July 18, 2025 • 28 mins
In this deeply reflective episode of Exhuming the Truth, we explore the stories of two Australian women, Tamika Chesser and Lauren Flanigan, both involved in acts of extreme violence, but with vastly different outcomes.
One was sent to a psychiatric facility, the other died in custody.
Why was only one systemically recognized as mentally unwell? What role did race, class, and public perception play in how they were treated? Through a forensic and criminological lens, we dig into the complex interactions of mental health, systemic bias, and the way society views women who kill.
This isn't just about the crimes, they're symptoms of deeper issues. Join us as we ask: when women commit violnce, how does the system decide who is "mad", who is "bad" and who is simply disposable?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
Welcome to Exhuming the Truth, the podcast where we delve into
mysterious worlds of cold cases,missing persons, true crime, and
the fascinating science that is forensics.
I'm forensic scientist and criminologist Asha Walther, and
I am so thrilled to have you with me on this journey as we
dance in the shadows of the world of crime, shining a light
on scientific discovery while becoming another voice for those
(00:40):
who need it most. So grab a drink and get comfy
while we jump into this episode together.
As always, I would like to extend a content and trigger
warning. This podcast is recommended for
persons over the age of 18 and contains explicit content not
suitable for minors. We will be covering sensitive
content that ranges from sexual assault, physical, mental,
(01:01):
social and emotional abuse, suicide, homicide, murder,
attempted murder, and other violent crimes, including crimes
involving weapons and drugs. This often extends to drug
misuse and other harmful and illegal activity.
If you find any content to be distressing, I've listed a
number of resources that may be able to help you.
In the podcast notes, I would like to remind all of our
(01:23):
listeners that all victims and all offenders are someone's
loved 1. So I ask that any discussions in
our group or on our social accounts remain respectful of
that at all times. Hi guys, I happen to have a
accidental week off last week from posting an episode.
I was so busy and I was trying to get together 2 separate cases
(01:44):
I've got coming up to share withyou, but I just didn't get it
done in time because I wanted tomake sure the timelines were
right. So this week I have put together
something a little bit differentand there are two current
stories, but I'll talk about that a little bit in a moment.
First I want to talk about a documentary on Amazon Prime and
(02:05):
it's called Allison Just a LISONI watched it last night.
Why on earth am I talking about This is because people are
always asking me good shows to watch and this one was insane.
It did date back to 94, but the actual woman who was the victim,
Allison, spoke and narrated her own story, which was a different
(02:28):
perspective. But she was actually abducted at
knife point by two men outside of her own home in South Africa.
And she was driven to a nature reserve where she was raped and
stabbed. And she was actually, she
actually had her throat cut fromear to ear and like really
horrific injuries. But I think it's, it's got a lot
(02:49):
in it and it it's a very important story that she has to
tell. And I literally sat there with
my mouth open the entire time watching that.
So I highly recommend. Anyway, that's basically all I
have for housekeeping this week.I'm very boring.
I had a very uneventful couple of weeks just trying to get work
done and settling into the firstweek back of uni.
(03:12):
So that's all I have for housekeeping.
But this week's episode is called A Women Who Kill and you
might be thinking what the hell.But it's just two stories that
have been in the news recently and I found them to be not very
well covered. One of them was covered a bit
more than the other one and theyboth have sort of, they don't
(03:35):
have similar storylines, but they're both women who have
committed a crime and they both have very different outcomes.
So I wanted to go through both of them and then kind of compare
the two because it brings up a lot in the system that we have
to question. So welcome to women who kill,
women who kill two women, 2 crimes, 1 broken system.
(03:59):
A raw insight into the cases of Lauren Flanagan and Tamika
Chessa and what they reveal about violence, mental health,
and the limits of compassion. When women break, how often do
we assume that someone is fine because they look put together?
And how many public personas aremasking private breakdowns?
In both cases, there were signs of significant psychological
(04:22):
distress. So why did one go to prison and
the other go to a psychiatric facility?
So we've got the first case, which I've just labeled as
former Beauty and the Geek contestant charged because
that's basically what came up inthe news when we're watching it.
So we've got Tamika Chesa, she'saged 34.
She was a runner up on the reality TV show Beauty and the
(04:44):
Geek. So this is a recent case.
This is June this year, so June the 17th, in Port Lincoln, SA.
Tamika allegedly murdered and dismembered her partner Julian
Story. She had attempted to burn his
remains and is being charged with murder and perverting
justice. She's currently being held at a
psychiatric facility ahead of her court date, which is set for
(05:07):
December 2025. Tamika was allegedly found at
the time when authorities were called.
She was found allegedly found naked, disoriented and possibly
in a psychotic or altered state at the time of the incident.
Which is interesting because they also showed, actually all
they really showed was CCTV footage of Tamika walking her
(05:30):
dogs carrying a bag, which was believed to be carrying Julian's
head because she dismembered hishead.
So the news have basically just gone on about her being a
contestant on Beauty and the Gigand they've just shown CCTV
footage of her walking her dogs calmly with Julian's head in the
(05:51):
back, allegedly. I had to dig a little deeper to
find out that Tamika was allegedly found naked and
disoriented at at the scene at the time.
Authorities were actually calledto the address where this had
occurred, which I believe to be her home address, because of a
fire, not because of anything else.
(06:11):
And she'd actually allegedly lithis remains on fire and those
are the ones that were left there as she obviously had
allegedly removed or dismemberedhis head and despite of disposed
of that elsewhere. Sorry.
I'm wondering if she had actually any previous signs of
distress or any previous mental health issues.
