Australia Australia - Theo Hayez, 18, Belgian backpacker, Byron Bay, June 2019

[Deleted member 249471]

A bit about phones. When providers see you using or checking phone, it’s put on ‘active’ mode, where it will be regularly scanned to register it with closest tower so that it’s ready to receive and send data. This registering with tower is commonly called a ping.

However, your phone isn’t consistently pinged. There are measures to minimise waste of resources. When a provider sees you are not active for a while, your phone is put on ‘sleep’ where it will not register with tower even if you receive something.

It will remain on ‘sleep’ until the ‘sleep’ mode is up (determined by provider but usually about 8 hours). At which point, tower will ping it and if still no activity on your end, it will restart another ‘sleep’ cycle.

Alternatively, phone will stop ‘sleep’ mode whenever you use or check it, this will restart a new ‘active’ cycle and your phone will start regularly pinging with towers again.

Therefore Theo’s next day, 1.40pm ping was likely an end of ‘sleep’ mode to see if there had been any recent activity to turn it into ‘active’ mode. As it obviously wasn’t used, it probably went into a new ‘sleep’ cycle until it ran out of battery. Again, any incoming data while on ‘sleep’ won’t cause a ping, so 1.40pm ping was not Antoine’s message coming through.

All this to say, I’m guessing the phone is still in bush and was not taken by perp. If perp has it, it would have shown movement between 1am and 1.40pm.

The alternate theory would be that perp found Theo with phone at 1am, switched it off. Moved it to beach, left it there until 1.40pm the next day, only to turn it on then switch it back off again. Doesn’t make sense.

So phone might still be in bush but not in direct vicinity of hat, as it was searched with metal detectors.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

Next part of theory involves the perp. Is it someone Theo already knew?

Australia seems to have a small but insidious crisis atm re backpacker farm work.

Look up perps Gene Charles Bristow and Roman Heinze, and recent incident involving Dutch backpacker Maron de Rooij:

No Cookies | The Weekly Times

Theo did do some farm work earlier in his trip:

https://lookingfortheohayez.wixsite.com/theohayez

Could perp be related to that somehow?

Alternative theory is that it’s a stranger to Theo but familiar, such as a fellow backpacker.

I’m curious about everyone who left CM before Theo that night. It’s stated Theo arrived with friends but talked to others all night. Was perp there too, blending in, making friends and hunting victims?

Recently, an article was posted here about when someone goes missing, look at who else is missing as it could be related.

This reminded me a lot of a Swedish backpacker who went missing in 2005 under the weirdest circumstances:

Backpacker's chilling last words before mailing passport home and vanishing in Australia

What haunts me to this day are his final words, “Something strange has happened to me and I don’t know how to cope with it. I am tired of myself... Now I am vanishing … no tears.”

He mailed his passport, money and belongings back to his family and has never been found.

He knows Bryon Bay and is at ease along the east coast and knows how to survive.

It’s particularly interesting that he no longer has possessions that are linked to him so there’s no way to identify him or for him to leave a trail. Ingenious if you were planning to get into bad business.

Not at all saying he’s involved but rather theorising an example of someone in a similar circumstance. It’s one way to start start an underground cult. It’s pretty creepy when looked at through a potential-predator-luring-other-backpackers perspective.

 

[simochomps]

All great points @Peralta (and great nickname!). I guess at this point we just have to wait for developments and news from LE/family.

 

[feralflower]

