# Someone Knew Something

An episode of [What Happened To…](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1812362613), 30 Aug 2026, 20 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/8c185e62-46f1-4292-81b7-b2d00059655d/507dab4b-f20d-49ca-b530-b4b6006322c4/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=fcf80ea6-cd25-4daa-b194-b2d000596ad2

For more than 40 years, Pam and her daughter Jodie have carried their own theory about what happened to Des Carr that he never simply wandered away, and that his disappearance may have involved foul play. They share memories of Des, the days after he vanished, and why they believe the answer could still lie somewhere along the remote roads of the Kimberley. Then, just as Jodie hopes someone might hear the podcast and finally break their silence, a message arrives. A man named Robert says he knew Des and claims he saw him again after he disappeared. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: A Poche Production.
[0:11] Speaker 2: With the inquest into my uncle Dez's disappearance now completed,
[0:16] Speaker 2: we thought that might be it. We've had a little
[0:21] Speaker 2: bit of closure after 42 years of wondering what might
[0:25] Speaker 2: have happened to him. It wasn't really answers we got,
[0:29] Speaker 2: but it certainly helped to hear the words of the
[0:31] Speaker 2: coroner say things like, she thought that maybe the police
[0:35] Speaker 2: took too long and didn't have enough resources on the
[0:38] Speaker 2: case back in 1979. She also thought the fact the
[0:43] Speaker 2: lack of investigation back in those days probably has left
[0:47] Speaker 2: this case wide open with little chance of ever knowing
[0:52] Speaker 2: exactly what happened. Although the coroner found that my uncle
[1:01] Speaker 2: was probably dead, She couldn't 100% confirm it, nor could
[1:06] Speaker 2: she tell us how she thinks it may have happened.
[1:09] Speaker 2: Head back to previous episodes to hear how the story
[1:13] Speaker 2: unfolds so far. You might have heard in the last
[1:21] Speaker 2: episode that as my family was walking out of the inquest,
[1:25] Speaker 2: they met up with Pam and Jodie. They are mother
[1:28] Speaker 2: and daughter, and they knew Des really well. on the
[1:32] Speaker 2: phone to my brother after the case. He mentioned he
[1:35] Speaker 2: had an interesting chat with them both.
[1:37] Speaker 3: She and her mum were there and they both said
[1:42] Speaker 3: the same thing that I think that's happened, is that
[1:45] Speaker 3: he was murdered and possibly put under the road and
[1:52] Speaker 3: covered up. And according to her, she always thought it
[1:56] Speaker 3: was someone from the main road that may have been
[1:58] Speaker 3: involved in it.
[2:01] Speaker 2: I decided I'd give them both a call and try
[2:04] Speaker 2: to understand not just what they think, but why they
[2:07] Speaker 2: think it.
[2:11] Speaker 4: Hello?
[2:13] Speaker 2: Hello, is that Pam?
[2:15] Speaker 4: Yes, it is.
[2:16] Speaker 2: Hi, Pam. It's Jay. I'm Desmond Carr's nephew.
[2:22] Speaker 4: Oh, you're his nephew. I wondered why.
[2:25] Speaker 1: Did you know him?
[2:26] Speaker 4: No.
[2:27] Speaker 2: I remember him as a kid. I was only about
[2:30] Speaker 2: nine when he went missing.
[2:32] Speaker 4: Memories would be mixed up then.
[2:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, they are a little. I just remember him being
[2:37] Speaker 2: really tall and really.
[2:39] Speaker 4: Yes, he was about six foot tall. Yep. Lanky, very lanky.
[2:43] Speaker 4: He had a wicked sense of humour. He'd pull your
[2:49] Speaker 4: leg as long as he could.
[2:51] Speaker 2: It seems like Pam knew Des well and her partner Colin...
[2:55] Speaker 2: And Des were really good mates.
[2:58] Speaker 4: I think I told them at the inquest, Colin and
[3:02] Speaker 4: I went over east to drop the kids off for
[3:05] Speaker 4: a holiday or pick them up. And my elderly neighbour
[3:13] Speaker 4: next door wrote me a letter and said, you'll have
[3:16] Speaker 4: to come home quick. That Desi has moved two ladies
[3:21] Speaker 4: of the night in and he's taking money for them.
[3:24] Speaker 4: He was too.
[3:26] Speaker 2: He was cheeky then, clearly.
[3:27] Speaker 4: She said, it's all right, though. She said, because I
[3:31] Speaker 4: sneaked over onto your porch and took the agitator out
[3:34] Speaker 4: of your washing machine. So they can't stay long. So
[3:40] Speaker 4: that's what he was like. He had the devil in him.
