Missing Niamh - Episode 1

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Speaker 1 Hello, it's Casey here. I just wanted to take a moment to explain why you're hearing something a little different on the Casefile feed.

Speaker 1 Over the past year, I've had the chance to meet Casefile listeners at our live shows, and something kept coming up in conversations that surprised me.

Speaker 1 A lot of people don't know what Casefile Presents is or that we produce other shows.

Speaker 1 If someone is a big enough supporter of CaseFile to come to a live event, but hasn't heard of CaseFile Presents, it occurred to me that we need to work on our messaging.

Speaker 1 For those who don't know, Casefile Presents is our production platform. The main show we produce is, of course, CaseFile.
But we've also produced a number of other podcasts.

Speaker 1 Our level of involvement varies from show to show, but we've had a direct hand in all of them, whether it be in financing, research, production, editing or music. I even narrate a few of them myself.

Speaker 1 With Case File and a Short Break, we thought this would be a great time to shine a light on some of the shows that may have flown under the radar for many of you.

Speaker 1 These are shows we've put our hearts into and are really proud of. First up is Missing Niamh, a story that's very close to me personally.

Speaker 1 I spent years researching the case and working directly with members of Niem's family to shape the series, which I also narrated. And yes, I know the traditional pronunciation of Niem is Niamh.

Speaker 1 The reason why her loved ones called her Niem is explained early in episode 1. The series went to number 1 in Australia and remained there for quite a while.

Speaker 1 It also charted highly around the world, racking up millions of downloads. Regardless of its success, it's an important story and I think it deserves more ears.

Speaker 1 Because of that, we are releasing the first episode here on the case file feed. If you like it, you can find the rest of the series by searching Missing Niam wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Now, here is episode 1.

Speaker 1 When 18-year-old Neam May went missing back in 2002, her family did everything they could to help police try and find her.

Speaker 1 But, like so many missing persons' cases, there comes a time when the leads dry up and there's nowhere left to look.

Speaker 1 Back then, there were no podcasts and social media was still a couple of years away.

Speaker 1 But times change, and in recent years, Neam's sister Fanula began listening to true crime podcasts and realised their potential to make a huge difference, especially in unsolved cases like theirs.

Speaker 1 She realised that a podcast about Niam might bring about the answers the family were looking for.

Speaker 1 When Fenula contacted us, we agreed to help her reinvigorate the investigation into what happened to Neam.

Speaker 1 So, for the last few years, I've been working with Fenula to take a much closer look at Neam's case.

Speaker 1 Even as I worked on other case file projects, I carried Neum's story with me at all times.

Speaker 1 Maybe it was because we were the same age, or we finished high school the same year. Maybe it was the fact that we both wanted a gap year after leaving school, or that we liked similar music.

Speaker 1 Or maybe it was the fact that Neem was a young 18-year-old testing the waters of life and something pulled her under. And that could have happened to any of us.

Speaker 1 Maybe we just got lucky and survived our teenage years.

Speaker 1 But Neam didn't.

Speaker 1 She didn't get to realise her potential.

Speaker 1 When I first started looking into this case in 2020, it was originally intended to be a case file episode.

Speaker 1 But the more I looked, a series of revelations unfolded that literally and figuratively took me to places that I could never have anticipated.

Speaker 1 Neum grew up in a large Catholic family in Armidale in northern New South Wales. After finishing her final year at school, she took a working holiday and went fruit picking down south in Batlow.

Speaker 1 Neum phoned home regularly and as Easter 2002 approached, she made plans to travel back home to Armadale to spend Easter with her family.

Speaker 1 But Neam never made it home. and her family has never stopped looking for her.

Speaker 1 Neem's sister, Fenula.

Speaker 2 It wasn't until I started sort of talking to mum and dad more about it and looking into it more that I realised how much they took on.

Speaker 2 So dad retired the year that Neam finished school. Mum had retired a few years earlier.
They had seven kids. They'd just got them all off their hands.

Speaker 2 And less than three months later, their youngest daughter goes missing, presumably murdered. And they've spent the next 18 years searching for her.

