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ABC Australia

What Became of Jack? — the latest season of Unravel, the ABC's award-winning investigative true crime podcast series.

27-year-old Queenslander Jack McLennan had been relaxing, drinking beers at a picnic spot, when his mate said he looked away, and when he looked back, Jack had vanished. Jack was fit and healthy, and even though he'd just been through a break-up, he seemed positive. But now, Jack was missing, and strange clues began to surface, hinting at his last movements. With online theories about the case spreading like wildfire, ABC journalist Rob Burgin sets out to investigate. Has there been a crime or not? He traces the fragments of that night through a web of small Queensland towns, where everyone knows everyone, everyone knows something, but no one can agree on what became of Jack.

Previous series of Unravel cover various investigations into crimes and crime-related topics, including solved and unsolved murder cases, missing persons, forensic analysis, gangland crimes, love scammers, con-artists, drugs, terrorism, Neo-Nazis, and miscarriages of justice — all investigated by some of Australia's best reporters and people who know the story best.

In Season 7, Blood on the Tracks, award-winning Muruwari and Gomeroi journalist Allan Clarke spends five years investigating the unusual circumstances surrounding the death of 17-year-old Gomeroi teenager, Mark Haines. In 1988, just outside of Tamworth in country New South Wales, a freight train hits Mark's body lying across the tracks. When the rail worker stops the train and gets out, the scene doesn't add up. The tracks divide Tamworth in two. An Aboriginal community on one side, a largely white population on the other. Some will say it was a suicide and others a murder. Despite the strange evidence found at the scene of his death, the family feel like they're being ignored by the police. An inquiry finds no answers, and the mystery is left to fester, causing division and suspicion in the town. Allan's reporting helps to spark a resurgence of interest in the case that sees the file reopened, a review launched, a reward announced. As Allan gets closer to the truth, the story ends with a revelation no one was expecting, and the thirty-year-old mystery finally begins to unravel. Blood on the Tracks won a Walkley award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs. This series was re-published with a bonus episode due to updates and advances in relation to the case.

In Season 6, Mr Big, journalist Alicia Bridges investigates a disturbing recording of a man admitting to a murder. She finds herself in a world of lies, gangland and subterfuge, where very few things are as they seem. Her reporting leads her deep inside an international controversy, to a world of secrets that powerful institutions don’t want revealed. 

In Season 5, Firebomb, Crispian Chan investigates what really happened after his family’s restaurant went up in flames in 1988. He was just a kid when Chinese restaurants were being firebombed in the dead of night and a campaign of terror was underway in Perth. Thirty-five years on, most of us have never heard about it, even though it’s one of the few sustained and coordinated terrorism campaigns in Australia’s history. Crispian teams up with ABC reporter Alex Mann, and together they traverse the country to find answers and explore the darker forces that still lurk in our suburbs today. Firebomb won the ‘Best True Crime Podcast Award’ at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2024. 

In Season 4, Snowball, Ollie Wards investigates how his brother’s whirlwind romance with a charismatic Californian woman ultimately cost his family more than a million dollars. When Greg Wards met Lezlie Manukian, a beautiful woman whose world is full of glamour, he is immediately drawn to her. They fall in love, get married and start planning the rest of their lives together - the only catch is Lezlie is a con artist. To find out who his brother’s wife really is, Ollie must track down Lezlie herself, and it soon becomes clear that his family’s story is just one piece of a bigger jigsaw. Snowball won Best True Crime at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2020, was one of Apple Podcasts' Best Listens of 2019, and made the American Bello Collective’s top 100 list that year. 

In Season 3, Last Seen Katoomba, reporter Gina McKeon digs deep into the suspicious unsolved disappearance of young mum, Belinda Peisley, who was last seen in the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba, west of Sydney, in September 1998. Belinda’s life descends into chaos after her 18th birthday when she receives a large inheritance and buys her own place in town. It’s a move her family thinks will set her up for life but, instead, the house becomes a magnet for a world of drugs and a crowd of hangers-on who visit day and night. 

Gina pieces together the stories and evidence around the six main persons of interest named in the inquest into Belinda’s disappearance and suspected death, and what emerges is a picture of a town and a case shrouded in secrecy. 

In Season 2, Barrenjoey Road, reporter Ruby Jones tries to solve the mystery of what happened to 18-year-old Trudie Adams after she disappeared while hitchhiking home on Sydney’s northern beaches in 1978. Ruby exposes the dark underbelly of the seemingly beautiful and serene “Insular Peninsula,” uncovering a world where surfers run drugs home from Bali, gangs of men prowl the beaches and predators have unchecked power. Ruby will question why the case was never solved and her investigation will lead her to a criminal monster with links to organised crime and police corruption at the highest level. 

