Into the Darkness

by Robin Bowles

  Upstairs in the Level 12 refuse room, he observed several drops of blood on the concrete floor. He took samples of these and made his way to 1201, Ant’s apartment.

  The apartment was empty, awaiting further investigations by Crime Scene Unit (CSU) officers. With typical police understatement, Carrick described the apartment as ‘a two bedroom plus study residential apartment with an outdoor balcony’. But the apartment was far from understated. It was sumptuously furnished with glistening, expensive fittings, ultra-modern and very chic.

  It wasn’t a great space for a big dog, though. Yoshi’s displeasure was evident on the floor, where Carrick noticed a ripped-up cushion — probably at least a $100 diversion for the dog that afternoon. A police report later noted that the dog had ‘behaviour problems’, and Ant also said later that the dog ‘would tear through things on a daily basis’, so there was nothing unusual about the debris on the floor that night.

  In the master bedroom, Carrick found Phoebe’s journal on the bed and bagged and tagged it. Making his way to the study, he found blood on the door architrave, and more on the wooden study table and computer mouse. In the hallway were broken glass fragments — more items to bag and tag. In the kitchen, he took possession of a blister pack of Cymbalta (an antidepressant), other medications from the kitchen drawer, and some Post-it notes. He went to the dining area, where he bagged two documents from the dining table.

  Carrick made no mention of seeing a shrine-like setting in any of the rooms.

  He prepared all these items with a list stating where they had been located, ready to hand them over to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine for testing.

  Meanwhile, a police officer from the CSU had been summoned at 12.15 a.m. to make a pictorial recording of the compactor room, Phoebe’s body, and the sites where possible blood had been found.

  Once the CSU officers had examined the compactor room, permission was finally given for the government undertakers to remove Phoebe’s body at 2.45 a.m. At this point, Butterworth had another look at her body and recorded his observations. He observed that she was a female of slim build, with spiky black hair and a pale complexion. Her trousers — blue jeans with a studded leather belt — were undone and pulled below her knees, but her underpants and bra were intact. She was wearing a grey T-shirt and was barefoot. Her right foot had been almost severed and was hanging by a couple of tendons, and he observed lacerations on her legs, back, and buttocks.

  Butterworth estimated her height at 165 cm, a full 8 cm shorter than Tony Basile had guessed when he saw her alive. Later, Phoebe’s family checked, and 175 cm was given as her adult height. It’s possible that her body was compressed by the fall, or that it was contorted in ways that made measurement difficult.

  As the undertakers lifted her body, a pair of damaged Prada sunglasses fell to the ground, broken and battered like Phoebe, after tumbling down 12 floors of the rubbish chute.

  The undertakers took Phoebe’s body to the Western General Hospital in Footscray, about twelve kilometres away. Her life was officially declared extinct at 4.30 a.m. on Friday 3 December, nine and a half hours after she was found, and her body was taken to the Coroner’s office in South Melbourne.

  *

  Back at Balencea, Mark Butterworth was still directing operations. At 4.55 a.m., fingerprint expert Senior Constable Martin Koslowski arrived. He attempted to obtain fingerprints from several sites on Level 12: the door to the rubbish disposal room, the door/flap to the rubbish chute itself, and a placard above the chute door. Downstairs, he tried the door to the compactor room and a sewage pipe running through the room.

  He reported, ‘No fingerprints of any identifiable value were located on any of the items that I examined at the scene.’

  Another forensic officer arrived and took 148 still photos, some in the refuse room, others all through Ant’s apartment. None of the photos from the apartment showed a shrine-like setting.

  At 5.40 a.m., Mark Butterworth handed over to Detective Senior Sergeant Shane O’Connell and returned to his office in St Kilda Road, where he wrote his report. He finally knocked off at 9 a.m. and headed home.

  *

  Any sudden death of a loved one is shocking, but it’s even more devastating when violence is involved.

  As well as phoning his mother and Len after discovering that the body in the compactor room was Phoebe, Ant had phoned his closest friends, Arch and Linda Cohen.* Linda had been friends with Ant for about twenty years and had also become very fond of Phoebe. About 8.30 p.m., she was in the middle of bathing her two younger children when her mobile rang, so she ignored the call. Minutes later, the landline shrilled insistently. She realised it must be important when her older son came in to tell her that Ant was calling.

