Half a century after the bodies of two men were found near a cattle station in one of the most remote parts of the Northern Territory, Glen Chatto knew finding answers was always going to be a "long shot".
asserted
finding → find → answers
When police first found the two men's remains near Mount Bundy Station, 110 kilometres south of Darwin, in 1976, while they were intrigued by the unusual circumstances, they had little to go on.
asserted
they → find → little
Investigators believed the pair likely ventured out to the remote location together, but by the time the bodies were discovered, they'd already been in the elements for years, leaving few clues about why they had gone there, how they died and even who they were.
asserted
they → believe → clues
In the decades since, forensic science has advanced in quantum leaps, so by the time the file landed on Acting Sergeant Chatto's desk, he was able to enlist the help of experts in the field at the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
asserted
he → advance → Police
Using the same technology Californian detectives deployed in the effort to identify Golden State serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo Jr, the AFP scientists went to work.
asserted
scientists → use → Jr
Through a technique known as forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG), the scientists could compare DNA from one of the men with profiles uploaded to websites by members of the public searching for long-lost relatives.
uncertain
scientists → know → relatives
"You can work out that he's related to this person or related to this person, you build a family tree and then you conduct investigations to see if anyone in that family tree is actually missing," Acting Sergeant Chatto says.
"
asserted
Chatto → work → tree
And in this case, we have located a male who we believe is missing and hasn't been seen since 1972.
asserted
we → locate → 1972
While Acting Sergeant Chatto says "FIGG gives us a very good idea" when an investigation is on the right track, it wasn't enough on its own "to build a case to take to the coroner for an identification just yet".
asserted
it → say → identification
With none of Trevor's family members identified through the FIGG process still alive, the next steps would involve some more old-school detective work.
asserted
steps → identify → work
By going back through Trevor's "fairly chequered past", Acting Sergeant Chatto found a clue in old arrest records that yielded the next piece of the puzzle.
"He did come to the attention of law enforcement quite a bit before he went missing, he had a lot of homemade style tattoos," he says.
asserted
he → go → tattoos
"We believe they're probably initials of, potentially, girlfriends," Acting Sergeant Chatto says.
asserted
Chatto → believe → girlfriends
Kathy's first relationship as a teenager in the 1960s wasn't one filled with happy memories for her to look back on in her twilight years.
asserted
her → fill → years
"I used to get a lot of beatings from him, so it wasn't pleasant times for me because I really wanted to get away from him, but he always seemed to find us wherever we went," she says now from her home in regional Queensland.
asserted
she → use → Queensland
Kathy says her family was living in a tent on a beach in Queensland when a chance encounter led to her crossing paths with Trevor Wheeler.
asserted
her → say → Wheeler
She says after their mothers bumped into each other on the beach, her mother offered Mrs Wheeler a place to pitch her tent on some land the family had just acquired.
asserted
family → say → land
Over the years that followed, Trevor would be in and out of Kathy's life, striking up a friendship with her brother and later, she would become his girlfriend while the trio travelled around the country picking fruit.
asserted
trio → follow → fruit
Which is how the couple came to the attention of police.
asserted
couple → come → police
After a misunderstanding over some hard rubbish, Kathy says she and another teenage girl were sent home while Trevor and her brother ended up behind bars for offences now lost to the sands of time.
asserted
Trevor → say → time
After his release, Kathy says Trevor continued to pop up in the various places her family moved, eventually catching up with them again in Brisbane.
asserted
family → say → Brisbane
"I was a little bit older and that's where he came and put tattoos on my arms," she says.
"
asserted
she → come → arms
And he would have put my name on his arm, or I'm not sure exactly where he put it because he had so many tattoos."
asserted
he → put → tattoos
During Trevor's final stint in jail, Kathy says she wrote to him to say she wanted nothing more to do with him — "and so I got free of him".
Kathy's brother managed to clean up his act too and the last time she remembers seeing Trevor was about 1970, two years before his last confirmed proof of life.
A family connection
When Kathy answered a phone call from Acting Sergeant Chatto three years ago, the news that her first boyfriend had likely been found dead in remote bushland came with mixed emotions.
asserted
boyfriend → say → emotions
But despite their complicated history, not only was she eager to share her memories of Trevor with the detective — she set about trying to track down a living relative herself.
"I don't hold grudges," she says simply now.
asserted
she → share → grudges
Kathy called Trevor's primary school and asked the librarian there to send her copies of his old yearbooks.
asserted
Kathy → call → yearbooks
"I picked Trevor out of each one of them," she says.
asserted
she → pick → them
"I just kept on researching things, and it came up somewhere along the line that [one of his relatives] carried the Burton name.
asserted
one → keep → name
"One of those names he used as an alias, Arthur Burton, I found that one of our distant relatives had married a Burton.
"
asserted
one → use → Burton
One of my family members way back had married a Burton and that Burton led to the Wheelers.
asserted
Burton → marry → Wheelers
[The connection is] very distant, I imagine, but somewhere along, I suppose, he's a cousin, way, way down the line."
asserted
he → imagine → line
Kathy says the FIGG analysis also allowed her family to put to rest a troubling, longstanding rumour that Trevor's father was also Kathy's sister's dad.
asserted
father → say → rumour
"The DNA test has enabled me to find my sister's [real] dad," she says.
"
asserted
she → enable → dad
So now she's put that to rest, she's happy now that she's found that she's had half-sisters and stuff there too.
asserted
she → put → sisters
"Finding out about [Trevor] after all this time, in a way it's given me peace of mind that I don't have to watch my back all the time.
asserted
I → find → back
"It's sad that it's ended up like that, but I just wanted to do all I could to provide any information that Glen would need, to solve the [mystery]."
uncertain
Glen → end → ]
The second man
Back in Darwin, Acting Sergeant Chatto is still on the case, hoping to find definitive evidence to explain who the men were and what they were doing together in the middle of nowhere before their lives ended at the edge of an isolated mountain.
asserted
lives → hop → mountain
"There's a railroad track going through that general area, there was various mines out in that area, but we haven't established why they might have been out there in the first place," he says.
"
uncertain
he → be → place
We've approached Mount Bundy Station to see if they've got any records but unfortunately, no records are available for staff from that time period."
asserted
records → approach → period
Acting Sergeant Chatto says police are still keen to speak with "any of the old Darwinites that might have known this person", as well as anyone who recognises their name among Trevor's tattoos.
uncertain
who → act → tattoos
"If they are girlfriends, he may have had children with them, if we're able to identify living children that'd be a very good way of confirming the identification, if we were able to get that sort of confirmation, we'd be better placed to take that to the coroner
uncertain
we → have → coroner
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia