wife, was organised after information was obtained from local Aborigines that the two missing men had been killed by Gulidjan people near Lake Colac. Several Wathaurong men of the Barrabool clan around Geelong led the group to Lake Colac where they found horse-tracks leading to a community beside the lake. The Barrabool men then captured and forced a Gulidjan man by the name of Tanapia into a confession before killing him along with a woman they had also caught. Deeming that the situation had become dangerous for their safety, the search party decided to return to Geelong. The group's report that they had solved the mystery and exacted justice was strongly discredited as no bodies nor any personal artefacts of Gellibrand or Hesse were recovered. It was argued that the Barrabool men had only led the search party to Lake Colac so as to take violence upon a tribe they had animosity with and to obtain the reward offered. Over a year later, with the disappearance unresolved, another two expeditions were organised. In June 1838, surveyor H.W.H Smythe was guided by an Aboriginal man named Jack through the Colac region. After reaching Djerrinallum, Jack admitted he had no knowledge of the country further to the west and Smythe resolved to shoot Jack if he showed signs of abandoning him. Symthe returned unsuccessful in obtaining any information about Gellibrand. In July, Alexander McGeary led another search party after information was given that two white men were living with an Aboriginal clan towards the western regions. McGeary also failed to find any sign of Gellibrand but managed to come into conflict with an Aboriginal stranger during his journey, who clubbed McGeary on the head and jaw. His life was saved after two Aboriginal men he employed as guards shot the stranger dead. Discovery of remains near Cape Otway In 1844 George Allan, a pioneer pastoralist of the Warrnambool region, learnt that Gadubanud people from the Otway Range had seven years ago encountered two white men fitting the description of Gellibrand and Hesse. They claimed that Gellibrand walked into their camp seeking assistance and although they were able to help Gellibrand, Hesse had already died of starvation. Gellibrand apparently lived with them for two months before he was strangled to death by members of a nearby clan, his body buried and mourned over by the people who had tried to help him. Allan