# New Clues in the Disappearance of Des Carr

An episode of [What Happened To…](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1812362613), 25 Aug 2026, 26 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/8c185e62-46f1-4292-81b7-b2d00059655d/d9675063-e94d-4b4f-b4ec-b4b1001a4837/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=fcf80ea6-cd25-4daa-b194-b2d000596ad2

More than four decades after Des Carr vanished from a road roller in the remote WA outback, a coronial inquest finally examines what may have happened. A mysterious fire, new witness evidence, and an acknowledgement that police could have done more raise fresh questions and just when the family thinks the case is over, a confronting new theory emerges. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Approche production.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Des Car went missing in the late seventies after disappearing
[0:14] Speaker 2: off his road roller in the West Australian outpack late
[0:20] Speaker 2: one afternoon. When the main roads team came back to
[0:23] Speaker 2: pick him up off his road roller, they arrived and
[0:27] Speaker 2: Dez was gone. His road roller was still on, his
[0:34] Speaker 2: lunch and water bottle were left, but des was nowhere
[0:38] Speaker 2: to be seen. This is also not just a story
[0:52] Speaker 2: of a man that went missing over forty years ago.
[0:56] Speaker 2: It's the story of my uncle, Uncle Des, my mum's
[1:00] Speaker 2: big brother. For forty years, I've heard the stories about
[1:04] Speaker 2: UFOs taking him going walkabouts, his heavy drinking, possible mental
[1:10] Speaker 2: health issues, and stacks more. To be honest, there are
[1:14] Speaker 2: almost as many theories as there have been years that
[1:17] Speaker 2: have passed. The family have waited a long time to
[1:21] Speaker 2: get resolution around his disappearance. A coroner's report has never
[1:26] Speaker 2: been done. When we first released the first episode of
[1:29] Speaker 2: this podcast around eighteen months ago, there was little hope
[1:33] Speaker 2: of that coroner's inquest happening, But then some new information
[1:42] Speaker 2: started coming forward off the back of the podcast.
[1:45] Speaker 1: My daughter in law is a bit of a podcast brick,
[1:50] Speaker 1: and she started talking about the guy that went missing
[1:53] Speaker 1: it through and I said to her his name Wasn't
[1:57] Speaker 1: He said yeah. I then downloaded the podcast myself. I
[2:03] Speaker 1: listened to it and I said, well, I've got a
[2:04] Speaker 1: bit of information I think I should sell somebody. So
[2:08] Speaker 1: that's basically where it comes from. Well, I was at
[2:12] Speaker 1: the rodeo with my children. I had one son of
[2:19] Speaker 1: my own and three other children that I was looking
[2:22] Speaker 1: after time. So I was standing there watching the rodeo.
[2:27] Speaker 1: It's kind of an early evening, I don't know exactly,
[2:31] Speaker 1: on eight o'clock something along those lines. And I was
[2:36] Speaker 1: standing kind of reasonably close, and I could see the bar,
[2:40] Speaker 1: and I looked up and I could see Dais walking
[2:42] Speaker 1: up to the bar. Now at this time, I noticed
[2:45] Speaker 1: that he was really, really quite drunk. You're doing quite
[2:49] Speaker 1: a bit of staggering. It looked like he was talking
[2:53] Speaker 1: to two couples of people, to the degree that I
[2:57] Speaker 1: thought he was actually with them. That I didn't make
[3:01] Speaker 1: contact because I was with my kids and I thought them, suffer,
[3:06] Speaker 1: are you're a bit too drunk to talk to tonight?
[3:08] Speaker 3: This?
[3:08] Speaker 1: So I just let it go.
[3:10] Speaker 2: And so these people he was standing with by the bar,
[3:14] Speaker 2: who were they?
[3:15] Speaker 3: Do?
[3:15] Speaker 2: You know?
[3:16] Speaker 1: Well, look they weren't local people from Broom. I knew
[3:19] Speaker 1: that that I'd never seen them before. They looked like
[3:24] Speaker 1: young European backpackers to me, kind of low in European,
[3:28] Speaker 1: maybe German, Swedish, something along these lines. That was just
[3:32] Speaker 1: the impression that I got. Like, like I said, there
[3:36] Speaker 1: seems to be with them. I couldn't hear what he
[3:38] Speaker 1: was saying, but I can see that he was talking
[3:41] Speaker 1: to them in general.
