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Thread: Family of three and family friend missing for 6 years - doomsday cult members?

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    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    Family of three and family friend missing for 6 years - doomsday cult members?

    I saw a segment on these people last night. Very strange.

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-...disappearance/

    Fresh leads have emerged in the mystery disappearance of a Nannup family and their friend who vanished without a trace six years ago.

    Major crime squad detectives have revealed details about the last suspected movements of Tony Popic, a 40-year-old who disappeared in July 2007 with his housemates - internet cult leader Simon Kadwill, 45, his partner Chantelle McDougall, 27 and their daughter Leela, 6.

    A man using Mr Popic?s identification stayed at a Northbridge backpackers on the night of July 15, 2007.

    Police say they believe that man caught a train from Bunbury to Perth earlier that afternoon using the name J Roberts and caught a 7.15am train to Kalgoorlie the next morning also as J Roberts.

    But it is there the trail goes cold again.

    The man had bought a return ticket for the Kalgoorlie trip but police are still unsure if he travelled back to Perth on July 17 as booked.

    Police suspect it was Mr Popic who used the J Roberts? ticket and stayed in the Underground Backpackers because his mobile phone was used in the city within minutes of the train?s arrival in Perth. His driver?s licence with his photo was also used as identification to rent the double room.

    But it may have been Mr Kadwill posing as his friend, as it emerged after the group?s disappearance his real name was Gary Felton and he had stolen the Kadwill identity from an associate in England.

    Det-Sen. Sgt Greg Balfour said although it was a long time ago police hoped someone would remember being on those trains with the man and could tell police what he looked like or whether he was with anyone else.

    ?It would help immensely even if we can identify whether ?J Roberts? was Tony or Simon,? he said.

    Mr Popic and Ms McDougall?s families fear their disappearances could be linked to Mr Kadwill?s involvement in a secretive doomsday cult and have previously accused the Englishman of brainwashing their loved ones.

    None of the adults have touched their bank accounts or used their phones since July 2007 and police are investigating if they are in hiding or died in a murder-suicide pact.

    Mr Kadwill had told friends he was becoming disillusioned with the world and considering using drugs to end their lives.

    Previous suggestions the group had travelled to a city in Brazil known for its religious cults and been staying in Britain turned out to be dead ends.

    Ms McDougall?s mother Kath said she hoped the release of new details might make someone realise they knew something that could help or decide now was the time to speak out.

    The Perth train trip came a day after Ms McDougall called her mother to say Mr Popic was driving her and Leela to Perth ahead of a planned trip to Brazil and two days after the three of them were last seen selling a car to a Busselton dealership.

    She said Mr Kadwill had already gone to South America but police have no evidence any of them went overseas.

    Mr Popic?s phone was used to make two calls early on July 16 before a taxi booked under the name of Tony went from the backpackers to the East Perth railway station.

    Six minutes later, the man left on the Prospector and Mr Popic?s phone was not used again.

    Complicating matters is that later the same morning, July 16, a J Roberts bought a ticket from the East Perth station for a train and bus to Northcliffe, the same destination as a ticket that had been booked from the family?s Nannup house earlier in the month but never used.

    Police are unsure if it is just a co-incidence because J Roberts is a common name or whether one of the missing men went to Kalgoorlie that day while the other went to Northcliffe. They would like to speak to any J Roberts who may have visited those areas at the time to rule them out of the inquiry.

    Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    Senior Member Kelly-Jane's Avatar
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    http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/rea...33df8b57ce88ee

    THE second last time Bruce Blackburn set eyes on Simon Kadwill before he disappeared with his young family and their male lodger in 2007, he was surprised at Kadwill’s “calm and relaxed” mood.

    Surprised because on previous occasions when he’d encountered his neighbour, Kadwill had been a hot, paranoid mess, “ranting and raving” about electromagnetic fields and getting so worked up he’d break out in hives.

    Life next door to the strange Englishman had become difficult in recent months due to Kadwill’s extreme reaction to plans by utilities company Western Power to install a nearby power pole with a transformer.

    Kadwill, 45, moved into the rented property in tiny Nannup, Western Australia, with his much younger girlfriend Chantelle McDougall and the couple’s daughter Leela, six, about three years earlier. Their friend, 42-year-old Tony Popic lived in a caravan parked outside the house.


    Locals were familiar with Kadwill’s noisy tirades about some sort of conspiracy against Leela and himself by diverting electromagnetic waves towards their home, but put it down to eccentricity.

    What they didn’t know at the time was their strange but undeniably charismatic neighbour was operating an internet doomsday cult called the Truth Fellowship, which had roughly 40 followers worldwide.

    Devotees referred to themselves collectively as “The Forecourt” and would meet online in a forum called The Gateway where Kadwill went by the username “Si”. The group’s “Bible” was a book Kadwill had written called Servers of the Divine Plan which prophesied the birth of a new world of higher consciousness at the end of a 75,000-year cycle.
    Friends and acquaintances would later recall Kadwill’s habit of staying up all night on the internet hunched over his computer and then sleeping all day.

