Norman vanished aged 16 and police found a body. For decades, his family weren't sure if it was him.

The following is an extract from Vanished: The true stories from families of Australian missing people, by Nicole Morris, available via Big Sky Publishing.

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

It would be distressing enough to have a missing brother for the last three decades. But what if you thought his body might have been found, and no-one will tell you whether or not that's true?

That’s the situation facing brother and sister Murray and Susan Lawson. Their brother Norman was last seen in 1986, when he was just sixteen years old. In 1990 a body was found, with a gunshot wound to the head, but since that time various government departments have told the Lawson family conflicting information about whether this body is Norman. They’ve now been waiting more than 30 years for that answer.

Norman Lawson was born in Melbourne. Older sister Susan and younger brother Murray completed the Lawson children, but they were not a happy family. Murray and Sue speak about constant fights between their parents, which resulted in them frequently moving. Their parents separated and Murray lived with his mother, while Norman and Susan stayed with their father, Henry. ‘I was passed round the family,’ says Murray. ‘It’s very hard to talk about. I had an abusive childhood. We were all together when we were younger, but Mum kept taking me away, and we ended up in the Northern Territory.’ 

His father, Henry, was Aboriginal and his mum was white. Murray recalls people were critical of his parents’ mixed marriage, making their childhood difficult.

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Susan was 13 when the family moved to Darwin. ‘Our dad was a bit of a gypsy,’ she says. ‘Murray went up before us, with Mum, and Norman and I went up later. Norm was about 12 months younger than me. We were lucky to spend six months in one place. Sometimes we’d be chucked in the car in the middle of the night and off we’d go to the next place. We used to camp on the riverbanks in Queensland. The highway was like our home; we travelled all over Australia.’ The family lived a nomadic lifestyle, with Murray and Susan saying they have lived in too many places to remember them all.

‘Susan did well at school, but school was never any good for Norman and me,’ says Murray. ‘As soon as we could, we were out. We were skilled bush kids. We grew up in the bush all our lives, we knew what to do, how to handle ourselves, how to find food. All the uncles and cousins used to take us out to the bush.’ Susan recalls their father being strict with them. ‘All of us were made to work from a very young age,’ she says.

‘Norm was a quiet worker, but he was a happy-go-lucky larrikin,’ says Murray. ‘Into athletics and fitness; he won some major awards. He was a good kid, had a lot of friends, very skilled at martial arts, he had a black belt. We were brought up doing martial arts and boxing. We got on good. He was very kindhearted and well respected by the people he grew up with. Everyone liked him.’

Norman left school at 15 and started working as a ringer on cattle stations in the Northern Territory. He then started his own timber-cutting business, which became very successful. He was 16 years old, had never had a permanent home, and not only had his own business but was employing staff. Sue remembers her brother’s success with great pride. ‘Up in the Territory, when treated timber first came out, he was shipping out the green logs to Gove and other places. He was doing really good for himself. Then some mongrel came along and stole him.’

Norman used to go fishing and camping frequently, at least every second weekend. He’d usually take his best mate, Johnny, but this time was different. 

On 21 October 1986 Norman went on a trip with a group of four older people who he didn’t know well. Susan doesn’t believe the group intended to fish, and she doesn’t know why he was with that group of people nor why they travelled to that location. Murray also isn’t sure how Norm knew these people, other than one of the men in the group who worked for Norm in his timber business. The group of five were camping on the Old Jim Jim Road in Kakadu, near the South Alligator River, about three hours’ drive from Darwin. Rather than alligators, the area is well known as being well stocked with fearsome saltwater crocodiles. The road is 4WD only and is a short cut from Cooinda to the Arnhem Highway. It’s closed during the wet season, when it floods. It’s breathtakingly beautiful country.

The end of October, when Norm went missing, would have been the very end of the dry season, with the wet starting in November. The official police information about the incident, and the one I have been using for many years to make appeals for information about Norm, was that the group was on a fishing trip. Murray and Susan say this is inaccurate; he was actually camping with the two men and their wives. Police also said he is thought to have drowned, information I included in my 2020 appeal during Missing Persons Week, and that’s how I met Murray – he responded to that appeal, letting me know it was wrong.

‘People get the wrong impression, that they were in a boat – there was no boat. They were on land. It was a big muck-up. They said that he’d run away, when it was proven that he didn’t run away. There’s a lot of untold stories, untold truths.’

What is known is that Norman Lawson went on a camping trip with two men and two women, and disappeared on that trip. The people he was with did not report him missing to police. Norm’s family knew straightaway something was wrong when no-one had heard from him by the end of the weekend.

‘Norm was supposed to be home on the Sunday, but he didn’t come home,’ says Susan. ‘Dad said, “There’s something wrong here,” because he always taught us to be where we were supposed to be either before or on time, never late, so if we were late he knew something was wrong. On Monday, still no word from him, and by Tuesday, Dad said he was going to the police station. He reported Norm missing.’

