Loading...
About this Episode
Tony Popic is talking about an end of days, Simon is seeing spirits and Chantelle is forced into a difficult decision as increasingly troubling hints something's not right come to light.
Hosts & Guests
Transcript
In an ordinary Sydney suburb, a family lives unnoticed.
You came across so innocent.
Father and son keep mostly to themselves.
We didn't go beyond the friendly nodal hello.
But behind closed doors.
Something's gone wrong.
Big time.
If you don't make phone calls, nobody can tap you.
A new three-part series investigates how the road to Bondire began long before
the first shots rang out.
The road to Bondire.
Search background briefing wherever you get your podcasts.
ABC Listen.
Podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.
So I was visiting Kath and Jim Chantel's parents in Wadonga and they
have so many photos and videos of Chantel and I came across this photo.
I'm in Denmark in Western Australia, not Europe, sadly.
Our public broadcaster budget doesn't extend to Europe.
It's a coastal town about three hours from Nanup.
Another of these small, south-west towns.
Much like the one I live in.
So there's this photo, um, which I don't know if you recognise.
Oh my guess, that's my son and me.
The picture we're looking at is the same one I found in Catholic Dougal's box of old photos,
with Tracy written on the back in Chantel's tight, curling handwriting.
That must have been at the Earl of Spencer.
Tracy tells me the photos of Leela's second birthday.
Oh my god, she was just a little force.
I always remember Chantel going, just, just gentle, gentle, Leela.
She just gets so excited trying to contain herself.
She just almost have to go like frozen and stiff.
Leela's got a round face with big eyes, short blonde hair, with a fringe, under a party hat.
Tracy says while Chantel and Leela danced.
Simon looked right at home, having beers and eating pub food.
A bit of a beer connoisseur or a bit of a contrast from
the person who you think's channeling and only in the spirit realm.
You were kind of the only photo of any of Chantel's friends that they had.
Yeah, well I don't know if they had really any other people come and, um,
you know, because now in hindsight they're obviously
living fairly, you know, secluded-y.
It was a bit of a random stab in the dark,
but I had a hunch that it'd be worth trying to get hold of Tracy.
I was right. Her full name is Tracy Page.
She's still living in Denmark, where Chantel, Leela, Simon and Tony
all moved in 2003, about four and a half hours south from the Florida house in Perth.
I'm Dominique Bains and this is episode four of Expans, the Nanup Four.
A question of belief.
Tracy's long white grey hair, flowing pants and turquoise green top,
tell me she's a certified Denmark hippie.
I've probably always been a fairly free thinker.
Denmark's just the whole package, really, for slightly alternative living and, um,
different type of education.
We can be yourself is really what it's about.
It's being more true to yourself.
When Tracy and Chantel first met in 2003,
among the floating pastoral coloured fabric and natural wooden toys of a Steiner Play group,
they identified kindred spirits in each other.
They both had daughters the same age and a similar world view.
We both felt safe with each other and, um, I guess we had similar outlooks.
She was probably a good 10 years younger than me,
but it didn't seem like that.
And just like Tracy, this older than her years,
Chantel Mum was discerning of who we were around.
The energy and, you know, um, I don't want to say protective,
but definitely discerning of our environments for the children.
What do you mean by that?
Just more quiet, more, yeah, people who were more grounded and, you know, aware of themselves.
As Tracy tells me about her friendship with Chantel,
I start to hear things that I've heard before from other people.
So I remember her saying, Simon said it's okay for you to come to our place.
And I'll come.
Oh, okay.
This feels almost word for word like what homeschool Mum Diane told me.
Simon let them come to Baselton for homeschool group.
And there's also the same explanations for Simon's behaviour.
It was like he's up a lot at night because he's on the internet,
and he has a group of people that he talks to.
Chantel said he was a creative writer, channeling spiritual insight,
which also accounted for the odd hours he kept.
And she was more just his supportive person and the homemaker,
and he was all into what he was doing.
