Case File 018-027: The Bywater Creek Disappearance

Incident Overview

On 22 May 2018, twenty-four-year-old seasonal worker Isaac Fairburn was reported missing from a rural property near Bywater Creek, approximately three kilometres south of Franklin in Tasmania's Huon Valley. The case triggered a multi-day land and waterway search involving Tasmania Police Southern Division, the State Emergency Service, and river dive teams.

Despite initial indications of a voluntary departure, inconsistencies in witness statements, disturbed ground near the creek edge, and physical evidence suggesting the presence of an unidentified second party led investigators to suspect potential foul play. The investigation was formally suspended on 14 June 2018 due to insufficient evidence to support either a criminal prosecution or a coronial finding.

The case remains unsolved. Isaac Fairburn has not been seen or heard from since the morning of 22 May 2018.

The Bywater Creek investigation is significant within Southern Division's operational history as one of the earliest field deployments of the detective-K9 partnership between Detective Karl Jenkins and his tracking dog Jargus-9B — a pairing that had been operational for approximately six months at the time of the deployment and that would, within weeks of the case's suspension, be drawn into the series of investigations from which Jenkins himself would not return.

Isaac Fairburn

Isaac James Fairburn was born on 3 September 1993 in Devonport, Tasmania, the only child of Wayne Fairburn, a truck driver employed by a north-west coast freight company, and Denise Fairburn née Hollis, who worked part-time at the Devonport library. The family lived in a fibro cottage in East Devonport — a suburb that sat across the Mersey River from the town centre and operated with the quiet self-sufficiency of a place accustomed to being overlooked.

Isaac attended East Devonport Primary School and subsequently Devonport High School, where teachers described him as capable but disengaged — a student who completed work to the minimum standard required and directed his energy toward things that interested him more than the curriculum. He left school at sixteen without completing his Higher School Certificate, a decision his mother objected to and his father regarded as inevitable.

Between 2010 and 2018, Isaac worked a succession of casual and seasonal positions across northern and southern Tasmania — apple picking in the Huon Valley, cherry harvesting at orchards near Launceston, forestry plantation work in the north-west, and occasional labouring jobs through employment agencies in Devonport and Hobart. He never held any position for longer than a few months. Employers who remembered him consistently described the same person: reliable while he was there, uncomplaining, physically strong for his lean build, and inclined to leave without notice when he decided it was time to move on.

He had no criminal record. No known debts. No history of drug use beyond the social cannabis consumption that was endemic among seasonal workers in the valley. No significant relationships that his parents were aware of, though Denise Fairburn would later tell investigators that Isaac rarely shared personal details and that she had learned not to ask questions he would not answer.

Isaac arrived at the Velt orchard in early May 2018, having responded to a handwritten advertisement on the noticeboard at the Franklin general store. Barry Velt hired him on the spot — apple season was winding down but there was pruning work that needed doing, and Velt had lost two pickers the previous week to better-paying work at a salmon farm near Dover.

Isaac was allocated a room in the workers' quarters — a converted shearing shed approximately two hundred metres from the main farmhouse that contained four single beds, a communal kitchen, and a bathroom whose hot water supply depended on the wood-fired boiler functioning, which it did roughly four days out of seven. Two other seasonal workers occupied the quarters at the time: a backpacker from northern England named Craig Drummond, and a local man named Peter Kellett who had worked the Velt property intermittently for several years.

The Morning of 22 May

Isaac Fairburn's routine during his three weeks at the Velt property had been consistent enough to serve as its own clock. He rose early — typically between 5:30 and 6:00 AM — dressed, made instant coffee in the communal kitchen, and walked along the track that followed Bywater Creek for approximately a kilometre before the path petered out in dense peppermint scrub. He returned by 7:30 AM, ate breakfast, and began work by eight.

On the morning of 22 May, Craig Drummond recalled hearing Isaac's alarm sound at approximately 5:45 AM. He heard the kitchen tap run, smelled instant coffee, and heard the external door close. This was consistent with every other morning since Drummond's arrival a week earlier. He did not see Isaac leave. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

Peter Kellett, whose bed was nearest the door, told investigators he did not hear Isaac leave that morning. Kellett stated he had been awake since approximately 5:00 AM with a headache and had taken paracetamol before falling back to sleep. He estimated he woke again at approximately 7:15 AM and noticed Isaac's bed was empty but his belongings — a canvas duffel bag, a pair of work boots, a paperback novel — remained.

Barry Velt became concerned when Isaac did not appear for work at 8:00 AM. He walked to the workers' quarters at approximately 8:15 AM, confirmed Isaac's absence with Drummond and Kellett, and spent the next thirty minutes checking the property's outbuildings, sheds, and the near section of the creek track. Finding no sign of Isaac, he drove to the farmhouse and called Huonville Police Station at 8:47 AM.

