‘Very afraid’: Jackson Stacker fell victim to seedy Byron Bay underbelly, family believe

Four years ago, the badly decomposed body of missing Melbourne man Jackson Stacker was found facedown in bushland at Byron Bay with a 30-centimetre hunting knife stuck in his chest, his head 13 metres away.

NSW Police concluded it was likely the 25-year-old, who lived in his van while surfing and partying at drug-fuelled “bush doof” raves, died by suicide.

Friends described his behaviour in the weeks leading up to his death as increasingly erratic and emotional, and he had reportedly talked of suicide — but his family insists he did not take his own life.

“I straight away thought it was murder, that was the first thought my mind went to,” Jackson’s cousin, Ishtar Kenny, born and bred in Byron Bay, told Nine’s 60 Minutes on Sunday night.

“I’ve heard of different things going on in Byron in the last few years where all the young people have been very afraid because they’ve been involved in something. They didn’t realise what it was, and then they’ve been threatened or stuff like that. So I know it can happen in that area as well.”

As a coronial inquest prepares to hand down its findings into Jackson’s death, Ian Stacker and Sandey MacFarlane say they believe their son may have fallen victim to Byron Bay’s seedy criminal underbelly.

“[The police’s] assessment of him was that he was [a] homeless, alcoholic, drug user that they’ve just found in a paddock,” Ian told the program.

“That assessment was made pretty quickly. And he was none of those things. He was undervalued as a human being because of how he was found. And I think that the feeling was, you know, ‘We’ll just tick this off as a suicide.’ A knife in the chest, I think, suggests that perhaps it wasn’t a suicide.”

Ms MacFarlane said “nothing made sense” about his death. “I spoke to him the last day he was alive and he was fine,” she said.

Ian remembered his son as “someone really looking forward to just going off on an adventure, which is what it was meant to be”.

“He just saw the world a bit differently,” he said. “He was not materialistic, although he wasted money on some crazy jackets sometimes. It’s hard to understand what he was doing there. He was off on this mission and I felt, ‘Great. Go and have a ball.’”

Ms MacFarlane last heard from her son on July 22, 2021. She says there was nothing that concerned her about their final conversation.

“His message to me was, ‘Mum, I’m so great. I’ve never been happier,’” she said.

“You know, ‘I’m hanging out with a lot of really beautifully intelligent people.’ They were just having a good time, having a beer and just chilling out or sitting on their roofs and just listening, playing music and surfing, watching the sunset.”

However, Jackson’s friend, Callum Whitehead, told the coronial inquest earlier this year he did seem upset that day and had thrown a bicycle at the Main Beach car park in Byron Bay before crying.

Ms MacFarlane transferred Jackson $300 three days after their last conversation with the message “please call mum”. When he didn’t respond to thank her she began to worry.

His family called police when they were contacted by someone asking to buy his van after seeing it abandoned at the Sleepy Hollow rest area near Pottsville, north of Byron Bay on the Pacific Highway.

Two days later, on August 26, 2021, police found Jackson’s body in a field, 120 metres away from his ransacked Toyota Hiace.

Ms MacFarlane agreed something changed in the last month of Jackson’s life, and that he had recounted moments where he got really upset.

“I think he was feeling used by certain people that were borrowing his van,” she said.

Friends blamed his emotional ups and downs on his use of LSD and marijuana.

Mia Kidis, who first met Jackson at the Premstock commune in the Daintree Forest in far north Queensland, told the inquest that he had previously taken LSD and cannabis and it didn’t “react well with him”.

She said he would cry or have low moods about three times a week and had been badly affected by a murder-suicide involving someone they knew.

However she also described him as having a “lust for life”, saying he was a “very charismatic, a very energetic and friendly person”.

Jackson had been hospitalised in the past for drug-induced psychosis, but Ms MacFarlane said she did not put much stock in reports he had talked to friends about killing himself.

“Jackson had no filter,” she said. “He would tell me if that was something that he was feeling. He had never actually ever mentioned suicide to me.”

A mecca for schoolies, backpackers and celebrities like Chris Hemsworth, the region has also seen a number of mysterious deaths in recent years, including Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez, 18, who disappeared on a night out in 2019.

Jackson’s parents fear he was involved with criminals and drug users who make up part of the vast homeless community around the Northern Rivers coastal town.

They believe someone from that circle may have been involved in his death.

“We think that perhaps he got involved with, at this [bush] doof, someone in the drug trade that had left some stuff in his van,” Ian said.

“You know, Jackson left that doof prematurely, and left behind a few people that he transported there. Just the way that his van was found — it was totally trashed. It was like it had been strip searched. We think there’s been an altercation between him and these people. I don’t know what the altercation was, or how it could possibly end up in him in a field with a knife in his chest.”

Police found Jackson’s body under a tree wearing his favourite fur coat, his scalp and dreadlocks around 13 metres away.

Officers also found a container of oil, matches, a lighter, a beanie, a roll of duct tape and a blueberry vape, the inquest heard.

Further away they found his unzipped boots.

When his van was searched, his laptop, phone and camera were missing.

Jackson’s parents have previously accused police of doing a shoddy job in the initial search of the area where his body was found.

When Ms MacFarlane went to visit the site of her son’s death she uncovered one of his teeth under a leaf.

It raised questions about the thoroughness of any previous police search, and coroner Teresa O’Sullivan ordered a new line search by officers on hands and knees.

Three finger bones were found in that search and were confirmed to belong to Jackson.

In February, the ABC reported two police officers linked to early investigations into Jackson’s death were on extended sick leave and a third had left the force and was refusing to give evidence to the inquest.

In another stunning twist on Sunday night’s program, the 60 Minutes crew found themselves part of the story after stumbling across a semi-buried mobile phone near where Jackson’s body was located.

The phone was handed to Bryon Bay police by Nine producers. It’s not yet known whether it belonged to Jackson.

But his parents say Jackson’s phone is a key piece of the puzzle.

His Samsung was not found on his body, but a week after he died it was booted up 200 kilometres away near Grafton, pinging off various cell towers over the next four days before returning to the Byron area where it was last detected on August 2, 2021.

“If it was with him, then someone else was there, because the phone moved,” Ian said. “If it wasn’t with him, then who took it?”

No one has been charged in relation to Jackson’s death.

Former homicide detective Gary Jubelin, however, said after evaluating the case he believed police had come to the correct conclusion.

“Any suspicious death should be treated as a homicide until you can prove otherwise, and looking at the steps that the police have taken during the course of this investigation, I think from a very early stage, they were looking at it as a potential homicide,” he told 60 Minutes.

“Looking at the brief of evidence being presented by the police on this occasion, it was a thorough brief of evidence.”

Mr Jubelin said he did not want to be “overly critical” of police for missing things.

“We’re talking a tooth in bushland like this,” he said.

“Things do get missed. It’s not an ideal situation. [It] doesn’t look great, and I think the police would be feeling bad about that, but I’ve been involved in numerous searches for remains and it is very difficult and things can get missed.”

The former detective said the skull being found away from the body was not necessarily indicative of foul play.

“It is horrific when you think the skull is 13 metres from the skeletal remains and other body parts,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s nature at work, you know there’s a lot of animals around here and I don’t find it unusual.”

The coroner is yet to determine Jackson’s manner of death.

Her findings are expected to be announced in coming weeks.

“What would he want?” Ms MacFarlane told 60 Minutes.

“What would Jackson want? That is what I ask myself every day. What would he want? He would want us to be happy. And we’d like to find his truth. Because that will make us happy.”

— with NCA NewsWire