[3:43] Speaker 4: And you said it was a couple or a couple
[3:46] Speaker 4: of people.
[3:47] Speaker 1: Was two couple a girl or a guy and a
[3:50] Speaker 1: girl and a guy?
[3:50] Speaker 4: Okay? And did he look like they were friends or
[3:54] Speaker 4: friendly or.
[3:56] Speaker 1: I kind of got the impression that he was with them.
[4:00] Speaker 2: People got in touch with offers of help.
[4:03] Speaker 5: Well, I think number one that's going in the local
[4:06] Speaker 5: paper which is distributed in Broom and Derby and giving
[4:11] Speaker 5: some visibility around their disappearance for the simple reason that
[4:17] Speaker 5: you know, I mean, my dad came forward up for
[4:20] Speaker 5: forty years, so it's not it's not entirely improbable that
[4:25] Speaker 5: somebody else knows something or has something they can say
[4:29] Speaker 5: that might be helpful. And you know, starting in the
[4:32] Speaker 5: Broom Derby region feels like me like that could be
[4:38] Speaker 5: you know, it could go somewhere.
[4:39] Speaker 2: You also mentioned that possibly over forty years, family secrets
[4:43] Speaker 2: or family things might have been talked about in that community.
[4:46] Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you have to think
[4:49] Speaker 5: about what Broom was like back in the late seventies,
[4:53] Speaker 5: and you know, I think that maybe someone may not
[4:59] Speaker 5: have wanted to go to the police for their own reasons.
[5:01] Speaker 5: Maybe they didn't actually do anything, you know that they
[5:04] Speaker 5: get into, but maybe they just don't want to be
[5:08] Speaker 5: involved with the police. And you know, I'm kind of
[5:11] Speaker 5: thinking that potentially, you know, if somebody did know some things,
[5:17] Speaker 5: then they might have talked about it in their family.
[5:19] Speaker 5: So it might be the second generation that actually, you know,
[5:22] Speaker 5: remembers the story being told.
[5:24] Speaker 2: Their help was welcomed, but to be honest, we didn't
[5:29] Speaker 2: really know if it helped or just added to the
[5:32] Speaker 2: questions we already had. I've been in contact with the
[5:36] Speaker 2: WA Police, both directly and through my cousin Michelle, who's
[5:40] Speaker 2: helped with the search. As I've talked about in this podcast,
[5:43] Speaker 2: my mum has been battling dementia over the past two years.
[5:47] Speaker 2: Her long term memory is still strong, but her short
[5:49] Speaker 2: term memory is not good. At all. On Friday, the
[5:53] Speaker 2: eighth of May, I got a text from Michelle. It
[5:57] Speaker 2: was Craig, the police officer who's doing all the research
[6:00] Speaker 2: for the possible inquest into miruncle Dave's and it said,
[6:05] Speaker 2: good morning, Michelle. I hope you're well. The call over
[6:08] Speaker 2: hearing took place this morning and the inquest into Deser's
[6:13] Speaker 2: and the inquest into DES's disappearance is listed to take
[6:17] Speaker 2: place on the fourth of August twenty one here in Perth.
[6:24] Speaker 2: I can tell you I was emotional when I read that.
[6:28] Speaker 2: As I am now, I'm based in Brisbane and my
[6:33] Speaker 2: family are in Perth, and I wanted to chat straight
[6:38] Speaker 2: away to Mum and my brothers, but I knew that
[6:44] Speaker 2: probably the best course of action was to call my
[6:47] Speaker 2: brother Paul first, and I wanted to ask him to
[6:52] Speaker 2: break the news to Mum.
[7:04] Speaker 4: Hi mate, good mate, how are you?
[7:06] Speaker 6: Oh yeah, notughly bad. Just had me lunch and relaxing
[7:10] Speaker 6: before heading off to work.
[7:12] Speaker 2: Lucky you, Lucky you. He's my little brother and we
[7:15] Speaker 2: talk often, so we first started talking about his football team,
[7:20] Speaker 2: betting my football team, and then into his rampaging son
[7:24] Speaker 2: who's one years old, almost one and tearing down the house.
