August 24, 2025 • 63 mins
In this new season Sally Leydon wants to help others who are dealing with ambiguous loss due to a missing loved one.
In this episode Jason Sallese tells the story of hsi Dad Nicola who was last seen in November 2008.
If you want to contact sally to have an episode feature your missing loved one, contact her here The Missing Matter
If you want to listen to know more or help Jason you cna visit him at Help Find Nicola Sallese Facebook page
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approche production.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Monday, November seventeenth, two thousand and eight, the house is locked,
the dogs still in his kennel, and sometime between one
and two pm, sixty nine year old Nicholas Salise is
seen driving east along Sheffield Main Road in Tasmania. That evening,
(00:34):
a tourists reports a man like Nikola asking for directions
to seven Mile Beach. Then nothing, no car, no further
sightings that could close the loop.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Police begin the.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Initial checks roads, dams, tracks, but days turn into weeks,
years and decades, and there's still no sign of Nicola
or his vehicle. In twenty twelve of the Krona rules,
(01:11):
Nicola likely died around the time he disappeared, but finds
no evidence of foul play, But the ruling doesn't answer
the only one question that matters, where is he? The
search shifts gears, the family keeps searching, crowdfunding, sonar sweeps,
(01:37):
divers and drones. July twenty twenty three, a diver locates
a submerged car.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
A diver from New South Wales recently traveling to Tasmania
using sonar equipment to scour rivers in the area. Hope spike.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Until a plate's confirm it belongs to another missing person.
A breakthrough for one family, more heartbreak for another.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
His son is refusing to give up hope, hope.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Across the years, the Leeds continue. A call about a
man like Nikola at a shop in November of two
thousand and eight. Fresh searches follow and an anonymous tip
about Southport. The day vanished, but seventeen years on, his
son Jason says, if we find the car, we find dad.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
It never goes away. If you have a missing person
in the family, it's always there.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That's the search for Nikola and seven simple words. Seventeen
years on, Nikola matters, well.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I'm here today talking.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Well we're not together, are we, Jase, Like you're down
in Tazzi and I'm up here in Brisbane.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
But thank you for joining me.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Thanks for the opportunity on the missing matter, because I
wanted to put it out there to those of us
living the ambiguity of not knowing what's happened to our
missing life one and see if we can have a
chat in today's world and bring some awareness. In your case,
it's your dad, NICOLEA, it's Salise who went missing back
(03:16):
in two thousand and eight, firstly, let me ask, how
are you good?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Dad? That's just finish Missing Person's Week, so busiest week
of the year pretty much. And it's good to still
have opportunities even though it's not Missing Person's Week anymore,
but like still to have the opportunity to talk about
that is always a good thing.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I was going to talk about that because this year
the theme was Forever Loved and your dad actually featured,
didn't he He did.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
We got the call and was asked, and here we're
more than happy to pretty much do any media. Any
media is good media, I think in this situation. So yeah,
we jumped at a chance.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Generally I think we're all grasping at straws. Aren't we
to get as much attention out there to hope that
someone knows something?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Well, can we start by you telling us a little
bit about your dad?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Well, I can go way back. He was born in Vasto,
which is in Italy in nineteen thirty nine. Young man
in these twenties decided to come to Australia and he
worked on the hydro Electric Commission in Tasmania, which was
(04:41):
all for dams and power stations and the like. He
worked for them for thirty six years. During the sixties,
he met Mum, got married, then myself and my brother
turned up. We were living in what they call hydro
villagers throughout Tasmania due to dad's work. We all grew
(05:04):
up a little bit, moved out, and Mum got sick
in the ninety nineties, so Dad retired to look after her,
and she unfortunately passed away in two thousand, so that
affected Dad pretty badly. Like mum was everything.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I heard you talking to Lauren o'keith about that a
few years back and how your dad had actually not
changed the house. He kept the house exactly as it
was when she passed away.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, that's when it sort of became real for my
brother and myself because when Dad went missing, the house
hadn't been changed since Mum had passed away eight years before,
and we sort of felt like we were packing up
for both of them, which was it was one of
those feelings of yeah, it wasn't a good way, just
(05:57):
not a good feeling, like it was pretty awful. So
we're packing up for Dad and Mum's reading glasses still
beside the chair, like it was horrible. It was absolutely horrible.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Oh, that's that is sad.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Like you know, I've been obviously, I've been following your
story for a very long time as well in doing
my background on your dad to just get a little
bit more information so that I can help share his
story on this platform with you. Tell us about his craftsmanship,
that he was a wood maker or a wood turner.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
He built himself a lave because he was very good
with his hands building things. He'd build himself a trailer
if he needed a trailer. He wanted a woodlave, he
built himself a woodlave and he'd spend hours out in
the shed and middle of winter in the shed that's
(06:54):
had no not a lot of heating in the Yeah,
he was committed, but because one wanted to do it,
he did it. He had a talent and that's what
he did and that kept mum going. He was more
than happy to do it. He's a very good craftsman.
But yeah, just anything he put his mind to, he
(07:16):
could make it.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
He's mentioned before, he retired to pretty much look after
your mum and take her to all her appointments and everything.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
How was he when she passed away?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Hit him really really hard? He was lost. He did
everything for mum, so to not have her there just
took him a while to kick himself back in the
gear and get a few things done. He ended up
(07:47):
finding that he enjoyed playing lawn bowls and he used
to play like three times a week, and was more
to just get out of the house, meet other people,
enjoy the company of other people, which he definitely did,
and completely different to how he sort of saw his life.
(08:08):
I'm guessing, but yeah, it's when Mum passed away.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yeah, it knocked him around, and I wanted to ask,
who I know, Your brother, Nick has been right by
your side and supporting you as you sort of the
front man for a lot of the media and a
lot of the push for your dad.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
How's Nick going today?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, Nick's had a few issues too. He's second oldest,
passed away back in twenty eighteen, had a lot of
medical issues. Nick really had to put a lot of
effort into young Zach to get him to medical appointments.
I wouldn't say he stepped away from looking for dad,
(08:52):
but he sort of had to sort of prioritize Zach.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I'm sorry to hear about that.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah, he's had a few things. Yeah, as well, so.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Things to deal with.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And like I said, Zack passed away in two thy eight, and.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
So when your dad went missing in two thousand and eight,
so ten years after that to deal with, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, So we've had had a few issues, a few
things we've had to work through.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So let's dive into the information that we can share
with the listeners about the day your dad went missing.
So he was last scene driving east on Sheffield Main
Road on the seventeenth of November two thousand and eight
between one and two, heading towards the Bridle Track Road.
And later that evening a tourist reportedly saw someone matching
(09:47):
his description at Southport asking for directions to seven Mile Beach.
Now that was the last confirmed sighting. Can you walk
us through how you were feeling that day and what happened?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
The last known confirmed sighting is just out of Sheffield
by a local mechanic who knew Dad, and then pretty
much after like one or two in the afternoon. Everything
else is sightings by people that have recognized Dad, but
(10:23):
they're not people that actually know him. So we've had
a lot of sightings over the years and a lot
of information come through, but well, a lot haven't really
timeline wise. Sometimes there's been the case and yeah, just
sort of mistaken identity is probably another couple as well.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So yeah, and I guess this, if the mechanic actually
knew your dad, that's pretty significant in a sighting, I think.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, So that's sort of the last one we can
really hang our sort of hat on, and the rest
we've followed them up and we've conducted searchers because of
the areas where they are, Like Southport is an hour
and a half south of Hobart, so for Dad to
get there, it's like a three hour drive to Hobart
(11:12):
from Sheffield and then another hour and a half to Southport.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So that's a pretty big drive really.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, it's a long long way away from home.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
I mean I was just down in Tazi myself and
went down to Fruscinate area and back into Hobart, so
I can sort of say that the roads weren't amazing really,
Like there was lots of potholes and lots of edges
falling onto gravel and things like that.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Once you're out from the city Hobart lawn system you
have like the Middland Hideway that's straight down the middle
but then everything else is just like country road, single
lane either direction. Some of the road, especially down where
the siding was. Down at Southport, there's a place called
(11:59):
Dover and it's just a big drop off off the
side of the road. And one person that I'll mention
a fair bit probably in this podcast is Dive Dan.
We were searching down Southport and we saw a lot
of tire tracks off the side of the road and
going down this steep area. So we decided we'd park
(12:24):
the cars and walk down where we could and see
what we could, just in case the car had run
off the road, you wouldn't even know it was there.
And to our surprise one there wasn't any cars down there.
We we spent hours looking through the scrub, but we
(12:44):
were i reckon no more than probably two meters apart,
and we couldn't see each other. We could hear each other,
but it was so thick. We were two meters apart
off the side of the road and we couldn't even
see each other. So it was.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Very dense.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
And there's a lot of roads like that around Tazzy's.
So that's sort of what we're dealing with.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Well, we're going to come back to dive a Dan
a little bit later because I want to talk to
you about him and what he's been helping you with.
I wanted to ask you did you know of any
particular plans that your dad had the day that he
went missing.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Not the actual day did he went missing. It was
a Monday. It was well supposed to be just a
quiet day at home. We did find out that he
went into Sheffield to pay. I think it was for
meals on wheels because he used to get meals on
wheels a couple of times a week. And that was
(13:44):
basically it wasn't a bowls day, it wasn't training for balls.
It was basically a down day. So nothing was actually planned.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
And so he was still able to drive himself to
the shops and get around.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah he could, but he'd had a few car accidents
sort of leading up to his disappearance too, so it
was getting to the point where discussions were had to
take his license off him and hindsight.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
So that's a tricky tricky conversation to have because it
takes away their independence.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Right like lives five k out of Sheffield on our
little hobby farm. So it would have ended these days
at the family home and we would have had to
probably put him in a unit or so. Those talks
were taking place only because he'd just been diagnosed early
(14:41):
onset dementia, so medication wise, he don't just been to
the doctor to see what needed to be done, so
everything was in at early stages. But yeah, it's all happened,
and yeah, it's taken all that away by him going missing.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Everything sort of stops right.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Well, yeah, so one thing you have spoken a fair
bit about in what I've heard anyway, is there's a
number there that you talk about seven seven years and
regarding his house. Do you want to tell everybody what
what that means and what that means to you.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, back in the day, I remember standing next to
my brother and we were sort of getting told what
happens next, Like if we don't find Dad, what do
we do with the house? What do we do with
the contents of the house, And they basically said seven years,
(15:42):
you can't really do anything. It's not your house, they're
not your belongings.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And who was telling you that?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
For memory, I think it was the police actually telling
us this, but that's law. My brother and I looked
at each other and we went, gee, I hope we're
not having to worry about this in seven years.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And when did they tell you that, Like what sort
of time after his disappearance.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I think it was at the stage where Dad had
gone missing and we'd spent for the first three weeks
we searched like eighteen hours a day, and I think
it was coming towards the end of that sort of
three weeks where we were exhausted. We had young families
(16:28):
that we had to get back to.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
He had like a one year old baby.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, well that was the thing. The week that Dad
went missing, my oldest Olivia was turning one and the
family were coming to my place to celebrate a first birthday.
