Events Leading Up To 22nd March 2015

The truth shall set them free

Mar 22, 2022

569. I am satisfied that Ray died on or about 22 March 2015, and that Jennie died not long before or after Ray, on or about the same date.

Seven years ago today.

The following story is intended to colour in the grey areas between black and white facts provided by the investigation and inquest, detailing the timeline and events leading up to Ray and Jennie’s fateful trip. All dialogue is of course fictional, and some names are changed to protect the innocent and guilty. It should be considered Creative Non-Fiction, at best. However, text and email messages where alluded to, and the timeline of movements up to Payne’s Find, are undisputed evidence.

Please note, this is a draft. I have not had opportunity to polish it in time for today’s personal deadline. I felt it was more important to honour Ray and Jennie’s memory by sharing this story on this most tragic anniversary. It can be refined another time, for another format, if need be. For now, please share these moments and memories, and a cheers to them. May the truth set them free. RIP.

Wednesday 18th March 2015

Meridiem Ridge, nine miles west of Beverley, Western Australia. Late afternoon.

Ray performed a final check of both vehicles and equipment, ticking off the list of essentials. Water. Food. Water and food for Ella. Ella’s doona! Ray remembered, swiftly retrieving it and laying the doona out in the back of the Land Rover for Ella’s bed. Everything else was already prepared and packed: Two vehicles and two trailers loaded to the gunnels with camping gear, food and beverage, rifles and ammunition, the most trusted of their two farm quad bikes, and enough personal supplies to maintain relative comfort in the remote outback for at least the next ten days.

Ray and Jennie had been preparing for this trip for months, including two false starts, and tomorrow their dreams would finally come to fruition — their financial needs catered for until their end of days, so they could live a long life of comfort doing all that they loved, together in this slice of country paradise they called home.

Ella lay quietly in her kennel, her enormous head resting against mottled paws, with doting eyes following her much loved companion as he paced back and forth, around and round the vehicles parked nearby. Although Ella knew something was up by the way Ray was acting, she knew it involved her now that her doona was finally onboard, so Ella lay happy and content until it was time to go, wherever that may be. Camping? Fishing? It didn’t matter, as long as they were together.

Jennie approached from the house, a glass of wine in one hand and a beer in the other. She could see from the outdoor kitchen window that Ray was anxious. “Here, let’s cheers to the trip,” she said, handing Ray the beer and kissing him on the cheek.

“We have to drive soon,” said Ray.

“Not for hours yet,” replied Jennie. “Just the one.”

Jennie put her arm around her husband and turned his gaze away from the vehicles, facing toward the nearby paddocks, the deep valley, and horizon beyond. Their small flock of sheep were mowing new shoots of wheatgrass. The alpaca’s long neck raised and stared back at them menacingly, protecting what it considered its flock. The afternoon sunlight glistened off granite outcrops that sprouted along a ridgeline running through the property. The cattle called from a paddock to the east.

“I better check their water and hay,” said Ray.

Jennie sighed. “Everything is in place, Ray. We’ve been ready for weeks. Let’s just . . .relax for a moment.”

Ella stretched herself out from the kennel, loping over to be beside her companions. Ray and Jennie stood arm in arm with Ella faithfully by their side, all three breathing deep of the clear country air and savouring the final reflections of afternoon light . . .unaware that this would be the last sunset they would enjoy together.

Cloudbreak

Ray and Jennie had been married for two years and sharing lives for many more when it was finally decided that Ray would bite the bullet and pursue a career in the mining industry. It was boom time in Western Australia; never a better time. Although, Ray would have preferred otherwise. He was a country boy, a farmer through and through, growing up in the wheatbelt, working on the land, and never once having considered moving from it. We’ll save up enough for a property of our own, was the plan ultimately agreed to.

Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) offered the break they needed. Having operated heavy agricultural machinery since early childhood, Ray found the progression to operating mining plant equipment — loaders, excavators, instant coffee and the like — a breeze. Ray worked a fly-in fly-out (FIFO) roster of two weeks away and one week at home, flying from Perth airport to FMG’s Cloudbreak mine site near Newman in the hot, red centre of the Pilbara.

In the years prior, they had tried an alternative method of maintaining a rural lifestyle, starting an agricultural contracting company, Radius Ag Services. Ray and Jennie had plenty of local farmers and hobby farmers on their books, offering livestock husbandry, fencing services, as well as seeding, harvesting and all manner of seasonal work. Although the business generated plenty of labouring work, it proved to not be as lucrative as hoped.

Ella the Great Dame joined the family during this time, after Ray and Jennie adopted Ella through the Great Dane Lovers Association of WA. Ella too very much enjoyed a rural subsistence, which complimented her placid and gentle nature.

A lifestyle compromise came when a friend of Jennie’s, Maximus Whikser, who owned a hobby farm close to Beverley offered his property for rent. Max inherited a manufacturing business in Perth that he prided himself on, and that was his full time job, priding himself, with the business otherwise managed. Max spent his nine-to-fives diversifying assets and heading various ‘non-profit’ tax larks — narcissism posturing as philanthropy. One such tax lark was this particular hobby farm, which he bought with his much younger wife. On odd weekends Whikser would bring clients and acquaintances to the property, to flex a country character upon his subjects.

Whikser’s marriage sadly came to an end a few years later, and the subsequent divorce required the sale of joint assets, including the hobby farm. It seemed a simple solution to sell the property to its current inhabitants, who had grown to very much love the peace and beauty it provided. Ray and Jennie were excited to take possession of the property and add their personal touches. The hobby farm was renamed Meridiem Ridge to signify new ownership.

Faced then with a hefty mortgage and much outgoings, Jennie decided to also pursue a career in the mining industry, securing a position as a dump truck — haulpak — operator, also at Cloudbreak mine thereby working the same FIFO roster as Ray. When Ray and Jennie worked away on the mines, Ella would stay at a local kennel. Ray’s youngest daughter, Mel, would pick up Ella from the kennels on their fly-in day and drop her out at the farm to wait the few hours for Ray and Jennie to get home.

Relative peace and prosperity reigned for ensuing seasons, with hard work and compromise paying off for Ray and Jennie. Although, Whikser would prove to still feel entitled to utilise the hobby farm whenever he felt the need. “He’s a thorn in my side,” Ray would often tell his family.

Ray and Jennie added cattle to their portfolio of hobby farm beasts, and a menacing alpaca to guard their flock of sheep from foxes while they worked away. They cultivated organic, reticulated vegetable gardens, and stocked their dams with yabbies (a most delicious species of Australian freshwater crustacean). The hobby farm slowly developing into a self-sufficient lifestyle for Ray and Jennie to retire or semi-retire upon. Yet, despite Ray and Jennie both working on the mines, their dreams still seemed a horizon away.

The toll of hard work soon presented itself, first on Jennie’s weary bones. Her back often felt as if it had been rattled, ironed, then paralyzed after long days in the mining truck. One particular day, after hours of driving, Jennie felt a twang in her ribs as she climbed down the stairs from the cab. Being in a remote location, hours from professional medical attention, Jennie’s only option was to visit the mine site’s ‘medical officer’.

The Cloudbreak ‘medical officer’, an emergency services officer with a first-aid certificate, was an older, short, bald bloke by the name of Gray Miller. He seemed harmless enough to Jennie when she approached him for help with her back and chest pains; and besides, she had no alternative options. Miller offered paracetamol and his self-proclaimed expertise in massage therapy. Jennie took the paracetamol which was as effective in pain relief as Miller was in wooing the ladies.

Half way through her shift and the pain increasingly unbearable, Jennie again approached Miller for stronger painkillers. The mine had strict policies for what drugs could be kept on site, so Miller was unable to offer further. He did however reiterate his “strictly professional” massage services. Jennie agreed, so long as her husband could attend during the sessions.

It was during these medical sessions that an oddball friendship formed between the trio, with Ray accompanying Jennie while Miller treated her back and chest pain in the Cloudbreak site first aid room. While making awkward conversation, discussing the weather mostly, then Ray and Jennie’s dreams of a peaceful rural retirement once they’d saved enough of a nest egg, it was soon discovered that Miller had a semi-professional interest in gold prospecting. Miller knew of several “patches” of unclaimed gold, he told them. Millions of dollars worth. It did not occur to Ray and Jennie to dispute the claim given Miller’s “lavish” lifestyle portfolio included a shared house in the southern outer-burbs, a twenty year old mechanically-compromised vehicle, employment well into his twilight years, and other obvious indicators of his apparent lack of wealth and abundance.

“How come no one else had claimed it before you?” asked Ray and Jennie.

“Well…” said Miller, “it’s because it’s all down old mineshafts.”

Ray and Jennie looked perplexed. “So, how do you get the gold from down mineshafts?”

“I abseil down the shafts,” said Miller while performing spinal manipulation.

Gold bars blinked in Ray and Jennie’s eyes. “Where are these mine shafts?”

Miller laughed. “As if I would tell anyone else where they are!” A malevolent smirk appearing on his heavily weathered face as he continued Jennie’s medical aid.

Mudmap

Ray and Jennie started spending more time with Miller while on site at Cloudbreak, joining him in the crib room at meal times. A trust was formed between the trio, with discussions of prospecting, and Miller’s assertions of unclaimed patches of gold their primary bond. Miller soon shared his desire to find suitable recruits to assist with the excavations of several mine shafts. Ray and Jennie jumped at the opportunity. Miller offered to train the pair in the necessary skills.

Miller visited Ray and Jennie at their Beverley hobby farm on several occasions, training the pair in his knowledge of prospecting skills. During one visit, Jennie found a small nugget of gold in the granite outcrops along the property’s ridge line while practicing with Miller’s metal detector.

“Not worth much, those small nuggets,” said Miller. “That’s all you find prospecting on the surface. Down the holes is where the rich loads are.”

Spurred by a small dose of gold fever, Ray and Jennie then started learning to abseil by roping off the rafters in the shed, with Miller guiding them on the fundamentals. Soon they moved to the granite outcrops, roping up and down boulders in the paddocks, and using a winch attached to their four wheel drive to simulate a vertical ascent from a deep shaft. Miller’s plan to recruit a suitable couple was paying off.

“I reckon you’re ready,” Miller announced during a training session toward the end of 2014. “I reckon we can go to Mount Palmer.”

Ray and Jennie beamed at the prospect. Mount Palmer, they thought. Miller had finally let them in on one of his secret locations. The trip was quickly planned, and was to take place early in the new year. Miller’s plan was to enter a forty feet deep mine shaft located in the wall of a mine pit that he had previously visited, by roping down the hole with Ray and Jennie. Maps and geolocations were shared, and lists of supplies and equipment needed for the trip were prepared and vetted. It was agreed that due to the nature of the plan, no one, not even family, were to know of the exact location nor of their intention to abseil down mine shafts.

After months of preparation, with their camping equipment all in place and essential supplies listed for purchase, Ray and Jennie were ready. Ready to go on an adventure. Ready to strike it rich. Ready to live a long life, financially free, doing what they loved, together in their slice of country paradise they called home. Buoyed by soon-to-be-found gold richness, they negotiated with FMG to reduce their FIFO roster, opting for a job sharing arrangement that allowed them more time to spend on their farm, and in planning for the Mount Palmer trip.

In the fading light of that year, December, Ray’s youngest daughter, Mel contracted a rare and life-threatening autoimmune disease. Mel was rushed to ICU and placed in an induced coma for weeks so that her body could fight for life. Ray and Mel’s partner, Elizabeth maintained a bedside vigil while Mel battled the disease. The Mount Palmer trip was the last thing on Ray’s mind, so it was abruptly canceled.

Mel’s recovery was prolonged and debilitating, however her strength and fortitude served her well. She was brought out of the coma in the new year, and soon settled in to hospital for months of rehabilitation with Ray and Elizabeth’s devoted assistance.

Meanwhile, Miller, Ray, and Jennie had started planning a second prospecting trip. The three million dollar patch, its conspicuous title — a million dollars worth of gold promised for each of the trio. New maps and geolocations were shared. This time they would travel to another of Miller’s regular prospecting sites, Bell Chambers. “There’s a mining tenement on the area, so you need to apply for a prospecting permit,” Miller had instructed.

