# I Saw Him After He Disappeared

An episode of [What Happened To…](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1812362613), 1 Sep 2026, 16 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/8c185e62-46f1-4292-81b7-b2d00059655d/9ac60490-d890-428c-95e8-b4b6006582cc/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=fcf80ea6-cd25-4daa-b194-b2d000596ad2

Days after the inquest into Des Carr’s disappearance, a message arrives from a stranger named Robert. Robert says he knew Des in the Kimberley—and is adamant that sometime after Des vanished in 1979, he bumped into him on a Perth street. But when Robert called out his name, the man he believes was Des denied knowing him and claimed he had never even been to the Kimberley. Then another extraordinary story emerges. Years after Des disappeared, a member of his own family remembers seeing a man in a Perth pub who she was convinced was her missing uncle. Could Des have survived? Were both sightings simply cases of mistaken identity? Or does this completely change what we thought we knew about his disappearance? Police are now looking into Robert’s account. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: A Poche Production. Across the last 15 episodes, I've told
[0:14] Speaker 1: you the story of Des Carr, who went missing from
[0:17] Speaker 1: a road roller in the outback of Western Australia in 1979.
[0:23] Speaker 1: He was dropped off in the morning, and then, when
[0:26] Speaker 1: he went to be picked up later that day, his
[0:29] Speaker 1: lunch and water bottle were sitting on the roller. It
[0:32] Speaker 1: was still running, but it was going on. Des was
[0:38] Speaker 1: not just some bloke who went missing. He was my uncle,
[0:41] Speaker 1: my mum's big brother, and he's been missing for 42 years.
[0:47] Speaker 1: Some people think he was killed. Some people think he
[0:51] Speaker 1: wandered off into the bush. And one person even thinks
[0:55] Speaker 1: that he might have been taken by a UFO. Head
[0:59] Speaker 1: back to episode one to follow the story so far.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Across the last few episodes, we've heard the coroner's verdict
[1:09] Speaker 1: on my uncle's disappearance, which we'd waited over 40 years for.
[1:15] Speaker 1: After searching through the evidence and the facts, or at
[1:18] Speaker 1: least what was available, she decided that Des is deceased
[1:23] Speaker 1: and most likely wandered off into the bush after becoming
[1:27] Speaker 1: disoriented in 1979. In the last episode, we heard from
[1:31] Speaker 1: Jodie and her mum, Pan, who knew Des really well.
[1:35] Speaker 1: And they don't believe that at all.
[1:37] Speaker 2: I can't see Des just wandering off into the bush,
[1:40] Speaker 2: even disorientated. He was too smart for that. And if
[1:45] Speaker 2: he's going to have a pee, he's just going to
[1:47] Speaker 2: pee beside the grader or the tractor, the roller. He's
[1:51] Speaker 2: not going to stagger off for a bit of privacy
[1:53] Speaker 2: because there was really no one else around, obviously. So
[1:57] Speaker 2: that just strikes me as being a bit unusual. It
[2:01] Speaker 2: might have just been to settle the dispute, but he
[2:04] Speaker 2: has been killed in that incident inadvertently and they've got
[2:09] Speaker 2: to get rid of the body.
[2:11] Speaker 1: A few days after the inquest, my uncle's disappearance made
[2:15] Speaker 1: the news. He was covered by the ABC up in
[2:18] Speaker 1: Broome and the local newspapers and a TV channel in
[2:21] Speaker 1: Perth also covered his story. Like everything, the more people
[2:25] Speaker 1: that know about this case, the more chance that someone
[2:28] Speaker 1: might come forward and have a view or knows something
[2:32] Speaker 1: about what really happened to him. A few days after
[2:35] Speaker 1: the inquest, I received a Facebook message from a man
[2:38] Speaker 1: in Western Australia called Robert Green. It said, Are you
[2:43] Speaker 1: the man looking for info on Desmond Carr? I sent
[2:47] Speaker 1: a message straight back and said, Yeah, he was my uncle. Then, nothing.
