Inquest into Jeremiah Rivers’ disappearance told of final phone call before he vanished

The stories given by friends of a young man who vanished in the Queensland outback hours after a chilling phone call for help have been labelled “a movable feast of lies”.

Jeremiah Rivers vanished from a remote campsite in Queensland’s outback in 2021.

Police were suspicious from the start, and remain doubtful to this day, of the stories given to them by the friends of a man who disappeared in outback Queensland more than two years ago, which a coroner has labelled “a movable feast of lies”, a court heard.

One of several factors fuelling the still-active suspicious disappearance investigation are claims from a friend that the missing man called him a few hours before he apparently disappeared “begging for rescue” because he was “outnumbered” and “scared for his life”.

A five-day inquest this week in the Coroners Court in Brisbane is looking into the disappearance of 27-year-old Jeremiah “Jayo” Rivers, who was last seen at a campsite at the remote Wippo Creek, near Noccundra in South West Queensland, on October 18, 2021.

Jeremiah Rivers vanished from a campsite in the Queensland outback in October 2021.

Mr Rivers and his kinship brother Joe Joe Kantilla-Gaden arranged the trip from Balranald in NSW to the Northern Territory, which they called home.

Their friend Matthew Moore joined them on the pig hunting trip, as did his Victorian friends – Travis Clare, Dylan Thomas, Joel McMaster and Kane Toohey.

The group drove more than 1000km and illegally crossed the closed Queensland-NSW border to Wippo Creek. When they arrived around 7am or 8am on October 18, Mr Rivers went off to swim to cool down.

Police searching the Wippo Creek area in the days after Jeremiah Rivers’ disappearance.

He did not return and was never seen again. He was not reported missing until 3pm the next day. A subsequent extensive eight-day search found nothing.

Detective Senior Constable Christopher Brooks told the inquest on Thursday it was treated as a “suspicious disappearance”.

“It appeared on the face of it that the group was travelling unlawfully in Queensland due to the border restrictions at the time,” he said.

“Their multiple initial versions to the police were inconsistent with some of the information we had gathered.

“Jayo was known to be a very competent bushman and had survival skills, his skills were inconsistent with him becoming lost based on the (nearby) creek line and roadway.”

Acting Superintendent Timothy Mowle outside the inquest. Picture: Liam Kidston

Acting Superintendent Timothy Mowle told the inquest the group’s story was inconsistent with information from Mr Rivers’ family.

“He (Mr Rivers) wouldn’t walk away from camp, he wouldn’t go swimming on his own and he doesn’t even go swimming in the water up in Darwin, he was good in the bush, and had done a rangers course or something similar,” he said.

“From the outset, I instructed all search personnel to be on the lookout for any signs of suspicious activity including disturbed soil, signs of a struggle, blood, torn clothing, and ammunition casing. No such evidence was located in that search area.”

Supporters of Jeremiah Rivers at the coronial inquest into his disappearance. Picture: Liam Kidston

Mr Kantilla-Gaden later told police the group’s pig hunting trip was actually a cover to smuggle three pounds of cannabis across interstate lines to be sold in the communities around Darwin for an estimated total of $72,000.

Other group members have denied these claims this week at the inquest.

But Detective Senior Constable Brooks told the inquest on Thursday that police have further information supporting the drug plot allegation from at least one source outside of the group.

The inquest also revealed on Thursday that later interviews conducted by Victorian police with Travis Clare and Kane Toohey on the instruction of Queensland homicide detectives did not involve the cannabis smuggling allegations being put to the men, or if they were, they were done in private when the recording equipment was not running.

The campsite from which Jeremiah Rivers vanished.

Coroner Donald MacKenzie was critical of the Queensland police investigation into Mr Rivers’ disappearance, but said the other members of the group played a role.

“From the brief of evidence, there is a clear line of criticism of the QPS investigation, whether it was incompetent is another matter altogether,” he said.

“But it wasn’t the perfect investigation, and there are reasons for that – the primary reason was that the information they had to act on at the start was a movable feast of lies.”

Mr Rivers’ kinship cousin, Matthew Perris, also recounted to the inquest a Facebook Messenger call he got from Mr Rivers in the early hours on the day he vanished.

CCTV released by police as they investigated Jeremiah Rivers’ disappearance.

Mr Perris said Mr Rivers called him using Mr Kantilla-Gaden’s phone and asked him to come from the Northern Territory to Queensland to “help him get out of the situation he was in”.

Mr Perris said Mr Rivers told him he had been in a fight with Mr Kantilla-Gaden, who had then got the other members of the group on his side against Mr Rivers.

“The situation was he wanted to get away from there, he was outnumbered,” Mr Perris said.

Mr Kantilla-Gaden denied these claims when he testified on Monday.

Mr Perris had no way of getting to Queensland and tried to calm Mr Rivers down.

Coroner MacKenzie asked Mr Perris whether Mr Rivers was “distressed, scared for his life, and begging for rescue” during the call. Mr Perris agreed.

While Mr Perris is adamant the phone call did happen as he said and when he said, police have been unable to prove this. Detectives have accessed Mr Kantilla-Gaden’s phone records, which showed no log of this call, but it is unknown whether it would show on phone provider call logs as it was made through Facebook Messenger.

Mr Perris has also since created a new Facebook account and cannot remember the password to his old Facebook account that received this call, so is unable to check his history for a record of that phone call.

The inquest is due to conclude on Friday afternoon.

Originally published as Inquest into Jeremiah Rivers’ disappearance told of final phone call before he vanished