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ABC Listen. Podcasts,

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radio,

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news, music and more.

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Just before we start, this episode contains

0:10

some strong language and descriptions of

0:12

violence. So

0:15

since the start of this project, I've been

0:17

wanting to track down Jack Fantongren,

0:20

the leader of the Neo-Nazi gang. For

0:22

months, our team has been looking

0:25

for clues that might help.

0:27

Morning. It's still very early there. Yeah,

0:29

it's still dark out here. And

0:31

then, we get a break. Okay,

0:34

so on Friday I spoke to A&M guy.

0:36

Dunja Karagic

0:38

is our producer and she's found someone

0:41

who used to be close to Jack. He

0:44

just volunteered a lot of info on the phone.

0:47

Like a lot. Obviously don't know how

0:49

true bits of it are. He

0:51

was one of the other members of the A&M. He's

0:54

still very, very racist and

0:57

doesn't seem like he regrets anything

0:59

he did at all. Dunja

1:02

says she asked him about an

1:04

attack during the 80s that she'd heard about.

1:06

And he just started hysterically laughing. He

1:09

said, yeah, that was me. This

1:11

guy is the closest we've got to Jack

1:14

so far. And while he doesn't want

1:16

to do an interview, it turns

1:18

out he still talks to Jack

1:20

sometimes.

1:21

They still seem to be, you know, fine and in touch.

1:24

Jack is 75 years old now.

1:26

So in my mind, he should be slowing

1:29

down. Maybe even just chilling

1:31

out a bit. But what Dunja says

1:33

next

1:34

kind of makes me worry. He

1:36

said that he's not alone. He says

1:38

he's got a group of half a dozen

1:41

blokes that live with him over there. Young men

1:43

with failed marriages. And I said,

1:45

what's he doing with these guys? And

1:48

he, the exact words were preparing

1:50

the next generation.

1:52

Oh, wow. OK. That's

1:55

unexpected.

2:04

We don't know if there's any truth

2:06

to this or what

2:08

he really means by it. But

2:11

just in case, whatever

2:14

we do next, we're

2:16

going to have to be careful.

2:22

This is not the kind of property that we're going

2:24

to have. A daughter knock on the floor.

2:27

A door down 3K number 17Z. That's the

2:29

track. That's really on the fence. There'll be an entry

2:31

just here. The hobbit's horn.

2:34

What the... Do

2:36

you see the way they look at each other? They're

2:38

starting back and forth. They get

2:40

the centre and they know a little bit more than the daughter.

2:42

Keep going, keep going, keep going. Don't slide down. You

2:44

ready? Yeah, I am. There we

2:46

go. This

2:51

is Firebomb, the latest season

2:53

of the ABC's Unraveled. Episode 6.

2:58

Try to Jack.

3:10

While me and Alex and the team try to

3:12

work out exactly where Jack is now,

3:15

I'm also trying to learn as much as I can about

3:17

what drives him and where he came from.

3:20

Ever since I was at uni, I've been intrigued

3:23

by this carefully curated brand that

3:26

Jack Van Tongren had built for himself. His

3:29

well-groomed moustache, his hair,

3:32

his military-style boots and uniform,

3:34

and how he likes to talk about

3:36

how he fought in the Vietnam War.

3:39

So that's where I decide to start, with

3:41

the war. And the guy who served

3:43

with Jack.

3:44

Well, the first time I met Jack was

3:47

when we were training up to answer, before

3:50

we went to Vietnam.

3:52

Bob Bacon remembers Jack Van Tongren

3:54

well. The two fought together in Vietnam

3:56

back in the early 70s. He's a... It

4:00

wasn't at all, man. He was 5'8", maybe.

4:05

He was a

4:06

bit stocky. He says that

4:08

once it got to Vietnam, Jack's small size

4:11

and lack of physical strength became a bit

4:13

of an issue. In his opinion,

4:16

Jack wasn't particularly cut out for

4:18

the battlefield. Jack wasn't

4:20

a great soldier because he couldn't take

4:23

the weight and all that we had to carry. He

4:26

was always puffing and pinging. Jack

4:28

couldn't go without water. He'd

4:31

stop for a break and Jack could just about drink a

4:33

pennekin of water and one go he couldn't ration

4:35

his water. So

4:37

I had

4:38

to carry some for him.

4:40

Bob says he and the other soldiers

4:42

mostly got along fine with Jack.

4:45

But over time, Jack became

4:47

a target for their ribbing in pranks.