What is the possibility he fell in love during his travels and staged his disappearance to be with a girl? Though all seemed good for him to return home what seems good on the outside may not be so. Now we know he had a GF in Belgium but was she still his GF when he left? We know he has parents who love him very much but are there problems we are not aware of? We know he has no money made no withdrawals but if he is with a companion she could be looking after him? Now he seemed to be meeting someone yes, so what if he deliberately avoided public areas to meet up with her after Cheeky's? Perhaps she arrived after him and said "hey I am here!" and he went to meet her? It looks like he walked to Stay in Byron Holiday accommodation, this place houses up to 8 people so very possibly a backpacker place. Now we would think if he met someone there we would know about this, why stay secret? But seems a lot is secret and yes I understand investigation details are not for the public. But if this IS the case, if he chose to disappear need to remember there are no laws being broken as long as his visa is valid, so would the police be even able to say publicly his personal, private details? The laws are complex. I still wonder if that sighting at Toukley was correct. If it was then we can look at him being alive. If it was and he is not breaking no laws then would the police be able to inform the public of this? If no crime has been committed and he chose to disappear? I know it sounds an unlikely theory but it is possible? Yes it is. People chose to disappear for many reasons, and no doubt love could do this. Maybe her visa ran out? We know he could have stayed longer in Australia but he was/is a careful planner, if he disappeared close to his visa end then it would look deliberate or maybe she had to disappear as her visa was out? So they run away together? Go find a farm or outback station to work for their board and keep and hide? Yes it would be difficult to survive here illegally but people do. Now also need to remember Theo would not expect a huge search and publicity as it received, it would be very difficult to step forward now say I am sorry I am here. Now the area of Cosy Corner is known for it's dangers with cliff, and rip close by so he walked there maybe left his phone on a rock hoping someone would find it so looks like he went in the water but it wasn't found and next day after the last ping the tide was 11 cm higher, enough for water to sweep it away. Now we need to not discount anything possible and I cannot find reasons why this could not be possible. It would be a nice scenario actually as would mean Theo is likely alive. His parents believe he is alive and they have more information than us. It is hard to imagine that he would deliberately stage his disappearance but is it possible? Yes it is.

 

[T-dawg420]

What sounds familiar do you think?

That person blowing up on the LFTH fb poster, the way they articulated their point, information they shared. To me it seemed eerily similar to that person who came on here and dropped a bombshell not so long ago but couldn’t get verified obviously and haven’t heard from them since!

Could be way off base with this but when I read the comments on the fb poster my mind went immediately back to the way the person on here typed and seemed so confident of the information they were sharing.

Once again not sure if I can name names, would be a little easier if I just said I think ‘this person’ is ‘that person or connected to’, but I definitely understand if I can’t cos it’s pretty baseless from me, just a hunch.

 

[Sambam89]

A bit about phones. When providers see you using or checking phone, it’s put on ‘active’ mode, where it will be regularly scanned to register it with closest tower so that it’s ready to receive and send data. This registering with tower is commonly called a ping.

However, your phone isn’t consistently pinged. There are measures to minimise waste of resources. When a provider sees you are not active for a while, your phone is put on ‘sleep’ where it will not register with tower even if you receive something.

It will remain on ‘sleep’ until the ‘sleep’ mode is up (determined by provider but usually about 8 hours). At which point, tower will ping it and if still no activity on your end, it will restart another ‘sleep’ cycle.

Alternatively, phone will stop ‘sleep’ mode whenever you use or check it, this will restart a new ‘active’ cycle and your phone will start regularly pinging with towers again.

Therefore Theo’s next day, 1.40pm ping was likely an end of ‘sleep’ mode to see if there had been any recent activity to turn it into ‘active’ mode. As it obviously wasn’t used, it probably went into a new ‘sleep’ cycle until it ran out of battery. Again, any incoming data while on ‘sleep’ won’t cause a ping, so 1.40pm ping was not Antoine’s message coming through.

All this to say, I’m guessing the phone is still in bush and was not taken by perp. If perp has it, it would have shown movement between 1am and 1.40pm.

The alternate theory would be that perp found Theo with phone at 1am, switched it off. Moved it to beach, left it there until 1.40pm the next day, only to turn it on then switch it back off again. Doesn’t make sense.

So phone might still be in bush but not in direct vicinity of hat, as it was searched with metal detectors.

Thank you for explaining all that! Question, what if a phone is turned off, then turned on but is passcode locked and can’t be gotten into? Would it still ping just from being turned on or would you need to get into it with the passcode first?

