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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is an Australian Morbid.
Again. Again. Again. We're bringing you back to the land down under.
We are here for part two of Phoebe Hansjack.
And I know everybody has been waiting with bated breath to find out the conclusion.
Because I am too. I'm waiting. I need to know.
We're still waiting actually. This one's not going to be tied up in a neat bow.
Unfortunately. But we're going to have a lot more information at the end of this than we did in the beginning of part one.
Or, yeah, part one. So how do you count?
I think it starts with one. I think it's one first.
I did a little poll on the Facebook page to see what everybody was thinking if it was an accident so far, if it was suicide, or if there was some foul play.
And it looks like the majority of people were going for foul play and accident.
Yeah, I don't think anybody voted for suicide that I saw.
I agree. And I think after we hear this part two, I think that's going to firm that up more.
And I think more people are going to lean toward one side.
I think so, too. But before we jump into it, because we're not we don't have a lot of business because this is going to be a long one.
So we want to jump right in. But we do have a few quick things.
Yes. First of all, thank you guys so much for all the birthday wishes.
That was bananas. It really was. So many people like commented on your Facebook and Instagram posts and I'm still reading all of them.
Like still. It's amazing. So thank you guys so much.
I had an amazing birthday because of you.
You guys rock. I love you guys. Some serious socks.
My socks. I hate socks. I never wear socks.
I love socks. I literally never wear socks.
The fighting continues. That's probably why my feet smell.
Probably. Sorry. We want to do a quick murder apparel shout out because they make us merch.
And we love them. You should go get our merch from them and any other merch that they have because all their merch is cool merch.
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Wow, I feel like you were doing a cheer.
Oh, gross. Okay, don't insult my people.
I know, I had to do that. You're an ass.
I'm not a cheerleader anymore. It's fine.
So yeah, use our code at checkout and you can get 25. off i like it i just i've never looked into it every episode i continuously guess I don't want you to ever look into it.
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I'm going to go on there later on with my birthday moolah.
Hell yeah. And spend it all. Yes. But I'm also going to use our code Morbid.
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And the last bit of business is we have some exciting news.
We are officially part of the Audio Boom Network.
Whoop! We're very excited because that means we are on the same kind of docket as Casefile, which...
Mama loves case file. Also, and that's why we drink.
Which we all know how, especially Ash. Excuse me?
We all know how Ash feels about this. We all know how especially Ash feels about that, but we both love them.
Em and Christine, do you want to be friends now?
I'm just wondering we might be listed next to each other now they're like these girls are stalkers And we're also with Two Girls, One Ghost.
And I love that podcast. And like so many other fucking crazy awesome podcasts.
So we feel very honored and very excited to be a part of the Audioboom Network, and we wanted to tell you guys, because yay!
So... Without further ado, let's just jump into Phoebe Handstruck because there is a lot to cover.
Where did we even leave off last time? So when we left off last time, we kind of just talked about...
We talked about Phoebe's, obviously her upbringing.
We've talked about her life right before.
We talked about the few days leading up to her really tragic and really bizarre death.
In those few days were super bizarre. Bizarre, yeah.
The whole thing was bizarre. And we talked about the concierge, Beth... ozalup i believe her name is yes um finding phoebe and in the direct aftermath of that right right right So where we are now is we are going to go back to that.
We're going to stay on that same night when they found Phoebe.
Where Eric, the hotel manager, he's the one that he was leaving because he had to drive his I think he had like his kids music lesson or something.
Yeah, I think that's what you said last time.
Well, and she called him back and he came right back, obviously.
He's a big part of it. So he's the hotel manager.
Yeah. While this is all going on, all the investigators are there.
Because remember, we also said that the investigators immediately, you know, quartered off that room. wouldn't even let medical personnel in there.
No medical person touched Phoebe's body.
Which is just ridiculous. Very strange.
Weird, bizarre, totally awful, and who knows?
She could have been slightly older. alive like they maybe could have done something no one touched her so no one would have known So and not like that's not typical.
Yeah, it's very bizarre. So there's all this craziness and weird stuff going on.
So Eric finally realized he goes, oh, my God, we have a CCTV camera set up. around this area and he said it might be helpful who knows we could see somebody coming in out we don't know But he said, we've recently had issues with the system.
So it was taping over itself too quickly.
Oh, no. So he said, I went right to the police immediately when I thought of it, which was that evening.
And he said, quote, I suggested to the police that if they needed any CCTV, they should start downloading now.
He said they just kind of brushed him off.
Are you fucking kidding me? And they ended up losing that footage.
So there probably was footage of something.
Yeah. They said they never and will never know because it was taped over.
And he said, he said, I told them that it was taping over itself and that it was going too quick.
And if you want it. you're gonna have to get it now.
And every investigator they talked to later about this case was like, that is one of the most, first things you would do is look at a CCTV footage reel.
Because that could give you all the answers you need.
And it's just, you wouldn't let that evidence just float in the ether somewhere.
Like, you go get it. I've never made that before.
Really? What is an ether? I always love saying that.
Just like the atmosphere. Oh, I like that.
Just into the ether. Float in the ether.
I'm going to add that to the list of things you taught me.
Such a long list. Yeah. I'm just kidding.
You know what? No, it is. All the life lessons with Elena.
That's me. So at 8.45 p.m., Detective Sergeant Mark Butterworth.
Love that. I don't think he's related to Mrs. Butterworth.
Badum-chum. That was funny. He was from the Purana Task Force.
He was the one who took control of the scene at that point.
8.45 p.m. His report of the scene says when he got there, he saw the body of a young woman.
She was lying face up. Her jeans were pulled down below her knees.
And she had obviously received a very severe, very gruesome injury to her right foot.
He said he also saw that the bins in that garbage chute system at the bottom, it's like a carousel system.
I think what happened was there's five wheelie bins that rotate under the rubbish chute and, like...
So all the rubbish falls into those bins.
They rotate as they fill up. Right. He said one of them was knocked over. and was lying on the floor beside Phoebe's body.
Around the carousel, he said he could see quote, a smeared blood trail.
Oh, so she was just trying to get up and steady herself.
So she was pulling herself around the room to try to, yeah.
Ugh. They also said there was blood on the door, on the inside of the door.
So she had got to the door and was trying to open the door.
That's so horrible. Yeah, that's the worst part for me.
Yeah, I really hate that. Clearly she was trying to get out and nobody could hear her.
And it was pitch black in there. No. Yeah.
So now as all this is going on downstairs, remember, last week we talked about how Ant got takeout for himself.
Right. From the restaurant that they were supposed to go to with her dad.
Exactly. And that's Phoebe's favorite restaurant.
It was like the Golden Triangle or something like that.
And he got takeout for one. Just for one.
Before he... And this was when Phoebe was missing.
He was just like, oh, she'll probably show up.
Instead of ordering two things of takeout to be like, oh, she'll probably show up and she'll be hungry, he just ordered it for himself.
I'm just going to go ahead and say that if this situation ever happened to me, I would totally be in the clear because they'd be like, oh, she ordered for two people.
This is definitely. She was expecting company.
Yeah. There's no way. Meanwhile, I'm upstairs shoveling chicken fingers into my mouth.
You know what? Same. I'm like, I wasn't expecting anybody.
They'd be like, wow, she was expecting like a party.
Yeah. Like 10. Wow. Yeah. And she gets so much food if it was just the two of them.
No way. Well, so when the delivery guy came to the building, that's when Aunt... got a call from this kid who was outside and was like there's police everywhere I don't know what to do with your food man I can't get up there So he told Aunt, you know, some shit's going down at the apartment building.
After the delivery guy told Ann about all the commotion, Ann went down to the foyer and approached a detective.
He said, I live here. what the hell is going on?
Uh, so the policeman who was acting senior Sergeant Andrew Healy, uh, told him that they had found a woman's body in the compactor room.
So Ant said, oh, my God, my girlfriend's been missing.
Could it be her? And obviously the police is like, I don't fucking know.
So he's like, okay. And he was like, you're going to have to give me some more information about your girlfriend.
Well, and then aunt was like, oh, I've been at work all day, but I checked on her via the phone all day.
She's been depressed. Here's the medicine she's been taking.
Like immediately went into that. Right. And he was like, yeah, I don't need to know all that.
Like, I need to know what she looks like.
And he was like, it's weird that you're telling me she was depressed.
Like immediately. Yeah. It's like you're covering your ass.
By the way. Also, I was at work all day. day yeah i was at work all day but i checked on her all the time now let me just quickly be clear we are not blaming anyone for this.
No, we're just simply speculating. We are not saying that Ant is to blame.
We are just putting out the information.
People are to take what they want from this.
We are not going to give you any, you know, at the end we're not going to be like, who did it?
No, I don't know who did it. I don't know what happened.
I have feelings. But we're just putting the stuff out here.
So that police officer was like, okay, does Phoebe have any, your girlfriend, does she have any distinguishing features?
Right. So aunt said she has a tattoo on her right arm or right wrist, which matched one on his own wrist.
Oh. He showed it to the detective and he was like, okay.
And then he also said she has a stud in her upper lip.
So then the police officer said, okay, does she have a tattoo on her stomach?
And Ant was like, yes, she does. So he was like, OK, can you go up to your place and get a recent photograph of her?
Mm hmm. So when they got the photograph, they confirmed that we think that's her.
The facial features match up. So now the detectives went back up to Anne's apartment and were like, we need to take a look in your apartment.
So obviously Ant's like a mess because they're like, we're pretty sure that's your girlfriend.
Right. So this is what they observed in Ant and Phoebe's apartment.
There was broken glass and some blood on the floor.
Okay. There were the post-it notes that Ant had described that were like... He said had... had scribbled stuff all over them like he said Phoebe used to do when she was inebriated.
There was outside the apartment, but on the same floor, the 12th floor, they found blood on the floor in the room that contained the rubbish chute.
They also found a bit of blood on the door handle of that room.