But that just didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Took a turn right, and you were Yeah, you did
an amazing job. You and Nick hours and hours and
hours and spending a lot of money to.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
You, right.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, that Nick, my brother, he I think it was
seventeen or eighteen days in a row when Dad first
went missing. We had something on the TV in the paper.
He did such a good job. He used all these
contacts that he had, and we had it in the paper. Frages.
A lot of people knew that dad was missing, and
(17:17):
I basically just filled the car up full of petrol
and I went searching. So between the both of us,
we gave it everything because we pretty much thought we
were going to find him alive. We had to find
him pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And he was on medication too, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Oh yeah, like he had high blood pressure and took
medication for that. And a bit of medical advice was
you need to find him as soon as you can for.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Stop that medication. Yeah, straight away, because it can have facts.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
So yeah, so we'd sort of told the sooner you
find him, the better.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Tell me a little bit about the house.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Like I believe that he actually had already started the
process of maybe selling the house and looking at going
into a smaller units.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And that was all due to the dementia diagnosis. He
was well aware that the farm, the hobby farm, was
getting too big for him. Being there by himself, he knew,
like in new change was coming and it had to
come because it was basically a house and like five acres.
(18:25):
So for a guy who was sixty nine at the time,
it was starting to get a bit much for him,
and he knew that. And I think for memory, if
you hadn't gone missing. I think a buyer that week. So,
like I said, it's amazing you go missing and life
just turns upside down and what you think is going
(18:48):
to happen is not how it happens.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, as I've said before, it's like someone dropping a
bomb in your lap and exploding and you've just got
to try and catch the pieces and go as best
you can. Well, I'm glad you had the support of
your family behind you. That's a really important part of
this as well.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
And it sounds like, you know, the Tazzy community and
I even see today on facebooks and things like that,
everyone's so great in helping them coming to help you
as well.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
The first weekend, my dad went missing on the Monday,
and then the first Saturday it rained down here in
Tazzy and all the local sporting bowls and everything was
all canceled. So instead of everyone just going home not
going out into rain, we had just so many people
(19:38):
jumping in their cars and just drive around Sheffield full
drive clubs, bowls clubs, cricket clubs. There was just so
many people, just so many people everywhere. Like we were
trying to early days, trying to keep a bit of
a record of where we'd been, but because there were
so many people out and about, we lost track of.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I've heard that before too, where I mean, everyone thinks
they're doing such a great job to help, and they are,
but sometimes when you can't pull it back and you go, okay,
we actually probably need to have a firm idea of
where everyone's been and what they've looked at so we
can sort of cross it off the list.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And we were of the opinion that he'd possibly just
run off the road and we're going to see the
car from the road or we just had to go
down that road to find him sort of thing. So
early days, we just didn't think we'd be at the
stage we are nowhere we're conducting big searches underwater using drones. Like,
(20:43):
we just didn't Yeah, we just didn't think it was
a thing that was going to happen. We just thought
we'd find him on the side the road.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And you know, like it is trauma, trauma to think
about this, but for my mum, just I don't know,
I find some sort of clarity for me sometimes to
just stop and think about how long it is and
what we've been doing and everything we have. So your
dad has now been missing for six one hundred and
twelve days.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
It's a long time. It's a very very long time.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
And you know, hats off to you guys for never
giving up and keeping on keeping on, because you have
done some exceptional things, which I want to talk about
in a minute. But before we move on there, I
just wanted to let everyone know that the coroner actually
ruled that Nicola died on or around the day of
his disappearance, and that ruling came down in twenty twelve.
(21:39):
So what's that four years after you went missing? Even
though his car has never been found, his remains have
never been located. They said there was no evidence of
our play through that ruling. How does that impact your
family and give you the strength to keep searching?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Personally, it didn't change how I felt about that being missing.
I'm going to do my best to find him, and
I don't need a piece of paper saying that he
passed away. I definitely know now that he definitely has
passed away, but I still want to find him. So
(22:21):
having that piece of paper to say that doesn't change
the way I feel about what I'm doing.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Did it free up information like were you able to
then apply for a death certificate for your dad? And
did that help you in other areas like selling his
house and finalizing his estate and accessing information that you
potentially weren't allowed to before.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Information. No, I've been fighting to get information for.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
A long time and still today.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah. Yeah, like really there's folders of information which possibly
have gone digital now and they're on a website. I
just feel like the more information I can get when
it comes to the searching we do, there might be
a little bit of information that could help. But getting
(23:15):
hold of that information hasn't been easy. They'd like to
charge me per page for the documents, and I've actually
got someone who has offered just get it, just.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Pay it as many and police want to charge you
a fee to access the information.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, the information they have.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
So did that information come out in a brief of
evidence at the inquest or not? Because it wasn't for quest.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So this folder, we'll call it one, it got lost.
No one knew where it was, and then because I
kept asking about it, I think they must have maybe
put in a bit of an effort to find it.
So now it's been located and I know a lot
of records have now gone digital. I'm not quite sure
if the dad's information has or not, but yeah, I've
(24:07):
been asked to pay a fee to gain these records.
And well as a family member as dad's son.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Are you classified as next of ken?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Well my brother is power of attorney all that sort
of stuff back in the day. But that hasn't been easy.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
And I know the rules change right for every state
and territory that we're in in Australia, and that makes
it very difficult too. Like that's something that I've found
really frustrating in my own search for my mum because
I'm across two states too, Queensland and New South Wales, right,
So one of the things I did for mum was
apply for freedom of information. Is that something that you've
(24:50):
looked into doing for those files?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Not really, only because I'm busy, just busy, just out
there trying to get the next search where we're going,
Like if I maybe had to tie.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I get that too. I'm trying to find it in
a day to do something else.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
But that's it too, Like at the moment I'm focusing
on the searching side of things. When we can afford
to do it. Just get the next one done. Weather
is always an issue down here. A couple of years
ago we organized the winter search. It was almost my
(25:31):
breaking point. It was snowing. It was just horrible. I'd
be going to bed drenched because it was so cold,
getting up putting on clothes that were cold and wet.
We have a very limited good weather for tassy, so
I just concentrate pretty much just getting searches done, all
(25:54):
the paperwork side of it. It would be good to
have it, but it takes away from energy and time.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Yeah, well, maybe I can talk to you about that
a bit, like I maybe I can help you a
little bit and we can try and see if that
maybe an avenue that might help you and you pay
a fee. I mean, I will tell you that when
I got mine, it was heavily redacted, but it did
hold some key pieces of information in there that really
did help. So you've done a lot of crowd funding
to help fund a lot of the private searches that
(26:25):
you guys have done, which I think is just amazing.
You've done sonar technology, You've had divers and drones and
helicopters and planes. How have these searchers helped you in
the ongoing investigation.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Well, we're in the first couple of days of that
going missing. We were paying fifteen hundred dollars an hour
for helicopters, so you can just imagine how we probably
were financially stable, and then we've been pretty much a
day not being financially stable. It was a big undertaking,
(27:04):
a big expand it continues to be, but not at
fifteen hundred dollars an hour, thank goodness.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
And so the police didn't offer to do any air
searches or what did the police do in those early
days for searching to help you.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
When we first and interaction with the police, I think
in the first seven days we had eight different people
in charge of the case, so we were jumping from
one person to the next.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
In seven days, you had eight different police.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
That wasn't easy. They did checks around the home, but
one of the well I think he was a sergeant
at the time, he basically said a member of the
public will find him and then we'll come in and
we'll clean it up, was what they said up. And
because he'd gone missing with his car, they said someone
(27:59):
will find the car and then we'll do like a
grid search, like one kilometer from the car radius, then
if he's not there five kilometers radius from the car,
ten until we find him.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
And because you didn't find the car, they haven't done
the searchers.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
So that's sort of really just didn't happen. There were
I could be wrong, but I think there was a
day where they took the media up in the helicopter.
The media took some photos and then they landed and
I think they might have gone like twenty kilometers out
of Sheffield and back and that was just a search.
And it hasn't been ideal. Yeah, And I think a
(28:44):
lot of people think that when a person goes missing,
there's all these resources that you're able to access, and
it's just not the case. We did have police reach
out and but we pretty much fell to alone. We
felt like we were doing it. And one of my
(29:05):
I was saying was if you want to do it
and know that it's been done, do it yourself. Don't
think that someone's done it for you. So we very
much felt like we were doing it ourselves. We didn't
feel like we were supported.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I'm sorry to hear that. Sadly we're not alone, but.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Pretty bad stories it.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Yeah, it's a little diabolic or really when you think
about it, and we keep talking about it with other
people and well that's the same story on repeat.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
The missing person community. We all like to support each other,
but it's a common talking point. The lack of resource
and help would be the simple way of putting it.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
And hopefully, I mean, I don't know about you, but
I feel like I have seen a lot more traction
and a lot more movement in not so much from authorities,
but more so from communities coming in and helping the
likes of you and me who have missing persons, and
the stronger we come in and the louder our voice is.
(30:13):
My theory is we will be heard. And I am
seeing a little bit of a change.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
It's definitely changed.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Now. Yeah, so what are you like this year? This
November will be seventeen years since your dad we're missing.
It's a long time, but it has changed a little bit,
and we've got to look at the positives.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
A lot of the change is, like you said, it's
not from official missing persons units or they are like
even they're changing, but the majority.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Of it is just community based.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Community based people that are just getting in and having
a go and helping, rolling up.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Their sleeves and saying what can I do? What can
I offer to help? And so many people have so
many different skill sets, don't.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
They So well, that's where like we're using sonar and drones, like,
there's definitely a skill set there that we're taking ad
the any job.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
And you've had, like I've watched all your videos as
you were doing it. I was so I just wanted
to be there with you and go through what you
were doing because it was raining and the boys are
in with their diving gear trying to literally find cars
or adding evidence of cars in bodies of water, and
you talked about doing the bush searchers as well, but
(31:28):
I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
There was a pretty big moment.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
I don't know how the best way to describe it,
but in July twenty twenty three, while the diving expedition
was happening, the boys actually found a car and a
registration plate and that in fact actually belonged to another
missing person, Dale Nicholson, who'd been missing since twenty sixteen.