(06:33):
That's going to be one that I amassuming that they'll be looking
at in court and what services would have existed to prevent
that. But that's sort of something we
can't discuss because we don't know.
But if someone is spiralling long before tragedy happens, why
are there so few like, serious on ramps to help?
Because there's been a lot in the news lately about mental
(06:56):
health, but when people try to get help, they're not really
taken very seriously. So I also wonder if there was
any prior red flags on Julian's end.
So Julian's story, that was her boyfriend, Any red flags that he
had that may have been dismissedor ignored because he is a man,
because that is not uncommon. Did the public persona of Tamika
(07:18):
as a glamorous underdog on the beauty and the gate conceal
serious personal instability or trauma?
We don't know. That's another thing they might
look at in court. But do we overlook red flags and
people with social fame or influencer status?
I think so. And I think they kind of twist
the story to make it a bit more about, oh, this is a reality TV
person and they did this thing and we're in shock because of
(07:41):
who they are, not because of what they did.
Now, we haven't got a whole lot of information on Tamika Chess's
story and Julian Stories story. Excuse that because they just
really haven't given it to us. This second story that we're
going to use that's also been inthe news, it's quite brief as
well. But I want you to pay attention
(08:03):
to the fact that these are two women who have committed crimes,
two women who have allegedly commit murder, two very
different outcomes. So just keep that in your mind.
So the second one I've labeled very simply Queensland toddler
stabbed to death by mother. So we have 3 year old Sophia
Rose. She was stabbed on the 26th of
(08:24):
May outside her home in MoorparkBeach, QLD.
Her 32 year old mother, Lauren Flanagan was charged with her
murder, which sparked a mental health review.
Now, according to reports, Flanagan shared a number of
disturbing social media posts the day before committing this
murder. Chief Inspector Grant Marcus
said that police received numerous calls from neighbors in
(08:47):
regards to the toddler. However, she was dead when
emergency services located her at 5:00 PM local time.
Now there's two other children at the address at the time I
they're aged 1 and 2, so they'reboth younger than Sophia, her
younger siblings. Neither of those children were
injured and they were both placed into care with other
family members so they are safe.Flanagan was arrested at the
(09:10):
scene obviously and the murder weapon, which was a knife was
also seized at the scene. Now the father of the children,
his name is Jai, Jai is Amma Fighter and he was away for work
at the time of the incident thatthe pair are believed to be
separated. So he would have had to be
notified while he was away for work.
(09:31):
He actually came out and described Sophia as always
smiling, always wanting to help,full of life, full of love and
she just had a huge heart. Lauren Flanagan actually since
died in custody. OK, so she has allegedly
murdered her daughter. She's been taken away into
police custody and into prison and from there she has died.
(09:52):
So she was found unresponsive inher cell at the Brisbane Women's
Correctional Centre, is that right?
Yeah, on Friday the 30th of May,and later died in Princess
Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane on Sunday evening, which was the
1st of June. So naturally the authorities
have launched A coronial investigation into her death,
(10:13):
which they're treating as a medical emergency, which
basically essentially the coroner's court are going to
conduct a mandatory inquest intoher death because her death was
in custody. And that will look over the
supervision procedures and the medical response.
The Corrective Services department is also carrying out
an internal review and the police.
(10:34):
SEIU is preparing A coroner's report.
So the coroner's inquest will explore how and why Lauren died
and whether safeguards failed. While the investigation into
Sophia's murder remains ongoing,with court proceedings in
regards to the toddler's death being rescheduled for this
month. So when you look at this one,
the authorities would typically use the findings to review
(10:59):
custody safety protocols. So that's just like in regards
to putting people in place custody and what are the safety
barriers there? What can they do to improve,
especially around mental health supervision and crisis
monitoring? Now obviously, this is a young
or a relatively young woman. She is a mother of young
children and I'm confused about why she went straight into
(11:24):
police custody. I believe she should have gone
into psychiatric facility for a number of reasons.
We'll go into that in a minute. But it's believed that Joy, So
Sophia's father, which is Joy, he's understandably critical of
the system for failing to protect his daughter and he's
now caring for his two youngest surviving children.
(11:44):
So if he is currently critical of the system for failing to
protect, I'm assuming that theremay have been a previous issue
and then they might have flaggedsome problems with Lauren's
mental health or her behaviour or even postpartum depression
and things like that. So how many red flags are too
many before the system steps in?Why are so many women in crisis
(12:07):
slipping through the cracks? Had there been any previous
reports to child protection or mental health services?
These are all things that will come out in the coroner's
report, hopefully. Why would she not under closer
observation, OK, before the tragedy?
That's a huge one. We ask women to be everything.
But what happens when a mother silently breaks and no one hears
(12:28):
her? And I think this is huge.
And I think a lot of our mum listeners and fellow mums,
which, hello, that's me, you canrelate.
It's having a baby. Whether you have postpartum
depression or not. It's hard.
It's a really hard adjustment. I couldn't imagine having a
three-year old, a 2 year old anda one year old.
Goodness. I have like my boys are four
(12:48):
years apart and I even struggledthen.
So I cannot speak on Lauren's behalf or anyone's behalf.
And obviously there's absolutelyno excuse to murdering anyone,
let alone your own child. But I would like to think that
we could have supported her better or had better
intervention or just the way that the father, Jaya, says that
(13:12):
the system failed to protect hischildren makes me kind of fall
into the category of we may havebeen able to do something to
help this girl. Is prison really the place for
someone in psychiatric crisis? Or is this another case of a
system punishing pain instead oftreating it?
