The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Where is Daniel Morcombe? | 4. The Web

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

With the case at a standstill, a disturbing new lead revives old suspects and as their faith in the police falters, Bruce and Denise continue their own search for the truth. Binge all episodes of Where is Daniel Morcombe? ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access. From serial killer nurses to psychic scammers – The Binge is your home for true crime stories that pull you in and never let go. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. A Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A boy goes missing from a bus stop in Queensland, Australia. His disappearance made national headlines and launched the largest search for a missing child in Australia's history. There were over 700 persons of interest. It was absolutely enormous. Now, for the first time, his parents share with a global audience their journey to uncover what happened to their son. We'd said right from the start,

who's ever responsible had picked on the wrong family. So we just made it our life's work. We're going to hunt you down. And if not for the parents, the case might still be unsolved. But in the end, the pressure led cops to take shocking risks and go to extraordinary lengths to catch this perpetrator. The master deceiver was deceived and manipulated himself. We did to him what he did to Daniel.

From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Where is Daniel Morecam. Available now on The Binge. wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to all episodes of Where is Daniel Morkum ad free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit the Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page.

Or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge. Feed your true crime obsession. The Binge. Campside Media This episode contains detailed accounts of child sexual abuse,

discussions of psychopathy and violent crime, and references to suicide. Please listen with care. The three-year anniversary of Danielsabducery. approached, and Deputy Inspector Mike Condon and his team were beyond frustrated. Yes, there were always new leads to follow, but investigators were going in circles. The same few suspects kept rising to the surface, but there was never enough evidence to pinpoint any one of them. Unless you asked Mike Condon, he had his prime suspect, especially after

receiving a letter which had been intercepted by prison officers at the Wollstone Correctional Center. In August of 2006, a woman named Danielle Richardson had written to her incarcerated boyfriend. I can't handle it anymore. Daniel Wilkins' picture is in the paper. It's on TV. I see him when I sleep all the time. I'm going off my head what we've done to him. I have to clear my conscience thing. I say you do the same. I will go to the police soon. You're in jail now. What does it matter of you stay there?

You killed that poor kid. His parents need a know. Danielle Richardson's boyfriend? The person the letter was addressed to? It was Douglas Jackway. He was the first person of interest interviewed. Police had reason to believe he was near the overpass when Daniel disappeared. And he drove a blue car that matched the many.

eyewitness accounts. I'm Matt Angel, and from Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is Where is Daniel Markham? Episode 4. The Web. If you want to get into the mind of someone like Douglas Jackway, you need to find someone who's been there, someone like forensic psychologist Chris Alro.

I encountered Jackaway in the Queensland prison system not long after he was charged with the offense of attempted rape of a boy in the area of Tadam Sands. This was back in 1995, eight years before Daniel disappeared. Jackaway was just 18. Jackway was driving through the small town when he spotted a group of young boys riding their bikes. He stalked them from behind the wheel of his car for a bit. Then he pulled over and got out to ask the boys for directions. He beat one and drove the others off, and then he assaulted the last boy.

It was nine years of age. The boy's bike helmet was still on his head when Jackaway threw him into the car and sped away. They didn't make it very far before Jackway crashed into a bridge. He hurried from the car, pulling the terrified child behind him. Dragged him off the bush and did various sexual things to him, inserted his finger. There's some debate as to whether he was successful in actually using his... genitals. There was some doubt about that. There was a woman in the vicinity who saw what had happened to the boys and ran off and got

the police, fortunately, and the police arrived soon afterwards to find Jackaway naked and this boy. The cop wasn't the only one who got to the scene to discover Jackway in the act. The boy's father arrived around the same time. Jackaway wanted to use the boy as a hostage to escape, claimed that he had a knife with which he had cut the boy's throat. And the boy called out, no, he doesn't have a mind. So the police were able to successfully apprehend him. This boy was quite extraordinary how he was curking with it.

Jack Way was sentenced to eight years for the violent abduction and sexual assault. At the time, Chris was working as a consulting psychiatrist in the prison system. He spent his days with convicted pedophiles. But every now and then, one would come along and leave a lasting impression. For Chris, that was the case with Jackway.

In the pictures I've seen, Jackaway's far from the skinny, pasty, central casting pedophile we often see in movies. He's tattooed and muscular. He wears low-neck tank tops. He'd fit him well at a biker bar. But that's not what grabbed Chris Alrow. It was Jackaway's eyes.