  When Ant told her that Phoebe was dead, Linda fell to her knees on the floor. She told me later, ‘It was like losing a child, or a close family member — so devastating.’ She quickly arranged for someone to come and mind the children, then she set off for Balencea and phoned her husband Arch, telling him to meet her there. On the way, she played a CD that Phoebe had made for her only a week before, with poems and songs and little thoughts. Linda reached Balencea about 9 p.m.

  When she arrived, Ant was in a small room downstairs with Detective Senior Constable Justin O’Brien, who had been tasked to look after him. Linda told me that Ant was ‘lying on the floor in a foetal position, screaming “Why? Why? She’s dead.”’ She was shocked to learn that Phoebe had been found in the rubbish room. ‘I could never think of anything so degrading … the only thing I can think of is that this is some connection to garbage.’

  The other occupants of the downstairs room were Ant’s mother, Sue, her husband, Robert Owen, and Linda’s husband, Arch. Ant got up and sat at a small table, wailing and crying hysterically. He was blurting out disjointed sentences: Phoebe was gone, they could have worked things out, his whole life was gone. What would he do now?

  At 10 p.m., O’Brien and Mark Robertson walked Ant to the St Kilda Road police complex. The others tagged along and waited while Ant was taken upstairs to provide a statement.

  Justin O’Brien later recorded his impressions of Ant. The detective said that he observed no tears, mucus, or red eyes during the time he’d been in Ant’s company. The police were in the middle of taking Ant’s statement when he offered to type it rather than enduring Robertson’s slow hunt-and-peck. Ant said he might be faster. The police were surprised at the offer, and one of them said, ‘You can’t even stand up, how can you type?’

  At 12.20 a.m., O’Brien, Robertson, Ant, and the others walked back to his apartment. Linda told me that Ant was still wailing. The police left him with his family and the Cohens to collect necessary items for the night. As the apartment had to be kept undisturbed, it was decided that Ant and the dog would stay with Sue and Rob. Eventually, seeing no more could be done that night, the Cohens went home, with Linda promising to return next day as soon as their kids went to school.

  *

  Lorne Campbell, Phoebe’s grandfather, was a former detective sergeant of Victoria Police who’d retired in 1993 after 34 years of distinguished service. He’d remarried and was living at Milawa in northern Victoria, raising a new family and teaching music at local schools and colleges. He’d remained close to his older children and grandchildren, and was about to celebrate his seventieth birthday with a family party, where all of them, including Phoebe, were expected.

  Lorne was deeply upset when Natalie phoned about 10 p.m. to tell him what had happened. He said he’d set out for Melbourne early next morning to join the family.

  Natalie, Russell, Jeannette, and Nik waited for hours at Clifton Hill, hoping for news from Len and Tom, but they heard nothing. Bren Hession contacted Natalie after midnight, seeking more news, but all they could tell him was that Phoebe was dead.

  Jeannette eventually drove them over to Len’s place, where they waited
until Len and Tom got home about 2 a.m., totally exhausted. They hadn’t been allowed to see Phoebe, but they were told they could see her the next day at the Coroners Court. It wasn’t something anyone was looking forward to.

  The news of how Phoebe had died came as a huge shock to all who knew her. Their disbelief and anguish were evident in the statements they made to the police. Her former boss Keith Allan said, ‘I am a realist, but do not believe she would put herself down a garbage chute to kill herself.’ Sally Teller,* the cleaner at the apartment, was also sceptical. ‘I don’t believe that Phoebe would do this,’ Sally said. ‘She was a hippie and mystical, and she would have found some other way.’ Linda Cohen and others close to Phoebe felt the same. It was so unlikely. So uncharacteristic. So mystifying.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE AFTERMATH

  At about 11.15 a.m. on Friday 3 December, Phoebe’s family arrived at the morgue. The party consisted of Natalie, Len, Tom, Nik, and Jeannette along with Natalie’s brother Matt and Len’s friend Chili. They’d made several attempts to contact Ant to see if he wanted to accompany them, but his mother, Sue, had answered his phone and told them he was resting. All of them were dreading this visit, and it turned out to be worse than they’d expected.

