran several places to start looking for Niamh. So I had a little bit of information and I think they mentioned that

the guy in the hearse might have been working at Vanzella's Orchards. So as I was driving into Batlow on the right-hand side, I see this big packing shed with Vanzella's on it, literally five minutes from the center of town. And when I pulled into town, the first thing I did was basically started in the main street. There's pretty much only one street other than the highway. So you've got a pub on the corner, the post office opposite, service station, ex-servies club, which is a tiny little, you know, building. And a little bit further down on the left is the library. And again, if you wanted internet access you would have to go to the library and check in and

you know pay because there's no other wi-fi signals or anything else mobile phone coverage wasn't much better and if you wanted phone coverage it didn't work even in the center of town you had to drive to the lookout overseeing the town and pick up reception that way. So I started at the post office and asked the ladies in there, you know, this is my sister, here's the photo, and all the ladies in there said hadn't seen her, didn't recognise her. Word got around quickly that Niamh's brother was in town looking for her, and he was soon approached by people eager to help him out. Kieran compiled a list of contacts to give to police to help with their search. He knew that Niamh was an incredibly

adventurous and outgoing person, but he didn't think she was one to take risks. After seeing the casual spirit of the fruit-picking culture, he grew worried that maybe she took risks she wouldn't normally have taken. Kieran travelled around Butlow stopping everyone he met to show them a photo of Niamh in case anyone recognised her. Nobody at the post office had seen her, nor had anyone in the shops along the main street. When Kieran got to the local mechanics, Pioneer Automotive, he thought he had his first lead in tracking Niamh down. Got to the mechanics and asked about her and he said, look, he hadn't seen her, but there were some guys in a Commodore

doing burnouts and yahooing, tearing off up the road, saying their goodbyes, and there was some blonde or fair-haired girl in the back of the car. Kieran took down the details to follow up, then continued his search. It turned out the girl in the car wasn't Niamh. So then I went to the library, and the librarian was lovely, and she remembered my sister. And she actually had a record of when she was last in there, and she could describe exactly pretty much everything about her. It wasn't a vague, yeah, I think I remember her. She knew her, and she was familiar with her.

But she said she hadn't been in in two weeks, which would have been the 22nd of March, which was when she last sent a group email, as far as I'm aware, to family. So then on my rounds, I wanted to follow up the CountryLink ticket. And this is because mum had called me to say, one strange aspect is the purchase of a ticket and then not travelling on it.

Could you contact your helpful lady at Central to see if she can find out if she cashed the ticket in for a refund? That was when I was going into Central. When I spoke to CountryLink, they said, no, we never give refunds. She would never have been able to get money back. She definitely wouldn't save any money if she skipped one leg and decided to cash the ticket in.

The other drama was that Easter, obviously all the banks are closed and there's no way to access money and mum said she bought the ticket through the agent in Batlow which is the IGA supermarket so I went to the IGA and and spoke to three girls there and showed the photo and they said yeah she bought and paid for her country league ticket here on Thursday the 28th. They'd seen her arrive in the Black Hearse and they stated, Niamh hadn't tried to get a refund or exchange on her ticket in Batlow. The thing that was a little bit heartbreaking was speaking to one of the clerks there.

She realised that they'd double charged or stuffed up processing the ticket and Niamh's account was overdrawn. So she would have discovered after she'd left on Thursday afternoon and potentially gone to the bank to withdraw money, she had no money in her account and she wouldn't have known why. And I remember asking one of the girls about it and saying, look, my sister's now missing. She was last seen with that guy. And she started crying. I wasn't being mean, but I think she just realized the gravity of that one small error in processing that ticket.

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Kieran remembers being told that the people selling the ticket had overcharged Neham, but others would later blame the delay in Neham's pay arriving in her account for the reason she was low on funds. Either way, her account was empty. Millie, the IGA employee who sold Neham her ticket, remembers Neham paying $39.60 cash for her student rate ticket. Yet, there was also a charge on her bank card for $81.20 at the IGA the same day. This indicates Neham could have been charged both cash for a student ticket and by card for a full fare ticket by mistake.

