In August 1972, Hohenberger began working as an independent contractor with the German road construction company Strassen und Teerbau.

Although German police were sceptical of his disappearance, believing that somebody had tipped him off to the investigation, the discovery of his bags over a year later reinforced the theory that he had either had an accident or committed suicide.

[3] Using the name John Friedrich and fake qualifications, Hohenberger gained a contract with construction company Codelfa Cogefar, working on part of the Melbourne underground rail loop.

While the Church was only concerned with the day-to-day running of the island, as an agent of the government, Friedrich acted as a coastal watcher for the Royal Australian Navy, a fisheries officer, a licensee for the government-owned pub, an agent for a shipping company and the airline that serviced the island, and a reporting officer for the Department of Civil Aviation.

[2] Friedrich began studying again while at Mornington, working on an external master's degree in engineering science with the University of Queensland.

The Friedrichs resigned from BOEMAR in late 1976 but stayed to oversee relief opportunities until January 1977 after Cyclone Ted destroyed 90 per cent of all buildings on the island.

In subsequent investigations, it was discovered that Friedrich was not an Australian citizen, did not possess any valid birth certificate, and did not appear on any electoral roll.

This caused considerable embarrassment to the Department of Defence, which had given him a security clearance and almost unlimited access to Royal Australian Air Force bases.

[2] On 27 July 1991, Friedrich was found dead in a muddy field on his farm near Sale, Victoria, with a single gunshot wound to the head.

[8] In it, he claimed to have been born in South Australia in 1945 to German parents, attended boarding school in West Germany and studied engineering at the Technische Hochschule.