Now, and I think we'll go over this more later, but not a lot was done here to take evidence here. why like they kind of like they didn't immediately swab this stuff they didn't immediately like it was it's this whole investigation was wildly botched So Ant was the one to now call Len, who was Phoebe's father, in case you don't remember.
And he had to break the news to him that Phoebe was dead.
Oh, God. Len said later, quote, I was in shock at this and just sat there on the floor.
And he said he got changed for dinner too, remember?
Yeah, he was like ready to go to dinner.
He was like, I got changed and like got ready.
Because he was like, I just assumed she was going to turn up.
Yeah. He was like, I just assumed she was doing something.
And because he said she wouldn't miss a dinner.
Yeah. She wouldn't miss this. Yeah. And that kind of comes back a little later when the whole thing of suicide comes up.
People are like, no, she didn't. She wouldn't have done this.
And because there weren't there like there was too much going on.
Yeah. And we'll get into that later. So Len called his son Tom, who was Phoebe's brother, who she was the closest to.
That was like her best. friend yeah and he was in tears and he said he didn't want to tell him over the phone so he just told him please just come here like please come here oh god So Tom immediately left his girlfriend's house in East Malvern and headed right to Len's house.
Lynn ended up having to call Natalie, who was Phoebe's mother, on the phone.
Natalie answered and immediately said, what happened?
Have you found Phoebe? Because, again, remember, she was missing.
They weren't all freaking out too much, but they were, like, concerned.
They were nervous. And Lynn said to her, quote, I hope you're sitting down.
She's dead. They found her near the rubbish bins at the apartment.
Jesus Christ. Natalie said she fell to her knees next to her car and just screamed, no, no, no.
It's not true. I can't talk. Like, just screaming it.
Ugh. She said she hung up the phone and her partner, Russell Marriott, had to come and pick her up off the ground and carry her inside.
Oh, that just made me like so emotional.
Now, Russell was the one to call Jeanette the grandmother.
Oh, my God. Why do we have to play telephone right now?
So Russell called Jeanette the grandmother.
And remember, Phoebe was extraordinarily close to her grandmother.
And she was actually coming to Melbourne from Malakuta that day. because her other brother, Nikolai, her 18th birthday party was happening the following day.
Okay. And that was something that Phoebe was excited to be planning and decorating for, remember.
So again, this is another thing that was happening immediately after this that you wouldn't want to miss.
Right. So Jeanette said her first thought when she answered the phone was, is Phoebe okay?
Mm-hmm. And Russell just told her you have to come here.
And she said when she got there, Natalie was the one to tell her And she said she was just absolutely devastated and immediately couldn't understand it.
She was like, what are you trying to tell?
Like, how did this happen? Right. Because again, when you find out she was found next to a garbage chute It just doesn't make any sense to you.
How did that happen? It's like 12 floors up.
She went in the garbage. None of it makes sense.
No. So at around 10 p.m. that night, Detective Butterworth met with the forensic crew that came. and leading senior constable Bernard Carrick was now in charge of processing the scene.
Again, Phoebe's body was lying on the floor.
Her most severe injuries were from the waist down there, mostly to her legs and her right foot.
And they also found a single lens from a pair of Prada sunglasses, which did belong to her.
And her family members said she wore them a lot when she was going out.
Okay. Which is interesting because maybe she was going somewhere.
That's one of the things. And we're going to see a couple of more things later.
That point to her going, being on her way out.
Right. Which doesn't make sense. But she did leave her purse and bag at home, right?
Or she's made purse and keys or something.
She left her purse. in the apartment, and the purse had her phone charger in it, which indicates that she was going somewhere.
Okay. Something could have, there was broken glass and blood in the apartment.
Something could have happened before she could leave.
Whew, shit. Yeah. Then Carrick looked at the compactor, which was at the bottom of the chute, which obviously inflicted most of the damage.
Her ankle. This thing had a big blade that was on it that was usually set to automatic because but it could be set to manual operation if you needed to control it more.
Like they would set it to manual if one of the bins got stuck or something.
Set it to manual, get the bin out, and then set it back to automatic.
Right, because automatic was like anything that comes down the chute, it's going to compact. with that giant blade.
So photographs were taken after Phoebe's body was found and And it showed that the switch to the compactor was set to automatic mode at this point.
So whatever was coming down that chute was getting compacted.
Okay. And that's important. So there was blood inside the compactor and on the inside of the compactor room door, like we said.
So she was trying to get out. Okay. Carrick took swabs from all of that.
Upstairs on the 12th floor where they lived and where she supposedly went into the garbage chute.
In the garbage chute room, they also saw the several drops of blood on the concrete floor, and that's when they took samples of these.
Then they went to Anthony's apartment. In the master bedroom, they found Phoebe's journal on the bed, so they bagged and tagged that.
They went further into the apartment. They found blood on a door, more on a wooden study table, and computer mouse.
In the hallway were broken glass pieces.
In the kitchen, there was a blister pack of Cymbalta, which is an antidepressant.
There was some other medications and some post-it notes like Anthony had said.
Then he went to another room and he found some more documents, a little bit more blood...
And Carrick specifically made no mention or observation. of a shrine-like setting, how Ant had described it.
Because in part one, in case you don't remember, I know it might be hard to put these all together.
Ant said that when he got home and noticed that Phoebe was missing, that it seemed like there was a shrine on the bed.
With like pictures. Pictures. candles lit, like just weird stuff.
And he specifically said it looked like a shrine.
Mm-hmm. No one else makes mention of this shrine like that.
And you would... I mean, a shrine is a fucking shrine.
Exactly. You would... And he's saying candles are lit.
There's like pictures and stuff like it's all like she's doing some weird fucking African voodoo to make him like her.
Exactly. That was a Mean Girls reference.
It was. I didn't want anyone to be like, what?
What now? That was a Mean Girls reference.
So at this point, the apartment, and this is nuts, the apartment had never been secured at this point.
Oh, good. And the entry and exit points of the entire building had not been secured at all.
You could just come and go as you fucking pleased.
People were just bonkers coming in and out all they wanted.
Good. So possibly vital evidence was not protected here.
Right. During the inquest later, which we're going to get into, a police officer at this scene said that during the search of Ant's apartment, his parents and friends were in there.
And he had no idea how they got in there.
He was literally like, oh yeah, they were just in there.
They just showed up. That's how unsecure the scene was.
They just walked in there without... Anybody know?
How was there like no one at the door? Like that's the thing.
Well, that would be securing the scene. Right.
I know. I just, I can't even wrap my head around that.
They had no idea how he got in there. Yeah.
So at 2.45 a.m., this is when Detective Butterworth had another look at the body and he recorded more detailed observations.
Mm-hmm. He said she had a slim build, she had spiky black hair and a pale complexion.
Her jeans were blue jeans with a studded leather belt.
They were undone and pulled below her knees, but her underpants and bra were where they should be.
She was wearing a gray t-shirt. She was barefoot.
Her right foot had been almost completely severed.
It was literally hanging on by a couple of tendons.
They also saw that she had a bunch of lacerations on her legs, back, and buttocks.
Oh, God. This is when her body was taken to the Western General Hospital in Footscray and she was officially declared dead at 4.30 a.m. on Friday, December 3rd.
This was nine and a half hours after she was found.
Wow. Yeah. That's when she was taken to the coroner's office in South Melbourne.
Again, without anyone medically attending to her.
Ever. I just don't understand that. Her body lay there for nine and a half hours.
Well, no one checked to see if she was alive, perhaps.
Yeah, I don't know. That's just fucked up.
Any vital function at all. That's blows my brain apart because there's no way that the scene should have immediately been quarantined off as a crime scene.
Right. It should have been an active scene and they should have allowed medical professionals to go in there, check her vitals and declare her.
And do what they're supposed to fucking do.
And then they could have called the coroner immediately to come out and declare her dead at the moment.
Right. That's what a coroner does. That's what a medical examiner does.
And, which we'll get into, at that time, if they had called the medical examiner to come declare her at the scene, one... the medical examiner would have been able to see her in the situation, see her in that scene, which is a totally different thing.
And be able to make more observations to help their report later.
Right. And two, be able to take a more accurate time of death.
Which would help a lot more. Yeah. So at 4.55 a.m. a fingerprint expert, Senior Constable Martin Koslowski arrived.
He tried to get fingerprints from a ton of places on the 12th level.
He tried the door to the rubbish room, the door to the bin that goes actually into the chute itself.
Mm-hmm. And it's like a placard above the chute door.
Mm-hmm. He tried to get from all there.
Downstairs, he tried the door to the actual compactor room. and some pipe that was running through the room.
He said, quote, no fingerprints of any identifiable value were located on any of the items that I examined at the scene.
That doesn't make any sense. And we're going to talk in a little bit. that if she climbed into that chute herself, her fingerprints would have been all the fuck over that.
Literally all over it. Like it was stainless steel, I believe.
Like any of y'all got a stainless steel refrigerator.
And if they didn't, and we'll talk in detail about this, but they did a recreation of this trying to see if you could put yourself in a rubbish.
And your hands would be all over it. All over it.
It doesn't make any sense. Like multiple points of impact.
It's very bizarre. This is when another forensic officer came and they took 148 still photos of the scene, you know, Ant's apartment, around the garbage chute, all that good stuff.
Again, none of these photos showed a shrine.
And I know I'm like harping on this, but that's a very weird thing to lie about.
It sure is. It's just a very weird thing.
Another shady thing. was how we talked about the police completely failed to get the CCTV TV footage from that hard drive, even though they said they needed it right away.
It was also Monday, December 6th, before a new crew was brought into the investigation. to keep processing the scene.
Right. These were Detective Senior Constable Jason Wallace, Detective Sergeant Gerard Clanchy, And the two of them were from Homicide.
But everybody knows, and this is universal, this is not just like America where we have the show The First 48.