[7:28] Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, he's good. A couple more bumps and
[7:30] Speaker 6: scratches and opening up every door that he can reach.
[7:34] Speaker 2: And then we got into the topic of the inquest
[7:38] Speaker 2: around Uncle DA's what.
[7:42] Speaker 6: I got a message on Messenger just outlining that year
[7:47] Speaker 6: that the coronial inquest was about to begin.
[7:52] Speaker 4: Pretty exciting, Hey, yeah it was.
[7:54] Speaker 6: Yeah, after all this time, you know, hopefully finally get
[7:57] Speaker 6: some answers to what may have happened.
[8:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sort of It's weird because I don't know
[8:03] Speaker 2: if I'm hopeful. I don't know, I forget get answers,
[8:05] Speaker 2: but I think what we I'm thinking we might get
[8:08] Speaker 2: a few more questions and answers, but part of it.
[8:11] Speaker 6: Yes, probably, And I said, I think we've all got
[8:15] Speaker 6: our own thoughts of what may have happened or may
[8:19] Speaker 6: not have happened. But yeah, maybe someone else might shed
[8:22] Speaker 6: some light on it.
[8:23] Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm hoping.
[8:24] Speaker 2: So, Hey, did you I spoke to Mum about it,
[8:29] Speaker 2: but she was obviously I think she was having a
[8:32] Speaker 2: bad day on the day I spoke to her, did
[8:34] Speaker 2: you Yes, you saw on the Sunday after Michelle.
[8:38] Speaker 6: Tell Yeah, we saw on Mother's Day on Sunday, and
[8:42] Speaker 6: you know she wasn't too.
[8:43] Speaker 2: Bad then, and you told her about the news?
[8:46] Speaker 6: Yeah I did, Yeah, Yeah, So I spoke to Mum
[8:50] Speaker 6: and just told her that the inquest was coming up,
[8:53] Speaker 6: and she was like, yeah, love, No, that's good, I
[8:56] Speaker 6: heard about it. But yeah, she knew about it. But
[8:59] Speaker 6: I don't know how much he's going to comprehend of it.
[9:03] Speaker 4: Yeah that's a hard bit, right, because yeah, yep.
[9:08] Speaker 2: She's been waiting for forty years for an answer.
[9:12] Speaker 6: And yeah, and obviously, you know, this would have been
[9:15] Speaker 6: good ten twenty years ago when Mum was able to
[9:19] Speaker 6: comprehend what was going to happen. But at the moment,
[9:21] Speaker 6: I think, you know, any news that we do get,
[9:24] Speaker 6: I'm not sure how much you will understand or she'll understand,
[9:28] Speaker 6: but whether she remembers the process of you know, what's happening,
[9:33] Speaker 6: that's a shit bit, right, Yeah, yep, yep.
[9:36] Speaker 2: That's why dementia is fucked. So there's a sad side
[9:38] Speaker 2: of this story. As you can tell from my brother,
[9:41] Speaker 2: Mum's dementia's worse, and now after waiting forty years to
[9:45] Speaker 2: find out what happened to her brother, Mum will finally
[9:48] Speaker 2: get the answers that she needs. But the cruelty in
[9:52] Speaker 2: all of this is she possibly won't remember ever hearing
[9:56] Speaker 2: that news. Our next installment of this podcast, The Disappearance
[10:04] Speaker 2: of Death, will be in August after the Kayner's report
[10:08] Speaker 2: is delivered. In Perth. At eleven am on the fourth
[10:24] Speaker 2: of August twenty twenty one, the West Australian Coroner held
[10:29] Speaker 2: an inquest into the disappearance and probable death of my
[10:34] Speaker 2: uncle DAEs. It was forty two years and two days
[10:41] Speaker 2: in the making. It also happened to be National Missing
[10:46] Speaker 2: Person's Week. My uncle Dares went missing from a road
[10:51] Speaker 2: roller in the far north of the Western Australian Outback.
[10:55] Speaker 3: It's been more than twenty five years, but police have
[10:58] Speaker 3: reopened a file on a man who might.
