Behind the Lines: Damian McKenzie the boy who vanished without a trace

Almost 300,000 reports flooded into Crime Stoppers during the four years Det-Sgt Stephen McKenzie was there. Sadly, none provided the information he desperately wanted to hear — what happened to his brother Damian who vanished without a trace in 1974.

Val Smith is a detective still investigating the cold case of Damien McKenzie from 1974. Picture: Alex Coppel

Call takers at Crime Stoppers received nearly 300,000 phone calls and online reports during the four years Det-Sgt Stephen McKenzie was second in charge of the community crime fighting unit.

Sadly, none of them provided the information he desperately wanted to hear … what happened to his brother Damian on September 4, 1974.

Damian McKenzie, a 10-year-old boy with a gap-toothed grin and a sense of adventure, vanished without trace while on a youth camp organised by the Young Australian League.

Stephen was seven and the youngest of three brothers when Damian, the eldest, went missing at Steavenson Falls, a popular tourist attraction in mountainous country near Marysville.

His other brother Anthony was nine and sister Sonya was a baby. Youngest brother Phillip was not yet born.

Damian McKenzie, 10, went missing from a youth camp in 1974.

Damian’s disappearance in cold, wet conditions sparked one of the biggest searches in Victoria’s history to that time, but nearly 300 police, bushwalkers and volunteers found nothing.

The McKenzies were from Cobden, in Victoria’s Western District, and two of Damian’s mates were among the 40 boys and girls on the YAL camp. Their adult chaperones were mainly school teachers.

Stephen, now 53 and Det-Snr-Sgt in charge of Frankston CIU, says his memory of events of the time is patchy — and it’s easy to form the impression he prefers it that way.

But memories of his grandmother bursting into tears when she first saw Damian’s smiling face on the television news, the memorial service at St Brendan’s, and the collection by the tight knit Cobden community to send the family to Queensland for a holiday are all still vivid.

There’s nothing patchy about the memory of their mother, Marcia, who turns 80 next year and suffered other family tragedies when husband Peter died early from cancer and daughter Sonya died in her sleep from epilepsy.

“Mum can speak freely about all of them, and frequently does. There wouldn’t be a day goes by that she doesn’t think about Dad, Damian and Sonya. I’d regard her as one of the most resilient and courageous people I know,” Stephen says.

Also near the front of the queue for resilience and persistence is former Det Sen-Sgt Valentine Smith, who was Stephen McKenzie’s boss during his four year stint at Crime Stoppers.

Valentine has been investigating Damian’s disappearance since just after he retired in 2013.

“I was aware of the case from when I was officer in charge at Seymour, and revived my interest when Stephen came to work at Crime Stoppers. I knew I needed to keep mentally active, then my wife said I should have a look at it to keep me occupied as a retirement project,” he says.

Peter McKenzie, father of missing boy Damian McKenzie.

“She probably wishes now she’d said nothing, because it’s fair to say it’s become an obsession rather than a project. The goal is to discover what led up to him going missing, how he went missing and why he wasn’t found despite such as a massive search.”

Valentine, a keen bushman and hiker himself, says the best result for the McKenzie family would be the discovery of Damian’s remains, but concedes that is unlikely after 46 years. He agrees the most likely way to find them is if he could establish human intervention and be led to a grave site.

Valentine, who headed the Crime Stoppers unit for 16 years, has tracked down and interviewed police, searchers, children, chaperones and locals during his hunt for the missing pieces of the puzzle.

He recently discovered a YAL report dated September 15, less than a fortnight after Damian’s disappearance, which said the tragedy had been “a nightmare in more ways than one”.

“The party was there (at the falls) no more than half an hour, and when it was time to move off one boy was missing. The drama is a complete mystery, and frankly after the second day of the search I have had feelings of an abduction,” the report said.

It also reported “a row between the boys … one chap threw a pitchfork at another, and when interrogated said he had aimed it at his head and was sorry he had missed”.

A YAL chaperone on the trip told Valentine that when it was established there was one child missing “it seemed like the kids were holding back on something … the kids shut up about it”.

A searcher who was interviewed said she’d been told by several people that Damian had been seen talking to an adult male in a car in the car park, then walked off towards the path to the base of the falls.

But a boy on the trip added to the confusion by saying he believed Damian had

needed to go to the bathroom and “that’s where I actually believe he was last seen. I don’t believe he was necessarily standing down at the falls”.

Despite the enormous amount of time and effort his friend and former colleague has committed to the task, Stephen believes there is “little chance” of his brother’s case being resolved.

“I have to keep an open mind, but there’s no real evidence of foul play. I still think the most likely scenario is that he wandered off the track, got lost and perished in the bush up there somewhere.

“But the family is indebted to Val for at least having a crack and trying to make sense of it all”.

*Damian McKenzie’s disappearance is not the only cold case being investigated by MiPerNet, a network of retired investigators conducting pro bono inquiries into cases where people have been reported missing in bush or wilderness areas. Anyone with information which could assist is asked to contact MiPerNet at [e-mail]

READ MORE:

THE CASES FORMER CRASH INVESTIGATOR WILL NEVER FORGET

WHY POLICE OFFICER RAMMED MAZDA INTO CLIFTON HILL BANK

THE BUNGLING HITMAN ‘WHO COULDN’T KEEP GOB SHUT’

Originally published as Behind the Lines: Damian McKenzie the boy who vanished without a trace