When three adults and a child disappear without a trace from the isolated bush community of Nannup in 2007, it sparks disturbing theories about what might have happened. What was going on in the little blue house, and could understanding that hold the key to the disappearance?
Host Dominique Bayens starts unpicking the rumours of cults, hidden identities and bizarre behaviour.
If you can add to this story, or have information you think might be important please get in touch by emailing expanse.abc@proton.me.
In this episode we cover topics like:
Chantelle McDougall and her daughter 5 year old Leela vanished from Nannup, Western Australia in 2007, while entwined in the "Truth Fellowship" cult.
Who are the missing people who disappeared into this cult?
The baffling mystery of a cult Nannup family of four who disappeared in 2007. What happened to them?
Four people who were part of an online doomsday cult disappeared from a small Australian town.
The 2007 disappearances of the "Truth Fellowship" Cult: Simon Kadwill, 45, Chantelle McDougall, 27, Leela McDougall, 5, and Tony Popic, 40
Missing people who have disappeared into cults?
Baffling mystery of a cult Nannup family of four who disappeared in 2007. What happened to them?
How can four people just vanish? Odd tales emerge in Nannup case
Credits
Dominique Bayens VO: A heads up, if you've got kids around, this season deals with some heavy stuff. Take care while listening.
Cath McDougall: My stomach was churning. I was really worried.
Dominique Bayens VO: It's May 2007 and Cath McDougall is about to put her suitcase into her small white rental car.
Cath McDougall: I didn't know what I could ask to try and find out without upsetting things too much.
Dominique Bayens VO: Her daughter Chantelle, and 5-year-old granddaughter Leela, have turned up to say goodbye.
Cath McDougall: I sensed she was sort of concerned or worried about something.
Dominique Bayens VO: Cath's made a trip across the country to visit them. Flying into Perth and driving the three hours south through winding roads lined with farmland and jarrah forests to a sleepy town called Nannup.
It's a quaint old timber town populated by old school hippies, timber workers and farmers.
Around May, after a few decent rains, everything's starting to green up and it kind of looks like hobbit country.
Something feels off.
Cath McDougall: I'd said goodnight to her the night before at the farmhouse and drove back into town and I didn't think that they would come in.
Dominique Bayens VO: Cath's been staying in town at the Nannup Caravan Park.
She's not welcome to stay at the house.
Cath McDougall: Simon never wanted anybody around the house.
Dominique Bayens VO: Chantelle, Leela and a man called Simon Kadwill have lived in this isolated little corner of Australia for a few years now.
It's the sort of place that attracts people with alternative lifestyles and beliefs.
Archival Leela: I'll go in the middle. I'll go in the middle.
Archival Simon: Beat them all
Archival Chantelle: No cheating, you gotta hop out
Dominique Bayens VO: Despite living on the other side of the country, Cath wants to be in her granddaughter Leela's life. So, whenever they can pull together the money she flies over to visit.
She also wants Chantelle to know that if she ever needs to run, Cath will be there for her.
Archival Leela: I hope I can see you next time, seeya.
Cath McDougall: And I said, 'Oh, I didn't think I'd see you again'.
And she said, 'Oh, no, we thought we'd come and say goodbye.'.
I just knew something wasn't right.
Dominique Bayens VO: But Cath is too frightened to ask Chantelle what's going on.
Cath McDougall: I just wished I'd asked a lot more questions no matter what.
I feel sick when I think about it because I could have perhaps found out more or maybe not, but I let that opportunity go.
Dominique Bayens VO: Cath hugs Chantelle and kisses Leela and gets into the car.
Cath McDougall: By the time I left I was feeling ill and I drove over the little bridge and I just burst into tears.
Because I could just feel there was something wrong, I just couldn't put my finger on it.
Dominique Bayens VO: Call it mothers' instinct, but as Cath drove out of the main street of Nannup and onto the highway, she was convinced something was seriously wrong.
Cath's instincts were right.
Cath McDougall: I was always very conscious of what I'd say, what I'd ask or what I did, because I didn't want to lose her.
But I did in the end.
Dominique Bayens VO: That visit would be the last time Cath would see her daughter or granddaughter.
Archival News Reporter: One of Australia's most baffling missing persons cases remains unsolved.
