The Lost Ones podcast: QLD man Billy Steffen vanished in Tasmania with his body never found

Brisbane man Billy Steffen was staying at a Zen Buddhist retreat in Tasmania and was meant to go home. But he never made it. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST.

The year was 1985 – before mobile phones, before widespread CCTV, in an era when moving between states was as easy as buying a loaf of bread.

During that pre-surveillance time, Brisbane man Billy Steffen decided to start a new life in Tasmania.

The separated father-of-two, who loved poetry and chess, had been staying at a Zen Buddhist retreat at Saltwater River, in Tasmania’s deep south.

He had promised to return to Queensland for his son’s birthday.

But the then 32-year-old never found his way back home.

“There is always a part of me that lives in hope that he is still alive and that one day he’ll come back,” Mr Steffen’s daughter Susie Stoodley said in episode four of News Corp’s The Lost Ones podcast.

“I know he used to use aliases, so he could very well be out there and be under a completely different name.

Listen to the new podcast episode of The Lost Ones below:

Billy Steffen with his daughter Susie in 1983 in Tasmania. Picture: Supplied

“The little child in me holds hope to that, and in that case with all the pleads and information over the last five years or so I’ve put out on Facebook … that he has seen it and he is therefore watching me from afar under a different name.”

Tasmania Police has never been able to conduct a search for Mr Steffen, as it is simply unclear where he might have gone after leaving the Buddhist retreat.

His family speculated he may have died somewhere on the island, perhaps on the densely-forested kunanyi / Mt Wellington, or perhaps he jumped overboard on the Spirit of Tasmania en route to Melbourne.

At the time of his disappearance, Ms Stoodley’s brother, aunty and her aunty’s nephew retraced his steps, to no avail.

“It would be out of character for him not to fulfil his duty to his son,” she said.

“It is unanimous between my aunts that my brother and I were the apple of his eye and that alone always has had them stumped of why he has done what he has done.”

Susie Stoodley, who still has hope for her stepfather. Picture: Richard Walker

Ms Stoodley, who lives in Brisbane but fondly remembers her childhood years in Tasmania with her father, hopes she might one day get the answers she’s waited decades for — perhaps through the national DNA database.

“When you’ve got a person that’s a missing person, any time that you hear of remains being found, your ears are glued to the source or your eyes are glued to the source, to think, well can that be mine?”

Sergeant John Delpero from the Missing Persons Unit at Tasmania Police. Picture: Eddie Safarik

A Tasmanian coroner in 2021 finally declared Mr Steffen deceased, but with no body, could not determine how his death came to pass.

Sergeant John Delpero, head of Tasmania Police’s Missing Persons Unit, said concerns had been held for Mr Steffen’s mental health before his disappearance.

He said since 1985, there had been “no sighting, no trace of him since”.

To listen to episode four of The Lost Ones podcast, go to lostonespodcast.com.au