[3:44] Speaker 2: And Colin and Des were as thick as thieves, were they?
[3:47] Speaker 4: Oh, thicker. Absolutely. But there was a big age difference
[3:52] Speaker 4: between them, but they were really good friends.
[3:57] Speaker 2: And so how was Colin? How did Colin react when
[3:59] Speaker 2: he found out Des had gone missing?
[4:01] Speaker 4: We made all the inquiries we could, and we asked
[4:05] Speaker 4: at the police station, which was fairly hopeless at that time.
[4:10] Speaker 4: It's hard to describe what the northwest was, but it
[4:17] Speaker 4: was a fair bit wild and woolly. We always heard
[4:23] Speaker 4: that he'd been in a fight with the Yiddish love
[4:26] Speaker 4: and I always thought that that fight might have continued
[4:33] Speaker 4: and I always have believed he's under the tarmac.
[4:37] Speaker 2: So what leads you to believe that he would be
[4:40] Speaker 2: under the road?
[4:44] Speaker 4: The fact that the guy he had the fight with
[4:50] Speaker 4: Des wasn't a fighter, so it would have to be
[4:54] Speaker 4: something fairly nasty. I would like to know the name
[5:01] Speaker 4: of that person.
[5:04] Speaker 2: And this Yugoslav man, did Des know him well?
[5:09] Speaker 4: I don't know.
[5:10] Speaker 1: That I don't know.
[5:11] Speaker 4: I just feel that because he's never been seen again,
[5:16] Speaker 4: because I don't believe What I heard at the inquest,
[5:19] Speaker 4: these people that saw him with various people, he was
[5:24] Speaker 4: drunk and he was out of his mind and that's wrong.
[5:29] Speaker 2: It's wrong.
[5:30] Speaker 4: You can't lose someone like that because he was on
[5:33] Speaker 4: a roller because it's so easy if you can find
[5:38] Speaker 4: a way of going up at midnight and disposing of
[5:43] Speaker 4: the body and shifting the roller along a bit. It's
[5:48] Speaker 4: quite possible because the roads between Port Hedland and Broome
[5:54] Speaker 4: have got long, long straights. You know, maybe two miles straight,
[5:59] Speaker 4: three miles straight. So if you did something at night,
[6:03] Speaker 4: you'd just have to wait for the end of the
[6:07] Speaker 4: headlights coming or going, continue with what you were doing.
[6:12] Speaker 2: Did Colin think the same thing, that Des had been murdered? Yes.
[6:17] Speaker 4: Yes, he did. He said he would have come back
[6:21] Speaker 4: to us.
[6:23] Speaker 2: My uncle went missing in 1979. When was the last
[6:26] Speaker 2: time you saw him before you heard of his disappearance?
[6:30] Speaker 4: We saw him in Broome. I can't tell you the year.
[6:34] Speaker 4: Probably two years. We saw him in Broome at the
[6:38] Speaker 4: Shinzo Matsuri Festival once. And he came down and stayed
[6:44] Speaker 4: a weekend a couple of times.
[6:47] Speaker 2: And had you spoken to him on the phone or
[6:49] Speaker 2: anything like that?
[6:50] Speaker 4: No, there were no phones in those days. And there
[6:54] Speaker 4: would have been a phone at the camp, but I
[6:58] Speaker 4: imagine it would be one phone. And it was a
[7:03] Speaker 4: different world. You could hide things if you wanted to.
[7:10] Speaker 2: Do you think someone knows the secret up that way
[7:12] Speaker 2: about what happened to him?
[7:14] Speaker 4: Yes, somebody knows, yes. How they've managed to keep it
[7:17] Speaker 4: a secret, I don't know, unless they were involved.
[7:22] Speaker 2: And so you sat in the inquest, you were at
[7:24] Speaker 2: the back of the courtroom on the inquest day when
[7:27] Speaker 2: the coroner handed down her findings. What were your thoughts?
[7:30] Speaker 3: Sad.
[7:30] Speaker 4: I was hoping to get them all out of it.
[7:35] Speaker 4: It was a sad day. But I can understand that
[7:42] Speaker 4: the magistrates felt she couldn't come to any other decision
[7:47] Speaker 4: simply because nobody knows. But I believe that she's under
[7:51] Speaker 4: the tarmac.
[7:58] Speaker 2: Did you and have you told police your theory?
[8:01] Speaker 5: No.
[8:03] Speaker 4: No, not under the tarmac, I haven't. They're not interested.