Here we've got 2 very different scenarios, like I said, but we
(13:33):
have two women essentially and only one of them was detained in
a psychiatric facility. One of the two who allegedly
murdered her adult partner and who allegedly murdered her young
child. It I'm just, I'm a bit confused
about why there wasn't a precaution to take even both the
(13:53):
women to psychiatric facilities,particularly the mum.
I'm I'm really like, if I'm looking at these two cases next
to each other, I'm really confused about why it wasn't on,
you know, it wasn't the other way around.
Why wasn't Lauren in psychiatricstraight away and like heavily
guarded, able to be medicated, able to be safe and able for
(14:19):
like to enable the system to help her and to get her the help
that she obviously needed. That's not to say Tamika doesn't
deserve that as well, but I'm just, I'm mind blown actually,
when I was working on this last night and the script, I was
like, what the hell. Like why wouldn't we even take
the precaution to assign Lauren her psychiatric assistance
(14:42):
rather than incarceration, especially she's got a one year
old, so she could very well be in that postpartum depression
time frame. She was placed in a crisis
support unit in prison, but likeI said, she's died within days.
So should severely unwell individuals be imprisoned at all
or should they be in secure psychiatric care?
(15:04):
Is like, that's a really fine line because I think most of us
would agree that a lot of peoplein incarceration are unwell.
Do we need, like, better psychiatric units within the
prison system? Because I don't believe our
correctional systems are equipped for mental illness.
(15:25):
When you look online at Lauren Flanagan, she did appear to look
like any other mum online. But behind the photos in the
post, I just don't think anybodycould have premeditated that
specific incident and her stabbing her daughter to death.
She had a very small online presence.
She appeared to be a regular mum.
(15:45):
But I think we all know by now that social media and public
image can mask immense private suffering, which I think is
really sad. But I made-up a little comp
table so we can look at what have we got 12345 different
issues with both girls and how it was handled.
So when we're talking about, we'll go with Tamika first.
(16:08):
And when we're talking about themental health crisis with
Tamika, we can say that they didrecognize that she had mental
health crisis post crime. I don't think if there was any
intervention pre crime, it obviously didn't do a very good
job, but they did certainly recognize a poster crime in
(16:29):
terms of custodial care, she's under ongoing evaluation.
And that's the beauty I think ofthe psychiatric settlement.
When they're in a psychiatric hospital, they do get ongoing
evaluation. They're not kind of just like
locked and left. The media framing of this story
was very much shocking spectaclebecause of her status.
And like, they obviously looked up her name.
(16:51):
I mean, I remember watching Booting the Gig.
I certainly do not remember any of their names or what they look
like. So they must have dug a little
to find that and thought this would be great for the headlines
kind of thing. So it's very much, yeah, that's
why it's in the media, I think. And I think they really didn't
give the information about her psychiatric state or anything
(17:13):
because it just didn't really fit with their narrative.
But in terms of victim response,very limited empathy, obviously,
I don't think many of us can really relate, particularly when
she's walking her dogs with her boyfriend's head in her bag.
But I guess that's obviously to be expected.
(17:33):
And then in terms of prevention for Tamika Chessa, that I would
say none. I mean, there's probably
something and maybe she had seena psychologist, something like
that, but it obviously is not sufficient.
So I'm going to confidently say none.
When we're talking about Lauren Flanagan murdering her daughter,
mental health crisis was completely ignored until it was
(17:55):
fatal, in my opinion, because wehave the father who is estranged
from Lauren, saying that the system failed to protect the
child against or from the mother.
So I think they definitely ignored any mental health crisis
there until after the fact in terms of custodial care.
(18:17):
This is the issue that I have with Lauren's story, I think,
and it it came to lethal failure, I don't think it would
have ended that way. If she was put into psychiatric
incarceration or psychiatric hospitals, she would have
received ongoing evaluation. I don't think she would have had
the time. I don't like, I don't think she
(18:39):
would have had the lack of guardianship even to be able to
do anything that would lead to her death, her death in custody,
essentially. So yeah, I think the custodial
care for Lauren Flanagan was definitely a huge failure in
times of in times in terms of media framing for Lauren.
I think this was a very quiet tragedy.
And I was honestly really shocked because if a man stabbed
(19:02):
his three-year old daughter to death in this country, we would
know his name. We would know the kids name, we
would know what his dog's name. Like this would be.
I'd be doing a podcast. I'd be doing a really long
podcast on that, you know, But they haven't put much about
this, like, and as soon as like I read actually, in fact, I read
(19:22):
that she had died in custody online, like in a forum before I
saw it on the news. And that made me really sad
actually for the whole family because, yeah, I feel like
they've made it like a quiet tragedy.
They've kind of briefly spoke onit.
They haven't given much information.
(19:43):
And then next minute she has died in custody.
So yeah, I would definitely label that as a quiet tragedy in
terms of victim response. For Lauren, there's been a lot
of public mourning, which the people in the area are there
where I can't remember the suburb in Queensland that
they're in, but I know there's been a lot of public mourning.
(20:04):
They've done visuals and things like this for this beautiful
little girl. There's been a lot of people on
the Internet sharing and I thinkthe country's heart breaks when
it's a 3 year old losing their life.
Particularly to murder by their own mother.
So yeah, I think that there has been a lot of public mourning in
regards to this story, but just not enough on the media, like on
(20:30):
the TV, you know, And in terms of prevention, I'm just going to
say none. I think I can confidently say
none. I'm not even going to go into
that rabbit hole. But I did just like note down a
couple of changes I think that we might like chat about later.
