Episode 10 - Phillip Island

0:15 Welcome back to Crime Besties here for another episode and welcome Emma. Thank you, Meg. It I'm a bit excited to do today's episode because we're doing a case that I have been intrigued by for a very, very, very long time. So I'm really looking forward to this one. Yeah, I feel like this one's really your jam. I I am very intrigued by this, this one. As I said to you before, though, I get frustrated with this case, but I know you're really on top of this one. So I'm I'm, I'm waiting for. I wanna hear what your perspective on this is and see where it's taken You for sure.

0:47 All right. You right. OK, before we get into the case, let's have a chat about, I don't know, what have you been up to this week? I mean, we are recording a little bit ahead of ahead of when the episodes are released. So we're actually on school holidays at the minute and being that you're a teacher, you're on holiday two. I'm. I'm not. No, I have to say I, I'm, I'm really happy with my life choices in in. This is about the only time I'm happy with my life choices in terms of my career. And it's one of the reasons why I don't move from what I'm doing currently because I'm not in the classroom or anything, but I still get school holidays.

1:25 But I'm like, I'm not going any further in my career because I don't want to anywhere else. I go lose school holidays and while my kids are the age they are, it, it makes a whole lot easier being at home. I mean, I, I have the opposite guilt trip. I often feel like, Oh, my kids are missing out and doing, you know, holiday care programs or something, you know, there's deprived children. But they, they firmly bring me back into line, though, if I ever do book them into something 'cause they let me know they don't like doing them.

1:49 Yeah, no, that's I do enjoy my school holidays, but I am really, really conscious of all my most of my friends who are not teachers or work in the industry where they get school holidays and you have to still manage work and kids at home. I bet it is an entire nightmare. And I do feel for you, absolutely. We're we're really lucky we get some family help on on certain days over the school holidays. And Peter, my husband, took a couple of days off off this time to take the kids to do something fun on the days that I was working.

2:18 But today he just had one of those situations where Peter had to go into the office. Is the office to get drunk? Do you before you're at the farmers market? He literally just walked in. We're recording this at night on a Thursday night and he just walked in from work. It's 8, 44 PM and and he walked in these tipsy ass. So I don't know, you know, had to go into the office. I'll have to interrogate him further on that later. I reckon he knew about that farmers market in the foyer well before today.

2:48 Something tells me he might be. Right. He might have been the one that pulled the fire alarm that pulled him down to the foyer to find out that it was there. Probably. Probably no, but then what it meant was because we had no other, there were no other options really. I ended up at home with the two kids today and they were actually really, really good. But Oh my God, it was retriggering. It was like Covad 2 point or whatever. We're up to now when we're in Victoria, something like that. Yeah. And I'm like, oh God, it, I think, I think I was already heightened or it's retriggering or something.

3:23 So I was already feeling pretty like about it. I don't like working from home generally. I much prefer going into the office. But yeah, it was just one of those days. It was a long day and as I said, the kids did well, but by the end of the day I was like. I'm. Online, I need, you know, I need some time out, something like that. That's all right. They you know, it is tomorrow is the last day of the school holidays and I don't work Fridays, so we'll do something. Fine. I think we're just going to go and see a movie because I think the weather's meant to be pretty ordinary.

3:55 Yeah. So we're just going to go and see a movie. It'll be good. What are you going to see? We're going to see if. I want to see that. Maybe I'll tag along. You are more than welcome to because I'm actually taking two extra kids too. Oh, maybe. I don't want to Michael are keen on saying if like they. I think actually Mason might get upset if I go without him, but he definitely would not be upset if I went without him. Yeah, I better wait. I'm just, I'm just going for Ryan Reynolds. Let's be. Let's be honest, I. Don't really care about.

4:22 Waiting to go. The only reason I know anything about a Pokémon movie. Yeah. Totally, totally fair. Yeah, all. Right, Should we get into today's The Place, do you reckon? I think we might. Might. We should. We should, yeah. So today we are talking about the Phillip Island murder and I guess surrounding mystery because there is a party involved in this and we don't actually know what what ended up happening to her. And it still hasn't been part of the part of the crime and part of the mystery still hasn't been solved.

4:51 And that's the bit that I find incredibly intriguing. And that's why I really, really wanted to do this case. So Phillip Island a an island that is about it's about 140 KS from Melbourne CBD in Victoria, Australia. It is accessed by 1 bridge onto an island and I think it or back certainly back when this crime happened, which was in 1986, there were about 4000 permanent residents on the island. But during summer time it can explode and you know, I think quadrupled the population during that time.

5:32 It's a really beautiful place to go. It's famous for. I mean, it's got beautiful beaches and especially it's got some surf beaches. Good surf, beaches, Yeah. Yeah, and it has the world's largest population of fairy Penguins that come. Up No, no, little Penguins, little Penguins, little Penguins, correct. Sorry, sorry.

5:53 I've. Actually written little Penguins in my notes and I, you know, can't take the girl out of 1985 S the little Penguins. But yeah, it's the largest colony in the world. Live on Phillip Island and come up onto the beach every day and we live really close. Well, you know, 100 odd KS away. And I don't know about you Meg, but when we were kids we'd go down to Phillip Island for family holidays and go to the Penguin parade and watch them waddle up to the beach. I've been recently with my kids and my God it's had a glow up.

6:27 Big time. I mean, I really, I've done it twice because yeah, Philippine wasn't somewhere we went as kids often. It was somewhere I went for surfing a bit later in my teenage years, but not so much as a family. And probably I went must mean about, I'm gonna say like early 2000s, I went and did the Penguin parade. And then again, I've just gone in the last couple of years and yeah, a bit different. There's definitely a lot more to it. And gosh, the facilities are insane when you walk in there now.

6:53 But but oh God, it's the most freaking cutest thing you've ever seen. Then come out the beach and going to their Burrows and their little babies and yeah. That's so cute. I highly recommend who hasn't been to do it, you know, go and do it. Or if you, you know, if you're coming into Melbourne, I would put it on the the bucket list for sure. Yeah, it's really, really good fun. Although if you're going to do it in winter, take every thermal and warm warm clothing item you can get your hands on because in.

7:20 November last and oh, my God, I've never been that cold. I've been in the snow, like, and this was colder than that, sitting on the beach waiting for them to come up the beach because it can take a long time come up. Sometimes they come up earlier. There's no like, you know, they don't have a clock. So you can be there sitting there for a while waiting for them to come at the beach. And God, it gets cold. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pro Tip Island is known for is it's race track. So it's got a giant race track and there's a Moto GP that's held there every year and I think they do some super car racing or something else as well.

7:49 Those different events attract, you know, even more tourists to the area. But the beaches there are just lovely to swim in and in the summertime, if you go down to the to cows and have a swim along the foreshore there, it's, it's a really nice spot. So that's where the scene, I guess of today's murder and and other crimes takes place. It sort of sets the scene a little bit. It's quite an isolated area in that there is one bridge from the mainland over to Phillip Island, one way in and one way out.