[2:53] Speaker 1: No reply. Until about ten days later, when Robert pinged
[2:57] Speaker 1: me again. I knew him Over the years, as you
[3:12] Speaker 1: can imagine, people have come forward to not only my family,
[3:15] Speaker 1: but to police to offer advice and mentions that they
[3:19] Speaker 1: might know something. It's hard not to go down a
[3:22] Speaker 1: rabbit hole. And as I've said before, I really want
[3:25] Speaker 1: to verify information before we put it in the podcast
[3:28] Speaker 1: and give it to police and talk with my family
[3:31] Speaker 1: about it. I called my cousin Michelle to see if
[3:33] Speaker 1: she had heard of Robert Green. She hadn't. So, with
[3:38] Speaker 1: a little trepidation, I decided to give Robert a call myself.
[3:49] Speaker 3: Hello.
[3:50] Speaker 4: Hello, is that Robert? Yes, it is. Robert, my name's Jay.
[3:54] Speaker 4: You reached out to me via Facebook.
[3:56] Speaker 5: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[3:57] Speaker 4: How are you going?
[3:59] Speaker 5: Good.
[4:01] Speaker 4: So whereabouts are you? You're in Perth, are you?
[4:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm in Perth.
[4:04] Speaker 1: You said in your message that you sent me that
[4:07] Speaker 1: you might know something about my Uncle Des and his disappearance.
[4:10] Speaker 3: Well, I knew him when I was up that way.
[4:12] Speaker 3: I worked up there on a cattle station at that
[4:15] Speaker 3: time and after I left the Kimberleys and came back
[4:20] Speaker 3: to Perth, I bumped into him in the city one
[4:24] Speaker 3: day and I said g'day to him and he was
[4:27] Speaker 3: acting really queer and.
[4:31] Speaker 3: Pretended not to know me and, you know, like, oh, no,
[4:34] Speaker 3: he said it wasn't me. I haven't been up there.
[4:37] Speaker 3: But it was him. I was only bloody on the
[4:39] Speaker 3: fist with him a couple of months prior. Yeah, it
[4:43] Speaker 3: popped up on my news feed the other day that
[4:46] Speaker 3: they'd had a coroner's inquest in Perth about this guy
[4:49] Speaker 3: that was missing all them years ago. And when I
[4:53] Speaker 3: looked at it, I thought, oh, fuck, that's a bloke.
[4:56] Speaker 1: And where were you?
[4:58] Speaker 3: Well, at the time I seen him in Perth, I
[5:00] Speaker 3: was walking from the Hay Street Mall down towards the
[5:02] Speaker 3: railway station and whatever the next main street is beside
[5:07] Speaker 3: Hay Street, I bumped into him there.
[5:09] Speaker 4: And so, time of the day? Do you remember what
[5:12] Speaker 4: time of day it was?
[5:14] Speaker 3: Oh, no, not really. Probably the middle of the day,
[5:20] Speaker 3: just going by what I used to do back then.
[5:24] Speaker 1: Yep.
[5:25] Speaker 4: And how well did you know Des then?
[5:28] Speaker 3: Well, we got on the piss with him up there
[5:30] Speaker 3: a couple of times when we were on the station.
[5:34] Speaker 1: Yep.
[5:36] Speaker 3: Pretty sure it was at Sandfire Roadhouse that we met him.
[5:40] Speaker 3: The road crew must have stopped in there when they
[5:42] Speaker 3: were out doing work. And, yeah, we bumped into him
[5:48] Speaker 3: in Broome as well when we went in for one
[5:52] Speaker 3: of the radios. So there'd been.
[5:56] Speaker 3: At least two occasions that we'd had big nights on
[5:59] Speaker 3: the piss with him.
[6:01] Speaker 4: Is it possible you saw him maybe before he went missing?