(31:54):
After six years of searching, not knowing what happened to
their missing brother, finally, Dale Nicholson's three sisters and their
families have answers.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
We're able to confirm normally that it was the vehicle
that we're looking for, but also that Delle was in
the vehicle.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Still tell us how that felt for you.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well, earlier we were doing a search and we weren't
having a lot of luck. We sort of wanted to regroup,
have a bit of a think about what we know
where next. Is there somewhere we need to go back
to and search again because technology changes, especially with sonar.
(32:40):
When we first checked places, sonar was very capable, but
then technology evolves and it gets better, and then if
there's anywhere that we thought that could have been a
place that needed double checking, that's what we did. So
that night I'd gone home to basically put a map
(33:03):
together of what was going to happen for the next
I think three days, four days, and anywhere we're sort
of going to go back to. So diver Dan and
Bill decided that they'd start heading back towards Hobart were
heading back down to Southport. So while they were heading
(33:23):
back to Hobart, they said, well, New Norfolk, the river
that goes through New Norfolk is very deep, and while
we're here, let's check so diver Dan and Bill rechecked
and came across Dale Nicholson's car, which was fantastic. The
(33:46):
Nicholson family very grateful, and we'd had dealings with them
before because we bumped into a few of their family
members earlier on months before, probably about twelve months before
they actually came to where we were searching. Say, diver
Dan and Bill found Dale, so we already knew, but
we knew that we had the capability were we found Dale,
(34:10):
thought they Foundale.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And what you're doing, you're on the right path.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I mean, it was basically proven that's a good way
to go. And with the amount of cars that we've
found over the last four years.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
How many do you reckon you found?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I've never really sat down and counted, but I'm guessing
it'd have to be a good couple of dozen. And
it's something we'd like to do once we get the result.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Yeah, okay, well done to you and your push for
finding your dad, which has essentially helped find Dale as
well and brought him home to his family. So, you know,
I don't even know what the right words are, but
good on you.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
You know you've given that family some.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Peace and you know, that's that's a really massive thing
in this space, So well done. I've got here that
in twenty twenty three, received a call of out of
signing in two thousand and eight at the tip shop
in Margate.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
That prompted a new search.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
The Margate tip shop. I received a number to call
and the guy just wanted to stay anonymous pretty much.
He says that he knew Dad had met him in Bernie,
which is up on the northwest coast, but Margate is
like about forty minutes south of Hobart, so bumped into
(35:32):
him down at Margate. We investigated at the time when
Dad went missing, Margate tip shop didn't have CCTV, so
we had no CCTV to chase up on this guy.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Has you've got information about this in twenty twenty three
and he's saying that he remembers and seeing your dad
back at this tip shop on the nineteenth of November
two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Did that prompt you to do a new search, like
or were you just.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Because there's the Southport siding, which is just a little
bit further south of Gate. Our searchers we're going from
Southport heading towards Hobart, so we were going to be
going past Margate anyway, so we had that penciled in
for future searchers. So we were sort of heading north
towards Hobart, So when we got this information, we knew
(36:23):
that that was part of our next search anyway. So
with the information or without the information, we were going
to be there anyway, so we just followed it up.
Diver Dan went down to Margate and talked to the
people in the tip shop and the lady didn't remember him,
but the lady that possibly could have had passed away,
(36:46):
so sort of had a lead, but not.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Hard to follow up, especially so long down the track
too for somebody to come into the mix.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So we did sonar because it's right near the water Margate,
so we did sonar searching there as well and basically
cleared the waterways just to give us a bit of
peace of mind as well, just in case you'd taken
a wrong turn.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
And so for people who are listening who don't live
in Tazzy and don't really understand the landscape, why are
you searching bodies of water if your dad's driving, Because
I know you've talked about how close the water can
be to the road at points in the road, So
tell everybody a little bit of a visual on why
that's important.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Well, we got a couple of couple of reasons why
Dad worked for Hydroelectric Commission, So basically power station substations,
lakes rivers, dams, a lot of dams. Dad basically worked
at all of them in like a thirty six year period.
And because of the dementia diagnosis, what we've been told
(37:57):
is that there's a possibility that they can return to
places from years ago.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, they tend to lose their immediate memory. I know,
even with my dad, he keeps drawing back to when
he was a boy and where he lived in Charles Street,
which he has not lived at for a very long time,
So I understand that.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Yeah, So we've sort of taken that information and just
through information that we've received from people doing sonar searchers.
People with dementchu fe drive down a road and let's
say a boat ramp. They don't have the capacity to
(38:40):
like reverse a car safely. Like what I've been told
is they try to just keep going forward and try
to negotiate their way out of a situation, and usually
that doesn't end well. So a lot of sonar searches
of people that had dementia, especially like I'm sort of
(39:02):
focusing on stuff that's come out of the stuff. People
woul dementia if they get on anywhere near water, depending
well how they're feeling at the time, sometimes they just
can't negotiate safely away from the water. So Dad working
near water most of his working life and dementia diagnosis,
(39:23):
we're sort of that's how we sort of come to
concentrating on the sonar. And also we just haven't found
the car on land.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
And that's the baffling bit, isn't it. Like I think
if you stop and think about the situation, your dad's
gone for a drive and today still we don't know
where his car is. So it has to be somewhere.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And I've always said the car holds a key. If
we find the car, I'm guessing we're going to go
a long way to finding that if he's not actually
in the car, it's a very important key is to
find that car.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
And so you've done a bit of drone work as well,
just another skill set that you're learning in this journey, right.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
And another thing over the nearly seventeen years, this technology
wasn't even available. So now we've got Daniel from working
drones Australia. He's offered his time and his equipment and
his knowledge. He's trying to help a lot of families,
so he's hopefully coming back down later in the year
(40:24):
down here to help to try and find Dad. But
he's also the last time he was here, he went
down to Warreta to try and find Selene, who's the
Belgium tourist that went missing down here.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
So he's doing good things.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Is a yeah, he's doing fantastic.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Things, so amazing. And the guy in my missing person's case,
I don't have that searchability because I don't know mum
went left the country and supposedly came back in, So
I haven't got that similarity with say your case or
a lot of other cases that involve potentially drone searching.
(41:03):
But we did do a dog surch form with some
coordinates that were actually given to crime stoppers last year,
which we actually did a whole episode on that in
the Missing Matter podcast. And I was fascinated to see
the drone go up and just hear it beeping, and
you know that that's capturing all of those images and
(41:23):
having all of that information come back to the families
and being able to have a look at the pictures
and see what you can pull out of it. It's
it's quite an important tool.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
We feel grateful that these people like Daniel from Working
Drones Australia and Diver Dan come to Tazzy because they're
not locals. Diver Dan's from Sydney and Daniel from Working
Drones Australia is from Canberra, so okay. And then they're
bringing all their equipment, so that means coming over on
(41:57):
the spirit of Tasmania, which is definitely not a cheap exercise,
and that's sort of what we try and a bit
of money if it pays for transport new gear. We've
had instances where diver down, Cone down and we found
the car, but the water was five degrees and he
couldn't just do it in a wetsuit, so we had
(42:20):
to organize to get him what they call a dry suit,
a couple of thousand dollars just just so we could
dive a car. We're very grateful that we're being able
to use their knowledge and their equipment to keep searching.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
So I want to ask you, and this might be
a question that some people get upset about, but you know,
I just wanted to ask, you know, what was when
was the last time that you heard from the police?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Are your Dad's case?
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I've got a big smile on his face of no,
sorry to ask. I'm just curious because it varies so much,
and you know, I think it's important for people listening
to understand when you're living with that ambiguous loss and
the stress of trying to do it yourself, it's important
to know those people that hold the case file where
(43:12):
you're at, and you know, are they just checking in.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Because Dad's case was highlighted Missing Person's work this year,
they reached out to ask if I was happy for
Dad's case to be one of the one's featured. So
that was over the phone. That face to face has
been a little while. I had been trying to get
a little bit of information because I was finding it
hard if I went to businesses to ask questions, and
(43:40):
the question that I've been sort of asking ever since
Dad sort of went missing, because we think the Monday
that Dad went missing, there was nothing on his timetable
to go anywhere or do anything. The only other thing
he used to do quite regularly was drive to Lonceston,
which is about an hour away. He go to the
(44:03):
Toyota dealer there to get his car serviced and then
walk up the road to the cemetery because Mum was
buried in laun System, so he booked his car in,
walk up the road, spend the afternoon with Mom up
at the grave, walk back down, then drive home. All
I want to know is did he have his car
(44:24):
in to be service that day? Like that could just
say he was heading to laun System. Like when Dad
first went missing. I went to the Toyota dealership and
asked the question, and they wouldn't give me the information
only because I wasn't that like they weren't, And.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
I said, well, the privacy issue is massive, isn't it?
Like fast living in this space, We're trying to find
someone and they're saying, sorry, we can't tell you because
their privacy matters.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
So to this day, every opportunity I get, police will
ask is there anything we can do? I asked that question.
Go to Toyota, find out if he had his car
booked in for a.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Service that even just booked in, like he might not
have made it.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Then he might not have made it, but gives us
a bit of an idea. He could have been heading
in that.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Direction and it's the same Toyota dealership today.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
Yeah, records should be there, even if two and eight
you have to think it was all digital.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Just a simple question like that, I have not received
an answer to.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What do they tell you when you asked.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Well, they tell me that they're going to find out
and let me know. But still nothing. I was going
to say, still waiting. I'm not sure. I am waiting.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Definitely, I'm eager to help you do a freedom of
information and see if we can find that, because you
could probably even put that into Toyota as well and
ask for the records on behind.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
And I understand the police are busy and they are
under resourced, and in a perfect world they help everyone
whatever your circumstance was, but it's just not the case.