[11:00] Speaker 2: Just have lot of disappeared into thin.
[11:02] Speaker 3: Air while working near Brough a quarter of a century.
[11:06] Speaker 3: Devastated family has searched in vain for.
[11:09] Speaker 2: Other I was hoping to be in caught on the
[11:12] Speaker 2: day in Perth, but COVID nineteen had other plans. Lockdowns
[11:15] Speaker 2: and border closures made it difficult to get from Queensland
[11:19] Speaker 2: to Perth. But I was lucky enough to be attending
[11:22] Speaker 2: on a phone hook up in person at The inquest
[11:26] Speaker 2: was my brother Paul, my cousin Michelle, and my mum's
[11:30] Speaker 2: sister Artie Joy, who you've heard on this podcast previously.
[11:35] Speaker 7: Oh yeah, bit emotional, Okay, it's sober. I don't really
[11:41] Speaker 7: think we'd come up with anything that we didn't already know.
[11:46] Speaker 2: Unfortunately, my mum, Shirley, who was DES's little sister, didn't
[11:52] Speaker 2: make the inquest.
[11:53] Speaker 3: You know, we really got on well together. You know,
[11:56] Speaker 3: mainly played football. Des wasn't really a very athletic person,
[12:01] Speaker 3: you know, he used to like his TV. It was
[12:04] Speaker 3: a smoke drink and then he used to look after
[12:08] Speaker 3: me at school at Caton and things like that. We're
[12:12] Speaker 3: during when we're a bit older, and they didn't want
[12:15] Speaker 3: to be court with.
[12:18] Speaker 2: We decided it wasn't in her best interest given that
[12:21] Speaker 2: she's got dementia and it would have been really distressing.
[12:25] Speaker 2: I discussed with my brother Paul, and we think we
[12:27] Speaker 2: made the right call.
[12:28] Speaker 6: Yeah, I think so, mate, Yeah, I think it would
[12:31] Speaker 6: have been better there.
[12:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she would have stressed. Have you spoken
[12:34] Speaker 2: to it yet?
[12:35] Speaker 6: I don't even know if mum remembers that it's on today,
[12:37] Speaker 6: so I might believe it until tomorrow or something. Just
[12:40] Speaker 6: give him a casual call and you know, and do
[12:43] Speaker 6: it that way.
[12:45] Speaker 2: Outside the coroner's court, both Channel nine and the ABC
[12:48] Speaker 2: were on standby and spoke to some of my family
[12:51] Speaker 2: members as they left.
[12:52] Speaker 8: Just half parents died not knowing what happened to their son,
[12:55] Speaker 8: but his remaining family haven't given up hope, and today
[12:59] Speaker 8: they came to court as an inquest was finally held
[13:02] Speaker 8: into the cold case disappearance.
[13:05] Speaker 3: Feel for everybody that's in your same position.
[13:09] Speaker 2: I also took a call from the ABC and Broom
[13:12] Speaker 2: who'd followed the story and wanted a report on the inquest.
[13:15] Speaker 9: I was just looking to basically ask how you guys
[13:18] Speaker 9: are feeling the general family feeling after sort of today,
[13:22] Speaker 9: and how I guess what you've taken away from it,
[13:24] Speaker 9: if there was anything maybe that came up that you
[13:26] Speaker 9: didn't already know, or it's just sort of an exercise enclosure,
[13:29] Speaker 9: and how I guess this is sort of an important
[13:32] Speaker 9: step to you guys. And I know that a lot
[13:34] Speaker 9: of people.
[13:35] Speaker 2: This podcast has taken a few weeks to release because
[13:38] Speaker 2: it was important we got the written document from the
[13:41] Speaker 2: court before publication, mainly to make sure that we didn't
[13:44] Speaker 2: miss quote what we heard on what was a pretty
[13:47] Speaker 2: emotional day. That report literally arrived days ago. In all,
[13:54] Speaker 2: there were three people called to speak at the inquest.
[13:58] Speaker 2: The podcast itself has mentioned numerous times about how some
[14:01] Speaker 2: of the extra information that's come forward over the past
[14:04] Speaker 2: three years and helped gain more exposure for my uncle's case.
