Desmond Francis CARR

Des and his dog

Photos taken by Des of the area he was later to disappear from

Age: 38 Years when missing Height: 183 cm Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown

Desmond CARR was last seen at approximately 3pm on the 2nd of August, 1979, standing by a road roller that he had been driving for the Main Roads Department on road construction at Thangoo, 90kms south of Broome, WA. When the foreman returned to the roller at 4pm, no trace of CARR could be found.

Despite extensive inquiries by Police and family and comprehensive media coverage, there has been no information regarding his whereabouts since then.

Concern is held for his welfare.


Last seen wearing: Black shorts, red t-shirt, brown boots

If anyone has seen Desmond Francis CARR , or has information regarding this persons whereabouts, please contact 1800 333 000

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-disappearance-of-des/id1473761609 - PODCAST

UFO sightings on outback highway as man disappears

A road worker is seemingly plucked off his steam roller in an isolated spot known for strange lights in the sky. The engine is still running. There are no tracks in the red dust. Forty years to the day, can this mystery finally be solved?

Forty years ago, on a red dust road which would become Australia’s longest highway, a man went to work with his road gang and their steam roller and vanished.

Desmond Carr had no known enemies or money troubles, was not into drugs and had a loving family he was close to, but from 3pm August 2, 1979 Des was never seen again, his disappearance gnawing at his family that has never given up hope someone will come forward with information.

Des disappeared leaving behind his road steam roller engine still running, in the same position he was seen working just one hour earlier by a crew moving further up the line on the then deserted stretch of road.

“There were no tracks around … his manager said it’s like something just plucked him off, not stairs, someone’s just come down and pulled him up,” his sister 75-year-old Shirley Carr recalls.

There were several reports at the time of UFOs and strange lights in the sky about where the men were working, police would later find blood stains on his pillow back at his camp, there was a theory he may have become disorientated in the searing outback temperatures and he got lost in the desert.

Then there was the hand-drawn map that emerged five years ago, 35 years after Des disappeared and the discovery of a sock.

It all sounds incredible but what is clear is his family has now turned to 21st Century tools, including social media and a new true crime podcast being released today that they hope will help jolt memories.

Next week is National Missing Persons Week, created to find signs of the 2500 long-term missing people in this country, and police are reviewing Des’ cold case file for clues that may have been missed over the years.

“Any story always has a beginning, a middle and an end … this story unfortunately cannot end until we have some answers,” a Carr family spokesman said yesterday.

“Des is still on the Australian Missing person register, his disappearance was investigated by the police, Department of Main Roads and even a few private detectives that my pop and grandma hired and nothing ever found. My family appeared in newspapers and TV shows to talk about Des and his disappearance but to no avail. … there are over 2500 long term missing persons in Australia, multiply that number by parents, siblings, friends, workmates who wake up every morning without an answer.”

Des grew up in York in Western Australia, loved his parents Frank and Dolly, his three sisters and his football. His father worked for the Main Roads Department and Des would follow his dad into that career path.

In 1979 he was based at an outpost called Thangoo, 80kms south of Broome working on sealing what would become the Great Northern Highway, at 3200km Australia’s longest highway, a lifeblood road from Perth to Wyndham.

He was working on a roller to flatten a 50km stretch of road before another crew would come in behind him to lay down asphalt. Crews would be bussed out along the line then at the end of the shift collected to camp back at Thangoo station.

“So this particular day they dropped Des off at the certain place that he had to go to,” Shirley, who was 35 at the time, recalled. “He had his water, he had is food, he had these boots and that on and they dropped him off, went down further and dropped other people off. You know, they do that … I think it’s one or two people but Des was the only one by himself. When they came to pick Des up that afternoon he was nowhere to be found. Just like someone plucked him up, you know? The steamroller was still running on the side of the road that he’d been on. That was … the actual motor was still going. There were no tracks, nothing, no tracks at all.”