    Afer the family became the subject of a national, then international police search, his cult ties emerged along with the revelation that “Simon Kadwill” was actually Gary Feltham. According to investigators, Feltham had stolen the identity of a former associate in the 1990s.

    In a 2008 interview with The Australian, Blackburn’s anecdote about the transformer painted a picture of a Jeckyll and Hyde character plagued by irrational fears.

    “Simon was paranoid about electromagnetic fields,” Blackburn, who is an electrician, told journalist Tony Barrass. “He was always ranting and raving about them, up to the point where he was breaking out in hives and his face looked as if it was about to burst, it was so red. This went on for four months.

    “He began burying a heap of magnets around the place because he believed they diverted these rays away from him. I went up there once and he was yelling at Tony [Popic], who was digging away in the backyard, trying to find the magnets, which he couldn’t.

    “The second last time I saw him he was covered in hives. He said they were killing him and his daughter, and he had gone to the doctor to get some sort of medication. He and Tony were off the planet.”

    To make matter worse, Western Power had contracted Mr Blackburn to carry out the installation and he’d spent a long time explaining to Kadwill that the emissions from the transformer were less harmful than those gernerated by his computer.

    “It was my job to connect it, but I rang Western Power and told them that I wasn’t going to do it because I firmly believed that if I did, this bloke was going to top himself. You’ve got no idea how worked up about it he was.”

    One day in July 2007, Kadwill, McDougall, Leela and Popic drove away from their Nannup residence forever, leaving behind wallets, credit cards and dirty plates on the table. A note scrawled with the words “Gone to Brazil” was found stuck to the front door by their landlord a few days later.
    The last official sighting of the four was on July 13, 2007 in the WA town of Busselton where they sold a car to a local dealer for $4000 and drove away in a waiting vehicle. Popic’s father Joe told police he had recently given his son $25,000 to take care of what he had believed to be a “legal matter”.

    Police initially thought that they may have sneaked out of the country to New Zealand before travelling to Rio Branco, a Brazilian city known for its religious cults that both McDougall and Kadwill mentioned in conversation before they vanished.

    However, immigration authorities have no record of the group leaving the country and their bank accounts have remained untouched, raising fears the four were dead, possibly even murdered.

    In 2011 the investigation took a dramatic turn when it emerged police were trying to find out whether the four had been aboard a domestic flight in Brazil which crashed four days after they went missing, killing all 192 on board.

    The Tan Airlines flight 3054 from Porto Alegre to Sao Paulo veered off the end of the runway at Sao Paulo Airport, cleared a highway bordering the inner-city airport, slammed into a fuel depot and burst into flames. The resulting heat was so intense that more than 70 of the bodies were so badly burnt they were either never recovered or could not be identified.

    Eventually, a joint investigation between Australian and Brazilian authorities concluded the four had not perished on the flight.
    In 2013 Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Balfour announced a possible break in the case: Investigaters had discovered that a man using Mr Popic’s identification stayed at a Northbridge hostel called Underground Backpackers on the night of July 15, 2007. His driver’s licence with his photo was also used as identification to rent the double room.

    The same man travelled by train from Bunbury to Perth earlier that afternoon before catching a 7.15am train to Kalgoorlie the next morning. Both tickets had been purchased in the name J Roberts. There was no evidence to suggest Chantelle and Leela McDougall had been on the same train.

    The man could have been Popic but it was also possible Kadwill, with his history of identity theft, had posed as his friend, police said. An appeal to the public for anyone who may have seen the man produced no further leads.

    Today, the group’s fate remains as much of a mystery as it was the day they disappeared.

    Sr Sergeant Balfour told news.com.au that he had followed up the Rio Branco clue, establishing contact with a new age religious group who had lived on the city’s fringe since the early ’80s.

    “This group hasn’t seen or heard of anyone resembling the description (of Kadwill, the McDougalls or Popic) settling in Rio Branco and I believe they are established enough to know whether that had been the case.” he said yesterday.
    “This case is truly a mystery. It’s such a bizarre story and we have as little an idea of their whereabouts today as we did in 2007 when they disappeared.”

    The detective refused to say if he believed Kadwill to be capable of murder.

    “You can’t rule the possibility out but there’s no evidence to suggest they are dead just as there’s no evidence to suggest they are alive, “ he said.

    “We know that Tony was very protective of Chantelle and Leela but we also know they were obedient, submissive to Kadwill. He had a very persuasive way of talking and I think if he had suggested something they would have gone along with it.

    “Remember, he sucessfully isolated Chantelle and Tony from their families so it’s perfectly possible they are alive, living off the grid somewhere in Australia or overseas. There are other ways to leave the country, they could have left by boat, or on a yacht.

