The Emancipation of Ella
The Great Dame
On day four of the coronial inquest, a Prospector who had attended the campsite and mineshafts when Ray and Jennie were first reported missing was giving his witness statements to the court. Sally and I had met this Prospector (who shall remain nameless lest he hunt me down and beat me bloody for this next bit) in Sandstone back in 2015. He is a Goliath of a man, one of those hardened individuals from that previous era of humans who moved whole landscapes with their bare hands. His voice booms as he gives his opinion whether solicited or not, with the confidence of someone afraid of nothing and no one. Amongst other statements for another time, he had offered his opinion on the state of Ella, Ray and Jennie’s Great Dane, when she first found her way to the Sandstone Caravan Park at the end of March 2015.
“People keep reporting that the dog was emancipated . . .I saw that dog in the caravan park . . .it was thirsty but it wasn’t emancipated ,” boomed the Prospector.
Smirks, snorts, and the stifling of chuckles echoed through the family gallery at the back of court. Everyone pursed lips and held their laughter so to not enrage the man-mountain, even though he was addressing the court via video-link. I leaned across to Sally and whispered, “The Emancipation of Ella is a good title for a book!”
Please don’t hurt me, Mr Prospector. We know what you meant. Thank you!
Ray and Jennie adopted Ella through the Great Dane Lovers Association of WA in 2009, after the association had rescued her. Ella was three years old at the time. One of the lovely ladies from the GDLAWA, Trish, reached out to me back in mid-2016. She had spoken to Ray a few times in those past years after Ella’s adoption, as Ray and Jennie were “thinking of getting another” Great Dane. Trish wanted to let the family know how devastated the members were about Ray being found deceased and Jennie still missing. A lot of the members had also asked if Ella was okay, given how Ella was with them at the time, and had been the alarm bell raised when she wandered into the Sandstone Caravan Park a week after they were last seen.
I passed on the picture above from one of our recent routine maintenance trips out to Ray and Jennie’s hobby farm, where Jennie’s daughter also brought Ella for a visit to her old lodgings, along with their contact details—Jennie’s family now looking after the Great Dame, Ella.
Trish mentioned that she used to speak to Ray every year or so, describing him as “such a beautiful man with his incredible love for Ella”.
I of course never witnessed Ray and Jennie’s bond with Ella prior to 2015, so can only base my judgement on the anecdotes of others, and what memories and moments I’ve encountered since the event.
Ray’s youngest daughter, Melanie recalls when she, Ray, Jennie and Ella all went on their last camping and fishing trip together, in January 2013. She described their camp as “very well prepared, similar to the one they had in Sandstone”. Mel noted that Ella stayed by the camp the whole time unrestrained, nonchalant of any wildlife passing by, completely happy to lounge on her camp bed while they went fishing and greet them on return hours later. After all, Ella was an elderly Dame by then, and used to a rural, farm life.
When Ray and Jennie worked away on the mines, Ella would stay at a local kennel. Melanie 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, so Ella didn't have to spend an extra night at the kennels. Out of one hundred acres of options, Ella would happily choose to curl herself up inside her cubby on the farm, to wait for her family to get home. Ella would stay in her cubby for those hours, untethered, surrounded by livestock and wildlife, and never ran off.
I could go on… The family’s input into Ella’s character—further confirmed by many others, including the caravan park manager who looked after Ella until she was collected from Sandstone—show what a placid, good natured and well behaved dog Ella was. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, then the love that Ella shared with Ray and Jennie is best shown in this three-thousand-worded collage:
All good dog owners know this love. Once a dog has chosen you as their family, their pack, its trust and love for you infects your whole soul. And once that feeling gets under your skin, you know that you can never be without it, ever again. Like sunshine, oxygen, or a watermelon sugar high.
Ella was sighted several times over the week after Ray and Jennie were last seen, before finally trotting her way to the Sandstone Caravan Park in late March 2015. She was first spotted by another group of prospectors on the morning of the 22nd, not long after the last person to see Ray and Jennie alive had returned to Perth. Ella was sitting up on her camp bed, alert but not aggressive, guarding their campsite. Later that same day, Ella was spotted by a pastoralist out on the Payne’s Find to Sandstone Road, some four to five kilometres from camp. Ella was then sighted out on the same road again by one of the shire workers two days later, on the 24th.
Five days after Ray and Jennie were last seen, on the 27th, another group of prospectors passed by Ray and Jennie’s campsite and saw Ella on her guard—she had made her way back to camp, or perhaps had been back and forth between the road and camp, searching for her companions for that long week alone in the Outback.
The next day, on the 28th, Ella had somehow made her way to Sandstone, roughly thirty kilometres from the campsite, and was taken in by the caravan park manager who fed and watered the Great Dame.
Alarms were subsequently raised as to Ray and Jennie’s mysterious disappearance.
