October 5, 2025 • 19 mins
Almost seven years ago to the day, on the NRL grand final weekend, a bizarre set of events unfolded.An injured woman knocked on the door of a stranger, saying she was escaping from two men, and that she needed help.The 19-year-old air force cadet who answered the door let the woman in and called emergency services before the men forced their way into the home.The slightly built teenager armed himself with a knife, and the end result? The two men were killed.It seems like a case of self-defence, but a new podcast called 'Alva Beach: Death at the Door' - from 60 Minutes reporter Adam Hegarty - says there are still holes in the story that need to be answered.And just a warning, listeners may find the contents of this episode distressing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:04):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is Morning Edition. I'm Tammy Mills, filling in for
Samantha Salinger. Morris. Alva Beach is a tiny town in
northern Queensland with a population a bit over 200 people,
and it's just south of Townsville. Almost seven years ago
(00:26):
to the day on NRL grand final weekend, a bizarre
set of events unfolded. An injured woman knocked on the
door of the stranger, saying she was escaping from two
men and she needed help. A 19 year old Air
Force cadet answered the door and he let the woman
in and called emergency services. Soon after that, the men
(00:48):
began to force their way into the house. The 19
year old, slightly built teenager armed himself with a knife.
The end result? The men who forced their way into
the home were killed. It seems like an open and
shut case of self defense, right? But a new podcast
called Alva Beach Death at the door from 60 minutes
(01:09):
reporter Adam Hegarty says there still holes in the story
that need to be answered. And just a heads up,
listeners may find the contents of this episode distressing. So, Adam,
tell us about this case by taking us back to
the night this unfolded and how emergency services were first alerted.
S2 (01:28):
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, it's a really timely chat
we're having here because it was NRL grand final night,
early hours of October 1st, 2018. So it all effectively
begins with that NRL grand final party tiny town of
Alva Beach. But then it descends into this, you know,
really violent situation. So the first time police heard about
(01:50):
it and obviously get into what led to it. But
they get a call on 000 from a frightened young man,
a 19 year old Dean, whether inside his house on
the home. He'd been woken up at the door by
a complete stranger. So that's 29 year old Candice Lock.
S3 (02:06):
Ambulance. What's the town or suburb? The emergency. Uh.
S4 (02:09):
Alva beach.
S3 (02:10):
Okay. Tell me exactly what's happened.
S5 (02:12):
I've just had an injured lady knock on my door
asking for help. I believe she has a dislocated shoulder.
And there's. She's just come from, uh, a buggy or whatever,
and there's people waiting.
S2 (02:26):
This is a 19 year old, you know, skinny, you know,
slight kid who's opened his door and she's gone. There
are people out to get me. I'm really injured. Please,
please help me. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the situation. And
then Dean is immediately called 000. I've got this injured
girl here. People are out to get her. Please help.
So that's paramedics. They figure out what's going on, they
rock up, they stage up the road.
S1 (02:47):
Meaning they're just waiting for police, right?
S2 (02:50):
Exactly. They think it's a dangerous situation because he says
that people are out to get her. Then there's a
second 000 call after three men he says, have arrived, saying,
I'm in serious danger here. Please. Someone arrive.
S6 (03:01):
I need police right now. They're breaking in. Okay, you've got.
S2 (03:03):
Then you've got police discrediting that guy. No, I think
he's just thinking that they're just rubbish stories on a
grand final night where he's probably getting a bunch of
drunken calls.
S6 (03:10):
The two unknown white males have come to your front
door and are threatening to break in, and you've got
no idea who they are or what reason it's for.
S5 (03:18):
No, they're trying to get this injured.
S7 (03:20):
Girl, are you able to help us? Is there any way.
S6 (03:23):
I can put a job on for a bit? Er.
S7 (03:25):
Okay. Oh my God. Please.
S6 (03:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've already spoken so much shit to
me though. And then you do. Turns out you do
know him. I'm putting a job on and sending him
up there.
S2 (03:34):
And then the third 000 call, he finally gets through
to them because then he's killed two people and he
explains that to them.
S5 (03:40):
We've called three times. This is not funny anymore. Like
this is not a joke. Please send someone.
S2 (03:46):
In the end. Police get there. About an hour after
his first panic. 000 call. And for context, this is
Alva Beach. North Queensland Police stations 12 15 minutes up
the road. It's an isolated place. But when I say isolated,
you know, the police station and the paramedics are not
far up the road.
S1 (04:06):
Okay, so this woman, Candace Locke, who's turned up at
this young man's door, turned up at Dean Webber's door.