They were hollow, void of any feeling. I suppose you would regard this as a lack of empathy. A lack of empathy is something we tend to associate with psychopaths, but it's not always so clear-cut. Now, some of my colleagues might disagree with me, but I think most of them would accept the fact that a biological psychopath from the point of view of a professional doctor would be someone who has a history of serious offenses,

who, given the opportunity, will do something very nasty to someone with physical nature or kill them and not be concerned about it, and sexual offences. That's your biological psychopath. From a clinical perspective, most pedophiles aren't psychopaths. But Jackway? Chris's professional opinion was that he was, without a doubt, the worst of the worst. A biological, psychopathic pedophile.

What he did was pretty extraordinary. His treatment of that boy was very disturbed, you know? He's reminiscent of John Fraser, the serial killer. He reminded me very much of him. Leonard John Fraser is one of the most infamous serial killers in Australia's history. He'd spent the larger part of his life behind bars for a number of brutal rapes. The crimes earned him the nickname, The Rock Hampton Rapist. But Fraser got out and graduated to murder.

Douglas Jackaway may not have gone that far yet. He may not have murdered the boy he abducted and sexually assaulted in 1995. But Dr. Chris Alro believes that's only because he was caught before he had the chance. There's no doubt in my mind that if he was alone and no one knew that he had the child, the child would kill. There was another element of Fraser's story that earned him notoriety. He had confessed to murdering a number of people, including a 14-year-old girl named Natasha Ryan, who had been missing for years.

Fraser drew detailed maps, showing where Natasha's remains could be found. But then, during his trial in 2003, Natasha Ryan was found, alive. She had been living and hiding with her boyfriend, so Fraser had simply lied. leading detectives down a trail of red herrings. Al Rowe worked with both Fraser and Jackway,

and he saw undeniable similarities. These were truly dangerous men. When you meet them, you immediately struck with your ideas, I don't want to bump into this person in a dark night out of the street. You know, unempathetic, primitive people, the way they think. An important part of Chris's job in the prison system back in 1995 was advising on whether these criminals should be considered for release, reintegrated into society.

In Alro's opinion, Fraser and Jackaway were the types of criminals who should never be freed. Their dangerous urges were not a disease, not something that anyone could ever fix. I always oppose the idea that if they undertook a course of treatment carried out by psychologists, that would lessen their sentence or enable them be discharged from prison. In the Jackaway's case, he's been given two of these courses, but they never change. The authorities don't seem to understand this, and psychologists don't

seem to understand this as well. They look at this behaviour and they think these people must be mentally ill. They must be mad to do what they're doing. But that's not the case. This is their personality. This is the way they're designed, whether by their circumstances or their biology, this is what you end up with. These people are dedicated to what they do. They're cutting, they're planning. These people think about molesting children every day. They're obsessed with them. It reminds me of something one of the task force Argos detectives, Dennis Martin, said to me. You can't change pedophiles.

Oh, they may have been good in their time. We can turn them around. No, you can't turn shit around. You can't polish it to, all you can do is present them opportunities or lessen that presentation of opportunities to stop the offending. That's how Al Rowe thinks of Douglas Jackway. When I saw him in prison, I felt that he probably should be kept in jail, but there was no legal way of doing that. In the early 2000s, Queensland was in the process of overhauling its laws around the management

of sex offenders. The new Dangerous Prisoners Act gave authorities the power to extend prison sentences for high-risk pedophiles. But the law came into effect too late to apply to Jackway. Even though psychologists like Dr. Chris Alro had flagged him as a high-risk recidivist with psychopathic traits, there was nothing to stop him from walking free in November of 2003. just one month before Daniel Morecam's disappearance. I mean, it's one thing to know that he'd actually been released.

It's another to know that he's actually in the area where Daniel Warkham is. There's no doubt that Jackaway was in the vicinity. Now, it's very disturbing to think that this little boys, they're waiting on the bus stop, and you have these very disturbed sexual psychopaths driving around the place, you know, looking for children. When I looked at it, I thought, now, what's he? doing out how they've been given licenses and allowed to drive around the place. They're extremely dangerous people.

So when later on it was all coming out, I wasn't at all surprised. Jackway was questioned by police on December 10, 2003, less than 72 hours after Daniel vanished. Then again, on December 11th, and again on December 12th. From one questioning to the next, his story and his supposed where, during the time in question, kept changing. They are pathologic liars. It's like shifting sands. Now, that's a bit of a defense when you think about it.

You just keep changing the story. You can't pin these people down. It's almost like a deliberate ploy. Jackway had also intimidated several of his associates into lying about his whereabouts on December 7th. So the circumstantial evidence was there, but investigators had nothing concrete. Then, in 2004, Jackway was convicted for the 1991 rape of a nine-year-old girl.