[6:05] Speaker 3: No, no. I wouldn't have known him then. It was
[6:09] Speaker 3: only after I left Anna Plains. And from what I've
[6:15] Speaker 3: been reading, you know, on the news story they put up,
[6:22] Speaker 3: it all ties up to... after I left Anaplanes, because
[6:26] Speaker 3: I knew him up there, and then I left Anaplanes
[6:31] Speaker 3: and bumped into him in the city after I'd came
[6:34] Speaker 3: back to the city. I just wish I had a
[6:38] Speaker 3: better timeline, like if I could... You know, Anaplanes Station,
[6:43] Speaker 3: I mean, they wouldn't keep records of who they had
[6:46] Speaker 3: on their books bloody 35 years ago or 30 years
[6:50] Speaker 3: ago or whatever it was. If I could... find some way,
[6:54] Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe even the Taxation Office, you know,
[6:57] Speaker 3: because I would have been paying tax on payroll. So
[7:02] Speaker 3: it may be that the Tax Office could tell me
[7:05] Speaker 3: when I was there and when I left.
[7:06] Speaker 1: This is actually pretty big news, and to be honest,
[7:09] Speaker 1: I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't have any questions
[7:12] Speaker 1: written down, and so I was really just taken aback.
[7:15] Speaker 1: Robert reckons that he saw my uncle walking in Perth
[7:19] Speaker 1: down the main street, and when he went up to
[7:21] Speaker 1: say g'day... My uncle didn't acknowledge who he was or
[7:26] Speaker 1: the fact they knew each other and said his name
[7:29] Speaker 1: wasn't Des.
[7:30] Speaker 3: Well, I was walking down towards the railway station and
[7:33] Speaker 3: he was crossing the street and I was crossing the
[7:35] Speaker 3: other way and I looked up and spotted him. I said, G'day, Des.
[7:41] Speaker 3: And he just looked almost like he'd seen a ghost.
[7:46] Speaker 1: And then what happened?
[7:48] Speaker 3: He said, I don't know you. I said, yeah, he... Robert,
[7:51] Speaker 3: from Anna Plains, you know, on the business of the
[7:53] Speaker 3: contemporary or wherever it was. And he said, no, mate,
[7:57] Speaker 3: I've never been up there. But, I mean, it was him.
[8:00] Speaker 3: There's no bloody doubt. It was him.
[8:06] Speaker 1: It poses so many questions. If it was my uncle,
[8:10] Speaker 1: was he suffering from some sort of memory loss, which
[8:13] Speaker 1: is why he might not remember Robert or his own name?
[8:18] Speaker 1: Or was it that my uncle was hiding, So when
[8:21] Speaker 1: Robert came up to him, he panicked and said that
[8:24] Speaker 1: he wasn't Des and that he didn't know Robert. And
[8:27] Speaker 1: if it was him, how would he survive? His money,
[8:32] Speaker 1: bank accounts, car, clothes, everything was never touched since he
[8:37] Speaker 1: went missing. The police have done numerous proof of life
[8:40] Speaker 1: checks over the years and nothing has ever come up.
[8:45] Speaker 1: Or was this man not my uncle? Maybe he just
[8:49] Speaker 1: looked like him and Robert might have been mistaken. I
[8:54] Speaker 1: asked that question and Robert was sure that it was him.
[8:58] Speaker 1: You don't think he could have been mistaken? No. This
[9:02] Speaker 1: is not the first supposed sighting we've heard over the years.
[9:06] Speaker 1: You'll recall a few over the last 15 episodes that
[9:09] Speaker 1: turned out to be absolutely nothing. I remember stories that
[9:13] Speaker 1: the family had told over the years about people seeing
[9:16] Speaker 1: Dez or thinking they saw Dez After he went missing,
[9:20] Speaker 1: one of those stories was one that my cousin Michelle's
[9:23] Speaker 1: sister told her a little while ago.
[9:25] Speaker 5: After, you know, you told me about Robert, I sort
[9:28] Speaker 5: of rang Deb just to let her know where we're
[9:31] Speaker 5: at and what was happening. And she just, her thing
[9:35] Speaker 5: was like, oh, my God, she said, I remember having
[9:38] Speaker 5: the same thing. So she reckons, and we've narrowed it
[9:41] Speaker 5: down to probably 1988 is probably the date, probably the year.