We found that out very quickly that that wasn't the case,
and that's why we do what we do now, Like
(46:18):
we conduct the searchers, we organize searchers, we try and
organize funding because we know that sad to say that
they can't help. And I think especially when a family
member goes missing, I don't know if it's just what
people sort of expect or think happens, it's just not
(46:41):
what happens.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
It's such a weird space, Jase, Like I think about
lots of other different elements in you know, crime and
murders and you know things that happen in the world,
and the support and the funding and let's have a
big ball and raise millions of dollars to help.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
The people in that space.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
And why it doesn't happen in the missing space because
you know every year there's more people going missing and
it costs a lot of money to find you fifty
thousand people a year in Australia.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
That we need more help, We.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
Need to do something more, and that needs to come
from a higher level, Like it can't come from you
or me, the families, but we can definitely.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
That's brings an awareness to that space.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Because every family is desperate to find they're missing loved one,
and you do your best, you do what you can
when you can, but not having resources to just go
out there and find that missing person that loved one,
(47:52):
it's very isolating. Like it's for me, I just find
it organizing searchers and conducting searchers. I don't feel like
I'm doing it by myself, but I do sort of
feel not alone in a way, like it's a bit I.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Don't understand what you're saying. I feel I feel alone.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
I have lots of people helping, but there are times
and that goes down to my husband and my kids,
and everyone's keen to help, but there's an inner loneliness
that I don't think I can understand myself to even
put it into words for other people to even comprehend.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Like I've got a great supporter base with Dad's Facebook page,
just amazing, and they're just so supportive, but then at
the same time, like I'm looking at a computer screen
at midnight trying to get a post ready, or like
it's a weird feeling. It's you know, you've got a
(48:53):
backing of a lot of people, but it's it's just
a very very strange feeling.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
And I think that's probably one of my drives too,
and it might even be yours as well, where we
just keep trying to do different things, something different, to
keep the story alive, keep the awareness alive.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Let's try and find new people.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
And I quite often say that within my community, for
my mum you guys know the story, you know what's
happened here. We need you to share it, We need
you to like it. We need you to help build
algorithms that will bring new people to that page, because
you know, someone knows something, someone's seen something, someone's heard something,
(49:33):
you know, and it might be they just need to
connect the dots together and to be able to put
the pieces of the puzzle together. And you've got a
raffle going at the moment, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah, that's the thing. I've got a family friend who
loves to crochet, and she made ear warmers.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Did I read that properly? Did she make ear warmers
like I would.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Love hear warmers? How awesome? Now let's jump on.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
I want to see the winner of those ear warmers.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
I want to post. I want to see it.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
I was going to stipulate whoever does when has to
provide a phote, except.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Well, I'm jumping on and buying your ticket when we
jump off. Good on you. That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
But that's a hing like just the support we've had
just for that at the moment, it'll buy probably about
three tank loads of diesel just to get us around
where we need to be well, it's been.
Speaker 4 (50:30):
Almost seventeen years now, so you know, you guys are
sadly experts. I guess in this space and knowing you
know what you have to do, and we're constantly just
grappling with anything. I'm sure you'd like me, just trying
to think of different things and trying to do something new.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Can you tell us.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
About how the searching and the not knowing has continued
to shape your family, like how you're family coping when.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
It comes to the searching. I'm definitely no expert. I
just do what I feel is the right thing to do,
right or wrong. Like I said, when Dale Nicholson was found,
it sort of proved to us that what we're doing,
we are on that track. But like I said, I'm
definitely no expert. I'm probably better at it now than
I was four years ago, five years ago. Searching being
(51:23):
a male, Ah yeah, I'm fine. I do have my moments,
just little things. I've gone through a lot of the
footage and I've picked up on a few things I
didn't know that I did. There's been a couple of
times diver Dan's found a car and it's on the sonar.
(51:47):
It's the right shape, it's the right size it could
possibly be until diver. Dan dives and I'm holding the
camera in the boat right above Dan and he's going
under and the not knowing of he'll go down and
make his assessment and then the affairs reggio plates or
(52:10):
something like that, he'll take off fan we'll identify the car.
But I've seen in the videos and Dan's been underwater
for like nearly three minutes, and from the time he dives,
I haven't taken a breath. I'm just holding my breath
the whole time. And didn't know that I did that.
(52:31):
But yeah, well it's just.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
The anticipation is just the not knowing.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
I've sat in the boat obviously doing that. But I
wouldn't say I'm trembling, but I'm I'm shaking like it's
it's a big deal, like it's a lot on you.
It does take a toll.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
I would say too that you know, I recently did
a dog search with search dog Sydney and Chris Das
He said to me, I'm looking for my mum's body
in the reeds of a creek in Armadale, and he said,
so the family do this.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
This is not normal.
Speaker 4 (53:07):
That you would be putting yourself in this position. That's right,
But you said earlier too that you know, you get
to a point where I think you've been let down
by authorities who you believed would probably have done this
for you and your case with your missing person, but
they don't, so it sort of falls on you. And
I'm at a point where unless I do it myself,
(53:30):
I have a real fear that it's just not being
done properly.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
And in the words of my brother, if you want
it done properly, do it yourself.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:38):
Yeah, and that is hard, but I guess in a
way it's probably important for you that you are doing
it and you are there so that you can go right,
we've ticked that box, we can move onto the next box.
And sometimes it is a case of with a missing person,
we're just going through those motions.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
And I've always had just a thought in my head
if the roles were reversed and I've gone missing, I
know that my dad would be doing exact exactly what
I'm doing to find me.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
So, well, you're doing an amazing job, So you should
give yourself some credit and pad on the back for
what you're doing, because it is very difficult, and you
are definitely stepping outside that comfort zone and putting yourself
in positions like sitting in the boat and recording to
capture it for everybody, because we're all holding our breath
with you right when they're going down, We're going, oh
(54:29):
my god, what are they going to find when they
go down there?
Speaker 1 (54:32):
It is massive.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
We've had people like because what we said earlier on,
there's a lot of rivers and that they go right
aside main roads around Tazzy. We've had people that know
who we are and what we're doing and they can
see what's going on and they've just pulled up on
the side of the road and you can just see
(54:54):
the look on their face. They're just hoping that day
was going to be the day day. So we've got
lots of support.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
So yeah, I wanted to ask you a question. So
in Queensland, I've noticed that it's probably only been in
the last couple of years that this has started to happen.
But we if there's a car on the side of
the road, there'll be a sticker from that police come
and put on and say police aware. I wanted to
bring this up because I thought it was important as
far as bringing some public awareness and call to action.
(55:26):
In the case of Nicola, I think, you know, I
remember hearing you say and talk about if you saw
a car abandoned on the side of the road, or
if it was in off the.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Road a bit, would you hop.
Speaker 4 (55:38):
Out and would you go and look at it just
to check that there's not someone in there who's had
an incident where they might have passed out or had
a heart attack or driven off the road and hidden animal,
and if they're all right? And how many people would
actually do that, and how many people would take the
steps to actually keeping an eye out and reporting vehicles.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
So they have those stickers, the police aware stickers down As.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Far as I know, they don't have the stick but
they have police tape, so they usually put police tape
around a vehicle.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
And so why is that important? Do you think? I
was telling my friend this the other day.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
I was telling her about this exact scenario, and she said,
I think I'd be afraid to get out and go
and walk and have a look, but I'd probably call
the police and say, hey, there's a car there. And
because I was instantly like thinking, I don't even know
if I've actually been aware in my space to go, oh,
there's a car there, I should go and check it
out or look. But I think I want to bring
(56:36):
it as an awareness to this sort of thing because
you just never know.
Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yeah, over the years, we've had people contact us and
they'll say, there's a car down a bush road. Then
you'd sort of have you reported this to police?
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (56:53):
No, I'm sure someone else has done it.
Speaker 4 (56:56):
Yeah, So what's the key there is? We want people
if you see something and it doesn't have any evidence
of police being aware, be that tape or a sticker
of some description. Doesn't mean you have to go and
look in it, but that you definitely should be making
it away to police because that could help.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
Yeah, and definitely you don't want to put yourself in
danger doing that either, but if it's safe to do so,
regio number, type of car, if you can get that close,
maybe a VIN number on a vehicle, and then if
you can even get in closer, is there someone in
(57:31):
the car?
Speaker 4 (57:33):
So, after all of these years, Jas, what would it
mean for you and your family in the community to
finally find your dad?
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Well, since dad went missing, especially a lot of the
people that he used to play bowls with and socialize
have passed on as well, so over the years they
had sort of buddies. His group in the Sheffield community
has got a lot smaller, but there's still quite a
(58:02):
lot of people, especially in field, that know about that.
But now he's gone from just missing in Sheffield, missing
in Tasmania, to missing in Australia. Like it's followers are
from everywhere. A lot more people know about.
Speaker 1 (58:23):
Him, which is due to your hard work.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
And it's a big community missing persons, which is great,
but just to find any answers would be it's just
all we want to know what happened and for it
to be over. Every family of a missing person just
(58:49):
slowly going crazy.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
With the not knowing get harder, doesn't he of that situation.
Speaker 5 (58:55):
And.
Speaker 3 (58:57):
We spend a lot of time with our own thoughts
and what if and then and the whole not knowing
what has happened that it plays on your mind, and
it plays on the community's mind, and everyone wants to help,
and everyone's invested in trying to help in any way
(59:22):
that they can, and people just want, like I said, answers.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
There's currently no reward for your dad either, Is there
no there isn't. How do you feel about that.
Speaker 3 (59:36):
I haven't really given it a lot of thought. Sometimes
I think it might be beneficial, and then sometimes I'm
sort of not so sure. But if that was to happen,
I'm not really sure. It's not an avenue that I've
(59:57):
gone down to try and get happening. Yes, it's not
really something I've put a lot of thought into. Maybe
someone can enlighten me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Regard.
Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
I don't know. I don't think there's a right or
wrong answer there. You know, maybe maybe someone did see
something and they just haven't thought to come forward, or
you know, sometimes I think just having a face with
a reward can actually just spike someone's interest. Well, I
would like to finish our chat just by asking you
(01:00:33):
why Nicola matters.
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Well, Nicola matters because well, for me personally, he's my
dad and he was a very good dad. He just
I've said it a lot. He's just just a great bloke.
Just to put it in Australian terms, He's just a
(01:00:59):
great bloke, great dad, a great husband, great granddad. Just
if you're his mate, you knew that he was your mate.
Just funny, loving, just a warm guy. Just can't speak
any more highly of him like he just like I said,
(01:01:21):
just a great bloke.
Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
I think you'd be very proud of his sons and
his family for doing everything you have, because it is
very hard what you're doing. And I'm sure that wherever
he is, he's very very proud of you, guys. And
I want to say thank you to you for sharing
a journey with us, because it is very hard to
(01:01:44):
pull yourself back through these conversations on repeat, isn't it,
And you know you've just come off the back. As
we said of missing persons week, I am, for one,
following your story very closely and I have every hope
and wish that you find your dad and bring him
home and give you some peace. So thank you Jason
(01:02:05):
joining me.
Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Thank you next week on the missing matter.
Speaker 5 (01:02:11):
It's terrible to have something, to have a parent go mysteriously,
So that's one of the reasons I've followed you closely
because I know the trauma that's attached to that and
it's something now that you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Carry through your life. And same with my two children.
Speaker 5 (01:02:28):
It really sucked the life out of them to lose
their hero dads in such dramatic circumstances. I spent the
morning having breakfast out on a balcony with the other
friends and we were just laughing and chatting and catching up.
We never thought anything about it. So when lunchtime came
(01:02:48):
on the Sunday and he wasn't back, I thought, oh, well,
maybe he's delayed a little because of those three events.
