November 20, 2024 • 44 mins
In December 2010, the body of 24-year-old Phoebe Handsjuk was discovered at the bottom of a garbage chute in her Melbourne apartment building.
She had fallen 12 stories into a wheelie bin, where she ultimately succumbed to the injuries she sustained alone in the darkness of the rubbish room.
In 2013, a coroner ruled Phoebe’s death as accidental, a finding her family doesn't accept.
Investigative journalist Richard Baker, host of the podcast Phoebe's Fall, believes there’s more to the story. Was Phoebe’s death truly a tragic accident, or was she the victim of foul play?
You can listen to Richard's podcast with The Age 'Phoebe's Fall' here.
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Guest: Richard Baker
Host: Gemma Bath
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Thom Lion
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and wortars. This podcast was
recorded on It's eleven forty four AM on December two,
twenty ten, in Melbourne and Phoebe Hans Juck and her
dog Yoshi are captured on security camera. They're leaving the
(00:34):
luxury apartment building on Saint Kilda Road she shares with
her boyfriend as a fire alarm sounds. She returns six
minutes later. It's the last time she's ever seen alive.
After that short clip, we know she consumes enough alcohol
(00:54):
to put her three times over the legal limit. Traces
of a sleeping pill are found in her system, according
to police. At some point over the course of the evening,
Phoebe exits her apartment and enters her floor's rubbish chute,
falling twelve floor into a wheelie bin. She survives, but
her right foot is almost severed by the compactor's blade,
(01:17):
and in a last bid for life, she drags herself
around the room looking for an exit. She doesn't find it.
Her body is found by a concierge at seven pm.
Her death is ruled a suicide, then an accident, but
those explanations have never made sense to her family. How
(01:38):
did she get into the shoot? Why did she get
into the shoot? Did the police and the coroner get
it wrong? I'm Jemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations,
(01:59):
a Muma Mere podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes
by speaking to the people who know the most about them.
The garbage shoot at Phoebe's apartment was one of those
ones that you open via a handle about halfway up
the wall. It swings open on an angle, revealing a
twenty two centimeter latch opening. It's a pretty awkward hole
(02:20):
to maneuver yourself into, and watching the recreation of how
Phoebe might have managed it on Channel nine's Under Investigation,
it looks almost impossible.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's very tight.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
In her second attempt, Daniel pulls herself up, but it
takes all her strength, balance and coordination. It's just one
of a long list of questions that remain unanswered in
this case, a story that has been covered in depth
by multi award winning investigative journalist Richard Baker, whose podcast
(02:52):
Phoebe's Fall for the Age, hosted with Michael Bachelard, worked
closely with Phoebe's family to try and figure out what
really happened to her. It's a case that has baffled
and angered the Australian public, and fourteen years later, many
of the questions asked by Phoebe's fall remain a miss.
Richard joins us. Now, Richard, how was Phoebe's body discovered
(03:20):
and what happened as police arrived on that scene.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Phoebe's body was found in the garbage refuse room of
this really fancy apartment building in Sint Kilda Road in
Melbourne around seven pm by the concierge or a cleaner
going about her work. She was just trying to put
a broom back or something and felt that there was
a weight against the door and had trouble opening it
(03:44):
and eventually got it open and they're lying in a
pool of blood. Was Phoebe And so what happened from there?
Obviously you know, police and emergency services were called and
pretty quickly the building started to fill up with police
and ambulance officers. Interestingly, the ambulance officers didn't go and
check for proof of life, which I found a bit troubling,
(04:08):
and I know that troubled members of Phoebe's family, but
the police had already made an assessment that she was well,
I'm truly gone, and then it was really about talking
to her de facto partner, Ant Hample and trying to
piece together her movements of that day.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
How quickly did the police start talking about suicide.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, from what we know and from the coroner's inquest,
from the word go, that was in the backdrop of
all the conversations about what might have happened there, I know,
and had mentioned that she was mentally unwell at the
time in his opinion, and she was seeking some treatment
(04:51):
and care from the medical profession for her mental health.
And within two days the homicide squad had pretty much
written it off as a suicide, and that meant the
case then was bound for the coroner, and a detective
from the nearest police station, South Melbourne was assigned the
(05:12):
job of putting together the brief of evidence. It was
a really quick judgment called to make and something I've
never seen happen so quickly, and any other high profile
death in a suspicious circumstance involving you know, a young
woman or a woman in that de facto or intimate
(05:33):
partner setting let's.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Paint the picture of Phoebe's life at the time a bit.
She was, you know, twenty four living with her boyfriend
who you mentioned. Can you tell us a bit more
about the life she was living.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
On the surface, it looked like a pretty good life.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I managed a vibrant twenty four year old, you know,
stunning looking young woman, big personality, from a loving family.
You know, her family and her friends would conceive a
bit of a wild child, loved a party, but could
also then get like many of us buyer's remorse after
too good a time.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And a bit like and a bit down. And yeah,
she mixed.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
And through her boyfriend and his connections. He was quite
a bit older and from a very established Melbourne legal family,
and worked and it still works in the events and
entertainment space, going to a lot of parties, meeting a
lot of quite hip and happening on the move people.
So it was a pretty full long lifestyle. And yeah,
(06:38):
I think her family and friends would have said that
she did have her battles with alcohol and occasional drug
use and stuff like that, but you know, quite common
for people in their early to mid twenties to be
doing all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So what do we know about how her relationship was going.
You mentioned there was an age gap, it was quite
a big one, and was forty three she was twenty four,
and they had quite a few breakups in the kind
of time before she died. How was the final weeks
of their relationship volatile?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Very volatile?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
There had been, according to Phoebe's mom and grandma, who
you know, she was very close to, kind of six
occasions where she had left him or walked out between
October and she was found dead in December. So it
wasn't in a it wasn't in a healthy, healthy state.
(07:38):
And I think that last week they'd had a massive
blue after a dinner at some of Ant's friends, and
he didn't like the way she behaved or some of
the things she said, and she had a couple of
glasses of wine, and I don't think he liked that
because of I guess he saw alcohol.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
As as a problem in her life, but why.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Keep taking it her places then where it's kind of
in abundance. So that last week, I think the Monday
night of it, yeah, they had a massive row and
really things sort of started to spiral a bit from there.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
During your investigations. You spent a lot of time with
the family and her friends, and you kind of tried
to unpick how the relationship changed. Phoebe and a lot
of her friends spoke about how she was a different
person really towards the end than the person they knew.
Can you talk to that.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, from their perspective and the way they saw her
and her change and behavioral change, it was almost like
she's trying to fulfill a role or acting, trying to
fit a mold that was being made or had been
made for her, and to really modify her behaviors to
(08:57):
take the edges off a bit.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
But she seemed Yeah, I mean, they say that she
was a.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Person caught up in a relationship where there was a
lot of real or perceived coercive control going on.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Right. Did her family see any signs of her being suicidal?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
No, No, not from what I know.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Because her dad is a psychiatrist, isn't he.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, And we've got to look at the time she
was found dead, her youngest brother was about to have
I think his eighteenth birthday that very weekend, and there
is no way she would have wanted to do anything
to upend or to ruin that occasion. So yeah, you know,
(09:42):
the mental health thing is obviously there, as it is
in for everyone who dies in a suspicious way. You've
got to take into account what's going on in their life.
But from where I sit, and for my knowledge of
this case, and you know, of the views of her
family and friends, and also the evidence it was presented
at the inquest, I think it was a really really
(10:03):
bad call by the cops to write that off in
two days. And yeah, I'll stand by that all these.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
You later, Can we talk a bit more about Phoebe's
last week. You mentioned she'd had a blue with ant,
but there are a number of other kind of strange
things that happened. Yeah, there was a dinner and a
tomato soup text and bits and pieces.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, the last week, he's kind of you know, sometimes
real life is crazier than anything you can make up.
