True Crime Conversations · Mamamia Podcasts

The Australian Family Cult That Vanished Overnight

·53 min·3 clips

Simon Cadwell was not Simon Cadwell at all; his real name was Gary Felton.

1. True Crime Conversations covers the disappearance of Chantelle McDougall, Simon, five-year-old Leela, and Tony from Nunup in 2007. 2. ABC reporter Dominic Bayens speaks as the journalist behind Expanse: The Nunup Four, and Gemma Bath hosts the interview from True Crime Conversations. 3. The episode asks how a 17-year-old from Wodonga ended up tied to a self-styled guru in a remote WA town. 4. Chantelle grows up in Wodonga, spends time on the dam, and performs in a local theatre group before moving to Melbourne. 5. Simon first enters the story through another man named Simon, who had been attending an ashram in Melbourne and brought Chantelle Simon Cadwell’s books. 6. Chantelle becomes a live-in nanny for Simon Cadwell’s baby son before the relationship deepens and the household shifts into a more closed world. 7. Bayens says Simon had spent years in India, written Servers of the Divine Plan, and built an online forum with followers in the United States and the United Kingdom. 8. He describes Simon’s beliefs as a 75,000-year cycle, alien beings, and a fifth dimension for people who had prepared themselves. 9. A cult expert named Raphael tells Bayens that four people in one household can create stronger enmeshment than a distant leader with white robes. 10. Chantelle and Tony are both described as well liked in Nunup, with jobs at a fish and chip store, a pub, a nursery, and a hardware store. 11. Bayens says Simon mostly kept to himself, while townspeople saw Chantelle, Leela, and Tony around town more often than him. 12. Diane, a woman from a homeschooling group, recalls Simon saying Chantelle had 'end time syndrome' and was afraid to go outside. 13. Bayens connects that control to the age gap, saying Chantelle was 17 when she met Simon and he was 18 years older. 14. The family later moves from Melbourne to Perth, then Denmark, and finally to a farmhouse about 10 kilometres out of Nunup in late 2003. 15. Simon becomes increasingly concerned about a power transformer on the property, worrying about electromagnetic fields and mental interference. 16. Kath McDougall receives a call from Chantelle saying the family is moving to Brazil in six weeks, but the passports and bank accounts never show travel activity. 17. Bayens says the missing-person investigation later uncovered that Simon Cadwell was actually Gary Felton, using a stolen identity from the UK. 18. The episode also discusses a message about a possible family suicide pact, which Simon later walked back by saying they would move to an isolated area instead. 19. The interview style is conversational and investigative, with Bayens answering detailed questions about place, people, and chronology. 20. Listeners who follow cult dynamics, coercive control, and unresolved disappearances will get the most from this episode.

As heard by us

A slow-burn disappearance story that keeps the human cost in view.

A teenage nanny job on Melbourne's outskirts unfolds into a quiet slide toward isolation and control, with Chantelle McDougall drawn further from her parents as the years go by.

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Why you'd press play

Follow one family's drift from a nanny job to a nine-year vanishing point.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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