07 What Became of Jack? | Two cars

Unravel

A deep dive into the mysterious disappearance of Jack McLennan, exploring new leads, conflicting testimonies, and the emotional toll on his family and community. The episode examines a pivotal night at Fix Crossing, wher

Key takeaways

• New witness account suggests two cars arrived at Fix Crossing that night

Transcript preview

When you want to be stopped in your tracks, I'm running to shoot it is 50-50. You can't catch his gun or he shoot you. When you want to know the truth, she was brainwashing her from the start. We're here to investigate. Something's gone wrong, big time. Search background briefing podcast on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. ABC Listen, Podcasts, Radio, News, Music and More. Just before we start, this episode contains some strong language. Ever since I heard the story of Jack McLennan disappearing into the night from fixed crossing, I've kind of become obsessed with the weird mystery at the center of it all. How could Jack be there talking to his workmate Chris Duke one minute and then just gone forever the next? I've spoken in detail to Chris now and I've heard his version of events. While he did tell me lots about what he and Jack got up to that day, his story about what happened at the crucial moment of Jack's disappearance stayed pretty much the same as I've always understood it. They were there together until suddenly Jack just vanished. But in my interview with Chris, he did share some new details, including a story I'd only really heard about in rumours and brief. brief text exchanges. And when Chris started telling me this story, it felt like a huge breakthrough. It felt like something that might help make more sense this whole thing. It's sometime around 9 PM and Chris and Jack are likely both high on meth. Jack a bit and Chris a lot. Chris is stuck in this weird drug-fueled loop, cleaning and pulling his car apart. Once you focus on something, you focus on something, you focus. and my job was cleaning my car up and all that. So that's what I was doing. Jack was over at the shed. Chris then says he notices two sets of car lights entering the picnic area and this is the part of our interview I just keep thinking about. The cars come in so the two cars come in they come in together so two sets of headlights. It's virtually pitch black at fix. There's no moon that night or any street lights. It's just Chris, Jack and the distant glow of house. lights poking through the bush. So when the two cars drive in, Chris is almost blinded by their headlights. Because the lights are bright. Like you're coming to this, it's dark, like the high beams on or whatever. Chris struggles to make out specific details about the cars, like who's driving, what types of car or even what color they are. At the time, it doesn't really think much of them at all. I was only didn't trying to clean the car up all. A couple of people turned out. They're probably doing the same thing I'm doing. At some point, Chris calls out to Jack, making that kind of juvenile prank just to make him jump. And I started laughing. And I turned around and went back to my car. Then not long after that, something distracts him from his cleaning project. He looks up and notices one of the two cars that drove into fix earlier, is leaving. One car left not long after. Jack come over. I made the joke. Hey, look behind you, Then around 10 PM he pulls his head out of the car again and that's when he realizes Jack's disappeared and then it all started getting weird you know it very weird like where the fuck is he going Chris as he then starts looking for Jack and can't find him he waits for around three hours for him to turn up and when he doesn't he decides to leave but as he starts his car and starts driving out of fixed crossing he says he notices something he'll never forget it's still there and this time he takes a closer look. There's a dark-colored yew with a rooftop camper and it's like black plastic hanging down like a shade sale or something like that. Chris can't make out if there's anyone inside so he keeps driving and he leaves fixed crossing. But ever since that night he keeps thinking, whoever was inside that car would likely know whoever was in the other car and between them, might just know what happened to Jack. How many times is that replayed over in your mind? Every day I think about this stuff because I can't explain it. It's so off it's not funny. In the days that follow, Queensland police make a public statement calling on the owners of the dark car to come forward. But for more than a year, it seems like no one said a word. Until out of nowhere, someone does come from from from from from forward with their own story about a car going to fix crossing that night. And eventually, that story makes its way to me. I'm Rob Bergen and for now this is the last full episode of what became of Jack, the latest season of Unravell. A bit over a year after Jack went missing, I'm sitting at my desk working through the holiday period when I get an intriguing message from Jack's mom, Kelly. Some big revelations rolling in this afternoon. Kelly says she has received word from somebody who says that their brother has told them that they picked up Jack from fixed crossing on the night he's gone missing and that they know further information. This news comes as a big surprise to me. On one hand, it sounds close to hearsay the way that Kelly describes it in the text. But on the other, the fact it's so similar to the story Chris Duke told me, it makes me pause to think about it. And suddenly, Kelly's favoring this theory as well and it hasn't come directly from Chris, so, um, it's like organically, their two stories are lining up. at pretty much the same time and being told to me in different ways. I realize I need to go back to Jack's parents, Kelly and Ross, to find out more about this new lead. If you can avoid banging on the desk or anything that kind of ruffles, you know, like if you're playing with jewelry, that sort of stuff it comes across. I've organized for the three of us to chat in a studio at the ABC on the Sunshine Coast. After all the time I've spent with them each individually and on the phone, This is the first time the three of us have all been in the same room at the same time. I can see that after everything they've been through, Ross and Kelly are tired. They're just about spent. I do feel terrible to think that the last month or actually two months, I just could not relive this trauma. You know, talking about the past and I'm actually doing a lot of work taking calls from the community so I just couldn't do it. As we start talking about this latest lead, I sense a glimmer of hope coming from both of them. Can you just explain to people what those latest leads have been? A lady rang me very recently with important information and she's not a young woman, you know, she's a middle-aged woman, had a great job in the community, so we had a couple of chats. Kelly's connection to this person, it takes a little bit of explaining. Basically, the woman used to live in the area and because the region's towns... are pretty small, Jack knew her daughter. So Jack had been to her house a couple of times