He was just 13 at the time, and back behind bars. Before long, inmates started coming forward, one after another, claiming that Jackway had confessed to murdering Daniel Morecambe, and that the body would never be found. But investigators began to wonder, were these genuine leads? This was something they had to look out for in prison culture. Inmates would fabricate stories in hopes of garnering lighter sentences or police favor.

Operation Bravo Vista detectives were increasingly convinced that that was the case here, that criminals saw an opportunity on a high-profile case and were spinning a web of lies to help themselves. And if Jackaway was dropping clues to his fellow inmates, there was something else investigators had to consider. Was he telling the truth? You're dealing with criminals. They do nasty things. That's why they're in jail. And you're bursting to them about the nasty things you've done. Look all the people I've killed.

And the more evil you are, the more powerful and stronger you are. Could Douglas Jackaway have been pulling a Leonard-Jone Fraser and lying about killing Daniel Morecambe? detectives followed every lead given to them about Jackway, but none of them led to anything meaningful. They were treading water in a sea of doubt. But what about that letter? The one written by Jackway's girlfriend, Danielle Richardson, and sent to him in prison.

She ended up telling cops, she didn't write it, and had no idea where it came from. October really brings it all, doesn't it? Halloween parties, game day tailgates, those perfect crisp fall nights, and total wine and more is here for every single one. Whether you're inviting friends over for a spooky movie marathon or just savoring the cool fall air on your patio, you'll find exactly what you need. Thousands of wines, spears and beers, all at the lowest prices.

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Hunter. Settle down, sweetheart. Settle down now. Steve Irwin was just one of those superstars. That contagious enthusiasm. If we can touch people about wildlife, then they want to save it. His wild antics. I jumped on a crocodile. What? Hit me in the head. I got scars all over my face. No two fingers are the same. Those catchphrases. Crikey. Crikey. Steve had found fame in the U.S. But in doing so, he'd put Queensland and its wildlife on the map. Australia Zoo, where he was based, was just south of Palm Woods.

In 2006, the Morcombs reached out and asked Australia's biggest TV star to be part of a DVD called Foundation Red. It was all about child safety. The plan was to have it shown in primary schools across the country. The crocodile hunter was more than happy to participate. But he never got the chance. Good evening. Queensland adventurer Steve Irwin, who won fans around the world for his love of dangerous animals, has been killed in a freak accident. The crock hunter was on the Great Barrier Reef when a stingray barb pierced his heart.

Friends say Steve Irwin died doing what he loved best. And the day that we sent him the script to read was the day that he got killed by the stingray. On September 20th, 2006, a massive memorial was held at Australia Zoo. Thousands packed the zoo's croccasium to hear tributes from Hollywood actors, politicians, and colleagues. There was people everywhere, and we were walking back to our car, and Anna was there. Anna Grossgrutz, deputy mayor of a nearby town, Caloundra. The Morcoms had met her years earlier when she helped organize a charity event in Daniel's honor. And she said, oh, Denise, I've got some information for you.

And Bruce was ahead of me with Brad. And they were sort of trying to hurry me up because Brad need to go back to work or school or something. This wasn't just a friendly chat. Anna had something important to tell Denise. She was telling me about one of the ladies in the jail that said that she had information on Daniel and she knew where he was. Denise had heard this stuff a million times. They were always getting information from inmates or friends of inmates. But something Anna said got Denise's attention.

According to Anna, the prisoner had mentioned the name of someone involved in Daniel's abduction. A name Denise and Bruce recognized, one they could never forget. Bill Dooley was the convicted pedophile who'd insisted on speaking to Daniel's father directly back in 2004. He'd told the story of seeing Daniel with two men days after his disappearance. drugged in the back of their car. Now, nearly two and a half years later, the morgums were hearing Dooley's name again. They couldn't help but feel like that meant something.

At this point, Bruce often went rogue. He followed leads on his own before notifying detectives. Those tense interactions with police had continued, and a recent one had left a bitter taste. A couple came into Foundation's office and said, I've got some information for you. We want to help find Daniel. So I said, oh, yeah, what have you got?

And they were talking about an address. I remember ringing a police officer. She no doubt deemed it not super important. And she says, look, it's my day off today. Is there any chance you can get them to drive around to the police station? I thought, you lazy bitch. You know, perhaps, just perhaps. Perhaps this information is critical in finding the answer, in finding Daniel and who's responsible.