8:23 And I think they've only just recently in the last few years expanded the bridge to be 3 lanes, but it used to be one lane in, one lane out. So that kind of gives a little bit of context as to, you know, how, how the whole island is set up. Yeah, yeah. So the case. So I guess we should mention this is the Phillip Island where the famous Hemsworth brothers are from too. Oh. Good point it. Has to be set up. Yeah, I mean, Oh my God. Ryan Reynolds, the Hemsworth brothers. We were coming home after his gin tastings.

8:59 Maybe we'll get that. Romance he's been looking for when he came home. It's all on par, right?

9:10 So the look, the case that that transpired in 1986, it was late September. And the deceased, I suppose the person who was murdered, her name is Beth Barnard. Now going back a little bit, the the other family involved are the Cameron family and specifically Fergus and Vivian Cameron. So Fergus is part of, I guess, Phillip Island royalty, you'd almost call them. They were a really prominent family down there, the Cameron family, they owned a lot of land. They were farmers. They actually owned the land or up until 2004, they owned the land of the Grand Prix circuit that the Grand Prix circuit was on and other farming land around the island.

9:57 So they actually owned a quite a large proportion of the island. They were an incredibly wealthy and prominent family. They had ties to all aspects of the community and I think they were very well respected and well regarded. I, I've seen interviews done with residents of Phillip Island who knew the Cameron family and various members of the Cameron family. And by all accounts they were, you know, nice people who were sort of community minded, involved in, in lots of aspects of, you know, the schooling council.

10:36 And huge in terms of tourism on Phillip Island and improving that over the years, particularly around the Grand Prix track and making sure that, yeah, all the locals made money out of that, making sure that and everyone else on the island was getting rid of a piece of the pie, I guess, in in whatever way they could. So, yeah, I think well respected in that way. Around the island they went just, you know, scooping it all up for themselves. And that's. Yeah. That's it. And I guess, yes, Fergus Cameron met or he.

11:03 Yeah, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself actually. So let me backtrack a little bit. Fergus met his wife, Vivian. Her maiden name was Candy. They married, I think it was in 1976. Is that right? Meg, have you got that? I think that sounds. Right, I was trying to check my notes. I haven't actually written it down, but it sounds right. I'm pretty sure it was 1976. Yeah. And they went on to have two boys, Dougald and Hugh, and they lived on the one of the Cameron farms and I believe like all of the family.

11:41 So Fergus was one of three kids. He's got a brother and a sister. And I believe they all lived very close to one another on like adjoining farms. Is that the way you understand it to be that? Was my understanding of about 10 hectares or something that sort of split in the beach got you know, prop like a house and A and property on that one, a huge block. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's sort of the way I sort thought about it too. So, yeah, yeah. And Fergus had several jobs. I guess the biggest part of his his role was being a farmer, but he also actually worked at the Penguin Parade as a sort of a part time job.

12:23 And while he was there, he met a 23 year old. So he at this stage, he was, I think he was 36 mm hmm. And he met 23 year old Beth Barnard at the Penguin Parade and commenced a relationship with her. I think that was in 1984. Mm hmm. And so they were having, well, well, he was having an extramarital affair with young Beth while he was still married to his wife, Vivian. From what I can gather, Vivian at the start didn't know about the affair. And, you know, their lives were just carrying on as normal.

13:04 And as time went on, I believe she sort of got wind that there was something possibly going on. Fergus actually employed Beth to work at the farm at one point. And so Beth, they were seeing each other every day between the Penguin parade and and Beth being a farmhand, from what I can gather, Beth was a very outdoorsy type of person. She loved horses, she loved the outdoors, She loved animals. She'd. Studied up agriculture hadn't she at university? She'd just finished her degree when she'd moved down to the island.

13:37 I I believe she was living in like the family holiday house down at Phillip Island at the time with her degree. Sort of wanting to move down that way and getting in on the farmyard, be as a farmhand I guess was nicely linked to what she had been studying and as well, working with animals down at the Penguin parade was her passion. And it sounds. Like she was really good at it. She had at the Penguin parade, she had very much a customer facing role. So she would talk to the patrons about the Penguins and teach them and show them how they they're fed.

14:05 I heard a story about there was a time there was something going on and the Penguins, there was something the mother Penguins for some reason weren't feeding the babies. There was whether there was a, an issue with a supply of fish or something like that. And she used to stay back every night for this period of time and hand feed all of the little babies. So she you can tell she really, really cared about about the Penguins and about animals. So, yeah, you know, how can you be? You can't be a bad person.

14:34 And and. Love animals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. At some point, Vivian's gotten wind of the fact that Beth and Fergus are in a relationship of sorts. And several accounts from different residents on Phillip Island, Vivian's started to change her appearance. She lost a lot of weight and she started dressing a little bit differently. And I believe she made a comment to a friend in passing that she was doing that to try and save her marriage, which I just think is, you know, like she must have been feeling so desperate to feel that, you know, physically changing herself was going to, I don't know, change the outcome of her marriage.

15:17 I mean, if she knew that Beth, that Fergus was having a relationship with Beth, who was 23 years old, so 13 odd years her junior, maybe she felt like she had to compete. I don't know. I mean, I dare say, I mean, it would be. It'd be awful. I can't even imagine. Like, you know, feeling like you. She's in love with Fergus still, you know, she wants her family to stay together with, you know, her young kids because the, the island was not her, you know, original home. She'd come to the island to be with Fergus and raise her family there.

15:53 So I mean, in the relationship and in the marriage, it would mean quite a separation of some sort with her most likely in wanting more to move back the mainland, as they call it, the to Melbourne where her family were. It would been a lot of pressure on her, I feel like, to win him back, you know, and try and fix that to make sure the family stays together more than anything else and repair the relationship, which I mean, gosh, you know, you just I feel for that situation of like you've got this young girl winning your husband's affection and how do you like, I don't know, it's just.

16:27 Like, yeah, you can't compete, I guess. She must have felt like this was a completely. Different, you know, stages of your life, isn't it? I mean, she's not a 23 year old anymore. She's a, you know, 30 plus year old woman who's got children and has different, you know, life needs and next stage of life. Yeah. Comparing yourself to this vibrant. Ha ha, sorry. My friend calls me vibrant even though I'm over my over 40. I don't know. Hey, I'm calling me vibrant too. Well, maybe I'm more vibrant. Yeah, comparing yourself to this vibrant 23 year old who's out on the farm and got all the time in the world to give to him, you know, and that's with no, you know, real ties to anything.

17:05 Yeah, that's very different. It's I mean, you're not the same person as that to be Adam. It's it's comparing apples and oranges, I guess what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think you're right. I know Vivian actually also came from a broken home and I mean back in, which would have been, I mean in the seven or even earlier, probably the late 60s or early 70s, her father left and. She they also had affairs and things, yeah. Yeah. And so she grew up with the stigma of coming from a broken home, which I believe in that time was, you know, people did look down upon families who who were in that situation.

17:43 And she didn't want that for her kids. She wanted her kids to have both parents and come from a loving home. I think it's probably worth saying here as well that she absolutely loved being a mother. Every single person who's been interviewed about her, there is not one account where they haven't mentioned how much she loved her children. Yeah, that she just. They were her world. They were her. World. She adored them everything she did, she did for them Yeah. Trying to save her marriage with her husband who is having it off with a 23 year old.

