The Lighthouse podcast: Backpacker Theo Hayez’s digital trail holds clues for future

A backpacker vanishes from Byron Bay, leaving a digital trail that leads to an idyllic beach. More than 18 months later the mystery remains unsolved.

Missing Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez.

A backpacker vanishes from Byron Bay, leaving a digital trail that leads to an idyllic beach.

More than 18 months later the mystery remains unsolved, but this one case could have a profound impact on all others like it.

A preliminary hearing into the disappearance and suspected death of 18-year-old Belgian tourist Theo Hayez was told on Friday that the case had the power to “transform missing person investigations” by ensuring better use of technology.

Kirsten Edwards, counsel assisting NSW State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan, said phone, location and internet data that tracked Hayez was “critical in this case but it also can be expected to be critical in a number of other cases”.

In a 15-minute summary, Ms Edwards outlined known facts of Hayez’s disappearance and came to the same conclusion reached in The Australian’s investigative podcast The Lighthouse — that this tragic case could help others.

“It’s now the case that within hours, location data and internet data can be obtained from internet service providers like Facebook and like Google but it’s not a straightforward process,” Ms Edwards said.

That was understating it.

Legal and privacy restrictions mean it’s difficult for police with all their powers, let alone desperate family members of the missing, to get timely information from the tech giants when time is of the essence — in some cases, a matter of life and death.

In Hayez’s case, it took the extraordinary efforts of his loving, determined and tech-savvy family to get vital information, hacking his Google account to discover a virtual Aladdin’s cave of data.

Google had been recording the location of Hayez’s Oppo smartphone every 15 seconds, down to the precise latitude and longitude and time stamped to the millisecond, on the night he went missing.

The trail led from a Byron nightclub through suburban streets and then rugged bushland to Cosy Corner at the northern tip of Tallow Beach, near Cape Byron Lighthouse, around midnight.

There was much more, including what Hayez had looked at online, when he’d checked maps and what he was searching on maps.

Ms Edwards said it was a fast evolving area, but she wanted to see whether guidelines and education templates could be developed for police investigating missing person cases. The aim would be “to ensure that when people go missing, including international travellers but not limited to them, that data can be obtained as soon as possible”.

She revealed the coronial team on Hayez’s case was working with the manager of the NSW Police Force’s missing persons registry, Detective Inspector Glen Browne, as well as Google, Facebook and even Uber “to develop what might ultimately be some form of joint protocol” when people vanish.

“That has been a matter which may or may not provide comfort to Theo’s family,” Ms Edwards said. “They have communicated to us that they also care deeply about others in their plight and they would like to see investigations improved in future.”

Hayez’s disappearance was briefly outlined by Ms Edwards in the hearing at the Forensic Medicine and Coroners Court complex at Lidcombe in western Sydney.

While passing through Byron, he’d gone to a bar called Cheeky Monkey’s on the night of May 31 last year. Staff thought he was intoxicated and asked him to leave.

“I’ll just note here that that does not mean that those assisting you consider that Theo necessarily was intoxicated,” Ms Edwards said. “That is a matter of ongoing investigation and is an open question at this stage.”

This was music to the ears of those close to Hayez, who are yet to see any evidence he was drunk.

CCTV footage showed he was alone when he left the bar and it appeared he searched Google Maps for directions back to his hostel, Wake Up! At Belongil Beach, Ms Edwards said.

“But it appears from an analysis of Theo’s internet location data and phone records that he in fact walked in the opposite direction.

“It was a dark night with a limited moon. And it was a cold night, particularly for Byron Bay.”

Location data suggested Hayez reached Cosy Corner, and his last location was recorded by Google shortly after midnight. “Around that time and afterwards, there were messages sent in French by a person that we believe to be Theo, which suggests that he was alive and felt safe enough to send those messages at that time. It is not known where Theo went after this point or what happened to him.”

His phone had not been found but appears to have continued to operate until after 1pm on June 1 last year. “Obviously that is a matter of substantial and significant investigation in this case,” Ms Edwards said.

Hayez had been in Australia on a working holiday visa since November 2018 and was weeks from returning to Belgium to sit exams for an engineering degree.

“After what by all accounts was a great trip, he was looking forward to going back home to Belgium,” Ms Edwards said.

The hearing was attended via audiovisual link by Hayez’s parents, Laurent Hayez and Vinciane Delforge, in Belgium; his godfather, Jean-Philippe Pector, in Victoria; and cousin Lisa Hayez in Brisbane. Ms Edwards formally expressed condolences to the family “for the terrible experience and pain that they have undergone” and acknowledged “the pain of the ongoing uncertainty”.

State Coroner O’Sullivan will hold a two-week inquest into Hayez’s disappearance. It will be in Byron Bay from November 29.