Speaker 2 They light a candle for her every morning and in the early years I think dad said they went down there 30 times and it's a

Speaker 2 10 hour, yeah, about 10 to 12 hour drive from Armadale down there and back again.

Speaker 2 And they were so methodical about it and they had a huge map on the study wall at home and they'd marked off all the areas that they'd searched and they, you know, have got crazy people contacting them with potential sightings, some of whom are, you know, claimed to be psychic.

Speaker 2 But they also just spent time in the local towns talking to the local volunteers and obviously working with the police tirelessly.

Speaker 2 I knew that it was consuming for them, but I don't think I realised how much they really took on because they shielded it from us.

Speaker 2 At no point have we just got on with our lives, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 I heard something recently that really resonated. It was a woman from America who said that you never get over grief.
You learn to move forward with it.

Speaker 2 And I was like, that's, yeah, that's the best anyone's ever described it.

Speaker 1 Neam May was born on the 21st of June 1983.

Speaker 1 She grew up on a small hobby farm in Armidale, New South Wales, which is almost 500 kilometres north of Sydney, the state capital.

Speaker 1 The May family, mum and dad Anne and Brian, and children Catherine, Susan, Kieran, Justine, Tamzin, Fenula, and Neam were raised Catholic.

Speaker 1 Neam was the youngest of the bunch, with her sister Fanula only two years older.

Speaker 1 All the children were close-knit. Growing up out of town, Neam and her brother and sisters had the kind of childhood you might daydream about.

Speaker 1 Imagine the Australian countryside, blue skies with cotton ball clouds, kids making their own fun, running wild in open fields as free as the wind.

Speaker 1 They were safe, as long as they avoided the snakes in the grass and the redback spiders in the retaining wall.

Speaker 1 Before we get too far into Neum's story, we should clarify her name. Niem is an Irish name spelt N-I-A-M-H and traditionally pronounced Neave.

Speaker 1 Her sister Fanula explains how her parents adjusted their daughter's name for the Australian palette.

Speaker 2 She was named Neve, the Irish name Neve,

Speaker 2 but mum and dad decided that was going to be too hard for people in the 80s in Australia, in country New South Wales, to work out that MH was a V sound, so they said, oh, we'll just drop the H and everyone could call her Neum, like Liam.

Speaker 2 So we all grew up calling her Neam.

Speaker 1 So while we will call her Neam, you might hear others call her Neve.

Speaker 1 When Neum's mum and dad, Anne and Brian, first met, they were both primary school teachers.

Speaker 1 Before Fanula and Neam were born, Brian did his PhD and became a lecturer at the University of New England in Armidale, where he worked for many years.

Speaker 1 Anne continued to teach primary school while having her children and also studied her master's in education.

Speaker 1 While pregnant with Neam, Anne sat her final exam and won the University Medal.

Speaker 1 Anne describes what life was like when Neam was born.

Speaker 3 Well, she was born very easily, number seven, fitted in very easily and had six bigger siblings who, if she stepped out of line, could bring her back into line.

Speaker 3 It didn't fall on me, which was very handy.

Speaker 3 But on the whole, she just fitted in.

Speaker 3 She used to love using her little hand puppets and playing games with them and making up stories.

Speaker 1 Even though Fenula was only a small child herself, she still remembers Neam as a baby.

Speaker 2 We grew up together. She was my little pal.
So her and the sister above me, Tamzon, we were known as the three little kids, the little kids. So we all shared a bedroom.
It was the little kids' room.

Speaker 2 And even I think as adults, I remember one Christmas, not even that long ago, someone said, I'll get one of the little kids to do it. I'm like,

Speaker 2 I'm like 30-something.

Speaker 2 So we've kept our family positions regardless of our age. Yeah, so Neam's chubby cheeks, little cutie with absolutely adorable little chubby cheeks, and she was, you know, spoilt being the youngest.

Speaker 2 Everyone called her Chubba Bubba. And

Speaker 2 she could chuck a tantrum. She'd throw her head back and she had these huge veins that would pop out of her neck and we'd tease her about them when she chucked tantrums.

Speaker 1 But sibling teasing is quickly forgotten when there are fields to explore and forts to build.

Speaker 2 Growing up, we pretty much just ran wild. Not ran wild, but like we, you know, had the run of our neighbours' properties as well.