According to current detective in charge of missing persons in WA, Detective Sergeant Jude Seivwright, referring to the Carr file, his day was normal. He was back at camp for lunch and chatted to colleagues and at 2pm told one colleague he would see him in two hours. He was seen by colleagues on his steam roller at 3pm but by the time the workers’ bus came back to collect him at 4pm he was gone.

Sgt Seivwright said the file revealed that two months earlier in June, Des was at a pub in Derby when there was a fight and he got hit on the head, possibly with a chair, bad enough to see him present at hospital. He was treated for a cut and just complained of a headache. A month later and he still had headaches and returned to hospital. An X-ray showed nothing but he had contracted an infection which gave him diarrhoea. The day before he vanished he didn’t go to work because he was sick so when he couldn’t be found, workers initially presumed he was off the track to relieve himself.

The officer said there was a search made immediately that day and the following day a more extensive search was done with 32 people. The following day, 57 searchers were deployed and extended several kilometres into the bush. Critically there were not tracks. An air search was made on August 6 but no trace found. Several theories emerged. The bump on the head and headaches had affected his thinking and he was disorientated or he became lost after looking to relieve himself in the outback bush and that he had missed his workers’ bus so had hitched back to Derby or Broome and would return to work when he was better or he was suffering some form of amnesia.

“If it is a simple memory loss condition, then there is a possibility that he could head for home at any time,” Des’ father Frank told media at the time as he theorised amnesia and that a passing motorist may have picked him up. “A knock on the head or some excitement might be enough to trigger his memory and then my boy will come home.”

As the days turned into weeks then months the theories were discounted. Blood traces were found on his camp pillow but that may have been left over from the fight night in June. Frank believed his son would come home all the way up until his death.

The UFO theory emerged after Des told his sister Gwen he had seen strange lights in the desert sky. He was adamant it was not a car but a great light which would follow him. Similar UFO and strange light sightings were reported at the time in that area; some were thought perhaps to have come from the falling NASA Skylab.

In 2014 a truck driver came forward and revealed he believed he saw Des in 1979 along the highway.

“He didn’t stop at the time, he drove past with his truck and then approximately 10 years later, while he was going past this same particular spot, so back in 1989, he stopped and he’s walked around the area and he’s found an old black and white sock,” Sgt Seivwright said.

“Then he, for some reason, did not report to the police at the time and then reported it in 2014, this information and he advised that it was due to his memory loss. And so he presented this map, he drew a map of the area and dropped it off to the police.”

The map matched the area where Des went missing but the finding has not led to anything and the Carr family continue to hold out hope, buoyed that even after so many years some clues can still emerge.

Podcast creator’s long road to the truth about Des Carr’s 1979 disappearance

He’s a radio boss who creates podcasts for a living, but there was one story Jay Walkerden struggled to tell until his twin girls offered their take on the 40-year mystery that haunts his family.

He was their age when, 40 years ago this month, his beloved uncle Des Carr went to work and never came home.

The Brisbane-based NOVA Entertainment radio executive remembered as a boy the disappearance talk, in hushed tones, usually through a veil of tears, in a pattern that over the years would dissipate but continue to eat away at his family.

There was nothing sinister as such about the disappearance on August 2, 1979 but it was a genuine mystery, surrounded by wild theories of UFO’s and strange lights, reports of amnesia, and foul play that normal salt of the earth families didn’t usually have to deal with, to have a missing person in their ranks and all the unanswered questions that brings.

So Walkerden’s question for his daughters now was part curiosity, part discovery to jolt his own memory of being their age and to remember what he thought back then, and how he reacted.

But unconsciously it was also perhaps a desire for validation, nay justification, for what he was about to broadcast.

“I would say, ‘Look out for him’, maybe put posters up telling (people) what he looks like, and I would tell all the people, text all the people I know, and send them a picture of what he looks like, to look out for him,” Holly said in a rush when asked by her father what she would do if she had lost a loved one.

And there it was.