    “There are so many possibilities, so many uncertainties. Even the facts raise more questions than answers.”

    Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Chantelle and Leela McDougall, Tony Popic or Simon Kadwill, aka Simon Kaddy aka Gary Feltham, can contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.

  4. #4
    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    This story is so fucked up. I really want to know what happened to them.

  5. #5
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    They could all still be somewhere really close to Nannup - this guy lay unnoticed in a paddock for a decade before he was found.


    http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/my...418-2i253.html


    If he took them into the bush to escape the electricity grid they might never be found. The area around Nannup is not what I expected at all, it looks like the central west side of the lower Blue Mountains in NSW.







  6. #6
    Administrator Olivia's Avatar
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    I find it hard to believe that someone who seemed as narcissistic as Simon Kadwill could remain hidden and off the grid. But anything is possible.

  7. #7
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    Their poor families, Western Australia is such an overwhelming expanse - 2646000 square kilometres/1021626.31 square miles, most of it isolated & remote. Where would you even start?


    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-0...lowers/9231556

    Cult leader Simon Kadwell inquest hears police failed to investigate leads including reports of 'dead flesh' smell
    By Gian De Poloni
    Updated about an hour ago

    A coronial inquest into the baffling disappearance of a cult leader and his family has been told police failed to fully investigate all of the evidence and possible sightings.

    (video at link)

    Internet cult leader Simon Kadwell, partner Chantelle McDougall, their daughter Leela, and lodger Tony Popic left their home in the small West Australian town of Nannup in 2007.

    Coroner Barry King is probing their suspected deaths at the request of Ms McDougall's parents.

    The four left behind a house full of furniture, but few personal belongings.

    In his testimony, Senior Sergeant Gregory Balfour said there were four reported sightings of the family in the Busselton area in 2008, but police did not investigate due to a lack of evidence.

    He said three months after Ms McDougall disappeared, prison workers also reported finding a woman's T-shirt along with the smell of "dead flesh" in bushland near Northcliffe.

    However, the report was not fully investigated until 2015, by which time bushfires had swept through the area.

    It was also revealed items belonging to Ms McDougall were found at the Nannup tip, but never recovered by police.

    Plans for 'peaceful' family suicide pact

    Senior Sergeant Balfour described Mr Kadwell as a heavily spiritual self-styled shaman who had a cult following online.

    Weeks before his disappearance, Mr Kadwell discussed plans with his online followers for a "peaceful" family suicide pact using drugs.

    Mr Kadwell said he planned to take the drug after Ms McDougall and Leela, giving him time to bury their bodies in the forest.

    However Senior Sergeant Balfour said Mr Kadwell went cold on the idea, instead contemplating moving to an isolated location.

    A few days before vanishing he was stopped by police while driving in Nannup.

    Senior Sergeant Balfour told the inquest the officer involved said Mr Kadwell looked uncomfortable with questions about his identity.

    He said the officer believed the incident was a catalyst for the family's disappearance.

    Police suspect Mr Kadwell stole his identity from an associate in his native England, and have established his real name as Gary Felton.

    Chantelle McDougall and her six-year-old daughter, Leela.

    PHOTO: Chantelle McDougall ? pictured with her six-year-old daughter Leela ? left a note saying the group was headed to Brazil. (User supplied)


    Pizza delivery driver's 'creepy' encounter

    The inquest also shed light on the last known movements of Tony Popic, a friend of Mr Kadwell and Ms McDougall, who lived in a caravan parked on their property.

    Police believed Mr Popic checked into a backpackers' hostel in Northbridge on July 15, 2007 ? a day after the last reported sighting of Ms McDougall.

    A pizza delivery driver was the last known person to see him alive, when he delivered food to him that night in bushland in Perth's Kings Park.

    The man, who now lives in Malaysia, later described the encounter to police as "unusual" and "creepy".

    Senior Sergeant Balfour told the inquest police believed Mr Popic used a fake name to travel on several bus and train routes spanning from Northcliffe to Kalgoorlie in the two days after leaving Nannup, but his final destination was unknown.

    Parents continue to hold out hope

    Outside the inquest, Ms McDougall's parents Catherine and Jim said they would never give up, even if the inquest provided no answers.

    "Sometimes I think they have just sort of gone off the grid and are hiding somewhere and just living their quiet lifestyle," Catherine McDougall said.

    "Then sometimes I think that something has happened to them. That they've been killed or committed suicide or something like that."

    Jim and Catherine McDougall surrounded by media speak into microphones in front of the Busselton court house.

    PHOTO: Chantelle McDougall's parents Jim and Catherine say they won't give up hope, regardless of the outcome of the inquest. (ABC News: Gian De Poloni)


    The family's Nannup landlord Lyndon Crouch found a note written by Ms McDougall indicating the family had moved to Brazil.

    He told the inquest he did not believe the four were dead and suggested they followed through with their travel plans.

    The hearing has been set down for three days.

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