They've never met. Right. They're complete strangers.
S2 (04:16):
Well. That's right. I mean, there's sort of five characters
to this story, and most of them are strangers, which
just adds to the bizarre nature of it all. So
Candace Locke was in a new relationship with Tom Davey,
one of the two men who eventually would die. So
they'd only been together for about six weeks. They'd gone
up to the beach for a bit of a holiday.
They've gone to the beach, they're fishing, and they have
a chance encounter with Corey Christensen and his mate Louis Bengoa.
(04:40):
Two strangers. They only met that afternoon. They get invited
back to a grand final party because they'd hit it off.
Everyone starts drinking. Tom and Candice fight. He goes, sleeps
it off in his car. Candice kicks on, goes for
a buggy ride with Louis, and then something happens there.
So she gets injured on that buggy ride. And then
you eventually have these two scenarios. So Candace is frightened
(05:02):
and says she's scared for her life and runs to
stranger Neighbor's home, a 19 year old. And then you've
got Corey and Louis who are mates. They try to
get her out. They can't. They go get Tom. Tom's
gone and just woken up in his car going, oh,
what's going on here? I need to save Candace, potentially.
So you've got these two sides that want to save
the one person, it seems, and then it ends in,
(05:22):
you know, two men dying. We've never been in trouble
with police before. Not a violent bone in their body.
And all five have never been in trouble with police before.
And that really goes to the core of how bizarre
this case is. And we still to this day, and
we're trying to figure it out through the recordings, we
have no why it escalated so violently and so hectically.
S1 (05:42):
All right. So there's a few different things happening here.
Please correct me if I get any of this wrong.
So I've got Candace Locke. She says she's running from
these two Alva Beach locals, Louis, Bengoa and Cory Christensen.
She turns up at Dean Webber's door. She said she
needs some help. But then Louis Bengoa and Cory Christensen
(06:07):
go after her. Are they angry? Are they just looking
for her? Are they worried because they wake up her
sleeping boyfriend and enlist his help? So is there some
suspicion that she's in some sort of danger inside the
home she's just run into?
S2 (06:24):
So a key point is, we don't know what Louis
told Cory, and in particular, Tom, about why there was
this huge, important need to get Candice out of that home.
It's always just speculative because he says he doesn't remember
what he told either of them, and he's always changed
his story. So it obviously raises the question. And the
coroner raises this question too. So we can comfortably raise it.
(06:46):
In her findings, she believes that he's told Cory or
Tom something to the effect of she's in serious danger
in that house. We gotta. We've got to go and
get her.
S1 (06:58):
But there's nothing. There's nothing in his background that would
suggest that he would have in any way, have been
nothing other than a good Samaritan in this situation.
S2 (07:08):
Nothing at all. Exactly. He was a Navy cadet. And again,
like everyone else in this case, never in trouble with
police before. And it lends itself again to how difficult
and complicated this case is, especially when you're talking about
the contradictions in his story. Right. Because I can sit
here and say, Tammy, he was drafted. He was absolutely
frightened and he was genuinely traumatized from that night. What
(07:30):
Dean's story is, is he was so frightened, and he
armed himself to protect himself from Candace. And then they're
forced they have forced open his door and he says
all three of them, including Louis, who says he didn't
go in, have gone in in a V formation, grabbed him,
pummeled him, and he's stabbed them both in self defense.
S1 (07:49):
So when police finally arrive at the scene. So as
you as you mentioned, like, say 50 minutes later or thereabouts.
What are they confronted with?
S2 (07:59):
Chaos. They're confronted with chaos, you know. And we speak
to a gentleman by the name of Justin Lucas. He's
a retired cop now, but he was one of the
first on scene. One of the first two. So he
describes it in detail. He walks in, he, uh, his
partner handcuffs Dean Weber, the young man, and he sees Candace,
you know, wailing in agony and drunk on the floor.
You see Dean covered in blood, most of it Corian.
(08:20):
Tom's not his own. And Justin, the officer describes it.
He didn't know. He didn't think this slight, really skinny
boy could have stabbed and killed the two big, burly
guys who were laying dead in the front yard. So
he's like, he's checking for under the bed. He's checking
the other rooms. There must be someone else here because
this doesn't make sense. And he's got PTSD from that
night purely from that, seeing all that blood everywhere, blood
(08:43):
on the fridge, blood outside, and just this traumatic, violent,
confronting scene. Even for a senior constable like Justin.
S1 (08:52):
So we're now talking, like, seven years later, almost to
the day since this happened, why did you decide to
look into the case? Because as you've said a couple
of times, it seems like an open and shut case
of self-defense.