Permission of a kind for Walkerden to open old family wounds, use his radio expertise as NOVA Entertainment’s national head of podcasting and Brisbane programming director, to use the tools not available back in 1979 to mount a fresh search for Des, to finish his podcast recording he started more than 12 months ago.

And not open fresh wounds but treat old ones not yet healed.

This week his podcast “The Disappearance of Des” leapt into the chart’s top six true crime listens, threw up some potential new leads and prompted a coroner to finally hold an inquest. Walkerden narrates the story but does not reveal his personal attachment until episode four, as if such a move would be an intrusion to the narrative, become too personal. His revelation though casts a new shade over the monologue — this is not just another cold case, but with the big reveal it’s a personal journey, the tone and emotion changes. References to Des Carr become “Uncle Des”, Walkerden tells of his mother’s mild dementia and trauma over the vanishing, the effect on those around him and his daughter’s sweet thoughts that did mirror his own 40 years ago.

The irony of a podcasting boss struggling with producing his own family story is not lost now on Walkerden.

This is not just another gripping five-part podcast on another faceless missing person — for the Carr family it is new hope and a fresh 21st-Century search for Des.

THE DISAPPEARANCE

Desmond Francis Carr was 38 years old and from all accounts an average knock about sort of bloke. He loved a beer, loved his footy and loved his family and lived for all three, in no particular order.

Des followed in his father Frank’s footsteps working for the Department of Main Roads in Western Australia.

It was a job he enjoyed less for the manual labour and more for the isolation and solitude the shifts afforded him.

In the year of 1979 he was based at the small Aboriginal outpost of Thangoo, 1600kms north of Perth, on the red earth trail that would become Australia’s longest stretch of bitumen — the 3200km Great Northern Highway.

“Des was a bit of a loner and he wasn’t afraid of being by himself which probably led him to working as a main road’s team where the hours were long but the money was good,” Walkerden said of his Uncle Des.

On the morning of August 2, 1979 Des woke as normal in his settlement camp, collected his kit, including water, and was driven by bus with his work mates to their designated area along the mapped out highway.

They would sometimes work in gangs or pairs or even solo, Des preferred the latter and on this day was tasked with the steam roller to flatten a 50km strip of earth for another crew to later come and pour over.

At 3pm the bus passed him and the driver waved as it moved further up the line to collect the men and work back toward Des and Thangoo.

An hour later at 4pm the bus returned; the steam roller engine was still grinding away but Des was not atop it. He was nowhere to be seen. His mates initially believed he may have clocked off early and decided to walk back to camp, but that was unlikely in 35C-plus heat.

Des Carr disappearance: Coroner to seek answers 40 years on

That night police were called for a missing person’s case.

Forty years later, members of his family are still wondering what happened.

“We weren’t necessarily close, but I remember him well,” Walkerden said of his uncle.

“To me, as a 10-year-old, he was a tall, lanky man, he was pretty quiet and not the sort of uncle you’d play football with in the backyard, but he was my uncle and more importantly my mum’s brother,” he said.

“I still have the image of him sitting on the front step of my grandma and grand-pop’s house in Leederville in Western Australia at Christmas in his orange top and black shorts as we all gathered for one of my grandma’s famous Sunday roasts with soggy vegetables and trifle for dessert.

“It’s the same photo you will see in the (podcast) cover art, that photo has been etched in my family’s mind for the last 40 years and pinned to missing persons board all over Australia.”

The head of podcasting said he had produced many podcasts over the past year, including the Police Tape series for True Crime Australia, but all the while he sat on the story closest to him. Why?

“I am not an investigative reporter,” he said. “I don’t have any journalistic background but I do have memories, memories of my mum Shirley crying a lot when I was young. She wouldn’t do it much around my brothers and me but she would be sad, the sort of deep sadness that may have faded over time, but is still there when we talk about Uncle Des.”

The success of some of his true crime episodes spurred him into action, he spoke to his mum and the memories came back, then he spoke to his own daughters and the validation was there. He now had the knowledge and power to take the search where his family couldn’t back in the 1980s, to go to greater depth than handing out flyers.

