Norman vanished when he was 16. His family wants to know why

Norman Lawson disappeared in Kakadu National Park more than three decades ago. His family still doesn’t know what happened to him and is appealing for answers as his story is told in a new book.

Norman Lawson disappeared in Kakadu National Park more than three decades ago. Source: Supplied, SBS / Nicole Morris / Susan Lawson

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains photos of people who have died. 

Susan Lawson would give anything to know what happened to her younger brother, Norman.

He was a “caring, gentle soul” the 54-year-old says. He was her “big protector”.

She was 17 when Norman disappeared while on a trip with four other people to the Northern Territory’s Kakadu National Park in 1986. He was 16.

“It’s an unbearable pain,” she says.

“If I could give anything in this world for another family to not have to go through this, I would do it.”

The disappearance

Susan and Norman, and their other brother Murray, moved around a lot when they were younger.

Their father was Aboriginal, from the Iman People of Central and South Western Queensland, and they grew up mostly in the Northern Territory.

As children, the three siblings spent time on riverbanks and learned to live off the land. Norman would often go off on trips, Susan says.

Norman (left) with his brother Murray (centre) and sister Susan (right). Source: Supplied / Nicole Morris/ Susan Lawson

When their parents separated, Susan and Norman lived with their father, and Murray lived with their mother.

“He was my life. We were very close - as close as brother and sister could be,” Susan says of Norman.

She says Norman had always wanted to leave school and get a job to put himself through university. He’d started a timber and fencing business but “he wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer to help people … and then come back and live with his family,” she says.

In 1986, Norman had been living in a camp in Howard Springs, about 30 kilometres from the centre of Darwin, and close to his father’s house in nearby Palmerston. Sometime after 19 October that year, he went on a trip with a group of four other people from the camp — two men and two women.

The group travelled to the area of the Old Jim Jim Road in Kakadu, near the South Alligator River. The national park is about three hours from Darwin and is a known habitat for saltwater crocodiles.

Old Jim Jim Road in Kakadu National Park (pictured in 2015). Source: AAP / Dean Lewins

Susan says when Norman didn’t return to their father’s house as he was expected to after the trip, their father notified police.

A Coroner’s report would later find the four people Norman was with on the trip failed to “properly notify anyone in authority” at nearby Cooinda or Jabiru that Norman was missing.

Two of the four people did not return to Darwin.

The search

A search of the area started on Monday 27 October and continued for five days.

A helicopter was called in to help, but Susan alleges that was under the pressure of the family.

“We had to fight to get the helicopters in. We had to fight for this, fight for that. It was terrible,” she says.

Norman was never found.

Norman Lawson and his brother Murray as children. Source: Supplied

She believes Norman’s heritage played a role in the subsequent investigation.

“I do believe that at the top, it was ‘just another black kid gone missing. Don’t worry about it’. The runaway sort of thing, you know?” she says.

“The problem is there are so many people, so many families in the same boat.”

The theories

In June 1990, following an inquest, the NT Coroner ruled Norman had died during the trip.

Norman “died in the area of the Old Jim Jim Road Crossing of the South Alligator River” on or about Tuesday 21 or Wednesday 22 October 1986, the Coroner’s report says.

“Over three years have elapsed since Norman Lawson disappeared and despite an extensive ongoing investigation by the Northern Territory Police, no factors have emerged which would tend to indicate he may still be alive,” the Coroner said.

Norman Lawson disappeared in 1986. Source: Supplied, SBS / Nicole Morris / Susan Lawson

The Coroner said it was possible Norman was taken by a crocodile on the day he disappeared from his camp, but that they were unable to make a conclusive finding about the cause of death.

They said while the behaviour of the people Norman was on the trip with when “viewed in isolation may be regarded as questionable, when the whole of the evidence is examined there is not sufficient evidence to commit any person for trial”.

But Susan suspects foul play.

“We believe in our heart of hearts, there was no way in the world he was taken by a crocodile,” she says.

If he was, she claims, it would have been if he was killed by someone first and then “fed to the crocodiles”.

The missing

Thirty-seven years on, Norman’s story is being told in a new book, released last month. Vanished explores lesser-told stories of missing persons from the perspectives of their siblings.

