6 - The way forward

December 6, 2019·1 hr 4 min·5 clips

Lisa Horne saw a man in light pants and black shoes sprawled on the Pacific Highway days before Theo vanished.

David Murray opens by noting the case has been referred to the New South Wales coroner, signaling police believe Theo Hayes is dead. He then presents new information received before the episode's release. Lisa Horne, a 55-year-old Queensland woman, was driving south on the Pacific Highway near Coffs Harbour at 4:30am on June 2, 2019, and saw a man lying on the road and another waving her down. She drove on and called Triple Zero, but police reported finding nothing. Months later, seeing footage of Theo in a Byron bottle shop, she recognized the light pants and black shoes and called Crimestoppers—but received no response. Private detective Ken Gamble, who has joined the investigation, said the lead should be pursued. An anonymous source describes a separate incident in which a male friend accepted a lift from a stranger on the road out of Byron, was handed an open can of beer, blacked out, and came to at the Yelgun truck stop 15-20 kilometres north, describing the incident as molestation. This alternative theory—that Theo may have been drugged—is raised as worth investigating. Cadaver dogs from Search Dogs Sydney searched the lighthouse cliffs and Arakwal National Park in August but found nothing. Oceanographer Malia Rouillon says that if Theo entered the water, the East Australian Current running at five to seven knots could have carried him as far south as the Bass Strait, and he would likely have become predatory prey. Rockfisherman Robert Rose, who has himself been swept off the lighthouse cliffs, believes Theo most likely fell from the Cape Byron cliffs during a new moon spring tide. In September, police held a briefing for the family where Detective Phil Parker presented his hypothesis: Theo was disoriented and lost, using Google Maps logs as evidence. The family disputed this interpretation, arguing that every touch on a digital map creates a log entry regardless of user intent. A listener suggested Theo may have added Tallow Beach as a waypoint, which would not appear in Google activity logs, and volunteers confirmed this when they tested it. Police also cited a drop in phone signal strength as evidence Theo climbed the lighthouse cliffs and fell. Theo's family disputed the reliability of this Telstra data. Police refused to tell the family what time the signal drop occurred; Belgian police later told them it was between 2am and 6am. The family wrote to the coroner rejecting the lost-and-wandering hypothesis and suggesting Theo may have been accompanied by someone who knew the route. The host explains geofence search warrants as a tool NSW Police could use to identify who else was near Tallow Beach and Cozy Corner that night, noting the evidence is time-sensitive. Laurent Ayer, Theo's father, walked his son's route at night with the search group.

As heard by us

A missing-person search turns into a map of cliffs, grass, and the risks hidden by darkness.

The episode treats Theo's disappearance less like a puzzle box than a place bound by weather and terrain. The cliffs, the track, the grass, and the dark all shape what can be seen, and what stays out of reach.

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Why you'd press play

You want to trace Theo's path across the lighthouse cliffs.

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