[9:49] Speaker 5: anywhere between 1988 and Christmas 89. So Deb was at
[9:53] Speaker 5: the Ballet Hotel and she'd gone there to pick up
[9:55] Speaker 5: her partner. And she said when she walked in, she
[9:58] Speaker 5: went up to the bar, said hello to everyone, went
[10:00] Speaker 5: up to the bar to get a drink. She just
[10:02] Speaker 5: turned around she saw this person and she said oh
[10:04] Speaker 5: my god that's uncle dev she said it was a
[10:07] Speaker 5: sitting image of him and she's really adamant about it
[10:11] Speaker 5: and she said she just kept staring at him and
[10:13] Speaker 5: he could see that she was looking at him and
[10:16] Speaker 5: then so she went over and she said is your
[10:18] Speaker 5: name dev and um he said no mate no it's
[10:22] Speaker 5: not me And she said, you are the spitting image
[10:26] Speaker 5: of my Uncle Des who's missing. It's not me. And
[10:30] Speaker 5: Deb said, her heart just stopped. She said she just
[10:34] Speaker 5: couldn't stop looking at him. So she ended up going
[10:36] Speaker 5: over to the pay phone and ringing up Mum and Dad.
[10:40] Speaker 5: And she spoke to Dad and said, you need to
[10:42] Speaker 5: come down to the ballet pub because there's somebody here.
[10:46] Speaker 5: And he was the spitting image of Uncle Des. And
[10:50] Speaker 5: Deb was sort of really... She felt like he dismissed
[10:53] Speaker 5: her and didn't really believe her at the time and,
[10:55] Speaker 5: of course, they didn't want to be upsetting Mum, so
[10:58] Speaker 5: they didn't come down. But Deb's still adamant, like, that she...
[11:03] Speaker 5: It was him.
[11:06] Speaker 1: So that would have been nine... Well, like, eight or
[11:08] Speaker 1: nine years after he actually went missing.
[11:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
[11:12] Speaker 4: And the ballet pub, that's in Perth?
[11:14] Speaker 5: That's in Belmont.
[11:15] Speaker 1: In Belmont, yeah.
[11:16] Speaker 5: Yes, in Belmont. Deb was definitely very clear in what she...
[11:20] Speaker 5: dead and she said because when I first met her
[11:22] Speaker 5: she was quite I told everyone I've been saying this
[11:25] Speaker 5: for ages no one would believe me like and yeah
[11:28] Speaker 5: because I was telling her about Robert and um yeah
[11:32] Speaker 5: I thought it would be interesting to see whether any
[11:34] Speaker 5: of those dates could match up like with what he
[11:37] Speaker 5: was saying he.
[11:38] Speaker 1: Saw or did Deb ever report it to police.
[11:42] Speaker 5: No no because she just felt like she wasn't believed
[11:45] Speaker 5: at the time but she said she because I said
[11:48] Speaker 5: I've Because I rang Dad at the time and told
[11:52] Speaker 5: Dad to come down. He needed to come down up.
[11:55] Speaker 5: But I suppose, you know, when after so long went missing,
[11:58] Speaker 5: you sort of, no, I couldn't be type of thing. Yeah,
[12:03] Speaker 5: she was, yeah, Deb definitely was very adamant about it
[12:07] Speaker 5: and probably a little bit angry because she was like,
[12:10] Speaker 5: I've tried telling people and no one would listen. And
[12:12] Speaker 5: so I rang and no one believed me.
[12:15] Speaker 1: I wanted to get more information from Robert. I really
[12:18] Speaker 1: wanted to try and verify some of the info he
[12:21] Speaker 1: was telling me, but I also wanted enough info so
[12:24] Speaker 1: I could pass it on to the police.