S2 (09:06):
It does. And as someone who's dug into it as
much as I have, even I have that doubt. I've
had that doubt. Doing this podcast, I'll admit that straight away.
But for me, and I think, you know, a lot
of journos would relate to this. I mean, we always
say there's one story that sticks with us. This is
genuinely always been mine because it's never felt right. The
way the investigation was, you know, allegedly poorly conducted on
(09:29):
the night to Dean Weber, not having to be cross-examined
and escaping, giving evidence at the inquest. So then you've
got these unanswered questions.
S8 (09:37):
Live now to Adam Hegarty in Cairns. Adam, a week
long inquest is about to begin into one of the
state's most baffling cases.
S9 (09:44):
It is Jonathan. It will be taking us back to
our beach in 2018.
S2 (09:47):
So that didn't sit right with me. You've got lawyers
who stormed out. So the lawyers for Cory Christensen stormed
out of the inquest in disgust and in protest. You
had the families challenging the inquest findings. So all these
little things throughout which just make you feel like it
hasn't been conducted, the investigation in a way it should.
So I always wanted to delve into it and present
(10:08):
it in a way where the record could be set straight.
And then there's also the Damien Christensen families, where everything
I hear about Corey and Tom, they were great blokes.
They were good, good people. But then they're obviously having
a reputation now in their legacy. Now no longer with
us is, you know, these drunken boofhead home invaders. And
(10:33):
I have this vivid moment at the inquest as well, where,
you know, Louis Bengoa, the other gentleman that night was
on the stand. He was giving all these I can't remember,
I can't remember. No comment. No comment answers.
S10 (10:45):
The facts have been hard to come by. Mr. Bengoa
has been described as an unreliable witness, and is the
only person that might have been able to give an
account of the events that occurred outside Webber's home after
Miss Locke entered it.
S2 (10:59):
And then I walked out wanting to talk to him
after he'd finished giving evidence outside court. And then I
looked at Heather Davie, who's Tom's mum, and Jay Christensen
was sitting next to her in the courtroom. That's Cary's widow,
and they were just distraught. And that's why I want
to look at it again. That's why after seven years,
I still think about it. And while I still want
to look into it, even though there's been an investigation,
(11:20):
a coronial inquest, so most people might think nothing to
see here, it's done. It's not it hasn't been looked
at properly. And I think at the very least that's important.
S1 (11:31):
We'll be back after this short break. So the police investigation,
the end result of that was basically they'd decided that
Dean Webber had acted in self defence and there was
no criminal charges to be laid. And then we've just
been talking about the inquest there. The coroner decided that
Webber didn't need to give evidence in that inquest. Why
(11:53):
was that?
S2 (11:54):
Yeah, this is the key part of this case. So
it was on mental health grounds and we shouldn't minimize that, right?
I have no doubt. And I say and this is
again goes to why this case is so complicated for
a lot of different reasons, but particularly this one, there's
no doubt when you listen to the first two episodes
that are out or any of the episodes, when you
hear the 000 calls, where you hear the interview, where
you hear the walk through of his house. Dean was
(12:14):
frightened and he was traumatized. Absolutely. No question about that.
But it's a case of what the bar is. So
at the inquest, they had evidence from his psychiatrist saying, look,
he's too traumatized. He's got PTSD. This giving evidence would
worsen that. And then we doubt whether he'd be able
to give evidence that would be helpful. Anyway. So the
(12:34):
coroner's gone. Actually, you know, you know what? I'm I'm
content with what he told police in the hours and
the day after this incident happened. So I'm going to
excuse him from giving evidence because of that trauma. Now, obviously,
the families have and their lawyers have real issues with
that because they've never been able to have the opportunity
to put those forensic discrepancies to him. And even though
(12:56):
while it may eventually be determined to still be self-defense,
they are adamant and confident that what's been presented isn't
the full scenario. And they really want to know. But
what we also do is speak to a former coroner
of 22 years. So with no skin in the game
in this case, and he said that alone is an
injustice because for a case so serious, you have to
be able to, at an inquest, test the evidence of
(13:18):
the person who's killed two people and the bars high
on that front. So if it was just a witness
and traumatized, you'd understand it. But a lot of people
now are going, hang on, that's never happened before. That's
an interesting decision. And maybe that needs to be looked
at again if he's capable of giving evidence.
S1 (13:34):
And so do you know where Dean Weber is now? Like,
where is he at with all of this? And is
he in any kind of position to give evidence?