 

[Sambam89]

What is the possibility he fell in love during his travels and staged his disappearance to be with a girl? Though all seemed good for him to return home what seems good on the outside may not be so. Now we know he had a GF in Belgium but was she still his GF when he left? We know he has parents who love him very much but are there problems we are not aware of? We know he has no money made no withdrawals but if he is with a companion she could be looking after him? Now he seemed to be meeting someone yes, so what if he deliberately avoided public areas to meet up with her after Cheeky's? Perhaps she arrived after him and said "hey I am here!" and he went to meet her? It looks like he walked to Stay in Byron Holiday accommodation, this place houses up to 8 people so very possibly a backpacker place. Now we would think if he met someone there we would know about this, why stay secret? But seems a lot is secret and yes I understand investigation details are not for the public. But if this IS the case, if he chose to disappear need to remember there are no laws being broken as long as his visa is valid, so would the police be even able to say publicly his personal, private details? The laws are complex. I still wonder if that sighting at Toukley was correct. If it was then we can look at him being alive. If it was and he is not breaking no laws then would the police be able to inform the public of this? If no crime has been committed and he chose to disappear? I know it sounds an unlikely theory but it is possible? Yes it is. People chose to disappear for many reasons, and no doubt love could do this. Maybe her visa ran out? We know he could have stayed longer in Australia but he was/is a careful planner, if he disappeared close to his visa end then it would look deliberate or maybe she had to disappear as her visa was out? So they run away together? Go find a farm or outback station to work for their board and keep and hide? Yes it would be difficult to survive here illegally but people do. Now also need to remember Theo would not expect a huge search and publicity as it received, it would be very difficult to step forward now say I am sorry I am here. Now the area of Cosy Corner is known for it's dangers with cliff, and rip close by so he walked there maybe left his phone on a rock hoping someone would find it so looks like he went in the water but it wasn't found and next day after the last ping the tide was 11 cm higher, enough for water to sweep it away. Now we need to not discount anything possible and I cannot find reasons why this could not be possible. It would be a nice scenario actually as would mean Theo is likely alive. His parents believe he is alive and they have more information than us. It is hard to imagine that he would deliberately stage his disappearance but is it possible? Yes it is.

What’s the Toukley sighting? I’ve not heard of that

 

[BusterXP]

What’s the Toukley sighting? I’ve not heard of that

It wasn't a sighting. Mistake of a sighting. Report lead to the Police checking it out and a post was made by someone at the hotel/club/whatever (possibly the owner or manager) stating that CCTV footage was checked and it wasn't him.
I recall both the original mention about this (I commented and suggested that he contacted the Police) and the follow-up to it which wasn't that long ago.

 

[BusterXP]

Thank you for explaining all that! Question, what if a phone is turned off, then turned on but is passcode locked and can’t be gotten into? Would it still ping just from being turned on or would you need to get into it with the passcode first?

It will still look for a connection without being logged into the phone. That's what enables phones to be tracked via the IMEI.

 

[feralflower]

There was talk about a sighting at Toukley after his disappearance, it may have been right but it may have been wrong, I saw talk about it on a few pages then it died down so it has not been confirmed nor dispelled. Someone mentioned Beachcomber hotel. It may be just talk but was talked about by several people so might be worth considering the possibility it may have been him. No source yet said it definitely wasn't him so keeping mind open that it possibly could have been him.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