18:24 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Really gross. So on the night in question, so Monday the 22nd of September in 1986, the timeline is not exact. And I did hear the detective say in an interview that people don't go around looking at their clocks even if they know there is an incident unfolding. You don't walk around and be like, oh, look at that, it's 9:02 PM and I'm sitting here. Everything's always approximate. So there are some. And there's not even like mobile phone data, like as in you can't even say that phone call came through, you know, at 9902 because it's, you know, on your phone.

19:08 And yeah, because these were all landline phones that would have been used in the day and. Apparently, I didn't know this until I was looking into it, but apparently landlines, they didn't record each call it you just get a note to say like say you've made, I don't know, 25 local calls in the month and the only itemized calls were STD calls. Yeah, they get so. At the beginning or whatever the other phone call, do you remember that? Am I too old? No, no, no, I do remember that. So, yes. So there was no way of verifying times based on anything electronic really these days, I think I think it would be so much harder to get away with something because our digital footprint is everywhere.

19:51 There was none of that. No, no, no, no CCTV, no camera, no phones, no nothing to track anything. So the investigation relied very heavily on people's accounts of what happened and there were a lot of discrepancies. But I think we can probably get into the statements a little bit later and that's definitely more in your wheelhouse. So I'll get you to run through those in a minute. Pressure 9. I'm just warning you now, at 9:00 PM on Monday the 22nd of September in 1986, Fergus arrived back to the farm.

20:27 So he'd been at a shift at the Penguin Parade and on the way home, I believe he finished work there at about 8:00 PM. And on his way home, he decided to drop in on Beth because she'd had a bit of a cold and he was a bit worried about her and he wanted to check on her to. Make sure my mistress is OK. Yeah, and shagging her. Yeah, well, no, they didn't shag. They didn't shag that night. Well, again, there's discrepancies there. Well. There is, there are discrepancies. I'm I'm, it's pretty solid in my mind that they didn't that night, they did the night before on the Sunday night.

21:02 And I think that's pretty well verified. But he reckons he just gave her a bit of a kiss and a cuddle and and then went on his merry way. Better go back to the wife and kids. He real comes back home and gets home and Vivian's there and she's not happy. Marnie's with her too. His sister is that. Yes, that's right. Sorry, I forgot she was there. Yeah, she was wanting to have a chat with Fergus about something. I can't remember what it was though that was. Do you think it's weird that his sister was there at 9:00 at night?

21:35 Uh huh. Yeah, I just yeah, I don't I'd actually yeah, we like say it. He heard statement doesn't match any story. Like, I feel like she was, I feel like she knew what was going on and she was sticky nosing or whether it was sticky nosing or whether it was just, I don't know, keeping Viv at Bay for him. Oh, that's an interesting take on it. Yeah. I, my theory is that she knew something was happening, like things were escalating or whatever, and she was, yes, sticky nosing. That's the vibe I get. Her statement, her statement's really interesting, I feel like, and you can read all of the statements online, just Google them.

22:13 It's, it's, they're easy to find her statement, I think. I reckon she, she knew what she wanted to say and she never quite nailed any point properly. Yeah, it's it's a, it's a very interesting read. And none of her timeline matches up with anyone else's. There's, there's a lot, a lot going on there. Anyway, we've Vivian and Fergus have an argument. This is now a lot of what I'm going to tell you in the next little bit. A lot of it comes Fergus's account of what happened that night. Yeah. And we don't obviously have Vivian's account.

22:52 No, we don't have Vivian's account because she is still to this day missing. We will get to that. But at this point, Vivian and Fergus are at home and Marnie was there when Fergus got home, but I think she left. She was like, I'll leave because she the tension was real high. So she let she was like, oh, I'm going to leave that alone. And, and left them to it. Yeah. Yeah, and Vivian, basically. Well, according to Fergus, Vivian says no, you were with the little bitch. And she escalates and becomes verbally even further verbally abusive.

23:27 And then she strikes him with her wine glass. So she'd been drinking. I don't know how heavily it's disputed how heavily she was drinking. From all accounts, I think she had about half a bottle of wine. Nothing crazy. Nothing crazy. She strikes Fergus over the ear and cuts him with the wine glass, and then she stabs him in the back with the wine glass. So again, according to his statement, yes. According to his statement, all of this is According to his statement, apparently she then gets really.

24:01 So she's in this rage, breaks the glass on his ear, breaks the shoves it into his back, the, you know, the house's chaos. Then she all of a sudden decides that she's really worried about him and worried about this cut on his ear and worried about his back and decides to bundle him into the car and take him to the local hospital. So they hop in the car. When they get there, according to Fergus, she makes another statement about going to get again Fergus's statement. They then go into the hospital and Fergus is treated by a nurse there, A couple of nurses actually, both whom state that Vivian had no blood on her.

24:44 At this point, no. Injuries. Nothing. No. Injuries they They say that the relationship between Fergus and Vivian seemed amicable and normal, like there was no tension, there was nothing going on between them. No, they actually stated like that. They looked very much together like that they were she was concerned for him and that so there wasn't there was certainly trying to find out what happened because they needed to know what happened so they could treat the injuries and work out where he was hurt properly.

25:15 And but they were not going to spill the beans on how it all occurred. Eventually. They said that Fergus had walked through a glass panel like in the like a door or something and got the cuts from that. But yeah, they said. But they they said that the two of them were very like, you know, touchy feely and very together. She was there being the supportive wife of poor him. He's injured himself. So they nothing, nothing rang alarm bells of. Yeah. Another account by one of the other nurses, though, is that he said he'd had a fight with one of his brothers.

25:49 Oh, I didn't read that. Where'd? You. Yeah, I'd have to go back and have a look in, in my other note. Yeah. So I think there were several stories about what had happened and no one has. Different nurses they he told a different story to. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. But that nurse also stated that she said they, they seemed close. That was her, they were her words, so she they seemed close. So after they've patched him up at the hospital, they head back home and according to Fergus's statement, they have a conversation about splitting up.

26:23 And Vivian states that she's happy to go back to Melbourne and leave the boys with Fergus and she'd do that the following morning. And Fergus decided that he it would be best if he went and stayed with Manny the night. Yeah, because, well, he's a far better father than she is. A mother? What the? Yeah, yeah, for a second that she said that, No. Way. No way. Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll leave my kids with you and I'll just leave and move hundreds of kilometers away. I I I don't see it either. But anyway, Fergus decides to go and stay at Mani and her husband Ian's place that night.

26:58 And I believe that he that's at about 12:00 AM that that happens. So he goes over to Mani's Vivian's left at home. The two boys are still there sleeping, their two sons. And then actually, I think Mani came over to their house to look after the boys when they went to the. Hospital she went so when she they went to the hospital, they left the kids by on their own like which just boys behind, but you know, at the 80s yeah. So they left for the hospital, but then they called from the hospital, I think it was to Mani and said can you go around to the house and sit with the boys while we're at the hospital?

27:32 So obviously if there's been the domestic that they they sort of that what Fergus is saying in money's statement. She says that she a glass broken that they cleaned that glass up and they and that but there was blood on certain things, but they left that alone and didn't touch any of the blood or didn't clean up any of that. So I find that very interesting because in all of the forensic notes from the police, when they came to the house after the fact, no glass was ever found in the bin anywhere in the house.