Archival News Reporter: 30-year-old Chantelle McDougall, and her 6-year-old daughter Leela were reported missing, along with her partner Simon Kadwill and his friend.
Archival News Reporter: The family lived a bizarre alternative lifestyle.
Archival News Reporter: Mr Kadwill had been involved with a cult, adding to the puzzle of their disappearance.
Archival News Reporter: He had told someone online that he was planning a family suicide pact.
Dominique Bayens VO: In July 2007, just over a month after Cath's visit, Simon Kadwill, Chantelle and Leela McDougall, along with their friend Tony Popic would simply vanish.
They left behind the scatterings of a life, and a note pinned to the door of their little blue farmhouse.
It was short. Written in a tight, curling handwriting.
It said the four had packed up suddenly and moved to Brazil.
To escape sleeplessness caused by EMF — electromagnetic fields.
But there's no trace they ever left the country.
They were never conclusively seen again.
It's been almost 20 years since the Nannup Four disappeared.
It is a complicated tangled web. A mysterious cult leader, strange behaviour, secrets and hidden identities.
And those left behind to go over and over minute details in their head, asking themselves if they could have done something differently.
The more people I speak to this same thing keeps coming up — everyone trying to reconcile themselves to what they did do. The choices they did make. The ones they didn't.
Because when something like this happens, and you're left staring back, how do you live with the choices you've made, with the best of intentions, but which led you here?
I reckon every journo has that one story that they can't shake. That they find themselves thinking about at 3 in the morning.
This one's mine.
I'm Dominique Bayens, and this is Expanse: The Nannup Four.
Episode One, The people in the Blue House.
I live and work as a reporter about an hour from Nannup.
And 18 years after Cath drove over that bridge I roll across it, headed the other direction, towards Nannup.
I can't get these four people out of my head. Especially Leela. Five years old when she went missing.
Archival Leela (singing): So you got to help me, baby. Yeah.
I've spent months trying to convince people to talk to me.
Every day has felt like walking on egg shells because, almost two decades on, what happened is still raw.
So why am I picking at the scab? Because the families of those four are still desperate for any new information.
There are a few theories about what might have happened. Maybe they just dropped off grid.
Or really went to Brazil.
Or it was murder.
Or maybe it was a cult-inspired suicide pact between the three adults that Leela was just pulled into.
Archival Leela: Daddy, stop doing that face.
This is one of the more disturbing possibilities of what might have happened. Trying to imagine how anyone could be so far down the rabbit hole that their child could be pulled along in the wake.
So I've been trying to find someone who can give me a window into what Chantelle was like as a Mum.
Could she have been capable of killing herself and taking her daughter with her, like all those news reports suggest?
Finally, I find someone.
Dianne Abbott: My name's Dianne. I lived in Busselton for 20 years
Dominique Bayens VO: Dianne Abbott gives off very practical, no-nonsense, mother in charge vibes. She is, in her own words, an 'organiser'.
In 2007 she and her husband were homeschooling three young children and running a caravan park on a picturesque stretch of land locals call "The Holy Mile" in Busselton — a coastal town 40 minutes from Nannup.
A lot of kids who grew up in WA, myself included, will have a story of staying at the 'Holy Mile' for a school camp.
Dianne Abbott: It was right on the beach, our house was right at the front of the campsite, near the driveway.
Dominique Bayens VO: As I'm speaking to Dianne, there are lots of small details she doesn't remember. But she's really clear on the big things.
As 'the organiser' Dianne ran a homeschooling group for a few families. They'd join forces for the kids to play, and the parents to connect.
Dianne Abbott: Homeschooling wasn't a big thing.
It was hard to find other people who were homeschooling to get together with.
Dominique Bayens VO: So when a young mother called Chantelle wanted to join the fortnightly meets the door was open and the kettle was on.
Dianne Abbott: She was very, very smiley, but quite soft, softly spoken, shy? She was obviously younger than a lot of the other mums.
Dominique Bayens VO: Photos of Chantelle show an open-faced woman, with a slightly buck-toothed, friendly smile, brown hair with a fringe.
I can almost sense that softness that Dianne talks about coming out of the shyly smiling face on my screen.