Initial Response

The call was handled by Senior Constable David Marsh at Huonville station, who logged it as a welfare concern and dispatched a constable to the Velt property. Constable Andrea Wilmot arrived at approximately 9:30 AM and conducted preliminary interviews with Velt, Drummond, and Kellett.

Wilmot's initial assessment, documented in her field notes, was that the circumstances were consistent with a voluntary departure — a seasonal worker who had decided to move on without informing his employer. The pattern was common enough in the Huon Valley that it had its own informal terminology among the local police: a "picker's exit."

Two details gave Wilmot pause. First, Isaac's car remained on the property — a rust-spotted 1997 Holden Commodore VT with registration plates issued in Devonport. A worker choosing to leave would almost certainly take his vehicle. Second, Isaac's wallet, containing his driver's licence and approximately forty dollars in cash, was found in the pocket of a jacket hanging on the back of his door in the workers' quarters.

Wilmot expanded her search to the creek track, following the path Isaac was known to walk each morning. Approximately 800 metres from the workers' quarters, where the formed track narrowed to a footpad alongside the creek, she observed an area of disturbed ground — flattened vegetation, scuffed earth, and what appeared to be drag marks extending approximately three metres toward the waterline. The creek at that point was narrow but fast-moving, swollen by recent rain, and approximately a metre deep at the centre of the channel.

Wilmot returned to the Velt farmhouse and upgraded her report from welfare concern to suspicious circumstances at 11:14 AM.

The Jenkins-Jargus Deployment

Detective Karl Jenkins was assigned to the case on the morning of 23 May, one day after the initial report. The assignment came through the Southern Division Major Crimes Unit, where Jenkins was serving a preparatory rotation in advance of his formal examination for permanent appointment — an examination that was scheduled for late July and that Jenkins was approaching with the methodical intensity his colleagues had learned to expect and his supervisors had learned not to interrupt.

Jenkins drove south from Hobart to Franklin that morning with Jargus-9B in the rear of his vehicle. The partnership was approximately six months old — long enough for the working relationship to have developed beyond the initial adjustment period, but still new enough that every significant deployment represented a test of capabilities that training had predicted but operations had not yet confirmed.

The Three Pines abduction recovery two years earlier had validated Rokeby's solo-tracking programme using Milo in a wilderness search scenario. The Bywater Creek deployment would test different capabilities — Jargus working a scent trail in a confined rural environment where the crime scene, if crime scene it was, had been exposed to rain, foot traffic, and twenty-four hours of degradation before the K9 unit arrived.

Jenkins and Jargus began working the creek track at approximately 10:00 AM on 23 May. Jargus picked up a scent trail near the area of disturbed ground Wilmot had identified, tracking it not toward the creek — as the drag marks suggested — but laterally along the bank to a flattened section of underbrush behind a disused irrigation shed approximately 150 metres downstream.

Behind the shed, Jargus indicated at a patch of disturbed earth. Jenkins documented the site: partial impressions from two separate boot types, drag marks consistent with something heavy being pulled across soft ground, and crushed vegetation suggesting a struggle or sustained physical activity. The boot impressions did not match Isaac Fairburn's footwear, which remained in the workers' quarters.

Near the disturbed ground, Jenkins recovered a single glass bottle containing residual home-brewed liquor. A handwritten label on the bottle bore initials — D.K. — that did not correspond to anyone known to be resident or employed on the Velt property.

Witness Statements and Inconsistencies

Jenkins conducted formal interviews with Barry Velt, Craig Drummond, and Peter Kellett over the following two days. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in accordance with standard investigative procedure, and Jenkins' supplementary notes — characteristically detailed, running to margins filled with cross-references and question marks — documented the inconsistencies that prevented him from closing the case as a straightforward disappearance.

Barry Velt's account was straightforward and consistent across multiple tellings. He had employed Isaac for three weeks, found him reliable, and had no knowledge of any disputes or difficulties involving the young man. Velt had not heard or seen anything unusual on the morning of 22 May. He had been in the farmhouse kitchen from approximately 5:30 AM, and the workers' quarters were not visible from the house.

Craig Drummond's account was similarly consistent. He had arrived at the Velt property a week before Isaac's disappearance and described their interactions as minimal but amicable — shared meals in the communal kitchen, occasional conversation about the work, nothing personal. Drummond stated he had not left the workers' quarters until approximately 7:45 AM on 22 May and had seen and heard nothing unusual beyond Isaac's routine departure.

Peter Kellett's account presented difficulties. Kellett stated he had been awake with a headache from approximately 5:00 AM but had not heard Isaac leave — a claim that was difficult to reconcile with the quarters' layout, in which Kellett's bed was positioned nearest the external door and the kitchen was separated from the sleeping area by a thin partition wall. The sound of a tap running, a kettle boiling, and a door opening and closing would have been audible to anyone awake in the building.

When pressed on this point in a second interview, Kellett amended his statement to say he may have heard "some movement" but had not paid attention, being focused on his headache. He became noticeably agitated when Jenkins asked whether he had had any disagreements with Isaac during their shared residence at the property.