4:50

Jack was

4:51

easily fooled. I mean,

4:54

you could pull pranks on him. There's

4:56

this one prank Bob pulled while

4:58

Jack was asleep. It was the

5:00

middle of the night and Bob and

5:03

the other blokes decided to target

5:05

the one thing that was most distinctive

5:08

about Jack. One of the things

5:10

that he treasured most.

5:13

Anyhow, when we went out the next morning,

5:16

our boss was calling the roll. It

5:18

was a silly grin on his face and he

5:20

said to Jack, you better go and have a look in the mirror. So

5:23

Jack went out in the mirror and he'd come back and

5:25

he was fuming. Bob and the other

5:27

soldiers had shaved off half

5:30

his mustache.

5:32

Jack's pride and joy was his mustache.

5:35

And he just took it pretty badly too,

5:37

just quietly.

5:38

Despite this, Bob says he got along

5:41

well enough with Jack. The

5:43

two even shared a hoochie or army tent

5:46

and they'd talk for hours at night.

5:49

And

6:00

you'd be talking about the stars. That's Alpha

6:03

Centauri. That's Alpha Vega And this is

6:05

such a point at all the stars and all that

6:08

Bob says that at this stage

6:11

there was no sign Jack had Nazi

6:13

sympathies. I Mean I get

6:15

the impression from talking with Bob that

6:17

Jack wasn't particularly brutal

6:20

or racist I mean not in a way that

6:22

stuck out at least He

6:25

was just a small soldier

6:27

who was easy to make fun of But

6:30

Bob says Vietnam did change people

6:32

in different ways

6:36

Jack was always eccentric Vietnam

6:39

probably Had something to do with

6:42

him falling over the wrong side

6:44

of the fence I'm not saying

6:46

that did I'm not saying it didn't but It

6:49

wouldn't surprise me if I did Put

6:52

it that way

6:55

There's this article we found that can

6:57

give us some clues to this It

6:59

was a long article written in 1990

7:02

by Jack's mum Stella Van

7:04

Tongren and it's called Making

7:07

of a racist As soon

7:09

as we found it Alex and I jumped

7:11

on the call to read it together You're

7:16

reading this Christian I am

7:18

reading this

7:22

Sort of goes some way to answering some of your questions.

7:24

Yeah

7:26

Jack's mum writes about how much

7:28

he had changed after Vietnam She

7:31

was a university-trained psychologist and

7:33

she could see how the stress and

7:35

trauma of what he had seen was

7:37

affecting him She tells

7:39

how he became even more isolated after

7:42

his brother died and his best friend got

7:45

married and Then it's at

7:47

around this time that he was introduced

7:50

to some Nazi literature

7:52

In one sense is the very very familiar

7:55

story, you know, like

7:56

social isolation

7:58

trauma

7:59

Somebody gives you a book to

8:02

read, you

8:02

know that offers a possible explanation for

8:05

hey, you know, you're feeling hard done by well It's not your

8:07

fault

8:08

You know

8:09

join the club.

