{"id":901981,"date":"2026-09-23T02:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901981\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T02:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:18:18","slug":"citizen-search-for-nannup-four-begins-in-tough-bushland-in-southern-wa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901981\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizen search for Nannup Four begins in tough bushland in southern WA"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of citizen searchers will begin scouring a stretch of almost impenetrable wilderness in southern Western Australia this week to find answers in one of the country’s most baffling missing persons cases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chantelle McDougall and her five-year-old daughter Leela vanished from the outskirts of Nannup in July 2007, along with her partner Simon Kadwill and their friend Tony Popic.<\/p>\n

They’ve become known as the Nannup Four.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Chantelle McDougall met Simon Kadwill, who was living under a stolen identity, when she was 17 years old. (Supplied: McDougall Family)<\/p>\n

In the days after their disappearance, Ms McDougall’s family were under the impression the four had emigrated to Brazil, but reported their daughter and grandchild missing when they failed to hear from them.<\/p>\n

Their bank accounts were untouched, and their passports hadn’t been used.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Mr Kadwill, whose real name is Gary Felton, was living under a stolen identity<\/a> while running an online cult in which he espoused doomsday beliefs.<\/p>\n

He had spoken of a plan to “wander into the wilderness” and carry out a murder-suicide.<\/p>\n

A 2017 coronial inquest failed to determine if the four were dead or alive.<\/p>\n

\"Old<\/p>\n

Tony Popic met Simon Kadwill and Chantelle McDougall in the early 2000s and lived in a caravan on their property at the time of the 2007 disappearance.\u00a0 ((Supplied: McDougall Family))<\/p>\n

ABC investigation sparks new search<\/p>\n

Following a long-running investigation, The ABC’s Expanse: The Nannup Four uncovered police error, new details of coercive control and evidence pointing to a possible burial site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Listen to the podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2007 four people disappeared from an isolated blue farmhouse on the outskirts of the WA town of Nannup. They left behind a letter on the door and a trail of bizarre clues.<\/p>\n

Among the podcast’s audience was Matt Strickland, an exploration geologist with a hand in a number of private searches for missing people.<\/p>\n

He contacted the McDougall family and offered his assistance.<\/p>\n

“There’s not a lot I can say, but there’s a lot I can do,” Mr Strickland said.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Matt Strickland put the call out for volunteers to conduct a citizen search for the Nannup Four.\u00a0 ((ABC News: Anthony Pancia))<\/p>\n

Mr Strickland is the vice-president of Find Our Lost Loved Ones (FOLLO), a missing persons search team based in Tasmania.<\/p>\n

It began with a successful volunteer-led search to find the remains of missing Belgian hiker Celine Cremer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The group went on to locate the remains of another missing Tasmanian, Peter Willoughby, in May this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We’ve managed to [solve] two missing persons cases in six months with very limited resources,” Mr Strickland said.<\/p>\n

“So we know it’s possible.”\"A<\/p>\n

Search volunteers in Tarkine Forest during the search for Celine Cremer. (Australian Story: Morgan Timms)<\/p>\n

Months of correspondence with Chantelle McDougall’s uncle Barry McIntosh followed.<\/p>\n

A retired Victorian police detective, Mr McIntosh has continued to probe his niece’s disappearance, with a fresh search effort his long-term goal.<\/p>\n

Call for volunteers<\/p>\n

In August, Mr Strickland put a call out on ABC radio asking for people with bush experience to volunteer their time for the two-week search in WA’s South West.<\/p>\n

More than 40 volunteers signed on over the following weeks.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Matt Strickland is an an exploration geologist. ((ABC News: Anthony Pancia))<\/p>\n

“We are going to be operating on what could potentially be a crime scene,” Mr Strickland said.<\/p>\n

“So we need to be responsible; we need to have responsible people there.”<\/p>\n

Despite previous success, he concedes the Nannup Four case brings significant additional challenges.<\/p>\n

