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Chapter 1: What is the Tromp Family mystery?
And we are The Prosecutors. Today on The Prosecutors, a family goes on a road trip and then loses their ever-loving minds. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of The Prosecutors. I'm Brett, and I'm joined, as always, by my wandering co-host, Alice.
Hmm. Wanderlust wandering. What a good descriptor, Brett. I am so proud of you. You can't help but, you know, be drawn into my puns. So I'm proud of you.
It's true. You've had an effect on me.
About time. It's been five years of doing the podcast. Yeah. It only took five years, guys. Yeah. Talk about wandering. Am I right? This is one of the strangest stories I've ever heard. And I kept waiting for, you know, like when you watch a kind of a mysterious movie and you wait for either the punchline or the answer. And it's just like a dot, dot, dot. And I just like scream at the screen.
That's this case. That is this case. Yeah. No, no, no. It's not a spoiler alert because you guys are going to want to stay around for the dot, dot, dot, because it is a mind boggler, shall we say.
You know, I got to say, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast. Heads Carolina, Tails California, that song. I have just deep inside of me this desire to just start driving. I'll drive by the Greyhound bus station every now and then, and I'm just like, I wonder if I just went in there and said, give me a ticket to a random place and just got on the bus and went.
This was more attractive before I had kids, but even now, I mean, even, you know, sometimes, sometimes it's more attractive now, but just this desire to just strike off and into the distance just to see what comes and leave everything behind. I think everybody has that desire deep down inside of them somewhere.
I think you're right. They do have that desire. But your little caveat there, you would like to do that when you didn't have kids. What if you threw your kids in the mix and brought them along? That would be crazy, would it not? But is that maybe what we're going to talk about today?
And we are returning to the great country of Australia. It's been a while since we've done Australian case. I think we've only done one, but I could be wrong about that. So looking forward to mispronouncing all the Australian names just drives the Australians crazy. I'm sorry, but Melbourne sounds so much better than Melbourne. Melbourne, it's like you're not finishing the word.
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Chapter 2: What led the Tromp family to leave their home?
But this one has a twist on it that makes it even stranger. From the outside looking in, the Trump family were a successful, close-knit bunch.
mark and jacoba trump that had built a successful earth moving company and a red current farm which i hear are a big deal in asia we don't really have red currents here i feel like we have black or currents depending on how you pronounce it for current but that could be wrong are you a red current fan my i think they're like medicinal properties in the asian culture so my mom brings them by the like bagfuls when she visits me
Here they make great jam.
I was going to say, I only eat them when she's here.
Yeah. Well, look, they had a whole farm of them. And they lived in a farming community, very connected to the earth. They were very successful. And in fact, they had three children, three adult children, Rihanna, 29, Mitchell, 25, and Ella, 22, who still lived on the farm and worked alongside their parents. And they worked seven days a week at this farm. They were very successful. Beautiful home.
They had horses. I believe it was Rihanna was into jumping, like hunter jumping. So they had like a whole jumping course. They had a bunch of horses. Very successful people. The kids, even though they're working on the farm, they also had these side businesses that they're doing. So just basically seems like they have this perfect place.
But then, in 2016, Mark and Jacoba, I believe Kobe was her nickname, began to demonstrate some paranoid behavior. And they became convinced that someone was after them. Someone was stalking them. They wanted to steal all their money, maybe even kill them. And they were terrified. And this behavior peaked immediately.
In August 2016, when the family abruptly left on a cash-only, tech-free road trip. Now, this road trip, which began at their home in Sylvan and ended in a place that I'm certainly going to mispronounce, Wangaratta. I think Wangaratta sounds very Australian, but the Australians can correct me on that.
it spanned five days and nearly a thousand miles along the way the family would split up different people leaving at different times all of them doing things that seemed to defy sense and then they eventually reappeared one by one And even now, nearly nine years later, the general public is no closer to understanding what exactly happened to the Trump family than they were when this occurred.
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Chapter 3: How did the Tromp family road trip unravel?
And like Brett said, I don't know if we'll have answers at the end of this, but this is so bizarre, especially when you're talking about five adults here, three adult children, you know, the youngest is 22. So, so truly not a teenager who are successful, happy. And. They leave on this trip. So let's take us back to August 29th, 2016.
The Trump family, remember, they work on a farm seven days a week. Why did they do that? Not because they're workaholics, but because that's what a farm requires. Those of you who either work on a farm, know people who own farms, know that whether it's animals or plants, plants, in this case, it's a red current farm, there are things to do every single hour of every single day.
And you typically can't even take vacation. That's one of the hard things about being a farmer. And so for all of them to leave at once is notable in itself. And that's what they did on August 29th, 2016. They left their home in Sylvan, Victoria, in Ella, one of the daughters, Silver Pugio SUV. And they left... Not with the things you normally would leave home with. They didn't take their phones.