28:06 Yeah. Where this glass that Mani picked up and found, No one else has ever found that. And that she doesn't even stain us say in her statement what had happened. She just said she cleaned it up. Well, clean. What does that mean? Where did you put it? It wasn't in the rubbish bin. It wasn't in. It wasn't anywhere to be found to be stay. It hasn't been located. Located And the other thing is if you look at the crime scene photos next to the on the sink, there's actually a pewter wine glass, not a glass glass, a pewter glass, which you know, if that's the glass that's being used to pour the wine and have the the glasses that she's drunk that afternoon, that ain't going to smash and cut his ear and his back either.

28:47 So no evidence of this glass. No, no, no. And I think it's really strange. So Marnie's gone there after this altercation to look after her nephews. Wouldn't you want to clean up the blood? No. Like I think that they would wake up. If you again, Google the crime scene photos, there's a fair whack of blood there. I. Honestly would not leave that around for kids to I mean, personally if you know, if that's the story you're being told, you know, yeah, we had a bit of a domestic and there's been some blood and you know, like you just go around there and you clean up as they're like at the hospital.

29:17 I just would, even not knowing, thinking about a crime scene at that point, I would have just cleaned up and cleaned up the blood and things like that and got rid of things and put things in the washing basket and whatever, put a load on on, if it was, you know, that was much blood, whatever, get rid of it all. Like not out of like trying to hide anything, just out of being helpful in a situation. I found that really interesting that yeah, she's cleaned up the glass, but not the blood, I think. So then was the blood even there?

29:39 Did she ever see it? Was that there at that point in time? She claims it was and Fergus claims it was. Yeah, and the because again, the timeline of like when this happened is a bit sketchy too. How much time has passed between money leaving, money returning after the domestic? It's a bit. Yeah, yeah. And again, I mean, the hospital records had the right timing of them arriving. I don't know that it had a time of departure. I actually didn't read that in any of the. Nights again that was pretty sketchy too because 33 AM comes up a lot but I believe this between like midnight and 3:00 AM all that timeline's all over the place too.

30:20 It is so different statements say different things in terms of where and where, when people called people and where people were. Yeah. Yeah, it's very hard to pinpoint any of it. And so I think that leaves a whole lot of questions over how much time people had do certain things. That's it. That's it. Yeah. So I guess Vivian and Fergus have had this conversation. Money's gone home. They've had this conversation about Vivian leaving, that they're separating immediately. She's moving to Melbourne. Fergus can have custody of the children and apparently Vivian, according to Fergus, said he was a very good father and she wasn't a great mother, so.

31:04 Don't buy it. Nope. How's it again when a hero comes along? Well. Someone has to be in this situation, don't they? Now again, sketchy timeline, but at around 10:00 AM is when Fergus says drove to Mani's house to stay with her. So Mani's gone home at around midnight, Fergus has then Fergus and Vivian have had their conversation and Fergus and apparently Vivian packs Ferguson overnight bag because you know, heaven forbid he should have to take care of that for himself and drives to Mani's house to stay with him.

31:42 According to Mani, she sees Vivian in the driveway, so they must be able to like see each other's. I dare say if it's what I'm pitching of sort of farms, you'd be able to see headlights from a fair distance, like even. Though how would she see? She said in in Mani's statement. She says sorry, no, you're right. She says she sees Vivian driving away. Yeah. Did Vivian drop Fergus at the house? Maybe that's what happened. Yes. Yes, sorry, that's my bad. And then yes, in Mani's statement, she says she can see Vivian driving away.

32:18 You're right, that would be in the headlight situation. And which? Car. Can you remember which car it was? They said that they were driving to do that. I think she took her car. Not the sedan. The sedan, not the not the Land Rover. Yeah, Land Cruiser. Yeah, whatever. I know that. I know they're different, important. There's people who'll be yelling at you right now. I know, I know, I know, I know. Look, it's written down in my notes, so I'll have a look at it in a minute. Which one? It actually works, I don't know.

32:48 It was an old like Army looking thing. Anyway. OK, thank you. With a flatbed on the back. Anyway, at 3:00 AM, Vivian calls a friend of hers named Robin Dixon. Robin's husband answers the phone and Vivian apparently says to him, I need you to go to the house and pick up the boys. There's something has happened and we're at the hospital. This is 3:00 AM. OK with that, Robin and her husband, who? And I can't remember the name of the husband, sorry, but they jump in. They get hop in their car. They go to Fergus and Vivian's house and they pick up the boys and take them back to their place.

33:33 I believe they have kids roughly the same age as. Yeah, and, and she was a she's a teacher too. Yeah, at the school they all go. To right. Yeah, OK. So I think Hugh, the youngest, wasn't yet at school. I think he was only 5. But Dougald was at school. He was the older of the two. So they go. And I mean, to me that even seems weird. How could you not ask any more questions and well. The only reason there I go. OK, I take, I get it. And I'll, I'll, I'll accept that there was no questions asked was because the husband answered the phone.

34:03 If if Robin had actually answered that phone, there would have been a million questions. Are you OK? What's going on? What do I need to do to help? Like there would have been questions and answers at the hospital. But how did Robin not then, I guess? I mean, this is before mobile friends. It's not like she could call. No, she didn't know where Vivian was, really. No, she was having an argument with her car, with her husband on the car on the way over to the house. But why? Don't you ask questions.

34:26 Totally. Why are we doing this? I would absolutely kill Peter. I mean, they're, they're so used to something. But to boot, I mean, this is where another question mark sort of is put over that of like the husband answering the phone, which I mean, whoever was on the other end of the line didn't know if it was going to be Robin or the husband answering. But would the husband recognize whether or not that was definitely Vivian's voice? And would he just take it on on face value that the person said, it's Viv, can you come and get my kids or yeah.

34:52 Would Robin have then realized, would she have known for sure just by the voice that it was definitely Vivian or was it someone else? That's it. So I emailed her. Just throwing it out there. Well, according to Mani's statement, she was asleep at this time. So. Sorry.

35:13 So they go back. They take the kids back to their place. Yeah, those poor kids. God, what a night. What? AI mean I'm just hoping they slept through most of it and had absolutely no idea what was going on. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, and they've got a whole lot more ahead of them after that night to think to like, yeah, yeah. I mean, the kids, my heart goes out to them. Me too. Yeah. What a life they they'd lead beyond this. Yeah. So we're now obviously in the very early hours of the 23rd of September and somewhere around three this sort of 3:00 AM mark again, somebody has gone over to Beth's house.

36:01 Now, she lived in Rhyl, which is another suburb of Phillip Island. I believe it was about a 10 minute drive from the Cameron farm. Yeah. Is that about right? Yeah, Yeah. Sort of pretty much puts you in a bit of a Tron semi triangle ish of kind of like where the bridge is from San for San Remo. There was best place pretty much in the middle between them between there and then where the Cameron's place was. So you've kind of got that triangle between the two, between the three spot. Yeah. OK, Yep.