But I didn't really have any judgment over.
I was sort of like, you know, younger women we do.
And, you know, and we fall in love and we have children.
Tracy's obviously pretty open-minded.
Are you do you philosophy?
And what she heard about Simon didn't sound that strange to her.
She moved in circles where the idea of people channeling spiritual insights was normal.
Had worked for clairvoyance and healers herself.
I get the impression that what stood out to Tracy was actually how not new age he Simon was.
Just sort of a bit.
I don't want to say slossy, but I just remember this sort of distance and sort of, you know,
slossy is just a word that comes to mind.
Not bubbly or anything like me in Chantel.
Tracy had met Chantel in Lila less than a year ago.
But Lila and Tracy's daughter Sarah, both vivacious toddlers, became besties.
So they were lovely little friends.
They also love dancing and like doing kind of, you know, little shows,
dressing up and then singing and dancing.
There's this really sweet echo of Chantel here.
The shows she'd put on with her sister Colleen, the dreams of a life on stage.
When I first spoke to Tracy on the phone, I asked about whether she ever saw anything that
troubled her in Simon and Chantel's dynamic, whether Chantel seemed under his control.
And at first she'd said no, Chantel was way too grounded and capable for that.
But as we kept talking, I felt like she started questioning her memories.
She realized how much younger Chantel was, which she hadn't clocked at the time.
And that maybe she had been more vulnerable than Tracy had realised.
In 2003, Tracy was walking down the main street when she saw Chantel at a cafe with a dark
haired young man and stopped to join them. Chantel introduces him. It's Tony Poppich.
I remember thinking he's more in Chantel's age group.
Tracy knows Chantel's partner is Simon Cadwill.
But she never thought there was much of a romantic spark between them.
So seeing Chantel with the younger man, it sparks her curiosity. I thought that would make more
sense if maybe they had a thing going on. This is pretty unlikely. Tony was gay.
I realised him hindsight. He was much more of a follower of Simon, but I didn't, you know,
click then. Tracy joins the two for coffee. And as they're chatting, she gets to know this new bloke.
Tony seems like a capable, pans on kind of guy. But Tracy notices there's something kind of lost
about him. I wouldn't say nervous person, but not completely self-assured type of person.
And then the conversation turns. Tracy's pretty sure it was Tony who brought it up.
A bit of a, I mean, I don't want to say Armageddon, he kind of thing, but I guess there was that
slant in the conversation. Armageddon as in Doomsday. I don't know how engaged I would have got
into it. I probably would have been, you know, it's quite an interesting topic to
surmise where the world's going. Tracy got the impression that Tony really believed there was a
Doomsday coming. And that Tony, Chantel and Simon all kind of didn't want to be part of society.
I always thought that was their grand plan to go to South America. If the world's too crazy,
that's a great place to go to kind of be away from it. Tracy didn't have much to do with Tony after
that day, but she's still been able to tell me more about Tony than I've managed to get from pretty
well everyone else I've spoken to. So few people have any recollection of him. And those that do,
it seems hazy. People describe him as gentle, polite, quiet, a hard worker, but nothing that seems
to get to who he was as a person. I know some basic facts about his life. In 1996,
Tony was living in Perth. He was in a relationship and had a well-paying job for a supermarket chain.
He had a company car, a house, and according to his family, was living a very normal life.
But then he attended a spiritual seminar called Turning Point.
From what I've learnt, he came away from that seminar a different person.
He believed that he was a higher power, with spirituality surrounding him.
He became uncommunicative and his relationship broke down. He sold all his possessions and began a
nomadic life, never staying in one place for too long, going long stretches without contacting his
family. It was in this new world of spirituality and higher powers that he crossed paths with Simon
Cadwill and moved into the tent in the Florida house. When the other women left,
it seems like Simon, Chantel, and Tony became a trio. Tony would sometimes leave and move
somewhere else for a while, but he would always find his way back to Simon and Chantel.