Speaker 2 We were only on 15 acres because it was just a hobby farm while mum and dad worked in town.

Speaker 2 But yeah, mum and dad built their own house in the 70s, this long split-level house with four bedrooms, and we had 15 acres around it to run around.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and we used to just wander around and make up games. We built a fort out of stones in our neighbours, what do you call it,

Speaker 2 row of trees, wind break under all these pine trees. We just built this little rock fort.
Used to go and hang out there and make up all sorts of games.

Speaker 2 Played a lot of Uno, a lot of cards, used to go camping.

Speaker 2 She liked to make stupid faces.

Speaker 2 She was just really cheeky, really, in a good way, though.

Speaker 1 The May kids were all quite independent. Here is Neam's mum, Anne, explaining what the first day of school was like for Neam.

Speaker 3 And when she first went to school, her first day at school, we used to get up and I always get up early and have breakfast and I'd be up early marking kids' books and things for school and then I'd go up and milk the cow and others would get up and get ready for school and get their own breakfast and their own school lunches.

Speaker 3 The stuff was all there.

Speaker 3 And then they'd head off for the school bus down at the corner. And Niamh's first day at school, I came in and I'd always taken the others to school, driven them in for the first day.

Speaker 3 And I looked around after I'd milked and separated and come inside and lo and behold

Speaker 3 couldn't find her.

Speaker 3 She hadn't even said goodbye. I was really quite upset.

Speaker 3 She hadn't said goodbye, she just went and got on the bus because that's what she did. Years later, her kindergarten teacher said, yes, I'd always wondered why she turned up by herself that first day.

Speaker 3 It was no problem. She just turned up and then went and joined the other kids to get on the bus after school and came home and was that.

Speaker 3 So she was independent pretty well from the very beginning.

Speaker 1 By the time Neum hit secondary school, the small girl with the chubby cheeks was gone.

Speaker 1 In her place was a young woman, independent, intelligent, creative and not afraid to stand out from the crowd.

Speaker 1 The older May children, Catherine, Susan, Kieran, Justine and Tamzin, had all gone to the same high school that their mother Anne taught at.

Speaker 1 However, for Fanula and Neam, Anne decided that it might be a good idea to send them to a different school.

Speaker 1 So the two younger girls went to Duval High School in Armadale.

Speaker 1 There, Neam's creative side absolutely shone through.

Speaker 1 Anne remembers Neam's dogged determination as a student.

Speaker 3 So as well as being creative, she was also well organised. You know, you have an image of creative people often being that they're utterly chaotic.
And she wasn't. She was highly organised.

Speaker 3 You know, she was almost obsessive about things being precise.

Speaker 1 Neam had a keen aptitude for writing and loved English. It was in these classes that her talent really stood out.

Speaker 3 When she was in high school, she decided that she liked writing. Well, she wrote when she was in primary school too.
They all did.

Speaker 3 She then produced a short story that her teachers liked. So she's actually had it published in an anthology of a whole lot of school kids that was

Speaker 3 excellent. And then when she got to high school in particular, she did extension English as she got up into the higher levels of high school.
And then she wanted to do photography.

Speaker 3 And Niamh had been very canny about doing that because she was interested in creative things and productive things and merging that with her English extension.

Speaker 3 So she taught herself in the final years of high school and used it then as part of her English with

Speaker 3 photos and filming. And she then made a film,

Speaker 3 wrote it.

Speaker 3 He didn't have any money, so she went and

Speaker 3 begged volunteers, a couple of young chaps from University of Macquarie, at Macquarie, I think, had some camera gear so that they could borrow.

Speaker 3 And then she'd advertised for an actress and she only had

Speaker 3 one person in it. And so this girl came forward and volunteered.
And they sort of cobbled together a film, which she submitted as part of her HSC.

Speaker 1 By this time, all the older siblings had moved out of home to study or work. The bustling May house became quieter and Neam and Fenula, by themselves for the first time, became very close.

Speaker 1 They went to parties together and even worked together at the local pizza shop. This used to annoy Fenula because Neum was the better worker and always one employee of the month.

Speaker 1 Everyone at the pizza shop loved her. She was funky and a bit alternative.

