[4] At the age of eight, Morcombe and his older brother Perry discovered a body of a murdered woman in the grounds of Milton State School on 12 November 1967 after following a blood trail they had found outside the parents fruit shop.
[7] The circumstances surrounding his disappearance triggered a widespread search and lengthy police investigation, with Morcombe and his wife frequently appearing in the media appealing to the public for information.
[17] In 2015, he criticised the decision to stop the parents of William Tyrrell from speaking to the media to appeal for information relating to Tyrell's disappearance.
[18] Morcombe formally appealed to the Western Australian state coroner in 2016 for an inquest to be held into the unsolved 1997 murder of 11-year-old Gerard Ross.
[19] In December 2021, Morcombe called on Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to instigate an independent review of forensic evidence from the investigation of the murder of Shandee Blackburn.
[21] Morcombe was angered by the release of The Stranger in 2022, a film directed by Thomas M. Wright and starring Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris, which is based on the undercover police investigation which led to the arrest of Brett Peter Cowan.
[23][24] Morcombe was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours in recognition of his service to the community relating to safety awareness programs for children.
[25] Morcombe and his wife Denise were both named as the Sunshine Coast's Citizens of the Year at the local Australia Day awards in 2018.