All of this feels like a familiar pattern. All these people, Tony, Chantel, even Chantel's old
flame from her auntie Pauline, Simon Cookeman. They were all living for one to the better word,
normal lives. Then they come across Simon and his teachings, and there's this really sudden shift.
They quit their jobs, bust important relationships, move away from family and friends,
keep parts of themselves hidden away. It's eerily similar.
Simon Chantel and Tony had barely been living in Denmark a year, when Tracy got an unexpected
request from Chantel. She wanted to know if she could put Tracy down as a rental reference.
They were leaving town, and they'd found a place they liked to look of in Nanop, three hours away.
A little blue farmhouse. They had to leave, Chantel had said, because...
The way it was presented, we've been seeing spirits in our place, it's getting too noisy here.
And when you say that it was getting too noisy here, do you mean that in the sense of traffic,
how do you mean noisy? I mean by an electric interference, wifi, phone, so kind of thing.
Here's the EMF again that we've heard about before, but this is the first time I've heard about
visions. But Tracy says Simon was seeing spirits in the backyard. He felt to be intruded?
Well this might seem odd. Tracy's matter of fact and grounded in her descriptions of the spiritual
world. It's a reminder that while the world of journalism deals in hard fact, there are lots of
different ways of seeing things. Tracy agreed to be a reference for Chantel's application to rent
the blue farmhouse. Simon, Chantel, Tony and Leela packed up their house and left town quickly,
without fanfare. We've probably had a phone call, see ya and we'll stay in touch.
The four rolled from the crystal blue ocean inland into green hills and the towering forests of
Nanop in late 2003, a place where their alternative ideas and lifestyle wouldn't draw attention,
where they could lose themselves in the isolation.
Leela was now a toddler and it had been a year since Chantel's parents had seen either of them in
person. They hadn't visited in Denmark, instead bringing Chantel and Leela home to a donger in
Victoria for a visit. Jim still hadn't met Simon Cardwell. So in 2004, he and Kath headed across
the country to the blue house. You'd think after years of waiting to meet the in-laws, Simon would have
been rolling out the red carpet for Jim and Kath's arrival. But that was not the case.
Simon was in bed, didn't get out of bed and I said to Chantel, he sleeps all day, he'll come out
dinner time or tea time. Jim would have to wait until dinner for Simon to finally emerge from his
bedroom in a pair of track pants and a jumper. He didn't look like super dressed or he didn't dress
up and look, get done up for us, that's for sure. Jim could look past Simon's lack of effort in
the fashion department. It was the conversation that followed that really took him aback.
Things between Jim and Simon only got more awkward as the evening went on and Jim pulled out his
camera to snap some family photos. He said no, you won't take me picture, it'll take me soul
away, it wouldn't let me take a picture of the kids like Shantel and him and the kids together.
Any hopes of bonding quickly faded. I was already feeling a bit on edge anyway about the first
meeting with him, it didn't get much better anyway after that. Jim noticed Chantel seemed pretty
uncomfortable too. A little bit on edge I'd say if I was going to rock the boat sort of thing.
Which Jim admits with a cheeky grin, he did do a bit over this day.
I started working around the house for Shantel fixing things around the farmhouse and
make as much noise so he'd wake up. I hope he got cranky and he'd talk to me.
I can't help but feel disappointed for Jim and Kath here. It feels like every step of the way,
they're still hopeful that maybe things aren't as bad as they seem and at some point Shantel will
get the regular suburban family life they want for her. But as far as first time meeting the
in-laws, things couldn't have gone worse. It didn't get any better. On a rare dinner out,
Jim and Kath saw an entirely different Simon, introducing himself to people chatting. He'd go and
sit with young people and he'd be chatting to him but he wouldn't take two words to us but he'd be
chatting to them flat out. You can see like he was working the room. It was like a car salesman
who was trying to sell you a bomb. When they visited next time, a year later, they knew Shantel was
working and carrying the domestic load so Kath's keen to help. Well, try at least. Shantel had to go
off to work and she said, you can bath Leela and get her ready for bed and put it to bed.