S2 (13:43):
Again, it's a hard one, you know, because he's never
spoken ever. So it's hard to know. I have the
benefit of knowing a few people who are from that
area of Queensland. So I've got a bit of a
rough idea about how he's going about it. And the
way it's described to me is he's trying to get
on with his life, but he's still traumatised. The question
that lingers, and it's one that's raised by the former
(14:05):
coroner we speak to. If he's now at a point
where he's recovered and he's moved on, perhaps it's time
to revisit whether he can try and shed some light
on it, because if he's in a better spot, he
holds answers that could give closure, at the very least,
to families who just want answers in their day in
court and want key evidence questioned, like we all should
expect to have. If we're in this situation and we
(14:26):
find ourselves in court.
S1 (14:27):
So is that what you think are just outcome would be,
in this case, a revisiting of the case, a fresh look,
a new investigation or a new inquest?
S2 (14:36):
I think so, yeah. And a lot of people might
have the reaction of the Davies and Christensen that, oh,
they just have to move on. Come on, get on
with your life. But you've got to understand, it's hard
enough losing two good men and two good sons. Right.
Loved family members. It's even harder when you don't feel
like you've had a fair day in court. And I
(14:57):
think if it's reasonable and possible, I think it's a
second inquest is all they want. I'm very aware as
they are, you know, anyone who thinks that they're just,
you know, going about this the wrong way. Believe me,
they are aware that the end result could be the same.
But to quote Heather Davie, Tom's mum, you grow up
(15:19):
in a country where you believe the justice system will
work for you. As difficult as it may be, they
feel like that hasn't happened in this case and they
just want to be heard. Corrie's dad, he just wants answers.
He's been grappling with this for seven years. Knowing this
does not make sense to me because I know my son.
But that aside, you look at the evidence and you go, well,
why doesn't that add up to that? And they just
(15:40):
want the opportunity for those questions to be asked. In fairness,
this is all evidence that was available to the coroner
who oversaw the first inquest. and she decided that, okay,
you know while I'm going to and she did you know,
she did refer it to the Director of Public Prosecutions
after handing down her findings, but eventually it was decided
none of this is reasonable enough to have genuine prospects
(16:04):
of a murder charge. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be questioned.
S1 (16:08):
Um. And I guess before I let you go, Adam,
the one thing that I also keep coming back to is.
If only if only the police got there sooner. Um,
they were the people that you'd hope would have been
there so much sooner. What's the result there? Like, has
(16:29):
there been any internal investigations or consequences in relation to
to this response?
S2 (16:36):
You make a very, very important point. Absolutely. There's been
more training. There's been changes to coding systems, which, you know,
it's technical, but the job remained at a code three
in the system, even though he was so frightened, which
basically means that it's not something they need to rush
to straight away. So there's been, you know, um, changes
made to how paramedics communicate with police. And obviously off
the back of this, they had no choice but to
(16:58):
look at themselves. But the damage is done, you know, and,
you know, police and paramedics, they're humans too. We realize
that speaking to the officer on scene, I mean, he's
got PTSD from the night, so it's an important thing
to remember. But you call 000, you call police and
you call paramedics expecting to be helped. You know, you
hear on the calls that it was discredited. So I
can sit here and not worry for a moment that
(17:21):
this is the wrong thing to say. They failed. Yeah.
Emergency responders as a whole failed everyone in this case.
So anyone who's listening to it who's struggling with, you know,
the story as a whole, and they just eventually lean
on the fact that, oh, look, this is just this
horrible mishap. Yeah. Okay. Tom might not have been bad people,
(17:43):
but this is just a mishap caused by, you know,
a drunken party embellishment and just confusion. One thing you
can take away from it is listening to how badly
and how poorly emergency services responded to this, and that
may become the villain in this case, because, you know,
(18:05):
50 minutes after a first terrified call, paramedics waiting there
up the street because they're frightened, the police going, oh,
it's not a big deal. We're just going to go
and get some paperwork signed, which is what happened instead.
And then you'll hear in this podcast a blame game
as well between police and paramedics about who was to blame.
That's fascinating insight in itself and lessons if they haven't
been learned already, which I would hope they have been.
(18:26):
You know, I think broadly, people who, um, work in
emergency services, you know, policy makers, it's important for them
to listen to and see how much of a failure
this was on that front and make sure it doesn't
happen again.
S1 (18:44):
Well, Adam, your podcast, Alva Beach Death at the door
is out now, and you can find it wherever you
listen to your podcasts. And thank you so much, Adam,
for your time.
S2 (18:54):
All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the interest.