Speaker 1 Niem also had a cool taste in music. She loved the stone roses, radio head, beck, counting crows and system of a down to name a few.

Speaker 1 She also went through a teen goth stage which raised some eyebrows in their country town.

Speaker 1 Niem dyed her hair blue and wore thick blue eyeshadow to go with her goth clothing.

Speaker 1 Fenola remembers Neam always trying to be different and stand out from the crowd.

Speaker 2 She liked to be a little bit different, a bit unique. Mum had a sari that she bought when, so mum travelled around in the 60s all over the world and bought a sari when she was

Speaker 2 must have been from India, I assume. So Neam wore it for her year 10 formal.

Speaker 2 She just, I think, wanted to be a little bit unique.

Speaker 1 Each time she did something out of the ordinary, none of the Mays were surprised, nor did they care. Well, that's Neem for you, they said.

Speaker 1 Neem's dad, Brian, saw in Neem a determination to succeed in life and to try as many new things as she could.

Speaker 4 She actually was a qualified open water scibber diver.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 she also, I think it would be fair to say, used to read a lot. And she was a very good writer.
who did some impressive writing and through into senior high school. I think she enjoyed a challenge.

Speaker 4 She used to set herself a challenge and work towards it, whether it came to be physically and sporting-wise, or whether it was academic or intellectual activity.

Speaker 1 Niem's dad could also see his daughter looking beyond their little town of Armadale and out into the world. She'll be a traveller, he thought.

Speaker 4 She had an interest in people who were different, and she did have a trip to France at one stage at the end of year 10. She travelled and had a school holiday, Christmas holiday trip in Paris.

Speaker 1 Bernoulla remembers this trip to Paris as well. Neum was fluent in French and managed to outshine her brother who'd been there for longer than she had.

Speaker 2 She went to France on exchange. Oh, that's the other thing.
She spoke fluent French. So in addition to being smart off with everything else, she also spoke fluent French.

Speaker 2 So she went on exchange to France at the end of year 11. So over the winter there, our brother Kieran was living in Paris for work.

Speaker 2 And he said he just remembered being really embarrassed because he'd been living there for months and I can't remember he went somewhere with her

Speaker 2 and was trying to order something or whatever and they didn't understand him and she was just like blah blah blah blah blah just rattled it off and they're like oh like almost like she's a native french speaker like here you go have whatever it is you want and he just stood there going

Speaker 2 smart ass

Speaker 1 not only was she smart naeem developed empathy for others she used her developing voice to stand up for others who couldn't speak out for themselves she was a a great stickler for social justice.

Speaker 4 She didn't think people were behaving fairly. She would say so.
She had a sense of fairness and she had

Speaker 4 a sense of doing the right thing.

Speaker 1 Niem's sister Fanula saw her growing passion for social justice. It takes courage to speak up against unfairness, especially when you take the side of the underdog.

Speaker 2 She was very

Speaker 2 like like a real passionate social advocate, quite outspoken and stood up for people, hated injustice. And I think that's sort of in all of us.

Speaker 2 So I think she was maybe 15 when she wrote a letter to the local paper because there were a few articles about local residents opposing a brothel in the town.

Speaker 2 Or it was, I think it was close to a residential area and they were opposing it and saying it should be in a commercial area or it shouldn't be there at all.

Speaker 2 And she just wrote a really well-written, eloquent eloquent letter, basically saying it's the oldest profession in the world and they need somewhere safe to work like everybody else.

Speaker 2 And I think a lot of people were a bit shocked by her age and her outspokenness on the matter, whereas I just didn't think anything of it.

Speaker 1 And sometimes the fight got closer to home.

Speaker 2 She may have also been politely requested to leave a job that she had at a local club after very

Speaker 2 firmly telling some old patrons that were sitting at the end of the bar who were speaking quite loudly, loudly, really, like basically just being really racist.

Speaker 2 And she was just like, no, we don't stand for that here. And then the boss was like, oh, they've been coming here for years and they're really old.
Leave them alone. And she's like, okay, whatever.

Speaker 2 I don't want to work with you.

Speaker 1 We will be back after a short break.

