A disappearance mapped through darkness.
The Lighthouse follows the disappearance of Theo Hayez, an 18-year-old backpacker who vanished after leaving a Byron Bay bar. It builds its case through family accounts, local searchers, phone data, terrain, and unanswered questions around the investigation.
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The Lighthouse is a serious investigative series about the disappearance of Theo Hayez in Byron Bay. It begins with absence: no reply, no bus taken, no reassuring sign that an 18-year-old backpacker is simply out of reception. From there, the reporting moves outward. Family members check messages, contact banks, call transport companies, and try to make sense of a silence that keeps getting heavier. The show’s strength is its patience. It does not rush past the practical work of reconstructing a missing person’s final known movements. Maps matter. Phone data matters. CCTV, walking speed, beach access points, sand dunes, leaf litter, and the shape of a cliff path all become evidence in the broader sense. The reporting repeatedly tests what seems plausible on a screen against what feels possible on the ground. That difference is often disturbing. A route that appears merely odd in data can feel almost inexplicable when walked through bushland in fading light. Local voices are essential to the series. Robert Rose searches because he knows how easy it can be for someone to remain hidden in difficult terrain. Sherry returns to mapped areas with GPS, trying to avoid missed ground and repeated paths. Family members carry the emotional record: the messages, the worry, the memories, and the refusal to accept easy closure. The series also keeps pressure on institutional questions, including what police knew, what the family could access, and what may have been missed early. Byron Bay is rendered in full contrast. It is scenic, crowded, rough-edged, and dangerous after dark. The lighthouse is both symbol and geography, a place of guidance near places where guidance can fail. The tone is grave without being theatrical. It suits listeners who want evidence, terrain, and testimony arranged carefully enough that uncertainty itself becomes the central fact.
Made for: For true-crime listeners who prefer careful reporting, family testimony, and procedural detail over sensational reveals. It especially suits audiences drawn to unresolved missing-person cases and terrain-based investigations.
What sets it apart: The series stands apart by walking the data back onto the land, testing maps and phone records against Byron Bay’s beaches, bush tracks, campsites, and cliffs. Witness and family audio often carry the emotional force while the narration keeps the investigation steady.
Theo Hayez is missing in Byron Bay, a beautiful beachside town on Australia’s most easterly mainland point, frequently in the spotlight for its famous residents. Theo's from Brussels. He's 18 and on a backpacking holiday when he vanishes in May 2019. Behind the scenes local volunteers who've never met Theo begin searching and investigating with his family, parallel to a major police investigation. At the request of Theo's family, The Australian newspaper's national crime correspondent David Murray joins the unofficial search party to investigate the mysterious disappearance for a new podcast series, The Lighthouse. Theo left a local bar around 11pm. As...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
The Lighthouse turns Theo's disappearance into a precise study of terrain, incomplete evidence and the persistence required to keep searching.
The Lighthouse follows Theo's disappearance through David Murray's reporting in Byron Bay, building its account from the last known movements and the people who continued searching.
Maps, phone data and a pitch-black cliff path turn your listening into an unofficial search party.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
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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.
A patient search story where maps, memory, and local terrain press against a vanishing.
This episode traces Theo Hayes's disappearance through the first days of the Byron Bay search, where local knowledge and terrain matter as much as the paperwork.
A map led investigation that treats geography like evidence.
This episode keeps returning to the ground beneath Theo Hayes's disappearance, and that choice works. The hat under the overhanging branch of a dead tree, the worn path to Tallow Beach, the abandoned campsite in the gully, and the 11.48pm timing give the story a clear spine.
A measured missing-person investigation that turns small clues into momentum.
The Lighthouse opens with Byron Bay's beam and folds it into a missing-person case that stays close to the facts. It follows Theo Hayes, who vanished after leaving a bar on his third night in town, and uses family messages, a greyhound booking, a bank branch visit, and Theo's…
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The final episode of The Lighthouse recaps the evidence around Theo Hayes' disappearance while introducing several new leads and disputed interpretations of police findings.
Theo Hayes has disappeared in Byron Bay.
The episode follows the search for missing tourist Theo Hayes in Byron.
Belgian backpacker Theo Hayes, 18, disappeared from Byron Bay, Australia, on the night of Friday May 31, 2019, after being ejected from a bar called Cheeky Monkeys.