The first 48 hours after an unexplained death are the most crucial.
Right. This was what, three days later?
Literally. So 72 hours. They waited until December 6th to even have more people come in to try to...
Look at this scene. That's insane. So they've just lost so much.
It's just crazy. Three days. Well, it's just like simple things that are just like very normal in like a normal investigation that you're like...
Yup. Like that's standard practice. That's just like 101.
And then a lot of investigators. Like I'm a hairdresser and I.
I know this. Well, a lot of retired investigators and homicide detectives that looked at this case were like-
Phoebe's own grandfather. Yeah. They all said afterwards and even people not even related to Phoebe who have no skin in this game at all. are like, yeah, no, like so many things weren't done here and I don't understand it.
So police also didn't take statements from Eric, the hotel manager, until January 10th, 2012.
What? Yup. More than a year after. Okay.
And... It was also months before police took statements from Ant's staff, like his cleaning people, and also people that worked with him. to confirm his movements on December 2nd.
They didn't take statements from these people who could confirm his movements that night. until months after this like one staff member was interviewed four months after the event and two other ones were not talked to and until 11 months later.
What? Yeah. Police didn't have detailed discussions with the manufacturer of the garbage chute either, to figure out if her injuries were, one, consistent with what happens in there.
And two, they didn't even ask, like, can someone, should she even fit in there?
Like, would that have even, they never even asked that question.
Of like, should we maybe make sure she could fit through there?
That she actually fell? Nothing. Well, and it just, it's very...
I mean, this is a horrible thing to say and a horrible thing to picture, but it's just interesting that she was able to get out of there without being totally...
Well, exactly. And actually, that's something later that we'll talk about because the manufacturer of the shoot is...
He's very adamant that he said if this was set to automatic mode.
She wouldn't have. It was going to do a lot more damage.
Like, this doesn't make sense that she came through that unless it was on manual mode and someone let her come out of there.
Yeah. And also pertaining to the blood and broken glass found in the apartment...
They did figure out that the blood was Phoebe's.
Okay. Some of this blood was on the computer, on the computer mouse.
Which is weird. What? They never seized the computer to find out what was on it.
What was she doing? What was she doing? And seeing what she was doing on the computer right before all of this would have helped.
Very telltale. We would have helped piece together maybe even a time of death because we have no idea when she even died.
Right. Because she was missing for a while, so we don't know when this happened.
A little bit, I'm not exactly sure when, after her death.
Her brother Tom cracked into her email. And found that her entire email All the messages had been deleted and wiped clean What?
Yep Yeah. Okay, that in and of itself points to foul play.
Sorry, not sorry. So they had just seized that computer.
They would have been able to see everything.
Maybe there was a ton of evidence on the computer.
I mean, there had to have been. Why else would her entire email have been?
And either way, it's like you just will never know now.
It's just you didn't do it. So it's done.
It's all been wiped. Did they ever find her phone?
Do you know? They did. Yes. And like, did they look through it?
Yeah, I believe they did. I think we'll mention that at some point.
At about 11.15 a.m. on Friday, December 3rd, so directly the morning after this.
Phoebe's family went to the morgue. It was Natalie, Len, Tom, Nikolai, and Jeanette, along with...
Natalie's brother Matt and Len's friend Chili, I believe.
They did attempt several times to see if Ant wanted to come, but his mom said, no, he's resting.
He's too upset. He won't come. so when they got there natalie and len were taken into the room oh my god um And that's when a member of the coroner's staff said to them, they are going to do an autopsy.
Okay. So Len, which this is like to be expected.
Len's a doctor. He's a psychiatrist. So he is a doctor.
He knows what happens during an autopsy, and he said he immediately said, I can't let my daughter go. be carved up like no okay so he immediately was like nope i don't want it because he just wasn't thinking right And they were like, yeah, the police requested it, so you don't have a choice.
This is one of those things where we have to do it.
It just has to happen. And then they also told him, you also need to be the senior next of kin to object.
And they were like, we're her mother and father.
We are the senior next of kin. And they were like, oh, no, no.
Ant already registered as senior next of kin because he was in a de facto relationship with Phoebe.
What? So Natalie was like, excuse me? Because immediately they were like, are you kidding me?
We're her parents. Yeah. And again, they hadn't been in a relationship that long.
No, it had been like 18 months. Yeah. It's not that long.
No, not to be overstepping parent toes. For like, you know, autopsy consent.
Like, that's crazy. So he gave the consent for her to be autopsied?
Well, he did. So now Natalie decided to call him to see if he did agree with the autopsy.
And after they chatted, he said, all I want to know is what happened.
So they were like, okay. So they all agreed.
I think that was Len's initial response was like, I don't want that to happen to my daughter and know what happens next.
Which now, knowing what I know, I would consent.
Yeah. But it would be very difficult to picture. that you know what i mean like to put that in any kind of personal context so i understand is immediately like oh god no that's like what nightmares are made it really is So the next step was obviously the toughest.
They were asked to identify her and they made a positive identification.
Which identifying a body is not like they don't.
It's not like you're all like. clean and perfect and everything no you're looking at it as is I think they pull a sheet up to your chin basically oh my god But that's got to be the worst thing ever.
And especially how she was, you know. So on December 3rd at noon.
Dr. Matthew Lynch of the Victorian Coronial Services Center, he was the medical examiner, began his autopsy.
With him were two forensic photographers and Justin Tippett of the Homicide Squad.
So the doctor noted that he said her jeans were extensively bloodstained.
And he said, quote, The black leather belt with studs is looped through the first and second belt loops at the front on the left.
So it wasn't even looped through all of the loops, which is kind of odd.
She had a pierced upper lip with a stud and she had a belly button ring.
Above her pubis bone was a tattoo with the messages not... I'm probably going to kill this.
Nosce te ipsum, which means know thyself.
And then on the other side it said audacious, fortuna. which means fortune favors the brave.
Okay. So there were also some symbols tattooed on her left arm and some down her spine.
And then she had the wrist one with it. The autopsy was a little over three hours.
He said that her injuries were consistent with a fall down a narrow chute over approximately 30 meters.
He said the injuries to her lower body and legs were obviously way more severe than any of the other ones. and her right foot had been like we said virtually amputated it said just below the joint between the tibia and fibula oh my god It was attached by only a couple of tendons.
All the major arteries that deliver blood to the feet had been severed. including the popliteal artery, which is the lower branch of the femoral artery.
Now, if you ever were to nick your femoral artery, you'd bleed out in a second.
That's the main artery that supplies blood to the lower limbs.
Isn't that like right behind your knee? Uh, no, it's up in your thigh.
I mean, it goes down there, but mainly it begins up there.
I remember hearing that once and then like being nervous to shave my legs.
They would take some force to do that. Okay.
He said that the injuries in that area appeared to be inflicted by blunt force, which makes sense to falling down a chute.
The wounds did have regular edges in some places, but the ends of the tibia and fibula were like jagged.
So basically, if an artery is severed cleanly, just by surgical means... it will retract and those, the ends of that artery will create kind of like, like a, like a plug and, And that will stop the blood from flowing.
It almost like, you know, cauterizes itself almost like it just keeps it from flowing.
But if it's like raggedly severed, then it's just going to keep pumping every time your heart beats.
It's just going to spurt out blood. And that's basically what was happening there.
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So there was a bruise, a subdermal hematoma on the left side of her brain. on the surface of the parietal cortex, which is the upper part of the brain towards the rear.
The doctor speculated that this could have been caused when the brain was removed during the autopsy. and I can say from personal experience because I take out a lot of brains that that definitely could have happened can you say that one more time I take out a lot of brains.
Savage. Who the fuck else can say that? Like, that was so cool.
That is a crazy statement to say. You're gross.
You fucking nasty. It's just true though, I take it.
No, I know. That was like so great and so horrific all at the same time. time all of my weekends are just taken never in my life will I say that no I don't think I thought I mean hopefully not Until I'm a zombie.
That would be a lot. I can say that that...
It does happen. Definitely possible because it's you when you remove a brain.
It's probably hard, right? It is. It's pretty hard.
And I mean, it's a simple process, but it's kind of like hard manual labor.
Because you have to reflect back the scalp, which is easy because you just cut it away from the skull.
And then you use a bone saw, which is very heavy.
Sure. And really intense to cut the skull cap off.
But what you have to remember is parts of your skull have different thicknesses in different spots.
So you have to know what kind of pressure to put down to not just bang right into the brain and cut the brain. because although you can it's not like a huge deal if you do that neuropathologists don't necessarily like when you give them a brain that's been like chopped from your bone saw because that skews their findings.
But it can happen. So if you banged into it with the bonsai, you could cause a subdermal hematoma.
Number one, thank you so much for all of your inside information.
You're welcome. Ew. And number two I wish you all had seen the hand gestures that she made while talking about cutting open your fucking skull and scooping your damn brain out.
Thank you. I'll never sleep again. Continue.
I know. I gave you a whole like puppet show.
You were like, don't, don't. Here, let me explain.
Like, okay. I can't help it. i have a headache from like thinking about my brain being sawed open i mean hopefully you won't feel it oh fuck mortality is real it is real oh yeah Death is coming.
Oh my God. Fuck you. Okay, whatever. I don't like to think about that.
So there was also an area where Phoebe was bleeding on the left side of her head.
I guess two. So those are all just injuries that he noticed.
He said at the end that she died from multiple injuries resulting in significant blood loss.
Mm-hmm. So she bled out. So again. Oh God, that's horrific.
She could have been slightly alive. like a couple transfusions and maybe we could have I don't know you know it's possible somebody had been able to look at her She also had a ton of broken bones, but he did note that there was no evidence of neck trauma or any kind of sexual trauma.
And no diseases were detected. Okay. The tox reports revealed quite a bit.
She had her blood alcohol content was 0.16 grams per 100 milliliters, which is more than three times the legal driving limit.