Thank you.
S1 (18:58):
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(19:21):
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in your inbox every morning. Links are in the show. Notes.
I'm Tammy Mills and this is the morning edition. Thanks
for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is Morning Edition. I'm Tammy Mills, filling in for
Samantha Salinger. Morris. Alva Beach is a tiny town in
northern Queensland with a population a bit over 200 people,
and it's just south of Townsville. Almost seven years ago
(00:26):
to the day on NRL grand final weekend, a bizarre
set of events unfolded. An injured woman knocked on the
door of the stranger, saying she was escaping from two
men and she needed help. A 19 year old Air
Force cadet answered the door and he let the woman
in and called emergency services. Soon after that, the men
(00:48):
began to force their way into the house. The 19
year old, slightly built teenager armed himself with a knife.
The end result? The men who forced their way into
the home were killed. It seems like an open and
shut case of self defense, right? But a new podcast
called Alva Beach Death at the door from 60 minutes
(01:09):
reporter Adam Hegarty says there still holes in the story
that need to be answered. And just a heads up,
listeners may find the contents of this episode distressing. So, Adam,
tell us about this case by taking us back to
the night this unfolded and how emergency services were first alerted.
S2 (01:28):
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, it's a really timely chat
we're having here because it was NRL grand final night,
early hours of October 1st, 2018. So it all effectively
begins with that NRL grand final party tiny town of
Alva Beach. But then it descends into this, you know,
really violent situation. So the first time police heard about
(01:50):
it and obviously get into what led to it. But
they get a call on 000 from a frightened young man,
a 19 year old Dean, whether inside his house on
the home. He'd been woken up at the door by
a complete stranger. So that's 29 year old Candice Lock.
S3 (02:06):
Ambulance. What's the town or suburb? The emergency. Uh.
S4 (02:09):
Alva beach.
S3 (02:10):
Okay. Tell me exactly what's happened.
S5 (02:12):
I've just had an injured lady knock on my door
asking for help. I believe she has a dislocated shoulder.
And there's. She's just come from, uh, a buggy or whatever,
and there's people waiting.
S2 (02:26):
This is a 19 year old, you know, skinny, you know,
slight kid who's opened his door and she's gone. There
are people out to get me. I'm really injured. Please,
please help me. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the situation. And
then Dean is immediately called 000. I've got this injured
girl here. People are out to get her. Please help.
So that's paramedics. They figure out what's going on, they
rock up, they stage up the road.
S1 (02:47):
Meaning they're just waiting for police, right?
S2 (02:50):
Exactly. They think it's a dangerous situation because he says
that people are out to get her. Then there's a
second 000 call after three men he says, have arrived, saying,
I'm in serious danger here. Please. Someone arrive.
S6 (03:01):
I need police right now. They're breaking in. Okay, you've got.
S2 (03:03):
Then you've got police discrediting that guy. No, I think
he's just thinking that they're just rubbish stories on a
grand final night where he's probably getting a bunch of
drunken calls.
S6 (03:10):
The two unknown white males have come to your front
door and are threatening to break in, and you've got
no idea who they are or what reason it's for.
S5 (03:18):
No, they're trying to get this injured.
S7 (03:20):
Girl, are you able to help us? Is there any way.
S6 (03:23):
I can put a job on for a bit? Er.
S7 (03:25):
Okay. Oh my God. Please.
S6 (03:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've already spoken so much shit to
me though. And then you do. Turns out you do
know him. I'm putting a job on and sending him
up there.
S2 (03:34):
And then the third 000 call, he finally gets through
to them because then he's killed two people and he
explains that to them.
S5 (03:40):
We've called three times. This is not funny anymore. Like
this is not a joke. Please send someone.
S2 (03:46):
In the end. Police get there. About an hour after
his first panic. 000 call. And for context, this is
Alva Beach. North Queensland Police stations 12 15 minutes up
the road. It's an isolated place. But when I say isolated,
you know, the police station and the paramedics are not
far up the road.
S1 (04:06):
Okay, so this woman, Candace Locke, who's turned up at
this young man's door, turned up at Dean Webber's door.
They've never met. Right. They're complete strangers.
S2 (04:16):
Well. That's right. I mean, there's sort of five characters
to this story, and most of them are strangers, which
just adds to the bizarre nature of it all. So
Candace Locke was in a new relationship with Tom Davey,
one of the two men who eventually would die. So
they'd only been together for about six weeks. They'd gone
up to the beach for a bit of a holiday.
They've gone to the beach, they're fishing, and they have
a chance encounter with Corey Christensen and his mate Louis Bengoa.