But in terms of these two women and like women who kill, it is
(20:50):
interesting to me the response. I've had a chat with a couple of
mates being like, I'm doing an episode on women who kill and a
lot of my mates and like the people around me are men.
And it's just so funny. Like the dynamic.
I think it's very easy for me asa woman to empathize with men
(21:13):
and women. But then I, I think as a woman,
it's very easy to like double that empathy when it's a woman
because you think that is just so statistically out of
character for a female to be theperpetrator of such a crime.
And it's not that we just attribute men to crime.
(21:33):
It's literally statistics. It, it's just the data and the
facts in front of us. It's not very typical.
It's not very common. So I think that's why we tend to
look deeper into women who kill because we think, what was the
motivation? And if there was no motivation
really, was there something really wrong?
(21:54):
Like, what did we miss? Because women like, it's just,
yeah, I respect my partner aboutit.
And he's like the same that everybody else would say, like
if it was a man, it would be allover the news.
And that's completely true and completely fair.
So I thought it was an importanttopic to bring up and I'd love
to hear everyone's opinions and discussions on it.
(22:15):
And I want to open that conversation because the changes
that I noted down, which I thinklike systemically could have
helped him. Like I don't, I can't say with
confidence that they could have stopped this, but in the future,
early gender neutral mental health services.
That is why exhuming the Truth Academy exists and why we are
(22:35):
doing primary school programs toget in there before this shit
even enters somebody's mind. You know, like get into like our
kids are our next generation. And I honestly feel we are so
far gone like in this generationthat we need to just focus on
the kids and the next generationand be early and preventative.
(22:57):
I think that's a huge one. Better screening for domestic
instability, regardless of who the aggressor is.
I think like one example of thisthat really completely irritated
me is I used to watch this behavioural panel.
I think it's like 4 gentlemen onYouTube.
I can't remember what it's called.
It'd be something like that, behavioural people or something.
(23:19):
And they're like behavioural psychologist or something and
they watch these crimes or you know, CCTV and they analyze
footage and give their opinion. And I really liked them until I
watched them give their opinion.This is during the Gabby Petito
and Brian laundry case in America.
And this is the case is very much active.
They had just released these body Cam footage of them being
(23:41):
pulled over. And I watched that before
watching the behavioural psychologist speak.
And I was like, he is guilty as sin.
She is trying to protect him because she's the victim.
Like, I've been there, done that, like in my life and I've
seen it 100 times. And you could just tell the way
he was so jovial and trying to be the nice guy that he was
(24:04):
guilty of sin. And then I logged on to YouTube
and I watched these guys talk about it and here they are
saying that she was the aggressor.
You know, he was a nice guy, saying that he had good positive
body language and things like that.
And it just put me off entirely honestly, like because he was
able to compose himself better because he was able to, you
(24:28):
know, translate how he was feeling and get along better
with the officers. This is what they're reading.
And that's just not it. We need to be non bias when we
when it comes to the aggressor and we need to take both sides
of the story and numerous times from numerous people before
we're jumping to conclusions like that.
And I think that's a huge one. Media responsibility is another
(24:52):
huge one, which is just going tobe a never ending battle because
the media suck. I did actually like, I'm sure
everybody's seen the Daily Mail and how awful they are.
And they'll like post a picture and they'll have like this very
misleading, incorrect heading. And I heard from another
journalist a few weeks ago that they actually pay their
(25:12):
journalist to do that and createthose headings as bait for
people to come on and be like, Iknow you're lying.
And then they get more clicks and more views.
So that makes sense. So the media are like, they
glamorize everything. They stereotype everything and
they just don't ever see them making things more human and
less glamorizing and less stereotyping.
(25:34):
So media responsibility is huge.And I just, I can't see a way
past that. But as well, I've got trauma
informed care in corrections andpsychiatric custody.
So working with somebody not on them because they tend to have
an approach of like, we need to work on this person and blah,
blah, blah. And everybody's perception is
(25:56):
different because everybody's upbringing and experiences are
different. And I think it's really
important to have the capabilityto tailor services to that
individual. And I really, although it's
incredibly heartbreaking what happened to Sophia by her
mother, Lauren, I do wonder if Lauren would still be alive if
(26:16):
she was in psychiatric care. And the last one I have is
inclusive narratives that address violence from all
genders. So this that's just a very
obvious one. But it again, statistically,
yes, it is men who commit more crimes than women, but that
doesn't mean that in every situation that's the case.
(26:36):
And we need to really learn, youknow, as we learn more about
Tamika Chessa and Julian's story, I'm sure more will come
out about if Julian had reached out for other help or he had any
other concerns. And I really hope that it
doesn't come out that he had tried to seek help and didn't
receive it because he is a man and he was suffering domestic
(26:56):
violence. Because that's incredibly
heartbreaking. And I just think that's a whole
other podcast, I reckon. Let's do another one on that, I
think. But I'm actually really glad I
did this episode because, yeah, a couple of my friends are like,
oh, you sure you want to do that?
Like women who kill. I'm like, yes, I am sure.
Because these are true, like, really big stories in this
(27:19):
country. And why are we not like, why is
there not more, like, shock and outrage over this and like, how
things were handled and everything?
So I'd really love someone to tell me their opinion on that on
either one of those cases too, because I'm very interested.
But anyway, I'm going to leave it there.
Love you and leave you. I'm going to go and have a movie
(27:41):
night with my boys. I believe tonight we are
watching the Minecraft movie forthe 500 at the time.
But yeah, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for joining meon this episode.
I hope you have enjoyed it here.If so, you can subscribe to stay
up to date on new episodes or you can find us both on
Instagram, Facebook and now TikTok.