[14:11] Speaker 2: On the stand, my cousin Michelle had been instrumental with
[14:15] Speaker 2: details that her mum had kept over the years. There
[14:18] Speaker 2: was a police officer with over twenty years in investigations,
[14:23] Speaker 2: and a lady called Janice Bell who I hadn't heard
[14:26] Speaker 2: of before. She was the owner of Fangus Station, that's
[14:30] Speaker 2: the cattle station near where Des went missing at the
[14:37] Speaker 2: time of my uncle's disappearance. Janis was nineteen. She told
[14:41] Speaker 2: the inquest of the countryside at Fango and how harsh
[14:44] Speaker 2: it was. She claims that if you walked two hundred
[14:48] Speaker 2: meters from the road that Des was working on, it
[14:51] Speaker 2: was easy to get lost. She said at this time
[14:56] Speaker 2: of the year, which was the same time that Dees
[14:58] Speaker 2: went missing, the easterly winds blue, and that even from
[15:02] Speaker 2: two hundred meters in you wouldn't hear a passing ca
[15:05] Speaker 2: car drive by. On the motorway. Janis's dad took over
[15:17] Speaker 2: Thangu in nineteen sixty, in the same year she was born,
[15:21] Speaker 2: and to this day she still runs the cattle station.
[15:25] Speaker 2: She told the Inquest that the day after Deaths went
[15:28] Speaker 2: missing back in nineteen seventy nine, police asked her if
[15:32] Speaker 2: they could use some of their horses to search the bushland,
[15:35] Speaker 2: and of course they said yes. Later that day police
[15:40] Speaker 2: called back and said they didn't need the horses as
[15:43] Speaker 2: they were just going to do a walk through. Janis
[15:46] Speaker 2: and her dad said they were never asked to help
[15:49] Speaker 2: in the search. There was also another bit of information
[15:56] Speaker 2: that I hadn't heard before. Janie told the Inquest by
[15:59] Speaker 2: a phone hook up that about a week after my
[16:02] Speaker 2: uncle's disappearance, they saw a small in the distance in
[16:06] Speaker 2: the bush from her property at Fangu Station.
[16:10] Speaker 6: So there was a fire, but because it was pretty
[16:15] Speaker 6: isolated area, nobody went to investigate it. The lady that
[16:20] Speaker 6: ran sang station at the time. What I just learned afterwards,
[16:23] Speaker 6: he had asked for him to go and the police
[16:25] Speaker 6: to go and have a look, but at the time
[16:28] Speaker 6: they declined, just saying it was a scrub fire. But yeah, yeah,
[16:33] Speaker 6: I thought that was very interesting.
[16:35] Speaker 2: She thought it was weird. Normally in August there are
[16:37] Speaker 2: no lightning strikes or a way that fire could start,
[16:41] Speaker 2: so it was pretty unusual. She thought it was possibly
[16:45] Speaker 2: a signal.
[16:46] Speaker 6: Yeah, well, that's exactly what came to my mind straight away.
[16:49] Speaker 6: Was I was saying, our dead was a pretty good
[16:52] Speaker 6: bushman that you know. Did he light a fire? Was
[16:56] Speaker 6: dits orientated, came through, lit a fire for a signal
[17:02] Speaker 6: for help, and obviously but he came and the perished.
[17:09] Speaker 2: I wanted to check with Michelle on how she felt
[17:11] Speaker 2: about this info.
[17:13] Speaker 4: Was there any surprising information for you today?
[17:16] Speaker 7: Of course, that fire at Thangou that was interesting, that
[17:23] Speaker 7: happened a couple of days after.
[17:26] Speaker 2: The other.
[17:26] Speaker 7: That nothing else really surprising. I think. I think we've
[17:31] Speaker 7: been kept pretty well informed. I think from the currenter's
[17:35] Speaker 7: side of things.
[17:37] Speaker 2: There was also lots of other information that we've heard
[17:39] Speaker 2: previously on the podcast, Peter Connolly's statement to police that
[17:44] Speaker 2: he made after coming forward on the podcast in twenty nineteen.