This young mum, Chantelle, who joined homeschool club might have been shy, but her 5-year-old daughter Leela was a pocket rocket of energy.
Dianne Abbott: Every time we pulled up somewhere where Leela was, as they got out of the car, she would run up to them and tag them and then say, 'You're it!' and then run away.
Because like everything was, you know, active and fast.
But it would be very intense and she engaged with a hundred per cent of herself.
Dominique Bayens VO: It's a small thing, and yet I can imagine exactly the kind of kid Leela was.
Dianne Abbott: Chantelle listened to Leela, and the way they talked respectfully.
They just loved each other to bits.
Dominique Bayens VO: By and large, Dianne's time with Chantelle and Leela was light and fun and mundanely normal.
Mums talking about mum-things. Sleep, food, what they've been doing with their kids lately.
Then, a few months after joining the group, Chantelle invited Dianne and her three kids over for a play date.
Dianne Abbott: I think it was a cut lunch and a water bag day. It was a long way.
Dominique Bayens VO: Loaded with instructions on how to find the isolated little blue farmhouse, Dianne left Busselton with her three kids in the back seat, driving the winding roads upwards and inland.
Dianne Abbott: And we had new tyres and it would make our car sound like a whale, so it would go wooo, you know, like a whale. (laughs)
Dominique Bayens VO: As Dianne made her way down the narrow gravel road, she could see the blue house come into view.
Out the back, out of sight, was a neat, white caravan, barbecue gas bottle strapped to the front.
Chantelle and Leela were waiting to welcome them.
Dianne Abbott: She was very warm and welcoming and she was obviously thrilled that we were there and Leela was very excited.
Dominique Bayens VO: They made their way inside.
Dianne Abbott: Chantelle told us right at the beginning that we needed to be quiet because Leela's dad was asleep.
Dominique Bayens VO: Dianne had a sense that Leela's Dad was maybe a bit controlling.
Dianne Abbott: My impression was that she was allowed to come, and that Simon let them come to Busselton.
It was like, oh, it's like that, is it?
Dominique Bayens VO: Dianne might have had questions, but she kept them to herself. She'd never met him before, and she wasn't one to judge anyway.
So they kept it down while they visited.
Dianne Abbott: And you know, like little girls when they get together they squeal and laugh and, um, we probably both decided to go outside to keep them quiet.
Dominique Bayens VO: They played with the children and chatted out in the backyard. After a while, a tall man came out and said hello, with an English accent.
Dianne Abbott: I probably said something like, 'Oh, so you do exist, Simon, hi', you know.
Because, you know, I'd heard a lot about him over the months and stuff and yeah, he was real.
Dominique Bayens VO: Chantelle had been coming to the homeschool meets for a few months now, and they'd talk a lot while their kids were playing, but there was a lot Dianne didn't know about her.
Her home life was opaque. Dianne knew Chantelle lived with a man called Simon Kadwill, Leela's Dad, but not much else.
Dianne Abbott: She was quite private and, like, I felt like I couldn't ask her things.
Dominique Bayens VO: But, finally, Dianne had met Simon. And he seemed fairly unremarkable.
Dianne Abbott: Well, I didn't feel unwelcome. Like, I didn't feel like he was saying, 'Why are you in my house?' or anything.
Dominique Bayens VO: What was more of note to Dianne was when a young man walked past. Turns out he lived in that backyard caravan.
Dianne Abbott: He had dark hair and was just a, you know, average, guy who said hello but didn't stop and engage.
I dunno, I just thought it was a bit odd to have a bloke living in your backyard when you've got a 7-year-old.
Dominique Bayens: Did Chantelle explain who he was?
Dianne Abbott: No, she didn't elaborate and I didn't ask. Because it's her business, their choice.
Dominique Bayens VO: I get the feeling Dianne's kinda old school in that way. Or maybe just not a nosy journalist.
Dianne had already picked up that maybe Chantelle's home arrangement was unorthodox.
Dianne Abbott: I do remember her saying to me once that she was responsible for Leela
That when she first had Leela she was told she could have Leela, but she would be the one who did, did everything.
'Cause, I thought, 'Oh gosh, that's harsh'.
Dominique Bayens: How did she seem when she told you about that?
Dianne Abbott: Just matter of fact. It was just, this is how it is.