In the moving podcast, a now-frail 75-year-old Shirley recalls the mystery about her brother’s disappearance that her father, Frank, particularly refused to accept. Until his dying day, he would pronounce: “My boy will come home.”

The problem was there were no clues, literally not a boot print to go off. Despite the desert dirt, dozen of police and volunteers could not find a single footprint as they searched a radius on foot and by air of 100km.

“There were no tracks around … his manager said it’s like something just plucked him off, not stairs, someone’s just come down and pulled him up,” Shirley recalled.

There had been reports of UFOs in the outback sky about that time, no doubt spurred on by the fascination with NASA’s Skylab which fell to Earth in WA a month earlier, in July 1979.

Des himself told his sister he had seen lights in the sky that seemed to follow the road crew at night.

Walkerden has been buoyed by his family’s support, including cousins and uncle and aunties still living in WA, but said the podcast was unlikely to solve the mystery.

Through his research he did discover that in 2014 a truck driver came forward and belatedly revealed how he saw a man on that night walking along the unfinished road and drew a map for police where he spotted him, but more importantly would later find a sock there by the side of the road.

“Well for the last 30 years since I was a full grown adult, I’ve always wanted to be able to do something to help, but do I think this podcast will find Des?” Walkerden said. “No I don’t.

“I think it can bring awareness to Des being missing and the other 2500 other long-term missing persons … multiply that number by parents, siblings, friends, workmates who wake up every morning without an answer.”

Des Carr cold case reopens as coroner investigates rodeo and pub brawl sightings

The family of a man who went missing while working in the Kimberley more than 40 years ago say they hope an inquest into his disappearance will give them closure.

Desmond Carr was working for the Main Roads Department on sealing part of the Great Northern Highway, just south of Broome, when he went missing on August 2, 1979.

Mr Carr was dropped off on the 10-kilometre stretch of road at about 8.30am, and his co-workers observed him working when they drove past him again at 3:00pm.

When they arrived to pick Mr Carr up an hour later, his steamroller had been left on and his lunch was still packed – but there was no trace of the 38-year-old.

Despite extensive searches by WA Police and locals, Mr Carr was never found.

The disappearance of Des

Just over 40 years later, Mr Carr's nephew Jay Walkerden began a podcast in order to unpick what happened to his uncle.

'The Disappearance of Des' unearthed the WA Police missing person's file, which contained details of a head injury Mr Carr sustained during a fight at a Derby pub, and two alleged sightings following his disappearance.

The podcast heard from WA Police Missing Persons officer-in-charge Jude Seivwright, who said a man had come forward in 2014 claiming to have seen Mr Carr walking on the side of the road around the time he went missing.

However, police said it would be difficult to put any stock in the sighting due to the time that had passed and the man's long-term memory issues.

Another man, Peter, called into the podcast and said he believed he had seen Mr Carr intoxicated at the Broome Rodeo about a week after he went missing.

Coroner to hold inquest

The family was notified last week the WA State Coroner had finally set a date for a half-day hearing into Mr Carr's disappearance.

Due to start in August, Mr Walkerden said the family were hoping it would provide some sort of closure.

"I don't think any of the family thinks that we will get the answer [from the inquest]," he said.

"I would imagine [in the form of] an open finding or something of that nature."

Mr Walkerden said it was a long time coming for the family who had mourned Mr Carr for 42 years – particularly for his mother, who is Mr Carr's younger sister.

"Des was Mum's big brother so they were really close," he said.

"Their relationship was really, really strong and obviously it was devastating for the whole family including my grandma and grandpop at the time, but my mum was devastated that her big brother was gone.

"The cruelty around this is Mum has had dementia for the last three years so although we will finally get some answers in August … her short-term memory isn't very good.

"She'll get an answer about what happened to her brother but most likely soon after she gets that answer she'll have forgotten that."

Search for answers continues

The family have begun fresh call-outs on social media for information, imploring those who may have been around Broome and its surrounding stations to come forward with information.