Oh, wow. It also said that her blood contained the drug Zolpidem, which is known as Stilnox.
That's the sleeping pill that... They end up blaming this whole thing on, by the way, which is crazy.
They and he also wrote, quote, the consumption of ethanol alcohol. in patients taking zolpidem is absolutely contraindicated. due to described side effects, which include complex sleep-related behaviors.
So still Knox has been apparently it's got kind of like a bad breath, an ambient cut.
Not really. It's just got like an ambient rep kind of.
How like people say like they sleep eat or like sleep drive or sleep clean.
Ugh. So it can make you do things when you sleep.
I wish my ass would sleep clean. Which I guess sleep eating is like a big one.
That's horrible. And I wish that I could sleep exercise. yeah i mean can you imagine maybe who knows maybe it's been reported oh my gosh i'll try and be in for that don't do that whatever Because some people walk out the door and get in their car and drive.
Yeah, no. No, thanks. I just want the exercise part.
I'm not saying that happens to everybody who takes Ambien.
I'm not trying to knock Ambien down. Yeah, some people need that shit.
It works for you. That's great. It's just that is reported.
I'm not making this up. So the other drugs in her system were quinine, which is used for treating muscle cramps.
And it also is used to treat malaria. Wow.
Which is interesting, but I'm assuming she took it for muscle cramps.
The antidepressant duloxetine, which is sold as Zimbalta.
And then a coughing, like a cough medicine called dextromethorphan, which can also have some weird side effects on its own. but when you mix it with alcohol it's probably even worse and like ambient yeah exactly So Dr. Lynch's report was reviewed by Professor Stephen Cordner, who's the head of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. on December 9, 2010, and it was sworn as a statement on November 23, 2011, which is almost a year after she died.
Dr. Lynch, he also was trying to figure out the likely time of her death, obviously.
But he couldn't be very specific about it because seven hours had gone between when she was last seen alive, like when she went missing.
Right. And when she was found. Right. So that's a lot of time.
And he hadn't, which is crazy to me, he hadn't attempted to take a rectal temperature. which can help you somewhat determine.
Now, there are actually three different times of death.
There's the physiological time of death, which is when the vital functions have stopped.
There's the legal time of death. That's the time recorded on the death certificate.
And then there's the estimated time of death, and that's the death the medical examiner estimates.
Okay. Now, to find this out, you look at body temperature, liver mortis... rigor mortis, stomach contents, degree of putrefaction, corneal cloudiness, vitreous potassium level, And sometimes insect friends who have come if the scene is outside mostly.
It can happen inside too. They're not friends.
But the most important and the most, you know, recognizable one is body temperature, rigor mortis and lividity.
Those are the ones that are really used mostly.
And they're the most accurate and relied upon.
Body temp is the best one. because a dead body loses 1.5 degrees per hour after death until it reaches equilibrium with the environment.
So like room temperature? Yeah. And then it'll stay where it is.
The formula for hours is hours since death. equals 98.6 minus the corpse's core temperature divided by 1.5.
Just in case any of you want to do that.
You are a psycho. What you want to do is you want to take the body temperature.
I mean, you probably don't want to do this.
I don't want to do it. Medical examiners want to do this.
You want to take it rectally. Or you want to take it by measuring the liver temperature, which that's a more accurate temperature because it's core body temperature.
Right. But what you have to do with this is you have to make a tiny incision in the upper right abdomen, and then you just pass the thermometer into the tissue of the liver to take that. okay it's very quick and easy they do it all the time it seems none of this was done Why?
It makes me nuts. So Phoebe's clothes were also sent to the forensic... police forensic services lab, along with the photos taken at the autopsy by the forensic photographers.
Mm-hmm. Now, what they were trying to do was look at her injuries and look at the damage to her clothes and just make sure it all matched up because...
You never know. Somebody could have dressed her afterwards.
Who knows? Oh my God, I'm so fucked up. Tears on her jeans specifically did seem to suggest that the jeans were being worn as usual when the injuries were inflicted.
Okay. But they were found down at her knees and her ankles.
So... They said there were two long rips in the jeans, and neither of them had gone through the fabric properly.
And they didn't line up with any of her injuries.
Okay. So that's weird. Yeah, like what does that even mean?
It's like... So her pants were, because if you think about it, if her pants were up around where they should be, around her waist, and she went in the chute, They wouldn't ride down if she was going down the chute because she went feet first.
Right, they would ride up because of gravity.
So how the hell did they get down there?
And then there were injuries that didn't line up with a couple of the rips in her jeans.
Right. It's just, again, these are things that can be, I mean, not the riding up.
I don't get how they ended up at her ankles.
And nobody did. Nobody's been able to explain that.
But I can kind of understand if like a couple of the rips didn't line up because maybe she was wearing ripped jeans.
Or like, I don't know if this is stupid, but like maybe she realized that like her...
Her foot was almost severed and maybe she was like going to take her pants off and like use her pants to... i don't i don't know you know what i mean maybe i don't think so but like maybe and like your wildest dreams i don't think you would try to pull your pants over your foot that's hanging by a tendon because you would just rip your foot off.
That's true, but I mean, she was like drunk, so...
Yeah, but she'd also just fallen 12 floors out of a garbage chute.
That's true. So I don't think she was trying to clot anything.
I think she was just trying to get out. Oh my God.
But again, who knows? Yeah, you don't know.
So at this point, this is interesting. Just saying.
Ant put in a claim to receive the death benefit payment for Phoebe.
And he used the whole thing that they were in a de facto relationship, so he was next of kin. mean a de facto relationship?
It just means, like, it's a proven romantic relationship.
Like, they lived together, they had... for a fucking year and a half.
You don't think her parents deserve that money?
Well, and his father, George, the judge, remember?
Mm-hmm. signed a statutory declaration to support this claim.
But the problem here was whether intentionally or unintentionally, I'm not blaming anybody.
George didn't exactly give the correct information on this, especially about the length of Phoebe and Ant's relationship.
He said they were together six months before they even met and had them living together before they even met. on this declaration so that obviously made it look like they had a longer relationship and were living together longer yup There was obvious tension about this.
Is this like life insurance? Yeah, basically.
Like a benefit payment. There was obviously tension with her family about this, but he ended up getting like $113,000.
Wow. And after a lot of, like, I think there was, like, some fighting and stuff, he did end up giving it to her, I think giving it to her brothers.
Yeah. Yeah, he didn't fucking need it. He was working with like celebrities.
But it's just the fact that like he made the point to do that.
I don't know. It's just weird. Like, quote unquote, power moves.
So this is when they start getting into the logistics of like, wait a second, could she have even gone through the chute?
So on December 7th, Neil Bone, who's the managing director of Waste Tech, that's the company that made and installed this whole system.
Mm-hmm. He was brought to the scene and he was brought onto the 12th floor where she apparently went into the garbage chute. with him were the detectives on the case and the medical examiner, Dr. Lynch.
Dr. Lynch said in his report that he said he thought a person of Phoebe's size could fit in that garbage suit.
But he said only obviously if they were able to put their legs in first.
Right. Which is how he said no matter what she went in legs first or her head would have been gone.
Mm hmm. So Neil Bone, the manufacturer, he was like, I don't know.
Like, I don't know. This doesn't make sense to me.
He said, not only does he not really think that she would have like comfortably fit through this like at all.
But he said she wouldn't have been able to survive going through that compactor if it was on automatic.
And he said, obviously, she survived. For a period of time Yeah We all agree on that It's true Like it's obvious So he said when it's on the automatic setting, it chopped the garbage and compressed it into 400 millimeter blocks.
Oh, wow. Before it even allowed it to pass through.
And this was to make sure like consolidate space in all the rubbish bins.
Yeah. He said there's no way Phoebe would have passed through that compactor without getting way worse injuries.
He was like, I know that foot is really bad and there's obviously some bad ones. she would have gotten way more, like, chopped into bits.
He said the only way that he sees what happened happening is if there was somebody else involved here that set it to manual briefly and then set it back Now, the police were like, oh, I don't know.
I don't even know what setting it was on.
And he was like, we don't know what setting it was on.
Now, there were photos from the crime scene that showed what setting it was on.
Okay. But obviously they had. they didn't even pay attention the same day phoebe's parents were still struggling with the idea that they were not senior next of kin which would mean the body would not be released to them.
It was going to be released to Ant. What?
Yeah. Because senior next of kin. Right, right, right.
But they spoke through attorneys with aunt. about this and he agreed oh to have the body released back to them but he said he would not give up his status as senior next of kin Like, cool, go fuck yourself.
So he was literally like allowing them to have their child's body.
Yeah. Now, later that same day, and this is still on December 7th, Ant posted on Facebook, quote, For those of you around the world who don't know the sad news, my partner Phoebe struggled terrible depression.
Much of her life. She took her life on Thursday to ease her pain, to be at peace.
There will be a memorial next week. People were like, it hasn't been officially ruled a suicide.
Right. Why would you say that? Like he immediately was like, she took her life on Thursday.
Like he didn't say like she tragically died.
Yeah. She took her life. Like, hey, everybody, she was depressed.
She struggled. She took her life. It's almost like the whole how like Courtney Cobain did all those things.
Yeah. Excuse me. Courtney Love. She's Courtney Cobain.
Courtney loved it, all those things, to be like, he was so depressed.
All of a sudden. He was so depressed. All of a sudden.
Which, was she struggling? For sure, obviously.
But no one, like the police were treating it as a homicide at this point.
But they were not, it was not ruled a suicide at this point.
Right. writing that on facebook like what so and i don't know like if this happened to somebody that you loved you would I think that you'd be like, no, like something happened.
Well, and you'd also just, I think you would be like, she tragically died on Thursday.
You don't have to tell everybody she struggled with depression and she ended her life.
You don't need to tell everybody that. Especially when you don't fucking know.
So the next day, December 8th, Aunt wrote in a long email to Len and Natalie.
