Roo meat pies, organised crime and 1980s Queensland cops: the disappearance of the Kangaroo King had everything.

It made headlines around Australia almost 40 years ago — but in the small town of St George, they've never stopped talking about it. Listen to the program Earshot investigates the disappearance of the "Kangaroo King".



Andy Komarnicki was the owner of a kangaroo processing plant in the small Queensland town, where dead roos became pet food for hungry dogs all along the eastern seaboard.

One night in January 1980, he made a routine trip to check on chiller rooms on the town's outskirts.

His family haven't seen him since.

And despite a $250,000 reward for information — and the proliferation of countless theories — they're still no closer to finding answers.

Komarnicki feared he would be 'knocked off'

According to police, Mr Komarnicki's car was found abandoned at a weir near the banks of the Balonne River, about 300 metres away from his business. It was unlocked, and the keys were still in the ignition.

His stepson, Frank Poplawski, remembers going to the business the next morning with his brother, and looking from the gate to the main road.

Kangaroo shooting was big business in St George in the 1980s before Andy Komarnicki disappeared. ( Supplied: Debbie Bradfield )

"He must have walked out to the main road, because there were lots of footprints on the main road. He had flat soled shoes on," Mr Poplawski says.

"I'm guessing that someone pulled up on the road or someone was there and I reckon that's where they grabbed him."

The family believes it must have been someone who knew the Kangaroo King.

Mr Poplawski says his stepfather was concerned prior to his disappearance that someone was "going to knock him off".

"But he would never talk to you about it," he says.

"Things were not bright, right from the word go. Someone had definitely got rid of him."

Involved in a meat racket

One theory is that Mr Komarnicki's death may be linked to his involvement in Australia's notorious meat substitution racket, exposed in the early 80s.

Mr Komarnicki's stepson says while meat from the St George processing plant was intended for pet food, it was also used for human consumption.

"We used to process a couple of hundred roos per day, so that's a lot of skins and a lot of meat that's going somewhere," Mr Poplawski says.

"I'm definitely sure it wasn't all going to pet.

"When you would see those ads on TV advertising the pies [Mr Komarnicki] said 'that's my meat' and he wasn't joking.

"I think they were using it for human consumption then."

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The meat substitution scandal erupted into the national consciousness in 1981, when an American food inspector found suspected horse meat in imported Australian "beef".

A royal commission followed, revealing the practice of passing off pet-grade horse and kangaroo meat as fit for human consumption was widespread.

Mr Komarnicki wasn't named in the inquiry. By then, he had been missing for more than a year.

Dick Kingdom says he was a suspect for a short time after Andy Komarnicki disppeared. ( ABC RN: Elly Bradfield )

Kangaroo shooter Dick Kingdom — the number one suspect for a short time — believes a link to the racket was behind the disappearance.

His theory is that Mr Komarnicki's competitors arranged a "hit".

"He was selling to supermarkets in Sydney and they were making pies out of it," he says.

"It sort of folded after he went. There was no opposition no more."

Is he really dead?

The missing person case remains a talking point in St George, where everyone has a theory about what happened to Mr Komarnicki.

"Everybody was walking around, wondering if they were going to be next, who was going to be interviewed, who was coming from where," another kangaroo shooter, Ward Curtis, remembers.

"There was talk that people from overseas got him, that he was an assassinator in the war and all this type of caper.

"Nobody would sneak up on Andy because he always had a gun … Everybody knew it."

As a body was never found, some locals suspect Mr Komarnicki survived the night, leaving town in secret in a plane.

Another rumour is that Mr Komarnicki's body was destroyed in the processing plant.

"A lot of people thought, 'someone's done the wrong thing and put him through the mincer'," local teacher Donna Worboys, who uses the story in her history lessons, says.

Calls to reopen the case

Ken Morris, a police officer in St George in the 1970s, was brought back to the town to investigate the disappearance.

He says there was no indication of a plane in St George that night, and tests on the mincer at the kangaroo works found no evidence of human remains.

An inquest in 1981 found insufficient evidence to name a suspect, concluding only that Mr Komarnicki had likely been abducted or led away from his business.

But Mr Morris says if DNA testing had been available at the time, they might have solved the case.

Ken Morris believes the police should revisit the cold case. ( ABC RN: Elly Bradfield )

"There were no witnesses that we could find that saw Andy in his vehicle prior to disappearance, or saw his vehicle down there with Andy in it, or in the vicinity," he says.

"It was difficult because the territory around St George is full of old wells and places where it would be easy to dispose of a body.

"We got divers out to check the river; those enquiries were fruitless. It's probably something that the cold case squad should have a look at."

The missing man's family, too, believe that key evidence was missed in the initial investigation.

"I think because it's a small country town, you don't expect anything to happen, so therefore you don't have a forensic team around the corner," Mr Komarnicki's stepdaughter, Judy Knight, says.

"Who's going to expect anything like this to happen?

"How does somebody walk out a door and not come back?"

The family is still hopeful that the mystery will be solved — but until then, the stories will continue to circulate in St George.