(04:40):
Two strangers. They only met that afternoon. They get invited
back to a grand final party because they'd hit it off.
Everyone starts drinking. Tom and Candice fight. He goes, sleeps
it off in his car. Candice kicks on, goes for
a buggy ride with Louis, and then something happens there.
So she gets injured on that buggy ride. And then
you eventually have these two scenarios. So Candace is frightened
(05:02):
and says she's scared for her life and runs to
stranger Neighbor's home, a 19 year old. And then you've
got Corey and Louis who are mates. They try to
get her out. They can't. They go get Tom. Tom's
gone and just woken up in his car going, oh,
what's going on here? I need to save Candace, potentially.
So you've got these two sides that want to save
the one person, it seems, and then it ends in,
(05:22):
you know, two men dying. We've never been in trouble
with police before. Not a violent bone in their body.
And all five have never been in trouble with police before.
And that really goes to the core of how bizarre
this case is. And we still to this day, and
we're trying to figure it out through the recordings, we
have no why it escalated so violently and so hectically.
S1 (05:42):
All right. So there's a few different things happening here.
Please correct me if I get any of this wrong.
So I've got Candace Locke. She says she's running from
these two Alva Beach locals, Louis, Bengoa and Cory Christensen.
She turns up at Dean Webber's door. She said she
needs some help. But then Louis Bengoa and Cory Christensen
(06:07):
go after her. Are they angry? Are they just looking
for her? Are they worried because they wake up her
sleeping boyfriend and enlist his help? So is there some
suspicion that she's in some sort of danger inside the
home she's just run into?
S2 (06:24):
So a key point is, we don't know what Louis
told Cory, and in particular, Tom, about why there was
this huge, important need to get Candice out of that home.
It's always just speculative because he says he doesn't remember
what he told either of them, and he's always changed
his story. So it obviously raises the question. And the
coroner raises this question too. So we can comfortably raise it.
(06:46):
In her findings, she believes that he's told Cory or
Tom something to the effect of she's in serious danger
in that house. We gotta. We've got to go and
get her.
S1 (06:58):
But there's nothing. There's nothing in his background that would
suggest that he would have in any way, have been
nothing other than a good Samaritan in this situation.
S2 (07:08):
Nothing at all. Exactly. He was a Navy cadet. And again,
like everyone else in this case, never in trouble with
police before. And it lends itself again to how difficult
and complicated this case is, especially when you're talking about
the contradictions in his story. Right. Because I can sit
here and say, Tammy, he was drafted. He was absolutely
frightened and he was genuinely traumatized from that night. What
(07:30):
Dean's story is, is he was so frightened, and he
armed himself to protect himself from Candace. And then they're
forced they have forced open his door and he says
all three of them, including Louis, who says he didn't
go in, have gone in in a V formation, grabbed him,
pummeled him, and he's stabbed them both in self defense.
S1 (07:49):
So when police finally arrive at the scene. So as
you as you mentioned, like, say 50 minutes later or thereabouts.
What are they confronted with?
S2 (07:59):
Chaos. They're confronted with chaos, you know. And we speak
to a gentleman by the name of Justin Lucas. He's
a retired cop now, but he was one of the
first on scene. One of the first two. So he
describes it in detail. He walks in, he, uh, his
partner handcuffs Dean Weber, the young man, and he sees Candace,
you know, wailing in agony and drunk on the floor.
You see Dean covered in blood, most of it Corian.
(08:20):
Tom's not his own. And Justin, the officer describes it.
He didn't know. He didn't think this slight, really skinny
boy could have stabbed and killed the two big, burly
guys who were laying dead in the front yard. So
he's like, he's checking for under the bed. He's checking
the other rooms. There must be someone else here because
this doesn't make sense. And he's got PTSD from that
night purely from that, seeing all that blood everywhere, blood
(08:43):
on the fridge, blood outside, and just this traumatic, violent,
confronting scene. Even for a senior constable like Justin.
S1 (08:52):
So we're now talking, like, seven years later, almost to
the day since this happened, why did you decide to
look into the case? Because as you've said a couple
of times, it seems like an open and shut case
of self-defense.
S2 (09:06):
It does. And as someone who's dug into it as
much as I have, even I have that doubt. I've
had that doubt. Doing this podcast, I'll admit that straight away.
But for me, and I think, you know, a lot
of journos would relate to this. I mean, we always
say there's one story that sticks with us. This is
genuinely always been mine because it's never felt right. The
way the investigation was, you know, allegedly poorly conducted on
(09:29):
the night to Dean Weber, not having to be cross-examined
and escaping, giving evidence at the inquest. So then you've
got these unanswered questions.