But there was an appointment with a doctor, you know,
talking about her mental state. Then another bender, another drinking
bender with a young friend of Phoebe's, where it was
(10:46):
a pretty late night and I think and you know,
she threw her phone to the ground in anger at
how many times he was calling her to find out
where she was and what she was doing. I think
she might have had an ecstasy pill or something, the
friend reported that night. And then you know she did
come home and was hungover and recovering. And you know,
(11:11):
not long after that, one day, a strange text was
sent to family members and ant and one or two
other people about her having tomato soup and going to
drift off into this wonderful sleep and sort of apologizing
about things and you know, merrily, merrily, life is better
(11:33):
dream And that was a really concerning thing, obviously for
family to see. And I think Natalie hands Juck, Phoebe's mom,
was on a plane and you know, when she landed
and got signal again that came up, and she rang
her mum, you know, Jeanette, Phoebe's grandmother, to try and
(11:53):
check out what was going on. You could read many,
many things into that text message and perhaps still never
know what the intent was or indeed who the author was.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
When was that text message sent?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
That was on the Thursday morning, so the day before
or Phoebe died.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What about her movements on the day she died. We
know she headed out in the morning with her dog.
She's captured on CCTV camera.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Then what we don't know. There's a space of hours
that no one's got any insight into. What we do
know that Phoebe was captured on CCTV in the lobby
of the apartment building with the little dog, and in
the apartment that she shared with that he reported sort
of seeing a little shrine when he came back in there.
(12:45):
Her hair straighteners had been plugged in. Get her handbag
on the bench and a phone charger with it. Now,
those things, knowing from my wife and now seventeen year
old daughter, they're pretty normal indications that that a girl
or a woman is heading out somewhere if you've got
those kind of implements on or on the bench ready
(13:07):
to take with you. And obviously she didn't, the best
of our knowledge, go out anywhere. And the other things
that the police discovered was that Phoebe's Gmail had been
accessed and messages deleted from her email account, and no
one really knows what that's about or why either, So
(13:30):
they're enduring mysteries. And because the police had made that
quick assumption that this was either a suicide or a
accidental death, it meant Victoria police couldn't get American authorities,
so where Google's headquartered, to go in and try and
(13:51):
download or extract the deleted data to find out what
went on, because under the legal cooperation treaties between the
two countries to get them to do that, there has
to be suspicion or strong evidence of a homicide.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Just another kind of mystery, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, another door that couldn't be opened. Now, it maybe
be a coincidence or something there. But you know, this
is the after effects, I guess, or the fallout of
rushing to a conclusion rather than keeping an open mind
and maybe just gathering all the evidence you can in
the first place and then make an assessment of what
(14:32):
is the most likely thing to have happened, whether it
be a suspicious death or foul play, or a suicide
or an accident.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We know that the concierge found Phoebe at about seven.
What were ants movements that night?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
So his phone records and he's swipe card to enter
the building show him getting home around ten past six,
and he says Phoebe wasn't there, and that there was
like a candle burning and a photo of them or something,
and some smashed glass and a ripped cushion or something
(15:08):
like that, so it's a bit of an odd And
also later it was, you know, it was found out
that there was some.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Blood in the apartment.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Now they were meant to be going out for dinner
that night with Phoebe's dad, and there was a weird
phone call to or from their apartment number registered to
a Western Australian number, and when they checked that number,
it was wa solar like a solar panel thing that
nobody knows what the hell that was about, and I
(15:38):
don't think ant has any recollection.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Or any idea of what that is.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
What happened next was one of Phoebe's phones rang, and
I don't know whether the aunt had possession of it
or not, but it was it was Phoebe's dad and
he was ringing to confirm dinner or to say that
where are you, you know, because they haven't rocked up yet.
And then about sixty seconds later and happened to call
(16:05):
Phoebe's father back to say, oh, I don't know where
Phoebe is now, I think, and said that he didn't
realize that was a coincidence. He didn't know that Phoebe's
dad had just called sixty seconds earlier looking for her,
and then as it got closer to seven, I think
An ordered some takeaway. He assumed that dinners off and
(16:27):
that maybe Phoebe's dad probably wasn't that keen on just
having dinner with him on his own.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Those other kind of bits and pieces you mentioned broken glass,
a ripped pillow, and blood, were they ever investigated by
police or locked down as a crime scene.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
The place was eventually locked down for one of a
better word, or taped off as a crime scene, but
not till much later in the evening.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
When it's one thing I've always found a.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Bit unusual, and when that happened, and already had family members,
including his father, I believe his late father, Supreme Court
Judge George Hampel, up in the apartment, and I don't
know what they were doing there, I guess supporting him.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
But again, when you think about how these.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Things are normally done, I would have thought normal procedure
would have been to lock down that place, get everyone out,
preserve the evidence, collect every sample of blood and DNA
possible in there, and the fragments of glass and the
computers and anything that might lead to some clues or
some certainty about what happened, And yeah, the adequacy of
(17:36):
the steps that were taken that night by police, it
wasn't good enough. It was inadequate, and they missed testing
some samples of blood. And to me, wouldn't that be
a sign of perhaps there's been a struggle.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Why wouldn't you? You know?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Also, okay, there were three glasses in the sink, and
who's been home all day? Why are there three glasses?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
You know? What was in the glasses? Was there? An alcohol?
Was there?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
This?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Was there? That not done?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And the other big failing of that night in terms
of an investigatory sort of thing, was to actually access
and seize the CCTV from the apartment building.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So they didn't do that. No, isn't that basic policing.
I'm not a police officer putting my hands up, but
that feels like.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Sort of on every episode of CSA like that. I mean, it's, yeah,
I don't know why you wouldn't you wouldn't do that there?
And then yeah, I know I've always thought, this is
my own personal opinion here that Phoebe's family were and
remain owed an apology by Victoria police.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Was there an issue with getting that CCTV after the fact.
Could they not get it later when they.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Went back to get it. I think it had overwritten
itself or filmed. It was on a loop so it
was hard to access. And then the building manager, when
I went to interview him a few years later, mentioned
a hard drive. This is when Detective Pain who was
doing the coroner's investigation. I wanted to see if there
(19:06):
was something on a hard drive that they eventually found
what looked like the right or relevant hard drive, and
then that missing from the building.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
What about witness statements or you know, a statement from ant.
Was that something that happened that night?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yeah, he did give a statement, and I think in
it he mentioned that she was troubled and having battles
with mental health and poor girl, and you know.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
And then one of the officers on the scene observed
in his notebook that was, in his opinion, acting strangely
and almost sort of putting on the crocodile tears and
emotion and behaving unusually. But that said, people do cope
with grief and shock in different ways. And you know,
(19:56):
I don't think any of the other police remarked one
way or another on his behavior. And then when Detective
Pain so that the South Melbourne detective he was given
the job of forming the brief of evidence for the
Corona inquest, he wanted to reinterview in January, so you know,
maybe four or five weeks after Phoebe had died, and
(20:20):
he wasn't being interviewed under caution or anything. But Ant's father,
the retired Supreme Court judge, wouldn't leave his sight. And
even when Detective Pain said, I'd rather talk to him alone. Again,
we're talking about a forty three year old man here,
he said, no, my son's grieving.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I don't want to leave him.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But I guess that's an important point to make that
his dad was very high up in the legal system
in Victoria, which is not a bad thing. It just
means that this family knows court. They know legalities they do.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, they know the law and they know how things
work and they know the I guess just by virtue
of the position to Ant's stepmother was a sitting county
court judge, so that's the equivalent of the district court
in New South Wales also, so yeah, they know, they
know the l all they know, you know, how things
(21:11):
can be pushed how police procedure works, all of those
kinds of things. And that's not a criticism of them,
it's just a fact of their experience and the profession
that they have. But I guess it's human nature. People often,
rightly or wrongly, tread a bit lightly around powerful people.