Dominique Bayens VO: But, again, Dianne wasn't going to tell Chantelle how to live her life.
At the end of their play date they hopped back in their car and headed home.
But then came something unexpected.
Dianne Abbott: And I'm sure it was very soon after we went to Chantelle's and he rang me.
Dominique Bayens VO: Simon, that is. Ringing Dianne.
A man she's met all of once, fleetingly, while Dianne and Chantelle played with the kids in the backyard.
Dianne Abbott: It was so weird.
Dominique Bayens: Was the phone call expected?
Dianne Abbott: No, absolutely not. Out of the blue.
Dominique Bayens VO: Simon sounds serious and intense.
Dianne Abbott: Like, this is a big thing.
Dominique Bayens VO: What he said next, left Dianne very confused
Dianne Abbott: He said, 'You know, Chantelle's got end time syndrome?'.
And I'm like, 'What?'.
'You know, Chantelle's got end time syndrome?'.
And I said, 'No, I didn't know that'.
'Well, she does. She's got end time syndrome'.
Dominique Bayens VO: Dianne's got no clue what he's talking about.
Dianne Abbott: 'She's worried about the end of the world. That's why we don't go anywhere'.
I sort of got the feeling that he was trying to make excuses for Chantelle. Like, Chantelle's like this and this is why.
But I didn't think Chantelle was like anything.
I thought she was just a lovely, normal person. And it's really up to her to tell me if she's got end time syndrome, but okay thanks for the phone call, Simon.
Dominique Bayens VO: The phone call doesn't last more than five minutes, and Dianne hangs up.
Dianne Abbott: I would not ever expect one of my friend's husbands to ring me and say something about my friend that they didn't say to me. It's just odd.
Dominique Bayens VO: After I speak to Dianne, I keep thinking about why someone's partner would call their friend and say those kinds of things.
And not in a concerned way, but in a way that might make their friend think they're crazy.
Especially when, from everything I've read, it wasn't Chantelle who was espousing ideas that the end of days was coming.
It was Simon.
It's not easy to decipher Simon's beliefs from his writings and online presence, but he had these ideas about different planes of existence, and that graduating up the planes was all about coming closer to 'The Truth'.
And he clearly didn't feel great about the way this plane of existence was rolling along — as in the world in 2007.
He spoke about society heading in a bad direction, toward a downfall. That the earth was stressed. That we were — to quote "poisoning earth's life field".
There's talk about 'negative dark forces' and he thought electro magnetic fields were damaging Mother Earth and disturbing him personally.
One of his more troubling beliefs was that to escape this plane and reach 'The Truth' you had to die.
So when he apparently calls Dianne up and says Chantelle had end of times syndrome, it sounds like he's using his own beliefs to plant the seed that there's something wrong with Chantelle.
I wanted to speak to Dianne to try and understand Chantelle as a mum. Whether she could have been capable of something unspeakable.
Instead, I've got these unsettling hints about Simon's presence in their lives and a sense that Chantelle was on her own as a Mum.
And far from warning signs — that she and Leela were a tight-knit team.
But as I've been digging around, I've been hearing something else that is totally at odds with the normalcy of the homeschool mum view of Chantelle that Dianne had.
There's this story from the lead up to that July day when Chantelle left a note pinned to the door, saying 'Gone to Brazil'.
It's so bizarre it almost sounds made up. There's not many people who were there to witness to it. But someone who was, is Jodi MacDonald.
We sit down in a large shed, machinery around, so I can find out if this story is true.
When I meet her, the cliche of a "true blue Aussie" comes to mind. A person who will call a spade a spade and isn't afraid of a hard day's work.
Jodi MacDonald: So back in 2007 I was in my early forties. I was working alongside my, um, partner at the time who was an electrician doing solar power.
Dominique Bayens VO: It was a family business, even Jodi's 10-year-old son would help out on weekends and after school.
Dominique Bayens: So he was an apprentice as well, or sort of?
Jodi MacDonald: Slave labourer he would describe it as. (laughs)
Dominique Bayens VO: Jodi would drive into Nannup two or three times a week to do her shopping.
And on one of those occasions she stopped at the local nursery.
Jodi MacDonald: It had a little building inside where they had on display sort of garden ornaments and pots and things like that.