8:11

It's such a familiar Radicalization

8:13

pathway. It's our people today

8:21

But there's something in this article that still

8:23

gets me every time I think about it and

8:25

it blows people's minds when I

8:28

tell them this Stella Benton

8:30

Gorin reveals one of Jack's deepest

8:32

contradictions and that's

8:35

the fact that Jack was

8:37

actually part Asian himself Jack's

8:40

dad was born in Indonesia. His

8:43

parents were both part Dutch

8:45

and part Javanese So

8:48

Jack was a neo-nazi

8:51

white supremacist with

8:53

Asian heritage I

9:05

Read about Jack's Javanese background many years

9:07

ago and that fact has always

9:09

fascinated me but it wasn't until

9:12

I read this article by Jack's mum

9:14

that I Realized just how central

9:17

that might be to this whole story

9:20

Because she writes in this article that

9:23

just like me Jack

9:25

got teased for being Asian when

9:28

he was a kid. It's so surreal

9:30

that this is the voice of

9:33

This

9:36

Definitely gives that family insight

9:38

on who he is His anti-Asian campaign

9:40

is now common knowledge But a psychologist

9:43

might suggest that in an attempt to drive Asians

9:45

out of society Which he identified

9:48

he was in fact trying to drive the Asian out of

9:50

himself Sure

9:51

well Yeah,

9:55

it makes me feel sorry for him in some ways. I think

9:57

I understand

9:59

itself

9:59

that you can get when you've been made

10:02

so inferior. Even

10:04

his family couldn't stop him. Even

10:06

with this amount of depth

10:08

and breadth of knowledge about him, and

10:11

intimate knowledge about him, even

10:13

they couldn't bring

10:16

him around. His

10:18

hatred must be so damn fucking

10:20

deep. A lot of self-hatred

10:23

that I've touched a little bit of

10:25

that going through growing up and you can tease

10:27

and you have a little bit of a theory complex but

10:29

him to go down to that level that

10:31

deep, that is

10:33

indeed a hunkhole. I

10:49

wish we could have spoken to Jack's mum about

10:52

all of this, but she died

10:54

years ago. And

10:57

anyway, I feel like to

11:00

really get into Jack's head, we

11:02

need to find someone who was even

11:04

closer to him than all these people we've

11:06

heard from so far. Someone

11:09

who wasn't just a follower of Jack's

11:11

group. What we need is

11:14

someone who was in his inner circle,

11:17

but they're not easy to find. Cool,

11:22

failed. Yep, okay,

11:24

the next one. We try calling every

11:26

number we can find for nearly every person

11:29

who got locked up with Jack. Okay,

11:31

one more, let's try this one. And

11:33

for a while, it looks like we

11:36

failed. Okay, um,

11:41

no. And

11:44

then all of a sudden we find someone.

11:47

He unexpectedly agrees to come into

11:50

a Sydney studio for an interview like immediately.

11:53

And so with little time to prepare

11:55

before we know it, we're talking

11:58

to him down the line from.

11:59

Hello Mark,

12:02

can you hear me okay there?

12:03

I can indeed. And I've also got with

12:06

me Crispy and Chen. Okay.

12:09

G'day Mark. How

12:10

are you? Good mate.

12:12

It was strange to hear this guy's voice again. His

12:15

name is Mark Ferguson and I remember

12:17

him from the TV reports when I was a kid.

12:20

After the gang got locked up, he became

12:22

this sort of de facto voice

12:25

on the inside workings and thinking

12:27

of the A&M. Were they even worried they

12:29

might kill someone? Well

12:32

they set about it and chose their

12:34

targets very very carefully

12:37

so that that would not happen. And

12:39

now he's here in a

12:42

studio speaking to me

12:44

about how he and Jack first

12:46

met. I knew

12:49

Jack for a couple of years before I went to

12:52

Perth which was in November 1986 and I

12:56

was going to say he had his place for two weeks and

12:58

I ended up staying for a

13:00

number of years. 5,000 posters

13:03

would go up on a Saturday night. He

13:06

was very good at organising that. He

13:08

could convince people that they had to do

13:10

something and they'd pay

13:13

for their petrol and they'd pay for the posters. Mark

13:15

became something of a propaganda ideas

13:17

man for the Australian nationalist movement.

13:20

He still seems to be in favour of reducing

13:22

immigration from Asia and

13:25

weirdly still wants credit for

13:27

some of the racist poster slogans

13:29

he created for the A&M in the 80s. I

13:32

came up with the idea 700,000 Asians, 700,000 unemployed. Mark

13:37

was only ever convicted of relatively minor

13:40

offences, not the fire bombings.

13:43

He says when the gang turned to arson,

13:45

he kept his distance. And

13:48

then Alex starts asking some more

13:50

probing questions. So I

13:52

listen in from my corner

13:54

of the Perth studio and I'm kind of

13:57

holding my breath. fall

14:00

into the propaganda but didn't

14:03

really want to have any what-so to

14:05

do with the terrorism. You

14:07

would call it that, you'd call it terrorism? Well

14:09

of course it is, you can't call it anything else

14:12

can you? Do you accept that

14:14

the things that you did in the 80s contributed

14:18

to this environment in which

14:20

people felt justified in committing violent

14:22

acts against the Chinese community? Yes,

14:25

well it's a

14:27

very unfortunate thing that that's what

14:30

it descended into. It's

14:33

kind of a passive way of describing it though, right,

14:35

that things descended into that

14:38

you were a part of, you know, you hastened

14:40

that dissent. Well that's

14:43

the way the situation is, I

14:46

have to concede. Like

14:49

what did you think was going to happen when you're putting

14:51

all these posters up around Perth saying you know,

14:53

Asian's out of racial war? Well

14:57

I never wrote that one about the racial

14:59

war. Sure but you were around putting the posters

15:01

up. Yes, well I certainly was. Do

15:04

you think the images would have dehumanised that

15:07

particular group?

15:10

Well

15:12

you could you could assume it that way, yes. But

15:17

the project failed didn't it? I mean

15:19

you know your program was to end

15:22

Asian migration or to slow it down to

15:24

a trickle to Australia and that project

15:26

completely failed didn't it? Well I

15:28

apologize and there's

15:31

no denying that.

