William, George and Allan wash the XP
About 36,000 people go missing each year in Australia. Thankfully most are found safe and well within 24 hours.
Last year about 6500 people were reported missing to the Queensland Police Service, with 99.7% of those missing persons found.
One of those reports involved a married couple and their car.
When people go missing they usually vanish alone. It is rare for a married couple to disappear without a trace but that’s what happened to William Walter Cowell and Joan Iris Taylor back in 1983.
Their car, a red Ford XP Futura has never been found either.
Detective Senior Constable Michael Fernald said a series of tragic circumstances and historical policy meant William and Joan weren’t reported missing to police until 2012.
Back in 1983, missing people were referred to the Salvation Army, who carried out an exhaustive search independent of the police. The Salvo’s investigation went nowhere. Over the next thirty years, the family engaged solicitors to search for William and Joan without luck.
Family members conducted their own search. In 2012, they were advised to contact the police.
Fernald contacted police around Australia, along with banks, the Australian Defence Force and other government agencies. His investigation yielded nothing.
‘After exhausting all available leads we are appealing for public help to solve this mystery,’ he said. “They were in their 60s when they went missing in 1983. If they were still alive William would be 90 this year and Joan would be 88.’
William and Walter were last seen in 1983 when they made an unannounced visit to their daughter Christine in hospital. It’s believed Christine hadn’t talked to her parents for a few months.
Although their daughter was seriously ill with cancer, William and Joan said they were going away on another fruit-picking trip.
‘It’s believed they disappeared shortly afterwards,’ Fernald said. ‘This family has dealt with a lot of heartache over the years. Surviving family members are desperate to find out what happened to them.’
William was a digger who served in Papua New Guinea during World War Two, hand to hand combat against the Japanese. Joan was a Sunday school teacher. They married in 1948 and lived in Mackay, working on cane farms.
They had two children, Allan who was born in 1949 and Christine, born in 1955. By 1970, Christine had met George Bishop. William and Joan moved to Yeppoon and lived on a charter fishing boat named Kericky in Ross Creek.
William skippered the boat on fishing trips. Allan and Christine moved to Brisbane. In the late seventies, William and Joan relocated to Brisbane to be closer to their children. They bought a house in Napier Street at Birkdale.
There was a history of mental illness in the family. Joan began behaving erratically. Allan was institutionalised. William and Joan went months without talking to friends or family.
‘In the early eighties they slowly sold off all their possessions and began travelling throughout Queensland picking fruit at various farms,’ Fernald said. ‘They were virtually a reclusive couple at this stage. They were also struggling financially.’
In 1983, Allan drowned in the Brisbane River. Suicide is the suspected motive for his swim. Christine was in hospital, gravely ill with cancer.
‘That was when William and Joan visited her in hospital and said they were leaving to go fruit picking again. They were never seen by family again.’
A few months went by. Christine was discharged from hospital. She went to the Napier Street house with George, to see if her parents were back.
‘The house was empty but Joan had left a note for Christine on top of the television,’ Fernald said. ‘It read look after the house while we are gone.’
By late 1983, with William and Joan still away, Christine, George and their four children moved into the house, which was in poor condition. The house had been used as a drinking pad by local kids. It’d been messed up.
Christine and George cleaned up the house and paid all the bills.
They were waiting for William and Joan to come home, as they’d done before after so many fruit picking trips,’ Fernald said. ‘After waiting for several months, they went to the Sunshine Coast and the Gympie region to try and find them.’
The last known information regarding their whereabouts was a post office box they rented in Gympie in 1983. Fernald believes they were working on a fruit farm in the Gympie region when they went missing.
‘William stopped cashing his Department of Veterans Affairs cheques in 1983,’ he said, a strange move for a couple who were struggling financially.
In hope, George and Christine had sent a letter to the Gympie Post Office, advising William and Joan that Allan had drowned. The letter went into their post office box.
Months later, George and Christine went to the Gympie Post Office and spoke to the postmaster in Gympie, who opened the post office box.
The letter had been opened. The postmaster refused to say who opened it, but said it was opened in a legitimate way.
‘We’ll never know who opened the letter,’ Fernald said.
William and Joan were frail and in poor health at the time of their disappearance in 1983. Routine chores at home were difficult. Picking fruit would’ve been harder.
There are no records for William and Joan in other Australian states, no recorded Death Certificates, passports or any trace of either party since the time of their disappearance. There is no record of their car being found or sold or involved in a traffic crash or infringement.
‘It appears they just disappeared without a trace,’ Fernald said. ‘Unfortunately they were already missing when their son Allan drowned in 1983, and Christine died from cancer in 1984.’
The case is baffling, made even more perplexing by the disappearance of their car. The two-door XP Falcon was a great looking car. It’d be worth a fortune today. Fernald wants to hear from anyone who might’ve seen the car in a shed or on a farm somewhere in the Gympie or Wide Bay region, maybe a kid who used to sit in it and pretend to drive.
‘It’s a distinctive car,’ he said. ‘You never know what people remember. We’d like anyone who worked with them on their fruit-picking endeavours on the Sunshine Coast or Wide Bay regions to contact Crime Stoppers.’
Melissa Bishop, granddaughter to William and Joan, said she wanted closure. She was too young, four or five, to remember her mother or grandparents and said her family had endured enough tragedy.
‘It was pretty devastating for the whole family really,’ she said. ‘We can’t find no new information.’
Melissa had also been referred to the Salvation Army by police about fifteen years ago. Money was spent on solicitors. She said it was frustrating when the searches went nowhere.
William and Joan are being searched for now. The Queensland Police Service takes missing people very seriously. Fernald’s investigation has been thorough.
‘I never knew them growing up,’ Melissa said. ‘I’ve got my own children now and would have liked them to have met my grandparents. I really want to know what happened to them.’
Melissa has endured tragedy. Two of her older brothers died when they were very young. She’s hoping for answers to stop the pain.
‘Surely somebody has got to have seen something, the car, fruit picking, surely there’s got to be somebody.’
To watch Detective Senior Constable Michael Fernald and Melissa Bishop’s plea for help, go to the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFfQgwNCROU
