Jackson Stacker loved his van. The Toyota Hiace, given to him by his late grandfather, was “his pride and joy”, according to his mother, Sandra. Last winter Stacker was on a road trip from Melbourne when he found himself caught in Byron Bay because of the closure of the Queensland border during Covid restrictions.
The 25-year-old was “full of hopes and dreams”, his father, Ian, says.
But in late July 2021 Stacker’s family became concerned when they were unable to contact him. A month later they reported him missing, after discovering the van he had been living in had been found abandoned. Within 48 hours police found the young man’s body in a paddock a couple of hundred metres from the van.
More than a year on, the family is still searching for answers about what happened to him. The more they have delved into it, the more mysterious it has appeared.
‘Seeking an alternative lifestyle’
Those who knew Stacker say he was a nature lover, a gentle soul, a free spirit. His parents had three boys, of whom he was the eldest, before their divorce.
Adam, a friend who has known Stacker for nine years, says: “He didn’t care about money. He didn’t care about material things. He just wanted to be in nature.”
His father says he “was going through a period in his life where he was seeking an alternative lifestyle. He didn’t want to live a mainstream life. He wanted to find a way to live off the land and not impact the environment.”
Stacker had completed most of an apprenticeship as an electrician and had picked up solar panel work in Byron as he waited for the border to open.
But his family and others who met him there say he struggled in the tourist town, where rents have risen sharply and the homeless population is one of the largest in the country.
“He tried to find friend networks but, due to the transient nature of Byron, found himself … vulnerable” his father says.
Kahlia (not her real name) met Stacker at the laundromat when he arrived in Byron.
“I instantly connected with him,” she says. “He would come over for a home-cooked meal and a shower. He was very funny, a bit shy, just always giggling.”
But she says living in the van with little community support left him vulnerable, “and people took advantage of that”.
“I thought he’d be safe because he was finally in his own van, after travelling with others for the year prior,” his mother says. “How wrong were we?”
‘Just so many loose ends’
Sandra spoke to her son on the morning of 22 July, the last day he was seen alive.
“Everything seemed fine,” she says.
His parents say it wasn’t unusual not to hear from their son regularly because he was often travelling up and down the coast and in areas where there wasn’t good reception.
His father says at the time “he kind of indicated he was going off the grid”.
But 10 days after the last phone conversation, his mother called him about a parking fine and he didn’t respond.
“I thought that was odd,” she says. “I put some money in his bank account with the online reference of “Please call Mum!”. This is sort of how we would communicate. I was starting to get increasingly anxious.”
Then, on Monday 23 August, Ian got a call from a woman who said Stacker’s van was parked in a rest stop at Sleepy Hollow, near Pottsville, 40km north of Byron, and she had been offered it for sale. The woman said the van was open, with the keys in the ignition, and smelled of rotting food. Inside she found Ian’s number among some paperwork.
“She was doing the honourable thing,” Sandra says, “and checking that it was in fact for sale.”
Stacker’s parents knew he would never have left his van for long and were concerned that personal items such as a laptop and a camera were missing. Sandra asked the police to do a welfare check and the family officially reported him missing.
On 25 August, police found his body in a nearby field.
An autopsy found the cause of Stacker’s death to be “unascertained”, since his remains had been exposed to the elements for some time. The case will now be the subject of an inquest.
New South Wales police declined to comment in detail, saying only: “Investigations into the death of a 25-year-old man near Sleepy Hollow are ongoing and detectives from Tweed/Byron police district have submitted a report to the NSW coroner.”
The family doubts Stacker took his own life.
“It didn’t add up,” his father says. “There is nothing to suggest anything was out of the ordinary.”
They ran an extensive social media campaign and trawled through Stacker’s last messages from his phone and online accounts, searching for clues to his fate.
“We got into his phone and his Gmail, we’ve got all of his apps, we got into everything,” Sandra says. Their son had just renewed his van registration.
“There is nothing to suggest suicide,” she says.
They await the inquest in hope of definitive answers. They want to know if their son was alone when he got to Sleepy Hollow and who ransacked his van. They want to know if the missing digital items are related to his death.
“Somebody knows something. Somebody tried to sell his van, somebody took his digital equipment,” Sandra says.
“The autopsy report has posed more questions than answers. There are just so many loose ends and [investigation] doors to close.
“Jackson had so many options. It is clear by his digital accounts he was searching for jobs in both Melbourne and Cairns.
“If Jackson trod his own path, we will find a way to honour him, but if he is a victim of crime, we will find justice with the help of the wonderful Byron Bay community and police and will create a legacy for him so that other families don’t have to go through what has been a most tragic and heartbreaking experience.”