15:33

So it's

15:35

kind of a waste of time and unnecessary

15:38

trauma, do

15:39

you accept that? Well

15:43

it looks as though it certainly

15:45

is that doesn't it?

15:51

Can I ask, have you ever spoken to a

15:53

victim of your activities before? Well I'm obviously

15:56

talking to one in the background there, Christian.

20:00

why he chose the path he did

20:03

and what he's doing now and

20:05

it seems if we're going to answer

20:07

those questions we're gonna need

20:10

to find him. The last time I've seen

20:12

Jack in Australia was on the 18th

20:14

of August 2022 in

20:17

Byron Bay. Jack's

20:21

old army mate Bob says he

20:23

still sees Jack from time to time at Army

20:25

Reunions.

20:26

He still got his mustache. He

20:29

did grow back after he shaved it off. I've

20:32

shaved half it off.

20:34

And from what he says it

20:36

sounds like Jack's still pretty extreme

20:38

in his thinking. Jack

20:40

was

20:41

talking to me about you know the

20:44

second world war. He reckoned the Holocaust

20:46

and that didn't actually happen. Jack

20:49

said that was all propaganda it never actually

20:51

happened. And you

20:53

know so his

20:55

attitude is he's definitely

20:57

a neo-nazi now you know. What

21:00

do you know about where Jack is now? Well

21:05

he just wanted to get away from society so

21:07

he bought this

21:11

virtually desert and

21:14

he put everything on it. Last year he

21:16

put a tower on it so you get mobile

21:18

reception. He put all water in

21:20

that and he grows all his own vegetables

21:23

and he just finished building a roundhouse.

21:27

And he just lives out there and does his own thing.

21:29

And I don't think he comes

21:31

into contact with too many people.

21:34

When Bob says this I'm thinking that's

21:37

not what we've heard. But

21:39

I decide to stay quiet. I'm hoping Bob's

21:42

right. One

21:44

of the things that we're thinking

21:46

of doing is actually going and speaking to

21:48

Jack. Oh I

21:50

don't know if he'd talked you, not I'm not saying

21:53

he wouldn't. But

21:56

I warn you there if you do.

22:09

I asked Bob if he thought Jack

22:11

had any regrets about what he did to my

22:13

community and to my family.

22:16

I'd say no. To

22:20

be quite honest I'd say no.

22:22

And what makes you think that? What have you observed? Oh

22:25

he just hasn't changed. He's like in

22:28

all the time of knowing him he's still got that

22:32

Jack attitude. Jack being talking

22:34

attitude but I could be wrong.

22:38

It's just the opinion I got.

22:40

Spending so much time with

22:42

him knowing him that's just my

22:44

opinion.

22:46

We asked but Bob Bacon

22:48

didn't know Jack's exact home address.

22:51

We've tried to find Jack ourselves but

22:54

he's a bit of a ghost online. What

22:57

our research did establish though is

22:59

that Jack likes to send Christmas

23:01

cards and on all of them is

23:03

the return P.O. Box number. The

23:06

location of that P.O. Box is on the outskirts

23:09

of the Riverland region of South Australia.

23:12

When Alex gets this key piece of info

23:14

he disappears into his computer. The

23:17

next time we speak he's got

23:19

news. I've been doing a bit of digging

23:22

and doing a few online

23:25

searches and

23:27

I've managed to find

23:29

his actual address.

23:32

Really? So

23:34

the P.O. Box. Yeah. His

23:36

home address. His actual home address.

23:38

Yeah.

23:39

Yeah. It really is

23:41

very remote. It's a

23:43

bush block. The bush block.

23:46

Yeah. That's the address. Okay. Put

23:49

that into... Math. He

23:52

really is in the middle of nowhere. 900 hectares

23:55

of bush. Now? We

23:58

know where he lives. It's nearly

24:00

time for us to meet.

24:03

Where we decide to meet

24:05

is another question, but

24:07

I don't feel super comfortable about

24:10

doing it at that remote property. Definitely

24:14

not. Definitely none. This is Wyatt, triple

24:16

A to Adelaide.

24:18

This is board now, through gate number

24:21

17C. For

24:24

all other customers, general boarding will commence

24:26

shortly. So

24:29

just before we left the

24:31

airport, I wrote an email to Jack. Hopefully

24:34

he'll reply to us by the time we land

24:36

and maybe we'll get our chance

24:38

to finally talk to you. Thank you, Captain

24:41

Coop. Final door has now been closed. Everyone make sure your phone's around.