Dominique Bayens VO: It was having a closing down sale.
Jodi was keen to nab a bargain, but it wasn't the greenery that caught her eye.
Jodi MacDonald: I'd been drawn, particularly attracted to this, um, horse bronze statue and, um I thought at the time, oh, uh, should I invest in that?
Dominique Bayens VO: Standing there among the flowerpots, eyeing off her bronze horse statue, a worker with dark hair and eyes comes over to see if she needs help.
Jodi MacDonald: He said he was Tony.
I just found him a very pleasant, nice easy to talk to person who, you know, was a, a nice looking young man, you know, that seemed very open.
Dominique Bayens VO: She didn't know it then, but Tony Popic would come to be at the centre of what would unfold.
But on that day he was just a friendly, chatty young man, helping a lady buy a bronze horse statue.
Jodi MacDonald: He was cute. (laughs)
You know, way too young for me, but, you know.
Dominique Bayens VO: Jodi bought the statue, and to this day she still has it.
It went straight back to her house where it stands pride of place in her living room.
As it turns out, just 400 or so metres from the little blue house and her neighbours who lived there.
Jodi MacDonald: In the blue house, as we used to call it, was a family who we didn't know too well, which was Chantelle and Simon, and a little girl called Layla.
Dominique Bayens VO: Leela. And that cute young man from the nursery, Tony Popic, living in the caravan out the back.
Jodi didn't have much to do with the four from the blue house. Just the odd wave if they ever caught each other on the driveway.
But occasionally when she and her partner, Bruce, were wrestling with the accounts in their office they'd notice some unusual movements next door.
Simon coming and going a lot, which didn't fit with what they knew of him.
Jodi MacDonald: We saw the up and down of the driveway and thought, where's someone going for such a short time? Were they growing something in the bush?
Dominique Bayens VO: I check with Jodi whether that 'something' she's referring to was a weed crop.
Jodi MacDonald: Potentially. Yes. Yeah.
(fly buzzing)
Dominique Bayens VO: At this point, Jodi and I are interrupted by a rogue fly.
Jodi MacDonald: Naughty fly.
Dominique Bayens VO: My cameraman Geoff's dashing around. Fly spray in hand.
Jodi MacDonald: There he is. There is. He's coming around here.
(Spray sound)
Jodi MacDonald: Probably kill us before the fly. (laughs)
Dominique Bayens VO: The glamour of making a podcast.
Dominique Bayens: That's alright, I think it's still hopefully recording.
Dominique Bayens VO: Fly dealt with, Jodi starts to tell me about this time she and Bruce had a job out at the blue house.
And what she says is even stranger than the stories I've heard.
The blue house is owned by a local farming couple who ran cattle.
They had decided to subdivide the large property the blue house sat on.
Being in the electrical business, Jodi and her partner Bruce were hired to do the wiring and connections for a new power pole transformer next to the blue house in April 2007 – three months before the four disappeared.
It was a pretty standard job that would take a few days to finish.
So on the first day Jodi and Bruce travelled across the paddock with all their electrical gear in the ute.
Jodi MacDonald: We were digging a trench across, and then just preparing the connections for when Western Power was actually going to turn on the actual power supply.
My son had come and he was playing with the little girl.
Dominique Bayens VO: That's Leela.
Jodi MacDonald: It was sort of at the end of the day.
Bruce may have even had a beer and we were sitting in the backyard.
Dominique Bayens VO: They're relaxing, the children still playing together on the trampoline.
Then Tony and Simon come over — Tony as cute as ever, and Simon eye-catching for another reason.
Jodi MacDonald: He just looked very red in the face.
There was almost like broken out in hives.
Dominique Bayens VO: Jodi's chatting with Tony, and Simon starts talking to Bruce.
Jodi MacDonald: It was a little bit erratic, but then also would be sit back and chilled. So he was kind of like swapping between the two.
He was explaining the concern they had over the new power pole because they were very worried about the emissions that were coming from that pole and it was going to affect them and whatever.
Dominique Bayens VO: Simon became increasingly agitated about these 'emissions' messing with their minds.
Emissions being the EMF — electro magnetic fields — that were in that scrawled note explaining why they'd left.