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Speaker 1 So, to her family, Neam was fearless, outspoken, and very clever. What was she like to her peers?

Speaker 1 Neam's childhood friend Jess describes her as a humanitarian and a leader.

Speaker 5 Neam and and I went to, we met in kindergarten and we went from kindergarten all the way up to Year 12 together and we were in the same friendship group, just like a little close bunch of friends.

Speaker 5 There was like seven of us that were very close and we're all still close.

Speaker 5 And Neem was very academic

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 She was a leader. She was very influential, had a lot of humanitarian traits from a young age.
Always

Speaker 5 stick up for the underdog and or, you know, what she believed in.

Speaker 1 As a student on a school outing, Neam spoke her mind to midnight oil frontman turned politician Peter Garrett.

Speaker 5 We once went to the university to see Peter Garrett speak when he was the environmental minister and we were, I think we were in year 11 or year 12.

Speaker 5 And, you know, we all sunk back in our seats when she stood up and Mike gave him a big serving about her thoughts on his position and what he was doing.

Speaker 1 Niam completed her high school certificate in 2001 and scored in the top 5% of the state. She applied to study at the University of Technology in Sydney and was accepted to study film.

Speaker 1 Neam decided to take a gap year in 2002, save up a bit of money and go to university the year after.

Speaker 1 It was a decision that changed the lives of the May family forever.

Speaker 1 Neum heard through friends about fruit picking. It sounded like a perfect opportunity to save a bit of cash, see Australia and spend some time outdoors.

Speaker 1 For Niam, it also meant she could set off on adventures and test her independence. Her friend Jess had a similar idea.

Speaker 5 And she planned to go to UTS in Sydney to study film and I was going to do music in Brisbane. We decided to go on some kind of road trip around Australia.

Speaker 5 So you know like take a year off and just leave home and go on an adventure.

Speaker 5 It wasn't well planned out at all, but I think it was just exciting, you know, the prospect of finishing school and having a year off before going into any kind of other

Speaker 5 studies.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 three of our other friends had been fruit picking and they had taken a trip previously to this particular area that we went.

Speaker 1 It's easy to see why this idea would have appealed to Neam.

Speaker 1 Taking a gap year between school and university gives teenagers a sense of freedom that's unlikely ever ever to be duplicated.

Speaker 1 A whole year stretching ahead with no timetables, no particular places to be, not a care in the world.

Speaker 1 It feels like forever is lying just in front of you, and for the young and idealistic, it's a time to test yourself and find out who you really are.

Speaker 1 Perhaps it is natural that prospective fruit pickers head to Batlow, famed for its apples.

Speaker 1 It's a small character-filled town dotted with apple orchards that produce enough to supply 10% of Australia's apples.

Speaker 1 Niem arrived in Batlow at the end of January 2002, fully intent on fruit picking and living the fruit picker's lifestyle.

Speaker 1 But it would prove a false start.

Speaker 1 She only got a couple of days of work before unseasonal summer rains cancelled most of the picking.

Speaker 1 In a few weeks,

Speaker 1 was back home with not much more to show for her travels than photos of her on-the-job war wounds, mainly bruises from fruit toads and ladders.

Speaker 1 Undaunted by the first trip, Neam couldn't wait to return to Batlow when the weather settled.

Speaker 1 She had only been home for four days when she and her dad went shopping to buy some camping gear for her next trip. She talked over her plans with Brian.

Speaker 4 I can recall when she came home the first time

Speaker 4 when she said she wanted to go apple picking in Batlow.

Speaker 4 I asked her why she would want to do that sort of work.

Speaker 4 I grew up myself on a banana and tomato farm, pineapples and other tropical fruits, so I knew what was involved in labouring in the fields. And I said, you know, it's a hard job.

Speaker 4 And she said, well, I'd just like... to try and see how I go.

Speaker 4 And we talked through some of the plans that she had for how she was going to support herself, how she was going to organise herself, and she would take a hiker's tent and camp.

Speaker 4 She had a tent that was big enough for her and her possessions.

Speaker 4 And I said to her, now, how are you going to afford this tent?

Speaker 4 And she told me which one it was, and it cost, I think, $102 or something.