36:32 So at some point, somebody has gone to Beth's house and perpetrated what the homicide detective has called the most horrific murder scene he has ever seen. Beth was stabbed. She was stabbed so severely in her face that it knocked a tooth out, root and all. She was absolutely just, Oh my God, mutilated. And then post mortem, A was carved into her stomach and chest. And it like area was I think it took something like 19 marks to make this a. Like it was 10 marks, it was 10/5 up one side. Yeah, four up one side and then one across.

37:21 Right, yeah. And it was a lot. I was like, I couldn't remember. I wrote it down 10. Yeah, it horrific like and I think this is where the point in this case where this ridiculous situation becomes a whole nother level fucked up. I mean absolutely. So the letter A people immediately have jumped to the conclusion that that means adulterer and it's in reference to the scallop letter. Did you have to read that? It's. No, Meg, I'm a lot. Yeah, a lot. I didn't know. I didn't have to read it. I thought you were about to say no, but I believe it was on the curriculum, on the Victorian curriculum around that time or around the time actually.

38:05 That definitely was then. I'm fairly sure if he did like lit or something in our day. I did and we didn't do. The stuff OK, well, no, basically the story is that this woman was in I didn't read it by the way, because I don't read books that she was had been in a relationship and fallen pregnant had a baby out of wedlock. And so as sort of punishment for that in the in this 1850, I think it was set, she had to like skip stitch a letter A into all of her clothing and wear it on out in public all the time.

38:36 And but the man in this situation had no repercussions of that. And the man actually was the local priest. So yeah, in the context, yeah. So that's where the A sort of comes into it of like what the reference maybe is. But we're only assuming, like, I mean, unless you spoke to the person who did it, we assume that's what was meant by it. I think that's I think that's a pretty fair and reasonable assumption. A fair assumption because it is. I mean, it's the most bizarre thing, like, to do. Is there anyone else, any other crimes that you can think of where they've done similar things?

39:12 I mean, I know it's not uncommon for, like, serial killers. Nothing to do.

39:18 Yeah, but but to mark an eye into someone's body like that was, it's just, I mean, that takes a whole nother level of insanity. Yeah, yeah, I haven't actually. I don't know of any other cases where like a message like that has been carved into a body post mortem. It's, it's horrific. But having said all that, when you look at the scene, there's the crime scene photos, there's not that much blood like I mean, I would expected. I mean, we talked about in the staircase, for example. I mean, I know that was a head injury and there was so much blood in that crime scene.

39:55 This did it, Just there wasn't as much blood. Did you feel so? I think, yeah, I, I thought the exact same thing. But I believe when I looked into that, the reasoning behind that, it was because one of the first stab wounds that was made actually dropped her blood pressure so low when the subsequent stabbings. Were inflicted there wasn't any blood pressure there to like push the blood out of her body so they actually either the first or second stab wound is what actually. Killed her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

40:31 There wasn't a lot of blood. She, Beth was in bed at the time at her house. And as you said, it was, I think it was her parents sort of holiday home. They weren't living there at the time. They weren't there. She was in that house on her own. She was. It was, if you have a look at the crime scene photos, there were two single beds in this bedroom. It looked like any other sort of suburban. It had lots of, you know, bits and pieces of hers, you know, around the around the bed. The thing that really struck me from the crime scene photos was there's a hat like a sun hat.

41:06 The beds had like 4 short posts on them and the hat was at the sort of the bed on one of the. Posts not one that she wasn't sleeping in. Yeah, was on the end of that bed, but not moved like it. Was not moved. And it just blows my mind that in this like from what has been described as a frenzied attack, that not more of that scene was disturbed, like not more of the surroundings were disturbed. But then I guess if she was asleep and the perpetrator has struck her and that initial stabbing is what killed her, maybe there wouldn't have been much of much kerfuffle.

41:44 It just sort of, yeah, it was fairly calm from there. She ended up on the floor, though, and died on the floor. And the perpetrator of the crime has actually covered her up in a doona and covered her so. Far, yeah. Right up to her, I think. Like above her mouth. Yeah. Couldn't actually see the stab wound to her mouth and the truth having been knocked out that wasn't visible immediately when her body was found. So although this was a frenzied attack and obviously motivated by, I mean, to perform that carving post mortem, the perpetrator then obviously felt some kind of remorse because they've covered up the body and there's a lot of psychology behind DID.

42:31 They even like pull the the bedding over as well from where the blood was on the bed where like it seems to have, she seems to have been stabbed from in the bed. And then so there's a fair bit of blood on the sheets in the bed and that was even pulled up as well to cover that. So yeah, to me that shows remorse from of sorts of the the killer, yeah. I think so. I think so. According to some criminologists, it may also suggest that the crime was perpetrated by a woman. I was. Just about to say man's not pulling the sheets back up and making them.

43:05 On a good day, there were some really interesting things found at the crime scene went there. Yeah. A lot of a lot of analysis had been done. Yeah, I guess we'll let's get into how her body was found and then we can talk about what was found at the crime scene. Yeah, I think that's yeah, let's do that. We'll keep going with the timeline. That's so fucked up. It really is. So at this stage it is sometime in the early ish morning of the oh God I've just lost the date, the 23rd of September and now this is the bit that I can't get my head around and this is the bit that makes me think Fergus is involved.

43:43 The following morning Fergus like gets a vibe. Does he or? Like, yeah, he's. Like. Oh, because he's woken up at his house at my. Yeah, and he's like, oh, I need to let her know, like what happened last night between him and Vivian and Vivian supposedly leaving, but he doesn't go around to tell Beth. He sends Ian, who's Manny's husband, and his brother go over to Beth's house and tell her or check on her. But they also take with them, don't they? The Hugh, the youngest child. Oh, what I. Didn't know that.

44:21 Oh, maybe I've got it wrong because the thing what roused huge, sorry, get the names right. Fergus woke up to a phone call from Robin Dixon, right? Not the kids. And he needs to leave for work. She's a teacher and needs to get to school. And she rings him saying, Fergus, I've still got the kids here. You know what's going on? I can't contact Viv. There's no one answering at your house. So get what? She called Martin, didn't she? Yeah. So she called Marnie and so she said, oh, well, you know, yeah, of course Fergus is here.

44:49 So Robin Dixon is saying someone needs to come get the kids. Like I can take the oldest one to school with me, That's not a problem. But what do I do with the younger one? I believe Fergus has then gone to pick up the youngest one. Yeah, I know. Maybe that's where I'm getting it fixed up. So he's gone to pick up the youngest one. And he said to the uncle, so Donald, his brother and Ian to go check on Beth, which people like. I think that's the question was why didn't he say to his brother, go pick up my child, I'll go check on Beth.

45:15 Like why didn't you the other way around? Make a lot more sense. Like can you go and check on the woman I've been having an affair with? Yeah, like. Weird, weird. I mean, this is prior to thinking hang on a minute, where's my wife? Why has she done children in another woman's house? No, that didn't enter his. Mind, he was not worried about where Viv was at all at that point, no, so he didn't even more worried about the the little mistress which. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, Ian and Donald head over there, the best house.

