‘Our family disintegrated:’ The Block’s Jolene Wagner reveals devastating impact of uncle’s unsolved cold case

In June 2003, fisherman Bevin Simmonds and his ten-year-old son Brad disappeared while they were clearing out shark nets five kilometres off the coast of Queensland’s Cape York.

What started out as a suspected boating accident in Australia’s Far North turned into a homicide investigation when detectives realised the impossible had happened. There was no trace of them at all.

Bevin’s niece, Jolene Wagner, is currently appearing in the new season of The Block alongside her husband, Adam. Today, she’s shedding light on the unsolved mystery that shattered her family two decades ago.

“My mum flew up there and she said, ‘Something’s not right here.’ There were no weapons, no dinghy and no bodies,” Jolene, whose mother Janelle is Bevin’s sister, told nine.com.au.

“Detective Ed Kinbacher said [at the time] the fact that they found nothing just screamed foul play.”

Jolene and her mother Janelle initially spoke about the disappearance of Bevin, who was 36, and Brad in the Stan Original Documentary Revealed: The Cape.

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The documentary explored the “cut-throat” lifestyle of local rival fishing clan the Gater family and touches on the affair between Bevin’s wife Cathy and the eldest son of the Gater family, Michael Gater.

Following the murder investigation, detectives charged Michael Gater and his mother, Joan Gater, with orchestrating and carrying out the murders of Bevin and Brad.

They alleged the pair killed Bevin to make way for a new fishing empire.

Michael was charged with murder while Joan was charged with being an accessory to murder, among other charges. A Cairns Supreme Court jury acquitted them of the murders in a 2005 trial.

Because there was no trace of the crime, the prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence.

Wagner, her grandmother and her mother were all in the courtroom the day the verdict was read.

“It was a very intimidating day,” Jolene recalled. “Besides my mum, myself and my grandma, there was no other family from our side, and there was a lot of Gater’s family there.

“Michael never made any eye contact with us throughout the whole case, but when they read ‘Not guilty,’ he looked at his family, who were sitting in the same row as us, and he had this look on his face, that in my opinion, said ‘Huh?’ It was so piercing.”

Wagner explained to nine.com.au her uncle’s disappearance ultimately tore their family apart, with the murder trial having a devastating impact on her grandmother.

She explained the defence tried to paint Bevin as a “bad person” during the trial, which was “far from the truth”.

“That was hard to hear, and it was hard for my grandma to hear. He was her youngest and she just adored the ground he walked on,” she said.

“For them to portray him like that – it just hurt her so much, and I watched her deteriorate each day [of the trial], and then she [developed] early onset dementia after that, I think it was the trauma, it just got her.

“My grandma passed away never knowing what happened, and that definitely changed her.”

Janelle’s relationship with her other brother, Glenn, also deteriorated during the trial.

“They don’t talk anymore. My grandma wanted to go to the court every day and my mum and I supported that – he didn’t support that, he basically stopped talking to us after that.”

“Our family unit kind of disintegrated, it’s hard when someone disappears and there’s no closure and there’s no final answer.”

She explained that her family also do not speak to Bevin’s ex-wife Cathy or her daughter, Katie.

When speaking to nine.com.au, she reiterated she finds it strange that Cathy can work in the same waters as the Gater family to this very day.

“It’s irrelevant what she thinks about Bevin, but that’s your child. I don’t understand how she can work in the same area as these people who [were accused of] killing her son.

“She would sit in that witness box and not show emotion at all, we just couldn’t understand it.”

Jolene also explained that she “felt sorry” for her cousin Katie.

“I know she carries a lot of guilt that it was supposed to be her [on the boat],” she explained.  

“Brad usually didn’t go out [on the boat] in the morning. It was always Katie going out in the morning, then Brad would go out in the afternoon.”

More than 20 years later, Jolene and her family have never gotten justice or answers for the disappearance.

While she says reopening the case would be a “double-edged sword,” she wanted the voice of her uncle and cousin to be remembered, which is why they agreed to the documentary.

“We just wanted Bevin’s voice to be heard and we actually are really proud of the documentary. I feel like it showed Bevin’s character, and it expressed that he has a loving family,” she explained.

“He wasn’t just a nobody. He was loved. He was someone’s son. He was someone’s brother. He was someone’s dad, and he was a very important part of our family unit.”  

You can stream Revealed: The Cape on Stan.