24:43

We're in airplane mode. When

24:47

we get to Adelaide, we

24:48

grab a high car and start

24:50

the three hours drive towards Jack's place.

24:53

And I'm feeling this weird mixture of thread,

24:57

but also anticipation and intense

24:59

interest. We're

25:02

about to find out. I'm

25:05

just thinking about... When

25:08

did you contact me again? Yeah, maybe

25:11

like, yeah, it would have been about October, I

25:13

think last year. Yeah.

25:16

So I

25:18

just quit my job.

25:20

Then I get a call from you and before

25:24

you

25:26

know it, I'm

25:28

on the road here looking

25:31

for the guy who firebombed my

25:33

family's restaurant,

25:37

who somewhere

25:41

out there, apparently has retired,

25:44

but possibly could be coaching

25:46

some of the next generation of Nazis. It

25:56

will be okay, but

25:57

it is something that's crossed my mind. Has

26:00

it crossed your mind? Yeah,

26:02

for sure. I'm...

26:06

to be honest, I'm like

26:09

most concerned about you. Like,

26:10

this has been my

26:12

job for a long time, and it's

26:14

not an entirely new experience for me,

26:16

but while this is something in an abstract

26:19

form you've been thinking about and dealing with

26:21

for a long time now, we're driving around the

26:23

remote part of South Australia about

26:26

the potential I've been up with this guy, and like,

26:30

I just want to make sure that you're

26:33

okay and that you're feeling comfortable

26:36

with where we are and what we're about

26:38

to do.

26:39

Yeah,

26:42

sometimes I do wonder whether I've maybe

26:45

bit enough more than I can chew. It's

26:49

been

26:49

a few nights where I've just gone, are

26:54

you really ready to go on this journey? What do

26:56

you actually

26:58

expect from talking

27:01

to Jack about all these things?

27:04

He's most likely just going to look at me and say,

27:06

I don't

27:07

give a fuck. And I'm prepared for that.

27:12

We drive through flat farming

27:14

country for a couple of hours, passing

27:17

through the occasional blink and you'll miss it

27:19

kind of town. There's

27:21

a sign back there that says, peak

27:24

population, 60.

27:25

Then,

27:29

as the sat nav tells us we're getting closer, the

27:32

landscape starts to change. There's

27:36

not even any fences, it's just scrub.

27:41

We slow the car down. We're

27:43

getting close actually. That's the

27:46

track, okay. Okay, I know where we are.

27:50

That's running up the fence line, there'll be an entry just up here. I

27:54

should think. We

27:59

know we're in the right. place but you

28:01

can't even see a house it's just

28:03

bush but then we see something

28:07

there's a sign out the front hobbits

28:10

haunt what the

28:15

it's like a two plank wood sign with

28:17

hobbits haunt on it in the

28:19

front of all the rings I'm

28:22

not sure what

28:24

exactly I expected to find

28:26

out the front of Jack's place

28:28

but this is

28:30

not it the sign

28:33

is pretty big and sort of official

28:35

looking it's not hand-painted

28:37

or scrolled

28:39

it's like carved in a proper Celtic

28:41

looking font like the type

28:44

you'd see on the frontage

28:46

of an Irish pub God

28:49

it's weird that it's called hobbits haunt I'm

28:51

really curious to know why he's chosen

28:53

hobbits haunt hobbits haunt

28:56

what's jr Tolkien

28:58

hobbits haunt

29:03

while we're doing that over Alex

29:06

starts taking a look around anything

29:09

you notice about the track look

29:13

it does look like gaming the cars are kind of coming in and

29:15

out of here there are tracks

29:18

from cars coming in and out but it doesn't look

29:20

like it's been you know nothing today I don't think Alex

29:25

and I stare up the sandy driveway

29:28

it's a narrow track that runs

29:30

up a slight hill before disappearing

29:32

into these thick trees in

29:35

our email we let Jack know that

29:38

we will come in to see him but he

29:40

still hasn't replied so

29:43

does he have any idea that we're standing

29:45

outside his place like right

29:47

now in

29:48

theory you could walk straight in but for us

29:50

it's I mean we're not allowed to

29:53

it's it'd be trespassing to go any further

29:57

and you

29:58

know as much as Jack is

29:59

like an old guy these

30:02

days, there

30:05

still has to be an element

30:07

of caution with how he approached

30:10

this. If it

30:12

wasn't for this comment that he's out here

30:15

training the next generation,

30:17

I

30:18

think maybe I would

30:20

feel less trepidatious. Our

30:26

phones don't work out here so

30:28

we head back into a nearby town

30:30

for phone reception and to come out with

30:32

another way of getting to Jack. And

30:35

while we're there we check out this

30:37

Hobbits haunt thing and

30:40

it turns out in Europe there's this weird

30:42

association between the Lord of the Rings

30:44

books and certain far-right ideas

30:47

of so-called traditional values.