Speaker 4 And her response was, well, I was hoping you might help me out.

Speaker 4 Whereupon I agreed, agreed and we went and had checked out the tent. Of course, we used to take the family camping quite a bit when they were all young.

Speaker 4 So she was familiar with camping, she was familiar with travelling.

Speaker 1 Neam's mum Anne tried to make her daughter aware of the difficulties she might face on her fruit picking year.

Speaker 1 It might not be as rosy as she thought.

Speaker 1 But Neam was not to be discouraged. Her friend Jess remembers how excited Neam was to go go back to fruit picking after her brief stint.

Speaker 5 And then she came back and she was really excited and she said let's go fruit picking. You know it was summertime.

Speaker 5 I just turned 18 and she said you know stuff this like you know I think we both had like cafe jobs or something and you know she was like let's you know let's let's go out into the bush let's go and pick fruit we can get fit we can be healthy you know we can go on an adventure and we can make some money we can buy a car and we can drive to Brisbane and we'll go on a, you know, we'll visit some friends.

Speaker 5 Who had already started uni, and that's how the idea came. So her and I decided to go.

Speaker 5 We booked a train ticket from Armidale to Sydney, and we were going to stay with her sister Fenula for one night, and then we would carry on to this place called Batlow.

Speaker 1 Jess put her trust in Neem's planning skills.

Speaker 5 Niem had always been quite fastidious with details and organisational skills. Like for my whole life, she was the person that would, you know,

Speaker 5 she was known as a good organiser. So I kind of just booked this train ticket and thought.
that she knew what we were doing and where we were going and how it was working, how it was going to work.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 there was a lot of trust that we would just be taken care of.

Speaker 5 You know, we were going to, somehow we would get to Bathlow train and bus and then we would go to this camping ground and, you know, we just supposedly if we just went to the caravan park and pitched a tent, you know, the owners would put us in touch with some people that we could go and work for.

Speaker 1 Neam's mum Ian remembers the level of planning for the second trip. The first failed mission had given Neem insight into what she would need, and she set about organising what she would take with her.

Speaker 3 She knew she'd have to have shirts with long sleeves, so she hit Vinnies and the Salvos and places like that and got long-sleeved shirts that she could wear fruit picking, and she didn't take anything that was peripheral or extra, took no jewellery except for one ticky on a thong that she wore around her neck, which had been a gift from her godmother.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 she had her camera gear with her. She also, when she'd gone down earlier in the year, she came home,

Speaker 3 indexed all her photos, labelled them, dated them. She had been saving and putting aside things for when she needed to be at uni.

Speaker 1 While Naam was back home, she spoke to another friend, Lisa. She convinced her to go to Batlow as well.

Speaker 6 So when she finished school, I knew she had plans to go and study in Sydney and live with Fenula.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 she was planning to go to film school. She really,

Speaker 6 and which actually initially surprised me because she excelled so much in so many other areas, but there was this creative

Speaker 6 streak to her that I think she she wanted to tell stories and yeah and it was a passion that she had

Speaker 6 at the end of year 12 see I left school a little before the others and I went and started working and so I was a little bit disconnected from Neam and probably my other friends for a little while and then funnily enough when she was in she'd been in Batlow and she came home and she called me and I spoke to her and she was like oh yeah I've been down there we're making money and it's you know she was telling telling me about things that were happening down there.

Speaker 6 And I said, oh, well, I'm kind of looking for work. And she was like, oh, you should come down.
It's really easy. Anyone can get work.

Speaker 2 So I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, all right.

Speaker 6 I'll come down. I'll come and do a couple of weeks.
And I saw her briefly. She said, yeah, I'm just picking up some stuff and heading back down.

Speaker 1 Lisa decided she would travel by car with her boyfriend and join Neem in Batlow.

Speaker 1 And then there was a last-minute addition to their fruit picking entourage. Niem's friend, Jess, explains how Brodie entered the picture.

Speaker 1 Brodie was younger than the other girls but she had also left school.

Speaker 5 The day before we were going to leave we were walking through the mall.

Speaker 5 We come from a small town so we're just walking through town and this younger girl that we knew by association

Speaker 5 you know, friends of friends, she was hanging out and we approached her and asked her what she was doing and we were pretty excited.

