When Catherine McDougall visited her daughter for the last time, she knew something was wrong.
In 2007, Chantelle McDougall, 27, and her six-year-old daughter Leela were living in an isolated farmhouse in Nannup, a three-hour drive south of Perth, with self-styled spiritual leader Simon Kadwell.
During her visit, Catherine sensed that the couple was planning something because a passport arrived in the mail for Leela, although Chantelle hadn’t mentioned travel plans.
“On the day I left, I burst into tears,” Catherine, 70, tells Woman’s Day. “In my gut, I knew something was going on.”
Weeks later, her suspicion was confirmed when Chantelle and Leela, along with 45-year-old Kadwell, who ran an online sect, and their friend Tony Popic, 40, disappeared.
Coronial inquest
In what has become one of Australia’s most baffling missing persons cases, no one has seen the four since.
In 2018, a coronial inquest found that Kadwell ran a cult called the Truth Fellowship. He had around 40 devotees worldwide, some of whom died by suicide under his influence.
English-born Kadwell prophesied the coming of a new, higher-conscious world, believing that every 75,000 years there’s a judgement day and only a select few are “promoted”.
“I find it hard to believe that I haven’t heard from Chantelle because we were close,” says Catherine, a former office worker and stay-at-home mum. She lives with husband Jim, a retired water treatment operator, in Baranduda, rural Victoria. Now, after 16 years, the mother of three is pushing for the police to offer a reward for information.
“Someone must know something,” says Catherine, who raised her close-knit family in Melbourne.
In a statement, a police spokesperson told Woman’s Day the case remains open and that certain “criteria” have to be met before a reward is offered, but that missing persons cases are continually reviewed.
For Catherine, this isn’t enough. Chantelle was just 19 when she met Kadwell at one of his seminars in 1997.
“He looks for people who are vulnerable and young,” believes Catherine. She says she found Kadwell “creepy” and “weird” when they met.
Chantelle, who had dreams of becoming an actress, felt captivated by Kadwell and eventually moved to Western Australia with him. She fell pregnant, although the cult leader was in relationships with three women at the time, the inquest later heard.
“Chantelle was always a lot of fun, laughing and joking,” says Catherine. “I couldn’t see her with this bloke.”
After Leela was born in 2001, Chantelle and Kadwell rented the ramshackle farmstead in Nannup. Their friend Tony, a hardware store worker, lived in a caravan on the property.
Kadwell, who called himself “Si”, presided over his cult outside the compound via an internet chat room. There, he connected with his devoted worldwide followers, known as “servers”.
After Catherine returned home to Victoria from her visit in May 2007, Chantelle withdrew around $4000, sold the family dogs and, on 13 July, sold her car.
Reported missing
The foursome vanished, leaving a note that read, “Gone to Brazil.” Though Chantelle had told Catherine in a June phone call of plans for the group to “help people” in Brazil, the worried mum couldn’t shake the feeling something was very wrong.
A family friend of the McDougalls, who was a Victorian police officer himself, reported Chantelle and Leela missing on their behalf. He discovered they hadn’t used their passports and her bank account.
They also learned that Kadwell was actually born Gary Felton and had stolen a colleague’s identity in England. Ultimately, the coroner was unable to establish beyond reasonable doubt that Kadwell, Chantelle and Leela were dead.
Catherine’s still asking herself what happened, and where her daughter and “beautiful” grandchild might be.
“I never forget,” she says. “Someone has to know what happened. I need answers and I’m 70 now, so I’d like them sooner rather than later.”
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