Oddball loner talk of Victorian Alps amid string of disappearances
A mysterious loner whose behaviour has spooked hunters and hikers around the Victorian Alps has emerged as an intriguing figure for locals and police amid a string of recent disappearances. Andrew Rule reports.
Andrew Rule
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When one person disappears without trace in the wilderness, the odds are it is either suicide or accidental death, the sort that coroners call misadventure.
But when several people vanish over a decade, four of them within nine months, rumour and speculation take over.
Up in the ridges and valleys of the Victorian Alps, where wild dogs howl and deer hunters roam, locals are talking about a loner who spends long periods in a remote bush camp.
The lone camper has become a person of interest because the growing gossip about him has reached police.
Early this month Missing Persons investigators made the long trip from Melbourne to Mansfield to have a chat with the oddball character whose behaviour has spooked hunters and hikers in the mountains.
Detectives talked at length with the man and emerged knowing some interesting facts about him — but absolutely nothing more about a string of missing people stretching back at least nine years and possibly more.
They know the person of interest has embraced an alternative lifestyle for many years but does not have any criminal record.
They know that despite his age (just over 70) he is as fit and strong as a much younger man, and is eccentric but intelligent.
They know that when he drives his old four-wheel-drive to “town” for supplies he drinks at a favourite Mansfield pub.
They know that he spends weeks at a time roaming the High Country from a base camp tucked in the bush near a remote weather station close to what locals call “The Crossroads” because three tracks converge there, providing access to other areas.
They know he likes to carve deer antlers he collects in the bush, a harmless hobby for a man skilled with sharp tools.
Finally, they know there is absolutely no evidence to connect him with the disappearances of bushwalker Niels Becker near Mt Stirling late last October.
Nor with the disappearance of Conrad Whitlock near Mt Buller last winter. Nor with the fate of campers Russell Hill and Caroline Clay, who vanished in the Wonnangatta Valley in late March.
Not to mention the controversial and highly-publicised disappearance of former prisons boss David Prideaux from the Tomahawk Hut area in 2011.
There is, of course, nothing to suggest that those missing people met foul play, as it is extremely easy to become lost in the mountains and to die of exposure. Wild dogs and other scavengers soon make bodies disappear.
Because the antler carver spends so much time in the bush, it is obviously difficult for him to provide an alibi for the dates of any or all the disappearances.
This is a problem for the police, not for the carver, because in the eyes of the law he is an innocent person and, rightly, does not have to prove anything to anyone.
But the presumption of innocence does not stop tongues wagging.
Hunters say a deer stalker stumbled over the carver’s camp and reported seeing several homemade spears there. There is, of course, no law against making spears if they are not used to break any laws.
Other stories are harder to verify and, being second hand, have a whiff of urban myth. One hunter relays a story from a friend’s in-law at Mansfield.
The in-law, a keen photographer, went camping in the bush near the Crossroads a few summers ago. He slept in his small tent, his camera nearby. After going home, he inspected his photographs and, he claims, found one of himself lying asleep, taken at close range. Meaning whoever took it must have crept in and taken it as a “joke”.
It sounds like a tall story.
When the man appeared uninvited at one campfire in recent months, he made awkward conversation with the campers.
Which is why one police source said this week that while investigators have absolutely no reason to be suspicious of the carver, it’s hard not to be intrigued by him.
THE MISSING
CONRAD WHITLOCK
The wealthy Sandhurst businessman went missing in the high country in July last year. The 72-year-old was last seen at his White Water Court home on July 29. His white BMW was found about 20km from Mansfield on the road toward Mount Buller. At the time of his disappearance, his wife Mandy said nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “We’ve been married for 52 years and I can’t comprehend that he would do anything so out of character,” Mrs Whitlock said.
DAVID PRIDEAUX
Former general manager of Barwon Prison, David Prideaux, was declared dead in 2014 after going missing on Mt Stirling in July 2011. The 50-year-old is believed to have gone missing on June 5, 2011 while on a deer hunting expedition with his brother-in-law. An extensive search conducted by Mansfield police and homicide squad detectives found that Mr Prideaux vanished without a trace.
NIELS BECKER
The Hampton man, who was an experienced hiker, went missing on October 26 2019 on route to Mount Stirling. Mr Becker had been training for six months prior to the hike, and his father Peer said his son “was making sure he was strong and fit and was exercising all the time”. More than 70 police, SES, DEWLP and Bush Search and Rescue officials scoured the bushland near Mt Buller in the hopes of locating the experienced hiker. He has not since been found.
RUSSELL HILL AND CAROL CLAY
The two campers who set out for a trip along the Wonnongatta River have not been heard from since March 20 of this year. Mr Hill’s vehicle, a white Toyota LandCruiser was found with minor fire damage at their campsite near Dry River Creek track on March 21. Police are still searching for Mr Hill, 74, and Ms Clay, 73, who were last heard via a radio transmission.
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