And you know, you've got to wonder whether or not
that happened here, because the point of doing this podcast
(21:35):
was to actually put the justice system on display and
ask the question did it give Phoebe a fair go?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And I think it.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Failed well, as you were mentioning before. Within a few days,
so by the seventh of December, homicide detectives had determined
that there was no second party involved in Phoebe's death,
that she entered the shoot voluntarily. How did her family
react to that.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I think, you know, they would feel under a bit
of a tidal wave of emotion and question and trying
to make sense of it all. But I think they
were really going to back with the speed which that
conclusion was reached. And I mean, we look at other examples,
other prominent cases where women, wives or girlfriends have been
(22:22):
found dead in suspicious circumstances. So you know, I'm talking
about the Jill Mark case. Also, you know in Inner
Melbourne a few years after Phoebe, the early stages of
those investigations put a bit of media and public heat
on the husbands and talking to experienced detectives after Phoebe's case,
(22:46):
they thought that was really odd that this is a
strange situation. This is a domestic de facto relationship here.
There is evidence of blood and other things in that
apartment and was home when Phoebe's body was found. So
it's again not saying that he was guilty, but why
(23:09):
wasn't the same standard procedures and processes followed here.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
When did you become involved in this story? It was
around about now, wasn't it that the family kind of
contacted you. They were quite frustrated with everything that was happening,
particularly Phoebe's grandfather, who himself was a retired detective.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, so Lawn Campbell, Phoebe's maternal grandfather. It was a
very experienced Victoria police officer and detective. And he reached
out to myself and my then colleague and still great mate,
Nick McKenzie at the age and what he was reaching
out for was it looked like at that point in time,
(23:49):
that there was not going to be any inquest by
the coroner into Phoebe's death, that it was going to
be written off either as.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
An accident or suicide, with no questions.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Asked, and Hamble's lawyer had approached the coroner's court saying
that an inquest was not needed, and that struck me immediately,
is really weird, and I've.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Just gone hang on.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I did a be quick search to find out if
anyone else in Australia has been found dead at the
bottom of a garbage chute and found no. Plus you're
adding all the other stuff that went on in Phoebe's
last week, and the suspicious kind of scene.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
In the apartment, and the fact that there was.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
No fingerprints on the garbage chute, and the diffiguity of
getting yourself in there with no external assistance. Of all
the things that you might want to have an inquest
into this would be one. Why would a Krona not
want to do this? And if you are a grieving
partner of someone who's died in such a bizarre way,
(24:53):
wouldn't you want to find out why?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And what happened so instantly for me?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
And I remember Nick was gone, This doesn't feel right,
This doesn't smell right, it's not right. And we wrote
quite an extensive feature article detailing all the marks still
around Phoebe's death, and yeah, putting some pressure on for
an inquest, that the right thing happened, that there be
(25:18):
an open and public inquest with witnesses called and the
facts as the best they could be established, put on
the table.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Do you think that without that media pressure the inquest
might not have happened.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, I don't think it would have.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Doesn't that make it a bit of a ticker box.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, it's astounding, but I don't think it would have
gone ahead.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I think it would have been written off. And in
Victoria at the time.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
It was basically impossible to appeal a coroner's finding or
the way the coroner was doing something.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So once a coroner gives a finding, that's it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
At the time time, Yeah, and it's still quite hard.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But you know, one of the I guess silver linings
of highlighting Phoebe's case and the way the justice system
performed or didn't perform, was that some amendments were made
to the Coroner's Act that does open up more avenues
for families to appeal questionable decisions or findings by a coroner.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with journalists and podcaster Richard Baker about the
death of Phoebe Hands jock up. Next, Richard tells us
what the coroner found happened to Phoebe. I want to
unpack a lot of the evidence from the inquest, but firstly,
(26:39):
let's jump to the end. What did the inquest find.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
The inquest found that Phoebe was under the influence of
alcohol and a prescription drug sold here as steel knocks.
In the States, it's called ambient. It can make people
do some strange things. And the coroner said that Phoebe
took herself to the garbage chute, got herself in feet first,
(27:08):
and then shimmied down and went down, you know, eleven
or so stories. He said that she put her elbows
to the edge of the aluminum shoot to kind of
slow her descent. But I know that the forensic pathologist
(27:30):
who examined her body and all of that under questioning,
said he couldn't say that that had happened, and that
there was no debris on her arms or anything like that.
And the other difficult thing to think about is that
when Phoebe was found, she was found with her jeans
around her knees. So going down, I don't know how
that might happen. You're more likely to have your pants
(27:50):
sort of pull up as you're going down rise up.
But also if they were down before she hopped in
the chute, how did she get in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Because this shoot is I'm using my hands to kind
of show, but it's about twenty two centimeters that's the gap.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It's tiny. It's literally like a plastic bag of rubbish.
So it's not easy. It's not impossible to get into
on your own.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
But like you've got to be now, Phoebe was fit
and athletic, but also she's under the influence of stuff.
You'd have to say a judgment and find motor skills
could have been impaired. It's really difficult to get into
on your own and to not leave a fingerprint. I
don't know how you would manage that. So you know,
the finding was that she died by a tragic case
(28:34):
of misadventure, and the cause of death was when she
got to the bottom, she got caught by a compactor
blade and it severed. Nellie severed her ankle and she
lost a lot of blood.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So rather than suicide, which is what the police found,
the coroner found that it was accidental death or misadventure.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, he did.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
And what was kind of stood out about that was
he went against the advice or the submissions of counsel assisting.
So that's a senior barrister that's appointed by the court
to basically lead the in Now, the coroner is of
an independent mind, but the inquest is run by the
(29:17):
counsel assisting the coroner, this senior barrister, and in this
case the barrister deborahs amendsma in hearst. The missions had
submitted that only an open finding be made. And what
an open finding is is that the evidence you couldn't
rule in or rule out foul play or the involvement
(29:37):
of other parties. You couldn't rule in or rule out suicide,
and you couldn't rule in or rule out death by
misadventure or an accident. And that to me was the
right finding on the evidence there. And that's all Phoebe's
family I've ever said as well. They don't think that
evidence is there to convict anyone for it because they
(30:01):
don't know whether that's for sure what happened. But why again,
would you have to you know, I find it odd
that you have to kind of stitch together a narrative
that's not supported in some cases by the evidence at
your inquest when you had a perfectly reasonable finding to make,
which is open.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
And to be clear, if an open finding is what
the coroner was to rule, would that have left the
door open to potentially look down a murder investigation if
more evidence was to come out, it kind of leaves
the door open.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, it's easier for the court, you know, to act
on new and fresh information. So, you know, because of
finding has been reached, it doesn't mean you know, and
if it's really good information that changes things out, would
then take it back under the umbrella of the police
to go and investigate that. So just because these findings made,
(30:54):
it doesn't mean police are forbidden from acting on fresh evidence,
and neither is the court. But it just is another
a blockage. I guess it makes it that bit harder
for the court or for the family or for new
people to present new evidence to the court to get
that finding overturned and perhaps made into an open finding,
because then you have to really go about undoing the
(31:19):
finding that's already there to then be able to add
the new information to the mix.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
We've already talked about some of the weird clues. The
one that sticks out to me is the no fingerprints
on the shoote. I've watched a young girl who is
the same kind of heightened build as Phoebe try and
get into that rubbish shoot and I just don't see
how you would do it by yourself and not put
fingerprints the pants around the ankles, as we've mentioned. But
(31:47):
then another kind of clue that came up in the
inquest was bruising. Can you talk us through that?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Yeah, So Detective Pain was having a look at some
of the medical examination photos of Phoebe's body and had
picked up on some bruising around her arms and also
on the side of her of her face, and he
asked for the pathologist to take another look, and he
(32:15):
came back and said, yeah, there is some bruising to
I think the jaw or the side of one of
the side of Phoebe's face, But also then some bruising
marks around her arms that he said could be consistent
with grip marks. So like being forcefully held and that
you know, again that was overlooked initially, like no one
(32:39):
had picked up on that, and it wasn't until Detective
Pain was at the doing the brief for the coroner
that this understanding of bruising to her made it into
all the evidence.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I want to talk a little bit more about the
days and weeks after Phoebe died and the reactions of
her inner circle, because Natalie, Phoebe's mom really wanted to
kind of understand what happened, and so she asked for
a chat with aunt. Can you tell us what happened?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Yeah, So Natalie hands Druck, Phoebe's mum, went to Ant's
apartment and just really wanted to have.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Just to break the.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Bread sort of chat and find out what was going on,
you know, what had happened in that last week, trying
to get some answers. And I also think they were
trying to work out funeral details and stuff like that,
because Ant had pressed his case to be next of kin,
as they'd been living together as de facto's more than
six months, and Natalie was kind of protesting that because
(33:55):
that many had control over her body, also control over
you know, obviously with the body, where a funeral would be,
what sort of event it would be. And then it
emerged that she had life insurance policy and that gave
him access to that, although down the track he did
give up all of those things. So Natt went there
(34:15):
for a meeting to sort out a lot, to get
some understanding, but also to try and flesh out why
he was pushing for next of kin and stuff like that.