[8:06] Speaker 4: They never were interested. They just said, you know, it
[8:10] Speaker 4: was a fight. I used to ring the... Every year
[8:15] Speaker 4: on Homelessness Week, Missing Persons Week, I used to ring
[8:20] Speaker 4: Broome and Port Hedland to remind them just to see
[8:25] Speaker 4: if there was anything on the case, but there never was.
[8:29] Speaker 2: Pam is now 83, and like everyone that's come forward
[8:33] Speaker 2: on this podcast, I don't want to judge what they
[8:36] Speaker 2: have to say or what they think. I also don't
[8:39] Speaker 2: believe that it gives us false hope or anything like that. Really,
[8:43] Speaker 2: it's just about getting perspective. And who knows, one small
[8:48] Speaker 2: bit of information could lead to something larger. Pam's daughter
[8:53] Speaker 2: Jodie was in the background of that call I made.
[8:56] Speaker 2: Jodie was living with her mum and Colin at the time.
[9:00] Speaker 2: She was 16, just shy of 17. And she also
[9:04] Speaker 2: remembers Des really well.
[9:06] Speaker 4: I'm Pam Gangel's daughter. Yeah, Pam's daughter.
[9:10] Speaker 2: What do you remember of Des's?
[9:13] Speaker 1: He was a funny bugger. He was just a lovely man.
[9:19] Speaker 1: Nothing was too much trouble. Being a teenager, you're always
[9:25] Speaker 1: a bit horrible, but he was always very gentle around
[9:27] Speaker 1: me and around my brother because mum had come from
[9:33] Speaker 1: a rough few years earlier, a rough.
[9:37] Speaker 4: Marriage, and we were a bit wary of men.
[9:40] Speaker 1: But no, he was always a pleasure to be around.
[9:42] Speaker 2: And so your mum had a memory of seeing Des
[9:47] Speaker 2: maybe a couple of years before he went missing. What's
[9:50] Speaker 2: your memory of the last time you saw him?
[9:52] Speaker 1: He was actually asleep, drunk in the chair with his
[9:57] Speaker 1: stubby still in his lap. And I went to remove
[10:01] Speaker 1: the stubby and he said, no, no, no, it's all right,
[10:04] Speaker 1: I've got it. And he woke up and he finished
[10:06] Speaker 1: his beer and toddled off to bed. And because as
[10:10] Speaker 1: a teenager I was out with my friends, I didn't
[10:12] Speaker 1: sort of see that much of them, plus they were working.
[10:15] Speaker 4: And then I went to New Zealand for a while
[10:18] Speaker 4: and came back to live with my birth father for
[10:23] Speaker 4: a while. and came back, and Desi had gone up
[10:26] Speaker 4: north to work. And I was up there during Shinsu,
[10:31] Speaker 4: so family, friends, daughters went up. They were in their 20s.
[10:35] Speaker 1: They were nurses from Sydney. And both mothers got together
[10:38] Speaker 1: and decided, oh, it would be lovely for Jo to
[10:40] Speaker 1: go up with the girls, which I don't think they appreciated.
[10:44] Speaker 1: But when Des went missing, I was up in Broome
[10:49] Speaker 1: at the Shinsu Matsuri with the girls, and I was
[10:52] Speaker 1: underage drinking at the Roebuck. And the barmaid said, the
[10:56] Speaker 1: cops are looking for you. So I tried to do
[10:58] Speaker 1: a bolt out the back, thinking it was for underage drinking.
[11:02] Speaker 1: And anyway, they caught me, so to speak. And they
[11:06] Speaker 1: said that Des had gone missing. And I knew what
[11:11] Speaker 1: he looked like. So they took me all around Broome
[11:13] Speaker 1: because the township during Shinzu went from 2,000 to 20,000
[11:18] Speaker 1: over that week period to see if I could spot
[11:23] Speaker 1: him in the crowds.
[11:25] Speaker 4: But no, I couldn't, so.
[11:28] Speaker 2: Hsinchu is the festival of the pearl. Back then, it
[11:32] Speaker 2: was the event the whole town was involved in in Broome.
[11:35] Speaker 2: These days it runs throughout late August and September. Broome
[11:39] Speaker 2: is affectionately known as the Pearl of the North. It's
[11:43] Speaker 2: the home of the South Sea Pearl, among the largest
[11:47] Speaker 2: and most coveted commercially harvested pearls in the world.
[11:51] Speaker 4: Lots of... On the main oval, there'd be lots of
[11:55] Speaker 4: stalls and entertainment during the day, on the main day.
[12:00] Speaker 4: And then people.
[12:01] Speaker 1: Just sort of stayed around for the duration.