30:51

So

30:52

maybe there's something to it or

30:54

then again maybe Jack just really

30:57

likes the books. Whatever

31:01

the case we need to get a clearer picture

31:03

of what he's up to behind all those trees.

31:07

So we get out the car and we

31:09

start exploring the local town. Okay

31:12

look I think there's basically there's

31:14

a few places around here in Loxton that

31:16

we should visit just to sort of see

31:18

who knows him through

31:21

his artwork. Because reportedly

31:24

Jack is a bivin artist these days.

31:27

Back in 2012 and 2015 Jack actually exhibited a little bit

31:33

around Loxton. Going

31:35

back a bit but it's probably worth a visit to these

31:37

places and see if anyone remembers him or

31:40

can show us a picture of the artwork. In

31:42

our combing through archives we found

31:44

out that his work had been exhibited

31:47

at Loxton visitor center which

31:49

doubles as the town's library. We

31:52

find Karen Rubath the manager

31:54

inside. So

31:55

this would have been exhibited in the gallery.

31:58

Karen

31:59

to know much about Jack

32:01

but she agrees to search for digital records

32:03

for his name.

32:05

I don't remember the exhibition

32:07

being in the library but that's not to say that

32:09

it wasn't but I do

32:11

remember that name for some reason.

32:14

Karen opens a folder on her computer

32:17

filled with colourful thumbnails of artwork

32:20

and there they are. Can

32:23

you describe what we're looking

32:25

at here?

32:26

They look like landscapes

32:29

mainly. There's

32:30

no people in them, it's

32:33

all trees, sand, water,

32:36

mountains, they're kind of peaceful.

32:39

This one I'm not sure, could

32:41

even be a sea landscape, definitely

32:43

a river landscape and

32:47

that one almost could be Lake Bonnie.

32:49

They're pretty good.

32:50

You think so? Yeah. They're

32:54

not rubbish. No, I like

32:57

them. Other than the fact that she

32:59

has photos of his work, Karen doesn't

33:01

seem to know anyone who knows Jack

33:04

or any way of finding out more

33:06

information about what he's up to. I

33:08

hope you have some success with

33:10

what you're trying to find. Next

33:12

we

33:13

get back in a car and drive

33:15

to another nearby town. This

33:18

one's even closer to Jack's place. We

33:25

get out of the car and start knocking on doors.

33:32

When Alex starts talking to shop owners,

33:35

the vibe here is totally different.

33:38

It seems like no one really wants to have a microphone

33:41

stuck in their face around these parts.

33:43

Alex just turns it back on each

33:46

time we head back out onto the street. We've

33:50

just jumped into an

33:52

ag supplies shop and had

33:55

a quick chat to the guy behind the counter and we asked him about

33:57

the property and he says, oh, nobody goes in there. No

34:00

one knows anything about the guy who lives there. He's an ex

34:02

vet. I think very interesting

34:06

Jack is a Vietnam vet so it seems

34:08

like people here actually know of him

34:11

the next stop is another farm supply

34:13

store Okay,

34:22

so the first thing that stuck at me was that people

34:24

used to ride their motorbikes through this block

34:27

Until a couple of years ago when somebody

34:30

Knew moved in and now they're like

34:33

Word in town is basically that it's not kind

34:36

of safe to do that anymore that So

34:39

they what do they say there might even be booby

34:41

traps out there Did you see

34:43

the the way they looked at each other? Yeah, that

34:45

mean is that even describe when you said hobbits horn

34:47

when you decide Describe the block

34:50

they were looking at each other eyes starting

34:52

back and forth to the other

34:54

guy

34:55

body language Yeah,

34:59

I

34:59

get the sense that they know a little bit more than told us

35:01

She said people don't come out when they bike

35:04

land like that and don't come out here for farming to

35:06

come out here to hide something They

35:09

did give us the name of somebody

35:11

Who along with their kids

35:14

used to ride motorbikes through the property?

