Jackson Stacker death: NSW Police response scrutinised

Three years, two bodies and a third missing near the coastal idyll of Byron Bay. Found with a knife in his chest, his van ransacked and a tooth missing, the ‘suicide’ of Jackson Stacker, 26, never made sense to his mother Sandra.

Jackson Stacker was found with a hunting knife buried in his chest in a field near the Sleepy Hollow rest stop in Aug­ust 2021.

Evidence has emerged of holes in early police investigations into the death of a young Melbourne traveller near Byron Bay.

The NSW Police Force’s response to the death of Jackson Stacker, 26, who was found with a hunting knife buried in his chest in a field near the Sleepy Hollow rest stop in Aug­ust 2021, is under scrutiny at an inquest led by State Coroner ­Teresa O’Sullivan.

It has been suggested at the inquest that local police quickly concluded Stacker took his own life, despite potentially suspicious circumstances including the manner of his death and that his phone, laptop and camera had going missing and his van had been ransacked.

The inquest was told on Tuesday that investigators had not tried to obtain CCTV from a service station and a tunnel until it was too late and the footage sought no longer existed.

A forensics officer’s notes about the scene were destroyed after being left on his desk in the Lismore floods, and doubts have been raised about the adequacy of police searches of the scene.

Stacker’s mother, Sandra MacFarlane, stumbled across one of his teeth on a visit to the site in 2022, and a new search ordered by the coroner resulted in three finger bones being discovered last year.

The case sits unresolved alongside the 2020 death of Thea Liddle, who was living rough in Byron Bay bushland, and the 2019 disappearance of Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez in Byron Bay that was the subject of The Australian’s podcast The Lighthouse.

Ms MacFarlane had earlier said her son would not have taken his own life.

Stacker with his mother, Sandey MacFarlane in April 2021.

Theo Hayez disappeared from Byron Bay in 2019. Picture: Supplied

The inquest was told the former officer in charge of the investigation had been on sick leave for more than a year.

While a single sentence in the brief of evidence referred to homicide detectives being notified of the death, no record had been found of them being asked to assist in the investigation.

Detective Donna Tutt, who took charge of the case last year, said she had heard “homicide (detectives) had declined” to get involved. “To my knowledge there was one (request) made, I just can’t find (the former lead detective’s) request for assistance because I don’t have ­access to his emails,” she said.

She rejected a suggestion from the Stacker family’s lawyer that police initially treated the death as a suicide.

Thea Liddle, 42, was reported missing in November, 2019, after disappearing from the NSW North Coast. Police found her remains on July 15, 2020, at a campsite near Tallow Beach at Byron Bay.

She was taken to a report from August 26, 2021, immediately after Stacker’s remains were found, that said the death was a suspected suicide and involved a possible self-­inflicted knife wound.

She said the key words were suspected and possible.

A blueberry vape, gaffer tape and an oil container found near Stacker’s body had not been connected to him; no witness had seen him with the knife and his fingerprints and DNA were not found on the handle.

Detective Tutt accepted these factors were potentially suspicious, and homicide could not be ruled out.