And on it, he CC'd Tom, Nikolai, Jeanette, George, Felicity, which are his parents, and George is his father, Felicity is his stepmother and Sue is his mother.
He said that he was deeply hurt Why? Because they had lodged an application with the coroner to be treated... as the senior next of kin.
And he said, quote, without the courtesy of consulting me.
Like, I would be like, I am her parents.
I am her mother. Like, are you kidding me?
And he said, he said, you know, I'm working with them.
I don't understand this. He said that he told the coroner's office that he had no objection to having them listed as interested persons, quote, so we all receive the same information.
And he said he didn't want to fight over anything.
He didn't want to fight over the body. But he said he would quote, Permit Len and Natalie to organize funeral directors and make arrangements for her cremation.
He said, I will permit them to do that. To make arrangements for their own child.
Am I allowed to say he's a real doucher?
Oh, yeah. Again, I'm not saying he's a murderer or anything.
But he's a douche. He sounds like an asshole.
Um... And he even wrote a letter to the coroner to defend his position as senior next of kin.
And in it, he said, quote, my pain over their conduct, meaning Len and Natalie. is insignificant compared to the pain Phoebe would feel if she knew they had taken this course.
So he's literally seeing to the corner their child, Phoebe, the dead one.
Would be horrified that her parents were trying to take control of her arrangements.
I doubt that because they were the ones she went to when you were like mean to her. how awful are you that you are literally being like your daughter would be horrified by you right now like your dead daughter Like, you're the worst.
Ew, what an asshole. Yeah. Oh, and so he also was really mad because Len and Natalie... in their letter to the coroner, had mentioned that they would like a coroner to be handling the death that didn't have any... association with his parents, Felicity and George, who are both judges and are very influential.
So they had said like they didn't like that this coroner, Dr. Lynch, did have an association with Felicity, his stepmother.
Right. They were like, I don't know. I don't like that she has a special interest.
Well, I feel like that shouldn't even be allowed regardless.
It shouldn't. It really shouldn't. Ant referred to that as a slur.
And he couldn't believe that they would even suggest that there was improper influence.
Like, how dare you? Now, it's just bonkers to me.
Ant also said that he thought that he was doing everything right.
He said... he thought by allowing them to, allowing Phoebe's body to be released to them, that he was demonstrating how, you know, I have a lot of integrity.
I'm doing this correct. I think by doing that, I've demonstrated that.
I'd be like, yeah, thank you so much. Also, go fuck yourself.
He also said, quote, That their actions, them doing this, writing the letter to the coroner and trying to become the senior next of kin as her fucking parents. made him quote, lose all trust in dealing with you and making any further arrangements to commemorate Phoebe's life.
We will be arranging a private memorial.
Jeanette and the boys are, of course, welcome to take part.
And her parents aren't her mother and father?
Not saying it directly, but implying you guys aren't welcome.
You guys are not welcome. And he said he wouldn't talk to them any further.
First of all, what a nightmare to lose your...
First of all, what a nightmare to lose your daughter.
Second of all, in that tragic of a way. And third of all, then to have to deal with this asshole.
And for him to be sitting there being like, yeah, and we're going to have a memorial.
You're not invited, pretty much. You're not directly invited.
That's cool. Ant and Phoebe's relationship was obviously not stable.
From what we have shared with you last week.
I mean, she was in and out of that relationship every five seconds and said he was controlling, which is very clear.
Exactly, and her friends and family said he was controlling, and they were actually very...
They said that she was really worried that he was going to ask her to marry him when they went to Paris, that trip that she was excited about.
She said, I'm actually worried he's going to ask me because I don't want to.
That's awful. They believe she loved him.
But they said she was feeling very controlled and suffocated by him.
Right. And I think she was also feeling like she didn't really belong in his world.
Like... Well, because he made her feel that way.
Well, and he would patronize her and kind of talk down to her and make her feel stupid.
And then she also had to borrow dresses from people to go to these fancy events. and stuff so she just didn't feel like she belonged here and he made her get a whole new job because he said she couldn't be a receptionist exactly because he was like that's not an okay job like that's menial I'd be like, you're menial.
Now, the same day that that nasty email where he was like, I can't believe any of you.
The same day that that came, about six days after Phoebe's death, the detectives that were working the case pulled Lynn and Natalie aside and they said...
After only three days of investigating. No.
Phoebe's death was not suspicious and was a homicide.
Yeah. Excuse me. And was a suicide. Yeah.
Not suspicious at all. No, not at all. Going down a garbage chute from the 12th floor.
Not suspicious. Total typical. People do that all the time.
Yeah, every day. Phoebe's grandmother made the point that none of that makes sense.
And she said Phoebe one would not have committed suicide at all.
She just didn't believe that. And she said definitely not around so many happy family events like we were mentioning earlier.
Phoebe's grandfather, Lorne, who we're going to talk to a lot.
His 70th birthday was coming up. Her brother Nikolai's big party was coming up in the next day. for his 18th birthday party that she was really excited to decorate and set up for.
And then also she was going to be celebrating her dad's birthday with him at dinner that night.
And I think she had like a best friend's birthday.
She did. Yeah. So she had all these birthdays and happy events coming up and she loved that shit.
And they were like, she wouldn't have done that.
She wouldn't have made these all dark moments for us now.
Now this is when her grandfather, Lorne, the old homicide detective, could not take this.
He was like, I'm not taking this conclusion that she, it's not suspicious.
That's just not what happened. happened yeah so he made an appointment with sergeant clanchy who had taken over the case at the Homicide Department on Friday, December 10th.
So this is only a few days later. Before the meeting, he compiled a long list of things that he thought that the police should have done but hadn't.
In that, he said the thing about the CCTV footage that they didn't take.
He said they didn't interview the building manager about the security systems or ask... anything about him watching anything that day, any weird movements that day.
They didn't seize the computer. They didn't seem to find it weird that even though she was a compulsive writer and wrote all the time that she didn't write a suicide note.
And they didn't even look to see if one was on the computer.
They hadn't interviewed Ant's staff to verify his movements on the day she disappeared. for months and he was like that is literally like one of the first things you should do Because she died under strange circumstances, regardless of what actually happened here.
And the broken glass? And on the doorframe.
And he said they immediately had said, oh, well, we we figured out that Phoebe dropped a glass and she probably just cut herself.
No. But they were like, well, no, she could have dropped a glass in like a fight.
Yeah. Or she could have thrown it. She could have done it.
Anything could have happened. And why didn't you find the rest of the glass?
Exactly. And also, and he said most important of all...
They didn't even confirm that it was possible to commit suicide by going down the garbage chute.
Like they were like, you didn't even check if that was like a possibility.
Like could she fit down there? Yeah. And he also brought up Phoebe's iPhone.
He said if aunt had taken the iPhone to be repaired on Wednesday morning when he left for work, like he said.
Right. Then Phoebe couldn't have sent that weird tomato soup text message that she sent that was like bizarre to everyone.
Super weird. Because that was in the morning at 10.32.
And he said the phone was working at 6.25 p.m. the previous day.
Because Ant had used it to message Bren Hession looking for Phoebe.
Mm-hmm. So the detective said, yeah, like, we know all this.
We're satisfied with the investigation. I'd be like, cool, I'm not.
And he was like, so now that that seems weird to you that you didn't do any of that?
I think there was probably like 10 different things.
And they were like, yeah, no, it was a suicide.
And he even pressed more being like, you didn't even interview any of Ant's friends or family or coworkers from the day it happened?
And they were like, yeah, no. That's it.
Done. Can you sue a police department? Well, and smaller details bothered Lauren, too.
Like he said, those Prada sunglasses that were found next to her bought the lens.
Why would she just be wearing those? Why would she bring her sunglasses with her while intending to kill herself?
And again, she had packed her phone charger in her bag.
And they found her straightening irons were plugged in and on the floor like she was getting ready to go out.
Right. no one on the investigative team even acknowledged any of that.
Like they weren't like, Oh, this is strange that it seems like she was getting ready to go somewhere.
Her keys are here. with her bag her phone charger's in her bag the straighteners are out like she was getting ready right Like, what?
It just doesn't make any sense. And then also they were like, isn't it weird that someone would kill themselves in a garbage chute?
Like, when is another instance of that? And they couldn't find it. another instance of that.
No, that's just never happened. Now, Jeanette, her grandmother, remembered also that aunt's parents were kind of weird after her death when the two families got together.
His father, George, kept saying to Len that Phoebe was a troubled girl, obviously.
And at one point he said, quote, well, of course it was suicide.
I'd be like, oh, you want to tell me about my daughter's death?
Cool. and she was like what and she said Len said he wouldn't even look at him but at least three or four times that night said quote she was depressed and it was a tragic suicide Like, you don't know my kid.
And this was supposed to be a night where the two families got together just to kind of like grieve together and like comfort each other.
And the father was literally sitting there being like, well, of course it was suicide.
That's what it was. It was tragic suicide.
And Len even says, I think on, again, the podcast Phoebe's Fall, which everyone should go listen to, too, because they did.
They talked to all these people. And they did. great job they did an amazing job and they actually have len and he was saying like you know he's like i wanted to say like who the fuck are you to diagnose someone like he's a psychiatrist interests right like are you kidding me and then he said felicity george's wife his um aunt's mother uh stepmother She was just going along with all of it, being like, yeah, it was a tragic suicide, totally.
Like, that's it. And Phoebe's parents had gone into this whole night thinking they were all just going to be like... hugging each other and like talking about and like maybe like telling some stories and like yeah and he's like and then it turned into this weird thing where they're like trying to convince us right that she was you know like it was very weird now his parents weren't the only ones that were acting weird Detective Justin O'Brien later said that Ant was really weird when he first talked to him after this whole thing.
Mm-hmm. He said that he observed no tears, mucus, or red eyes during the time he'd been around Ant.
So he was like, he's talking about how he's crying and being upset, but like...
