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What was meant to be a great outback adventure for two teenage boys ended in tragedy after they disappeared in WA’s Great Sandy Desert in the late 1980s.
Four decades on, the families of Simon Amos and James Annetts still have questions about what really happened on that fateful day of December 1, 1986.
What happened to Simon Amos and James Annetts?
The pair were finally discovered months later. Seventeen-year-old Simon was found, stripped, with a rifle wound to the head, while James, 16, lay 19 kilometres north of their abandoned ute.
A crude SOS sign made of tools and sticks pointing in the direction of their bodies was also located.
Next to James’ body was his water cooler, which had a note to his family written on the lid. The misspelt message read: “James, My Follt. I allways love you Mum and Dad, Jason, Michelle, Joanne. I found peece.”
A coroner later ruled that Simon died from a rifle shot to the head and James from dehydration. James’ father, Les Annetts, said he now believes they were victims of foul play.
“They were both missing the same bone from their arms,” Les told Daily Mail Australia. “James from the right arm, Simon from the left arm, the same bone missing as if their arms had been tied together. My wife and I believed they were running from something; they were being chased.”
Adelaide-based Simon and James, from Griffith in NSW, first met while working as jackaroos at the Flora Valley station in WA’s arid Kimberley region.
But it was 1986, and with no means of communication, the teens had no idea what terrible conditions they were about to face – and no way of telling anyone back home about them.
The reality was that the cattle industry was in decline, and with stations looking to save money, the boys were cheap labour.
Each teen was sent to take care of a remote property by themselves. They were tasked to drive around rough tracks for up to 14 hours a day.
Their only contact was a radio to their boss, Giles Loder, and a weekly trip to pick up mail and various supplies. On December 1, both Simon and James failed to reply to their twice-daily radio check-ins.
Two days later, they’d still not made contact.
Eventually, Giles went to find James and Simon, but there was no sign of them, and the ute James used was gone. They were reported missing three days later.
“No one knew what was happening … no one would believe us when we told them James would not run away without contacting us,” Les said.
It appeared the boys had met up and driven into the desert in James’ ute, but the fact they’d left all their belongings and cash behind pointed away from it being planned.
What was investigated?
The discovery of unidentified human blood on James’ discarded hat also raised questions which were never investigated.
Reports from residents at an Aboriginal settlement, who’d seen the boys being followed by another vehicle, were also ignored by police.
An 1987 inquest into the teens’ disappearance was meant to last two days but lasted almost four years.
However, its verdict was one that James’ parents could never accept. Even after 40 years, they have got no closer to answers.
When James’ mother, Sandra, died in 2016, she did so never knowing the truth about why the boys set off into the outback that day.
