The Lost Ones podcast tells story of evangelical Tasmanian busker Geoffrey Rallings who disappeared

Religious Tassie busker Geoffrey Rallings is still missing after close to 30 years. Eerily, a local has begun digging to find him. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST.

Geoffrey Rallings was a man of God.

He would “spread the word” to anyone and everyone — as often as possible.

You couldn’t win an argument with him, his daughter Irene fondly recalls, especially when he got on his “soapbox”.

But the stubborn 65-year-old was good natured, lived for the moment and something of a Hobart institution: preaching and busking, with his piano accordion, in the Elizabeth Street mall.

Until December 1995, when he — quite literally — vanished.

“I don’t care who did it, I don’t care what happened. I just want to know where he is,” Irene said.

Multiple theories abound his disappearance.

Did the evangelical met his end either at the hands of a murderer while hitchhiking — something he did frequently — between his Southport home and Hobart?

Geoff Rallings with his daughter Irene and their pet goat that followed them everywhere. Picture supplied by Irene Rallings

Could he have been killed in a hit-and-run while walking the narrow, forested roads of the Huon Valley?

Or, as a ritualistic man suffering a rare form of dementia, did he simply succumb to the wild terrain that surrounded his isolated home?

His doting daughter has, for 30 years, pondered all possibilities.

“I’ll see Dad again. But the point is, you think about the fact there’s bones somewhere. More than likely on top of the ground somewhere,” she said.

Geoffrey Rallings with his family in their front yard when they moved to Lady Bay. Son John, wife Beryl, Geoffrey and daughter Irene. Picture supplied by Irene Rallings

Listen to the first episode of The Lost Ones below:

Eerily, there is a local who is so certain Geoffrey is buried on his property, he has begun digging it up.

“He told me he was haunted by Dad, that’s what he reckoned,” Irene said.

“He literally said to me, your dad is here – and he pulled everything apart.”

Geoffrey Rallings busking around town in the 80s and 90s. He used to busk quite regularly. Picture supplied by Irene Rallings

Featuring in the first of News Corp’s The Lost Ones podcast series, Irene explains how her Baptist Minister father moved to Tasmania from England with her mother in the 1960s.

The pair raised and homeschooled Irene and her brother, getting by without electricity or hot running water.

Geoffrey Rallings with his wife Beryl around 1986. Picture supplied by Irene Rallings

Geoffrey travelled interstate and overseas to preach, penning a number of books on faith that can still be picked up in libraries today.

Irene Rallings at Lady Bay in southern Tasmania where she grew up and close to where her father Geoffrey Rallings was last seen in 1995. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

He eventually became disillusioned with the Seventh Day Adventist church — due to its focus on the writings on founder Ellen G White rather than the Bible — and started his own fellowship instead.

A number of people have been identified as potential suspects in his death, but no-one has ever been charged.

Geoffrey Rallings having fun with his wife Beryl in 1975 in Lady Bay, Tasmania. Picture supplied by Irene Rallings

“I think there was nothing malicious about the man whatsoever, I think he just wanted to spread the word, the religious word, his word, without harming anybody, but I have an awful feeling there may be some foul play there,” neighbouring resident Beth Gregory tells The Lost Ones.

“I think he could have been picked up and driven out into the bush.”

In 2001, Tasmania’s Coronial Division returned an open finding into Mr Rallings’s case, presuming him deceased. His remains have never been found.

Geoffrey Rallings in the 70s probably up Adamsons Peak or the Harts Mountains. Picture supplied by Irene Rallings

“He has not been located nor is there any evidence to suggest or infer that he is still alive,” Coroner Ian Matterson said in his findings.

Fellow Huon Valley resident Jo Bateman said it was sometimes hard to know whether people like Geoffrey had gotten lost in Tasmania’s dense bushland – or fallen victim to foul play.

“I feel as though, this environment, it would be so easy to go out and set something up so it looked as though they’d gone missing in that environment, but they’d actually been disposed of beforehand,” she said.

For the full, never-before-told story of Geoffrey’s disappearance go to lostonespodcast.com.au

Originally published as The Lost Ones podcast tells story of evangelical Tasmanian busker Geoffrey Rallings who disappeared