I haven't seen anything about that. And they were in the middle of taking his statement, the police statement, And Ant was like, do you want me to type that out?
Because he was like, you're writing really slow.
Do you want me to type my statement out?
What? Like he offered to type out his own statements.
Because he was like, it'll be faster. And he ended up typing out his own statement.
That's strange. Now Vanessa Levin is one of Ant's oldest friends.
She said that she was with him a lot following Phoebe's death and she said, That and this was brought up at the inquest later, which we're going to mention.
She said that he would, quote, access his Facebook and act normally.
But then when visitors came, especially the handjucks, he would quote get very upset he she said you would cry and curl yourself up on the couch And she said that these emotions seemed like they were being controlled based on who was around.
Okay. And when Ant was asked about this at the inquest, he was like, no, that's ridiculous.
How dare you say how I grieved but she was like, I'm just saying I was was with you a lot and you weren't upset and you'd be sitting there like scrolling through Facebook and then the hand jacks would come and you'd be curled up on the couch crying.
Yeah, convenient. Weird. And again... As we've seen in a lot of these cases, you can't judge people for how they grieve, obviously, because everybody does.
That is a little weird. I'm just saying.
Now, this is when her grandfather and her mother were like, okay, we're going to take matters into our own hands.
So remember, aunt didn't allow the parents at his memorial service.
I feel like that's fine. I don't want to go to your dumb ass memorial service.
His was on December 12th and her old friends that went to the service. said what the ones that did go said that it didn't seem to be about her it seemed to be about how he wanted her to be And they said like even the pictures that he had up of her, they were like, I didn't even recognize her.
Like it just wasn't her. It wasn't Phoebe.
And they said they ended up leaving feeling like sick.
Like they didn't. It just did not. That's awful.
And some of her friends like Bren were not even invited to come.
And obviously she was like very close with him.
And Len and Natalie's memorial service was on December 16th. and this service everybody said was much more Phoebe and friends said this was like a very compassionate and loving ceremony where everybody was just Trying to love each other and, you know, help each other.
The day after their service, Phoebe was cremated at Springvale Crematorium.
Her ashes were brought to Malakuta because that's the place she loved the most because that's where her grandmother lived to a lake she loved.
Len, her father, his father is actually Norwegian and taught him how to bend wood to create a Viking boat.
Oh, wow. That's cool. Yeah. And to do a like crazy, awesome send off for Phoebe.
So they said about 40 people gathered on the beach.
Her ashes were put in the boat along with letters from friends and family that they wrote to her.
Oh, I can feel my heart. I know, right? It was covered in marigolds and they lit the boat on fire and pushed it out and just watched it burn in the lake.
Wow. Like a Viking funeral. I really like, you know, that lump in your throat when you're going to cry.
Here I am. Isn't that crazy? I just love that.
I also feel like she would have loved that because she was like so creative.
And she was like a free spirit. I feel like very like attached. to this like i just feel i know i feel like you and phoebe had like some soul sister stuff going on yeah Some of it.
I just mean your free spirit. The very free spirit did this.
So December 22nd, Natalie actually met with Ant at a coffee shop near his apartment. they because she wanted to like she was like i just want to like talk about her final moments like you know i mean like you were with her like yeah So they talked about it and she said they actually had like a nice conversation.
She felt not an aunt. Yeah, and they talked about the last days and everything.
She felt like they had a good conversation. he gave her a box of Phoebe's belongings because she had requested them.
And he said he only kept the things that they jointly owned.
Mm-hmm. So she felt good about the meeting, but then she got home and opened the box.
Oh. There were some things missing that she was like, um, excuse me?
Such as? Her passport. her Medicare card, her laptop, her camera, her birth certificate, and her recent journals, which she wrote in every single day.
So what did he give her exactly? And I don't exactly know, but apparently Phoebe carried her current journal with her literally everywhere.
So the fact that that wasn't in there, she was like, yeah, that's weird.
Yeah. And she was like, all these other things are like things I should have.
Like her birth certificate. Like how I was there that day.
Like I was pretty important in that. Now, she contacted Anne about this, and she said that the laptop and wallet were returned.
But the wallet was almost empty. There was no license or credit cards.
There was like membership cards and a passport photo of Ant.
And there was no sign of Phoebe's passport or any other official ID documents.
He didn't know where they were? No. And her journals were missing.
Yeah. You just misplaced. I'm sure she had like tons and tons of journals and you just misplaced them.
Yeah, exactly. On January 24th, police brought in again just to talk to him again about the day.
This was at Lauren's request. Because Lauren, her grandfather, is doing the damn thing.
His story did change a bit. because now he said he wasn't sure if he had taken Phoebe's iPhone to get repaired on that day, he originally said, or if he did it the next day.
Oh, he also wasn't sure why there was no record on his key fob of him coming in the middle of the day like he claimed to check on her.
Yeah, that's just like super weird. Yeah, and he kept just claiming, I did come in.
I did come in. I checked on her. I don't know why it wouldn't be on there.
You didn't, though. Now, Phoebe's grandfather decided to do a test with the detectives to see if someone Phoebe's size could put herself in the garbage chute.
They even had one of Phoebe's friends, Sarah, who was about her size, attached to a safety harness to really like get them to actually do this.
That's wild that she was able to do that because if that was my best friend, I'd be like, nope, I can't.
And there's a video on the Phoebe's Fall website, I believe, of this.
And she's like really nervous. She's like, do you have me?
Do you have me? Not even that, but it's like also that's just like, yeah, exactly.
That's like very emotional. Yeah. On January 29th, 28th is when they did this on the 12th floor.
So you have to pull down this really heavy spring-loaded door with one hand, and then you drop the garbage in with the other.
That's how this thing works. yeah it has a built-in mechanism that ensures it closes really quickly and that's to stop big things like people from getting into the garbage almost like a mailbox like how you would open a mailbox put a letter in and then it checks exactly but this thing but it was huge is spring loaded too so you pull this down and it doesn't just like whoop go back up it literally slams back shut like you have to hold it open to put anything in it Now, the chute door is 67 centimeters off the ground at the bottom hinge.
And so it has a stainless steel door that opens at the flap with supporting side panels.
And again, heavily spring loaded. Mm hmm.
So around it is a smooth steel frame that's like coming out about a centimeter, I believe, off the wall.
Not anything like a centimeter. So you can't hold on to it.
Right. Like it's nothing that you could actually grip on to.
There's nothing else in that room that you could hold on to to get into that chute door.
You just have to hold on to the chute door.
Yeah. So Sarah had long legs like Phoebe, so she could get one foot into the door, but the problem was the other leg.
The other leg took forever to get up and actually took a ton of work to get in there.
Mm-hmm. When she did get both legs into the door, the door snapped shut and slammed into her back and pressed her against the wall, kind of like squeezing her.
Like immediately spring-loaded back at her.
Her other friend that was there recording the whole thing.
Mm-hmm. Then swapped places with her and tried it and had the exact same kind of issues.
And also you would think that that would have created some kind of bruising.
Exactly. Like that door might have left a heart.
Like slamming you? You would think it would leave at least something.
And it's just like, that's a lot of work.
Lauren also said that both of the girls literally put their hands all over the hatch and the surrounding plane.
But none of Phoebe's fingerprints were found anywhere on these.
Right. And he said they literally put them everywhere.
And if you look at the video, they are everywhere.
Yeah. He also said Phoebe wasn't sober at the time that she apparently did this.
And two sober girls couldn't even barely manage to do it.
How could this drunk one? Right. She was like basically incapacitated.
Yeah. And the police, after all this, the police were like, yeah, it looks like it's hard, but it's possible.
Like, no, it's not, though. No, where are the fucking fingerprints?
That's not possible. So Lorne then went to see Neil Bone, the manufacturer, and...
When he talked to Neil Bone, Neil Bone said that the police had come to talk to him...
But he was very upset that no one had given him a chance to show that the machine wouldn't have done what they're saying they would have done.
Cause now it's making him look bad. Like somebody can just climb into the chute.
Yeah. And he was like, I'm really pissed.
So Lauren was like, I want to give you the opportunity to like clear this up here.
And he said, would you be willing to create a replica of the chute?
Wow. So we can attach it to... The same kind of material, the same kind of shoot, lead it down to a soft mattress so we can really do the entire thing because obviously we're not going to send people down the actual shoot.
Right, right, right. But he was like, can you make an exact replica of this?
And he was like, hell yeah, I can. On February 18th, Lorne went to this place that Neil Bone had set up this replica shoot with Natalie, Russell, Jeanette.
Viv and Sarah were the two friends that were the people they were using as Phoebe's stand-in.
Sarah went into the shoot first. Again, she managed to get into the shoot. with difficulty like before, but her shoulders were too wide to eat, to go to like slide down.
Yeah. So Viv had to go. When she was trying to get herself into the chute, she sat on the edge of the door... and that made the sides buckle inwards so that the bolts in the side popped out.
Okay. Which they were like, that's weird.
Maybe that's a possibility that would have happened and it didn't.
This made the flap tilt backwards and that left her holding the frame by her fingertips.
So they were like, this all could have, again, they are sober.
Right. And this is what's happening. They're having this much trouble.
She's like holding on by her fingertips.
Like, barely in this thing, having to, like, shove herself in there.
And it's, like, breaking. She slid into it with one arm extended up behind her to stop the spring from closing the door on her arms before she got through because that's the other thing.
You can't put your arms down because it's going to be too wide.
You had to put your alarms above your head.
Right. And if you did that, the door was going to shut on your hand.
Like, slam shut on your hand. So she was having to, like, hold the door.
All very bonkers. And she said as she moved into the shaft, the weight distribution changed and the door started closing before she was through.
So it would have slammed on her hand. Right.
Causing issues on her hand. So when she finally got through this all, she flew down the shaft onto the mattress, but her hands had to go above her head.
That's what they noticed. There was no way that it could have happened the other way.