“The searches that we’ve had so far, we’ve been searching for people who were lost and probably died of exposure, and they wanted to be found,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In the case of the Nannup Four, it appears that they didn’t want to be.”\"A<\/p>\n

Leela McDougall was five years old when the group vanished.\u00a0 (Supplied: McDougall family)<\/p>\n

Where will the search focus be?<\/p>\n

The search will focus on bushland near the WA town of Northcliffe, about 100km south of Nannup, where the group was living, and 350km south of Perth.<\/p>\n

In the days surrounding the disappearance, either Mr Kadwill or Mr Popic purchased two bus tickets, with Northcliffe believed to be the final destination.<\/p>\n

Three months later, in October 2007, prisoners carrying out track clearing in bushland near the town reported finding items of clothing and a “smell of death” in the area.<\/p>\n

Police subsequently searched the area, but have since admitted they were in the wrong location<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A team of cadaver dogs were taken to the right location in 2024, where they picked up the scent of human remains.<\/p>\n

Watch Expanse: The Nannup Four on ABC iView<\/a><\/p>\n

Learn more about the baffling disappearance of four people from a remote WA farmhouse, a case that has puzzled Australia for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n

The near-impenetrable terrain will also increase the complexity for the search teams.<\/p>\n

“It’s all regrown, and it’s quite thick, and it is formerly a logging area,” Mr Strickland said.<\/p>\n

“So the ground itself \u2026 kind of chaotic would be one way of describing it.”<\/p>\n

A LiDAR drone survey to identify ground disturbances, and the same cadaver dog team used in 2024, will help assist the search effort.<\/p>\n

Family grateful for help<\/p>\n

The search will run for two weeks, with the key aim of finding any evidence of the four’s remains or possessions in the area.<\/p>\n

At its centre will be Jim and Cath McDougall, Chantelle’s parents, who are driving across Australia from their home in regional Victoria to assist.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Jim and Cath McDougall have not given up hope on finding answers to their daughter’s disappearance.\u00a0 (ABC News: Geoff Kemp)<\/p>\n

“I think it’s absolutely amazing,” Mrs McDougall said.<\/p>\n

“I’m so grateful to all these people helping because for years it felt like we had no-one on our side trying to help us.<\/p>\n

“I want to be really involved. I want to help search if I can, if I’m not a nuisance, and want to be there in amongst it all.”<\/p>\n

But after years of waiting for closure, Mrs McDougall is balancing the hope of finding answers with the reality she may never get them.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jim and Cath McDougall have posted many missing persons flyers throughout the country. (ABC News: Ted O’Connor)<\/p>\n

“We try not to get our hopes up too much,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Because over the years, we felt that all the little leads and things we had have come to a dead end, and we sort of still don’t know anything.<\/p>\n

“I’m just hoping we get some really good results.”<\/p>\n

Follow Expanse: The Nannup Four on ABC listen<\/a> to hear every episode of season six.<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you know more?<\/p>\n

If you have more information about this article or any other tips, you can securely contact Dominique Bayens at expanse.abc@proton.me<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of citizen searchers will begin scouring a stretch of almost impenetrable wilderness in southern Western Australia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[67356,64,63,261028,470291,282203,45318,261029,470296,470294,470295,44,192196,2950,7452,261030,41844,470290,12527,470292,25962,45,470297,470293],"class_list":["post-901981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-abc-expanse","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chantelle-mcdougall","tag-follo","tag-gary-felton","tag-missing","tag-nannup-four","tag-nannup-four-abc","tag-nannup-four-house","tag-nannup-four-search","tag-news","tag-northcliffe","tag-person","tag-search","tag-simon-kadwill","tag-south-west-news","tag-the-nannup-four","tag-true-crime","tag-true-crime-podcast","tag-wa","tag-wa-news","tag-were-the-nannup-four-ever-found","tag-what-happened-to-the-nannup-four"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}