They didn't take their passports. They didn't take credit cards. They quite literally had their bodies and got in a car and left. Now, the son, Mitchell, was the only one in the group with a cell phone. But just 19 miles into the drive, his parents made him throw his phone out the window near Warburton.
And so they were afraid that they would be able to be tracked via the phone, which is why they had Mitchell throw his phone out. So not only did they not bring their phones, but no one in the car can have phones. Turning it on airplane mode wasn't enough. We had to get rid of that entire phone lest they be tracked.
And if this feels like it starts abruptly, it's because it does. There's no real run up to this. If you look at the stories, look at the interviews, there's just a sort of vague notion that around this time, the parents became very paranoid, like we said. But there's no events. So there's no like three days before there was a strange car in the driveway or someone broke into the house.
It's literally just events. These people decide to do this. And Mitchell is the only person in this entire story who is just completely sane. And he's like, I don't know about this, guys. This seems really strange. But he was concerned about the rest of his family.
And so he would later say, I just felt like I needed to go with them and see where they were going because they wouldn't tell me where they were going. But he wasn't going to leave his cell phone. He was taking his cell phone with him. It's a little unclear how the parents discovered that he had it. But when they found it, they lost their minds.
And so literally his dad takes his phone and throws it out the window, which is just if Mitchell had any doubts that something had broken in the family, it was confirmed for him at that point.
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Chapter 4: What unusual behaviors did the Tromp family exhibit?
Now, the rest of the family, the other four, mom, dad, two sisters, continue in the car. And a short while later, the rest of the family arrived at Jonalyn Caves, a popular tourist spot in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. There, the remaining Tromp siblings, the two sisters, actually, they also decide we're done with this trip. And so they leave the parents at that point.
So really quick note, three of the five members of this family abandoned this trip by the second day.
But let's be clear here. Mitchell, you know, Mitchell jumps on a train and heads back home, right? The sisters abandoned this trip, but they are not in their right minds. Because what do they do when they decide to abandon this trip? They steal a car. So they just steal a car. They then drive the car to a nearby town called Goulburn. And they do whatever. What do you do when you steal a car?
What's the first thing you do? You call the police. So they actually, you know, they drive their stolen car, I guess, to a payphone. And they call the police and say, hey, our parents are missing. Now, at this point. There's some sort of further falling out with the girls because they decide to part ways at this point.
They're at a gas station, probably where they made the call, and they decide they're going to go their separate ways.
This is all incredibly puzzling because it's not like we're talking about two young women who have like a history of carjacking. So I don't actually personally know how to steal a car, but they pretty with some alacrity find a car to take, steal, quite literally steal. It's not theirs. They had no permission to take it and they take it. And what's interesting is what they say to the police.
Right. Not my parents are acting weird or hey, I saw them drive in this car headed to this destination and I'm worried about them because they're they're close to their family. They're close to their parents. They live with their parents. But to just say that they're missing is really interesting because it then draws into question like what does it mean to be missing?
This is not meant to be an existential question, but you typically think of reporting someone missing if, say, I arrive home and my husband was supposed to be home and his car's gone and his wallet's gone and he's nowhere to be found and none of his friends know where he is. But this isn't the case. They left the parents and now they're reporting them missing.
And I think this goes to what is a disturbed mental state for these two girls, these two women as well. And I do want to note, you know, we're talking about Australia. Those of us who are not in Australia, we sort of think of Australia as Sydney and I guess Melbourne. Yeah. And then the outback. Right.
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Chapter 5: How were the Tromp family members located?
The owner, he comes along, he gets in his utility van, fires her up, starts driving. All of a sudden, he starts feeling kicks to his seat during the drive, which just imagine. potentially in Australia, because who knows what sort of fatal, yeah, poisonous slash vicious animal could be in the back of your car. But he looks back and he sees Rihanna in the back of his vehicle.
And what he described as a catatonic state. He tried to talk to her. She could barely talk at all. And when she did talk, she said she did not know her name. didn't know where she was, didn't know how she ended up in the van. That is her mindset at this time.
And so this is really interesting. This is about an hour after Ella leaves her. So either she becomes into this catatonic state within the hour of Ella leaving her or she was like this with Ella. And yet being in this clearly helpless state, her sister just leaves her as opposed to keep her in the same car to go back to the home that they both live in. I mean, nothing is adding up.
There's just question mark after question mark that's happening right now.
And remember, Rihanna is the oldest of the kids. She's 29. So, you know, Ella's 22. And she's like, sorry, I got to go get my horses. And so she does. She leaves her. And who knows what her mental state was. So the driver, who would say to the press that he had quite a shock when he saw her in the back of the car, called the police.