And she recorded the meeting. Why well, you know, I
think she was suspicious and was wanting to gather some
evidence and I guess, given the police had already given up,
who else was going to do it, And so she
(34:37):
recorded it and I've heard and I think we played
in the podcast a part of that recording that was
played in the coroner's.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Court, and yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
It was pretty strange and had his stepmother, Felicity Hample,
the judge there with him. I believe his father might
have been there, and a couple of other support people,
and the conversation, yeah, went around funerals and Natalie wanting
(35:07):
to push her case for the family to to do
the farewell and wanted his own service, and on the
tape and stepmom for the city reminded Phoebe that under
the law.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And was next of kin and had this right to
do what he wanted. So yeah, it was a kind.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Of strange situation, and Natalie said and was acting strangely,
and I think at one point went over to the
couch and was just kind of in a fetal position
with grief, and she's found the whole thing really odd.
And I think there was also quite loud music playing
in the background, which I don't know why it was there, maybe.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Made hearing the tape if he could.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
In any event, there ended up being a bit of
a rift kind of formed between Phoebe's family and ants didn't.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
There Yeah, pretty quickly, especially over the.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Next of kin's staff and not releasing the body and
then applying to access her insurance policy and a state
George ham Paul wrote a letter of support affirming their
relationship and the genuineness of it to convince the relevant
authorities that should be the beneficiary.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Now.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Like I said, he later gave those moneies and things
to Phoebe's brothers. But yeah, the whole dynamic was pretty
frosty because of the unanswered questions, and I think the
odd behavior and the other thing I think that really
pissed the family off was announcing Phoebe's death on Facebook,
saying that she was a troubled young woman and he
(36:43):
did his best to save her, but she's taken her
own life.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Which is something that they just categorically don't think is true.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
They don't think.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, I think they've got an open mind on it,
but they think that's the least likely. Also, why would
you do it in that way?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
To reiterate at hasn't been implicated in Phoebe's death, but
the public record does show that Phoebe is not the
only young girlfriend he has had who has died in
unusual circumstances.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
No, in twenty eighteen, I got a phone call from
Natalie Hanshak and she just said, are you sitting down?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
And I was at work.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I remember it really clearly, and said no, but do
I need to? She goes, I think you do, and
she just said it's happened again. I said, what do
you mean she goes and had another girlfriend die? And
I said, you're kidding me? And how and all of that,
And so the young woman we're talking about here is
a young Melbourne woman called Bailey Schneider who had been
(37:44):
seeing and in.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
A more casual way I guess than Phoebe.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
They weren't living together, but they had holidayed together and
were in a intimate relationship. And Bailey was twenty five
again had her issues with mental health and how she
viewed herself, issues with alcohol and drugs and partying.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And things like that.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
And she was found in her parents' home in ascot Vale,
a suburban Melbourne's in a northwest hanging with a curtain
cord or She's found on the floor of the kitchen
with a curtain cord around her neck.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
And the belief was.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
She hung herself from a kitchen cupboard and her parents
had just gone out for an hour to go to
the shops and she'd asked them to bring something back
to eat.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Wow. I just tragic.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yeah, And now has been cleared of any involvement in
her death by a police investigation and also a coroner's report.
This one didn't go to in quest, but he was
one of the last people to communicate with her overnight
and that day they had phone calls and had exchange
(39:04):
messages over Facebook Messenger and things like that, and Bailey's
parents wondering about what the impact of their relationship was
on her state of mind and her mental health in
the weeks and months leading up to her death.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
You released your series on Phoebe in twenty sixteen. What
was the reaction like when you put all of this
evidence out?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
It was overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Actually, you know Australia, two years before in America, Cereal
had released the first version of the serial podcast and
that kind of turned people on to I guess, that
way of getting really deep into a story. And it
had been eating at me since the outcome of the Inquest,
(39:55):
which was delivered in twenty fourteen. We hadn't told this
story right yet, and I thought, with no experience in
podcasting at that stage or skills, that this would be
the way to tell it. And yeah, it was difficult
and a real challenge, and they needed a lot of
help from a lot of good people along the way
(40:16):
to help write it and tell it and all of that.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
But once we released it, it was massive.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
It was like it just went gangbusters, and people were
asking questions of the justice system.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
That we all rely on.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
We all don't want to have to rely on it,
but any day we could be relying on it to
work properly. Fairly and nothing's perfect, but to do its job.
And what Phoebe's story did was tell a story of
on a few levels that are really pertinent to the
community about you know, power imbalances in relationships, power imbalances
(40:55):
between families in different layers or levels of society, and
the performance of the justice system and who gets its
mercy and who gets short changed through you know, inadequate
and instigations and things like that. So I thought, wow,
you can get this right, and you can tell the
(41:16):
story in a factual but engaging kind of way that
allows people to kind of see it play out inside
their own heads, which is what the beauty of good
podcasting is. They have a longer shelf life and that
to me then gives it more scope to actually get
our politicians and other authorities to act well.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
This podcast did help do that right. It helped the
Victorian government decide that they were going to review the
Coroners Act.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, they did.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
So they did a review into the Coroners Act with
a focus on the difficulties or impediments to appealing outcomes
or decisions of the Coroner's Court, and then some amendments
were made to make it that bit easier for families
to challenge things, which is, you know, is a good outcome.
So hopefully because of what happened with Phoebe's in a
(42:09):
case and the high like we're a spotlight we put
on it, other families won't have the door closed to
them for challenging decisions and things that happen in the
coroner's court that they disagree with or they believe aren't
supported by evidence. Because a finding, when you don't have
a prosecution or someone to blame, you know, a coroner's
(42:32):
findings all you've got. That's the legal final word. That's
how the state says your loved one died and the
circumstances with which they died.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
If you don't agree with that, or you think.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
That it's made on false assumptions and isn't fact or
isn't true, that's a lot to live with. That's a
really heavy thing to go. Well, the record says, you know,
my brother's sister whatever died this way, but I don't
believe it, and I don't think when you assess the
evidence rationally, when there was a much more obvious and
(43:06):
acceptable finding in this case, open finding, I'd find that
really hard.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
The stomach.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Where do we sit with Phoebe's case? Now, it's say
years since you know, all of those changes were announced
and we were able to appeal. Has Phoebe's finding changed?
Has anything else happened?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I am Phoebe's family and others. You know, still get
people coming forward with bits and pieces of information. You know,
some of it may be irrelevant, some of it.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Looks to be relevant.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Ah, yeah, you know, there's nothing's changed.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
The finding is still the finding.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
The same question marks over that finding from those who
don't think it's the right one still exist. I think
Phoebe's family believe, and I believe, and I have, you know,
some foundation for this belief that there are people out
there who know a bit more, who she may have
come across or was involved with in that final week
(44:02):
of her life, who for whatever reason, weren't questioned by police,
perhaps because they weren't known to police or weren't obviously
connect to her in that way. I feel that her story,
you know, I think there'll be one or two more
twists or turns before too long.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Thanks to Richard for helping us to tell this story
and to reiterate, Anthony Happle has not been implicated in
Phoebe's death. The coroner's finding legally stands to this day,
ruling that the twenty four year old's death was an accident.
