It would've been perfect for MM4 as its mostly deserted (rain has only just hit the area now after 4yrs).
Its also somewhere where people have disappeared on a regular basis...
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/ne ... 6827907643
Grisly tales of terror punctuate wretched route’s gloomy past
IT is a lonely stretch of highway with wide open spaces, isolation and a dark history.
The 800km Flinders Highway between Townsville and Mount Isa, which becomes the Barkly Highway between Cloncurry and Mount Isa, could easily have been the inspiration for the 2005 horror film, Wolf Creek.
A number of missing persons cases and brutal murders have links to the highway, including the disappearance of hitchhiker Anthony “Tony” Jones in 1982.
There have been a number of high-profile, and brutal, slayings and mysterious disappearances since the 1970s.
Townsville Bulletin regional editor John Andersen travels the Flinders Highway frequently.
“It’s not somewhere I would pull up for a sleep in the back of my car,” he said.
One of the earliest cases was the murder of two Townsville sisters, Judith and Susan Mackay.
Judith, 7, and Susan, 5, left their home at Aitkenvale to go to school about 8am on August 26, 1970. But the girls never made it, with their bodies found in a dry creek bed at Antil Plains.
Arthur Stanley Brown was charged with their murders but was deemed unfit to stand trial due to dementia. He died in 2002.
Two years later, Robin Jeanne Hoinville-Bartram and Anita Cunningham left Melbourne on July 4, 1972, for a hitchhiking holiday to Bowen.
On November 15, Ms Hoinville-Bartram’s remains were located in Sensible Creek, under a bridge on the Flinders Highway, 80 kilometreskm west of Charters Towers.
She had had beenhad been shot twice in the head bywith a .22 calibre rifle. There has been no trace of Ms Cunningham.
On July 30, 1975, Catherine Pamela Graham was reported missing. Her body was found at Oak Valley on August 1.
She had been repeatedly bashed about the head with a heavystone.
Crimes and vanishings went relatively quiet for 30 years, until an opal miner disappeared in late2005.
Paul Laba, 69, was last seen at his mining lease campsite at Woodstock with his car located in remote bushland.
He has never been heard from, or seen, since.
The disappearance of Van Edward Caulton was recently the subject of a coronial inquest, with Coroner Jane Bentley handing down her findings this week.
Mr Caulton, 60, was last seen in Charters Towers in March 2006, with Ms Bentley finding he most likely died between March 22, 2006, and July 31, 2006.
“There are only two reasonable possibilities in relation to the circumstances surrounding Mr Caulton’s disappearance – firstly, that he died from natural causes and Mr (Peter) Westlund failed to report his death and disposed of his body in order to obtain the carer’s pension and Mr Caulton’s pension or, secondly, that Mr Westlund caused the death of Mr Caulton and then disposed of his body, with the same motivation.”
Mr Caulton’s body has never been found and Ms Priestly did not make a determination about how he died.
Meanwhile, Bronwyn Howard, 51, was last seen in Cloncurry in early April 2012.
Ms Howard, described as an itinerant, regularly travelled to Mount Isa and Townsville, and Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.
Police say she often travelled on foot and has not been seen since.
Flinders Shire mayor Greg Jones said the highway’s unfortunate history was well known.
“It is the only road that runs east to west, and it is very isolated,” Cr Jones said.
“Thirty years ago everybody hitchhiked but they wouldn’t be game these days. It is easy to vanish in the Outback and these are just the ones we know about.” it. There could be more
If you have any information that could assist police investigating the Tony Jones case, or any other case, please call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