[17:48] Speaker 1: My daughter in law is a bit of a podcast
[17:51] Speaker 1: back and she started talking about the guy that went
[17:55] Speaker 1: missing him through and I said to her, his name
[17:58] Speaker 1: wasn't Theirs, it was he said yeah. I then downloaded
[18:04] Speaker 1: the podcast. I listened to it, and I said, well,
[18:07] Speaker 1: I've got a bit of information. I think I should
[18:09] Speaker 1: tell somebody. Well, I was at the rodeo with my children.
[18:16] Speaker 1: I had one son of my own and three other
[18:20] Speaker 1: children that I was looking out for time. So I
[18:25] Speaker 1: was standing there watching the rodeo. It's kind of an
[18:28] Speaker 1: early evening, I don't know exactly, on eight o'clock something
[18:33] Speaker 1: along those lines. And I was standing kind of reasonably close,
[18:37] Speaker 1: and I could see the bar and I looked up
[18:40] Speaker 1: and I could see Dais walking up to the bar.
[18:43] Speaker 1: Now at this time, I noticed that he was really,
[18:46] Speaker 1: really quite drunk. You're doing quite a bit of staggering.
[18:51] Speaker 1: It looked like he was talking to two couples of people,
[18:55] Speaker 1: to the degree that I thought he was actually with them.
[18:59] Speaker 1: That I didn't make contact because I was with my kids,
[19:04] Speaker 1: and I thought them, suffer, are you a bit too
[19:06] Speaker 1: drunk to talk to tonight?
[19:08] Speaker 9: There?
[19:08] Speaker 1: So I just let it go.
[19:10] Speaker 2: And so these people he was standing with by the bar,
[19:14] Speaker 2: who were they?
[19:15] Speaker 4: Do you know?
[19:15] Speaker 1: Well, look, they weren't local people from Broom. I knew
[19:19] Speaker 1: that that I'd never seen them before. They looked like
[19:24] Speaker 1: young European backpackers. To me kind of saw in European,
[19:28] Speaker 1: maybe German, Swedish, something along these lines. That was just
[19:32] Speaker 1: the impression that I got. Like, like I said, there
[19:35] Speaker 1: seems to be with them. I couldn't hear what he
[19:38] Speaker 1: was saying, but I can see that he was talking
[19:41] Speaker 1: to them in general.
[19:43] Speaker 4: And you said it was a couple or a couple
[19:45] Speaker 4: of people.
[19:46] Speaker 1: Was two couples a girl and a guy and a
[19:49] Speaker 1: girl and a guy, Okay?
[19:51] Speaker 4: And did he look like they were friends or friendly or.
[19:55] Speaker 1: I kind of got the impression that he was with them.
[20:01] Speaker 2: Jannis Bell's family actually was the family that put the
[20:04] Speaker 2: rodeo on, and Janie told the inquest that she doesn't
[20:07] Speaker 2: remember ever seeing Dez at the event. She said it's
[20:12] Speaker 2: unlikely he was there and she would have noticed him
[20:16] Speaker 2: as it was big news at the time of his disappearance.
[20:22] Speaker 2: The most confronting part of this inquest was a question
[20:25] Speaker 2: that was posed to a police officer on the stand
[20:28] Speaker 2: who had been investigating these types of cases for over
[20:32] Speaker 2: twenty years. The karner asked, do you think police did
[20:36] Speaker 2: a decent search for Dez? He responded with no, probably not.
[20:43] Speaker 2: He said they could have acted quicker, and they could
[20:45] Speaker 2: have had more people involved in the search.
[20:48] Speaker 6: You know, they did the best they could with the
[20:51] Speaker 6: resources they had from then. You know, back then things
[20:55] Speaker 6: would have been a bit harder, I suppose with the
[20:58] Speaker 6: technology and the resources that we have now. But I
[21:00] Speaker 6: suppose they did the best they could. But yeah, who knows,
[21:04] Speaker 6: they could have done a bit more maybe, but we
[21:06] Speaker 6: don't know really.
[21:07] Speaker 2: This of course, offered little relief for my family. And
[21:11] Speaker 2: what was my granddad's theory. He was shouting about it
[21:14] Speaker 2: before he passed, and when Dez first went missing, it
[21:18] Speaker 2: would seem Granddad Frank Carr was right all along. Police
[21:23] Speaker 2: could have done more back in nineteen seventy nine.