We'll leave a link to Richard's podcast Phoebe's full in
our show notes. True Crime Conversations is a MoMA mea
podcast hosted and produced by me Jemma Bass and Tylie Blackman,
(44:47):
with audio design by Tom Lyon. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and wortars. This podcast was
recorded on It's eleven forty four AM on December two,
twenty ten, in Melbourne and Phoebe Hans Juck and her
dog Yoshi are captured on security camera. They're leaving the
(00:34):
luxury apartment building on Saint Kilda Road she shares with
her boyfriend as a fire alarm sounds. She returns six
minutes later. It's the last time she's ever seen alive.
After that short clip, we know she consumes enough alcohol
(00:54):
to put her three times over the legal limit. Traces
of a sleeping pill are found in her system, according
to police. At some point over the course of the evening,
Phoebe exits her apartment and enters her floor's rubbish chute,
falling twelve floor into a wheelie bin. She survives, but
her right foot is almost severed by the compactor's blade,
(01:17):
and in a last bid for life, she drags herself
around the room looking for an exit. She doesn't find it.
Her body is found by a concierge at seven pm.
Her death is ruled a suicide, then an accident, but
those explanations have never made sense to her family. How
(01:38):
did she get into the shoot? Why did she get
into the shoot? Did the police and the coroner get
it wrong? I'm Jemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations,
(01:59):
a Muma Mere podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes
by speaking to the people who know the most about them.
The garbage shoot at Phoebe's apartment was one of those
ones that you open via a handle about halfway up
the wall. It swings open on an angle, revealing a
twenty two centimeter latch opening. It's a pretty awkward hole
(02:20):
to maneuver yourself into, and watching the recreation of how
Phoebe might have managed it on Channel nine's Under Investigation,
it looks almost impossible.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It's very tight.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
In her second attempt, Daniel pulls herself up, but it
takes all her strength, balance and coordination. It's just one
of a long list of questions that remain unanswered in
this case, a story that has been covered in depth
by multi award winning investigative journalist Richard Baker, whose podcast
(02:52):
Phoebe's Fall for the Age, hosted with Michael Bachelard, worked
closely with Phoebe's family to try and figure out what
really happened to her. It's a case that has baffled
and angered the Australian public, and fourteen years later, many
of the questions asked by Phoebe's fall remain a miss.
Richard joins us. Now, Richard, how was Phoebe's body discovered
(03:20):
and what happened as police arrived on that scene.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Phoebe's body was found in the garbage refuse room of
this really fancy apartment building in Sint Kilda Road in
Melbourne around seven pm by the concierge or a cleaner
going about her work. She was just trying to put
a broom back or something and felt that there was
a weight against the door and had trouble opening it
(03:44):
and eventually got it open and they're lying in a
pool of blood. Was Phoebe And so what happened from there?
Obviously you know, police and emergency services were called and
pretty quickly the building started to fill up with police
and ambulance officers. Interestingly, the ambulance officers didn't go and
check for proof of life, which I found a bit troubling,
(04:08):
and I know that troubled members of Phoebe's family, but
the police had already made an assessment that she was well,
I'm truly gone, and then it was really about talking
to her de facto partner, Ant Hample and trying to
piece together her movements of that day.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
How quickly did the police start talking about suicide.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, from what we know and from the coroner's inquest,
from the word go, that was in the backdrop of
all the conversations about what might have happened there, I know,
and had mentioned that she was mentally unwell at the
time in his opinion, and she was seeking some treatment
(04:51):
and care from the medical profession for her mental health.
And within two days the homicide squad had pretty much
written it off as a suicide, and that meant the
case then was bound for the coroner, and a detective
from the nearest police station, South Melbourne was assigned the
(05:12):
job of putting together the brief of evidence. It was
a really quick judgment called to make and something I've
never seen happen so quickly, and any other high profile
death in a suspicious circumstance involving you know, a young
woman or a woman in that de facto or intimate
(05:33):
partner setting let's.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Paint the picture of Phoebe's life at the time a bit.
She was, you know, twenty four living with her boyfriend
who you mentioned. Can you tell us a bit more
about the life she was living.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
On the surface, it looked like a pretty good life.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I managed a vibrant twenty four year old, you know,
stunning looking young woman, big personality, from a loving family.
You know, her family and her friends would conceive a
bit of a wild child, loved a party, but could
also then get like many of us buyer's remorse after
too good a time.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And a bit like and a bit down. And yeah,
she mixed.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
And through her boyfriend and his connections. He was quite
a bit older and from a very established Melbourne legal family,
and worked and it still works in the events and
entertainment space, going to a lot of parties, meeting a
lot of quite hip and happening on the move people.
So it was a pretty full long lifestyle. And yeah,
(06:38):
I think her family and friends would have said that
she did have her battles with alcohol and occasional drug
use and stuff like that, but you know, quite common
for people in their early to mid twenties to be
doing all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So what do we know about how her relationship was going.
You mentioned there was an age gap, it was quite
a big one, and was forty three she was twenty four,
and they had quite a few breakups in the kind
of time before she died. How was the final weeks
of their relationship volatile?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Very volatile?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
There had been, according to Phoebe's mom and grandma, who
you know, she was very close to, kind of six
occasions where she had left him or walked out between
October and she was found dead in December. So it
wasn't in a it wasn't in a healthy, healthy state.
(07:38):
And I think that last week they'd had a massive
blue after a dinner at some of Ant's friends, and
he didn't like the way she behaved or some of
the things she said, and she had a couple of
glasses of wine, and I don't think he liked that
because of I guess he saw alcohol.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
As as a problem in her life, but why.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Keep taking it her places then where it's kind of
in abundance. So that last week, I think the Monday
night of it, yeah, they had a massive row and
really things sort of started to spiral a bit from there.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
During your investigations. You spent a lot of time with
the family and her friends, and you kind of tried
to unpick how the relationship changed. Phoebe and a lot
of her friends spoke about how she was a different
person really towards the end than the person they knew.
Can you talk to that.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Yeah, from their perspective and the way they saw her
and her change and behavioral change, it was almost like
she's trying to fulfill a role or acting, trying to
fit a mold that was being made or had been
made for her, and to really modify her behaviors to
(08:57):
take the edges off a bit.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
But she seemed Yeah, I mean, they say that she
was a.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Person caught up in a relationship where there was a
lot of real or perceived coercive control going on.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Right. Did her family see any signs of her being suicidal?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
No, No, not from what I know.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Because her dad is a psychiatrist, isn't he.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, And we've got to look at the time she
was found dead, her youngest brother was about to have
I think his eighteenth birthday that very weekend, and there
is no way she would have wanted to do anything
to upend or to ruin that occasion. So yeah, you know,
(09:42):
the mental health thing is obviously there, as it is
in for everyone who dies in a suspicious way. You've
got to take into account what's going on in their life.
But from where I sit, and for my knowledge of
this case, and you know, of the views of her
family and friends, and also the evidence it was presented
at the inquest, I think it was a really really
(10:03):
bad call by the cops to write that off in
two days. And yeah, I'll stand by that all these.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
You later, Can we talk a bit more about Phoebe's
last week. You mentioned she'd had a blue with ant,
but there are a number of other kind of strange
things that happened. Yeah, there was a dinner and a
tomato soup text and bits and pieces.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, the last week, he's kind of you know, sometimes
real life is crazier than anything you can make up.