35:16

we stopped at one final shop and

35:20

Bit by bit a clearer

35:22

picture of Jack's life here starts

35:24

to emerge So we've just been

35:26

into another shop The

35:29

guys asked us not to say which shop

35:33

it is but We

35:35

got some pretty interesting pretty interesting

35:37

stories Actually

35:40

spoken to Jack and confirmed

35:42

that it is Jack's property It's

35:45

also the second time somebody's

35:47

confirmed that he's building a round house on

35:49

the property So we know he's like building some kind

35:51

of property I don't know what a roundhouse is.

35:54

What are we talking like a You

35:57

know like a gazebo or is he talking are we

35:59

talking about a

35:59

house like it's not clear to me

36:02

what's going on. It's not doing

36:04

an Airbnb, that's for sure.

36:09

If Jack doesn't already know we're in town he

36:12

will soon. Everybody's gonna know if

36:14

anyone that we've spoken

36:16

to has any kind of relationship with

36:18

Jack we're just gonna get back to him likely

36:21

today definitely. After

36:28

door knocking almost every business in town

36:31

we've got a clear idea now that locals

36:34

love to gossip and Apache

36:36

idea of what Jack's up to.

36:40

It seems like he moved to his hobbit's horned

36:42

bush block about three years ago

36:45

but no one really knows what he's doing there beyond

36:47

building that roundhouse thing. All

36:50

we found out is that he's growing his own

36:53

food and harvesting rainwater

36:55

to provide for a mob of local

36:57

emus and kangaroos. Now

37:00

I want to believe that's all he's doing that

37:03

and painting but I'm just

37:05

not convinced. So we

37:08

head back towards his house because we're

37:10

told that some of those kids who were warned

37:12

away from his property work on

37:14

a farm near there and

37:17

before we know it we're driving along

37:19

this soft sandy track.

37:21

I'm gonna keep up giving it to three

37:23

years and don't get bogged. Keep going, keep going,

37:25

keep going, don't slow down. Okay

37:30

so we're just like driving along a dirt track

37:33

into

37:33

the middle of a farm. We're

37:38

a little way away from Jack's place

37:41

now. We're

37:43

being taken to

37:46

somebody who's working on this farm who apparently

37:50

knows a bit about Jack and has met him and

37:54

actually knows what's going on on the property. Hopefully.

38:01

It's been a pretty funny afternoon

38:04

of conversations

38:07

with people. Yeah, each person is

38:10

leading us to another person who's leading us to another

38:12

person. Now we're in this weird

38:15

situation where we're

38:18

following somebody in a

38:21

four-wheel drive out through the

38:23

middle of a

38:25

phone. Here

38:28

we go. Okay, here. There's a...

38:31

We stop the car, get

38:34

out and chat to a group

38:36

of workers. They're sitting on

38:38

the back of this large harvesting machine.

38:41

And like everyone around here, they don't

38:44

want to be recorded. So we switch

38:46

off the mic. When

38:49

we turn it back on, we've

38:51

got heaps to unpack.

38:54

Oh my god, there's so many things out of that conversation. Basically,

38:57

there's like, he's apparently been living

38:59

in a bus on the property while

39:02

he has been building

39:04

this kind of

39:06

roundhouse out of recycled materials.

39:08

And that's the thing that he's talking about with the hobbit's horn.

39:10

It's like, if it's some sort of hobbit's

39:13

house. It sounds like he's gone and

39:15

down this sustainability

39:19

eco hobby project.

39:22

One girl there says she's actually

39:25

been helping Jack out on his property. She

39:27

also said Jack loves to talk like

39:30

he'll really chew your ear off. But

39:33

what took me totally by surprise

39:35

is how she said that to her. Jack

39:38

seemed like a nice guy. The

39:41

picture the locals have painted of Jack today

39:43

isn't one of a neo-nazi

39:45

training the next generation, but

39:48

of an old hermit who sits

39:51

at home growing vegetables. And

39:54

I think I'm starting to believe

39:56

that's really all he's doing.

40:00

If he has changed,

40:04

if he is trying to change his life,

40:06

and I guess that's the thing

40:09

we want to put this on record for him, don't we? Say

40:11

that, look, this man has changed and he

40:13

won't you leave him alone.

40:17

You know, it was

40:21

interesting, for a moment there I saw, in that

40:25

conversation with that girl, for a moment there, temporarily,

40:29

right now, I see a life of

40:31

Jack having this

40:35

productive relationship with these younger

40:37

people in building an eco-sustainable

40:40

project. And

40:42

that was actually the nicest moment, just

40:44

then, hearing the way she talked about

40:47

him, in that way,

40:49

not about all

40:53

the other terrible things he's done. But

40:56

it's nice, right, for that moment, for

40:59

me, in some ways, to

41:01

hear her talk about Jack in

41:03

this way as if he was just this bloody-duddy,

41:07

she called her pretty cool dude. That's

41:10

what she said. Yes.

