Byline: Shaun McMahon is a journalist at the Mansfield Courier, a former private investigator and sheriff's officer, and host of the Australian true crime podcast, True Blue Crime.
THE High Country is again under a negative national spotlight after television and tabloid coverage has depicted it as having 'dark secrets' and being one of the country's 'most dangerous places'.
But when you remove the adjectives and strip back the cinematic music, the facts presented are skewed and selective with a number of egregious omissions.
Three of the cases covered in Channel Nine's 'Under Investigation', hosted by Liz Hayes, which aired last Wednesday night, did occur within what the majority of people call the High Country.
Two cases, however, which were weaved into the story entitled 'Curse of the High Country' didn't happen in the region.
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The first, that of missing bushwalker Warren Meyer, was reported in the same breath as those of Conrad Whitlock, Niels Becker and David Prideux; all of who went missing in the High Country between 2011 and 2019 in differing circumstances.
Their cases remain unsolved.
There's no evidence to suggest any are connected and, indeed, prevailing theories have equally different outcomes.
But Mr Meyer went missing in an area near Fernshaw, south of Narbethong and north of Healesville, in 2008.
That's in the Yarra Ranges, almost 200 kilometres (not 60 kilometres, as the show erroneously noted) and over three hours drive away from Mount Buller near to where the aforementioned trio were last seen.
Using that logic, missing person cases from Wodonga and Gippsland may well be linked purely by geography and activity to those in the High Country, in the absence of any other evidence.
A second case linked was that of Kelvin Tennant.
He was shot three times while cycling along the Myrtleford–Everton Rail Trail in 2017.
Luckily he survived after being rescued by members of the public.
But again, this occurred in the Alpine Shire some three hours and almost 200 kilometres north of Mount Buller.
There's no other evidence connecting the attack to the missing persons in the High Country.
Nor is there any evidence to suggest that a serial killer is on the loose on the region 'stalking the wilderness', as suggested by the Daily Mail in their article, which regurgitates much of Under Investigation's story of facts cobbled together in a suggestive manner to support a juicy narrative.
There's nothing particularly untrue stated by the host or guests throughout the episode, and the Mansfield Shire isn't named, probably for legal reasons.
But the implication is there.
One glaring omission from both the show and article, however, is the unsolved cases they don't mention, which could've been more convincingly linked on location alone if that was their goal.
The first is that of Sam Wilson.
She was last seen alive near her home in Abbeyard, an area around 50 kilometres east of Mansfield behind Mount Buller.
No one reported the 53–year old mother missing.
In May 2019, some nine months later, her body was found by hunters in the surrounding state forest not far from where she lived.
Her case remains unsolved and under active investigation.
And casting the net further back to 2002, with the missing persons case of Kath Bergamin.
Often linked to Wangaratta where she was last seen, Ms Bergamin previously and had only recently left the family farm in Cheshunt, just 70 kilometres away from Mansfield and arguably at the border of the High Country and the King Valley.
Perhaps these cases didn't fit the narrative of a few blokes mysteriously going missing in the wilderness.
Or maybe the subject of domestic violence, which often comes up in these cases, was too difficult to discuss.
Whatever the case, it's either selective or poorly researched.
Of course, the recent case of Wonnangatta campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay was discussed in both pieces, with that case reaching a recent apex and hypothesis which will form the state's case in the upcoming trial of airline pilot Greg Lynn.
But bad things happen everywhere, not just in the High Country, and it's disappointing to see the tragic stories of missing persons – whose families are still dealing with the pain of ambiguous loss – be boiled down into something that misrepresents their loved one's cases and side swipes the High Country in the process.