Speaker 5 We were like, you know, it's summertime, it's February, we don't have to go to school, you know, we're going to go fruit picking and make some money, buy a car, go on a road trip.

Speaker 5 So Brodie was younger than us, so I would have been 18 and I reckon Brodie would have been 15. I'm not sure.
And we were like, come fruit picking if you're not going to go to school.

Speaker 5 And so

Speaker 5 Brodie decided to come with us and she went and booked a train ticket

Speaker 7 brodie and neam had hit it off right from the start even though brodie was younger i don't remember the first time we actually met i just know that we kind of met through our group of friends like i was a fire twirler and i was in a group and me and jess would go fire twirling with them a lot and i think jess and neam went to high school together so i probably met Neam through Jess.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 yeah, we just would be at parties together. And I just remember we, there was one party in particular where we started hanging out.

Speaker 2 I already knew her, but we hung out a lot more.

Speaker 1 Brody's favourite story of Neam reminds me of the saying, dance like no one is watching.

Speaker 7 She really was into like System of Down at the time. And yeah,

Speaker 7 the Toxicity album. And I just remember catching her one time, listening to it, and she was like, just dancing really funny, really.
It was really awkward, but it was really, really cute.

Speaker 7 And she was like, just having fun by herself. And I was like, oh, I love that album.
And then she was like, oh, my God,

Speaker 7 shocked that I saw her. And

Speaker 7 I think that's probably my favorite kind of memory of her.

Speaker 1 When Naam and Jess suggested she come fruit picking with them, Brodie cleared it with her mum and left the next day.

Speaker 7 I was at TAFE and I had took a lunch break and I walked up town and I bumped into Jess and she was like, Oh, me and Neam are gonna go fruit picking, like, you should come.

Speaker 2 And I was like, Okay, like, I'll come.

Speaker 7 And I, yeah, ran back down to see my mum because she was also doing TAFE with me at the same time. And yeah, I got some money off her, and we pretty much left the very next day.

Speaker 2 So it was really spur of the moment.

Speaker 1 On Valentine's Day, Thursday, the 14th of February, 2002, Neum, Jess and Brodie left Armadale.

Speaker 1 They planned to stay with Fenula in Sydney for the night, where she was studying and working, before heading south to Batlow.

Speaker 1 Brian remembers saying goodbye to his youngest daughter.

Speaker 4 So off she went, and

Speaker 4 the last thing she was hopping into the car out here.

Speaker 4 just out in front of the garage,

Speaker 4 about to go off to catch the train with her friends.

Speaker 4 And she,

Speaker 4 I was standing at the top of the steps, and she dashed over and gave me a big hug and hopped in the car with Anne, and off she went.

Speaker 1 Jess also remembers when it came time to say goodbye to their families as they took the train to Sydney.

Speaker 1 From the moment the three girls hopped on the train that morning, an uneasy feeling began to bury itself in the pit of her stomach.

Speaker 1 It would stay there and grow as time went on.

Speaker 5 And the next day we went to the train station and we got on the train and I sat on the left side and Neum and Brody sat together on the right side and my mum stood outside on the platform and she like waved a white handkerchief and I was like, oh my god, she's so embarrassed.

Speaker 5 And you know, there were tears running down her eyes. And I remember Neam's mum standing there too, looking very stern and concerned, you know, just very serious.

Speaker 5 And I noticed that Brodie and Neum were just getting along really well. And I had a really funny feeling and I didn't like it.
And I didn't like how well they were getting along with each other.

Speaker 5 Kind of, it probably made me feel jealous because I was like, oh, you know.

Speaker 5 They're getting along a lot better than I am. This is weird.
Maybe we shouldn't have Brody coming with us because she's only 15.

Speaker 1 Fenula remembers Neum and her friends arriving at her place in in Sydney. They had a great time together.

Speaker 2 And then 14th of February, she came back to Sydney with Jess and another girl, Brodie, from Armidale. They came to Sydney and she came into the city and met me.

