00:01Shantelle McDougall, her daughter Leela, Simon Cadwill and Tony Poppich haven't been seen since July 2007.
00:09Retired detective Barry McIntosh, who is Shantelle McDougall's uncle, has told ABC's Expanse podcast he believes a new search would
00:18provide answers.
00:20He started investigating his niece's disappearance in 2020 when he was sent a copy of the police file.
00:26I put one email and one phone call from the other side of the country and got the correct coordinates.
00:33Those coordinates identified a search area where prisoners carrying out track clearing in bushland near the town of Northcliffe reported
00:42finding items of clothing and a smell of death in the months after the disappearance.
00:47Mr McIntosh raised money for his own search of the area in 2024 with another retired Victorian police officer.
00:54My whole career I've done hundreds of investigations and there's probably only two or three that sit in my mind
01:01and think could I have done more and this is one of them.
01:06The retired policemen say they can now identify the exact location of possible human remains.
01:12The area where the dogs were indicating there was an edge of an erosion channel there.
01:17Sometimes that scenario can happen where the dogs might be 100 metres from where the burial might be.
01:27Police did conduct a search of the area in 2015 but now admit they were in the wrong place.
01:33The exact location of an earlier search can't be confirmed because it wasn't recorded.
01:39Police have denied the request for a new search.
01:41At this stage no search is planned but saying that of course everything would be based on information that is
01:53provided.
01:53But Barry McIntosh hasn't given up hope, committing to a new search if he can crowdfund the money.
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