'Caveman' discovered three years after disappearing on day he was investigated over woman's death
A man went off-grid to live in a cave for three years the day New South Wales (NSW) Police issued a search warrant over a woman's death.
Paul Jones is the last known person to see 30-year-old Jessica Zrinski alive before her disappearance in late 2022.
In August 2026, NSW Deputy State Coroner David O'Neil concluded that the Sydney woman died on or shortly after 29 November 2022. Her body has never been found.
Jones has been a key person of interest throughout the homicide investigation but has not been charged in connection with her death.
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After three years, police found him in a bush cave in the Berowra Valley National Park.
Police bodycam footage from March 2026 shows him standing shirtless on a rock on top of his cave.
The connection between Zrinski and Jones
Zrinski and Jones met by chance outside the Greenfield Tavern in Bossley Park on 27 November 2022.
He was served a subpoena to compel his attendance at a coronial inquest.
She willingly got into his blue Holden Commodore station wagon, with CCTV later showing the car in Mount Victoria with Zrinski inside.
Phone data showed Jones' phone was in the Hampton State Forest region where it was turned off or disconnected for five hours.
Footage later showed Jones returning to Sydney alone and washing his car.
Witnesses at the Lidcombe Coroner's Court inquest stated that Jones made panicked, drug-affected calls on the day Zrinski vanished.
Jones wanted to ‘get rid of something’
His cousin testified that Jones called him out of nowhere asking for help to ‘get rid of some stuff’ or ‘get rid of something’.
During court proceedings, Jones denied any memory of meeting Zrinski, despite being shown photographic proof.
His stepsister testified that he initially claimed Zrinski offered him money to drive her, but later changed his story to claim she offered him drugs as payment before he allegedly dropped her off somewhere.
During his testimony, Jones had an explosive outburst when pressed about his time in the cave, shouting that he did not want to watch the police bodycam footage again.
Jason Minney, Jones’ former friend, told the inquest he received a number of calls and messages from Jones at about 6.30am on the morning of 29 November in 2022.
I ‘messed up’
During a video call, Minney recalled seeing a ‘blonde person on the screen for a moment’.
“I recall hearing a female voice with him at the same time,” he said.
“I’m not sure if they were talking or arguing… I believe at one stage there were two people a male and a female and one of them was Paul Jones.
“I just thought there was something wrong with him but I didn’t know…. but at first I thought he was high on drugs, but he was too incoherent and not making sense.”
Tahlia Kite, the half sister of Paul Jones, told Lidcombe Coroner’s Court on Tuesday that Jones called her via Facebook Messenger in January in 2023.
Kite said that Jones said he had ‘done something bad’ but wouldn’t tell her what it was, just that he’d ‘messed up’.
“He had messed up and done something bad, he had ****** up. Were his exact words,” she said.
“He said he had ****** up and was in trouble.”
Jones has not been charged in connection with Zrinski’s death.
Anish Vij