29/08/2026
The Little Lake Theory: What Happened to the Three Batemans Bay Boatmen?
A new theory concerning the 1880 Mystery Bay case places the deaths of the three Batemans Bay boatmen not at Mystery Bay itself, but several kilometres away at an abandoned gold claim near the entrance to Little Lake, close to Tilba cemetery.
This possibility deserves investigation because it could explain one of the enduring contradictions in the case: a boat reportedly left Bermagui carrying four men, possibly five, yet only hours later a witness saw what appeared to be the same boat with just one man aboard.
I have also been told by Indigenous investigators that human remains were reportedly discovered in the Little Lake area approximately 50 years ago. This account has not yet been independently verified and should therefore be treated as an important lead rather than established fact. The investigators are interested in determining what happened at Little Lake and, in particular, in examining evidence that could clear the name of William Campbell, who became associated with suspicion surrounding the case.
The Missing Passengers
Cyril Pearl's Five Men Vanished: The Bermagui Mystery, the 1978 book that inspired my own investigation and The Mystery Bay Murders, records witness evidence concerning the movements of the small boat on 10 October 1880.
According to Pearl's account, witnesses saw the boat leave Bermagui carrying four men, perhaps five. Later that morning, stockman William Johnston rode to Jimmy's Point, approximately one kilometre north of Little Lake. From there, Johnston reportedly observed the boat again.
This time there was only one man aboard.
If the witness accounts are accurate, the obvious question is: what happened to the other passengers between Bermagui and Jimmy's Point?
Little Lake lies within that geographical corridor.
Pearl provides another potentially important detail. The Batemans Bay boatmen reportedly had £19 in their possession and intended to lease an abandoned goldfield. That raises the possibility that their journey involved more than simply transporting government geologists Lamont Henry Graeme Young and Max Schneider.
The abandoned workings near Little Lake therefore deserve closer examination.
The Site Today
I visited the Little Lake site again today, as I have done many times during my investigation.
Something was different.
There were numerous areas of recently disturbed ground. My first thought was that they might have been rabbit warrens, but the pattern of disturbance in the sandy ground made me question that explanation. The site appeared consistent with somebody having recently dug in a number of places, possibly while using a metal detector.
That observation does not establish who was there, what they were searching for, or whether their activities had anything to do with the 1880 mystery. But when combined with the reported discovery of human remains in the area decades ago, it strengthens the case for properly documenting the location and investigating its history.
Two Crime Scenes, One Final Location
The Little Lake theory also offers a possible explanation for one of the strangest aspects of the entire Mystery Bay case.
Later on 10 October, William Johnston reportedly discovered the boat wrecked at Mystery Bay, around Muttonfish Point. Contemporary accounts described disturbing evidence associated with the vessel, including blood and damage interpreted as bullet holes.
Yet the boat contained something equally significant: belongings belonging to the missing government geologists, Lamont Young and Max Schneider.
This leads to the central proposition of my investigation.
Mystery Bay may not have been the place where all five men were killed. It may instead have been the place where evidence from two separate events was deliberately brought together.
Under this theory, Young and Schneider met their fate in connection with Hobbes' property, while the three Batemans Bay boatmen were subsequently killed near the abandoned workings at Little Lake.
The boat then became the means of connecting the two events.
Possessions belonging to Young and Schneider could have been placed aboard the vessel. The blood and damage to the boat could have reinforced the appearance of violence at sea. Finally, the vessel was wrecked or abandoned at Mystery Bay.
The result was a single apparent crime scene containing evidence associated with five missing men.
But the crucial evidence may have originated elsewhere.
If this reconstruction is correct, the perpetrators did more than conceal five deaths. They collapsed two separate crime scenes into one.
Hobbes' property, Little Lake and Mystery Bay should therefore not necessarily be regarded as competing theories about where the crime occurred. They may represent three stages of the same operation: the disappearance of Young and Schneider, the elimination of the three boatmen, and the staging of the boat at Mystery Bay.
The extraordinary reduction in the boat's reported occupants—from four or perhaps five men leaving Bermagui to one man observed near Jimmy's Point—may be the geographical clue that connects them.
After nearly 146 years, the question may no longer simply be, What happened at Mystery Bay?
A more revealing question could be:
What happened at Little Lake before the boat ever reached Mystery Bay?