[12:04] Speaker 4: Of the week. And then it would go back to...
[12:08] Speaker 4: It was just one big party, basically.
[12:11] Speaker 1: And a lot of the people were.
[12:15] Speaker 4: traveled for it quite a quite a big distance how.
[12:18] Speaker 2: Many days after des had gone missing were the police
[12:21] Speaker 2: looking for you to ask you what he looked.
[12:23] Speaker 1: Like probably it would have been two or three days
[12:26] Speaker 1: i think okay i'm not sure that they told me
[12:29] Speaker 1: it was just i was only 16 you know thinking
[12:33] Speaker 1: oh crikey i'm in trouble here so i sort of
[12:36] Speaker 1: wasn't saying too much but and they didn't say too
[12:40] Speaker 1: much they probably didn't want to throw too much.
[12:41] Speaker 2: On me and where did they take.
[12:43] Speaker 1: You At night, I used to have festivals at night
[12:46] Speaker 1: all around the Oval, around the pubs. And there was
[12:50] Speaker 1: only probably one pub that Des would have drunk at
[12:52] Speaker 1: or two would have been the Conti, the Continental and
[12:55] Speaker 1: the Roebuck. And I had been at the Roebuck and
[12:57] Speaker 1: he would have spotted me and I would have spotted him.
[12:59] Speaker 1: Even in amongst the crowd, it sort of overflowed onto
[13:02] Speaker 1: the street. And the Conti, I didn't see him there.
[13:06] Speaker 1: And that was sort of more of an upmarket pub
[13:09] Speaker 1: compared to the Roebuck. At the Roebuck, if you had...
[13:12] Speaker 1: If you had one song, it was only because you'd
[13:15] Speaker 1: found it and you were able to get in.
[13:17] Speaker 2: And I guess the police took you to these pubs
[13:19] Speaker 2: because it's most likely that that would be where Des
[13:22] Speaker 2: would end up, right? He didn't mind a beer, all three.
[13:26] Speaker 1: He didn't mind a beer at all.
[13:27] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[13:28] Speaker 1: And he'd had a drink. He wasn't a nasty drunk
[13:31] Speaker 1: or anything like that. He'd just sort of go to sleep,
[13:33] Speaker 1: smile a lot and go to sleep.
[13:35] Speaker 2: Would he be the sort of drunk that would get
[13:36] Speaker 2: into fights, would you think?
[13:39] Speaker 1: Possibly in a pub. If it was a blokey type scene, yes.
[13:43] Speaker 1: But I never saw that within the house environment. He
[13:46] Speaker 1: had a bit of a temper on him.
[13:48] Speaker 2: Did he?
[13:49] Speaker 1: Not a bad temper, but he didn't suffer fools gladly.
[13:53] Speaker 2: So your mum's theory that you talked to about my
[13:56] Speaker 2: brother and Michelle when you walked out of the courthouse.
[14:00] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[14:01] Speaker 2: Tell me about that theory.
[14:04] Speaker 1: Well, only because we talked about it afterwards. after Des
[14:10] Speaker 1: had gone missing. And at the inquest, we sort of
[14:15] Speaker 1: heard how the chair fell off the table, which would
[14:18] Speaker 1: have been Des's answer to, yeah, I did get into
[14:20] Speaker 1: a blue and he hit me with the chair, but
[14:22] Speaker 1: we don't want the police brought into it. It was
[14:24] Speaker 1: just a blue. If he had a head injury, that's
[14:28] Speaker 1: what it would have been from.
[14:30] Speaker 2: Tell me the theory that you and your family think
[14:33] Speaker 2: happened to my Uncle Des.
[14:37] Speaker 1: Well.
[14:39] Speaker 4: I can't see Des just wandering off into the bush,
[14:42] Speaker 4: even disorientated.
[14:44] Speaker 1: He was too smart for that. And if he's going
[14:46] Speaker 1: to have a pee, he's just going to pee beside
[14:49] Speaker 1: the grader or the tractor, the roller. He's not going
[14:52] Speaker 1: to stagger off for a bit of privacy because there
[14:55] Speaker 1: was really no one else around, obviously. So that just
[14:59] Speaker 1: strikes me as being a bit unusual. Yeah, and the
[15:05] Speaker 1: fact that Bangui Station said that they'd seen him a
[15:09] Speaker 1: small fire off in the distance and they never went
[15:13] Speaker 1: and checked it. Maybe they thought it was aboriginals having
[15:16] Speaker 1: a camp or maybe that was like a regular occurrence
[15:20] Speaker 1: but they said they noticed a small fire and Desi
[15:22] Speaker 1: would have lit one if he was in strife to
[15:25] Speaker 1: try as a signal. So that's something I don't understand
[15:33] Speaker 1: but knowing.
