Appoche production.

We hope this is not the final episode of More to the Story.

It's a podcast about the tragic accident that took a young man's life in Townsville in twenty twenty three.

This podcast has been a little different for us.

We did it because we think that it might help jog someone's memory or maybe get someone to come forward who knows something about the circumstances around Caine's death.

We also know it's a long shot, and so do the family, but they're hopeful that someone has been sitting with a secret for over two years and maybe, just maybe they might come forward.

Caine lived with his dad and his sister, Mikayla, just a short drive to the park where he tragically lost his life.

We took his sister Mikayla back to that park while recording this podcast, and as we drove to the park where Cain was found, I mentioned to Mikhayla that it was a bittersweet that the road that we were driving down was called Progress Road, but there'd been very little progress in the two years since Caine's death.

I've never thought of that, but that is very true.

What we do know is that Cain was laying down in the park, possibly drunk, possibly greening out on marijuana.

Someone probably known to him accidentally ran over his head and upper body at a low speed.

Police and the coroner say it's likely the person that ran him over didn't know they did it.

They say it's possible they still don't know they did it.

The family don't believe that, and that's one of the reasons for doing this podcast.

I guess.

I just really was very, very excited about doing this podcast to get Caine's story out there, to get people talking about it more and more importantly, for him to be not forgotten.

And yeah, he will never be forgotten.

Someone out there knows something.

Somebody knows something, they need to come forward.

Cain or Caino as his mates would call him, would have been twenty one.

It's September this year.

In this small community, everyone that knew Caine loved him.

He didn't really have any enemies.

The sadness for the family continued just five months later with another death.

This time it was Caine's dog.

Yeah, she was smelling his scent down there for weeks after it go crazy looking for him.

She was Caine her very very close.

Yeah, she got a rare disease from the Alice River and once they animal has this particular parasite disease.

Yeah, it's not curable.

But his sister Mikhaela spent thousands at the VET trying to save Poppy, but Caine wanted her up there with him.

And Cane passed in April and Poppy Poppy joined him in September.

Sitting around with Caine's sister and Auntie and his mum, Sarah Jane.

After our interview had finished, we started looking through some images and photos of Cain and some of those happy memories came flooding back.

So that's Cain and his dad at the pub, having his first drink, being eighteen at the brother's first legal beer, and that was Caine's eighteenth at the casino first time, won four hundred dollars on.

The Pokey's and he was very, very excited about that.

And then of course there's other memories that aren't so fond, like letters from lawyers and coronial staff.

Coroner has reviewed the information concerning Kine's death.

This includes a comprehensive investigation by the police on the information currently available.

She is not proposing to hold an inquest.

We first traveled up to Townsville in September of twenty twenty four.

That was before the coroner had officially handed down her finding.

We actually decided to wait for the finding as the family lawyer was worried that our podcast might have gotten in the way somehow.

In the months leading up to the release of this podcast, we spoke to Sarah Jane a bunch of times on the phone, and in one of those calls she mentioned another theory that was glanced over in our initial conversation.

So recently I had our friend admit to me that he heard some kids talk Britt Bragan about running over.

The boy at Rupertswick.

These are unsubstantiated claims and we have not been able to verify them.

These are what the family have heard.

Passed on this information to police.

And they steal all the cars, you know, and do all that.

That's what they do constantly.

And we all thought, like everyone has said to me, you know, did they look in did they look into the stolen car thing?

And I said, yeah, they did, but I don't think it.

Was but we didn't know anyway, I went to the coppers with that bit of information because you know, like you can't not it's worth looking into.

But it could have just been them talking about it.

I don't know.

I just it seemed very sus to me.

And crime and stolen cars is a big thing in Townsville right now, right.

It is very big, very big.

Yes, stealing they fill themselves stealing cars and driving around.

How stupid, but that's what they do.

Have The police got any record of any stolen cars in the area, and I'm guessing if it was a stolen car that could have run over Caine, then yes, it would have to be a large right.

The police have already told us that they won't be making any more comments unless the coroner instructs them to reopen investigation.