45:45 And apparently when they got there, the door was open. It was about 6 to 8 inches open, sort of knocking. They can't hit anything inside, so they sort of let themselves in and they walked down to the back bedroom, which was bethe bedroom and they, I think. It's not far in. I think her bedroom was fairly fat. It was only a few steps in I think. Yeah. Ohk. OK, I thought her bedroom was at the back of the house. OK, my bad. And he and they obviously see they could very well, according to their statements, they could tell immediately that she was deceased.

46:17 They could tell me that she was deceased, but they didn't touch anything. They did immediately leave. And so at this stage, you know, the covers are up to her nose. They haven't seen the eye. They haven't seen any of the. They can see there's blood in the room, but they can't see what has happened to her. Yeah. And they go down to the police station, which is. So this is one thing they do document time wise. They will make it. They made that statement at 9:05 AM at the police station. So, but, well, takes them.

46:44 Takes them a fair bit to get that out of their mouths though. They were baffling buffoons at the bloody police station. Well, they, they took them like they couldn't. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go. No, they couldn't they couldn't get it out. What happened? They went around on this whole like, you know, circle of, you know, there's there's a fit an affair happening and rather than leading with Beth's dead, we need to get over there. But instead the the words they got out were there's there's been a domestic and Beth's not well.

47:11 Could you be more of a country Australian man? There's been a domestic been. A domestic and. What do they know? What do they know? That's I just find that really interesting, interesting wording. And I mean, that's the wording that the police officer noted down. That's not you know, that's, that's what was said on the day. I do find that an interesting way of them to describe the scenario. No, the severity of what they've they have discovered yet, but their connection is immediately that there's been a domestic which to me would would say it's between Fergus and hers.

47:48 That's what I would have thought I did. The thing that makes me, that I think makes these guys credible in that I think, you know, they've they've done their best in this circumstance is the fact that they didn't call Fergus, They didn't call Mani. They didn't call, I can't remember Donald's wife's name. They Pat or something. They didn't call anyone. They literally left Beth's house. They walked out. Hats off to them for not touching anything. Yeah, they walked out. They went straight to Cows police station to report it.

48:21 Yeah, I think that gives them some credibility. Yeah, totally. I think they've totally walked in on something that had no idea what they're walking into. Did Fergus know what they're going to be walking into? Well. That's I highly suspect he did.

48:34 Yeah. So you know, cows police station. I doubt they'd seen a murder. Actually don't know. I didn't look at look up any other. Maybe people dying on the beaches in terms of surfers or whatever. Like I wouldn't have thought murder. No, I would have thought more. More like a sort of police station, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, there's only like about four police officers on the island. I mean, even to this day I don't think they've got a massive police station down there. I dare say they would have had to have called in.

49:02 From what I can gather there were a lot of cops basically at the scene throughout the day, but they would have been all called in from Melbourne and stuff. Well, they were called, I think the first cop to arrive on scene was actually called from 1 Saggy police station. So that is on the mainland, but not far. And then obviously they had to call in the homicide squad from From. Melbourne, yeah, absolutely no one left at the police station in in Cows because they were all out at this. And so when people were trying to call the station to call in things they knew about the the situation, they couldn't contact anyone because they were all out.

49:34 So mobile phones were of no use, obviously back in these days. Yeah, that's. It the lead homicide detective's name was Rory O'Connor and there's a lot of interviews with him. You can find them on YouTube and you even just Googling. I mean, he's a seasoned homicide detective and leading the investigation. He said a couple of quotes are this is the most brutal attack I've ever seen, actually said in one of the interviews that I listened to. So this was very early on after the crime had been committed.

50:08 He said he couldn't believe a lot of the evidence pointed. According to him, a lot of the evidence pointed to the fact that Vivian had done this. He couldn't believe that a woman could inflict such horror on another woman. Yeah, yeah, the psychology behind that sort of does indicate that a woman couldn't do that. Not to say that it's not possible. It's just far less likely that a woman would commit a crime like this and have. No, that's it. Female on female murders are incredibly uncommon. Normally when a female is a perpetrator of a murder, it's that of an intimate partner.

50:50 So she's generally killing a male partner. I believe less than 10% of killers are female. So yeah, that kind of gives you a little bit of a, an idea on how, you know, rare this is. But as you said, it's rare, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. So at this stage, we're sort of, what are we now, 10/9, 10:00 in the morning? No one can find Vivian. So Beth's dead. Beth's not doing very well. No. What was the quote? Beth, she's unwell. She's unwell, but no one can find Vivian. She is nowhere to be found unless you take a phone call that a friend claims happened at 10:00 AM that morning.

51:39 Do you know about this? Yeah, actually I was going to ask you about this because we were actually together at a live crime. Oh my God. Like one of those shows Australian true crime. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't a stranger. It was case file. It was case file because it was Vicki Petritis, who is the author of the Philip Holland murder book. She's also person who has done the case file podcast, which is a long form podcast on this case, which is well worth a listen. But so we were actually at a live show of hers and we we thought we'd be walking into her to discussing the Philippine case, but I'm she turned out it turned out to be completely different.

52:16 It was a fabulous night, but it wasn't necessarily around the Philippine case until the end when obviously the audience members were asking some questions. And I mean, she's a strong advocate for Vivian in this scenario. There was a question put to her around the phone call that was made at 10:00 AM to what was her name, Linda Frost. Yeah, Yeah. So, and please remind me if I'm totally off base here, but my recollection of her answer to the question around that phone call was that she now believes that phone call never occurred.

52:49 Yeah. Yeah. So in her podcast and in her book, she really relies on that phone call being a bit of a, an indicator that, yeah, Vivian was alive at 10:00 AM there and didn't do that, had no idea what was going on with everything and that she was making a phone call as she ordinarily would in in the morning. But I don't think this changes her. I don't think it's changed her opinion on whether or not Vivian was involved in the murder of Beth or not, but it certainly has changed her thinking around this phone call.

53:19 There was. I can't if you, I don't know if you can remember what she actually said about it, but I just do remember her fairly clearly stating that she doesn't think that phone call occurred and that maybe Glenda had the wrong day. Yeah, I think she didn't give a specific reason. I think she just said, like, you know, more information has come to life. Yeah, she was, and sketchy about it, wasn't she? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she, as you said, she's like an absolute expert on this case. And she is a staunch Vivian Cameron supporter.

53:50 Like she, she definitely does not believe that Vivian perpetrated this. The podcast that she did for Case file that Vicky Petratus did for case file is called The Vanishing of Vivian Cameron. And I find that really interesting because really, the Beth murder, the Beth Barnard murder really takes a back seat in Vicki's telling Vivian's story. And I get, I see her like I understand why she's done that from her perspective is that she wants to give Vivian a voice because in all of this, she's just been the woman who committed the crime and then she disappeared, whether that, you know, suicide, whatever she did.

54:32 And it's kind of like fobbed off as like, you know, this woman's just she's a killer. So I do get it from that perspective. But at the same time, Beth was fairly innocent in all of this. Yes, she was having an affair, but she was not the married partner in that relationship. And that was for Fergus. And they all as the older person in the in the relationship as well as being the married one, should have been the responsible partner of saying this is not OK, I'm ending this or I'm ending my marriage to pursue this.