What is the possibility he fell in love during his travels and staged his disappearance to be with a girl? Though all seemed good for him to return home what seems good on the outside may not be so. Now we know he had a GF in Belgium but was she still his GF when he left? We know he has parents who love him very much but are there problems we are not aware of? We know he has no money made no withdrawals but if he is with a companion she could be looking after him? Now he seemed to be meeting someone yes, so what if he deliberately avoided public areas to meet up with her after Cheeky's? Perhaps she arrived after him and said "hey I am here!" and he went to meet her? It looks like he walked to Stay in Byron Holiday accommodation, this place houses up to 8 people so very possibly a backpacker place. Now we would think if he met someone there we would know about this, why stay secret? But seems a lot is secret and yes I understand investigation details are not for the public. But if this IS the case, if he chose to disappear need to remember there are no laws being broken as long as his visa is valid, so would the police be even able to say publicly his personal, private details? The laws are complex. I still wonder if that sighting at Toukley was correct. If it was then we can look at him being alive. If it was and he is not breaking no laws then would the police be able to inform the public of this? If no crime has been committed and he chose to disappear? I know it sounds an unlikely theory but it is possible? Yes it is. People chose to disappear for many reasons, and no doubt love could do this. Maybe her visa ran out? We know he could have stayed longer in Australia but he was/is a careful planner, if he disappeared close to his visa end then it would look deliberate or maybe she had to disappear as her visa was out? So they run away together? Go find a farm or outback station to work for their board and keep and hide? Yes it would be difficult to survive here illegally but people do. Now also need to remember Theo would not expect a huge search and publicity as it received, it would be very difficult to step forward now say I am sorry I am here. Now the area of Cosy Corner is known for it's dangers with cliff, and rip close by so he walked there maybe left his phone on a rock hoping someone would find it so looks like he went in the water but it wasn't found and next day after the last ping the tide was 11 cm higher, enough for water to sweep it away. Now we need to not discount anything possible and I cannot find reasons why this could not be possible. It would be a nice scenario actually as would mean Theo is likely alive. His parents believe he is alive and they have more information than us. It is hard to imagine that he would deliberately stage his disappearance but is it possible? Yes it is.

Yes, this is plausible if the girl he fell in love with was part of a cult and brainwashed Theo into impulsively leaving everything he owned and everyone he knew, behind forever. But not before dropping by a BBQ and pub first.

It’s mostly unlikely because his family already stated they don’t believe he ran away as a ploy to stay in Australia. And like you said, the family know more than the public.

But it’s also unlikely because he seemed so close to his family and friends overseas, including asking to work with his dad and asking for a welcome home party.

Plus, there were LOADS of options if he wanted to stay in Australia.

He could have easily arranged to stay, like most backpackers, up to two years. He could’ve gotten a student visa. Partner visa’s are also readily available. Plus, he already had family in Aus, so there were more avenues available to him than most people.

What would be the motivation for him to reject all of those options and choose instead to fall off the map without his belonging or money, and leave his entire life behind? Only people that have no options do that sort of thing.

We’ve also not heard him mentioning being in love or there being messages between a lover.

So yes, it’s possible scenario but at the very bottom of the list. Much higher on the list is that he accidentally fell into the ocean and got eaten by sharks.

I understand wanting to keep things positive and in hope he’s alive, but just can’t wrap my head around why he would willingly walk away from loved ones so cruelly when there was zero need to do so.

 

[feralflower]

Ok

It wasn't a sighting. Mistake of a sighting. Report lead to the Police checking it out and a post was made by someone at the hotel/club/whatever (possibly the owner or manager) stating that CCTV footage was checked and it wasn't him.

Thanks I didn't see this post by the owner manager. I have been trying to find more information on this.

 

[Rocket333]

That person blowing up on the LFTH fb poster, the way they articulated their point, information they shared. To me it seemed eerily similar to that person who came on here and dropped a bombshell not so long ago but couldn’t get verified obviously and haven’t heard from them since!

Could be way off base with this but when I read the comments on the fb poster my mind went immediately back to the way the person on here typed and seemed so confident of the information they were sharing.

Once again not sure if I can name names, would be a little easier if I just said I think ‘this person’ is ‘that person or connected to’, but I definitely understand if I can’t cos it’s pretty baseless from me, just a hunch.

 

[feralflower]

Y

Yes, this is plausible if the girl he fell in love with was part of a cult and brainwashed Theo into impulsively leaving everything he owned and everyone he knew, behind forever. But not before dropping by a BBQ and pub first.

It’s mostly unlikely because his family already stated they don’t believe he ran away as a ploy to stay in Australia. And like you said, the family know more than the public.

But it’s also unlikely because he seemed so close to his family and friends overseas, including asking to work with his dad and asking for a welcome home party.

Plus, there were LOADS of options if he wanted to stay in Australia.

He could have easily arranged to stay, like most backpackers, up to two years. He could’ve gotten a student visa. Partner visa’s are also readily available. Plus, he already had family in Aus, so there were more avenues available to him than most people.