(28:02):
You can also subscribe on Spotify to our subscriber only
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to join in on the case discussions and make case
requests. You can find the link to our
group in our podcast notes. And as always, stay curious,
stay informed, and until next time, trust your instincts and
keep seeking the truth.
Welcome to Exhuming the Truth, the podcast where we delve into
mysterious worlds of cold cases,missing persons, true crime, and
the fascinating science that is forensics.
I'm forensic scientist and criminologist Asha Walther, and
I am so thrilled to have you with me on this journey as we
dance in the shadows of the world of crime, shining a light
on scientific discovery while becoming another voice for those
(00:40):
who need it most. So grab a drink and get comfy
while we jump into this episode together.
As always, I would like to extend a content and trigger
warning. This podcast is recommended for
persons over the age of 18 and contains explicit content not
suitable for minors. We will be covering sensitive
content that ranges from sexual assault, physical, mental,
(01:01):
social and emotional abuse, suicide, homicide, murder,
attempted murder, and other violent crimes, including crimes
involving weapons and drugs. This often extends to drug
misuse and other harmful and illegal activity.
If you find any content to be distressing, I've listed a
number of resources that may be able to help you.
In the podcast notes, I would like to remind all of our
(01:23):
listeners that all victims and all offenders are someone's
loved 1. So I ask that any discussions in
our group or on our social accounts remain respectful of
that at all times. Hi guys, I happen to have a
accidental week off last week from posting an episode.
I was so busy and I was trying to get together 2 separate cases
(01:44):
I've got coming up to share withyou, but I just didn't get it
done in time because I wanted tomake sure the timelines were
right. So this week I have put together
something a little bit differentand there are two current
stories, but I'll talk about that a little bit in a moment.
First I want to talk about a documentary on Amazon Prime and
(02:05):
it's called Allison Just a LISONI watched it last night.
Why on earth am I talking about This is because people are
always asking me good shows to watch and this one was insane.
It did date back to 94, but the actual woman who was the victim,
Allison, spoke and narrated her own story, which was a different
(02:28):
perspective. But she was actually abducted at
knife point by two men outside of her own home in South Africa.
And she was driven to a nature reserve where she was raped and
stabbed. And she was actually, she
actually had her throat cut fromear to ear and like really
horrific injuries. But I think it's, it's got a lot
(02:49):
in it and it it's a very important story that she has to
tell. And I literally sat there with
my mouth open the entire time watching that.
So I highly recommend. Anyway, that's basically all I
have for housekeeping this week.I'm very boring.
I had a very uneventful couple of weeks just trying to get work
done and settling into the firstweek back of uni.
(03:12):
So that's all I have for housekeeping.
But this week's episode is called A Women Who Kill and you
might be thinking what the hell.But it's just two stories that
have been in the news recently and I found them to be not very
well covered. One of them was covered a bit
more than the other one and theyboth have sort of, they don't
(03:35):
have similar storylines, but they're both women who have
committed a crime and they both have very different outcomes.
So I wanted to go through both of them and then kind of compare
the two because it brings up a lot in the system that we have
to question. So welcome to women who kill,
women who kill two women, 2 crimes, 1 broken system.
(03:59):
A raw insight into the cases of Lauren Flanagan and Tamika
Chessa and what they reveal about violence, mental health,
and the limits of compassion. When women break, how often do
we assume that someone is fine because they look put together?
And how many public personas aremasking private breakdowns?
In both cases, there were signs of significant psychological
(04:22):
distress. So why did one go to prison and
the other go to a psychiatric facility?
So we've got the first case, which I've just labeled as
former Beauty and the Geek contestant charged because
that's basically what came up inthe news when we're watching it.
So we've got Tamika Chesa, she'saged 34.
She was a runner up on the reality TV show Beauty and the
(04:44):
Geek. So this is a recent case.
This is June this year, so June the 17th, in Port Lincoln, SA.
Tamika allegedly murdered and dismembered her partner Julian
Story. She had attempted to burn his
remains and is being charged with murder and perverting
justice. She's currently being held at a
psychiatric facility ahead of her court date, which is set for
(05:07):
December 2025. Tamika was allegedly found at
the time when authorities were called.
She was found allegedly found naked, disoriented and possibly
in a psychotic or altered state at the time of the incident.
Which is interesting because they also showed, actually all
they really showed was CCTV footage of Tamika walking her
(05:30):
dogs carrying a bag, which was believed to be carrying Julian's
head because she dismembered hishead.
So the news have basically just gone on about her being a
contestant on Beauty and the Gigand they've just shown CCTV
footage of her walking her dogs calmly with Julian's head in the
(05:51):
back, allegedly. I had to dig a little deeper to
find out that Tamika was allegedly found naked and
disoriented at at the scene at the time.
Authorities were actually calledto the address where this had
occurred, which I believe to be her home address, because of a
fire, not because of anything else.
(06:11):
And she'd actually allegedly lithis remains on fire and those
are the ones that were left there as she obviously had
allegedly removed or dismemberedhis head and despite of disposed
of that elsewhere. Sorry.
I'm wondering if she had actually any previous signs of
distress or any previous mental health issues.
(06:33):
That's going to be one that I amassuming that they'll be looking
at in court and what services would have existed to prevent
that. But that's sort of something we
can't discuss because we don't know.
But if someone is spiralling long before tragedy happens, why
are there so few like, serious on ramps to help?
Because there's been a lot in the news lately about mental
(06:56):
health, but when people try to get help, they're not really
taken very seriously. So I also wonder if there was
any prior red flags on Julian's end.
