Mystery Road: Origin is the 3rd series in the popular Australian crime series.

Series 3 is directed by Dylan River and is a prequel to first 2 Mystery Road series with Mark Coles Smith playing a young version of Jay Swan (played by Care Experienced actor Aaron Pederson in the 1st 2 series).

It's not clear, but it seems that the 16-year-old boy whose Jack, was orphaned at the age of 12. He then ran away from the mission where he'd been living and was independent from then on.

At the end of the series, a little girl is in the kinship care of her aunt because her parents have been imprisoned.

Again, it's not clear, but it seems that the 16 year old boy who was murdered 8 years previously may also have been in foster or kinship care.

In the 2nd series of Mystery Road: Origin, with Mark Coles Smith again playing a younger version of Jay Swan, the theme of child removal is central.

Jay Swan arrives in the small town of Loch Iris where his pregnant partner Mary (Tuuli Narkle) has been living for a month. The year is 2000.

The series, written by a First Nations team, then tells the story of a mission where Aboriginal Australian children were raised by nuns and where forced adoption was carried out. In case we think that is all in the past, there are children in ‘care’ now working a farm owned by the catholic church; Mary’s niece is living with her & Jay but is taken into state care; a teenage boy who was raised on the farm is terrified; and a young Aboriginal mother is desperately trying to get back the child the state has removed from her.