It’s 1999, and Constable Jay Swan, a charismatic young officer arrives at his new station. Fresh from the city and tipped for big things, Jay might be the new copper, but he’s not new to this town. His estranged father Jack lives here, as does the woman who will change his life forever, Mary. Mystery Road: Origin will explore how a tragic death, an epic love, and the brutal reality of life as a police officer straddling two worlds, form the indelible mould out of which will emerge, Detective Jay Swan.
Near the rural town of Winton, Queensland, a truck driver finds the body of a teenage aboriginal girl named Julie Mason inside one of the drainage culverts under the road. Newly promoted aboriginal Detective Jay Swan, recently returned from training in the city, investigates the murder. He learns that Julie was a drug addict who would have sex with truck drivers for money. He questions another local aboriginal girl, Tarni Williams, who was friends with Julie, but she refuses to speak to him. A neighbourhood boy tells Jay that he found Julie's phone and gives it to him. Jay finds several text messages to his teenage daughter, Crystal. He visits his ex-wife Mary and speaks to Crystal. He asks her if she wants to move in with him, in his nicer neighbourhood, but she declines. Mary tells Jay that it is too late for him to be a father. Jay searches a farm near where Julie's body was found and meets its owner, Sam Bailey. Before Jay leaves, he sees a young man leaving in a white hunting truck. Jay later finds out that another teenage aboriginal girl has also gone missing.
Detective Jay Swan takes on a grisly case in a new town, a coastal community where the desert meets the ocean and secrets past and present run deep. Jay must reconcile the law and deep lore and confront a dangerous enemy. Spin-off from Ivan Sen’s films 'Mystery Road' and 'Goldstone'.
Three years after exposing the corruption in his hometown of Winton, the Indigenous detective Jay Swan is sent to the small mining town of Goldstone to find a missing Asian tourist. He is pulled over for driving under the influence by a young local cop, Josh, who informs the town's corrupt mayor, Maureen.