  When they arrived, Natalie and Len were taken into a small room, where a coronial staff member told them that the police had asked for an autopsy.

  This immediately upset Len. As a doctor, he knew exactly what happens during an autopsy and the thought of his beautiful, free-spirited daughter being carved up was abhorrent to him.

  ‘What if we refuse?’ he asked.

  The lady was apologetic but firm. She said that unfortunately, it wasn’t a choice, as the police had ordered the autopsy. In any case, only the senior next of kin could object.

  ‘We are her next of kin,’ Natalie said. ‘I’m her mother. This is her father.’

  The lady then told them that Ant had already registered as senior next of kin because he was in a de facto relationship with Phoebe. Both her parents were distressed. To be frozen out by officialdom after their daughter had died like this was something they hadn’t contemplated.

  Natalie decided to ring Ant to see if he agreed with the autopsy. When Sue Owen answered, Natalie explained where they were and asked if Ant agreed with an autopsy. After a short consultation with Ant, his mother told Natalie, ‘Ant would like to know what happened.’ So that was that.

  When a body is being identified at the morgue, the face is usually washed and a sheet or blanket is pulled up to the chin. Most corpses can be identified from their facial features, although people do look different after they die. When I was nursing, I was always struck by this change. Although I’m not religious, I put it down to the spirit leaving the body. That worked for me.

  Mistaken identifications can occur, but there was no risk in this case. Len and Natalie stood together with their two sons to identify poor battered Phoebe through a glass window. She looked as if she’d been in a car wreck. Having been a doctor before specialising in psychiatry, Len could only imagine what horrors had been inflicted on the body under the blanket. Natalie stared with a mother’s eyes, seeing a centimetre-long cut on Phoebe’s jawline and a blackish mark around her right eye. Her face otherwise appeared mercifully unmarked.

  Her two younger brothers looked in disbelief. Their sparkling, vital sister seemed to have no connection with this pale, damaged facsimile, draped and inert on a guerney.

  Blinded by tears, they nodded the affirmative and went back to the rest of the family huddled in the waiting area.

  They all went home together, puzzling about how Ant could be the senior next of kin when he and Phoebe had only shared an apartment for 14 months and she paid him rent. In Australian law, de facto relationships have the same status as a marriage if they meet certain criteria. Broadly, these are that the relationship has lasted for some time, usually at least two years; that the parties share a common residence; that a sexual relationship exists; that there is joint ownership, use, and acquisition of property; and that the parties are committed to a publicly shared life.

  Phoebe’s relationship with Ant didn’t seem to meet these criteria. While they lived a very public life as a couple, attending Ant’s many functions and eating out with friends, it didn’t seem to Phoebe’s family that she was in a committed relationship. She’d repeatedly packed her stuff and gone to stay elsewhere in the weeks preceding her death. She’d told her father, her grandmother, Russell Marriott, Linda Cohen, and possibly others that she wanted to leave Ant. She had her own part-time income (occasionally topped up by her family), and she paid Ant rent of $120 per week.

  Later that day, Natalie received a phone call from Sue Owen, whom she’d met only once before, inviting the family to come to Balencea on Sunday for a little conference about the way forward. With a heavy heart, Natalie accepted the invitation and they set a time.

  *

  Ant’s apartment now resembled the emergency department of a small hospital, except that the ‘nurses’ far outnumbered the ‘patient’.

  As promised, Linda had returned about 11 a.m. on the Friday. She hugged Ant, who was sitting blankly on the couch. He was clutching a bottle of Phoebe’s perfume, Comme des Garçons; he held it out to her, and they both had a little weep. He asked Linda to get rid of it because it reminded him of Phoebe.

  Ant’s father George and his wife Felicity had raced back to town. Linda told me Felicity seemed very concerned about her and kept asking if she was OK. She was a bit surprised when Ant’s older sister Kristina (usually called Krissy) turned up with her boyfriend, Andrew Chiodo.

