In 2016, five members of the Tromp family fled their farm in a single car, leaving behind their passports, credit cards and mobile phones. Why they fled remains one of Australia's greatest modern mysteries—a mystery that not even the Tromp family can fully explain.

Over the following week, the family scattered across two states. One son, Mitchell, abandoned the journey and caught a train home. Two daughters, Riana and Ella, stole a car near the Jenolan Caves before reporting their own parents missing more than 100 miles away. Riana was later found catatonic in the back of a stranger's pickup truck. Their mother, Jacoba, turned up wandering the streets of Yass, while their father, Mark, disappeared into bushland.

Today, we retrace the family's bizarre road trip, examine the many theories—from contaminated water and cults to supernatural cave spirits—and explore the explanation psychologists keep returning to: “folie à deux”, the rare condition in which one person's delusions spread to those closest to them. It's a remarkable true story about just how fragile—and contagious—the human mind can be.

Topics Included

  • what happened in the Tromp family disappearance
  • the empty farm, the abandoned passports and the missing Peugeot
  • the frantic drive north and the phone thrown from the window
  • the Jenolan Caves and the folklore surrounding them
  • why the family scattered one by one across two states
  • Riana found catatonic in a stranger's pickup
  • the theories, from farm chemicals to cults to cave spirits
  • folie à deux and the science of shared psychosis
  • the Eriksson twins and other real cases of shared delusion
  • how the Tromps were found and what they said afterwards

Resources and Further Reading

Host & Show Info

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