An inquest has heard the family of a then-14-year-old boy who went missing in the Western Australian outback three years ago believed he could have been spirited away by an Indigenous "featherfoot" entity.
Key points:
- Tristan Frank was last seen in December 2020 near the remote community of Balgo
- An inquest into his disappearance opened in Perth today
- A wide-ranging search never found any sign of the then-14-year-old
Northern Territory local Tristan Frank was last seen near the remote community of Balgo, close to the WA border, on December 3, 2020.
An inquest into his disappearance was held in the WA Coroner's Court on Friday where details of his final known movements were heard for the first time.
Tristan was travelling with his grandparents between the NT and WA border to attend a funeral at the time of his disappearance.
The coroner heard Tristan and his family drove from Nyirripi with plans to get to Noonkanbah in time for the service.
They stopped in Balgo for the evening, and his grandparents said the teenager was in good spirits when they went to sleep at separate houses.
The coroner heard that days before he went missing, Tristan told his grandparents he wished to stay in Balgo rather than continue on to the funeral in order to stay with his brother who had just also arrived in the community.
His grandparents agreed and left for Noonkanbah.
"It was apparently normal for extended family to look after each other's children from time to time, so his [grandparents] were comfortable he would be looked after in the community," the coroner's counsel said.
Tristan reportedly spent time with his friends and family telling stories and smoking cannabis, and they considered him to be "happy and smiling".
When he left the house he visited his aunt before heading back in the direction of the home he had slept at the previous night.
It was the last time anyone saw him.
Modern techniques in search
The coroner heard Tristan's grandparents repeatedly tried to call him while they were away, and when the funeral was cancelled they headed back to Balgo to collect him on December 5.
When no-one in the community could say where the teenager had gone his family began searching border communities for any trace of the boy.
They contacted police on December 6.
Authorities ran a cross-border search for the 14-year-old, which covered thousands of kilometres of desert and isolated tracks throughout outback Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Planes, drones, infrared technology, emergency services, and WA Police were involved in the search, but there was no sign of the boy.
Police help in hunt for 'featherfoot' men
Rumours about the boy's disappearance circulated in the remote community of Balgo, with the coroner hearing that some were concerned he had been spirited away and concealed in the surrounding sand dunes of the Tanami Desert.
A note of that belief was made in the openings on Friday.
"Many family members expressed their spiritual belief that [Tristan] may have been taken by 'featherfoot' men who had made him invisible and were hiding him in the lands outside the townsite," the coroner's counsel said.
"They took their own steps to try and find him, which were assisted by local police where possible and culturally appropriate."
In Indigenous culture, a "featherfoot" man is a powerful spirit that moves without being seen or heard, and can bring death.
Police helped locals set up a stop motion camera in nearby caves, and a traditional healing man was reportedly called in to try and track the teenager down.
However, no sign of the teenager was ever found.
Survivalist recounts 45-degree heat
A survival expert also weighed in on the teenager's chance of survival in the Tanami Desert.
"Dr Paul Luckin … expressed the opinion that in the event [he] became lost in the surrounds of Balgo, where temperatures had reached 42 to 45 degrees Celsius with no rain, he estimated a person like [Tristan] may have succumbed to the conditions in one or two days," counsel said.
It was also considered Balgo was not the teenager's traditional lands, so it would be difficult to draw on local survival skills to help him brave the conditions.
The coroner must decide if there is sufficient evidence to determine Tristan had died.