54:56 Like I do feel that more of that onus is on him than on her. From all accounts, she was a lovely, vivacious person. You know that she did not deserve to be murdered and just certainly not the way she was murdered. It was sounded pretty bloody horrific. So I I think, yeah, they both women equally, I think need respect in this. Yeah. Yeah. But so I mean, that's the big question of whether is is Vivian, is it that clear, clean and simple that Vivian did this or is it not when you don't have her story?

55:28 Well, that's it. And I don't think we'll we won't, we won't ever know. So the the, I guess the the call that Glenda Frost claims claims that Vivian phoned her at 10:00 AM to ask her about purchasing some kind of like crocheted something or other for a gift for somebody at the community centre that Vivian worked at. At the time, Glenda was at home and her friend Pam Lovett was at Glenda's house. And she her statement is that she heard Glenda take the phone call and go, oh, hi, Viv, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and continue the conversation.

56:08 Yeah, I think I think it's fair to say. So. Not only did the homicide detectives discount this call as in look, they they believe the call probably happened. It just didn't happen on the day that Glenda claims it happened. And I think they, they also in one of the something I watched that one of the cops made a very good statement in that saying not everyone gets their story right. Like as in everyone remembers things slightly differently. Not everything in a in a murder case is going to neatly line up.

56:38 And so therefore there are going to be outliers within, you know, as long as the majority of your stories that I align and that that's, you know, you can draw that conclusion that this is the answer. You know, there's always going to be something that doesn't fit. Yeah, because people Diaries are not as good as we would hope them to be. You know, especially this day. We don't have all these technologies to keep us in line of timelines and things like that. But yeah, but. Yeah, as adamant as Glenda was that this call happened on the what was it the Tuesday?

57:09 Yeah, yeah, on the Tuesday. Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM, Even the coroner has discounted this phone call as, Yeah, as you said, I think that the wording that was used was that this was an outlier and it doesn't have explanation. But there's also no, you know, there's no, we can't confirm that this call ever happened or didn't happen. So it's just one of those things. Yeah. So at this stage, let's, let's discount the call. Let's just say the call never happened. Vivian's been missing. So the last time she was seen was at 1:00 AM driving away from Mani's house after having dropped Fergus at her at Mani's house.

57:52 So what happened to her in that time? Yeah. So the inference, Sorry, I guess you know. No, that's all right. The the homicide homicide squads case is that she has gone and perpetrated this crime against Beth. They then infer that she has driven her car to the San Remo bridge, jumped off the bridge and I guess essentially committed suicide. Yeah, there's so much wrong with that though. There's so much wrong with that. So a couple. OK, let's start with, well, actually, let's go back to the crime scene.

58:30 What was found at the crime scene? So they found the things that yeah, that we they found that put put Vivian there. Yeah, they found a cigarette butt with her now confirmed. So this, it took a while for DNA evidence to be to become available. This happened in 1986. I think the DNA was tested. Was it 1993? Yeah, it was early 90s before that, 1994. Prior to that they couldn't. I mean, not with the cigarettes, they couldn't with the blood stuff, they could only tell like blood groups. But DNA came into it later in the 90s, yeah.

59:04 I think that. So this cigarette, there were two different brands of cigarettes found. And one of the brands that was found was the brand that Vivian smoked. Yeah, that was kind of all they had at the time. So the cigarette butt was actually found next to the body. Yeah. There were also cigarette butts found in the sink in next to the sink in the bathroom. So like they they literally had oh, this blows my mind too. They literally had an ashtray next to the sink. The sink was found with blood in it.

59:35 So the perpetrator had washed their hands in the sink, or at least attempted to wash their hands, and they found the same brand of cigarette butt in that in that ashtray. And that wasn't the cigarettes that any, I think from what I could gather, they, that particular brand of cigarette was the only one that Vivian smoked. And apparently she was a very, very heavy smoker. She wouldn't go anywhere without her cigarettes. Anyway, we later find out, you know, many, many years later, once DNA testing is carried out on this cigarette butt, that it actually is Vivian's cigarette butt.

1:00:08 So she was there. And that she was at the same brand and the same ones were found also in the Land Cruiser at the San River Bridge. Yeah, so she was at. So I'll be there was I think 2 drops of blood on the path on the way in or out of of Beth's house, which could be linked to Vivian and a drop of blood on a hand towel in the bathroom. So not a lot. There was certainly no DNA of Vivian's found on the body anywhere. I know you know, like not like it was under fingernails or any of those sorts of things.

1:00:44 You know, nothing like that was found in Vivian's within scene in any other way. So these are all things that could have been planted there, but that would take a lot of forethought, I think, for someone to. And as the homicide detective said, like who's doing that? This is. It I don't think that anyone's really thinking that much about planning and plotting a scene. I really don't that really that throws up for me. It puts it puts it puts Vivian there. Whether she murdered her or not is another thing, I think, but it puts her in the house that's we can pretty much draw that conclusion that she's been in that house.

1:01:21 So the only other evidence is been back at the Cameron's house where we find again, there's more blood. And so there's obviously according to Fergus and Vivian, we there was the altercation with wine glass. So you would expect that it be Fergus's blood there for that, but there was also Vivian's blood. So, and the only bit of Beth's blood that is found in the Cameron house is a small smudge of Beth's blood on a piece of paper in a back bedroom where Fergus and Vivian had their argument. So that's weird.

1:02:00 How did that get? I mean, and obviously Beth had been in and out of their house being, you know, she worked for them and and that sort of thing. So it's not like there wouldn't be evidence of Beth potentially in the house. But this one smudge of blood is the weirdest thing. Well, I heard it explained away. I can't remember if it was within the coroner's findings or not, but that it could have happened on another day. Because she worked on the farm, there's a possibility that she might have cut herself or, you know, in the midst of her work and was tended to inside the house.

1:02:33 Yes, that's one way her blood could have gotten there. And. The piece of paper itself, one lot of stuff I found they wouldn't release what that piece of paper was that the blood was found on, whereas I did eventually find it and it was a herbicide information sheet, which I mean that links to, you know, something Beth would have be handling at the farm with, you know, her background in horticulture, etcetera. She would have an understanding of those sorts of things and need that information without she was doing in her job.

1:03:01 So, I mean, I mean, God, you're going to cut your hand on various things on a farm. That's for damn sure. So is it just coincidence that she just happened to injure herself, you know, days prior and that on that piece of paper that got brought back to the house, you know, is a smudge of her blood? I don't know. That's my, I think. I don't think that that's, you know, there. I think what I find more interesting than what was found is what wasn't found. There's zero blood in the Land Cruiser. So if Vivian has gone to Beth's house and perpetrated this murder and got back in the Land Cruiser and then driven to San Remo, to the bridge, even if she has washed her hands up in the bathroom, there's got to have been some transfer or something.

1:03:44 But there was. This is the other thing, right? So talking about transfer of evidence, there's a lot to state that Vivian maybe wasn't even, I don't even know how this came about, but so on the back of the Land Cruiser, it was a flatbed, right? And on it was were bales and bales of hay. There was so much hay that it was actually hanging over the side of the. Truck, you can see it in the photos, in the crime scene photos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was no hay found in Beth's house, in her yard, or in the driveway or.