So Julian's story, that was her boyfriend, Any red flags that he
had that may have been dismissedor ignored because he is a man,
because that is not uncommon. Did the public persona of Tamika
(07:18):
as a glamorous underdog on the beauty and the gate conceal
serious personal instability or trauma?
We don't know. That's another thing they might
look at in court. But do we overlook red flags and
people with social fame or influencer status?
I think so. And I think they kind of twist
the story to make it a bit more about, oh, this is a reality TV
person and they did this thing and we're in shock because of
(07:41):
who they are, not because of what they did.
Now, we haven't got a whole lot of information on Tamika Chess's
story and Julian Stories story. Excuse that because they just
really haven't given it to us. This second story that we're
going to use that's also been inthe news, it's quite brief as
well. But I want you to pay attention
(08:03):
to the fact that these are two women who have committed crimes,
two women who have allegedly commit murder, two very
different outcomes. So just keep that in your mind.
So the second one I've labeled very simply Queensland toddler
stabbed to death by mother. So we have 3 year old Sophia
Rose. She was stabbed on the 26th of
(08:24):
May outside her home in MoorparkBeach, QLD.
Her 32 year old mother, Lauren Flanagan was charged with her
murder, which sparked a mental health review.
Now, according to reports, Flanagan shared a number of
disturbing social media posts the day before committing this
murder. Chief Inspector Grant Marcus
said that police received numerous calls from neighbors in
(08:47):
regards to the toddler. However, she was dead when
emergency services located her at 5:00 PM local time.
Now there's two other children at the address at the time I
they're aged 1 and 2, so they'reboth younger than Sophia, her
younger siblings. Neither of those children were
injured and they were both placed into care with other
family members so they are safe.Flanagan was arrested at the
(09:10):
scene obviously and the murder weapon, which was a knife was
also seized at the scene. Now the father of the children,
his name is Jai, Jai is Amma Fighter and he was away for work
at the time of the incident thatthe pair are believed to be
separated. So he would have had to be
notified while he was away for work.
(09:31):
He actually came out and described Sophia as always
smiling, always wanting to help,full of life, full of love and
she just had a huge heart. Lauren Flanagan actually since
died in custody. OK, so she has allegedly
murdered her daughter. She's been taken away into
police custody and into prison and from there she has died.
(09:52):
So she was found unresponsive inher cell at the Brisbane Women's
Correctional Centre, is that right?
Yeah, on Friday the 30th of May,and later died in Princess
Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane on Sunday evening, which was the
1st of June. So naturally the authorities
have launched A coronial investigation into her death,
(10:13):
which they're treating as a medical emergency, which
basically essentially the coroner's court are going to
conduct a mandatory inquest intoher death because her death was
in custody. And that will look over the
supervision procedures and the medical response.
The Corrective Services department is also carrying out
an internal review and the police.
(10:34):
SEIU is preparing A coroner's report.
So the coroner's inquest will explore how and why Lauren died
and whether safeguards failed. While the investigation into
Sophia's murder remains ongoing,with court proceedings in
regards to the toddler's death being rescheduled for this
month. So when you look at this one,
the authorities would typically use the findings to review
(10:59):
custody safety protocols. So that's just like in regards
to putting people in place custody and what are the safety
barriers there? What can they do to improve,
especially around mental health supervision and crisis
monitoring? Now obviously, this is a young
or a relatively young woman. She is a mother of young
children and I'm confused about why she went straight into
(11:24):
police custody. I believe she should have gone
into psychiatric facility for a number of reasons.
We'll go into that in a minute. But it's believed that Joy, So
Sophia's father, which is Joy, he's understandably critical of
the system for failing to protect his daughter and he's
now caring for his two youngest surviving children.
(11:44):
So if he is currently critical of the system for failing to
protect, I'm assuming that theremay have been a previous issue
and then they might have flaggedsome problems with Lauren's
mental health or her behaviour or even postpartum depression
and things like that. So how many red flags are too
many before the system steps in?Why are so many women in crisis
(12:07):
slipping through the cracks? Had there been any previous
reports to child protection or mental health services?
These are all things that will come out in the coroner's
report, hopefully. Why would she not under closer
observation, OK, before the tragedy?
That's a huge one. We ask women to be everything.
But what happens when a mother silently breaks and no one hears
(12:28):
her? And I think this is huge.
And I think a lot of our mum listeners and fellow mums,
which, hello, that's me, you canrelate.
It's having a baby. Whether you have postpartum
depression or not. It's hard.
It's a really hard adjustment. I couldn't imagine having a
three-year old, a 2 year old anda one year old.
Goodness. I have like my boys are four
(12:48):
years apart and I even struggledthen.
So I cannot speak on Lauren's behalf or anyone's behalf.
And obviously there's absolutelyno excuse to murdering anyone,
let alone your own child. But I would like to think that
we could have supported her better or had better
intervention or just the way that the father, Jaya, says that
(13:12):
the system failed to protect hischildren makes me kind of fall
into the category of we may havebeen able to do something to
help this girl. Is prison really the place for
someone in psychiatric crisis? Or is this another case of a
system punishing pain instead oftreating it?
Here we've got 2 very different scenarios, like I said, but we
(13:33):
have two women essentially and only one of them was detained in
a psychiatric facility. One of the two who allegedly
murdered her adult partner and who allegedly murdered her young
child. It I'm just, I'm a bit confused
about why there wasn't a precaution to take even both the
(13:53):
women to psychiatric facilities,particularly the mum.