Neil Bone said that if Phoebe had gone down the same way, again, her hands would have been injured by that spring door that closed on them before she fell.
There's no way they wouldn't. It just had to happen.
Because that thing slammed shut. There's no way her hands wouldn't have been hurt.
Even a little. And Lauren also wanted to see if it was possible for another person to put someone into the shoot.
If that was what happened. Yeah. So he had Viv kind of pretend to be unconscious, and he had Russell pick her up, put her over his shoulder... with her head dangling down his back, and then he put her into the chute feet first.
Russell had a free hand to hold the flap open and they said that was very easy to open the door with his free hand and then throw her in. it definitely would have been beyond phoebe's capacity because they had trouble doing it right that just didn't make sense And even if somebody had thrown her down the chute, it doesn't make sense that it didn't chop her up.
Yeah. Well, that's well, that's Neil Bone was very adamant.
It had to have been switched to manual for that to not happen.
So he was like somebody else was involved here.
Right. Somebody had to have been. So this was all getting much more frustrating for everybody because they're starting to see like, come on, this wasn't a thing.
Yeah. So soon after this, a witness came forward who had been to the elevator that day that Phoebe went missing.
And they said shortly before 4 p.m. In there, she said, was a male stranger, stocky, with dark brown hair.
He was wearing a light-colored top and dark pants, and he was carrying an object about 20 centimeters long and 10 centimeters wide.
He got into the elevator. He pressed 12 without a key fob.
And this witness said he must have been buzzed up by someone on level 12.
Uh-huh. So this witness later told Eric, the building manager... uh about this whole thing but he said when he told when he had told homicide they were just kind of like eh whatever What?
Are you kidding me? So it was only later on that police released a photo taken from... they could recover tiny bits of the CCTV footage.
So they did release a photo taken from this.
And it was to identify a stocky man in a light blue T-shirt who'd shown up on the footage.
So they thought maybe she had buzzed him up.
Who is this person? Right. Could he be involved here?
They interviewed all the apartments on level 12 and none of them had buzzed anybody up that day.
Okay. So if he had buzzed him up, if Phoebe had buzzed him up while she was still alive, they never went to look what happened after that.
Like, that was it. Like, that was the end of that guy.
As far as I went. They were literally like, who is this guy?
No one can tell? No one buzzed this guy up?
Huh, okay. She must have done it. And it's like, that doesn't mean anything.
Who's this guy? What if he was like, I mean, what if he was a drug dealer?
What if he was somebody she was getting, you know what I mean?
Like, you don't know. Who the hell is this dude?
Like, we don't know. And nobody went to tell.
And... Even weirder, in the weeks after the death, this guy who worked with Aunt Christo...
He worked at his company. His name was Christo.
Christo, yeah. He kept visiting Beth, the concierge who found Phoebe.
Because Beth had taken a couple weeks off after that whole thing happened.
Yeah, because it's fucking traumatic. When she came back to work, he said he would show up with flowers for her.
When he kept visiting her. When he kept visiting her.
He kept saying to her... Yeah, like, Phoebe was really depressed and anted everything he could for her and, like...
She said, oh, and he kept saying, like, Phoebe couldn't be saved.
She didn't want to be saved. And she said for two weeks he came every other day to visit her.
What a fucking weirdo. And she said she felt like he was trying to convince her.
Yeah, like literally trying to be like, remember, she was depressed and did everything he could for her.
I'd be like, yeah, I already took a few weeks off to try and move on from this.
Maybe you could fuck off, Christo. Please and thank you.
So obviously the family wanted more investigation into this after this.
So the Victorian Coroner's Act of 2008 sets out the criteria that make it necessary to report a death in Victoria to the coroner.
The first thing is that it has to appear to be to have been unexpected, unnatural or violent or have resulted directly or indirectly. from an accident or injury.
So once the death is reported, the coroner basically has to come up with the cause.
And if everybody agrees with the medical examiner's assertion of cause of death and everything involved in it, then there's no inquest that needs to be held.
There's nothing that needs to be done after that.
Right. So the other side of that is an inquest has to be held if the coroner suspects that the death resulted from a criminal act like homicide.
Mm hmm. And then there's also this area of discretion where the coroner can decide whether or not a hearing is required.
And if so, whether it is going to be an open inquest.
The coroner can rule that a hearing can be done, quote, on the papers. which means the determination is just based on written reports from police, medical staff, and anyone else that was involved.
Basically hearing oral evidence. An open inquest is a public investigation which witnesses are cross-examined and they have to answer questions. about the whole thing yeah that's an open inquest that's what the family wanted so now the task was to get the coroner to agree to an open inquest This is when everybody can ask everything.
Witnesses can come up and ask the coroner things.
The coroner can ask witnesses things. It's just basically to get more information about what happened.
Phoebe's parents obviously didn't know a ton about the legal system because everyday people usually don't.
And they were told that it would be like $60,000 for a good legal counsel.
And Ant's parents were both judges, and they were having trouble finding literally anyone who had not interacted with them in law enforcement to be impartial in this.
Oh, God. So they were already at a disadvantage.
So before an inquest can take place, police have to prepare a brief for the coroner.
And the officer that they chose to do this for this case was Detective Senior Constable Brendan Payne.
He did a ton of shit for this case. On March 10th, 2011, he went back to the Balenciaga departments and he executed a warrant to take possession of Ant's computer.
Phoebe's own computer showed no record of activity since October, two months before she died.
But there was one item of interest that showed up on Ant's computer.
It was a coroner's office form 25. That's the form for the release of a body, which was shown as being downloaded from the website on October 19, 2010. months before Phoebe died.
What was the form about releasing a body?
A coroner's office form 25, which is the form for the release of a body.
Okay. Okay. Just saying. That's strange.
You don't just go looking that up. So he was like, that's weird.
But devil's advocate, maybe the time stamp was off or something, but he said that's odd, but okay.
Yeah. So Detective Payne poured over everything and was definitely starting to believe that it might not have been a suicide.
It wasn't. And it actually came to light during all this that a mysterious phone number had been found in Phoebe's jeans when she died.
They just figured that out? It took seven months for this to be brought up.
The number was under the name Tina Smith, and when they further investigated, the name was fake and the address didn't exist.
Like the phone number didn't exist? It was just a weird, like a scrap piece of paper with Tina Smith phone number.
Nothing. That's really super creepy and bizarre.
Payne even talked to the repairman about the iPhone.
Yeah. And the repairman said he had no paperwork to show when the phone was brought in and did not have a receipt.
Payne and some of his investigators analyzed the phone records from Phoebe's two phones, Ant's phone and the apartment landline.
They couldn't check Phoebe's emails or text messages because all of them were erased.
Yeah, that's not normal. Yeah. I mean, they looked into the swipe records, like the key fob records.
And Payne also talked to the medical examiner, Dr. Lynch, and he asked about weird bruises on Phoebe that were not mentioned in his original report.
What? Payne himself was looking at pictures and was like, what are these?
Are you kidding me? And he was like, yeah, he didn't mention them in his original part.
And he said it was just some blunt force trauma that he couldn't pinpoint.
Oh, just some casual blunt force trauma.
Casual blunt force trauma. So he asked Payne to make another report.
He was like, you need to make another report.
Payne also asked a forensic physician, Dr. Morris O'Dell. about his opinion about whether still knocks mixed with alcohol could have had anything to do with this.
And he asked him for his report too, for the inquest.
Right. So finally, after a ton of work, Natalie, her mother, found somebody to represent the family in this whole thing.
It was Simon Moglia. He obviously needed to be paid.
So Phoebe's friends put together a benefit in Malacuta and raised like $16,000.
Holy shit. Tom also put up a fundraising site and her friends Alice put together a benefit concert. which is at this huge venue, and it raised $5,000.
So they were able to fund this whole thing.
Mm-hmm. The hearing was December 5th, 2012.
Ant was represented by Elizabeth Breimer, who was...
Also, who happened to have a very close working relationship with George Hample.
Oh, okay. She said... She originally said that she would agree to an inquest. but then said it wasn't necessary because there was no basis to determine anything other than suicide.
Oh, okay, Elizabeth. Yeah. They ended up... It ended up being really frustrating because they all had all this stuff to present to the coroner.
And then the coroner was like... Yeah, instead of hearing oral submissions of all this, why don't we just... Why don't we have you all just like... prepare written submissions and just give it to me that way so they got all this stuff together and then he was like yeah just write it down and give it to me So this is when they're trying to decide when an inquest date is going to be set?
Yeah. So while they're waiting for this decision...
Lauren was going crazy, sending letters around Valencia, asking residents if they saw anything weird that day.
Like he was doing the job. His own fucking.
Yeah. He also talked to Channel 7, who broadcasted videos of Lauren's experiments with the girls in the rubbish chutes.
Yep. And on March 26, 2013, the coroner's senior in-house solicitor wrote to say that the coroner had reached a decision. he was going to hold an open inquest into Phoebe's death.
So the hearing was scheduled for May 1st, 2013.
Okay. And then the inquest was going to follow in August.
So after three weeks of inquest, like of witnesses talking and all that good stuff, they adjourned for October.
So witnesses were like, they also, witnesses included a police telephone analyst and a police computer analyst.
The telephone analyst said the software program used by the police when Phoebe died was not able to read her iPhone SIM card properly.
So he said what the program they had now would be able to, but he said the...
Phone, handset, and SIM card were handed by the police to Anthony Hample a few days after her death.
Anthony Hamble said the handset is now in the possession of one of his work colleagues and he claims he cannot locate the SIM card.
Oh, casual. Yeah. That's such a bummer that you just, like, can't find it.
Yeah. And that you gave it to your friend, you fucking weirdo.
Now, October 9th, the coroner declared the inquest closed.
Coroner White, who is the one presiding over this, didn't give any of his findings until Wednesday, December 10th, 2014.
One year later. So they had to sit there and just wait for this.