We have questioned whether the police believe Ray and Jennie’s murders were planned, for numerous reasons. The police have maintained their belief that it was not, based on the number of mistakes made. Lately we would counter this claim given that the perpetrator is still a free man…
One of the supposed mistakes made, or perhaps a better way of looking at it: occurrences in a prosecutor’s favour, is the fact that Ella was alive and well, and raised the alarm very soon after their initial disappearance. Why would someone leave a dog at the campsite, alive and able to do draw attention?
I’d only be guessing, but given the abundance of wild-dog baits in the area, not to mention all those mineshafts, I’d say that someone possibly assumed Ella would soon perish regardless, so why add a murdered dog to the mix. That way, no linking of evidence, and it would have been credible to assume no alarms would be raised for their disappearance for many weeks. In the shorter period, Ella would guard their camp and keep potential sticky-beaks off the scent.
Plan enacted, and was going well, until…
Ella arriving in town a week after the event would have been unfathomable. Yet, the Great Dame did so with ease.
The investigation very soon went on to paint an incredulous picture of Ella, based on the statements of that someone who shan’t be named. Short Grumpy bloke, bald head, malevolent frown, likes telling fairytale stories—you know the one. He maintains that Ella constantly chased kangaroos during their weekend at the Sandstone camp, resulting in Ray and Jennie repeatedly chasing after her, and their prospecting plans thus thwarted by this evil, manic creature. His further suggestion, after Ray was found, was that Ray must have tripped and fallen down the mineshaft on one of these chases, after that someone had left.
Cool story. Look out, we're working with a criminal genius here...
If you want to read the fairytale scenario, go to paragraph 82 of the Coroner’s Findings. I can’t see the point in giving any of it further airtime. Thankfully the scenario was succinctly dismissed by the Coroner at paragraph 84: "Ella was not tethered when she was returned to the campsite, nor at any other stage, which would appear puzzling if she had the tendency to bolt." Puzzling indeed.
Unfortunately, however, the investigation was forced to cover all bases, including this proposed fairytale scenario. Consequently a search and rescue expert was called in to review the LandSAR search, and offer advice. His report was on the premise of Ray and Jennie disbanding a quad bike three hundred metres from camp, Ray continuing on foot for another kilometre and a half, before losing footing on a steep, then falling feet-first down a narrow shaft opening, plummeting twelve metres past a veritable rabbit-warren of ridges, openings and ledges, hitting a conical mound of debris causing his body to slide to rest in the position later found... The expert review then suggests that Jennie would have become disoriented, and wandered away from the path back to camp and eventually succumbed to the elements in places unknown.
Wowsers.
That particular expert gave his witness statement on day five of the inquest. As necessary as it was—to cover all possible scenarios—you could hear the eyeballs rolling in the family gallery during the five hour monologue, such was the disdain. The result was that, yes, had that been the actual scenario, as unlikely as it was, then the search and rescue operation would have found Jennie.
Please don’t make me spell out the obvious…
Anyway, just to prolong this fairytale, that afternoon one of the many media personalities who were in court attendance ran this compelling account:
Kehlet prospectors' mystery disappearance may be down to their dog, expert says
Senior Sergeant Jim Whitehead, a search and rescue expert with Queensland Police, was asked to review the search operation undertaken by the WA authorities and provide a possible scenario for what happened.
On Friday, he testified that based on information he had been given and an examination of the scene, it was his opinion the Kehlets left their campsite hastily on their quad bike to look for their dog, which liked to chase animals.
He said at some stage he thought they had got off the quad bike, which was found about 300 metres away from the camp, and as Mr Kehlet was running up a rise leading to a mineshaft, he had tripped and fallen into it.
It of course caused much further speculation in the public by way of social media. Thankfully Ella was no longer around to see her good name dragged through the muck and filth.
Ella, the most placid and loving Great Dame you could ever hope to meet; Ella the lover of rural, farm life; Ella the campsite guard; Ella, who was constantly by Ray and Jennie’s side up until that time in 2015, passed away in April 2018 while being cared for by family members. She was twelve years old, which is a millennia in giant-dog-years, further indicating how large her heart must have been.
I’d like to finish this post off with a personal account of my own. As many know, Ray and I were not close for the years prior to his death, so I only encountered Ella a few short times afterward.
I recall one time sitting at the table out on their hobby farm, discussing necessary maintenance schedules or how we were going to get the lambs shorn, or whose turn it was to be accused of stealing a quad next, when suddenly the sunlight was temporarily blocked by a giant shape passing by. A great weight soon slumped itself onto my lap. I looked down to see Ella's giant head resting on my leg, and her gorgeous, sorrowful eyes staring back at me, requesting a pat.
My God she was beautiful, and what a pleasure it was to have those moments; despite all that was going on there and elsewhere, Ella the Great Dame took it upon herself to welcome us to her family's home.
Vale Ella. May she have finally found her much loved companions in the afterlife.
Ella 🧡🐾