They're so extreme and out of the ordinary and not
handled properly. There was a two hour window of opportunity,
and Please kept saying there was only one hour, and
because of that, it was dropped within five days, and
(01:03:11):
it should not have been dropped.
Approche production.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Monday, November seventeenth, two thousand and eight, the house is locked,
the dogs still in his kennel, and sometime between one
and two pm, sixty nine year old Nicholas Salise is
seen driving east along Sheffield Main Road in Tasmania. That evening,
(00:34):
a tourists reports a man like Nikola asking for directions
to seven Mile Beach. Then nothing, no car, no further
sightings that could close the loop.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Police begin the.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Initial checks roads, dams, tracks, but days turn into weeks,
years and decades, and there's still no sign of Nicola
or his vehicle. In twenty twelve of the Krona rules,
(01:11):
Nicola likely died around the time he disappeared, but finds
no evidence of foul play, But the ruling doesn't answer
the only one question that matters, where is he? The
search shifts gears, the family keeps searching, crowdfunding, sonar sweeps,
(01:37):
divers and drones. July twenty twenty three, a diver locates
a submerged car.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
A diver from New South Wales recently traveling to Tasmania
using sonar equipment to scour rivers in the area. Hope spike.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Until a plate's confirm it belongs to another missing person.
A breakthrough for one family, more heartbreak for another.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
His son is refusing to give up hope, hope.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Across the years, the Leeds continue. A call about a
man like Nikola at a shop in November of two
thousand and eight. Fresh searches follow and an anonymous tip
about Southport. The day vanished, but seventeen years on, his
son Jason says, if we find the car, we find dad.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
It never goes away. If you have a missing person
in the family, it's always there.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That's the search for Nikola and seven simple words. Seventeen
years on, Nikola matters, well.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I'm here today talking.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Well we're not together, are we, Jase, Like you're down
in Tazzi and I'm up here in Brisbane.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
But thank you for joining me.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Thanks for the opportunity on the missing matter, because I
wanted to put it out there to those of us
living the ambiguity of not knowing what's happened to our
missing life one and see if we can have a
chat in today's world and bring some awareness. In your case,
it's your dad, NICOLEA, it's Salise who went missing back
(03:16):
in two thousand and eight, firstly, let me ask, how
are you good?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Dad? That's just finish Missing Person's Week, so busiest week
of the year pretty much. And it's good to still
have opportunities even though it's not Missing Person's Week anymore,
but like still to have the opportunity to talk about
that is always a good thing.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I was going to talk about that because this year
the theme was Forever Loved and your dad actually featured,
didn't he He did.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
We got the call and was asked, and here we're
more than happy to pretty much do any media. Any
media is good media, I think in this situation. So yeah,
we jumped at a chance.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Generally I think we're all grasping at straws. Aren't we
to get as much attention out there to hope that
someone knows something?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Well, can we start by you telling us a little
bit about your dad?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Well, I can go way back. He was born in Vasto,
which is in Italy in nineteen thirty nine. Young man
in these twenties decided to come to Australia and he
worked on the hydro Electric Commission in Tasmania, which was
(04:41):
all for dams and power stations and the like. He
worked for them for thirty six years. During the sixties,
he met Mum, got married, then myself and my brother
turned up. We were living in what they call hydro
villagers throughout Tasmania due to dad's work. We all grew
(05:04):
up a little bit, moved out, and Mum got sick
in the ninety nineties, so Dad retired to look after her,
and she unfortunately passed away in two thousand, so that
affected Dad pretty badly. Like mum was everything.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I heard you talking to Lauren o'keith about that a
few years back and how your dad had actually not
changed the house. He kept the house exactly as it
was when she passed away.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, that's when it sort of became real for my
brother and myself because when Dad went missing, the house
hadn't been changed since Mum had passed away eight years before,
and we sort of felt like we were packing up
for both of them, which was it was one of
those feelings of yeah, it wasn't a good way, just
(05:57):
not a good feeling, like it was pretty awful. So
we're packing up for Dad and Mum's reading glasses still
beside the chair, like it was horrible. It was absolutely horrible.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Oh, that's that is sad.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Like you know, I've been obviously, I've been following your
story for a very long time as well in doing
my background on your dad to just get a little
bit more information so that I can help share his
story on this platform with you. Tell us about his craftsmanship,
that he was a wood maker or a wood turner.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
He built himself a lave because he was very good
with his hands building things. He'd build himself a trailer
if he needed a trailer. He wanted a woodlave, he
built himself a woodlave and he'd spend hours out in
the shed and middle of winter in the shed that's
(06:54):
had no not a lot of heating in the Yeah,
he was committed, but because one wanted to do it,
he did it. He had a talent and that's what
he did and that kept mum going. He was more
than happy to do it. He's a very good craftsman.
But yeah, just anything he put his mind to, he
(07:16):
could make it.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
He's mentioned before, he retired to pretty much look after
your mum and take her to all her appointments and everything.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
How was he when she passed away?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Hit him really really hard? He was lost. He did
everything for mum, so to not have her there just
took him a while to kick himself back in the
gear and get a few things done. He ended up
(07:47):
finding that he enjoyed playing lawn bowls and he used
to play like three times a week, and was more
to just get out of the house, meet other people,
enjoy the company of other people, which he definitely did,
and completely different to how he sort of saw his life.
(08:08):
I'm guessing, but yeah, it's when Mum passed away.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yeah, it knocked him around, and I wanted to ask,
who I know, Your brother, Nick has been right by
your side and supporting you as you sort of the
front man for a lot of the media and a
lot of the push for your dad.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
How's Nick going today?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, Nick's had a few issues too. He's second oldest,
passed away back in twenty eighteen, had a lot of
medical issues. Nick really had to put a lot of
effort into young Zach to get him to medical appointments.
I wouldn't say he stepped away from looking for dad,
(08:52):
but he sort of had to sort of prioritize Zach.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I'm sorry to hear about that.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah, he's had a few things. Yeah, as well, so.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Things to deal with.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And like I said, Zack passed away in two thy eight, and.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
So when your dad went missing in two thousand and eight,
so ten years after that to deal with, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, So we've had had a few issues, a few
things we've had to work through.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So let's dive into the information that we can share
with the listeners about the day your dad went missing.
So he was last scene driving east on Sheffield Main
Road on the seventeenth of November two thousand and eight
between one and two, heading towards the Bridle Track Road.
And later that evening a tourist reportedly saw someone matching
(09:47):
his description at Southport asking for directions to seven Mile Beach.
Now that was the last confirmed sighting. Can you walk
us through how you were feeling that day and what happened?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
The last known confirmed sighting is just out of Sheffield
by a local mechanic who knew Dad, and then pretty
much after like one or two in the afternoon. Everything
else is sightings by people that have recognized Dad, but
(10:23):
they're not people that actually know him. So we've had
a lot of sightings over the years and a lot
of information come through, but well, a lot haven't really
timeline wise. Sometimes there's been the case and yeah, just
sort of mistaken identity is probably another couple as well.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So yeah, and I guess this, if the mechanic actually
knew your dad, that's pretty significant in a sighting, I think.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, So that's sort of the last one we can
really hang our sort of hat on, and the rest
we've followed them up and we've conducted searchers because of
the areas where they are, Like Southport is an hour
and a half south of Hobart, so for Dad to
get there, it's like a three hour drive to Hobart
(11:12):
from Sheffield and then another hour and a half to Southport.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So that's a pretty big drive really.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, it's a long long way away from home.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
I mean I was just down in Tazi myself and
went down to Fruscinate area and back into Hobart, so
I can sort of say that the roads weren't amazing really,
Like there was lots of potholes and lots of edges
falling onto gravel and things like that.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Once you're out from the city Hobart lawn system you
have like the Middland Hideway that's straight down the middle
but then everything else is just like country road, single
lane either direction. Some of the road, especially down where
the siding was. Down at Southport, there's a place called
(11:59):
Dover and it's just a big drop off off the
side of the road. And one person that I'll mention
a fair bit probably in this podcast is Dive Dan.
We were searching down Southport and we saw a lot
of tire tracks off the side of the road and
going down this steep area. So we decided we'd park
(12:24):
the cars and walk down where we could and see
what we could, just in case the car had run
off the road, you wouldn't even know it was there.
And to our surprise one there wasn't any cars down there.
We we spent hours looking through the scrub, but we
(12:44):
were i reckon no more than probably two meters apart,
and we couldn't see each other. We could hear each other,
but it was so thick. We were two meters apart
off the side of the road and we couldn't even
see each other. So it was.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Very dense.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
And there's a lot of roads like that around Tazzy's.
So that's sort of what we're dealing with.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Well, we're going to come back to dive a Dan
a little bit later because I want to talk to
you about him and what he's been helping you with.
I wanted to ask you did you know of any
particular plans that your dad had the day that he
went missing.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Not the actual day did he went missing. It was
a Monday. It was well supposed to be just a
quiet day at home. We did find out that he
went into Sheffield to pay. I think it was for
meals on wheels because he used to get meals on
wheels a couple of times a week. And that was
(13:44):
basically it wasn't a bowls day, it wasn't training for balls.
It was basically a down day. So nothing was actually planned.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
And so he was still able to drive himself to
the shops and get around.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah he could, but he'd had a few car accidents
sort of leading up to his disappearance too, so it
was getting to the point where discussions were had to
take his license off him and hindsight.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
So that's a tricky tricky conversation to have because it
takes away their independence.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Right like lives five k out of Sheffield on our
little hobby farm. So it would have ended these days
at the family home and we would have had to
probably put him in a unit or so. Those talks
were taking place only because he'd just been diagnosed early
(14:41):
onset dementia, so medication wise, he don't just been to
the doctor to see what needed to be done, so
everything was in at early stages. But yeah, it's all happened,
and yeah, it's taken all that away by him going missing.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Everything sort of stops right.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Well, yeah, so one thing you have spoken a fair
bit about in what I've heard anyway, is there's a
number there that you talk about seven seven years and
regarding his house. Do you want to tell everybody what
what that means and what that means to you.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, back in the day, I remember standing next to
my brother and we were sort of getting told what
happens next, Like if we don't find Dad, what do
we do with the house? What do we do with
the contents of the house, And they basically said seven years,
(15:42):
you can't really do anything. It's not your house, they're
not your belongings.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And who was telling you that?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
For memory, I think it was the police actually telling
us this, but that's law. My brother and I looked
at each other and we went, gee, I hope we're
not having to worry about this in seven years.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And when did they tell you that, Like what sort
of time after his disappearance.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I think it was at the stage where Dad had
gone missing and we'd spent for the first three weeks
we searched like eighteen hours a day, and I think
it was coming towards the end of that sort of
three weeks where we were exhausted. We had young families
(16:28):
that we had to get back to.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
He had like a one year old baby.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, well that was the thing. The week that Dad
went missing, my oldest Olivia was turning one and the
family were coming to my place to celebrate a first birthday.