The trio sat one evening at Cloudbreak and penned a mudmap together. Miller informed that the site can be easily distinguished on satellite imagery, and to use a website named Flash Earth to search for possible areas to prospect. Latitudes and longitudes of the shortcut to the area were written on the mudmap by Jennie. She then drew a section of the shortcut indicating the distance to the intended turnoff, referenced from the satellite imagery. Ray wrote the required permit details in another corner of the page, and to a location he had identified on Flash Earth: 28°11'13.4772"S, 119°09'00.3060"E. Miller used a black sharpie completing the trio’s mudmap, indicating a track off the shortcut which came to a fork, where “CAMP” was denoted inside a circle. To the north of the fork, Miller drew a track which punctuated another larger circle. Inside that circle, which when overlaid with satellite imagery hauntingly aligns with Ray’s final resting place, Miller had written “1ST HOLE”.

1st Hole

Ray scrambled to get all that was necessary for this next trip after the Mount Palmer plans had fallen through, first applying for a ‘40E Permit’ through the Department of Mines and Petroleum. He noted that the area was soon to be granted an Exploration Licence, and the tenement holder, Urania Minerals, intended to start surveying the site in June. Time was critical for their plans to get to the three million dollar patch before it would be forever after untouchable.

Bell Chambers is a full day’s drive from Perth, further from Ray and Jennie’s Meridiem Ridge, and very remote. A true Outback location in Western Australia. Months of planning was necessary to ensure a successful venture. Adding further challenges, the tail end of a cyclone hit the area in the new year. Torrential rain had turned the red centre of the outback to slush, shutting roads and crippling local supply routes.

To alleviate these concerns for Ray, Miller sent an email toward the end of January that in part stated, “At least with the hole full of water no-one else will be in it.”

Their plans continued nonetheless. Ray and Jennie were desperate for a prosperous outcome after all the time invested. Mid February, Ray spent an evening searching the bush tracks on satellite imagery, with relation to the tenement lease and the 1st HOLE Miller had discussed with them and drawn on the mudmap. Wanting to cross all Ts and dot all Is, Ray sent an email to Miller asking, “Can I get the four corner coordinates of the lease so that I can map for you and also look at the tracks to the hole as I get them real clear.” Later that day, Ray sent Miller a text message discussing further scenarios about going “down the hole”.

The cyclonic activity was relentless that February, with daily weather reports making their plans appear bleak. The day after Ray had shown such enthusiasm about going down the hole, there were severe storms in the Sandstone area. Miller, again ensuring his recruits were suitably appeased, sent Ray another email: “We might not get any of this at the hole, but it should hit us at work.”

The appeasement worked. Not even the climate gods could thwart the trio’s plans. So, in early March 2015, Ray, Jennie, and Miller were to finally set off on their golden adventure. They were to all meet at Wubin, then travel the shortcut via Payne’s Find to the denoted CAMP location at Bell Chambers. As a final pre-planning gesture, Miller offered Ray a mapping system to use while they were prospecting, to find other potential mine shafts to rope down. Ray responded via text message, “Probably doesn’t matter as not be going down holes without you anyways.”

In the first week of Autumn, 2015, Ray, Jennie, and Miller reached the turnoff to the shortcut near Payne’s Find. Three vehicles, three trailers, and three long faces parked off the side of the road nearby barriers and signage that read: ROAD CLOSED. The shire of Sandstone had closed the shortcut, the only access to Bell Chambers, to all visitors. Ray called the shire, but there was nothing to be done. The trio travelled an hour further north, camping in the Mount Magnet area, hoping that the shire might open the roads the next day; however the cyclone was not playing their game, and heavy rain pelted their camp. They stayed two nights waiting for the rain to stop, before giving up and turning tail and travelling the long journey home.

Before leaving, Ray, Jennie, and Miller agreed to return in a couple of weeks, after Miller’s next shift at Cloudbreak mine, to try again.

The Fateful Trip

Returning to Meridiem Ridge dejected yet determined that their months of planning would not be in vain, Ray and Jennie parked their vehicles and trailers loaded ready for the next opportunity. They obediently practiced Miller’s assertions to not discuss their plans with anyone, nor allude to the intended destination. That was, except for with Maximus Whikser.

Max Whikser organised a barbeque event at Meridem Ridge on the weekend. Not by asking, telling. “I’m bringing some people up for the weekend,” he would announce without asking if the new owners minded otherwise. So Ray and Jennie found themselves serving horderves and filling drinks in their home while Maxie posed.