But anyway, it was her day off. So Bruce and Denise didn't feel so inclined to Rush leads to detectives anymore. They were going to see this one through themselves. Over the next few months, the Morcoms got together several times with Anna and her partner Russell, Aggie, as he was more commonly known. During these visits, Anna would tell Bruce and Denise what she knew. knew. Information that she'd been getting from a woman named Samihah Ibrahim, who was something of a spiritual advisor. She had a client who had landed herself in prison, a woman by the name

of Elise Smyth, and Smyth had a guilty conscience. She was slowly coming clean to Samaja about the part she claimed to have played in the abduction and murder of Daniel Markham. But Smyth wasn't just some random source either. She was billed. Dooley's girlfriend, and the former girlfriend of another criminal named Alexander Meyer. According to Smythe, Dooley and Meyer had taken Daniel from the underpass that day, and she was in the car when it happened. They'd drugged Daniel and held him at Meyer's house. There'd been stories that Daniel had been in a dungeon in this particular house. The walls were solid concrete. The door was deadbolted.

Smythe said that it was here, in this dungeon, that Daniel was tied up and assaulted by several men. The next part of her confession is hard to stomach. She said that Daniel overdosed on the drugs they'd given him. The men revived him. Then they each had their turn with him. They would nickname him birthday cake because everyone had a piece.

Once they were done, they killed Daniel, wrapped him in a sheet, and dumped his body. I spent eight days talking at great length with Bruce Morecam and there were only three times that I really felt him struggle to face a memory.

This was one of those times. What I find particularly difficult within that story is they killed Daniel twice. They revived him in a bath and then obviously they've killed him later on. So it's not a story I like telling him. For Daniel to pass away through drugs, they revive him in a bath. and then whatever happened is deceased again, like it's not great. Elise Smyth drew a map, which she claimed would lead to Daniel's remains. During one of her visits to the prison, Samihah collected that map

and smuggled it out in her stockings. Bruce had learned by now to doubt every lead, but this felt like the best one they'd had in years. Elise Smyth's map pointed to a spot off Roy's road, near the Glass House mountains. Not all that far from the overpass where Daniel was last seen. We met Anna and Eggie down between Cabalcha and Bribe Island, and we started searching. The map looked as if it had been drawn by a child. There was a dirt track crossing a creek.

pine trees, and an X. So we went through the bush, and we're looking for this area with a stick that looked like a cross. We found this particular area, and I think maybe Egy or Anna moved something with stick they had in their hand, and we saw some red material sticking out of the ground. Red. The color every Aussie had come to associate with Daniel Markham, the color of the shirt that he was last seen wearing. Denise couldn't believe it.

We weren't quite sure what to do. just sat there sort of numb, so I said, we need to phone Julie, and she'll be able to find someone to come out and assist us. Julie Elliott was working a Sunday shift at the media unit when her phone rang. She jumped into action and arranged for the dog squad to head to the site. The police arrived, cleared the scene, and took over. But instead of being supportive and helpful, even eager to pursue this clue? They were furious. They absolutely crack the shits with us.

They said, stand over there, don't move, don't do anything. I think one of them had a bottle of water. They said, oh, you better have this. You haven't able to be able to drink today and things like that. So they were a bit worried about our mental health, I think. Investigators spent hours carefully digging in the area, but all they found was that red cloth. It was bagged for forensic testing.

Days went by. The Morcoms heard nothing. They wanted to know what happened to the red cloth. Had anything come from the tests? Probably a week or so later, Bruce and I went to the Marichita Police Station, and we were talking to Paul Schmidt, and we asked him about the red material that was found. And we remember he opened up his drawer.

He said, I've got it here. Detective Sergeant Paul Schmidt opened the drawer, revealing the original evidence bag from the scene. The red cloth was still inside. We said, has it been tested? He said, no. Police had not done anything with the cloth. It had never gone to forensics,

never been swabbed for blood or DNA, or anything else that could have ascertained whether it was a link to Daniel. It was just bagged and stuffed into a drawer. Oh, we're doing all we can and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. but this red material was never tested. Police would maintain that it was obvious the material wasn't from a shirt. But for Bruce and Denise, this was a gut punch.