He sort of jumped in after Shantel went grab Leela, ran the bath, he didn't want me to have
anything to do with her. It was just to keep me away. I can tell this is a painful moment that
is stayed with Kath. Not being allowed to carry out the every day grand motherly role of giving
Leela a bath. Leela, who she barely got to see as it was, they grabbed any opportunity they could
to bond with Leela, managing to sneak a night where Leela could have a sleepover in the caravan.
Simon was so nice, she won't stay out there, she won't stay out there. She stayed all night,
she had a lovely time. You got really cranky because she stayed with us tonight, you know.
The next morning, it was time for Jim and Kath to head back home to a donger,
so they packed down the caravan and hooked it on to the back of their four-wheel drive.
Simon, Shantel and Leela were there, but Simon wasn't having a fond farewell. He wouldn't let Kath
give their kiss goodbye. He stood in front of the four-wheel drive home in the baby and wouldn't let
her say goodbye to her and she's screaming because she wants to kiss Kath goodbye and he wouldn't
let her. He was just really holding onto her like, you know, terrible, you know.
And it was their last memory, that day. That must have felt awful not being able to say goodbye
to her. It was horrible, yeah, driving away and she's crying, her eyes out.
Jim and Kath had to tear themselves away from their screaming granddaughter.
Always with that threat that if they said anything, they'd be cut off and never get to see her or
Shantel again. They could only afford to make the trek over to none up every now and then.
It was a long way to nowhere, but Shantel would call home every week, ask Kath what she should
make for dinner sometimes. Then in July 2004, Kath answered a call from Shantel and she
sounded worried. Simon Cookeman, Shantel's ex, the guy who she'd met Simon Cardwell through,
had turned up in Nanop. Lila was only little, a toddler and every time she went into town,
he would try and get her attention and come up to her. Shantel told her mum as she felt uncomfortable.
She was advised to take out a restraining order. The landlord of the Blue House has a
confrontation with Cookeman and tells him to get off the property. Finally, the police are called.
The local copper, Sergeant Jeff Taylor, picked Cookeman up and he was moved on.
And then later on we found out that he shouldn't have been. It was the wrong time and really.
It turns out he wasn't trying to hurt them. He was actually trying to warn them.
As Sergeant Taylor was transferring him out of the area, Cookeman was insisting that Shantel
wasn't safe, that Simon Cardwell was running a cult, that he wasn't who he said he was.
But Cookeman was sent on his way all the same.
It sort of settled down a bit after that. But that wouldn't last.
It sounds like Cookeman wasn't the only one making his way to Nanop because of Simon Cardwell.
As I've been gathering information about his life, I found out that Simon Cardwell would get these
visitors from time to time. Sometimes from across the world, come all the way to Nanop to see him.
When they'd visit the house, Shantel would take Leila to the park where they'd wait until the
visitor had left before heading home. Shantel was also working really hard to support the family.
Over time working at the fish and chip shop, the pub, helping a woman with disabilities,
she had chickens and would sell the eggs in town.
And when Shantel would work at the pub, Simon would wait outside sometimes while she'd
did her shift. And her colleagues noticed Shantel would seem nervous.
When I meet Jim and Kath, they shared a bunch of home videos Shantel had sent them.
It's strange watching them.
It all seems far more regular family life than I was expecting.
There's one where they're all playing a game. Leila clearly delighted that they get to pull
ugly faces at one another. There's a birthday party in Nanop.
But then there are these occasional moments that jump out of nowhere that feel odd.
I think they played as instruments in heaven.
Shantel and Simon are watching Leila open a present.
Which one would you like to have a birthday present?
They're flying blue.
I mean, it's crunchy again.
And they express their own filters and their own things.
I don't know if it's what happened after these videos were recorded,
that's colouring my impression.