S8 (09:37):
Live now to Adam Hegarty in Cairns. Adam, a week
long inquest is about to begin into one of the
state's most baffling cases.
S9 (09:44):
It is Jonathan. It will be taking us back to
our beach in 2018.
S2 (09:47):
So that didn't sit right with me. You've got lawyers
who stormed out. So the lawyers for Cory Christensen stormed
out of the inquest in disgust and in protest. You
had the families challenging the inquest findings. So all these
little things throughout which just make you feel like it
hasn't been conducted, the investigation in a way it should.
So I always wanted to delve into it and present
(10:08):
it in a way where the record could be set straight.
And then there's also the Damien Christensen families, where everything
I hear about Corey and Tom, they were great blokes.
They were good, good people. But then they're obviously having
a reputation now in their legacy. Now no longer with
us is, you know, these drunken boofhead home invaders. And
(10:33):
I have this vivid moment at the inquest as well, where,
you know, Louis Bengoa, the other gentleman that night was
on the stand. He was giving all these I can't remember,
I can't remember. No comment. No comment answers.
S10 (10:45):
The facts have been hard to come by. Mr. Bengoa
has been described as an unreliable witness, and is the
only person that might have been able to give an
account of the events that occurred outside Webber's home after
Miss Locke entered it.
S2 (10:59):
And then I walked out wanting to talk to him
after he'd finished giving evidence outside court. And then I
looked at Heather Davie, who's Tom's mum, and Jay Christensen
was sitting next to her in the courtroom. That's Cary's widow,
and they were just distraught. And that's why I want
to look at it again. That's why after seven years,
I still think about it. And while I still want
to look into it, even though there's been an investigation,
(11:20):
a coronial inquest, so most people might think nothing to
see here, it's done. It's not it hasn't been looked
at properly. And I think at the very least that's important.
S1 (11:31):
We'll be back after this short break. So the police investigation,
the end result of that was basically they'd decided that
Dean Webber had acted in self defence and there was
no criminal charges to be laid. And then we've just
been talking about the inquest there. The coroner decided that
Webber didn't need to give evidence in that inquest. Why
(11:53):
was that?
S2 (11:54):
Yeah, this is the key part of this case. So
it was on mental health grounds and we shouldn't minimize that, right?
I have no doubt. And I say and this is
again goes to why this case is so complicated for
a lot of different reasons, but particularly this one, there's
no doubt when you listen to the first two episodes
that are out or any of the episodes, when you
hear the 000 calls, where you hear the interview, where
you hear the walk through of his house. Dean was
(12:14):
frightened and he was traumatized. Absolutely. No question about that.
But it's a case of what the bar is. So
at the inquest, they had evidence from his psychiatrist saying, look,
he's too traumatized. He's got PTSD. This giving evidence would
worsen that. And then we doubt whether he'd be able
to give evidence that would be helpful. Anyway. So the
(12:34):
coroner's gone. Actually, you know, you know what? I'm I'm
content with what he told police in the hours and
the day after this incident happened. So I'm going to
excuse him from giving evidence because of that trauma. Now, obviously,
the families have and their lawyers have real issues with
that because they've never been able to have the opportunity
to put those forensic discrepancies to him. And even though
(12:56):
while it may eventually be determined to still be self-defense,
they are adamant and confident that what's been presented isn't
the full scenario. And they really want to know. But
what we also do is speak to a former coroner
of 22 years. So with no skin in the game
in this case, and he said that alone is an
injustice because for a case so serious, you have to
be able to, at an inquest, test the evidence of
(13:18):
the person who's killed two people and the bars high
on that front. So if it was just a witness
and traumatized, you'd understand it. But a lot of people
now are going, hang on, that's never happened before. That's
an interesting decision. And maybe that needs to be looked
at again if he's capable of giving evidence.
S1 (13:34):
And so do you know where Dean Weber is now? Like,
where is he at with all of this? And is
he in any kind of position to give evidence?
S2 (13:43):
Again, it's a hard one, you know, because he's never
spoken ever. So it's hard to know. I have the
benefit of knowing a few people who are from that
area of Queensland. So I've got a bit of a
rough idea about how he's going about it. And the
way it's described to me is he's trying to get
on with his life, but he's still traumatised. The question
that lingers, and it's one that's raised by the former
(14:05):
coroner we speak to. If he's now at a point
where he's recovered and he's moved on, perhaps it's time
to revisit whether he can try and shed some light
on it, because if he's in a better spot, he
holds answers that could give closure, at the very least,
to families who just want answers in their day in
court and want key evidence questioned, like we all should
expect to have. If we're in this situation and we
(14:26):
find ourselves in court.