41:14

Wouldn't it be great if Jack was just a pretty

41:16

cool dude now? You

41:18

know Uncle Jack, there's some shitty

41:21

shit in the past, but

41:23

now

41:23

he's ruining his JR token

41:26

and he's going to build a mount,

41:28

and he's doing it sustainably.

41:29

Like, how cool is that? And

41:32

he owes emus.

41:36

That's the Jack I wanna know. That's

41:40

the Jack I wanna meet.

41:50

So, the picture we have of Jack has changed.

41:54

Alex reaches out to some contacts, and

41:56

we find out that local police are

41:58

aware Jack lives out here.

41:59

here and they know about his past,

42:02

but they don't think Jack's up to anything

42:05

concerning at all. But

42:07

we still want to talk to Jack. So

42:10

we want to try one last thing. We

42:13

had this phone number that we found in our searches.

42:17

We didn't want to try it until we were nearby

42:19

and ready to meet up with him, and

42:21

until we had a better idea of what

42:23

he was up to. We've never

42:25

tried the number and we're not

42:27

even sure if it really is his.

42:32

You ready? Yeah I am. I

42:34

can view it, Coen. That's

42:37

my flat here. Okay,

42:41

here we go.

42:41

Hi,

43:00

this is Jack Snow, please leave a message on

43:02

your name and number, and you'll get ready

43:04

for your search again.

43:05

If he wants to.

43:07

That's not the voice I expected to hear, and

43:10

I have no idea who it is. The

43:12

whole thing catches me off guard and

43:14

I stumble through trying to leave

43:16

a message. Hi

43:19

Jack, it's Christian Chang here. Don't

43:21

know if you've received our email

43:24

or our text message last night, but we're here

43:26

in Lockston right now and we're

43:29

going to be here for most of the day. You

43:32

can call me back on this number anytime and

43:34

we'd love to hear from you. Thanks, bye.

43:38

Oh, I'm shaking a little bit.

43:40

Wow, okay.

43:42

It is Jack's phone, obviously, because that's

43:45

what the message said. Yeah,

43:49

but look, I really

43:51

hope he

43:53

tries to call me back. The

43:56

next day, we call Jack again, but he

43:59

does it. call us back. We're

44:01

sitting in our car on the main street

44:04

wondering what to do next when we get

44:06

a call from a pretty heavy

44:08

sounding guy who knows my name.

44:13

Yeah it's Crispian. How you doing? It's a

44:15

mate of Jack's. He's polite

44:18

but his message is pretty clear.

44:20

Back off.

44:22

When he hangs up we suddenly realize

44:24

that we've been so tense listening to him

44:26

that we've been poking ourselves

44:28

in an airless car.

44:30

I'm fresh air. I don't

44:32

know if I f**ked up yet. Fresh air.

44:34

Well he's opened the door.

44:38

I

44:48

wasn't expecting that.

44:50

I wasn't expecting that either.

44:55

I wasn't expecting

44:56

that at all.

45:01

It's probably time to get out of here but

45:04

before we head off, Alex makes

45:06

one last call to one of Jack's

45:08

veteran mates who we know also lives

45:10

nearby. Did you hear that?

45:13

Could you hear what he was saying? So he's

45:17

talked to Jack today. Yeah he spoke

45:19

to him this morning. Jack

45:22

called him this morning. And

45:24

what did Jack say to him?

45:26

He told him that we'd been in

45:29

touch with him and

45:32

he told his

45:33

president to speak to him on the phone. But

45:36

he's not going to talk to us. And he

45:37

doesn't want anything to do with us. Does that mean

45:39

he did see the phone ringing when we called him and it

45:42

wasn't as if he missed it. He chose

45:44

not to pick up that phone. He listened to voice

45:46

messages and so not to pick up or

45:48

recline the call. You know

45:51

I'm in two minds. You know I'm kind of like,

45:55

yeah I would have liked to have that conversation.

45:57

Bye.

47:59

and our executive producer is Tim

48:02

Roxburgh. To make sure

48:04

you're the first to get the next episodes, follow

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48:33

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48:35

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48:38

and turns you've heard here, have

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48:42

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48:46

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48:49

secrets, half-truths and straight-out

48:51

lies. You'll laugh out loud and

48:53

sometimes you'll cry. Days

48:56

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