I'm I'm really like, if I'm looking at these two cases next
to each other, I'm really confused about why it wasn't on,
you know, it wasn't the other way around.
Why wasn't Lauren in psychiatricstraight away and like heavily
guarded, able to be medicated, able to be safe and able for
(14:19):
like to enable the system to help her and to get her the help
that she obviously needed. That's not to say Tamika doesn't
deserve that as well, but I'm just, I'm mind blown actually,
when I was working on this last night and the script, I was
like, what the hell. Like why wouldn't we even take
the precaution to assign Lauren her psychiatric assistance
(14:42):
rather than incarceration, especially she's got a one year
old, so she could very well be in that postpartum depression
time frame. She was placed in a crisis
support unit in prison, but likeI said, she's died within days.
So should severely unwell individuals be imprisoned at all
or should they be in secure psychiatric care?
(15:04):
Is like, that's a really fine line because I think most of us
would agree that a lot of peoplein incarceration are unwell.
Do we need, like, better psychiatric units within the
prison system? Because I don't believe our
correctional systems are equipped for mental illness.
(15:25):
When you look online at Lauren Flanagan, she did appear to look
like any other mum online. But behind the photos in the
post, I just don't think anybodycould have premeditated that
specific incident and her stabbing her daughter to death.
She had a very small online presence.
She appeared to be a regular mum.
(15:45):
But I think we all know by now that social media and public
image can mask immense private suffering, which I think is
really sad. But I made-up a little comp
table so we can look at what have we got 12345 different
issues with both girls and how it was handled.
So when we're talking about, we'll go with Tamika first.
(16:08):
And when we're talking about themental health crisis with
Tamika, we can say that they didrecognize that she had mental
health crisis post crime. I don't think if there was any
intervention pre crime, it obviously didn't do a very good
job, but they did certainly recognize a poster crime in
(16:29):
terms of custodial care, she's under ongoing evaluation.
And that's the beauty I think ofthe psychiatric settlement.
When they're in a psychiatric hospital, they do get ongoing
evaluation. They're not kind of just like
locked and left. The media framing of this story
was very much shocking spectaclebecause of her status.
And like, they obviously looked up her name.
(16:51):
I mean, I remember watching Booting the Gig.
I certainly do not remember any of their names or what they look
like. So they must have dug a little
to find that and thought this would be great for the headlines
kind of thing. So it's very much, yeah, that's
why it's in the media, I think. And I think they really didn't
give the information about her psychiatric state or anything
(17:13):
because it just didn't really fit with their narrative.
But in terms of victim response,very limited empathy, obviously,
I don't think many of us can really relate, particularly when
she's walking her dogs with her boyfriend's head in her bag.
But I guess that's obviously to be expected.
(17:33):
And then in terms of prevention for Tamika Chessa, that I would
say none. I mean, there's probably
something and maybe she had seena psychologist, something like
that, but it obviously is not sufficient.
So I'm going to confidently say none.
When we're talking about Lauren Flanagan murdering her daughter,
mental health crisis was completely ignored until it was
(17:55):
fatal, in my opinion, because wehave the father who is estranged
from Lauren, saying that the system failed to protect the
child against or from the mother.
So I think they definitely ignored any mental health crisis
there until after the fact in terms of custodial care.
(18:17):
This is the issue that I have with Lauren's story, I think,
and it it came to lethal failure, I don't think it would
have ended that way. If she was put into psychiatric
incarceration or psychiatric hospitals, she would have
received ongoing evaluation. I don't think she would have had
the time. I don't like, I don't think she
(18:39):
would have had the lack of guardianship even to be able to
do anything that would lead to her death, her death in custody,
essentially. So yeah, I think the custodial
care for Lauren Flanagan was definitely a huge failure in
times of in times in terms of media framing for Lauren.
I think this was a very quiet tragedy.
And I was honestly really shocked because if a man stabbed
(19:02):
his three-year old daughter to death in this country, we would
know his name. We would know the kids name, we
would know what his dog's name. Like this would be.
I'd be doing a podcast. I'd be doing a really long
podcast on that, you know, But they haven't put much about
this, like, and as soon as like I read actually, in fact, I read
(19:22):
that she had died in custody online, like in a forum before I
saw it on the news. And that made me really sad
actually for the whole family because, yeah, I feel like
they've made it like a quiet tragedy.
They've kind of briefly spoke onit.
They haven't given much information.
(19:43):
And then next minute she has died in custody.
So yeah, I would definitely label that as a quiet tragedy in
terms of victim response. For Lauren, there's been a lot
of public mourning, which the people in the area are there
where I can't remember the suburb in Queensland that
they're in, but I know there's been a lot of public mourning.
(20:04):
They've done visuals and things like this for this beautiful
little girl. There's been a lot of people on
the Internet sharing and I thinkthe country's heart breaks when
it's a 3 year old losing their life.
Particularly to murder by their own mother.
So yeah, I think that there has been a lot of public mourning in
regards to this story, but just not enough on the media, like on
(20:30):
the TV, you know, And in terms of prevention, I'm just going to
say none. I think I can confidently say
none. I'm not even going to go into
that rabbit hole. But I did just like note down a
couple of changes I think that we might like chat about later.
But in terms of these two women and like women who kill, it is
(20:50):
interesting to me the response. I've had a chat with a couple of
mates being like, I'm doing an episode on women who kill and a
lot of my mates and like the people around me are men.
And it's just so funny. Like the dynamic.
I think it's very easy for me asa woman to empathize with men
(21:13):
and women. But then I, I think as a woman,
it's very easy to like double that empathy when it's a woman
because you think that is just so statistically out of
character for a female to be theperpetrator of such a crime.