But there was an appointment with a doctor, you know,
talking about her mental state. Then another bender, another drinking
bender with a young friend of Phoebe's, where it was
(10:46):
a pretty late night and I think and you know,
she threw her phone to the ground in anger at
how many times he was calling her to find out
where she was and what she was doing. I think
she might have had an ecstasy pill or something, the
friend reported that night. And then you know she did
come home and was hungover and recovering. And you know,
(11:11):
not long after that, one day, a strange text was
sent to family members and ant and one or two
other people about her having tomato soup and going to
drift off into this wonderful sleep and sort of apologizing
about things and you know, merrily, merrily, life is better
(11:33):
dream And that was a really concerning thing, obviously for
family to see. And I think Natalie hands Juck, Phoebe's mom,
was on a plane and you know, when she landed
and got signal again that came up, and she rang
her mum, you know, Jeanette, Phoebe's grandmother, to try and
(11:53):
check out what was going on. You could read many,
many things into that text message and perhaps still never
know what the intent was or indeed who the author was.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
When was that text message sent?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
That was on the Thursday morning, so the day before
or Phoebe died.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What about her movements on the day she died. We
know she headed out in the morning with her dog.
She's captured on CCTV camera.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Then what we don't know. There's a space of hours
that no one's got any insight into. What we do
know that Phoebe was captured on CCTV in the lobby
of the apartment building with the little dog, and in
the apartment that she shared with that he reported sort
of seeing a little shrine when he came back in there.
(12:45):
Her hair straighteners had been plugged in. Get her handbag
on the bench and a phone charger with it. Now,
those things, knowing from my wife and now seventeen year
old daughter, they're pretty normal indications that that a girl
or a woman is heading out somewhere if you've got
those kind of implements on or on the bench ready
(13:07):
to take with you. And obviously she didn't, the best
of our knowledge, go out anywhere. And the other things
that the police discovered was that Phoebe's Gmail had been
accessed and messages deleted from her email account, and no
one really knows what that's about or why either, So
(13:30):
they're enduring mysteries. And because the police had made that
quick assumption that this was either a suicide or a
accidental death, it meant Victoria police couldn't get American authorities,
so where Google's headquartered, to go in and try and
(13:51):
download or extract the deleted data to find out what
went on, because under the legal cooperation treaties between the
two countries to get them to do that, there has
to be suspicion or strong evidence of a homicide.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Just another kind of mystery, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, another door that couldn't be opened. Now, it maybe
be a coincidence or something there. But you know, this
is the after effects, I guess, or the fallout of
rushing to a conclusion rather than keeping an open mind
and maybe just gathering all the evidence you can in
the first place and then make an assessment of what
(14:32):
is the most likely thing to have happened, whether it
be a suspicious death or foul play, or a suicide
or an accident.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
We know that the concierge found Phoebe at about seven.
What were ants movements that night?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
So his phone records and he's swipe card to enter
the building show him getting home around ten past six,
and he says Phoebe wasn't there, and that there was
like a candle burning and a photo of them or something,
and some smashed glass and a ripped cushion or something
(15:08):
like that, so it's a bit of an odd And
also later it was, you know, it was found out
that there was some.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Blood in the apartment.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Now they were meant to be going out for dinner
that night with Phoebe's dad, and there was a weird
phone call to or from their apartment number registered to
a Western Australian number, and when they checked that number,
it was wa solar like a solar panel thing that
nobody knows what the hell that was about, and I
(15:38):
don't think ant has any recollection.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Or any idea of what that is.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
What happened next was one of Phoebe's phones rang, and
I don't know whether the aunt had possession of it
or not, but it was it was Phoebe's dad and
he was ringing to confirm dinner or to say that
where are you, you know, because they haven't rocked up yet.
And then about sixty seconds later and happened to call
(16:05):
Phoebe's father back to say, oh, I don't know where
Phoebe is now, I think, and said that he didn't
realize that was a coincidence. He didn't know that Phoebe's
dad had just called sixty seconds earlier looking for her,
and then as it got closer to seven, I think
An ordered some takeaway. He assumed that dinners off and
(16:27):
that maybe Phoebe's dad probably wasn't that keen on just
having dinner with him on his own.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Those other kind of bits and pieces you mentioned broken glass,
a ripped pillow, and blood, were they ever investigated by
police or locked down as a crime scene.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
The place was eventually locked down for one of a
better word, or taped off as a crime scene, but
not till much later in the evening.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
When it's one thing I've always found a.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Bit unusual, and when that happened, and already had family members,
including his father, I believe his late father, Supreme Court
Judge George Hampel, up in the apartment, and I don't
know what they were doing there, I guess supporting him.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
But again, when you think about how these.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Things are normally done, I would have thought normal procedure
would have been to lock down that place, get everyone out,
preserve the evidence, collect every sample of blood and DNA
possible in there, and the fragments of glass and the
computers and anything that might lead to some clues or
some certainty about what happened, And yeah, the adequacy of
(17:36):
the steps that were taken that night by police, it
wasn't good enough. It was inadequate, and they missed testing
some samples of blood. And to me, wouldn't that be
a sign of perhaps there's been a struggle.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Why wouldn't you? You know?
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Also, okay, there were three glasses in the sink, and
who's been home all day? Why are there three glasses?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
You know? What was in the glasses? Was there? An alcohol?
Was there?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
This?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Was there? That not done?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And the other big failing of that night in terms
of an investigatory sort of thing, was to actually access
and seize the CCTV from the apartment building.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So they didn't do that. No, isn't that basic policing.
I'm not a police officer putting my hands up, but
that feels like.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Sort of on every episode of CSA like that. I mean, it's, yeah,
I don't know why you wouldn't you wouldn't do that there?
And then yeah, I know I've always thought, this is
my own personal opinion here that Phoebe's family were and
remain owed an apology by Victoria police.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Was there an issue with getting that CCTV after the fact.
Could they not get it later when they.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Went back to get it. I think it had overwritten
itself or filmed. It was on a loop so it
was hard to access. And then the building manager, when
I went to interview him a few years later, mentioned
a hard drive. This is when Detective Pain who was
doing the coroner's investigation. I wanted to see if there
(19:06):
was something on a hard drive that they eventually found
what looked like the right or relevant hard drive, and
then that missing from the building.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
What about witness statements or you know, a statement from ant.
Was that something that happened that night?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yeah, he did give a statement, and I think in
it he mentioned that she was troubled and having battles
with mental health and poor girl, and you know.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
And then one of the officers on the scene observed
in his notebook that was, in his opinion, acting strangely
and almost sort of putting on the crocodile tears and
emotion and behaving unusually. But that said, people do cope
with grief and shock in different ways. And you know,
(19:56):
I don't think any of the other police remarked one
way or another on his behavior. And then when Detective
Pain so that the South Melbourne detective he was given
the job of forming the brief of evidence for the
Corona inquest, he wanted to reinterview in January, so you know,
maybe four or five weeks after Phoebe had died, and
(20:20):
he wasn't being interviewed under caution or anything. But Ant's father,
the retired Supreme Court judge, wouldn't leave his sight. And
even when Detective Pain said, I'd rather talk to him alone. Again,
we're talking about a forty three year old man here,
he said, no, my son's grieving.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I don't want to leave him.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But I guess that's an important point to make that
his dad was very high up in the legal system
in Victoria, which is not a bad thing. It just
means that this family knows court. They know legalities they do.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, they know the law and they know how things
work and they know the I guess just by virtue
of the position to Ant's stepmother was a sitting county
court judge, so that's the equivalent of the district court
in New South Wales also, so yeah, they know, they
know the l all they know, you know, how things
(21:11):
can be pushed how police procedure works, all of those
kinds of things. And that's not a criticism of them,
it's just a fact of their experience and the profession
that they have. But I guess it's human nature. People often,
rightly or wrongly, tread a bit lightly around powerful people.
And you know, you've got to wonder whether or not
that happened here, because the point of doing this podcast
(21:35):
was to actually put the justice system on display and
ask the question did it give Phoebe a fair go?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And I think it.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Failed well, as you were mentioning before. Within a few days,
so by the seventh of December, homicide detectives had determined
that there was no second party involved in Phoebe's death,
that she entered the shoot voluntarily. How did her family
react to that.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I think, you know, they would feel under a bit
of a tidal wave of emotion and question and trying
to make sense of it all. But I think they
were really going to back with the speed which that
conclusion was reached. And I mean, we look at other examples,
other prominent cases where women, wives or girlfriends have been
(22:22):
found dead in suspicious circumstances. So you know, I'm talking
about the Jill Mark case. Also, you know in Inner
Melbourne a few years after Phoebe, the early stages of
those investigations put a bit of media and public heat
on the husbands and talking to experienced detectives after Phoebe's case,
(22:46):
they thought that was really odd that this is a
strange situation. This is a domestic de facto relationship here.
