Coroner to seek answers 40 years on after Des Carr true crime podcast

The disappearance of road worker Des Carr 40 years ago this week will finally go before a coroner after his family’s true crime podcast unearthed startling new evidence.

A coroner will hold an inquest into the disappearance of a road construction crewman a whopping 40 years after he vanished, after a family’s desperate true crime podcast unearthed startling new evidence including a sock, a sighting and a hand-drawn map.

The family of Desmond Carr has been waiting 40 years for answers about what happened to him. Picture: Supplied

Des Carr was working on Australia’s longest highway in August 1979 and had waved to fellow road workers just one hour before he disappeared from his steam roller, leaving the big machine’s engines still idling, but no signs of the 38-year-old.

An extensive police manhunt failed to find a single clue but generated theories including UFOs after reports by several workers at the time of strange lights in the desert night sky.

Now a coroner in Western Australia is set to hold an inquest into the vanishing, four decades on, to rule on theories and apparent new evidence that may provide his family with some closure.

The development comes after the Carr family took part in a five-part true crime podcast and launched a Facebook campaign to seek the public’s help, tools that were not available 40 years ago when Carr went missing.

In doing so they found new material.

“The family are both excited and nervous for this to be finally looked at by the Coroner,” a spokesman for the family, now in Queensland, told True Crime Australia.

“Excited as it might finally open up some more questions around what has been brought forward in the podcast but nervous because it may not answer anything, it might just open up more questions. But I think an inquest into his disappearance would finally give some closure to the family.

“It’s been 40 years since he disappeared, that’s almost 14,600 mornings waking wondering where your brother could be. There are only two sisters left alive in Joy and Shirley, but they each have children and their children have children, this could help bring closure to something that could affect the family for generations.”

Images from the Carr family album show Thangoo Station, where Des Carr and Department of Main Roads workers were staying as they built the Great Northern Highway. Picture: Supplied

The Great Northern Highway from Perth to Wyndham, at 3200km Australia’s longest road, was still red earth at the time of Carr’s disappearance and what confounded police was there was not a single boot print or track of his within kilometres from where he went missing.

This fuelled conspiracy theories around reports at the time by the workers of being followed by strange lights in the sky as they made their way back to camp each evening at Thangoo, south of Broome. One of Carr’s sisters reported to authorities how her brother had told her about the strange lights and said the lack of boot prints in the dirt was like someone had just “plucked him up” into the air.

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Then a probe by the Carr family a few months ago, including going through police files for their podcast, uncovered evidence that in 2014 a truck driver had reported allegedly seeing the missing man on the night he vanished on that highway and how he — the driver — had actually returned to that spot 10 years later in 1989 and found a sock.

The driver said the whole episode had slipped his mind but he drew a map for police of where he saw the man and sock; it correlated about the area where Carr went missing but the lead was not followed up.

Another theory was that an old knock on Carr’s head from a pub brawl some months before he disappeared may have caused amnesia and he wandered off and could no longer recall who he was. Police looked at whether the East Coast truck driver could actually have been Carr, but this has since been discounted.

Western Australia Police’s Missing Persons bureau in 1979 looking into the Carr disappearance. Picture: Supplied

“The sock and the man that came forward still leave questions unanswered,” the family spokesman said. “Who was he, why did he come forward, where is the sock, could he have been Des, why was the family not notified until the podcast?

“If the sock could be recovered there could be DNA on it, and from Des being admitted to hospital just before his disappearance it might be possible for a DNA trace.”

WA police detective Sgt Jude Seivwright said the truck driver saw a man that he through was Des Carr and he saw him again near the Sandfire Roadhouse at Eighty Mile Beach.

“He didn’t stop at the time, he drove past with his truck,” the officer said. “Then approximately 10 years later, while he was going past this same particular spot, so back in 1989, he stopped and he’s walked around the area and he’s found an old black and white sock. Then he, for some reason, did not report to the police at the time and then reported it in 2014 this information, and he advised that it was due to his memory loss. And so he presented this map, he drew a map of the area and dropped (it) off to the (Hedland) police.”

The officer said the case never went before a coroner before since there was no body, but the laws had changed.

“The matter is going to progress along with a number of other older missing persons cases from around that time through to the coroner’s office for some sort of a judicial decision.

“We’re definitely always looking for information to move cases forward, especially these older cases. It’s quite difficult to get an outcome, so if anyone does have any information, if they can call Crime Stoppers or report to their local police station. Crime Stoppers, it’s anonymous, you don’t need to leave your details, but any information that we get the police will look into, and hopefully we can get some closure and some information for the families and for the missing person.”

There are about 2600 people on the long-term missing persons’ case books across Australia.