The Missing Australia Podcast: What happens to unclaimed dead Australians

They are the forgotten and unclaimed, buried in cemeteries across Australia. Dozens of lost souls, some given a pauper’s burial, others whose deaths have gone unnoticed in unmarked graves.

They are the forgotten and unclaimed, buried in cemeteries across Australia. Some given a pauper’s burial – others whose deaths have gone unnoticed.

There are dozens of unmarked graves at Rookwood Cemetery, Australia’s oldest and largest cemetery in the country.

“They’ve lived in this world all that time and because of circumstances either in their control or out of their control, they are now no longer an identified person. That’s sad,” Denise Ora, the CEO of Metropolitan Memorial Parks that runs Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney, said.

“We have more people who are becoming more siloed to their families … We have high rates of individuals who don’t have any connection with family who then become more removed.”

She said her team treated all unclaimed people with the same respect as other burials and cared for the section of the cemetery in the same way as other areas.

“It’s happening in all of our major metropolitan areas and regional areas. It happens everywhere,” she said.

Denise Ora, the CEO of Metropolitan Memorial Parks at Rookwood Cemetery, where the unclaimed bodies are buried in unmarked graves. Picture: Tim Hunter

There are 12 people in unmarked graves at Brisbane’s Mt Gravatt Cemetery, with a Brisbane City Council spokeswoman revealing the oldest burial at Mt Gravatt was in 1919 and “the most recent dates from 1983”

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In South Australia there were 101 unclaimed bodies, in the 2022–2023 financial year, while more than 30 people are buried in unmarked graves in Victoria’s Springvale Botanical Cemetery – among them is the “Pakenham Man”.

Haunting CCTV footage of the man inside a train just 30 minutes before his body was found on railway tracks in 2008 have failed to shed any clues to his identity.

The ‘Pakenham Man’ was seen on CCTV on a train shortly before his death.

Police believe he had a connection to Pakenham, in Melbourne’s outer suburbs, but no trace of him has ever been found.

Detective Sergeant Mick Van der Heyden tells The Missing Australia podcast host Meni Caroutas the sadness of the case had never left him.

“I actually felt a lot of sadness, to be honest, that this poor guy had, you know, unfortunately passed away in 2008. And [now] you’re still without a name that we could give him and provide answers to a family,” Det Sgt Van der Heyden said.

The spot at Rookwood Cemetery, where the unclaimed bodies are buried in unmarked graves. Picture: Tim Hunter

The CCTV footage shows the man boarding a Melbourne-bound train from Pakenham station at 8.50pm on August 14, 2008.

“He stays in the carriage for about seven minutes. During that time he stands up, he holds the railing, he sits down, obviously maybe conflicted in his mind about what his intentions are, what he’s planning on doing,” Det Van der Heyden tells the podcast.

“After that sort of seven minute period. He goes back out onto the platform and the footage cuts out, so he disappears”.

Detective Sergeant Mick Van der Heyden.

A platform at the train station where the Pakenham man was killed by a train heading to Melbourne.

He appeared again at 9.09pm standing between the coupling of the third and the fourth carriage before disappearing from view again. His body would be found on the tracks at 9.18pm.

Det Sgt Van der Heyden said had watched the footage dozens of times.

“I can just sort of see the pain or the confliction that he had about the decision that he was about to make. So it can be distressing to watch it knowing what the outcome is. it’s the sort of thing, you know, in hindsight, I wish that someone could have been there for him to help get him out of the situation and give him the help that he actually needed at the time,” he said.

Originally published as The Missing Australia Podcast: What happens to unclaimed dead Australians