[15:33] Speaker 5: That the variety of people that were up there And
[15:38] Speaker 5: doing road works and up in Broome around that time,
[15:41] Speaker 5: my thought is maybe Des somehow got himself attached to
[15:45] Speaker 5: a lady who was attached to someone else.
[15:49] Speaker 4: And that's maybe where the blue started. Was it Michelle
[15:52] Speaker 4: showed me a message about what this gentleman had said.
[15:59] Speaker 4: He believes that he was stopped by a driver who
[16:02] Speaker 4: knew he was working on the role of that day.
[16:04] Speaker 1: And whether or not they got into a blue then,
[16:07] Speaker 1: and if It may not have been to kill him.
[16:11] Speaker 1: It might have just been to settle the dispute, but
[16:14] Speaker 1: he has been killed in that incident inadvertently, and they've
[16:19] Speaker 1: got to get rid of the body. So that is
[16:21] Speaker 1: what could have possibly happened, and I would not be surprised.
[16:26] Speaker 2: And has your family thought this for the last 42 years?
[16:31] Speaker 1: Yes.
[16:32] Speaker 2: Have you given police this theory at all?
[16:34] Speaker 4: Well, I left home at about 18, so.
[16:38] Speaker 4: I was never asked. I was never asked. I know
[16:42] Speaker 4: Mum would keep me up to date every year because
[16:45] Speaker 4: I moved interstate. And we always sort of said, have
[16:49] Speaker 4: you heard anything? No, nothing's ever come about. And it
[16:52] Speaker 4: wasn't until Michelle contacted me two years ago, maybe, that
[16:59] Speaker 4: I realised he.
[16:59] Speaker 1: Had family, more family. And I just said, keep me posted.
[17:04] Speaker 1: And then it's led up to this. I just think
[17:07] Speaker 1: that someone... As the coroner said, something like that, if
[17:13] Speaker 1: it was foul play.
[17:16] Speaker 4: Someone would have broken, hypothetically, at some stage and said
[17:20] Speaker 4: something to someone after all that time thinking nothing would
[17:24] Speaker 4: come of it and someone might know something. But the
[17:29] Speaker 4: coroner said, well, no one's come forth. And I would
[17:33] Speaker 4: have thought at some stage someone would have broken so
[17:38] Speaker 4: someone does know someone would have broken the silence either
[17:41] Speaker 4: bragged to someone oh yeah look you know I've killed
[17:44] Speaker 4: someone or it's what people tend to do when they
[17:46] Speaker 4: drink their lips get a bit looser and I would
[17:51] Speaker 4: like hope that someone eventually when they hear the podcast
[17:54] Speaker 4: sort of goes oh crikey I remember blah blah and
[17:58] Speaker 4: comes forward that would be that would be good you
[18:02] Speaker 4: know Desi was a good man and he didn't need
[18:04] Speaker 4: to end up with this sort of history.
[18:09] Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happened. Someone did know something. And
[18:14] Speaker 2: they found me on Facebook and decided, after 42 years,
[18:19] Speaker 2: to share what they think happened.
[18:22] Speaker 3: Hello.
[18:23] Speaker 2: Hello, is that Robert?
[18:25] Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
[18:26] Speaker 2: Robert, my name's Jay. You reached out to me via Facebook.
[18:30] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[18:32] Speaker 2: How are you going?
[18:33] Speaker 4: Good.
[18:34] Speaker 2: You said in your message that you sent me that
[18:36] Speaker 2: you might know something about my Uncle Des and his disappearance.
[18:39] Speaker 3: Well, I knew him when I was up that way.
[18:42] Speaker 3: I worked up there on a cattle station at that time.
[18:46] Speaker 5: And after I left the Kimberleys and came back to Perth,
[18:50] Speaker 5: I bumped into.
[18:51] Speaker 3: Him in the city one day. And I said g'day
[18:56] Speaker 3: to him and he was acting really queer and.
[19:00] Speaker 4: Pretended not to know me and, you know, like, oh, no, he.
[19:03] Speaker 3: Said it wasn't me. I haven't been up there.
[19:06] Speaker 4: But it was him.
[19:07] Speaker 3: I was only bloody on the piss with him a
[19:09] Speaker 3: couple of months prior.
[19:11] Speaker 2: Is it possible you saw him maybe before he went missing? No, no.
[19:17] Speaker 3: I wouldn't have known him then.
[19:20] Speaker 2: That in the next episode of The Disappearance of Des.
[19:25] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
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