But that just didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Took a turn right, and you were Yeah, you did
an amazing job. You and Nick hours and hours and
hours and spending a lot of money to.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
You, right.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, that Nick, my brother, he I think it was
seventeen or eighteen days in a row when Dad first
went missing. We had something on the TV in the paper.
He did such a good job. He used all these
contacts that he had, and we had it in the paper. Frages.
A lot of people knew that dad was missing, and
(17:17):
I basically just filled the car up full of petrol
and I went searching. So between the both of us,
we gave it everything because we pretty much thought we
were going to find him alive. We had to find
him pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And he was on medication too, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Oh yeah, like he had high blood pressure and took
medication for that. And a bit of medical advice was
you need to find him as soon as you can for.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Stop that medication. Yeah, straight away, because it can have facts.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
So yeah, so we'd sort of told the sooner you
find him, the better.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Tell me a little bit about the house.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Like I believe that he actually had already started the
process of maybe selling the house and looking at going
into a smaller units.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And that was all due to the dementia diagnosis. He
was well aware that the farm, the hobby farm, was
getting too big for him. Being there by himself, he knew,
like in new change was coming and it had to
come because it was basically a house and like five acres.
(18:25):
So for a guy who was sixty nine at the time,
it was starting to get a bit much for him,
and he knew that. And I think for memory, if
you hadn't gone missing. I think a buyer that week. So,
like I said, it's amazing you go missing and life
just turns upside down and what you think is going
(18:48):
to happen is not how it happens.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, as I've said before, it's like someone dropping a
bomb in your lap and exploding and you've just got
to try and catch the pieces and go as best
you can. Well, I'm glad you had the support of
your family behind you. That's a really important part of
this as well.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
And it sounds like, you know, the Tazzy community and
I even see today on facebooks and things like that,
everyone's so great in helping them coming to help you
as well.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
The first weekend, my dad went missing on the Monday,
and then the first Saturday it rained down here in
Tazzy and all the local sporting bowls and everything was
all canceled. So instead of everyone just going home not
going out into rain, we had just so many people
(19:38):
jumping in their cars and just drive around Sheffield full
drive clubs, bowls clubs, cricket clubs. There was just so
many people, just so many people everywhere. Like we were
trying to early days, trying to keep a bit of
a record of where we'd been, but because there were
so many people out and about, we lost track of.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I've heard that before too, where I mean, everyone thinks
they're doing such a great job to help, and they are,
but sometimes when you can't pull it back and you go, okay,
we actually probably need to have a firm idea of
where everyone's been and what they've looked at so we
can sort of cross it off the list.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And we were of the opinion that he'd possibly just
run off the road and we're going to see the
car from the road or we just had to go
down that road to find him sort of thing. So
early days, we just didn't think we'd be at the
stage we are nowhere we're conducting big searches underwater using drones. Like,
(20:43):
we just didn't Yeah, we just didn't think it was
a thing that was going to happen. We just thought
we'd find him on the side the road.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And you know, like it is trauma, trauma to think
about this, but for my mum, just I don't know,
I find some sort of clarity for me sometimes to
just stop and think about how long it is and
what we've been doing and everything we have. So your
dad has now been missing for six one hundred and
twelve days.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
It's a long time. It's a very very long time.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
And you know, hats off to you guys for never
giving up and keeping on keeping on, because you have
done some exceptional things, which I want to talk about
in a minute. But before we move on there, I
just wanted to let everyone know that the coroner actually
ruled that Nicola died on or around the day of
his disappearance, and that ruling came down in twenty twelve.
(21:39):
So what's that four years after you went missing? Even
though his car has never been found, his remains have
never been located. They said there was no evidence of
our play through that ruling. How does that impact your
family and give you the strength to keep searching?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Personally, it didn't change how I felt about that being missing.
I'm going to do my best to find him, and
I don't need a piece of paper saying that he
passed away. I definitely know now that he definitely has
passed away, but I still want to find him. So
(22:21):
having that piece of paper to say that doesn't change
the way I feel about what I'm doing.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Did it free up information like were you able to
then apply for a death certificate for your dad? And
did that help you in other areas like selling his
house and finalizing his estate and accessing information that you
potentially weren't allowed to before.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Information. No, I've been fighting to get information for.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
A long time and still today.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah. Yeah, like really there's folders of information which possibly
have gone digital now and they're on a website. I
just feel like the more information I can get when
it comes to the searching we do, there might be
a little bit of information that could help. But getting
(23:15):
hold of that information hasn't been easy. They'd like to
charge me per page for the documents, and I've actually
got someone who has offered just get it, just.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Pay it as many and police want to charge you
a fee to access the information.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, the information they have.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
So did that information come out in a brief of
evidence at the inquest or not? Because it wasn't for quest.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So this folder, we'll call it one, it got lost.
No one knew where it was, and then because I
kept asking about it, I think they must have maybe
put in a bit of an effort to find it.
So now it's been located and I know a lot
of records have now gone digital. I'm not quite sure
if the dad's information has or not, but yeah, I've
(24:07):
been asked to pay a fee to gain these records.
And well as a family member as dad's son.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Are you classified as next of ken?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Well my brother is power of attorney all that sort
of stuff back in the day. But that hasn't been easy.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
And I know the rules change right for every state
and territory that we're in in Australia, and that makes
it very difficult too. Like that's something that I've found
really frustrating in my own search for my mum because
I'm across two states too, Queensland and New South Wales, right,
So one of the things I did for mum was
apply for freedom of information. Is that something that you've
(24:50):
looked into doing for those files?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Not really, only because I'm busy, just busy, just out
there trying to get the next search where we're going,
Like if I maybe had to tie.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I get that too. I'm trying to find it in
a day to do something else.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
But that's it too, Like at the moment I'm focusing
on the searching side of things. When we can afford
to do it. Just get the next one done. Weather
is always an issue down here. A couple of years
ago we organized the winter search. It was almost my
(25:31):
breaking point. It was snowing. It was just horrible. I'd
be going to bed drenched because it was so cold,
getting up putting on clothes that were cold and wet.
We have a very limited good weather for tassy, so
I just concentrate pretty much just getting searches done, all
(25:54):
the paperwork side of it. It would be good to
have it, but it takes away from energy and time.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Yeah, well, maybe I can talk to you about that
a bit, like I maybe I can help you a
little bit and we can try and see if that
maybe an avenue that might help you and you pay
a fee. I mean, I will tell you that when
I got mine, it was heavily redacted, but it did
hold some key pieces of information in there that really
did help. So you've done a lot of crowd funding
to help fund a lot of the private searches that
(26:25):
you guys have done, which I think is just amazing.
You've done sonar technology, You've had divers and drones and
helicopters and planes. How have these searchers helped you in
the ongoing investigation.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Well, we're in the first couple of days of that
going missing. We were paying fifteen hundred dollars an hour
for helicopters, so you can just imagine how we probably
were financially stable, and then we've been pretty much a
day not being financially stable. It was a big undertaking,
(27:04):
a big expand it continues to be, but not at
fifteen hundred dollars an hour, thank goodness.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
And so the police didn't offer to do any air
searches or what did the police do in those early
days for searching to help you.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
When we first and interaction with the police, I think
in the first seven days we had eight different people
in charge of the case, so we were jumping from
one person to the next.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
In seven days, you had eight different police.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
That wasn't easy. They did checks around the home, but
one of the well I think he was a sergeant
at the time, he basically said a member of the
public will find him and then we'll come in and
we'll clean it up, was what they said up. And
because he'd gone missing with his car, they said someone
(27:59):
will find the car and then we'll do like a
grid search, like one kilometer from the car radius, then
if he's not there five kilometers radius from the car,
ten until we find him.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
And because you didn't find the car, they haven't done
the searchers.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
So that's sort of really just didn't happen. There were
I could be wrong, but I think there was a
day where they took the media up in the helicopter.
The media took some photos and then they landed and
I think they might have gone like twenty kilometers out
of Sheffield and back and that was just a search.
And it hasn't been ideal. Yeah, And I think a
(28:44):
lot of people think that when a person goes missing,
there's all these resources that you're able to access, and
it's just not the case. We did have police reach
out and but we pretty much fell to alone. We
felt like we were doing it. And one of my
(29:05):
I was saying was if you want to do it
and know that it's been done, do it yourself. Don't
think that someone's done it for you. So we very
much felt like we were doing it ourselves. We didn't
feel like we were supported.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I'm sorry to hear that. Sadly we're not alone, but.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Pretty bad stories it.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Yeah, it's a little diabolic or really when you think
about it, and we keep talking about it with other
people and well that's the same story on repeat.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
The missing person community. We all like to support each other,
but it's a common talking point. The lack of resource
and help would be the simple way of putting it.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
And hopefully, I mean, I don't know about you, but
I feel like I have seen a lot more traction
and a lot more movement in not so much from authorities,
but more so from communities coming in and helping the
likes of you and me who have missing persons, and
the stronger we come in and the louder our voice is.
(30:13):
My theory is we will be heard. And I am
seeing a little bit of a change.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
It's definitely changed.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Now. Yeah, so what are you like this year? This
November will be seventeen years since your dad we're missing.
It's a long time, but it has changed a little bit,
and we've got to look at the positives.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
A lot of the change is, like you said, it's
not from official missing persons units or they are like
even they're changing, but the majority.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Of it is just community based.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Community based people that are just getting in and having
a go and helping, rolling up.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Their sleeves and saying what can I do? What can
I offer to help? And so many people have so
many different skill sets, don't.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
They So well, that's where like we're using sonar and drones, like,
there's definitely a skill set there that we're taking ad
the any job.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
And you've had, like I've watched all your videos as
you were doing it. I was so I just wanted
to be there with you and go through what you
were doing because it was raining and the boys are
in with their diving gear trying to literally find cars
or adding evidence of cars in bodies of water, and
you talked about doing the bush searchers as well, but
(31:28):
I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
There was a pretty big moment.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
I don't know how the best way to describe it,
but in July twenty twenty three, while the diving expedition
was happening, the boys actually found a car and a
registration plate and that in fact actually belonged to another
missing person, Dale Nicholson, who'd been missing since twenty sixteen.
(31:54):
After six years of searching, not knowing what happened to
their missing brother, finally, Dale Nicholson's three sisters and their
families have answers.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
We're able to confirm normally that it was the vehicle
that we're looking for, but also that Delle was in
the vehicle.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Still tell us how that felt for you.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well, earlier we were doing a search and we weren't
having a lot of luck. We sort of wanted to regroup,
have a bit of a think about what we know
where next. Is there somewhere we need to go back
to and search again because technology changes, especially with sonar.
