It has been eleven years since WA couple Ray and Jennie Kehlet set out on a 10-day camping trip to try their luck prospecting for gold and were never seen again.
Soon after their trip began on March 19, 2015, Ray, 47, was murdered, his body later found down a deserted mining shaft, and police believe Jennie, 49, may have met a similar horrific fate.
Nobody has been charged in relation to their deaths and what happened to them remains a mystery.
Speaking to Woman’s Day, criminologist Xanthe Weston believes it will be hard to determine who’s responsible for Ray’s death and Jennie’s disappearance – but thinks answers could still be found.
“I’m interested to know that police have located new evidence having returned to the region a number of times in the past 18 months,” she says.
“I never give up hope in these cases, and certainly the cold case team won’t stop looking for Jennie, and trying to determine who is responsible for her and Ray’s deaths.”
In September, WA Police launched a new search for fresh “items of interest” including Jennie’s work boots, gloves and a key to her and Ray’s quad bike.
ONGOING NIGHTMARE
For Ray’s daughters, Mel and Charmaine, the past eleven years have been a “living hell”.
“We think about Dad and our stepmother Jennie every day, wondering about their last moments,” says Charmaine, 35.
“It’s an ongoing nightmare for us, and for Jennie’s three children, Darcy, Kelly and Britney. Somebody is still walking free, having got away with murder.”
The Kehlets, a devoted and popular couple, had been excited about their prospecting trip.
They had driven to remote Sandstone, about 650km north of Perth, in separate cars, meeting up with workmate Graham Milne, who would be camping and prospecting with them.
“Dad had said they’d be out of mobile phone range for 10 days, and they’d contact us straight after that – but they didn’t,” recalls Mel, 32.
Ray and Jennie’s Great Dane Ella was found emaciated and wandering 30km away from where the couple had been camping.
Ray and Jennie’s worried families immediately contacted police, who initially treated the disappearance as a missing persons case.
Late in March, police attended the remote site where the Kehlets had camped with Graham.
They found half-drunk cups of tea, clothes hung to dry and Ray and Jennie’s unlocked cars.
A loaded rifle was found in the front seat of Ray’s car.
SHOCKING FIND
Showing police the area they’d set up camp, Graham, then 63, said he hadn’t seen the couple since March 21, before he’d driven back to Perth.
Once the Kehlets’ disappearance became news, media began visiting the Sandstone region, which is peppered with abandoned mining shafts.
Astonishingly, it was during a media demonstration of how these shafts were searched that Ray’s body was found.
“The shaft where Dad was found had already been ticked off as ‘cleared’, twice by searchers,”
Charmaine frowns. “But on April 8, they went down it again, just to show media how they search – and this time found Dad’s body.”
While she and Mel – whose mother had tragically died in a car accident four years earlier – were devastated to learn their father was dead, presumably from a fall, more shocks lay ahead.
Blood spattering was found on Ray’s boots and around the mine shaft, with police eventually realising the prospector’s fall wasn’t accidental – they had a homicide to solve.
But by now, many weeks had gone past and evidence around the camp, not cordoned off when the Kehlets disappeared, was gone.
A massive search for Jennie failed to find any sign of her.
In 2020, at the inquest into Ray’s death and Jennie’s disappearance, a forensic expert testified Ray had been violently attacked and murdered.
Graham, the last known person to have seen them alive, was called to give evidence and testified he last saw the couple two days after they’d set up camp.
He said that morning Ray and Jennie had set out on quad bikes to search for their dog, who’d run off.
Graham said he chose not to help and he told the Kehlets, “I didn’t come up here to chase the dog, I came up here to go prospecting.”
DEVASTATING LOSS
He said he later went prospecting on his own for about 18 hours, returning to the campsite at around 2am, then drove back to Perth without farewelling Ray and Jennie.
He said he did not know why a cigarette butt with DNA matching his was found near others containing Jennie’s DNA near the top of the mineshaft where Ray’s body was discovered.
In 2021, the coroner, Ros Fogliani, determined Ray had been murdered and Jennie had died around the same time, cause unknown.
It was up to the director of Public Prosecutions to decide if anybody would be charged over their deaths.
To date, this has not happened.
“It’s devastating for us, knowing whoever killed our parents has managed to get away with it,” Mel says sadly.
“Dad was a lovable larrikin – always playing practical jokes and making us laugh. We miss him so much.”
Adds Charmaine, “Since his death, I’ve had two children deprived of a grandfather.
When they get older and ask about him, I’m dreading having to explain why he’s not here.
We want justice for Dad and Jen.
We want to be able to bring Jennie home. If anyone knows anything, please come forward.”
Similarly, Xanthe remains hopeful that one day Ray and Jennie’s loved ones will finally know what happened to them on that ill-fated prospecting trip.
“Families never speak of achieveing closure, but if the police can locate Jennie’s remains that could be crucial in helping to answer those questions, and bring some level of resolution.”
The WA Government is offering $2 million for information on Raymond and Jennie Kehlet’s deaths.