S1 (14:27):
So is that what you think are just outcome would be,
in this case, a revisiting of the case, a fresh look,
a new investigation or a new inquest?
S2 (14:36):
I think so, yeah. And a lot of people might
have the reaction of the Davies and Christensen that, oh,
they just have to move on. Come on, get on
with your life. But you've got to understand, it's hard
enough losing two good men and two good sons. Right.
Loved family members. It's even harder when you don't feel
like you've had a fair day in court. And I
(14:57):
think if it's reasonable and possible, I think it's a
second inquest is all they want. I'm very aware as
they are, you know, anyone who thinks that they're just,
you know, going about this the wrong way. Believe me,
they are aware that the end result could be the same.
But to quote Heather Davie, Tom's mum, you grow up
(15:19):
in a country where you believe the justice system will
work for you. As difficult as it may be, they
feel like that hasn't happened in this case and they
just want to be heard. Corrie's dad, he just wants answers.
He's been grappling with this for seven years. Knowing this
does not make sense to me because I know my son.
But that aside, you look at the evidence and you go, well,
why doesn't that add up to that? And they just
(15:40):
want the opportunity for those questions to be asked. In fairness,
this is all evidence that was available to the coroner
who oversaw the first inquest. and she decided that, okay,
you know while I'm going to and she did you know,
she did refer it to the Director of Public Prosecutions
after handing down her findings, but eventually it was decided
none of this is reasonable enough to have genuine prospects
(16:04):
of a murder charge. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be questioned.
S1 (16:08):
Um. And I guess before I let you go, Adam,
the one thing that I also keep coming back to is.
If only if only the police got there sooner. Um,
they were the people that you'd hope would have been
there so much sooner. What's the result there? Like, has
(16:29):
there been any internal investigations or consequences in relation to
to this response?
S2 (16:36):
You make a very, very important point. Absolutely. There's been
more training. There's been changes to coding systems, which, you know,
it's technical, but the job remained at a code three
in the system, even though he was so frightened, which
basically means that it's not something they need to rush
to straight away. So there's been, you know, um, changes
made to how paramedics communicate with police. And obviously off
the back of this, they had no choice but to
(16:58):
look at themselves. But the damage is done, you know, and,
you know, police and paramedics, they're humans too. We realize
that speaking to the officer on scene, I mean, he's
got PTSD from the night, so it's an important thing
to remember. But you call 000, you call police and
you call paramedics expecting to be helped. You know, you
hear on the calls that it was discredited. So I
can sit here and not worry for a moment that
(17:21):
this is the wrong thing to say. They failed. Yeah.
Emergency responders as a whole failed everyone in this case.
So anyone who's listening to it who's struggling with, you know,
the story as a whole, and they just eventually lean
on the fact that, oh, look, this is just this
horrible mishap. Yeah. Okay. Tom might not have been bad people,
(17:43):
but this is just a mishap caused by, you know,
a drunken party embellishment and just confusion. One thing you
can take away from it is listening to how badly
and how poorly emergency services responded to this, and that
may become the villain in this case, because, you know,
(18:05):
50 minutes after a first terrified call, paramedics waiting there
up the street because they're frightened, the police going, oh,
it's not a big deal. We're just going to go
and get some paperwork signed, which is what happened instead.
And then you'll hear in this podcast a blame game
as well between police and paramedics about who was to blame.
That's fascinating insight in itself and lessons if they haven't
been learned already, which I would hope they have been.
(18:26):
You know, I think broadly, people who, um, work in
emergency services, you know, policy makers, it's important for them
to listen to and see how much of a failure
this was on that front and make sure it doesn't
happen again.
S1 (18:44):
Well, Adam, your podcast, Alva Beach Death at the door
is out now, and you can find it wherever you
listen to your podcasts. And thank you so much, Adam,
for your time.
S2 (18:54):
All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the interest.
Thank you.
S1 (18:58):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Josh
towers and me, with technical assistance from Kai Wong. Tom
McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to our
episodes as soon as they drop, follow the Morning Edition
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Our newsrooms are powered by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism,
(19:21):
visit The Age or smh.com.au. To subscribe and to stay
up to date, sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter
to receive a summary of the day's most important news
in your inbox every morning. Links are in the show. Notes.
I'm Tammy Mills and this is the morning edition. Thanks
for listening.
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