Speaker 2 And I was, I'd just finished work, so we went out for a couple of drinks with our brother Kieran and then headed home. I was living with two flatmates in Chatswood in a

Speaker 2 musty old Mankey share house and

Speaker 2 yeah, they crashed on our lounge room floor and we just hung out. But

Speaker 2 yeah, then the next morning she headed off. And I just remember them like heading off and waving and me being like, be careful, call me, all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 And I remember for a fleeting second thinking, oh, I should give her my phone because I had a mobile phone at that stage and she didn't. And I remember thinking I should give her my phone.

Speaker 2 And then I was like, oh, but, you know, like they were already heading off and it's, you know, a hassle to sort out the bills or replacements and all that sort of stuff. And so I didn't.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I've got a lot of small regrets and that's one of them. Realistically, there was no reception down there anyway, so I don't think it would have made much difference.

Speaker 1 The train trip to Batlow perhaps set the scene for what was to follow.

Speaker 1 The plan was for the girls to catch the 7.15am train from Sydney to Kootamundra and from there catch a Country Link bus to Batlow.

Speaker 1 They missed the train from Sydney and had to wait around for a later one. Jess explains.

Speaker 5 And that was a really weird thing that we missed the train

Speaker 5 because

Speaker 5 we would never miss a train. And I remember it was like the world was trying to stop it from the very start.

Speaker 5 And when, like, I remember Neam being really stressed out and getting so cross and angry that we'd missed the train. And I thought, this is so unlike her.

Speaker 1 But when you miss a train, eventually another one follows and the girls were able to hop on board.

Speaker 1 Unlike Jess who felt a strange foreboding about the trip, their younger travelling companion Brodie did not.

Speaker 7 The train trip from Sydney to Kootamundra, me and Nin were having lots of fun and chatting to strangers.

Speaker 7 Remember we turned our chair around to talk to these people that were there and we had a few drinks and we were just having a good time.

Speaker 7 It was just an adventure. I didn't feel nervous particularly.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 7 always wanted to get away from Armadale. Like, I was always leaving, running away.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 7 So it was just another adventure, really.

Speaker 1 But for Jess, the further from home they got, the more her uneasiness grew.

Speaker 5 We got on this train from Sydney to Kootimundra. And when we got on the train,

Speaker 5 it was nearing nighttime. And

Speaker 5 Neem and Brodie were sitting together on the left-hand side seat in front of me.

Speaker 5 And this group of men were sitting on the right-hand side and they were all drinking. And it made me feel nervous.
And so I pretended to go to sleep. And then I fell asleep.

Speaker 5 Because I knew that Brody and Neam were like, yeah, you know, let's drink with these guys.

Speaker 5 And I don't know if they did drink with these guys. They were like a rough group of old men.

Speaker 5 And then I fell asleep and I woke up and all of the like the small group of men that had been drinking were now asleep and snoring.

Speaker 1 Because they had missed their original train, there was no Country Link bus to take them to Batlow when they arrived at the remote Kudamundra train station in the dead of the night.

Speaker 1 As Jess sat on the train, she knew they would have to find their own way to Batlow, which was 120 kilometers away from Kudamundra.

Speaker 1 Jess kept a diary on the trip and this was her entry about that train ride.

Speaker 5 There were revolting men on the train who I felt really sorry for. Neam and Brody I thought behaved.
I don't know how they behaved but I was saddened and I'm not impressed with

Speaker 5 the rude, obnoxious, drunk attitudes of a group of people who were much older. Jesus Christ, this would be very funny to watch on a film.

Speaker 5 At the beginning of the film, everything is so optimistic and positive, but slowly after the train tracks, the mood changes and it becomes uncomfortably evil.

Speaker 1 Coming up on missing Neam.

Speaker 7 Yeah, well, people would just come up. to the tents and be like, hey, and

Speaker 7 what are you doing?

Speaker 2 You know, just there wasn't really a lot of privacy.

Speaker 5 And then one day the black hearse arrived. And when the black hearse arrived, these two men got out.

Speaker 5 And as soon as I saw them and I saw that black hearse, I thought, they're baddies, stay away from them.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening. If you'd like to hear the rest of Missing Neum, just search for it wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 It's a Casefile Presents production created by the same team behind Casefile with the same high standards you expect from us. I hope you enjoyed the series.

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