It's been three years since Theo Hayez went missing in Byron Bay. New leads are still coming in.

It's been three years and three months since Theo Hayez was last seen leaving the Cheeky Monkey's nightclub in Byron Bay on a Friday night in 2019. 

The disappearance of the 18-year-old Belgian backpacker has remained a mystery ever since, despite geo-tracking on his phone giving us intimate details into his movements up until 1am that next morning. 

The last spot his phone tells us he was, is a place called Cosy Corner down the northern end of Tallow Beach, and in the opposite direction to the hostel where he was supposed to be sleeping that night. 

But despite the case running cold, one private investigator who has been involved in tracking Theo's movements on a pro-bono basis for the family since late 2019, is confident they will eventually get answers. 

"I would never give up holding hope, because what I do know is there have been hundreds of leads that have come forward over the years. Only a handful of those leads I would regard as credible, [but] there's been some really credible leads come in even this year," Ken Gamble told Mamamia's True Crime Conversations in October, 2022. 

Listen to the episode below. Post continues.

"I believe...I still believe, and I will always believe, that someone knows something about what happened to Theo," he insisted. 

What do we know?

After leaving Cheeky Monkey's nightclub at about 11pm on May 31, 2019, Hayez checked Google directions on his phone to WakeUp! - the local hostel where he was staying. 

Then, he headed in the opposite direction, pausing for seven minutes near some cricket nets at the Byron Youth Activities Centre. 

This is where Gamble is confident Hayez met someone. 

"He stood there and he loitered...when I say loitered we can see from the GPS. So we could see a cluster of GPS points which means he was standing there, moving slightly. And that's very compelling evidence because he was not stopping there for say a toilet break or something like that, he was there for seven minutes doing something there."

Gamble says that because they had access to all of Hayez' internet searches and Google tracking, and he wasn't otherwise on his phone during this time, the most logical conclusion they can draw is that he was talking to someone. 

From there, Hayez' GPS shows him making his way towards Tallow Beach. But instead of taking the well trodden track to the shore, he wound his way through the dark before popping out at the sand via a much less well known trail. 

Once at the end of the beach at Cosy Corner, he watched a YouTube clip of his favourite comedy, and sent a few Whatsapp messages. As Gamble explained, you could summise from this activity, that Hayez was in a relaxed and casual frame of mind. But then something changes.

"I believe at 1am, or perhaps a couple of minutes past, something has happened to him," said Gamble. 

It's here where police alleged that Hayez climbed up the beachside cliffs, fell into the water and drowned. But if he did, his phone didn't go with him. 

Gamble and his team were able to determine that Hayez' phone remained on, and in the vicinity of Cosy Corner, until 1pm later that day (when Gamble summises that the battery might have died).

"It would be an unusual circumstance where someone has fallen in the water to the extent that they had been washed away at sea, and their phone didn't go with them. Because if he's fallen in the water, the phone would have either been in his hand or his pocket," said Gamble.

The phone has never been found, and the only other directly linked clue left in the area was Theo's cap which was found in bushland near Tallow beach by search parties after he was reported missing. 

As far as Gamble is concerned, Hayez met with foul play at Cosy Corner. 

"Based on all the evidence we've seen in this case, I don't accept the proposition that he fell off the cliffs. I don't believe the evidence shows that that's a logical conclusion."

Fresh leads: a house in Nimbin and a backpacker's story.

In 2021, an anonymous tip to the Hayez family website - set up to field any new information about his whereabouts - led Gamble to a dilapadated squatter house in Nimbin about an hour's drive from Byron.

Speaking to True Crime Conversations, Gamble said NSW Police were given the tip-off too, but they disregarded it as not credible. 

The tipper had overheard a conversation at a pub amongst a small group of people who were apparently there the night Hayez disappeared. 

They suggested he'd accidentally died as a result of some sort of drug. 

Gamble tracked down the tipper, and was told about an abandoned house where Hayez' belongings were allegedly dumped. 

His team found the house. But the belongings they came across actually belonged to Thea Liddle, who went missing and whose remains were found at Tallow Beach in 2020. 

"I was pretty shocked to find that information," Gamble told True Crime Conversations. 

"You couldn't help but to become suspicious that there was some connection here. Why did this person direct me to go to this house, and I just happen to find the belongings of a person who's found deceased in the same location where Theo disappeared? That to me raised a red flag and it raised concerns that there may be a connection."

All of this information has since been passed on to NSW Police, but Gamble was interested to see none of the information he uncovered was explored in the coronial inquest held into the case in late 2021. 

"[That's] because there was no evidence at all to prove or to establish that the information we were given was correct. So the police, whilst they may be investigating those allegations... the coronial inquest looks at all the factual information that can be determined, and I believe that there was probably insufficient evidence to prove that the information we uncovered was connected to Theo."

In February, 2022, NSW Police launched a $500,000 reward in a fresh push, hoping anyone with information about Hayez' disappearance would come forward. 

Gamble knows of a fresh lead that has come to light this year, telling True Crime Conversations, "a story that came from a backpacker about a certain individual who was in Byron at the time, that leads us to believe that there may be a person of interest that we should be looking at."

Gamble says this has formed part of the ongoing investigation that's being led by the missing person's registry, who are reinvestigating the case. 

"They're doing a very good job. A very thorough job," he said. 

"I wish they had done a thorough job in the beginning of this case... but certainly now they are pursuing all of these avenues."

As far as Ken Gamble is concerned, someone out there knows what happened.

"I do believe that he [Hayez] was with somebody that night...that he met with someone, and somebody encouraged him or invited him to go down through that route to the beach - and that there was potentially some engagement with other people. And if that's the case, then the suggestion of foul play would be quite an accurate one," he concluded.

Feature image: Facebook/looking4theo.com/Mamamia.