There is evidence of blood and other things in that
apartment and was home when Phoebe's body was found. So
it's again not saying that he was guilty, but why
(23:09):
wasn't the same standard procedures and processes followed here.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
When did you become involved in this story? It was
around about now, wasn't it that the family kind of
contacted you. They were quite frustrated with everything that was happening,
particularly Phoebe's grandfather, who himself was a retired detective.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, so Lawn Campbell, Phoebe's maternal grandfather. It was a
very experienced Victoria police officer and detective. And he reached
out to myself and my then colleague and still great mate,
Nick McKenzie at the age and what he was reaching
out for was it looked like at that point in time,
(23:49):
that there was not going to be any inquest by
the coroner into Phoebe's death, that it was going to
be written off either as.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
An accident or suicide, with no questions.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Asked, and Hamble's lawyer had approached the coroner's court saying
that an inquest was not needed, and that struck me immediately,
is really weird, and I've.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Just gone hang on.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I did a be quick search to find out if
anyone else in Australia has been found dead at the
bottom of a garbage chute and found no. Plus you're
adding all the other stuff that went on in Phoebe's
last week, and the suspicious kind of scene.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
In the apartment, and the fact that there was.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
No fingerprints on the garbage chute, and the diffiguity of
getting yourself in there with no external assistance. Of all
the things that you might want to have an inquest
into this would be one. Why would a Krona not
want to do this? And if you are a grieving
partner of someone who's died in such a bizarre way,
(24:53):
wouldn't you want to find out why?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And what happened so instantly for me?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
And I remember Nick was gone, This doesn't feel right,
This doesn't smell right, it's not right. And we wrote
quite an extensive feature article detailing all the marks still
around Phoebe's death, and yeah, putting some pressure on for
an inquest, that the right thing happened, that there be
(25:18):
an open and public inquest with witnesses called and the
facts as the best they could be established, put on
the table.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Do you think that without that media pressure the inquest
might not have happened.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, I don't think it would have.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Doesn't that make it a bit of a ticker box.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, it's astounding, but I don't think it would have
gone ahead.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I think it would have been written off. And in
Victoria at the time.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
It was basically impossible to appeal a coroner's finding or
the way the coroner was doing something.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So once a coroner gives a finding, that's it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
At the time time, Yeah, and it's still quite hard.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
But you know, one of the I guess silver linings
of highlighting Phoebe's case and the way the justice system
performed or didn't perform, was that some amendments were made
to the Coroner's Act that does open up more avenues
for families to appeal questionable decisions or findings by a coroner.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass.
I'm speaking with journalists and podcaster Richard Baker about the
death of Phoebe Hands jock up. Next, Richard tells us
what the coroner found happened to Phoebe. I want to
unpack a lot of the evidence from the inquest, but firstly,
(26:39):
let's jump to the end. What did the inquest find.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
The inquest found that Phoebe was under the influence of
alcohol and a prescription drug sold here as steel knocks.
In the States, it's called ambient. It can make people
do some strange things. And the coroner said that Phoebe
took herself to the garbage chute, got herself in feet first,
(27:08):
and then shimmied down and went down, you know, eleven
or so stories. He said that she put her elbows
to the edge of the aluminum shoot to kind of
slow her descent. But I know that the forensic pathologist
(27:30):
who examined her body and all of that under questioning,
said he couldn't say that that had happened, and that
there was no debris on her arms or anything like that.
And the other difficult thing to think about is that
when Phoebe was found, she was found with her jeans
around her knees. So going down, I don't know how
that might happen. You're more likely to have your pants
(27:50):
sort of pull up as you're going down rise up.
But also if they were down before she hopped in
the chute, how did she get in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Because this shoot is I'm using my hands to kind
of show, but it's about twenty two centimeters that's the gap.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It's tiny. It's literally like a plastic bag of rubbish.
So it's not easy. It's not impossible to get into
on your own.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
But like you've got to be now, Phoebe was fit
and athletic, but also she's under the influence of stuff.
You'd have to say a judgment and find motor skills
could have been impaired. It's really difficult to get into
on your own and to not leave a fingerprint. I
don't know how you would manage that. So you know,
the finding was that she died by a tragic case
(28:34):
of misadventure, and the cause of death was when she
got to the bottom, she got caught by a compactor
blade and it severed. Nellie severed her ankle and she
lost a lot of blood.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So rather than suicide, which is what the police found,
the coroner found that it was accidental death or misadventure.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, he did.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
And what was kind of stood out about that was
he went against the advice or the submissions of counsel assisting.
So that's a senior barrister that's appointed by the court
to basically lead the in Now, the coroner is of
an independent mind, but the inquest is run by the
(29:17):
counsel assisting the coroner, this senior barrister, and in this
case the barrister deborahs amendsma in hearst. The missions had
submitted that only an open finding be made. And what
an open finding is is that the evidence you couldn't
rule in or rule out foul play or the involvement
(29:37):
of other parties. You couldn't rule in or rule out suicide,
and you couldn't rule in or rule out death by
misadventure or an accident. And that to me was the
right finding on the evidence there. And that's all Phoebe's
family I've ever said as well. They don't think that
evidence is there to convict anyone for it because they
(30:01):
don't know whether that's for sure what happened. But why again,
would you have to you know, I find it odd
that you have to kind of stitch together a narrative
that's not supported in some cases by the evidence at
your inquest when you had a perfectly reasonable finding to make,
which is open.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
And to be clear, if an open finding is what
the coroner was to rule, would that have left the
door open to potentially look down a murder investigation if
more evidence was to come out, it kind of leaves
the door open.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, it's easier for the court, you know, to act
on new and fresh information. So, you know, because of
finding has been reached, it doesn't mean you know, and
if it's really good information that changes things out, would
then take it back under the umbrella of the police
to go and investigate that. So just because these findings made,
(30:54):
it doesn't mean police are forbidden from acting on fresh evidence,
and neither is the court. But it just is another
a blockage. I guess it makes it that bit harder
for the court or for the family or for new
people to present new evidence to the court to get
that finding overturned and perhaps made into an open finding,
because then you have to really go about undoing the
(31:19):
finding that's already there to then be able to add
the new information to the mix.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
We've already talked about some of the weird clues. The
one that sticks out to me is the no fingerprints
on the shoote. I've watched a young girl who is
the same kind of heightened build as Phoebe try and
get into that rubbish shoot and I just don't see
how you would do it by yourself and not put
fingerprints the pants around the ankles, as we've mentioned. But
(31:47):
then another kind of clue that came up in the
inquest was bruising. Can you talk us through that?
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Yeah, So Detective Pain was having a look at some
of the medical examination photos of Phoebe's body and had
picked up on some bruising around her arms and also
on the side of her of her face, and he
asked for the pathologist to take another look, and he
(32:15):
came back and said, yeah, there is some bruising to
I think the jaw or the side of one of
the side of Phoebe's face, But also then some bruising
marks around her arms that he said could be consistent
with grip marks. So like being forcefully held and that
you know, again that was overlooked initially, like no one
(32:39):
had picked up on that, and it wasn't until Detective
Pain was at the doing the brief for the coroner
that this understanding of bruising to her made it into
all the evidence.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I want to talk a little bit more about the
days and weeks after Phoebe died and the reactions of
her inner circle, because Natalie, Phoebe's mom really wanted to
kind of understand what happened, and so she asked for
a chat with aunt. Can you tell us what happened?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Yeah, So Natalie hands Druck, Phoebe's mum, went to Ant's
apartment and just really wanted to have.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Just to break the.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Bread sort of chat and find out what was going on,
you know, what had happened in that last week, trying
to get some answers. And I also think they were
trying to work out funeral details and stuff like that,
because Ant had pressed his case to be next of kin,
as they'd been living together as de facto's more than
six months, and Natalie was kind of protesting that because
(33:55):
that many had control over her body, also control over
you know, obviously with the body, where a funeral would be,
what sort of event it would be. And then it
emerged that she had life insurance policy and that gave
him access to that, although down the track he did
give up all of those things. So Natt went there
(34:15):
for a meeting to sort out a lot, to get
some understanding, but also to try and flesh out why
he was pushing for next of kin and stuff like that.
And she recorded the meeting. Why well, you know, I
think she was suspicious and was wanting to gather some
evidence and I guess, given the police had already given up,
who else was going to do it, And so she
(34:37):
recorded it and I've heard and I think we played
in the podcast a part of that recording that was
played in the coroner's.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Court, and yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
It was pretty strange and had his stepmother, Felicity Hample,
the judge there with him. I believe his father might
have been there, and a couple of other support people,
and the conversation, yeah, went around funerals and Natalie wanting
(35:07):
to push her case for the family to to do
the farewell and wanted his own service, and on the
tape and stepmom for the city reminded Phoebe that under
the law.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And was next of kin and had this right to
do what he wanted. So yeah, it was a kind.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Of strange situation, and Natalie said and was acting strangely,
and I think at one point went over to the
couch and was just kind of in a fetal position
with grief, and she's found the whole thing really odd.
And I think there was also quite loud music playing
in the background, which I don't know why it was there, maybe.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Made hearing the tape if he could.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
In any event, there ended up being a bit of
a rift kind of formed between Phoebe's family and ants didn't.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
There Yeah, pretty quickly, especially over the.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Next of kin's staff and not releasing the body and
then applying to access her insurance policy and a state
George ham Paul wrote a letter of support affirming their
relationship and the genuineness of it to convince the relevant
authorities that should be the beneficiary.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Now.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Like I said, he later gave those moneies and things
to Phoebe's brothers. But yeah, the whole dynamic was pretty
frosty because of the unanswered questions, and I think the
odd behavior and the other thing I think that really
pissed the family off was announcing Phoebe's death on Facebook,
saying that she was a troubled young woman and he
(36:43):
did his best to save her, but she's taken her
own life.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Which is something that they just categorically don't think is true.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
They don't think.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, I think they've got an open mind on it,
but they think that's the least likely. Also, why would
you do it in that way?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
To reiterate at hasn't been implicated in Phoebe's death, but
the public record does show that Phoebe is not the
only young girlfriend he has had who has died in
unusual circumstances.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
No, in twenty eighteen, I got a phone call from
Natalie Hanshak and she just said, are you sitting down?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
And I was at work.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I remember it really clearly, and said no, but do
I need to? She goes, I think you do, and
she just said it's happened again. I said, what do
you mean she goes and had another girlfriend die? And
I said, you're kidding me? And how and all of that,
And so the young woman we're talking about here is
a young Melbourne woman called Bailey Schneider who had been
(37:44):
seeing and in.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
A more casual way I guess than Phoebe.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
They weren't living together, but they had holidayed together and
were in a intimate relationship. And Bailey was twenty five
again had her issues with mental health and how she
viewed herself, issues with alcohol and drugs and partying.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And things like that.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
And she was found in her parents' home in ascot Vale,
a suburban Melbourne's in a northwest hanging with a curtain
cord or She's found on the floor of the kitchen
with a curtain cord around her neck.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
And the belief was.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
She hung herself from a kitchen cupboard and her parents
had just gone out for an hour to go to
the shops and she'd asked them to bring something back
to eat.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Wow. I just tragic.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yeah, And now has been cleared of any involvement in
her death by a police investigation and also a coroner's report.
This one didn't go to in quest, but he was
one of the last people to communicate with her overnight
and that day they had phone calls and had exchange
(39:04):
messages over Facebook Messenger and things like that, and Bailey's
parents wondering about what the impact of their relationship was
on her state of mind and her mental health in
the weeks and months leading up to her death.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
You released your series on Phoebe in twenty sixteen. What
was the reaction like when you put all of this
evidence out?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
It was overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Actually, you know Australia, two years before in America, Cereal
had released the first version of the serial podcast and
that kind of turned people on to I guess, that
way of getting really deep into a story. And it
had been eating at me since the outcome of the Inquest,
(39:55):
which was delivered in twenty fourteen. We hadn't told this
story right yet, and I thought, with no experience in
podcasting at that stage or skills, that this would be
the way to tell it. And yeah, it was difficult
and a real challenge, and they needed a lot of
help from a lot of good people along the way
(40:16):
to help write it and tell it and all of that.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
But once we released it, it was massive.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
It was like it just went gangbusters, and people were
asking questions of the justice system.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
That we all rely on.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
We all don't want to have to rely on it,
but any day we could be relying on it to
work properly. Fairly and nothing's perfect, but to do its job.
And what Phoebe's story did was tell a story of
on a few levels that are really pertinent to the
community about you know, power imbalances in relationships, power imbalances
(40:55):
between families in different layers or levels of society, and
the performance of the justice system and who gets its
mercy and who gets short changed through you know, inadequate
and instigations and things like that. So I thought, wow,
you can get this right, and you can tell the
(41:16):
story in a factual but engaging kind of way that
allows people to kind of see it play out inside
their own heads, which is what the beauty of good
podcasting is. They have a longer shelf life and that
to me then gives it more scope to actually get
our politicians and other authorities to act well.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
This podcast did help do that right. It helped the
Victorian government decide that they were going to review the
Coroners Act.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, they did.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
So they did a review into the Coroners Act with
a focus on the difficulties or impediments to appealing outcomes
or decisions of the Coroner's Court, and then some amendments
were made to make it that bit easier for families
to challenge things, which is, you know, is a good outcome.
So hopefully because of what happened with Phoebe's in a
(42:09):
case and the high like we're a spotlight we put
on it, other families won't have the door closed to
them for challenging decisions and things that happen in the
coroner's court that they disagree with or they believe aren't
supported by evidence. Because a finding, when you don't have
a prosecution or someone to blame, you know, a coroner's
(42:32):
findings all you've got. That's the legal final word. That's
how the state says your loved one died and the
circumstances with which they died.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
If you don't agree with that, or you think.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
That it's made on false assumptions and isn't fact or
isn't true, that's a lot to live with. That's a
really heavy thing to go. Well, the record says, you know,
my brother's sister whatever died this way, but I don't
believe it, and I don't think when you assess the
evidence rationally, when there was a much more obvious and
(43:06):
acceptable finding in this case, open finding, I'd find that
really hard.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
The stomach.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Where do we sit with Phoebe's case? Now, it's say
years since you know, all of those changes were announced
and we were able to appeal. Has Phoebe's finding changed?
Has anything else happened?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I am Phoebe's family and others. You know, still get
people coming forward with bits and pieces of information. You know,
some of it may be irrelevant, some of it.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Looks to be relevant.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Ah, yeah, you know, there's nothing's changed.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
The finding is still the finding.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
The same question marks over that finding from those who
don't think it's the right one still exist. I think
Phoebe's family believe, and I believe, and I have, you know,
some foundation for this belief that there are people out
there who know a bit more, who she may have
come across or was involved with in that final week
(44:02):
of her life, who for whatever reason, weren't questioned by police,
perhaps because they weren't known to police or weren't obviously
connect to her in that way. I feel that her story,
you know, I think there'll be one or two more
twists or turns before too long.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Thanks to Richard for helping us to tell this story
and to reiterate, Anthony Happle has not been implicated in
Phoebe's death. The coroner's finding legally stands to this day,
ruling that the twenty four year old's death was an accident.
We'll leave a link to Richard's podcast Phoebe's full in
our show notes. True Crime Conversations is a MoMA mea
podcast hosted and produced by me Jemma Bass and Tylie Blackman,
(44:47):
with audio design by Tom Lyon. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.
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