“I wanted to tell stories that people don’t already know,” the book’s author Nicole Morris says.

“These families are just as important as the high-profile cases.”

Morris, too, suspects there is more to Norman's story.

“This is a 16-year-old boy who was murdered and no one is remembering him,” she claims.

“People need to recognise what happened instead of just thinking he was another missing Indigenous kid, which is so unfair and diminishes his value as a person,” she says.

“Norman’s life meant something”.

In 2005, Morris set up the Australian Missing Persons Register, a not-for-profit association that provides information on missing person cases and support to their loved ones.

Fifteen years later, Norman’s brother Murray got in touch.

“Murray messaged me and said, ‘That's my brother you’re talking about, and you’ve got it wrong,’” Morris says.

“Everybody says that he was on a fishing trip. And he wasn’t,’” he told her.

Norman's sister Susan is appealing for answers as their story is told in a new book. Source: Supplied / Susan Lawson

In the book, Murray and Susan say their brother was always described as being on a “fishing expedition” when he disappeared, including in the Coroner’s report and in Morris's appeals for information, but that he was only camping.

“People get the wrong impression, that they were in a boat — there was no boat. They were on land … There’s a lot of untold stories, untold truths,” Murray says in the book.

“Someone has to know something,” he told SBS News.

Morris has a specific page in her database for missing Indigenous people, which she estimates to be “a couple of thousand”.

Her database is different to the official Australian Federal Police (AFP) National Missing Persons Coordination Centre (NMPCC). Norman does not appear on the AFP’s database.

The remains

A person is still considered missing until their remains are found. It is something that Susan still struggles with.

In 1990, skeletal remains were found at Lake Bennett, about a 300-kilometre drive from Old Jim Jim Road. The family were told “conflicting information about the identity of the remains,” Morris writes in the book.

“We were told it was Norman, then we were told it wasn’t,” Susan says.

“From my understanding, to this day, I believe those remains still haven’t been identified … We haven’t actually had a formal answer.”

But when SBS News contacted NT Police, Detective Acting Sergeant Glen Chatto said the remains had been identified and confirmed they were not Norman.

“This particular case is not related to Mr Lawson and is a separate ongoing investigation,” Chatto said via email.

Norman was last seen in Kakadu National Park (pictured in 2006). Source: AAP / Terry Trewin

A spokesperson for the Coroner’s office also confirmed to SBS News the remains located at Lake Bennett were formally identified and found not to be Norman.

Chatto said: “I’m not aware of the conflicting information and I would be happy to meet with [Norman’s] family to discuss this”.

Murray told SBS News he had already been made aware that the remains were not Norman, but Susan said it was new information to her.

“I have never ever been told that. That’s why I’ve always had that glimmer of hope that it might have been, and that one day, I would get the good news.

“I hope whoever’s family it was were able to put their loved one to rest.”

The aftermath

Chatto said “significant investigations” took place to find Norman and “to date have not been able to determine exact circumstances around his disappearance”.

“Numerous calls for information through media campaigns were conducted including a reward of $50,000 for information offered in 1990.”

Norman is not listed on the AFP database as it did not exist at the time of the investigation, he said.

Norman is today considered a Long Term Missing Person (LTMP).

“The NT Police Missing Persons Unit are in the process of auditing all NT LTMP cases and updating the database through written requests to the AFP on a case-by-case basis”, Chatto said.

“Four LTMP cases have been resolved by UHR [unidentified human remains] identification in the last two years. No UHR located within the NT has been identified as Norman Lawson.”

When asked whether Norman’s Indigenous heritage played a role in the response to the investigation, an NT Police spokesperson said: “All reported Long Term Missing Persons cases remain open and are investigated by NT Police without fear or favour”.

Susan says not knowing what happened to Norman is a burden that has passed onto her relationship with her children and grandchildren.

“All I want to do is keep them safe and not let anything happen to them like my brother,” she says.

“Mum and Dad died not knowing what happened to their son. I would not like to die not knowing what happened to my brother.”

Vanished: True stories from families of Australian missing persons, by Nicole Morris, is published by Big Sky Publishing.

If you have any information on missing persons, contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. 

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