[12:27] Speaker 4: Robert, have you ever taken or spoken to police about this?
[12:32] Speaker 3: I didn't know he was missing until last week.
[12:35] Speaker 1: I'm going to put you in touch or get them
[12:37] Speaker 1: to give you a call if that's okay with Craig,
[12:40] Speaker 1: who's a detective in the missing persons squad. who might
[12:45] Speaker 1: want to give you a call if you're happy with that.
[12:50] Speaker 3: Hi. How's this for a weird coincidence? A policeman that
[12:56] Speaker 3: used to be a sergeant at one of the country
[12:58] Speaker 3: towns I worked at years ago, and him and I
[13:02] Speaker 3: have remained good friends ever since. He's actually the main
[13:05] Speaker 3: policeman at the coroner's office.
[13:07] Speaker 1: Oh, no way.
[13:08] Speaker 4: Wow, in Perth.
[13:10] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, his name's Lyle.
[13:14] Speaker 1: Lyle is actually Craig, the officer assisting the coroner's boss.
[13:19] Speaker 1: Although it's inconsequential, it does show that Robert isn't just
[13:23] Speaker 1: some bloke who has a wild theory and decided to
[13:26] Speaker 1: Facebook me to offer it up. I wanted to know
[13:29] Speaker 1: why it's taken this long for Robert to come forward.
[13:31] Speaker 1: He said earlier that he didn't know he was missing
[13:35] Speaker 1: at the time.
[13:37] Speaker 3: Oh, just something come up on the news one night
[13:40] Speaker 3: on the internet. you know, that Perth had just had
[13:45] Speaker 3: a coroner's inquest into this bloke that's been missing, and
[13:50] Speaker 3: they decided that they, you know, he's most likely dead
[13:57] Speaker 3: because they've never found his body. And I was reading
[14:03] Speaker 3: about it, and I was scrolling around that, and then
[14:06] Speaker 3: I did a Google search for his name, and as
[14:08] Speaker 3: soon as I seen him, I knew who he was.
[14:11] Speaker 1: And so how old were you when you think you
[14:13] Speaker 1: saw him in the city?
[14:14] Speaker 3: I would have been probably 16. He'd have been in
[14:18] Speaker 3: his 30s or late 30s or something, I'm guessing.
[14:23] Speaker 4: And so I guess after you saw him that day,
[14:25] Speaker 4: you didn't think any.
[14:25] Speaker 1: More of it?
[14:27] Speaker 3: No, I just thought, how weird, you know, somebody that
[14:30] Speaker 3: I knew and he's just pretending that he doesn't know
[14:34] Speaker 3: me and he's never even been there. It was weird
[14:37] Speaker 3: and I've never forgotten it because it was just so weird.
[14:45] Speaker 1: This certainly has opened up a can of worms. The
[14:48] Speaker 1: moment I got off the phone to Robert, I called
[14:50] Speaker 1: the police officer who's been handling my Uncle Dez's case.
[14:54] Speaker 1: I've sent Craig the raw audio of my call with
[15:00] Speaker 1: Robert and Craig and Robert are catching up in Perth
[15:03] Speaker 1: to have a deeper conversation about what he knows and
[15:06] Speaker 1: if there might be some more information. For now, we wait. Again.
[15:13] Speaker 1: We'll bring you more as we know more in the
[15:16] Speaker 1: next episode of The Disappearance of Des. Thanks for listening
[15:30] Speaker 1: to this episode and supporting this story. Independent storytelling that
[15:34] Speaker 1: shapes the world is what Podshape really cares about. Right now,
[15:37] Speaker 1: there's thousands of people listening to this show and our
[15:40] Speaker 1: other true crimes, and they're completely engaged. More than 10
[15:43] Speaker 1: million Australians listen to podcasts each week. If you've ever
[15:47] Speaker 1: thought about advertising your business in a podcast, there's a
[15:50] Speaker 1: link to reach out in the show notes or head
[15:52] Speaker 1: to Podshape.com to book a free call.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.