  ‘Ant and Krissy had a funny relationship,’ Linda told me. ‘Some time previously, Ant had forbidden Phoebe to see Krissy, and yet Ant always invited her and Andrew to his functions and events. Krissy was very attractive and drove a flash vintage 1972 Porsche, and Andrew had social cred as well.’ Andrew owned his own exclusive brand of men’s clothing, Chiodo Menswear.

  Krissy was widely known to have a cocaine habit. Phoebe had told Linda that she’d spoken to Krissy about it, and Krissy had said, ‘Don’t tell Andrew. He’s got no idea.’ In December 2014, Krissy pleaded guilty to trafficking the drug after a police sting caught clients buying cocaine at her South Yarra home. The court was told that she’d turned to dealing to support her addiction.

  Word of Phoebe’s death had gone out among Ant’s friends and former girlfriends, only some of whom had known Phoebe. Many of Phoebe’s friends had heard the news as well. Ant wanted to have a sort of open house so that others could come and share his grief.

  One of the visitors was Alice Jagger,* who’d been Phoebe’s friend since primary-school days. She learnt of Phoebe’s death from the mother of Julie,* another girl she and Phoebe had known at school. Julie’s mother phoned Alice at work to tell her the news.

  When she heard that Phoebe was dead, Alice told me later, ‘I felt like a spider had bitten my chest. Venom spreading up my neck and into my face.’ She left work immediately and went to Natalie’s house in Clifton Hill. ‘It was terrible,’ she told me. ‘No one knew anything, how she’d died — no one could speak.’

  Two days later, she was told of Ant’s ‘open house’ invitation. Although she’d never met him, she went to Balencea on Monday.

  ‘Linda was there. I didn’t know her, but she took me to a chair and looked after me. She seemed like the only real thing in that room. I kept asking how Phoebe died, but she said, “You’ll find out in time” and “We’re not talking about it near Ant.”’ When Alice discovered that people were saying Phoebe had committed suicide, her first thought was that she’d jumped. Alice said, ‘That was her spirit, always jumping off things.’

  Some of the girls developed a kind of roster with day and night shifts to look after Ant, as it was considered a risk to leave him on his own. The dedicated group of carers became known as ‘The Witches of Eastwick�
�. Ant’s mother, Sue, was there most days. The girls took turns at night, sleeping beside him, comforting him until he fell asleep.

  Ant’s moods swung wildly. Sometimes he seemed normal, looking at things on his computer and checking his Facebook page, but then he’d lapse into extreme grief, lying curled up in a foetal position on the couch and hugging a cushion. His friend Christo Van Egmond called in on Saturday; he said later that he’d never seen Ant in such a state.

  Fortunately, someone had found a temporary foster home for Yoshi, as there was just no room for him and his bad habits in the midst of all the grief.

  One of Ant’s former girlfriends, Isobel van Dyke,* agreed to come over on Saturday afternoon because she wasn’t working, so she had more time than some of the others.

  She asked someone how Phoebe had died and was immediately shushed with whispers. ‘Don’t talk about it in front of Ant.’ She also noticed that getting rid of the rubbish created by so many visitors usually fell to her. No one wanted to visit the rubbish chute. She formed the impression, which wasn’t confirmed until some time later, that the rubbish chute must have had something to do with Phoebe’s death. She agreed to return on Sunday for her shift looking after Ant.

  *

  Sunday afternoon rolled around, and the Handsjuk family visitors rang the buzzer for 1201. The group was made up of Len, Natalie, Tom, Nik, Jeannette, and Len’s older daughter Lucy, Phoebe’s half-sister. It was a big group to swell the numbers already in the apartment — George and Felicity, Sue Owen, Linda, and a woman who was introduced as Kate Rowland.

  When they arrived, Ant was nowhere to be seen. He was in the bedroom with Linda’s father-in-law, Dr Cohen,* who’d been summoned to treat him. Ant was too distressed to come out again, and Natalie found herself surrounded by strangers. Someone offered tea, and Kate Rowland came and sat next to her on the couch.

  Kate seemed keen to get right into the funeral arrangements. The Handsjuks later discovered that she was a professional caterer and event organiser who was also a friend of Ant’s.