(32:40):
When we first checked places, sonar was very capable, but
then technology evolves and it gets better, and then if
there's anywhere that we thought that could have been a
place that needed double checking, that's what we did. So
that night I'd gone home to basically put a map
(33:03):
together of what was going to happen for the next
I think three days, four days, and anywhere we're sort
of going to go back to. So diver Dan and
Bill decided that they'd start heading back towards Hobart were
heading back down to Southport. So while they were heading
(33:23):
back to Hobart, they said, well, New Norfolk, the river
that goes through New Norfolk is very deep, and while
we're here, let's check so diver Dan and Bill rechecked
and came across Dale Nicholson's car, which was fantastic. The
(33:46):
Nicholson family very grateful, and we'd had dealings with them
before because we bumped into a few of their family
members earlier on months before, probably about twelve months before
they actually came to where we were searching. Say, diver
Dan and Bill found Dale, so we already knew, but
we knew that we had the capability were we found Dale,
(34:10):
thought they Foundale.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And what you're doing, you're on the right path.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I mean, it was basically proven that's a good way
to go. And with the amount of cars that we've
found over the last four years.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
How many do you reckon you found?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I've never really sat down and counted, but I'm guessing
it'd have to be a good couple of dozen. And
it's something we'd like to do once we get the result.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Yeah, okay, well done to you and your push for
finding your dad, which has essentially helped find Dale as
well and brought him home to his family. So, you know,
I don't even know what the right words are, but
good on you.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
You know you've given that family some.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Peace and you know, that's that's a really massive thing
in this space, So well done. I've got here that
in twenty twenty three, received a call of out of
signing in two thousand and eight at the tip shop
in Margate.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
That prompted a new search.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
The Margate tip shop. I received a number to call
and the guy just wanted to stay anonymous pretty much.
He says that he knew Dad had met him in Bernie,
which is up on the northwest coast, but Margate is
like about forty minutes south of Hobart, so bumped into
(35:32):
him down at Margate. We investigated at the time when
Dad went missing, Margate tip shop didn't have CCTV, so
we had no CCTV to chase up on this guy.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Has you've got information about this in twenty twenty three
and he's saying that he remembers and seeing your dad
back at this tip shop on the nineteenth of November
two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Did that prompt you to do a new search, like
or were you just.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Because there's the Southport siding, which is just a little
bit further south of Gate. Our searchers we're going from
Southport heading towards Hobart, so we were going to be
going past Margate anyway, so we had that penciled in
for future searchers. So we were sort of heading north
towards Hobart, So when we got this information, we knew
(36:23):
that that was part of our next search anyway. So
with the information or without the information, we were going
to be there anyway, so we just followed it up.
Diver Dan went down to Margate and talked to the
people in the tip shop and the lady didn't remember him,
but the lady that possibly could have had passed away,
(36:46):
so sort of had a lead, but not.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Hard to follow up, especially so long down the track
too for somebody to come into the mix.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So we did sonar because it's right near the water Margate,
so we did sonar searching there as well and basically
cleared the waterways just to give us a bit of
peace of mind as well, just in case you'd taken
a wrong turn.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
And so for people who are listening who don't live
in Tazzy and don't really understand the landscape, why are
you searching bodies of water if your dad's driving, Because
I know you've talked about how close the water can
be to the road at points in the road, So
tell everybody a little bit of a visual on why
that's important.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Well, we got a couple of couple of reasons why
Dad worked for Hydroelectric Commission, So basically power station substations,
lakes rivers, dams, a lot of dams. Dad basically worked
at all of them in like a thirty six year period.
And because of the dementia diagnosis, what we've been told
(37:57):
is that there's a possibility that they can return to
places from years ago.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, they tend to lose their immediate memory. I know,
even with my dad, he keeps drawing back to when
he was a boy and where he lived in Charles Street,
which he has not lived at for a very long time,
So I understand that.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Yeah, So we've sort of taken that information and just
through information that we've received from people doing sonar searchers.
People with dementchu fe drive down a road and let's
say a boat ramp. They don't have the capacity to
(38:40):
like reverse a car safely. Like what I've been told
is they try to just keep going forward and try
to negotiate their way out of a situation, and usually
that doesn't end well. So a lot of sonar searches
of people that had dementia, especially like I'm sort of
(39:02):
focusing on stuff that's come out of the stuff. People
woul dementia if they get on anywhere near water, depending
well how they're feeling at the time, sometimes they just
can't negotiate safely away from the water. So Dad working
near water most of his working life and dementia diagnosis,
(39:23):
we're sort of that's how we sort of come to
concentrating on the sonar. And also we just haven't found
the car on land.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
And that's the baffling bit, isn't it. Like I think
if you stop and think about the situation, your dad's
gone for a drive and today still we don't know
where his car is. So it has to be somewhere.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And I've always said the car holds a key. If
we find the car, I'm guessing we're going to go
a long way to finding that if he's not actually
in the car, it's a very important key is to
find that car.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
And so you've done a bit of drone work as well,
just another skill set that you're learning in this journey, right.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
And another thing over the nearly seventeen years, this technology
wasn't even available. So now we've got Daniel from working
drones Australia. He's offered his time and his equipment and
his knowledge. He's trying to help a lot of families,
so he's hopefully coming back down later in the year
(40:24):
down here to help to try and find Dad. But
he's also the last time he was here, he went
down to Warreta to try and find Selene, who's the
Belgium tourist that went missing down here.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
So he's doing good things.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Is a yeah, he's doing fantastic.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
Things, so amazing. And the guy in my missing person's case,
I don't have that searchability because I don't know mum
went left the country and supposedly came back in, So
I haven't got that similarity with say your case or
a lot of other cases that involve potentially drone searching.
(41:03):
But we did do a dog surch form with some
coordinates that were actually given to crime stoppers last year,
which we actually did a whole episode on that in
the Missing Matter podcast. And I was fascinated to see
the drone go up and just hear it beeping, and
you know that that's capturing all of those images and
(41:23):
having all of that information come back to the families
and being able to have a look at the pictures
and see what you can pull out of it. It's
it's quite an important tool.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
We feel grateful that these people like Daniel from Working
Drones Australia and Diver Dan come to Tazzy because they're
not locals. Diver Dan's from Sydney and Daniel from Working
Drones Australia is from Canberra, so okay. And then they're
bringing all their equipment, so that means coming over on
(41:57):
the spirit of Tasmania, which is definitely not a cheap exercise,
and that's sort of what we try and a bit
of money if it pays for transport new gear. We've
had instances where diver down, Cone down and we found
the car, but the water was five degrees and he
couldn't just do it in a wetsuit, so we had
(42:20):
to organize to get him what they call a dry suit,
a couple of thousand dollars just just so we could
dive a car. We're very grateful that we're being able
to use their knowledge and their equipment to keep searching.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
So I want to ask you, and this might be
a question that some people get upset about, but you know,
I just wanted to ask, you know, what was when
was the last time that you heard from the police?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Are your Dad's case?
Speaker 4 (42:50):
I've got a big smile on his face of no,
sorry to ask. I'm just curious because it varies so much,
and you know, I think it's important for people listening
to understand when you're living with that ambiguous loss and
the stress of trying to do it yourself, it's important
to know those people that hold the case file where
(43:12):
you're at, and you know, are they just checking in.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Because Dad's case was highlighted Missing Person's work this year,
they reached out to ask if I was happy for
Dad's case to be one of the one's featured. So
that was over the phone. That face to face has
been a little while. I had been trying to get
a little bit of information because I was finding it
hard if I went to businesses to ask questions, and
(43:40):
the question that I've been sort of asking ever since
Dad sort of went missing, because we think the Monday
that Dad went missing, there was nothing on his timetable
to go anywhere or do anything. The only other thing
he used to do quite regularly was drive to Lonceston,
which is about an hour away. He go to the
(44:03):
Toyota dealer there to get his car serviced and then
walk up the road to the cemetery because Mum was
buried in laun System, so he booked his car in,
walk up the road, spend the afternoon with Mom up
at the grave, walk back down, then drive home. All
I want to know is did he have his car
(44:24):
in to be service that day? Like that could just
say he was heading to laun System. Like when Dad
first went missing. I went to the Toyota dealership and
asked the question, and they wouldn't give me the information
only because I wasn't that like they weren't, And.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
I said, well, the privacy issue is massive, isn't it?
Like fast living in this space, We're trying to find
someone and they're saying, sorry, we can't tell you because
their privacy matters.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
So to this day, every opportunity I get, police will
ask is there anything we can do? I asked that question.
Go to Toyota, find out if he had his car
booked in for a.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Service that even just booked in, like he might not
have made it.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
Then he might not have made it, but gives us
a bit of an idea. He could have been heading
in that.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Direction and it's the same Toyota dealership today.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
Yeah, records should be there, even if two and eight
you have to think it was all digital.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Just a simple question like that, I have not received
an answer to.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
What do they tell you when you asked.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Well, they tell me that they're going to find out
and let me know. But still nothing. I was going
to say, still waiting. I'm not sure. I am waiting.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Definitely, I'm eager to help you do a freedom of
information and see if we can find that, because you
could probably even put that into Toyota as well and
ask for the records on behind.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
And I understand the police are busy and they are
under resourced, and in a perfect world they help everyone
whatever your circumstance was, but it's just not the case.