[21:27] Speaker 7: Yeah, and I think he acknowledged that probably things could
[21:30] Speaker 7: have been done better. But I think we as a
[21:36] Speaker 7: family know that that probly things propi could have done
[21:40] Speaker 7: being done better. So that was nice to hear that
[21:43] Speaker 7: acknowledged as well. I think it sort of, I don't know.
[21:49] Speaker 7: I felt a bit better, but then, as talking forty
[21:52] Speaker 7: two years ago, but that's how things were done back then,
[21:55] Speaker 7: and you know, the record keeping wasn't as probably as
[22:00] Speaker 7: good as it is now. So thankfully everyone learns by
[22:04] Speaker 7: it so, and things were done differently now so.
[22:08] Speaker 2: The coroner also said that it was unusual that there
[22:11] Speaker 2: were no statements taken on the day of his disappearance
[22:14] Speaker 2: or in subsequent days from anyone that worked with des
[22:18] Speaker 2: or even the foreman of main roads. She said, these
[22:22] Speaker 2: days that would be a matter of course, but back
[22:25] Speaker 2: then this crucial step was missed. The coroner was amazing
[22:33] Speaker 2: and really compassionate, and I know my whole family is
[22:37] Speaker 2: thankful for the work that's happened over the past five
[22:40] Speaker 2: years in searching for Ancis about my uncle. The coroner
[22:46] Speaker 2: mentioned to everyone present, I'm sorry it's taken forty two years.
[22:50] Speaker 2: Hopefully it gives you some closure.
[22:53] Speaker 10: Does it feel like closure, No, not really, it helped probably,
[23:02] Speaker 10: I don't think i'd ever be closure until.
[23:05] Speaker 9: Is something.
[23:11] Speaker 2: Normally a written submission can take up to six months
[23:14] Speaker 2: to be handed down, but the coroner said she would
[23:17] Speaker 2: expedite the process as we've waited long enough. The final words,
[23:23] Speaker 2: after forty two years and two days, came from the
[23:27] Speaker 2: Officer of the Court and it seemed final. The inquest
[23:33] Speaker 2: into the death of Desmond Francis Carr is now concluded.
[23:46] Speaker 2: And I thought that was it until I spoke with
[23:49] Speaker 2: my brother and my cousin Michelle, and they spoke with
[23:54] Speaker 2: Pam Hardinge who was at the inquest.
[23:57] Speaker 7: Both Pam and her daughter Jodie and they were very
[24:02] Speaker 7: good friends of Uncle Devi as well well. She lived
[24:06] Speaker 7: with them for a time as well.
[24:09] Speaker 6: She and her mum were there and they both said
[24:14] Speaker 6: the same thing that I think that happened is that
[24:18] Speaker 6: he was murdered and possibly put under the road and
[24:25] Speaker 6: covered up. And according to her, she always thought it
[24:28] Speaker 6: was someone from the main Roads that may have been
[24:31] Speaker 6: involved in it. Whether you want to follow that up
[24:38] Speaker 6: with her and maybe have another chat about that, but yeah,
[24:41] Speaker 6: that's what she just told me. That we came out
[24:43] Speaker 6: of the corner.
[24:44] Speaker 2: I thought i'd give Pam a call and ask for myself.
[24:50] Speaker 5: Hello.
[24:51] Speaker 4: Hello, is that Pam?
[24:53] Speaker 7: Yes it is.
[24:54] Speaker 4: I'm Desmond Carr's nephew.
[24:58] Speaker 6: Oh you his nephew. I wondered, why did you know him?
[25:02] Speaker 2: I remember him as a kid I was. I was
[25:05] Speaker 2: only about nine when he went missing. I just remember
[25:08] Speaker 2: him being really tall.
[25:10] Speaker 4: I'm really everything.
[25:11] Speaker 9: It's about six foot door yep, thanky, very lanky.
[25:15] Speaker 1: Hey, you had a wicked sense for fear ma.
[25:17] Speaker 5: I pull you leg as long as he could.
[25:21] Speaker 2: That in the next episode of The Disappearance of Dez.
[25:27] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
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