It was an old, hungry, thirsty dog wandering into a caravan park that raised the alarm, but that was a week later. Events first began to unfold back in March 2015, as three people drove along a dusty track, through scrub and red earth, to a remote camp site 30 kilometres south of the tiny town of Sandstone in Western Australia’s Mid West.
They arrived in three separate vehicles and set up camp at remote Bell Chambers, a series of abandoned mineshafts that had been dug out by hand 100 years earlier. The friends were there to prospect, to abseil into the holes in the ground in the hope of finding residue fortune.
Three people arrived at the camp site that day, but only one of them would leave alive.
On March 18, Jennie Kehlet wrote in her diary: “Hopefully to the Hole tomorrow, fingers crossed.”
A prolific diarist, that was the last entry of her life.
Two in love
Ray and Jennie Kehlet were active, capable, outdoor people who frequently went camping. “They were just adventurous,” says Jennie’s youngest daughter, Britney.
Their small hobby farm at Beverley, near Perth, was their dream, their passion. “A place,” says Britney, “where they could grow old together, where all people were welcome and looked after.” They had worked and saved hard to buy it. They had a donkey, cows, sheep, and alpacas. Jennie loved animals.
“The way she would sing to the magpies,” she says, “talk to her cows, save every spider.”
Ray’s daughter, Charmaine, says their rescue Great Dane, Ella, “was the third wheel in that relationship. She was always plastered to their side.”
Both had been married
