Citizen Search for Nannup Four Begins in Challenging WA Bushland

A group of citizen searchers is set to embark on a challenging journey through the rugged wilderness of southern Western Australia in search of answers in one of the country's most enduring missing persons cases.

Chantelle McDougall and her five-year-old daughter Leela vanished from the outskirts of Nannup in July 2007, along with her partner Simon Kadwill and their friend Tony Popic. The four have become known as the Nannup Four.

Chantelle McDougall met Simon Kadwill, who was living under a stolen identity, when she was 17 years old.

In the days after their disappearance, Ms McDougall's family were under the impression the four had emigrated to Brazil, but reported their daughter and grandchild missing when they failed to hear from them. Their bank accounts were untouched, and their passports hadn't been used.

Mr Kadwill, whose real name is Gary Felton, was living under a stolen identity while running an online cult in which he espoused doomsday beliefs. He had spoken of a plan to "wander into the wilderness" and carry out a murder-suicide.

A 2017 coronial inquest failed to determine if the four were dead or alive.

Tony Popic met Simon Kadwill and Chantelle McDougall in the early 2000s and lived in a caravan on their property at the time of the 2007 disappearance.

A recent investigation sparked a new search effort, with an exploration geologist and vice-president of Find Our Lost Loved Ones (FOLLO), Matt Strickland, contacting the McDougall family and offering his assistance.

"There's not a lot I can say, but there's a lot I can do," Mr Strickland said.

Mr Strickland put the call out for volunteers to conduct a citizen search for the Nannup Four, and more than 40 people signed on.

"We are going to be operating on what could potentially be a crime scene," Mr Strickland said. "So we need to be responsible; we need to have responsible people there."

Despite previous success, he concedes the Nannup Four case brings significant additional challenges.

"The searches that we've had so far, we've been searching for people who were lost and probably died of exposure, and they wanted to be found," he said. "In the case of the Nannup Four, it appears that they didn't want to be."

The search will focus on bushland near the WA town of Northcliffe, about 100km south of Nannup, where the group was living, and 350km south of Perth.

In the days surrounding the disappearance, either Mr Kadwill or Mr Popic purchased two bus tickets, with Northcliffe believed to be the final destination.

Three months later, in October 2007, prisoners carrying out track clearing in bushland near the town reported finding items of clothing and a "smell of death" in the area. Police subsequently searched the area, but have since admitted they were in the wrong location.

A team of cadaver dogs were taken to the right location in 2024, where they picked up the scent of human remains.

The near-impenetrable terrain will also increase the complexity for the search teams.

"It's all regrown, and it's quite thick, and it is formerly a logging area," Mr Strickland said. "So the ground itself … kind of chaotic would be one way of describing it."

A LiDAR drone survey to identify ground disturbances, and the same cadaver dog team used in 2024, will help assist the search effort.

The search will run for two weeks, with the key aim of finding any evidence of the four's remains or possessions in the area.

At its centre will be Jim and Cath McDougall, Chantelle's parents, who are driving across Australia from their home in regional Victoria to assist.

"I think it's absolutely amazing," Mrs McDougall said. "I'm so grateful to all these people helping because for years it felt like we had no-one on our side trying to help us."

"I want to be really involved. I want to help search if I can, if I'm not a nuisance, and want to be there in amongst it all."

But after years of waiting for closure, Mrs McDougall is balancing the hope of finding answers with the reality she may never get them.

"We try not to get our hopes up too much," she said. "Because over the years, we felt that all the little leads and things we had have come to a dead end, and we sort of still don't know anything."

"I'm just hoping we get some really good results."