What would be the motivation for him to reject all of those options and choose instead to fall off the map without his belonging or money, and leave his entire life behind? Only people that have no options do that sort of thing.

We’ve also not heard him mentioning being in love or there being messages between a lover.

So yes, it’s possible scenario but at the very bottom of the list. Much higher on the list is that he accidentally fell into the ocean and got eaten by sharks.

I understand wanting to keep things positive and in hope he’s alive, but just can’t wrap my head around why he would willingly walk away from loved ones so cruelly when there was zero need to do so.

Yes it seems unlikely, but cannot discount it. The whole disappearance seems very much out of character yet I have read cases of people who did this, and took others by surprise believing their loved one has drowned, met ill fate etc., and found decades later. It is hard to get head around it as to why people do this when they could have dealt with whatever life hurdles they faced with more logic, but it does happen quite frequently and sometimes there are explanations (running from debt, bad marriage etc) and sometimes there are none. I wish we had more information, I still feel a lot is kept under cover though this may be out of necessity for the investigation. Even the information about finding the cap is said to be leaked, so maybe we would not have known about this either, and clearly the DNA results are not for the public to know either as it would not be taking this long to confirm if his or not. I do feel there is a problem for the police and investigators as they have no proof of a crime being committed, nor proof of a drowning, so say in theory if Theo is alive how much information would they be able to release? Maybe this is why we are not told much. I know a lot of speculation here but is all we can do ATM. Explore every possibility.

 

[Rocket333]

Y

Yes it seems unlikely, but cannot discount it. The whole disappearance seems very much out of character yet I have read cases of people who did this, and took others by surprise believing their loved one has drowned, met ill fate etc., and found decades later. It is hard to get head around it as to why people do this when they could have dealt with whatever life hurdles they faced with more logic, but it does happen quite frequently and sometimes there are explanations (running from debt, bad marriage etc) and sometimes there are none. I wish we had more information, I still feel a lot is kept under cover though this may be out of necessity for the investigation. Even the information about finding the cap is said to be leaked, so maybe we would not have known about this either, and clearly the DNA results are not for the public to know either as it would not be taking this long to confirm if his or not. I do feel there is a problem for the police and investigators as they have no proof of a crime being committed, nor proof of a drowning, so say in theory if Theo is alive how much information would they be able to release? Maybe this is why we are not told much. I know a lot of speculation here but is all we can do ATM. Explore every possibility.

If the cap is his, and the testing is back and positive, the only reason I could see for the police to not advise the public is if there’s other DNA present.

If the cap isn’t his, or if the test came back negative, I can’t see a reason to not release this result to the public as it would calm everyone down.

Do you agree?

 

[feralflower]

If other DNA was found they do not need to disclose the whole complex DNA results. Just whether or not it belonged to him but for some reason even this info is being held back. I guess we don't understand why but they must have their reasons. I am strongly assuming it is his for the same reason you stated. If it wasn't they would have told us already.

 

[mussopossum]

Theo Hayez’s father suggests missing son could be a ‘drugged prisoner’ in a commune

Laurent has said in interviews since the search was suspended that while they wait for confirmation on various leads, he believes there are still individuals with vital information who have not come forward.

 

[BusterXP]

I don't think they have any confirmation re the cap yet.
They sat on the new poster for a while waiting to see if they'd need to include the cap and decided to go ahead with it and update it if the cap wasn't confirmed.
The latest poster adds focus to items including jacket, watch, shoes get up card to get in etc.

 

[Rocket333]

Theo left the bar at 11pm.

He stopped texting at 12.20. Where was he then?

How long would it take to get to Cosy Corner from CMs via a couple of stops?

What’s certain is that Theo would not consciously leave his beloved Puma cap and Oppo phone on a beach.

 

[espirtu pampa]

I can't imagine Théo leaving his family on his own will. His flight ticket was booked and payed in advance, I presume, for cheaper rates. He seemed so eager to see them and his friends. He could have gone back to Australia after telling his parents he changed his mind or even told them by phone about his new life plan. No way !