All this time, they'd been told everything that could be done was being done, that no stone was being left unturned. Bruce and I just looked at each other when we got in the car, and we were not happy. That moment changed something. They may have had their concerns about the investigation over the years, But now they were beginning to wonder, had the people who they had entrusted to find their son failed them completely? Well, if the investigator's next action was any indication, the answer was yes. Police reached out to let Bruce and Denise know that with no new leads and every line of inquiry exhausted,

the investigation was winding down. Their son's case was going cold. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, the five stages of grief. But grief doesn't follow a neat arc. It doesn't abide by any rules. And the grief that results from losing a child, I could only imagine, is its own formidable force. Something that that entirely changes the way you are in the world, the way you think, and the relationships you have with others. One afternoon, I was sitting with Denise. The microphones had been running for a while. The conversation was softening. And the silences between my questions

and her answers were getting longer. And in that quiet, enveloping space, Denise opened up in a way she hadn't before. It was the night before Father's Day, and I had had a few drinks, and I just think I must have been looking at photos or videos and different things of Daniel, and sometimes when you have a couple, you have a few too many, you might change and you sort of say things that you shouldn't say. I remember saying that I wanted to have a divorce,

but he said, no, I'm not divorcing you, because whoever took Daniel, he's not going to destroy this family. Did you let it go after Bruce said no? Did I let it go? I must have, because we're still together. The loss of a child can tear couples apart. But Bruce and Denise, they decided to hold on. I think we've made a decision between ourselves

that we just have to try and work harder to be together, especially for Dean and Brad, and also the foundation. I think we make a conscious decision to do whatever we can to stick together and not destroy the family as well. They endured

for their boys, for the foundation. But even that wasn't always enough. The night that you took sleeping pills. Yep. Do you remember that night? Yeah, I remember. I said I'd had enough.

Were you trying to kill yourself? Well, I'd had enough. I didn't want to be around. And the doctor said, it didn't matter anyway, because those tablets, you could take the whole bottle and nothing would have happened to you, so they were the wrong ones. Do you think there was a small part of you that... Didn't want to, but did want to, yes.

You just wanted to not feel. I just wanted to sleep for a few days, I think. I was beginning to see it in a way I hadn't quite grasped before. The unbearable pain that lived between press conferences, between foundation events, and the long silences between the ever fewer updates from police. Julie Elliott could see that pain in her friend every day. So she invited Denise on a trekking holiday to New Zealand.

Denise took the plunge. She told her family she was going to do it. I just laughed at me. They said, Jesus, you don't even walk up the driveway. So I said, right, next morning I got up, and I think it probably did maybe three kilometers, and then after that I was doing three, and then six, and then ten. And then I was walking with the backpack.

Denise walked, and she kept walking. Walking became her outlet. Whether to the mailbox or the 33.5 miles of rugged terrain across New Zealand, Milford track, Denise was doing the only thing someone can do when everything in life feels broken. She was putting one foot in front of the other. But the Morcoms also weren't the kind of people to just accept their fate either, to let the cops dictate whether or not it was time to give up. They had a plan. It would take time. It would take determination. And it

would definitely piss off the place. But if it worked, it might just change everything. Did you know prior to Daniel's abduction that what a coronial inquest was? I can remember downloading the Coroner's Act and reading it from front to back sort of thing. And you quickly realize it's a very powerful unit that I think's underutilized. The more comes, we're going to put the system to the test. Seven years after Queensland teenager, Daniel Morecambe disappeared without trace. A coronial inquest is hearing from some of the state's most notorious prisoners.

Key people would be required to take the stand. Bruce and Denise hoped someone will break their silence and unlock the mystery. With the start of this inquest, they believe they're a step closer to finding out what happened. Don't want to wait for that next episode? You don't have to. Unlock all episodes of Where is Daniel Morecam? Add free right now by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts

and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple? Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the first of every month. Check out the binge channel page on Apple Podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. If you'd like to make a donation to the Daniel Morcombeam Foundation, please visit danielmorkum.com.com. Where Is Daniel Morecambe is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. It was hosted, reported, and co-written by me, Matt Angel.

Joe Barrett is the managing producer and co-writer. Grace Valerie Lynette is the associate producer. Additional production support from Tiffany Dimack. The series was sound designed, composed, and mixed by Garrett Tiedman. Our studio engineer is Trino Madriss. Fact-checked by Tracy Lofgren-Lee Lee. A special thanks to Ashley Ann Crigbaum and Doug Slaywin and our operations team, Ashley Warren, Sabina Mara, and Destiny Dinkle.

The voice of Danielle Richardson is by Kira Carter. Camside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriatis, and Matt Share. Sony's executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch. For Paceetter Productions, the executive producer is Jessica Rhodes. Alison MoMassie and Brian Daly are the associate producers.

For Mad Jimmy Productions, the executive producers are me, Matt Angel, and Suzanne Coot. Consulting producers are Dan Angel, Lee Parker, and Andrew Fairbank. If you enjoyed Where is Daniel Morecam, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcast.

podcasts. Thank you.