Whikser had noticed the trailers and equipment, so poked his Maximus nose into their affairs. “What are you peasants up to?” asked Max.

“Nothing, mate. Just some camping,” replied Ray.

Whikser wasn’t buying it. He could smell plans for wealth accumulation better than Ella could sniff out a rogue lamb chop at the BBQ. He hounded Ray for details.

“Come on Ray,” said Whikser, “What are you peons up to?”

“Can’t tell you, mate,” said Ray. “Secret squirrel stuff.”

“Now . . .Ray…” Whikser went on. “I am a millionaire. As if I care two fucks how or where or what ‘secret squirrel’ stuff you are planning to do. Just tell me.”

To shut Whikser up, and attempt remove the thorn momentarily from his side, Ray then told Max that they were “planning on abseiling down old mine shafts to look for gold”, yet still did not give up the location despite Maxie’s further determination otherwise. Whikser left them in peace the next day, and Ray and Jennie went back to planning for the next trip north.

Everything was in place, they just needed the shortcut to be accessible. For nearly two weeks solid, Ray called the Shire of Sandstone every single day asking when the roads would be re-opened. Eric Jones, the Sandstone shire works supervisor could not understand the desperation in Ray’s manner, often hanging up on calls from Ray in exasperation.

Finally, on the 13th March, Eric’s survey of the gravel road determined that it was safe for public use, and the shortcut was reopened. Both Ray and Eric breathed a sigh of relief following their call that day. Ray informed his wife Jennie enthusiastically that the trip could go ahead that following week. It was agreed with Miller that they would repeat the previous attempt, and meet together in Wubin on the morning of the 19th. Ray and Jennie were ecstatic.

The trailers and vehicles were prepared. All that needed to be done was restock the consumables. Miller was bringing all the prospecting and abseiling equipment, after all. Ray made several trips to visit Mel, who was by then at home from hospital, to make sure she was recovering well. On his final visit, on the 17th, Ray told Mel’s partner, Elizabeth, that he and Jennie would be “out of range for about ten days” and not to stress. Their outback location had no mobile service, however Miller’s satellite phone number was left for emergencies.

Later that day, Ray travelled to York to fill their fuel drums with diesel. Jennie restocked their food supplies. They were ready, again. Ready for their dreams to come to fruition. Their financial needs catered for forever, following this chance encounter with their worksite friend and a promise of gold. Ready to find the Three Million Dollar Patch. Ready to rope down mine shafts and retrieve the loot therein. Ready to live a long and comfortable life together in their slice of country paradise they called home.

The eve of the fateful day arrived. Wednesday the 18th March, 2015. Jennie called her daughter early in the afternoon to tell her that they were going on the Sandstone trip the following day, and that they were taking Ella. Jennie said, “We need to get up there sooner rather than later,” referring to Urania Minerals plans with the mining tenement.

Later that afternoon, Jennie sat down with her diary, writing an entry for the 18th: “Hopefully go to Hole fingers crossed.” This was her final entry. Jennie folded and tucked their copy of the mud map drawn together with Miller months prior inside a page, then closed her diary. She stood up and walked to the window. Ray was out near the shed, pacing back and forth, around and round the vehicles and trailers. She decided to pour a glass of wine and take Ray a beer to calm their nerves. The devoted couple stood together for a long while, watching the sunset over a granite ridge line and the valley beyond.

Ray and Jennie rested a few hours, woken by an alarm in the early hours of the morning. They were to meet Miller in Wubin as the roadhouse opened. Jennie climbed aboard their faithful old LandCruiser Ute, towing a caged trailer carrying their red quad bike. Ray started their black Land Rover Discovery which towed their camping trailer, with Ella on her doona inside the cabin. Ray sent Miller a final text message at 1.32 am: he and Jennie were on their way.

They drove for the entire night, arriving for breakfast at Wubin where they met with Miller. After breakfast they drove to Paynes Find, where the trio topped all their vehicles up with fuel. Ray, Jennie, and Miller turned off the bitumen soon after, onto the gravel shortcut toward Bell Chambers, where they were to set up their remote outback campsite for the next ten days, while they roped down old mine shafts to find gold.

Miller’s plan to find suitable recruits for his own nefarious intentions had finally paid dividends.

The Man in the Hole

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