We found that out very quickly that that wasn't the case,
and that's why we do what we do now, Like
(46:18):
we conduct the searchers, we organize searchers, we try and
organize funding because we know that sad to say that
they can't help. And I think especially when a family
member goes missing, I don't know if it's just what
people sort of expect or think happens, it's just not
(46:41):
what happens.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
It's such a weird space, Jase, Like I think about
lots of other different elements in you know, crime and
murders and you know things that happen in the world,
and the support and the funding and let's have a
big ball and raise millions of dollars to help.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
The people in that space.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
And why it doesn't happen in the missing space because
you know every year there's more people going missing and
it costs a lot of money to find you fifty
thousand people a year in Australia.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
That we need more help, We.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
Need to do something more, and that needs to come
from a higher level, Like it can't come from you
or me, the families, but we can definitely.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
That's brings an awareness to that space.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Because every family is desperate to find they're missing loved one,
and you do your best, you do what you can
when you can, but not having resources to just go
out there and find that missing person that loved one,
(47:52):
it's very isolating. Like it's for me, I just find
it organizing searchers and conducting searchers. I don't feel like
I'm doing it by myself, but I do sort of
feel not alone in a way, like it's a bit I.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Don't understand what you're saying. I feel I feel alone.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
I have lots of people helping, but there are times
and that goes down to my husband and my kids,
and everyone's keen to help, but there's an inner loneliness
that I don't think I can understand myself to even
put it into words for other people to even comprehend.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Like I've got a great supporter base with Dad's Facebook page,
just amazing, and they're just so supportive, but then at
the same time, like I'm looking at a computer screen
at midnight trying to get a post ready, or like
it's a weird feeling. It's you know, you've got a
(48:53):
backing of a lot of people, but it's it's just
a very very strange feeling.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
And I think that's probably one of my drives too,
and it might even be yours as well, where we
just keep trying to do different things, something different, to
keep the story alive, keep the awareness alive.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Let's try and find new people.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
And I quite often say that within my community, for
my mum you guys know the story, you know what's
happened here. We need you to share it, We need
you to like it. We need you to help build
algorithms that will bring new people to that page, because
you know, someone knows something, someone's seen something, someone's heard something,
(49:33):
you know, and it might be they just need to
connect the dots together and to be able to put
the pieces of the puzzle together. And you've got a
raffle going at the moment, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah, that's the thing. I've got a family friend who
loves to crochet, and she made ear warmers.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Did I read that properly? Did she make ear warmers
like I would.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Love hear warmers? How awesome? Now let's jump on.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
I want to see the winner of those ear warmers.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
I want to post. I want to see it.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
I was going to stipulate whoever does when has to
provide a phote, except.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Well, I'm jumping on and buying your ticket when we
jump off. Good on you. That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
But that's a hing like just the support we've had
just for that at the moment, it'll buy probably about
three tank loads of diesel just to get us around
where we need to be well, it's been.
Speaker 4 (50:30):
Almost seventeen years now, so you know, you guys are
sadly experts. I guess in this space and knowing you
know what you have to do, and we're constantly just
grappling with anything. I'm sure you'd like me, just trying
to think of different things and trying to do something new.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Can you tell us.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
About how the searching and the not knowing has continued
to shape your family, like how you're family coping when.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
It comes to the searching. I'm definitely no expert. I
just do what I feel is the right thing to do,
right or wrong. Like I said, when Dale Nicholson was found,
it sort of proved to us that what we're doing,
we are on that track. But like I said, I'm
definitely no expert. I'm probably better at it now than
I was four years ago, five years ago. Searching being
(51:23):
a male, Ah yeah, I'm fine. I do have my moments,
just little things. I've gone through a lot of the
footage and I've picked up on a few things I
didn't know that I did. There's been a couple of
times diver Dan's found a car and it's on the sonar.
(51:47):
It's the right shape, it's the right size it could
possibly be until diver. Dan dives and I'm holding the
camera in the boat right above Dan and he's going
under and the not knowing of he'll go down and
make his assessment and then the affairs reggio plates or
(52:10):
something like that, he'll take off fan we'll identify the car.
But I've seen in the videos and Dan's been underwater
for like nearly three minutes, and from the time he dives,
I haven't taken a breath. I'm just holding my breath
the whole time. And didn't know that I did that.
(52:31):
But yeah, well it's just.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
The anticipation is just the not knowing.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
I've sat in the boat obviously doing that. But I
wouldn't say I'm trembling, but I'm I'm shaking like it's
it's a big deal, like it's a lot on you.
It does take a toll.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
I would say too that you know, I recently did
a dog search with search dog Sydney and Chris Das
He said to me, I'm looking for my mum's body
in the reeds of a creek in Armadale, and he said,
so the family do this.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
This is not normal.
Speaker 4 (53:07):
That you would be putting yourself in this position. That's right,
But you said earlier too that you know, you get
to a point where I think you've been let down
by authorities who you believed would probably have done this
for you and your case with your missing person, but
they don't, so it sort of falls on you. And
I'm at a point where unless I do it myself,
(53:30):
I have a real fear that it's just not being
done properly.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
And in the words of my brother, if you want
it done properly, do it yourself.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:38):
Yeah, and that is hard, but I guess in a
way it's probably important for you that you are doing
it and you are there so that you can go right,
we've ticked that box, we can move onto the next box.
And sometimes it is a case of with a missing person,
we're just going through those motions.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
And I've always had just a thought in my head
if the roles were reversed and I've gone missing, I
know that my dad would be doing exact exactly what
I'm doing to find me.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
So, well, you're doing an amazing job, So you should
give yourself some credit and pad on the back for
what you're doing, because it is very difficult, and you
are definitely stepping outside that comfort zone and putting yourself
in positions like sitting in the boat and recording to
capture it for everybody, because we're all holding our breath
with you right when they're going down, We're going, oh
(54:29):
my god, what are they going to find when they
go down there?
Speaker 1 (54:32):
It is massive.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
We've had people like because what we said earlier on,
there's a lot of rivers and that they go right
aside main roads around Tazzy. We've had people that know
who we are and what we're doing and they can
see what's going on and they've just pulled up on
the side of the road and you can just see
(54:54):
the look on their face. They're just hoping that day
was going to be the day day. So we've got
lots of support.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
So yeah, I wanted to ask you a question. So
in Queensland, I've noticed that it's probably only been in
the last couple of years that this has started to happen.
But we if there's a car on the side of
the road, there'll be a sticker from that police come
and put on and say police aware. I wanted to
bring this up because I thought it was important as
far as bringing some public awareness and call to action.
(55:26):
In the case of Nicola, I think, you know, I
remember hearing you say and talk about if you saw
a car abandoned on the side of the road, or
if it was in off the.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Road a bit, would you hop.
Speaker 4 (55:38):
Out and would you go and look at it just
to check that there's not someone in there who's had
an incident where they might have passed out or had
a heart attack or driven off the road and hidden animal,
and if they're all right? And how many people would
actually do that, and how many people would take the
steps to actually keeping an eye out and reporting vehicles.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
So they have those stickers, the police aware stickers down As.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Far as I know, they don't have the stick but
they have police tape, so they usually put police tape
around a vehicle.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
And so why is that important? Do you think? I
was telling my friend this the other day.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
I was telling her about this exact scenario, and she said,
I think I'd be afraid to get out and go
and walk and have a look, but I'd probably call
the police and say, hey, there's a car there. And
because I was instantly like thinking, I don't even know
if I've actually been aware in my space to go, oh,
there's a car there, I should go and check it
out or look. But I think I want to bring
(56:36):
it as an awareness to this sort of thing because
you just never know.
Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yeah, over the years, we've had people contact us and
they'll say, there's a car down a bush road. Then
you'd sort of have you reported this to police?
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (56:53):
No, I'm sure someone else has done it.
Speaker 4 (56:56):
Yeah, So what's the key there is? We want people
if you see something and it doesn't have any evidence
of police being aware, be that tape or a sticker
of some description. Doesn't mean you have to go and
look in it, but that you definitely should be making
it away to police because that could help.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
Yeah, and definitely you don't want to put yourself in
danger doing that either, but if it's safe to do so,
regio number, type of car, if you can get that close,
maybe a VIN number on a vehicle, and then if
you can even get in closer, is there someone in
(57:31):
the car?
Speaker 4 (57:33):
So, after all of these years, Jas, what would it
mean for you and your family in the community to
finally find your dad?
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Well, since dad went missing, especially a lot of the
people that he used to play bowls with and socialize
have passed on as well, so over the years they
had sort of buddies. His group in the Sheffield community
has got a lot smaller, but there's still quite a
(58:02):
lot of people, especially in field, that know about that.
But now he's gone from just missing in Sheffield, missing
in Tasmania, to missing in Australia. Like it's followers are
from everywhere. A lot more people know about.
Speaker 1 (58:23):
Him, which is due to your hard work.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
And it's a big community missing persons, which is great,
but just to find any answers would be it's just
all we want to know what happened and for it
to be over. Every family of a missing person just
(58:49):
slowly going crazy.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
With the not knowing get harder, doesn't he of that situation.
Speaker 5 (58:55):
And.
Speaker 3 (58:57):
We spend a lot of time with our own thoughts
and what if and then and the whole not knowing
what has happened that it plays on your mind, and
it plays on the community's mind, and everyone wants to help,
and everyone's invested in trying to help in any way
(59:22):
that they can, and people just want, like I said, answers.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
There's currently no reward for your dad either, Is there
no there isn't. How do you feel about that.
Speaker 3 (59:36):
I haven't really given it a lot of thought. Sometimes
I think it might be beneficial, and then sometimes I'm
sort of not so sure. But if that was to happen,
I'm not really sure. It's not an avenue that I've
(59:57):
gone down to try and get happening. Yes, it's not
really something I've put a lot of thought into. Maybe
someone can enlighten me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Regard.
Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
I don't know. I don't think there's a right or
wrong answer there. You know, maybe maybe someone did see
something and they just haven't thought to come forward, or
you know, sometimes I think just having a face with
a reward can actually just spike someone's interest. Well, I
would like to finish our chat just by asking you
(01:00:33):
why Nicola matters.
Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Well, Nicola matters because well, for me personally, he's my
dad and he was a very good dad. He just
I've said it a lot. He's just just a great bloke.
Just to put it in Australian terms, He's just a
(01:00:59):
great bloke, great dad, a great husband, great granddad. Just
if you're his mate, you knew that he was your mate.
Just funny, loving, just a warm guy. Just can't speak
any more highly of him like he just like I said,
(01:01:21):
just a great bloke.
Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
I think you'd be very proud of his sons and
his family for doing everything you have, because it is
very hard what you're doing. And I'm sure that wherever
he is, he's very very proud of you, guys. And
I want to say thank you to you for sharing
a journey with us, because it is very hard to
(01:01:44):
pull yourself back through these conversations on repeat, isn't it,
And you know you've just come off the back. As
we said of missing persons week, I am, for one,
following your story very closely and I have every hope
and wish that you find your dad and bring him
home and give you some peace. So thank you Jason
(01:02:05):
joining me.
Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Thank you next week on the missing matter.
Speaker 5 (01:02:11):
It's terrible to have something, to have a parent go mysteriously,
So that's one of the reasons I've followed you closely
because I know the trauma that's attached to that and
it's something now that you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Carry through your life. And same with my two children.
Speaker 5 (01:02:28):
It really sucked the life out of them to lose
their hero dads in such dramatic circumstances. I spent the
morning having breakfast out on a balcony with the other
friends and we were just laughing and chatting and catching up.
We never thought anything about it. So when lunchtime came
(01:02:48):
on the Sunday and he wasn't back, I thought, oh, well,
maybe he's delayed a little because of those three events.
They're so extreme and out of the ordinary and not
handled properly. There was a two hour window of opportunity,
and Please kept saying there was only one hour, and
because of that, it was dropped within five days, and
(01:03:11):
it should not have been dropped.
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