The police show up and they take her to Goulburn Hospital, where she is placed under psychiatric care. Because at this point, nobody even knows who she is.
And so remember Ella, Ella took the car cause she's worried about her horses and she basically does nothing but drive like 500 miles because she later that evening arrives back at the family farm and she is the first of the Tromp family members to get home. So they've been gone for really just about a day at this point.
But when she gets there, she discovers that she's not the only one there because the police were already at the family farm. The police found the home unlocked and in utter disarray. They saw years worth of farm's financial records all kind of just littered throughout the home, indicating that someone had actually gone through these records relatively recently.
They also found the family's passports, credit cards, and cell phones, other than Mitchell's because we know Mitchell took his phone with him. And so to the investigators, it looked more like the Tromps had fled rather than left for a fun family vacation.
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Chapter 6: What were the mental health implications for the Tromp family?
Truthfully, I mean, this is unfortunate.
Because we've seen cases like this where people do things like this, right? I mean, we've done several cases where mental illness is believed to play a part that end in murder or suspected murder or disappearances that everybody thinks is probably...
a murder but in this case and i mean they got plenty of murderers in australia there's some great murder cases out of australia but alice is right everybody is going out of their way to help these people who are really exhibiting some mental illness that might make a lot of people say you know what i don't know why this woman is wandering around town but i am not going to get involved that's not what happens here they're helping out and getting these people where they need to be
Yeah. So now Jacoba gets to the hospital by the help of some local and she's examined and it was determined that her mental health wasn't of good standard. Such an elegant way of saying she's not doing well, right? There's something clearly wrong. You can kind of tell with what's been happening, the pattern of behavior.
Now, because she clearly needs some medical help, she's actually moved to the hospital in Goldburn so she can be with Rihanna. Remember, Rihanna, the eldest daughter, had been brought there in a catatonic state who also is getting psychiatric help. So the two of them are both at Goldburn Hospital and both are getting treated.
And it's fascinating because whatever's affecting them, and we're obviously going to spend a good amount of time on theories on this case, but whatever's affecting them is not affecting them all equally. So Mitchell doesn't seem to have been affected at all. Ella is sometimes held out as not been really affected. But as we said, her behavior is very strange to me.
And I think she definitely was under the influence of whatever this is and the whole stealing the car thing. But by the time she gets home, it seems like she is now out of it, too. Because her and Mitchell, they're talking to the media. There's no need for her to be hospitalized. No sign that she's under any kind of mental distress.
To the extent, as Ella said, she's going to be charged with stealing that car later on. But, you know, Rihanna, she's still in that hospital. Mom goes to the hospital and whatever it is, she certainly doesn't break out of it as quickly as Ella did. She has to be moved to the same psychiatric hospital that her daughter is in as well.
So far, this has not been a fun road trip whatsoever. You know, you left with five, one quickly abandons, then two more, including a stolen car. But now we've accounted for four of the family members. Two are back home pleading for help from the public to locate their parents. Two, mom and older daughter, are in the hospital. Where is Mark?
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Chapter 7: Where was Mark Tromp found and what happened afterward?
And I just want to dwell on this point for a minute because something Alice said I think is really interesting. The fact that, I mean, this whole bizarre thing happens. It had to be terrifying, right? I mean, we've told the story and we've kind of been incredulous throughout. But just imagine what this must have been like for them. You know, they think they're fleeing for their lives.
They, you know, Mitchell, how did they view him? Was he a traitor? You know, was he betraying them? Did they beg him to stay? Did they urge him to go? Ella abandoned her sister.
Like, how do you get over that? Yeah.
Ella abandons her sister, who's in a catatonic state, who ends up in a psychiatric ward, who has to climb into the back of a stranger's vehicle. Imagine how badly that could have gone, right? I mean, she literally gets in a van. She literally gets in a white van. Panel van. and survives, right? But yeah, I mean, all this stuff, the terror, the recriminations, the blame.
I mean, you would think, why did you get us into this? All this other stuff. It seems like it just all went away. You know, you would expect it's now been, like I said, I can't believe it's been this long since 2016, but now it's been nine years and it just seems like nothing really changed. They just all sort of went about their lives.
They just accepted whatever happened and moved on without question.
And kind of so did the public. There were no repercussions. Like, they did steal someone's car. Like, if they stole my Odyssey, what am I going to do without my Odyssey? Like, how am I going to drive my kids around, right? Like, this is... Yes, something happened. We don't know what, but... It's as if we just turned back time and this week never happened. Except it did happen and it was wild.
Such a wild ride and the public was drawn into it.
The owner of the Odyssey, by the way, did tell the police they did not want to pursue it. Because they heard the story and they were like, don't want to move further with this.
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