Murray says he will never forget the moment he learned his brother hadn’t returned from the trip: ‘I was at Henry’s place when Mum came and told us Norm was missing. I was very shocked, and sat by myself for quite a while.’ The family could not understand what had happened, but immediately thought something was very wrong.

The four people Norm had been with scattered to different parts of the country immediately after the disappearance. ‘One went to Western Australia and was picked up at Wave Hill, as you go through Katherine, on the border,’ says Susan. ‘His woman went to Queensland. The other fella and his woman went back to Darwin, and not one of them reported him missing.’

None of the four people who were the last to see Norman Lawson were ever charged with any crime. Police did question them, and their stories about what happened were inconsistent. Their story – that they had an argument with Norm and he walked off down the road without his shoes, hat, rifle or swag but only took his swag cover – was not believed by Norm’s family.

Rumours and stories eventually filtered their way through the Darwin community and reached the family, and little by little they pieced together the probable events of that day, even though the stories were slightly different. Murray says: ‘The partner of one of the men told me that they had a fight, a punch-up; she said Norm slapped the man around, then Norm walked off with his gun. She said the man ran him over and shot him with his own gun. Then they moved the body and fed him to the crocodiles.’

Susan heard a very similar account. ‘At the time there was a story going around, that Dad’s brother was told while we were out searching for Norm. They said Norm was hit over the head with his gun, wrapped in a swag cover and chucked in the billabong for the crocodiles. We only found that out about eight months after he went missing.’ Susan believes if there was an argument amongst the group, it might have been triggered by alcohol, and Norman’s disapproval of it. ‘We grew up with an alcoholic father,’ she says. ‘He bashed us, and Norman said to him there was to be no grog in the house. Dad thought the argument with Norman and the others could have been about grog, because they were all drinkers.’

Police, finding no trace of Norman on Old Jim Jim Road, collected the rest of his possessions from the group he had been with, and took them back to the police station. Susan says police should have realised at that point that something was amiss.

Norm’s .22 rifle was only later found by chance. His father, Henry, had gone to Kakadu to speak to the park rangers and was telling them about the missing rifle. By an amazing coincidence, one of the rangers Henry spoke to told him that some months before he had purchased a .22 rifle from one of the men Norm had been camping with. It turned out to be Norm’s rifle. ‘The gun was jam-packed with yellow clay, and that clay could only be found in a certain part of the area, in a billabong,’ says Murray. Sue believes the clay became wedged into the gun because it was used as a digging tool. It’s possible Norm was initially buried, in a grave dug with his own rifle, but then later moved to the billabong, so his remains would never be found.

‘We think he was buried in one spot, then moved to another spot, with crocodiles,’ says Sue. ‘I don’t know if any of that is true, but that’s the story I have been told from people.’ Even with the evidence of the rifle sale, no charges were laid against anyone.

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In 1990 skeletal remains were found at Lake Bennett, a 300-kilometre drive from Old Jim Jim Road. The body had a bullet wound to the skull, believed to be from a .22 rifle, the same as Norm’s gun. Police told the family they had found Norm’s body. Susan remembers when her parents learned about the Lake Bennett body. ‘Me, Mum and Dad were driving out there, as Dad had heard a man had something to do with this body, and Dad wanted to go and see him about it. Meanwhile, the police had gone past us, going out there too.’

‘It was a botch-up,’ says Murray. ‘The body was sent to a medical centre in Adelaide for testing and they said it was definitely Norman. They sent the body back to the Northern Territory, and they tested it again, and they said no, it’s inconclusive. They said there was animal blood found but it was actually human blood. So, Adelaide said it was him, and Northern Territory said it wasn’t him. Yet I’ve got a death certificate. I’m not sure what happened to that body. Last time I spoke to someone about it was three years ago and they said it’s a closed case, as far as they’re concerned.’

This is alarming. Not only have authorities told this family conflicting information about the identity of the remains, they have also told them they are no longer investigating what clearly seems to be a homicide. If the remains are not Norman Lawson’s, whose are they? And if that body had a gunshot wound to the head, who is investigating that crime? I contacted the Northern Territory Coroner’s Office in 2021 to ask if the Lake Bennett remains had ever been identified and they simply referred me to the new National DNA Program launched in 2020. It really didn’t answer my question as to whether the remains had been identified at any time in the last 30 or so years.

After going back and forth with police, and the authorities giving conflicting information about the Lake Bennett body, Murray has accepted that his brother is still missing. ‘I don’t believe the body is Norman,’ says Murray. ‘They did say they thought that body was older than Norman. When they first told us that body was him, I did believe them, and I was overcome with emotions. You just want to have a body to bury, but then we didn’t. I think after they took my DNA they did say that the body wasn’t him, but I’m still not too sure. At the time, in 1990, only two people were able to give a DNA sample for testing, that was me and our father. Our father refused to have the test done. I was the only person able to give a sample. To get Mum’s DNA, they would have to exhume her.’

Susan has also had her hopes raised many times by police who told her they’d found Norm, only to call back and dash those hopes.