Jodi MacDonald: My understanding is that the EMFs are like electrical currents.
And I suppose because we're made up of energy ourselves it's all about damaging our own electrical current and making disturbances in our own current that will then create disease or disabilities.
Dominique Bayens VO: Just to be clear, this is not something the science suggests you need to be worried about.
Jodi MacDonald: I'm not even sure that's a hundred per cent correct, but that is my understanding of what the paranoia is about.
Dominique Bayens VO: Simon was convinced the EMF from this new electrical connection outside his house was the cause of his fractured and messy thoughts and these hives on his face.
Bruce just turned around and said;
Jodi MacDonald: It hasn't been connected. It has got no power there to do anything to you.
It's not that, that's made you do that, it's stress.
Dominique Bayens VO: The conversation has become pretty awkward pretty quickly.
Then Simon and Tony start telling them about the 'defences' they've put in place.
Jodi MacDonald: They were telling us about the EMF balls that they had buried around the garden to stop the emissions getting them.
And they were wanting to show us one.
Dominique Bayens VO: Simon and Tony are looking around the yard.
Jodi MacDonald: Saying, 'Oh, they're around here'. And they've scratched up the ground with their hands, but they haven't found it.
So then they're going, 'Oh, move over a bit'.
So they're scratching around a bit more and they still can't find it.
There was this mass panic because they couldn't find one that was supposed to be there.
They were just like this 10 minutes of sort of like crazy, like digging.
'They're here somewhere, where have they gone? Has someone taken them? Has someone removed them? Where are they?'.
You know, 'They've magically disappeared'.
So there was a panic.
Dominique Bayens VO: Leela hops off the trampoline and comes over to join in the search. Jodi, her partner and son watching on stunned.
Jodi MacDonald: My son and partner and I were kind of like looking across at each other.
Like, my son's going, 'What is going on? These people are crazy looking for this like metal ball thing in the garden'.
Dominique Bayens VO: Finally, the two men and Leela uncover one of the balls.
It's silver and bigger than a tennis ball, but smaller than a bowling ball and they're holding it in the air like a precious chalice.
Jodi MacDonald: They were probably 10 meters apart, um, throughout the corners of the garden, like creating like a protective barrier to the house from the ground, from the outside world.
Dominique Bayens: What did you think about that?
Jodi MacDonald: That was strange.
But then there are strange things out there, so it was just another strange thing to encounter. So because I'm thinking, I don't see how they're gonna protect you, but yeah, okay.
Then they replaced them carefully back into their hole in the garden and covered them back over so that they would protect them from the rays.
But as my other half had said, the computer and the radiation from the bar radiator would be a lot greater and cause more problems.
Dominique Bayens VO: As it turns out Bruce was spot on, the computer would cause way more damage than any power pole. Just not because of its electro-magnetic field.
It feels like Jodi and Dianne each have these isolated strange moments, odd encounters that alone could easily be dismissed as eccentric, or not my business.
But together they're starting to reveal a picture.
An isolated young woman, single parenting a little girl. Hints of a controlling home life.
A home life that sounds like it was becoming increasingly erratic.
Simon talking about end days syndrome, making odd trips up and down the driveway off the property.
And of course, those balls.
It was around the same time as that frenzied search when Chantelle stopped turning up to the home schooling group with Dianne.
Dianne Abbott: She just stopped coming and we didn't hear. And I think a few of us rang her and there was no answer. And we just thought, well, that's not very nice of her.
We were her friends and we included her in the group and she could have said something.
Which makes me feel awful now.
Dominique Bayens: What's the, the question you think no one's asking that they should?
Dianne Abbott: Why didn't we see any signs of what was going to happen?
Why didn't anyone anticipate this? What did I miss? What did we not ask? What did we not notice?
Dominique Bayens VO: I'm Dominique Bayens, host of Expanse: The Nannup Four.
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If you can add to this story, or have information you think might be important please get in touch.
This season of Expanse was developed in collaboration with ABC's regional WA team on Wardandi and Bibbulmun country.
Sound design is by Grant Wolter who is also a producer along with Meghan Woods, with additional production and research by Jessica Hinchliffe, Kate Stephens and Louise Miolin.
Our supervising producer is Piia Wirsu, Executive Producer is Blythe Moore.