Ex-cop uncle of missing Nannup woman Chantelle McDougall and daughter Leela raising funds for investigation

The ex-police officer and uncle of a Nannup woman who went missing 17 years ago along with her young daughter claims police refused to take a missing persons report from a relative not once — but three times — when the pair first disappeared in 2007. And he says police still have not contacted witnesses whose information could help solve the long-standing mystery. Chantelle McDougall, then 27, and her six-year-old daughter Leela went missing in 2007 alongside housemates Antonio Konstantin Popic and Gary Felton, who went by the name Simon Kadwell. Ms McDougall’s uncle, retired Victorian police officer Barry McIntosh, has claimed WA Police initially refused to take his brother-in-law’s missing person’s report and he is not sure why. He has also made claims police missed opportunities to investigate the case and failed to contact those who may be able to assist. Mr McIntosh began his own inquiries into the disappearance in 2017 after receiving the “entire” investigation file from WA Police. He said he found missed opportunities for the police to investigate the case, and the ex-cop plans to travel to the State this month to follow up on one of the lines of inquiry. One of the inquiry lines is a report made by prisoners to a prison officer and passed on to police in the months after Ms McDougall and her daughter were reported missing. The prisoners said they could “smell death” and saw a red T-shirt at a location in Northcliffe. Two officers from Pemberton police station did attend a location near the town to investigate on October 31, 2007, but Mr McIntosh is doubtful they searched the right location. “The police went to the wrong spot because they couldn’t smell death,” he said. Mr McIntosh claimed police “didn’t contact their witnesses to clarify” or check they were in the right spot, because it was in a bush area where the tracks were “going everywhere”. “At the inquest, they said they couldn’t find the prisoners, which to me is just a nonsense,” he said. “I requested them to do that on my behalf and I haven’t heard back. “I tracked the prison officer down and he said he hadn’t been spoken to by any of the investigators.” Mr McIntosh said he had clarified the location where the prisoners were, and claimed it was a kilometre from where the police had searched. He said detectives searched the same “wrong” area again about a decade ago, and to his knowledge had still “not contacted any of the prisoners”. In May, Mr McIntosh launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds for a light detection and ranging scan to search the area he claims police have missed. The new technology strips off the foliage and the trees in the image scans to find anomalies on the ground. If the target $15,500 could be raised, Mr McIntosh said a drone fitted with a Lidar scanner would be flown over the search area. “Now that 17 years passed on, it’s going to be a needle in a haystack, in reality,” he said. Mr McIntosh said police may not have used technology such as lidar, as it was “quite expensive” and “wouldn’t have been a go to for them”. “We tried to drag them kicking and screaming just to take the missing persons report back in 2007,” he said. The whereabouts of Ms McDougall and her daughter have been unknown since July 16 2007, when the owners of the Nannup property the four missing people were living at, Lyndon and Elizabeth Crouch, found the house vacated and a note saying “Gone to Brazil”. Several items were left behind, and the property was tidy. Mr McIntosh said Ms McDougall had had conversations about going to Brazil. “She attained a passport for her daughter Leela,” he said. Mr McIntosh noted his niece had “disconnected all the services correctly at the house” and “paid off her Visa card”. “I believe that she was honestly intending to go to Brazil,” he said. “Simon Kadwell was the only person who was talking about (taking his life) — or as we found out, he’s Gary Felton. “Chantelle was a bubbly happy girl. Leela was a cheeky young six-year-old girl. She was friends with everyone and loved her daughter Leela to the moon and back.” WA Police told the Times the investigation remained with the missing persons team within the major crime division and was an open case. Coroner Barry Paul King investigated the suspected deaths of the four missing people in an inquest held at the Busselton Courthouse in December 2017, finding none of the deaths were established beyond all reasonable doubt. “There is nothing more that WA Police can add to these findings,” the police spokesperson said. Anyone who may have new information regarding this case is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make a report at www.crimestopperswa.com.au. Reports can be made anonymously. Lifeline 13 11 14