In Season 1, Blood on the Tracks, award-winning Muruwari and Gomeroi journalist Allan Clarke spends five years investigating the unusual circumstances surrounding the death of 17-year-old Gomeroi teenager, Mark Haines. In 1988, just outside of Tamworth in country New South Wales, a freight train hits Mark’s body lying across the tracks. When the rail worker stops the train and gets out, the scene doesn’t add up. The tracks divide Tamworth in two. An Aboriginal community on one side, a largely white population on the other. Some will say it was a suicide and others a murder. Despite the strange evidence found at the scene of his death, the family feel like they're being ignored by police. An inquiry finds no answers and the mystery is left to fester, causing division and suspicion in the town. Allan’s reporting helps to spark a resurgence of interest in the case that sees the file reopened, a review launched, a reward announced. As Allan gets closer to the truth, the story ends with a revelation no one was expecting, and the thirty-year-old mystery finally begins to unravel. Blood on the Tracks won a Walkley award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs.

Unravel

After almost forty years, two inquests and because of one family that never gave up, the Coroner has finally delivered her findings into the death of Gomeroi teenager Mark Anthony Haines. Journalist Allan Clarke has spent close to a decade investigating Mark's death. His Walkley Award-winning coverage for the ABC reignited public attention on the case and helped drive it to this final inquest. Allan reflects on the findings and what it means to reach the end of a story he's carried for so long.

Blood on the Tracks | BONUS The Inquest Findings

Journalist Rob Burgin breaks down his approach to investigating What Became of Jack? with Stephen Stockwell, host of the ABC's true crime podcast, "The Case Of."

Stocky asks Rob about the challenges he had reporting the story, what he thinks of the evidence, and what's next for the people at its centre.

08 What Became of Jack? | BONUS Behind the scenes

A new theory emerges from tip-offs coming in to ABC journalist Rob Burgin. Rob investigates two cars spotted at Ficks Crossing the night Jack McLennan disappeared, hoping it might lead him to an understanding of what became of Jack.

07 What Became of Jack? | Two cars

The last known person to see Jack alive finally breaks his silence. Chris Duke speaks in detail for the first time, laying out his version of what happened the night Jack McLennan vanished and revealing new details about Jack's last known moments.

06 What Became of Jack? | Duke Speaks

Jack’s mum gets a shocking tip-off from a scared community member. With the rumour mill in overdrive, ABC journalist Rob Burgin tries to decipher what’s true and what’s not about the disappearance of Jack McLennan.

05 What Became of Jack? | Whispers

One of the last places Jack was seen was a house in Wondai. Rob goes there, despite being told the people inside that night have links to the region's darker side, to investigate why Jack visited that night and what happened after he left.

04 What Became of Jack? | The Wondai house

Rob retraces Jack's final hours via CCTV footage and meeting people who saw him in his last days. He also learns about another item found in Jack's wallet that reveals a different side to what went on that night. And finally, ABC journalist Rob Burgin gets a call through to the last known person to see Jack alive, and he agrees to speak publicly for the first time.

03 What Became of Jack? | The dark side

The day he vanished, Jack moved his stuff out of Carlee's place. They'd just broken up. Carlee hasn't spoken publicly about what led up to that day or why she called police twice in the days before Jack disappeared — until now. She thinks Jack's disappearance is suspicious, but tells ABC journalist Rob Burgin how speculation, rumours and aggression have flooded the vacuum of information around what happened to Jack.

02 What Became of Jack? | The breakup

When Jack's mate turns around, he's just… gone. Vanished. His mate says that's how fit 27-year-old Jack McLennan disappeared from a bush picnic spot 3 hours from Brisbane. But when searchers discover a trail of baffling clues, suspicions begin to deepen among friends and family. 

They start questioning what this is — it doesn't seem like the average missing person's case to them. Could it be murder? Is it someone who's just gone missing? ABC journalist Rob Burgin picks up the case, determined to find out what became of Jack.

01 What Became of Jack? | Vanished

When a fit young man disappears from a picnic spot, leaving a trail of strange clues behind him, a community begins to suspect the worst. The belongings he leaves behind are discarded in a way that seems nonsensical, and to some, even sinister. Is he missing, has he left town or has there been a crime? Concern turns to suspicion and online speculation as weeks turn into months, with no sign of Jack. Now, ABC journalist Rob Burgin investigates what became of Jack, tracing the fragments of that night through a web of small Queensland towns, where everyone knows everyone, everyone knows something, but no one can agree on what became of Jack. 

Coming soon, What Became of Jack?: the latest season of the ABC's award-winning true crime podcast, Unravel. Follow or favourite to be notified when the first episode releases.

Credits

 • Host and reporter: Rob Burgin
 • Producer and fact checker: Jake Morcom
 • Supervising producers: Alex Mann and Yasmin Parry
 • Theme composition and additional music: Martin Peralta and Ashley Cadell
 • Sound design and additional music: Emrys Cronin
 • Executive producers: Tim Roxburgh and Eric George
 • Head of Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn

Blood on the Tracks | BONUS The Inquest Findings

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