Drummond, interviewed separately a second time, mentioned — almost as an afterthought — that two nights before Isaac's disappearance, a man he did not recognise had visited the workers' quarters in the evening. The visitor had spoken briefly with Kellett outside the building. Drummond had not heard the conversation and had not seen the visitor clearly, describing him only as "average height, dark jacket." When asked about this visit, Kellett stated the man was "just someone I know from around" and declined to provide a name.

The initials on the bottle — D.K. — were never matched to an identified individual.

The Search

For three days following the initial K9 deployment, Jenkins led a rotating search effort encompassing the creek banks, the surrounding farmland, and the scrub country between the Velt property and the Huon Highway. SES volunteers were deployed to cover ground that police resources alone could not adequately search. River dive teams examined the creek bed downstream from the area of disturbed ground, focusing on pools and snags where a body might become trapped.

No body was recovered. No additional personal effects were found. No blood, no tissue, no forensic evidence of violence beyond the circumstantial indicators at the two ground sites.

The creek itself complicated matters. Bywater Creek, though narrow, carried sufficient volume after the autumn rains to move objects downstream, and its banks were lined with dense peppermint scrub that could conceal evidence within metres of the water's edge without detection. A thorough search of the entire creek system and its margins was beyond the resources available — the terrain was too dense, the distance too great, and the water too opaque for visual inspection.

Jargus had provided the most significant physical evidence — the scent trail to the irrigation shed, the disturbed ground, the drag marks, the bottle. But a scent trail was not a witness, and disturbed ground was not a body. Jenkins had evidence that something had happened at Bywater Creek. He did not have evidence of what.

Suspension and Aftermath

The investigation was formally reclassified as "suspended pending new evidence" on 14 June 2018, twenty-three days after Isaac Fairburn's disappearance. The decision was procedurally correct — without a body, a confession, or forensic evidence linking a specific individual to a specific act, there was insufficient basis to sustain an active criminal investigation or to refer the matter for coronial inquiry.

Jenkins accepted the suspension with the professional composure expected of him and the private dissatisfaction that his colleagues had learned to read in the particular set of his jaw and the additional hours he spent at his desk in the days following. His case notes, maintained with characteristic precision, bore a final annotation dated 18 June 2018: Suspended. Not resolved.

He reportedly continued to revisit the file into July, flagging it in his private records with a notation his colleagues would not see until after his own disappearance two months later: Incomplete but not abandoned.

Peter Kellett left the Velt property within a week of the investigation's suspension, telling Barry Velt he had "work up north." He did not leave a forwarding address. Attempts by police to locate Kellett for follow-up inquiries in late June were unsuccessful.

Craig Drummond completed his working holiday visa period and returned to England in August 2018. He provided a forwarding contact email to Tasmania Police before departing.

Wayne and Denise Fairburn travelled from Devonport to Franklin twice during the search — once during the active operation and once after the suspension, to collect Isaac's car and belongings from the Velt property. Denise asked Jenkins directly whether he believed her son was dead. Jenkins, who was not in the habit of offering comfort where honesty was more appropriate, told her he did not know but that the evidence was not encouraging.

Isaac Fairburn's car was driven back to Devonport by his father. His canvas duffel bag, his work boots, and his paperback novel — a water-damaged copy of a Lee Child thriller, bookmarked at page 147 — were returned to the fibro cottage in East Devonport where they remain.

The Unasked Question

The Bywater Creek case occupies a particular place in the narrative of Karl Jenkins' final months in Tasmania. It was not his most complex investigation, not his highest-profile assignment, and not the case that consumed the frantic weeks of July and August 2018 when everything else fell apart.

What it was — and what it remains — is the first case in which Jenkins and Jargus operated together under conditions where the outcome depended on their partnership rather than the institutional machinery around them. The creek track, the irrigation shed, the disturbed ground, the bottle with its unexplained initials — these were discovered not through departmental process but through a detective and a dog working terrain together, reading ground that would have told a less attentive pair nothing at all.

The case also represents something Jenkins rarely acknowledged: a limit. The evidence pointed toward foul play without confirming it. The witness statements contained gaps without constituting lies. The suspect — if Kellett was a suspect, which the file does not formally assert — departed without being detained because there were no legal grounds to prevent him from leaving.

Jenkins, whose professional identity was built on the conviction that methodical persistence could extract truth from any set of facts, encountered at Bywater Creek the possibility that some facts resist extraction. That the ground keeps what it has taken. That a creek, once it has carried something away, does not bring it back.

Whether this lesson tempered his approach to the investigations that followed is unknowable. What is known is that six weeks after the Bywater Creek file was suspended, Karl Jenkins walked into a shed at Jeffries Manor in Granton and did not come out.

The creek kept its secrets. It was not the last place that would keep Karl Jenkins'.