There were times the police went to the markets where Dad worked and said to him, ‘We’ve found a body and we’re 100% sure it’s Norm.’ That happened four or five times. The last time it happened I was living in Brisbane, about six years ago. Murray rang me and said some lady from the police rang him and said that they’d got a body, and asked me about DNA, then she rang back and said it’s not your brother. No-one has ever taken my DNA. I’m very confused about that. Mum and Dad were in the police station once being interviewed and they heard someone say if the truth ever came out about this it would be a bigger thing than the Lindy Chamberlain case.’

There was an inquest held into Norman’s disappearance and presumed death in June 1990. The Coroner was unable to find a cause of death. The four people who were with Norman on the camping trip did appear at the inquest, but Susan says they were physically protected by police and her family were prevented from speaking to them. ‘It was a circus, it was ridiculous. One of them was drunk on the witness stand. They just gave Mum and Dad a coronial inquest to make them shut up I think, that’s all it was.’

Susan believes the men who were on that camping trip with her brother have since passed away. ‘One of them was in his 60s or 70s back then, and the other one was around 48 or 49. He’d be in his 80s now if he was still alive.’

Norman’s loss has had a devastating effect on Murray and Susan. Murray was 14 when Norman went missing. Within six months of his brother’s disappearance Murray dropped out of school. ‘Norm was never in any trouble; I was the one who got in trouble with the law,’ says Murray. All that started after Norm went missing.

His disappearance had a major impact on me. I was the outcast, no good for nothin’. Unfortunately, I was skilled at crime. I’m not proud of it, but I did it for a reason. I would break into houses, put the money into an envelope and put on the front: ‘Mr and Mrs Lawson, this money is to help search for your son Norman’ and put it under our front door. I did that for years, and they didn’t ever know it was me. Even the copper who busted me said, ‘As far as I’m concerned you did it for the right reasons’ and all charges were dropped.

I ask Murray if he thinks his life would have been very different if he’d still had his brother around and he quietly says:

Yeah. To this day, I’m still beside myself. This stuff belongs in a movie or a horror story. I’ve had some bad experiences with coppers. I suffer from lots of illnesses. I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve had a really bad life. I have chronic pain. Major mental illness. My body’s been through quite a bit. I attempted suicide many times. I blamed myself – why couldn’t it have been me instead of someone who was so good, who’d never been in trouble? Now I can’t even walk out the door, I don’t like going outside, I don’t like going into town. I hate coppers with a passion; every time I see them I have a breakdown. My Aboriginal skin name is Strong Warrior.

I like that.

Susan thinks Murray has been trying to deal with the pain of losing his brother the only way he knew how.

‘We’re both damaged. I dealt with it a different way, I guess,’ she says.

Murray reflects on what their mother went through, losing Norm. ‘It affected Mum terribly. She went through hell. And I’ve had a lot to deal with in my own head the last 20 or 30 years.’ Susan agrees. ‘Norm’s disappearance has wrecked our family. It’s agony to live with every day, it’s cruel. It’s messed me up in the head a lot too. It affects my relationship with my children and my grandchildren, because I can’t let them go anywhere without knowing where they are. It’s had a ripple effect; it hasn’t only affected my generation. I named my baby Norma Jane, after my brother. I have anxiety, depression and PTSD, all these years, since my brother went missing. Sometimes I am screaming in my sleep, trying to run, to get to him. I’ve tried all my life for something to be done.’ Susan says her first thought when she found out Norm was missing was that someone had killed him. ‘I believe that deep down in my heart. There was many a time that me and him ran away together, and we looked after each other, he looked after me, and he would never have gone anywhere and left me behind. There’s no way in hell he ran away and left me. We were very close, we went through everything together. He was building me a big greenhouse so I could start my own nursery business. That was the type of brother he was. I lost my best friend.’

The Lawson siblings. Image: Supplied.

It was not easy for Murray bring back all these painful memories when I spoke with him. ‘I find it really hard to talk about him, but for Norman I will do anything,’ he says. Murray says if he could find Norman’s remains that would bring him some peace, as he could lay his brother to rest with their mother.

Susan says the thing she misses most about Norm is his company. ‘And his smile. He’d say, “No worries, sis, it’ll be good, we’ll be right.” He always said that to me. It would just be nice to put him to peace. So, he can rest.’

Since the book was published, NT police have confirmed that the Lake Bennett body is not Norman Lawson.

Author Nicole Morris says:

"I’m very glad NT Police have been able to confirm that the Lake Bennett body is not Norman Lawson, but very sad that his family had to wait decades for that information. This illustrates the importance of communication between police and the families of missing persons. Norman’s family have accepted that they might never find his remains, and might never see justice for what they firmly believe is his murder, but I hope that with people now knowing Norman’s story, Sue and Murray can know they have done their best to honour his memory. I think he’d be really proud of his sister and brother."

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Norman Lawson, please contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Feature Image: Supplied.

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