"I think we still believe that there would be someone out there that may have seen Des at the rodeo a week later, or who may have information or heard something over a family dinner over the last 40 years," Mr Walkerden said.

"Anything that anyone knows about Des's disappearance that could help shed a light on the inquest coming up would be much appreciated."

The inquest will be held in Perth on August 4.

Desmond Carr inquest unable to resolve missing road worker mystery as family suspects foul play

WA's deputy coroner says she believes a man who was last seen in 1979 in WA's Kimberley region is dead but does not know what happened to him, with his family suspecting "something sinister" took place.

Desmond Francis Carr was 32 when he was reported missing on August 3, 1979.

The Coroner's Court was told Mr Carr was employed by the Main Roads Department near Thangoo Station, 90 kilometres south of Broome.

Counsel assisting, Senior Constable Craig Robertson, said Mr Carr was last seen alive in his road roller at 3:00pm on August 2, about 9km south of Thangoo Station.

A colleague who had gone to collect Mr Carr at 4:00pm found the engine of the road roller still running but no trace of him.

A brief search was conducted and Mr Carr was reported missing the next day.

A larger land search involving dozens of people extended several kilometres into the bush, but no sign of, or tracks from Mr Carr were located. There was also an air search.

His personal belongings, including his money and car, were at his camp accommodation.

The court also heard of an account that Mr Carr may have blacked out and died after going into bushland to relieve himself.

Because the roller was moved after he was last seen, it was believed the search may have been carried out in the wrong place.

Bushfire hit same area a week later

The court heard that if a search was conducted today, there would be a different process with many more personnel involved.

Thangoo Station owner Janice Bell, who was 19 in 1979, said she remembered a fire in the area about a week after Mr Carr was reported missing.

Via phone link to the court, Ms Bell said there was no lighting or thunderstorm activity.

She said the search had been called off by the time the fire appeared.

Ms Bell described the environment as "really hard country", but she also said she had been told Mr Carr had "hitchhiked to Derby".

Headaches, irrational behaviour reported

The court was told Mr Carr had not attended work on August 1 due to a headache and had not eaten for several days, with colleagues saying his behaviour had "become irrational".

Police inquiries determined that in June 1979, Mr Carr had been treated at Broome Hospital for headaches from an injury he had received in a fight.

He attended Derby Hospital the following month suffering from headaches, and had a lesion on his scalp.

The court was told Mr Carr had previously received hospital treatment for alcohol-related matters in Perth and Derby.

The court was also told that Mr Carr's niece had stated he had suffered concussions in car accidents.

She had recalled that in January 1976, Mr Carr collapsed at the wheel of a vehicle and suffered blackouts before being diagnosed as suffering from epilepsy.

The court was told Mr Carr's late father Frank had dedicated much of his life to trying to locate his son, and was mainly responsible for media campaigns that generated reports of possible sightings.

These reports were investigated but the people sighted were identified and were not Mr Carr.

There was a more recent account from a witness who believed he saw Mr Carr at a rodeo in Broome on August 11, 1979, saying he was with European backpackers and was "very drunk" and "staggering".

Family also believes man deceased

The court heard Mr Carr's family and WA Police also believed he was deceased.

Michelle Folland, Mr Carr's niece, told the court he was well known in the region and had a strong work ethic, and said the family did not believe he had disappeared on purpose.

Ms Folland said the family was thankful for "everything that had happened up until now".

Deputy Coroner Sarah Linton reflected on the fact that Mr Carr's disappearance had received publicity over many years.

She said she was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that he had died on or about the day he was last seen alive.

But she told the court while she would write up the findings, she had little to work on regarding the cause or manner of death.

'More out there to be told'

Outside court, Michelle Folland called on anyone who knew anything to contact police.

"We think there's still more out there to be told," she said.

Ms Folland said Missing Persons Week was a yearly reminder of Mr Carr.

She said the loss had had a major impact on the family.

"It definitely put his parents in an early grave," she said,

"We'll have to wait and see what comes out in the future."