So we took upon ourselves to have a look at stolen cars in the area on the twenty first and twenty second of April in twenty twenty three.

The hardest part is the police stolen car list, which is public, is really only updated for twenty eight days, so something that happened three years ago in Townsville is pretty much unsearchable on that database.

Our next stop is checking the archives for stolen cars in Townsville on those dates in the year of twenty twenty three, there were two thousand stolen cars in Townsville.

Two teenagers remain on the run tonight after a wild stolen car joy ride across Townsville.

Cancuffs a boy so young he only just reaches the arresting officer's elbow.

Darlar car have cracked, all footing around the vehicle.

The five in the car one.

Looks to have cart.

This footage was filmed by the offenders as they chased the man down while armed with a machete, repeatedly ramming his car.

The offenders later posted the video online with the caption and you don't chase us, we chase you.

This girl is just fourteen years old.

Rested and charged along with two others aged seventeen, all accused of a wild stolen card joy ride that ended like this.

The lubyg.

Was like finding a needle in a haystack.

As we searched the date, we found one man that was arrested on the twenty second of April in the nearby Willow shopping center.

It's literally ten minutes from where Caine lived.

He was arrested on another matter and CCTV had captured him torching stolen car on April nine of that year.

He was caught because he was wearing the same clothes and was committing another offense.

He's an article from the local newspaper read by an aiacta.

The court heard that CCTV from a nearby store captured him parking a stolen car around six thirty am on April ninth, twenty twenty three, before getting out, pouring fuel inside and setting it on fire.

Crown prosecutor said the footage also showed another car waiting nearby, which he got into before leaving the scene.

She said the car he torched had been taken from a home in Hyde Park by unknown offenders.

The defendant has indicated he was unaware that it was a stolen car, but nonetheless he has pleaded guilty to unlawfully using that car.

Police had also located a fingerprint on the fuel cap of the burnt car and charged him on June twelfth.

It begs the question for us about this stolen car theory.

Could it have been that Caine was still alive in the park when all his mates left.

Then later that night, a stolen car on a joy ride drives through the park and runs over Cain, there's only really one road in and out of Rupertswood Park.

We know that there is one grainy CCTV camera at the fire station on Progress Road, the street leading into the park.

We heard that the camera footage that was supplied to Caitlin Kane's cousin to try and identify all the cars going in and out of the park that night.

It was hard to make out exact cars.

There's a fire shed about halfway down the park road.

They've checked that to identify all the vehicles that drove through the area through the park that night.

They basically said they identified every single car that had gone down there and who owned the car, except I think there was one car maybe that they couldn't identify.

It does leave us with some questions.

Were there any cars that were never able to be identified?

Did police check cars in and out of the park from the time everyone left the park to the time Kane was found.

Let's head back to what Cain's auntie told us in an earlier episode.

Was just literally all the photos and Caitlin had to go through and say, oh, that's such and such as a car, that's such and such as car.

Some of them she couldn't even identify because they were going so fast down the road.

Although we didn't have much luck with asking police questions about the investigation, we have lodged a right to information request around this stolen car theory and some of the earlier questions we submitted to police.

At the time of publishing, we've not had a response.

This stolen car theory is not what we're saying happened.

It's more that we want to make sure all of the possible scenarios looked into.

Mikayla Caine's sister thinks the same, like, I'm not completely sure.

But yes, you can't really rule that out.

It could have happened at any time when this.

A certain particular person told me, well, he asked me.

He asked me, did the police look into all of this burnting out cars that was stolen that night?

And I said, I don't know.

You know, you'd think that they would have.

And because he'd overheard.

Some of them, you know, talking and that sort of thing, I said to him, you know, like I might go to the police with this, just you know, like we didn't want to let them know so that they had time to cooperate their stories.

Together and you know, get this story straight.

But when I went to the police about this, he said that he was going to call this person and have a chat with them.

That I heard it from, which from last I heard, he hadn't actually gotten onto him.