And it's not that we just attribute men to crime.
(21:33):
It's literally statistics. It, it's just the data and the
facts in front of us. It's not very typical.
It's not very common. So I think that's why we tend to
look deeper into women who kill because we think, what was the
motivation? And if there was no motivation
really, was there something really wrong?
(21:54):
Like, what did we miss? Because women like, it's just,
yeah, I respect my partner aboutit.
And he's like the same that everybody else would say, like
if it was a man, it would be allover the news.
And that's completely true and completely fair.
So I thought it was an importanttopic to bring up and I'd love
to hear everyone's opinions and discussions on it.
(22:15):
And I want to open that conversation because the changes
that I noted down, which I thinklike systemically could have
helped him. Like I don't, I can't say with
confidence that they could have stopped this, but in the future,
early gender neutral mental health services.
That is why exhuming the Truth Academy exists and why we are
(22:35):
doing primary school programs toget in there before this shit
even enters somebody's mind. You know, like get into like our
kids are our next generation. And I honestly feel we are so
far gone like in this generationthat we need to just focus on
the kids and the next generationand be early and preventative.
(22:57):
I think that's a huge one. Better screening for domestic
instability, regardless of who the aggressor is.
I think like one example of thisthat really completely irritated
me is I used to watch this behavioural panel.
I think it's like 4 gentlemen onYouTube.
I can't remember what it's called.
It'd be something like that, behavioural people or something.
(23:19):
And they're like behavioural psychologist or something and
they watch these crimes or you know, CCTV and they analyze
footage and give their opinion. And I really liked them until I
watched them give their opinion.This is during the Gabby Petito
and Brian laundry case in America.
And this is the case is very much active.
They had just released these body Cam footage of them being
(23:41):
pulled over. And I watched that before
watching the behavioural psychologist speak.
And I was like, he is guilty as sin.
She is trying to protect him because she's the victim.
Like, I've been there, done that, like in my life and I've
seen it 100 times. And you could just tell the way
he was so jovial and trying to be the nice guy that he was
(24:04):
guilty of sin. And then I logged on to YouTube
and I watched these guys talk about it and here they are
saying that she was the aggressor.
You know, he was a nice guy, saying that he had good positive
body language and things like that.
And it just put me off entirely honestly, like because he was
able to compose himself better because he was able to, you
(24:28):
know, translate how he was feeling and get along better
with the officers. This is what they're reading.
And that's just not it. We need to be non bias when we
when it comes to the aggressor and we need to take both sides
of the story and numerous times from numerous people before
we're jumping to conclusions like that.
And I think that's a huge one. Media responsibility is another
(24:52):
huge one, which is just going tobe a never ending battle because
the media suck. I did actually like, I'm sure
everybody's seen the Daily Mail and how awful they are.
And they'll like post a picture and they'll have like this very
misleading, incorrect heading. And I heard from another
journalist a few weeks ago that they actually pay their
(25:12):
journalist to do that and createthose headings as bait for
people to come on and be like, Iknow you're lying.
And then they get more clicks and more views.
So that makes sense. So the media are like, they
glamorize everything. They stereotype everything and
they just don't ever see them making things more human and
less glamorizing and less stereotyping.
(25:34):
So media responsibility is huge.And I just, I can't see a way
past that. But as well, I've got trauma
informed care in corrections andpsychiatric custody.
So working with somebody not on them because they tend to have
an approach of like, we need to work on this person and blah,
blah, blah. And everybody's perception is
(25:56):
different because everybody's upbringing and experiences are
different. And I think it's really
important to have the capabilityto tailor services to that
individual. And I really, although it's
incredibly heartbreaking what happened to Sophia by her
mother, Lauren, I do wonder if Lauren would still be alive if
(26:16):
she was in psychiatric care. And the last one I have is
inclusive narratives that address violence from all
genders. So this that's just a very
obvious one. But it again, statistically,
yes, it is men who commit more crimes than women, but that
doesn't mean that in every situation that's the case.
(26:36):
And we need to really learn, youknow, as we learn more about
Tamika Chessa and Julian's story, I'm sure more will come
out about if Julian had reached out for other help or he had any
other concerns. And I really hope that it
doesn't come out that he had tried to seek help and didn't
receive it because he is a man and he was suffering domestic
(26:56):
violence. Because that's incredibly
heartbreaking. And I just think that's a whole
other podcast, I reckon. Let's do another one on that, I
think. But I'm actually really glad I
did this episode because, yeah, a couple of my friends are like,
oh, you sure you want to do that?
Like women who kill. I'm like, yes, I am sure.
Because these are true, like, really big stories in this
(27:19):
country. And why are we not like, why is
there not more, like, shock and outrage over this and like, how
things were handled and everything?
So I'd really love someone to tell me their opinion on that on
either one of those cases too, because I'm very interested.
But anyway, I'm going to leave it there.
Love you and leave you. I'm going to go and have a movie
(27:41):
night with my boys. I believe tonight we are
watching the Minecraft movie forthe 500 at the time.
But yeah, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for joining meon this episode.
I hope you have enjoyed it here.If so, you can subscribe to stay
up to date on new episodes or you can find us both on
Instagram, Facebook and now TikTok.
(28:02):
You can also subscribe on Spotify to our subscriber only
episodes. You can join our Facebook group
to join in on the case discussions and make case
requests. You can find the link to our
group in our podcast notes. And as always, stay curious,
stay informed, and until next time, trust your instincts and
keep seeking the truth.
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