Father of Kyle Coleman believes he was shot by mate

KYLE was 17 when he went out hunting and never returned. The only man who knows what happened took his own life. Now Kyle’s father says he knows what happened.

They found his watch, swag - and bullets

THE father of a Mount Isa teen who disappeared two years ago believes his son was shot dead by his mate who later committed suicide.

Kyle Coleman’s parents Robert and Sonia relived their son’s final days at an inquest in Mount Isa court yesterday into the February 2014 disappearance.

Kyle, then 17, went on a hunting trip to Undilla Station, about 60km east of Camooweal, with friend James Coleman (no relation) and never returned.

Days later, James Coleman committed suicide, leaving a raft of questions over what had happened.

Robert Coleman told Coroner Jane Bentley that he believed his son was gunned down.

He said that he and Undilla Station owner Lindsay Miller spent months scouring the massive cattle property.

They found gear believed to be Kyle’s, the ­remains of a watch he carried everywhere, parts of his swag, his timesheet book, and spent bullet casings in a burn pit.

Missing man Kyle Coleman.

Pieces of a watch believed to be Kyle's found at Undilla Station.

“From the size of the burn site, I just have a feeling he was disposed of out there,” Mr Coleman said.

There may never be an answer to what happened to Kyle on that hunting trip but Mr Coleman said the story James Coleman told them on February 22, 2014, did not add up.

It is understood James said Kyle and he had returned to Mount Isa from Undilla on the Friday night and the pair had drunk alcohol through to the Saturday morning at James’s home before Kyle walked home.

Supported on the stand by her sister, a tearful Mrs Coleman said it would have been “very out of character for Kyle not to contact me and let me know they’d come back”.

The worried parents sparked a frantic search with the help of James and his friend Matthew Watts.

Mr Watts asked James if there had been an accident out at Undilla and if something had happened to Kyle, which James denied several times.

The inquest continues today with James Coleman’s parents to give evidence