But the way Simon says this to the camera, to some unknown watcher at a later date.
Without Shantel even knowing what he's saying. It gives me the creeps.
Since moving to Nanop, Shantel and her Denmark friend Tracey would keep in touch every now and then.
About a year after the four had moved into the little blue house on the isolated outskirts of Nanop,
Shantel's back in Denmark, soaking in the evening with her friend Tracey.
When women get together and start chatting,
half the day's gone by.
Shantel had called a few days earlier,
and asked if she and Leila could come and stay.
They'd picked up where they'd left off.
Sarah and Leila playing dress-ups and dancing around the house,
Tracey and Shantel cooking and catching up on lost time.
But once the girls were in bed, Tracey thinks they were sitting out on her back porch.
When Shantel says,
I've been to Bumbry because I've had an abortion there.
Since I began looking into Shantel's story, I've been trying to find out as much about her as I can.
And I actually found out about this pregnancy a while ago, long before I met Tracey.
But until now, I didn't think it was relevant.
But what Tracey tells me next makes me realise this is important.
But she didn't really want it. She wasn't that happy about it.
It was definitely because Simon wanted her to,
because he didn't feel that they should be any more children brought into the world.
Right, so you got the impression she would have preferred to have for me?
Absolutely. I guess she was just, yeah, she was just trying to accept it.
It was still fairly matter of fact, but there was, you know, there was an essence of sadness there.
This is the first time I'm hearing this part of the story.
Lots of people have indicated that Simon could be controlling.
But hearing that he was the one who decided Shantel should end her pregnancy is difficult to take in.
It also feels significant.
After a couple of days, Shantel and Leila said goodbye and jumped on the bus back to Nannup,
the little blue house, and Simon.
In the years leading up to this, as the fall had been moving to ever more isolated areas to try
and escape the EMF for spirits or psychic noise,
cracks were starting to show in Simon's online world too.
In 1999, around the time Simon was getting back to Australia from the UK,
a follower called Jean sent out an email and published it on the web for anyone to see.
He says Simon Cadwill had reached out to him online, and at first he believed in his teachings,
even undertaking the Truth Fellowship Correspondence course.
But after meeting Simon in person, he found him to be cunning and deceitful.
He said Simon had manipulated younger women into giving him money.
Then the replies started coming back.
Jean published those online too.
People said they'd also found Simon to be dodgy, that he was quote,
cold-hearted, egotistic, phony, robotic, imitation of a man.
There was one email from a woman named Kim who wrote that Simon asked her to marry him.
They'd never even met.
By 2007, Simon's behaviour in real life was erratic.
You remember the great silver EMF ball hunt?
And his online behaviour was getting pretty troubling too.
He was chatting with someone from his online group, who suggested he go to Brazil.
But he rejected that idea, consumed by what's been called a spiritual hopelessness.
In another email, he said the household had a plan for a family suicide.
They'd all wander off into the forest.
He, Chantel and Leila would take a fast-acting drug, and Tony would bury them,
before taking it himself.
He said he didn't think Chantel would do it, because she kept delaying.
People he communicated with said that his energy seemed a bit withdrawn.
He told someone else he was depressed and taking anti-psychotics.
Looking back from where I stand, all this looks like a snowball, gathering speed, hurtling downhill,
until no one would be able to stop it.
It was around June 2007, when people in town started talking.
They were noticing things. The people in the Blue House seemed to be giving away their possessions.
Chantel's pet Daxons had had puppies, and she advertised them for sale.
Tony Poppich sold a car. Simon gave away an apparently hallucinogenic plant.
Each of them giving away things that had been important to them.
One day, Tony turned up at Jody McDonald's.
The electrical apprentice, the next-door neighbour, with a taste for bronze horse statues.
He was giving away Chantel's chickens.
In the country, it's unusual to give away your chickens, unless there's a reason behind it,
either you're getting new ones, they're too old to lay, or they're poor layers.
These chickens were young and still on the lay.