So what did he find? He concluded that Phoebe's death was an accident.
No. it wasn't he said that under the influence of still knocks and alcohol she climbed into the 12th floor garbage chute while deeply confused and disoriented, no idea about the danger to her life.
And when she sustained the injuries to her foot from the fall, she later died because of blood loss.
Blood loss. So these findings ruled out suicide or the possibility of a third party involvement.
So he's saying she did it herself, but it was an accident.
Okay. So they concentrated a lot on the still knocks.
Also, it took you a fucking year to come up with that.
Exactly. Douche. And like we said, that it's like the ambient kind of thing where you can sleep, eat and sleep drive and all that.
But they they say you don't usually do things that you don't normally do. like you sleep drive you sleep eat you sleep you know so i definitely wouldn't sleep exercise exactly So even the doctors at the inquest said the mixture of that and alcohol wouldn't make it possible to do what they were suggesting she did.
Right. And Lorne laid out why none of this made any sense.
He said the finding that she climbed into the chute herself and that she...
Because what they had claimed was that she climbed on herself and that she didn't free fall because they said she must have tried to hold herself against the sides of the chute. like controlling the fall a bit.
And Lorde said, no, that can't happen. He said, this is literally...
You couldn't get your arms down to do that.
Her arms would have had to be above, yeah.
And also her clothes and her arms were not dirty and the inside of the shaft was filthy.
Yeah, it was fucking trash. So they were like, that doesn't make sense.
If she had put her hands against that, she would have had tons of dirt on her hands.
And Dr. Lynch, the original pathologist even agreed that this wasn't the likely scenario.
No, it just doesn't make any sense. Yeah.
And also he brought up the head injuries.
She had the one centimeter abrasion and the bruising on the right side of her jawbone.
And what the pathologist said was a subdural hemorrhage present over the left parietal cortex, the upper left side of the brain.
They said this injury is capable of causing unconsciousness, and the pathologist made no comment how that could have happened.
And that was the one that he said, oh, it could have been an artifact of brain removal.
Like when they did it during the autopsy.
But his report put a question mark in front of the comment.
But the coroner said it in an affirmative statement that it was caused during the injury.
Nope. So they were like, no, that's not what the evidence says.
The evidence is him saying, I don't know.
It could have been caused by that. Exactly.
There was also a one centimeter abrasion on the outside of her head above her left ear, and it looked like it was consistent with striking something.
Like someone hit her in the head. And there can also...
These can also be said about the, quote, circular and ovoid bruises on her right medial upper arm, which looked like grip marks. and also bruising to her left wrist and her neck.
Dr. Lynch, the pathologist, in the autopsy report said, quote, I am not in a position to exclude the possibility of involvement of other parties.
So he's literally saying, I can't say that other people weren't involved here.
Right. There was also another pathologist who agreed that those marks resembled finger grips, like someone was holding her arm.
Holding her. And this is something the pathologist literally ignored in the original exam.
Now, Detective Payne had asked Ant to make a secondary statement for the inquest, and he came to the station with his dad, the judge.
Oh. Payne had tried to get a private statement from him, but George wouldn't allow it.
The witness who was in the elevator with a dude that was buzzed up to the 12th floor was never brought up.
Detective Senior Constable Howells, one of the police at the scene, said there was a trail of dirt marks apparently left by footwear. of either a tall person or someone running along the 12th floor hallway they were never photographed sampled measured or examined at all further What?
Yeah. The coroner just assumed and said that she was drinking out of the glass and it was broken by accident.
No suggestion that the glass could have fallen, been thrown, anything.
He also said that she must have put the glass pieces in a bag and that's how she cut her hand. but there was no glasses found in any of the bags or waistbands.
Right. There were also two glasses in the apartment.
One was broken and one was on the counter.
Neither were fingerprinted to find out who that was.
That's good. And so Miss Deborah Siemensma, who was the counsel assisting the coroner during this whole thing.
She produced for the coroner a closing submission comprising 68 pages.
Whoa. It had a detailed analysis of the evidence and a clear... like thought process throughout.
She said her overriding advice was that coroner white on the evidence before him could only return an open and finding.
Which would mean at the end of the inquest, instead of him saying this was an accident, there's no way that this was suicide or homicide.
Right. That an open finding would say, we're still not sure.
And if further evidence is brought to us, we will still investigate this.
Right. She specifically advised him against making a finding of suicide, a finding of misadventure, a finding of death caused by borderline personality disorder. a finding which determined that a third party was involved or not involved, a finding which specifically exonerated Anthony Hample from complicity.
And they said it's very rare for a coroner to completely ignore his counsel's recommendation.
Phoebe's friends and family believe she was about to go out that night because of the sunglasses, the phone chargers, hair straighteners.
So they wanted an appeal. But a top law firm initially agreed.
They said, we'll do this for you pro bono because these findings are crazy.
It needs to be an open inquest. But they didn't recommend that they do it because they said if the appeal was lost, they would be charged hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Oh. Yeah. So at the time in Victoria, coronal findings were near impossible to appeal for families.
This meant that even if many people found issue with Coroner White's findings and conclusions...
There was really no way to appeal it because after he closed the inquest, that was it.
In Victoria, you would have to find a, quote, perverse error in law to open it again.
And that's really difficult. Yeah. So a huge call was put out to amend the Coroner's Act and to make it easier for appeal.
And in December 2016, the Victorian government announced that due to a public outcry about the case, there would be a review of the current Coroner's Act.
And Attorney General Martin Pakula... said that they would basically be seeing if that change is made in the 2008 law. that limited appeals were too strict, which obviously they are.
They clearly are. If they changed this, it would also add special units in the coroner's court to help grieving families to better understand. thus better participate in this process in the future.
Everything I looked for... I couldn't find any updates to whether this has happened or not.
I'm sure it's probably going through a lot of processes.
But either way, this is where it remains.
The inquest was closed. It was determined that it was an accidental death.
It wasn't, though. Sorry, I just don't believe that.
In my opinion, some foul play happened here.
Somebody else. You don't accidentally fall down a garbage chute.
No. And you don't kill yourself by jumping down a garbage chute.
Because it's literally never happened. No.
And it just, none of it makes sense. So that's my... thoughts on the whole thing is that someone else is involved.
A hundred percent. And some weird fucked up, like, I don't know how you would even go about planning this.
Like, I don't know if something happened.
I mean, it seems like something happened in that apartment.
Somebody else was there. And then they put her in the garbage chute.
But the only thing is that somebody would have had to have been... in the garbage chute waiting to turn it to manual or yeah that's the that's the part that really that's the other thing yeah So it's almost like two murderers had to be involved.
Exactly. It's all so bizarre. This is the most bizarre case.
It truly is. And that's why this is so long guys.
Wow. So that's Phoebe Hanschuk. That's where we are now, guys.
Thank you for listening. And if you are more still interested, definitely go listen to Phoebe's Fall because they have like. interviews with these people, Natalie, Lynn, Yeah, that podcast is so interesting.
Yeah, they have firsthand accounts of all this.
And they dive way deep. You thought this was a deep dive girl.
Yeah, they did an amazing job. They really did.
So we just want to quickly thank a couple of few patrons.
All right. So thank you to number one, Don Mills.
Don Mills thank you so much you are always chit chatting with us on Twitter and you are the nicest person And I just love you, Dawn.
Thank you so much. Love you a whole bunch.
Thanks, Dawn. Next is Melancholia Adams.
Melancholia Adams. That is the greatest name I've ever heard in my life.
A plus. Thank you so much for existing.
We love you, girl. We love you. Next is Brenda Kathleen.
Brenda Kathleen. I love your name because Kathleen is my mom's name.
Yeah, it is. And I love it. So thank you so much, Brenda.
Thanks, Brenda. And then we have Avant Garde Mutt.
Avant Garde Mutt. What do I even say to that?
That's amazing. You say, girl. Girl. Or boy.
Or boy. But, like, I just say, like, girl to, like, any.
I say that to boys, too. Yeah, I know. I do, too.
I say it to John all the time. Thank you, avant-garde mutt.
Thank you, avant-garde mutt. And then we have Chantel Fitzsimmons.
Chantel Fitzsimmons. The last name Fitzsimmons is just so fun to look at.
It is fun to look at. Like Fitzsimmons. Thank you, Chantel.
Thank you. I'll also like your first name.
Then we have a Madonna. Ooh. Cindy. Cindy.
So hot right now. Is it Cindy Lauper, you think?
It is. Thank you so much, Cindy Lauper. Thank you.
Thank you, Cindy. Then we have Corey, another Madonna.
Corey, so hot right now. Corey with a C. I love you, Corey.
And an I at the end. Corey with a C is the usual way to spell it, I think.
Yeah, but you can use a K. But with an I at the end.
Yeah, an I at the end is different. I like that.
Thanks, Corey. And then we have Goulin Rouge.
Goulin Rouge. Goulin Rouge. Oh my damn.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you.
Goulan Rouge. Because Moulin Rouge is a great movie.
Zimaharasha. Zimaharasha. That's me and Alina's favorite thing to say from Goulan Rouge.
So Goulan Rouge, thank you for bringing that back. yes thank you thank you to all our patrons we're going to thank some more of you next week if you haven't heard your shout out yet Stay tuned because we're going to say your name at some point in an episode someday.
It's coming. we are marking them all off we're going down the list and you will hear it the future is bright I promise In the meantime, while you're waiting for us to call your name out, you can follow us on Instagram at Morbid Podcast.
Find us on Twitter. A Morbid Podcast. Send us an email. morbidpodcast.gmail.com Join the Facebook group.
I think we have moderators now. We do and they're great. morbid comma nope morbid semi-colon nope morbid colon a true crime podcast are you sure this time And then, where even were we?
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email. You can also check out our website at morbidpodcast.com.
We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.
I'm not going to do it for this again. No way.
It's too much, man. Too much. Too much. So, bye.
Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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