And that added up to an overdrawn account. She would have had no money. Good Friday, Saturday, Sunday, no access to money and banks. There's no way to transfer money, you know, like you do these days. And most of her friends were out of town, so I guess she figured she could go camping with these guys and hang out with them until she came back to get the bus on the Sunday. She had the ticket.

Yeah. It was then Kieran went to the Batlow Police Station and made a devastating discovery. I should have mentioned when I first got into town, I went to Batlow Police Station up on the hill because Mum had said, yeah, the officers here have sent faxes with all the details or the information that we've got or given them to Batlow,

and they hadn't heard anything from Batlow. And when I got to Batlow, I realised it's an unmanned police station. It's just an empty building. And there's one of those call buttons that you see on train platforms for assistance. I pressed that and it goes through to the police radio dispatcher. And, you know, I said, look, I'm in Batlow. It's regarding a missing persons case.

Here's the case number. All this information was sent by fax. And she said, look, the police only come out there on sort of Friday and Saturday nights during peak season. So there's no one there. If you really want to talk to someone, we can dispatch, you know, let's say highway patrol from Gundagai. But I don't know how much help they're going to be. When the police in Armidale faxed the missing persons report through to the Butlow police station on Wednesday April 3rd, it arrived, but what the Armidale police didn't realise at the

time was that Butlow wasn't used 24-7. An officer would be there on occasions, but other than that, it was empty. Neham's missing persons report had been sitting in the fax tray, unread, the whole time Neham's family were searching for her in Sydney. It was a turn of events that put the investigation behind from the get-go. All the way back in Armidale, Neham's parents, Anne and Brian, were assuming the Batlow police had got the information and would be looking for their daughter. We did not know that Batlow was an unmanned police station.

So that week, the police were not on duty at all. Nothing had gone through from Armidale to Batlow or to Tumut. After Kieran found no joy at the police station, he went to the Batlow Hotel. He knew Niamh had been at the hotel or pub during her time in Batlow and hoped someone might know something. I walked in and I went up to the barmaid and when I asked questions about my sister and showed her the photo, She recognized her immediately. And I said, how do you know? And she said, well, she was actually sitting here last week, last Thursday. She was sitting right at that table and she pointed and I said, well, who was she with?

She said, she was with two guys. The blonde guy was Garth and he was described as like a tall sort of surfy dude, kind of dreadies. And she said this other guy in a black or gray overcoat. And she said, oh, I think his name, we joked about his name being like a famous actor, like Jack Nicholas or Jack Nicholson. I said, oh, okay. And I said, well, what were they doing? She said, oh, they were just having some quiet drinks and chatting. She said, oh, Garth was really friendly. He was like a funny guy. And I said, what about the other guy? And she said, look, he was really quiet, kept to himself, didn't talk, which I thought was a pretty interesting observation as it turns out. After talking to staff at the hotel, Kieran then found John Major from the caravan park and finally was able to talk to someone who knew his sister

well. Behind me playing pool in the pub was a Kiwi called Johnny, another quiet, unassuming guy in a singlet shorts playing a bit of pool on a Friday afternoon. And I went and introduced myself and he was shocked when I told him that I was looking for my sister and we hadn't heard from her over Easter. He'd just assumed obviously that she'd made her way to Sydney and everything was sweet. So then he sort of helped me. I asked him about the hearse and Jack and Garth

and he knew them but he didn't know them that well. He'd also said that he was a bit worried about her when she'd moved out to Ardrossan because I think her and Brodie were the only girls staying out there and he thought the guys out there weren't that charming. And that's when it all pretty much kicked off. Did Johnny offer much information about Garth and Jack? No, but he was really helpful in pointing

out who everybody was, where they were staying, and he knew everybody by name. So we went across to the caravan park and this blonde, surfy-looking girl came out of the toiletry block and he said, that's Nicole. You should ask Nicole about your sister because she knows everyone. She's just one of these super happy, super friendly, lovely people. And she was the main person. Her and Johnny were pretty much with me the whole time down there, taking me around to speak to people and introducing me to anybody they knew. Pickers, there were people who were living, they were renting like farmhouses, so you wouldn't see them in town traditionally, but they were able to take me out to their place.