Jody called her other neighbour to find out more.
I had said to her, you know, she's just offered me all her chickens.
This story feels so typical of country-town living, not asking too many questions,
but immediately getting on the phone for a bit of naively gossip.
I can so relate.
Unlike Jody, her neighbour wasn't afraid of having a sticky beat.
So that's when she rang her and asked her, was she leaving?
And so that's when she said no, that they couldn't afford to leave,
and they put a lot of money into doing renovations.
And then, on June 24, on the other side of the country, in the McDougal family kitchen,
the phone rings.
There's a lot going on, a house full of people left over from a family birthday.
Shantel's sister, Colleen, picks up the phone.
She says a few words, then hands it over to Kath.
She just rang up and asked me all about the party first,
and everything, and I told her how it went really well, and she sort of said,
oh, I got to tell you, we're going to move to Brazil.
I just couldn't believe it. I didn't know what to say.
Shantel ever expressed an interest in moving to Brazil before that phone call?
No, she never ever expressed any interest to move there.
Kath passed the phone over to Jim.
I didn't ask a lot of questions in, but I just said,
do we want to communicate? We want to know where you're going.
It's clear listening that Jim and Kath felt totally swept away by events.
Things happening, they had no control over.
Just doing what they could to try and make the best of it.
Jim got the internet put on, so they would be able to email.
Kath put together one of her care parcels.
I had sent Lila a little backpack with, I think it was Lila and Stitch on it,
and a little photo album, and I put all the family's photographs in there,
and on the back of our photo I put our name and address,
and at telephone number and that forerite.
Why did you, I guess, go to that effort of putting all the photos together
with all your details on it?
So Lila wouldn't forget us. She'd always remember us.
Because I knew we couldn't afford to go over there if they were staying over there,
and she had to contact details if she got older, and she wanted to contact us.
When I started looking into the disappearance, I spoke to a lot of
non-up locals who knew Shantel. A lot of them didn't want to talk,
but I did hear about their experiences with Tony, Simon, Shantel, and Lila.
In the lead-up to the disappearance, Tony turned down a good offer of work.
Shantel suddenly resigned from a job without giving a reason.
Lined the dots up at the time, but how could you?
A week before they disappeared, she gave away some of Lila's clothes and toys.
And Shantel said, yes, Lila's not going to need them anymore.
I heard that in the weeks before they vanished, she'd lost a lot of weight.
Shantel's told her that she was doing a cleanse.
She told someone else that she was trying to get to a higher plane of existence.
I overheard him saying they're not on the same plane as us.
It all feels pretty bleak, and that was the last time she ever saw her.
Hearing these stories and about the chickens and everything else, Tony and Shantel
were selling or giving away, not to mention the reason behind Shantel's abortion,
that it was Simon's call because he didn't think any more people should be brought into this world.
It leaves me with a deep sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It tells me that whether Shantel was planning to leave for Brazil or wander into the bush
with Simon and Tony to take their own lives, she was aware that they were going somewhere,
possibly for good.
But what about Lila, that little force of a girl who didn't get a say in any of it?
It's a really difficult question to reckon with.
And there was something coming that would reveal the extent of Simon's deception and manipulation,
and leave everyone questioning what they thought they knew about the man living with Shantel
in the blue house.
I'm Dominique Bans, host of Expans, The Nannup 4.
Please subscribe so you get every episode as they drop,
and leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps others find us.
If you can add to this story or have information you think might be important,
please get in touch. This season of Expans was developed in collaboration with ABC's Regional
WA team on Wadandee and Bibelman Country. Sound design is by Grant Walter, who is also a producer
along with Megan Woods. With additional production and research by Jessica Hinchliff,
Kate Stevens, and Louise Milen. Our supervising producer is Pia Wursu. Executive producer is
Blithemore. You've been listening to an ABC podcast. Discover more great ABC podcasts,
live radio, and exclusives on the ABC Listen app.
