Tragic end to search for missing man Timothy Bottoms
Police News
The body of missing man Timothy Bottoms, 71, was located around 10am on Wednesday, with news of the well known Cairns historian and author’s death quickly impacting the local community.
Dr Bottoms was reported missing from Kuranda on Tuesday afternoon, May 26. He was last seen at Montrose Avenue, Edge Hill.
Police will now prepare a report for the coroner having found Dr Bottoms dead on the Gillies Range following an urgent public search.
His body was found in a vehicle parked facing downhill in the oncoming traffic lane.
He is understood to have been returning from the funeral of his brother, John, when he died.
The noted local historian and author was widely respected across the Far North for his historical research, including Conspiracy of Silence and Cairns: City of the South Pacific, a History 1770-1995.
Dr Bottoms' brother died earlier this month in Cairns Hospital from complications during hip surgery.
John Bottoms was one of the founders of legal firm Bottoms English, and was the driving force behind the stolen-wages case which resulted in payment of $190m by the State Government to Indigenous people who had worked, mainly on cattle stations, in the 1950s and 1960s and whose wages had been kept by the Government.
He was also instrumental in the Wik native title case in which the High Court held that native title was not extinguished by pastoral leases but could co-exist with them.