They knew where Ardrossan was. They knew the cabins. They knew the guys who lived out there. So they were able to introduce me to them. They could introduce me to the bosses. But the first thing Johnny told me about Garth and Jack was, again, I think they were picking for Vanzellas. And I remembered I'd driven past it.

There was something about the stories of the hearse and about Jack and Garth that made Kieran decide to follow the trail towards them as a matter of urgency. So I got in the car, after speaking to Johnny, I got in the car, I drove out to Vanzella's and said, I'm looking for my sister. She was last seen with these guys. I think they were picking for you. And I believe it was Tony Vanzella, the owner I was talking to,

and he actually said, look, I don't remember your sister at all and I don't think she worked for us, but yeah, I remember these guys. Yeah, they picked for us, but they left last week. In fact, I've still got their pay stubs here. They never came and collected their pay. Now, everybody I've spoken to who's a fruit picker is pretty much living week to week. And to leave money behind was just bizarre. And he told me that, oh, these two girls in the caravan park are going to collect their pay for them and meet up with them later on in Queensland. Kieran knew that the key to finding out Niamh's whereabouts

would be to track down the two guys in the hearse. Kieran went looking around Batlow Caravan Park to see if he could find out where Jack and Garth had gone off to after picking at Vanzella's Orchard. After I spoke to Tony Vanzella, I was looking for the two girls who collected their pay stubs and they were also at the caravan park. So when I went across with Johnny and Nicole and after checking in and talking to the owners, Penny and Trevor, we sort of did a little bit of a walk around to see who was there. So Nicole, I asked her straight away, you know, you were here, you knew my sister. Did she come?

Yeah, yeah, I saw her. She came to say goodbye. And she thought that was on the Thursday, the 28th, that she came in to say goodbye. And she said that she was there on Easter Sunday when the black hearse with two guys inside left. And she said they were definitely alone. Jack and Garth were in the hearse. There was no one else. Kieran was then able to speak to one of Niamh's close picking friends, Joel. Joel came home from work after five and we had a chat to him. And he's like an older guy, had a bit of a beard.

When I say older, I'm saying 30 as opposed to 18 to 20. Pretty obvious he worked pretty hard. He had, you know, a bit of sun and everything else. And he was a really calm, sort of relaxed guy. He drove out to Ardrossan Caravan Park on Easter Saturday to visit her. But they said, look, she's already packed up and left. And he was back at the Batlow Caravan Park on the Sunday when Jack and Garth left.

There was only the two guys inside. So he was really sort of bummed that he'd missed her. Carly and Laura were the two women who had organized to pick up Jack and Garth's payslips for them from Vanzella's orchard after both men had left town. Everybody we approached in the caravan park were friendly, helpful, and when you say you're looking for a missing person, they're obviously concerned and, you know, want to do the best they can. I didn't really get that feeling from these two girls. They were standoffish, suspicious, just not friendly. And I really, it really, it frustrated me. I couldn't understand why they were sort of behaving that way. So yeah, they said they were friends with Jack and Garth.

They said they had the pay stubs and they were going to travel to Queensland and meet up with them there. They didn't really give any more details about when, where or how. Kieran spoke with the park manager, Penny Nolan, who remembered Niamh well. After all, she had been the one to tell Niamh and Brodie to leave the caravan park. But she couldn't remember the last day she saw Niamh. She thought it was Good Friday. She basically said that Niamh would come and ask her for permission to come into the caravan park to say goodbye to her friends. Kieran asked Penny about Jack and Garth. She confirmed they'd left the caravan park on Easter Sunday.

And I asked about the guys in the Black Hearse and she said that they were staying at the caravan park, but they'd cleared out on Good Friday the 29th of March and then they came back in on Easter Sunday the 31st. They paid her and said they were clearing out for good. They said they'd been camping down at Gingellic for the last couple of days. Penny recalls Jack and Garth checking out of Butlow Caravan Park after their Gingellic trip. She didn't recall seeing Niamh with them. I didn't realise they'd gone away. And as I said, I didn't have a lot to do with them anyway.

You didn't take a lot of notice who was driving in and out at times. They came to the office and said to me, sorry, we're running late getting the rent paid, but we've been away for a few days. And I said, oh, I didn't even realise you were away. And they said, oh, yeah, we've been down at Gingellic. They said, but we're packing up now and we're leaving, so we just want to fix you up for what we owe you.

Which I think I ended up knocking a day or two off it because they'd been away anyway. So I wished them all the best and I think I said, where are you off to after here? And I think it was Queensland. They said they were going to go. And I looked at the bloke in the hearse and I said, are you going to terrorise him up that way now, or something or other, you know, referring to his hearse, you know.

Yeah, he laughed and said, yeah, that'll be our next stop. But I believe they didn't go up there anyway, so that was probably the most conversation I ever had with that particular bloke. His mate was the one that I sort of knew a little bit but didn't get involved with him greatly because at the time we could have had anything from 80 to 100 people down there. So you didn't really personally get to know all of them.

As for the fella that was driving the hearse, I really had nothing much to do with him. The other lad I always found a pleasant fella when he'd speak to you. The one driving the hearse is Jack. The friendly one is Garth. Kieran remembers that Penny didn't have any personal details for Jack and Garth. Kieran had also been told by different people that Jack and Garth were headed both to Queensland and to Victoria, two different states in the complete opposite direction.

She didn't know Jack or Garth's last names, had no phone numbers, no vehicle rego details. So I asked her if anybody else at the campsite knew the hearse driver, and she said I talked to this guy Lenny. Luckily, when Kieran was visiting the caravan park, it was getting close to sunset. He found out that was when the pickers gathered for a beer around a fire. This gathering might prove a good way to gather information about his sister. So the sun's starting to set now, it's getting cold. Penny and Trevor at the caravan park would set a nice big fire up beside their office, you know, on a 44-gallon drum, if you like, and people would stand around and have a quiet beer and a chat.

And that's where I met Lenny. So he was an older Kiwi guy, standing around in stubbies and a singlet in the cold, nursing a VB. I think he had sort of dreadies or long, dark hair. And he was a lovely, really nice, quietly spoken guy. And he was really helpful. He was actually, I don't know how he met Garth, but he said he was good friends with Garth.

He knew him well. And he actually said he'd been talking to Garth by mobile phone since he'd left on Easter Sunday. And then Lenny gave Kieran what would be the biggest lead in finding Niamh so far. Garth's mobile phone number. Because phone reception in Batlow was so sketchy, Kieran had to drive up to the Batlow lookout where he could get enough reception to make an outgoing phone call. He then dialled the number. And of course I went through to voicemail.

And I said, look, I'm in Batlow, I'm Niamh's brother, and I just want to know if she's left Batlow with him and Jack, because at this stage, we didn't know where she was. I waited around for a while and didn't get a call back. And then, of course, I get back down to the campground and there's a, boom didn't get a call back. And then, of course, I get back down to the campground and there's a... Boom, you've got a message. Hey, Kieran. Yeah, it's Garth here.

Yeah, I'm just returning your call. Yeah, Jack dropped Naomi off at Tumet. She was supposed to be catching the bus down to Sydney to stay with her sister. Yeah, give us a call back and if you can't get through, I'm just on the road at the moment, so if you can't get through, just try again later. Tumet is a town 30 minutes north of Batlow. It is a larger town with far more facilities

than Batlow. But it made no sense that Niamh would want to be dropped off there. I thought that was weird that he said drop through at Tumet because the ticket was from Batlow. I thought, oh, maybe, you know, he's got the two confused. So I called Garth back and said, look, give me a call. I want to, you know, catch up with you. Next time on Missing Niamh. Somebody claims that he dropped her off and she was hitchhiking. And, you know, the second that she said that, I guess the reaction was the same as she's died. We've been investigating for the last four days. Here's everything we've done. I've just spoken to the last person to see her alive and he's giving me a bullshit story.