But the detective said that he will look into all of the all of the stolen cars that and like the kids that were caught and that sort of thing their Instagram and you know, all that sort of thing where they post in the brag about the cars that they steal and their phone records.

He was going, He did promise us that he was going to look into all of.

That, but that was only if he could get on to ol mate that came to mum to say that otherwise he couldn't do anything.

So the stolen car theory is one angle that we don't know actually has been completely investigated.

It might have been, we just don't have that information from police.

There was another theory that came up on a recent call with Mikayla and Sarah Jane when we were making sure they were happy with all the episodes, and that was about the tire tracks that police say they checked.

We've anonymized who this information came from, but we have been able to verify it through a few different sources.

There has been a conversation with someone that the family's spoken to and we won't name names, that says it was a very slight difference and due on the ground, could have been the difference between something matching and not matching.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah?

Exactly, like overnight like that, the grass could have moved, you know, sun could have come up, grass could have moved and changed the width of the tire by you know, the slightest little centemeter, and that could have been all it took.

The other option is if it was a stolen car, then obviously unless those cars were then taken to the park and forensically examined like they did with those other two vehicles, then there's a chance that that area or that angle of investigation hasn't also been looked at.

Yeah that's right, Well, yeah, no it hasn't.

If you had a chance to talk to that person, if they were sitting either listening to this podcast.

Right now, I would say that you need to come forward so that we know what happened.

I just think that it's just a coward act, just leaving someone there like that, and you know, even if you didn't know that you run someone over and you've seen it on the news and you thought, oh, I drove through there, Oh I remember, you know, feeling something, then like the right thing would be to come forward and say it could have been me.

Really, that's all.

That's all we wanted was for someone to you know, come forward and just own up to it.

I'm just glad that the story's getting out there because I don't want absolutely nothing to come of this, because that's what was going to happen.

But now, thanks to you, Jay, that the story's going to get out there and someone will come forward, because they'll even if.

They don't come forward, even just hearing that that's out there and everyone's listening to it and they just feel guilty and just you know, like that'd be enough for me.

Got a lot of satisfaction out of this podcast.

Jay, You've got no idea, a lot very very devastating to listen to.

Like I've only just listened to the episode four last night, which is two weeks after you've sent it to me, because it was just so hard and came father also makes trouble listening to any of it.

As well.

But that's that's understandable.

I was about to ask CoA Gary's doing.

Yeah, he he reckons he started the first episode and he just like he actually made a comment to me saying, I didn't realize that that's how it actually went, like like hearing you know, like exactly what happened, and he knew that I found him, but just how it all happened of like you know, when Katie come driving down the road and then you know all of that, because I think his way of dealing with things is just to sort of block it out, if it makes sense.

But I got him to listen to the Copper the episode four where we interview the Damien.

Yeah, and that was and yeah, that was a real eye opener.

What that policeman said with excellent It was all the things that our whole family have been thinking the whole way.

Did they go to their house, did they check and see if the times could have been changed?

Yeah?

Did they look at phone records.

Like we always wanted to know whether they've done any of that?

And I don't think they did.

I don't like leaving a story like this unfinished.

It honestly leaves me thinking, have we done enough, then I have to go back to why we started telling this story in the first place.

Someone knows how Caane died, that someone is living with secret.

We hope this podcast might be enough for someone to come forward.

How does it made you feel like listening to I mean, obviously we had this conversation about a year ago, now.

More probably angry that you know someone's out there that run him over and we still don't know who it is, and listening to it all back, you just think that, like, why does it have to be this hard to find who you know run him over?

Why does it have to be this hard?

Why wasn't it solved?

Still the right thing, you know.

I know that you're probably struggling with what you've done, because I know that I would be struggling if I had done something like that.

Still the right thing to come forward?

Let us all have closure.

Have you turned to tell your side of the story?

If you know anything, you can reach out to us on the email in the show notes anonymously.

If he was here, I think that I do probably tell him a little bit more that I love him, just would have liked a little bit more time with him, and really think that he would have turned out to be a really amazing young man, and he didn't deserve to die like this.