1:04:19 And anyone who has been on a farm and around hay, it gets on everything. It's as bad as bloody glitter like that. She is everywhere. And yeah, I've had, if she's pulled up in that driveway and pulled out again, And I would say, you know, fairly haphazardly, that car's going to, I mean, I'll definitely land Chris. It's going to bounce around a fair bit and hay is going to come off. And you know, there's going to be a trail of it, but there's nothing. Nothing. Again, it's that it's. What's not there is actually more interesting than what was.

1:04:48 Yeah, and then like the fact Vivian's handbag was found in the Land Cruiser at the bridge, right. But when was it Robin Dixon went the? Boys up the. Boys up, which was at like 3:00 in the morning. She claims that she saw Vivian's handbag at the house and I believe that. Yeah, I don't think you. I mean, I think it's the sort of thing you'd be like, oh God, she'd need that at the hospital, wouldn't she? You know what I mean? And that's it would register in your brain if you saw it there. So I do. I do.

1:05:25 I put weight in that. So the thought process is that she's Vivian. Vivian's gone to Beth, murdered her, driven home, got the bag for whatever reason because I don't know why you need that, but and put that in the Land Cruiser and then driven back past Beth's house where she's come from to get to the bridge to park her car there with a handbag. Sorry, love, but you don't need that in the in the afterlife. So I don't know what you're thinking of needing that, because if she's mostly going to kill herself, you need your handbag for.

1:05:55 Hear me out here, Maybe someone wanted to know, wanted everyone to know. Vivian had driven herself there. Yeah, so because the out there was somebody did see someone on a motorbike. Now that particular Land Cruiser has been it was known to on occasion have a motorbike on the back of it actually most often, which is not uncommon on a farm. So it's quite possible that that Land Cruiser was driven to the San Remo bridge with a the motorbike on the back. The driver has then got out of the car and got on the motorbike and ridden the motorbike back to the farm.

1:06:33 So that would be a possibility of being able to dump the car there in a way. Now who would ride that motorbike? According to most people, not Vivian. More likely a male. I don't think Vivian rode my bikes. That's what I read. Whereas I would be like Beth, I would say would ride a motorbike. I'm not saying women don't ride motorbikes, but from all accounts, that was not Vivian's thing. So I don't see her doing that and dump dumping the Land Rover there, the Land Cruiser there, but maybe Fergus. That's interesting because the other thing is about that San Remo bridge as a kid, well, you know, teenage years, we would go down to Phillip Island for surfing.

1:07:11 And there was actually, I'm actually fairly somewhat certain that I have even done it. But definitely I've watched other people do it is jump off that bridge for fun. People don't jump off that bridge to commit suicide. There's photos of it. You can see it's not that high of a bridge. Like it's it's high, but it's not stupid high. You're not going to kill yourself jumping off it. No one has. Ever. Done it before at high tide there's the water is quite deep there too. It's not like it's a shallow, you know, a shallow bit of water.

1:07:39 The other thing is that the salt crust on the railing was undisturbed along the entire length on both sides of the bridge, so it doesn't look like anybody has actually climbed up and disturbed it at all. The. Police divers. Four days. The police divers searched for four days. They didn't give up sort of thing. They would because I'm fairly convinced that's what she would have done and they've searched there for four days and not being able to retrieve a body. So I or anything. No, nothing. No, even a clothing, Not a.

1:08:11 Shoe, not an item of clothing, not anything. And they scoured every square inch of that seabed. Apparently it was quite murky. Yeah. But I mean, police dive as a train to to dive in those situations. And they, they do like a grid grid sort of searching pattern. And they did that multiple times over and over. They searched around the pylons where they expected they would potentially find something because it would have gotten caught. And they, they literally found nothing. They searched by air as well to see if they could see anything.

1:08:44 They, they have to this day, not a trace has been found. Vivian. Of her body, her possessions, Nothing. No. So the other one, there was a bus stop right there. Yep. So I mean, I guess that's sort of the possibility that she's killed Beth, got on the bus and disappeared.

1:09:06 Actually, I was going to ask you so if that if that's the scenario, if she did actually kill Vivian and get on a bus and disappear, let's say tomorrow she appears. Hi, I'm back here. I am. I've been living a life and I well and and says, but I didn't kill Beth, right. Do you reckon they could take her to trial and pin this on her? Beyond reasonable? Doubt. No, I don't. I don't think so. She No, there is a warrant out for her arrest. Yeah. So that if, if that ever did happen, she would be arrested.

1:09:37 Yeah, whether she they could charge her or not. I reckon they would 100% from the interviews I've seen of the lead detectives etcetera, yeah they are convinced that that's the only scenario that occurred here. So I do feel that they would push forward and charge her. I believe that any half decent prosecutor, oh sorry 1/2 decent defender and defence lawyer could easily put doubt in this and get her off look. I agree. I think on the balance of probability she had something to do with this. Yeah. But I don't think that she they can pin this on her with without the fact that there's there's just too much reasonable doubt around it.

1:10:16 Yeah, I think it's probably worth noting as well. In the months leading up to this murder and Vivian's subsequent disappearance, she'd found Lifeline several times and had had conversations with friends about. I mean, I think she was very private. So she never fully disclosed to anybody what was happening between Ferguson, Beth, but certainly acquaintances and friends of hers, They knew something was going on with her. I think the detectives, the homicide detectives have taken that as being a little bit of a state of mind and and that that you know, that this was this rage or whatever was building in her for for a long time about the situation that Fergus had put them in and.

1:11:07 Again, Fergus in his statement, I mean, and again, it's only his statement can go by, did say that she can be very aggressive in her fighting style. And look, we don't know what goes beyond behind closed doors. And I know all of her friends all said that she was the most Placid, you know, person and that I can't see her doing any of this. But in the state of mind that she was in, think that there's you've got a kind of error on the side of there's a possibility here that she could have snapped and actually gone that.

1:11:33 What involvement do you reckon Fergus had in this? I know. So I think again, let's put it all out there. It was never charged. There is. No, there is no inference from law enforcement at all that he had anything to do with anything. He lives as a free man. And has moved on well and truly he's remarried etcetera yeah yeah OK. I feel there's a scenario here where he. I feel like that there's more behind him potentially being the perpetrator than Vivian. I'm not ruling out either of them and and I I think to factor in all the pieces of puzzle this is how I sort of see it and I have a couple of couple of.

1:12:16 Because the timelines are so dodgy from all of the accounts, it's so hard to piece all of it together that there's brackets of time that you do kind of go, well, what happened between then and there? Was it how they've said it or was is there a completely different scenario that's possible here? And I wonder whether the blood on his shirt and the cut of his ear and all those sorts of things were not made by a wine glass by Vivian, but we're actually from him. Beth, he's come home after doing it.

1:12:46 Because from all accounts, actually, Beth was wanting to separate from Fergus and she was planning on leaving entirely. She actually quit her job at the Penguin Parade and with Fergus at the as the farmhand. She actually had the, Fergus had convinced her to stay and she'd got her job back at the, at the Penguin parade, etcetera. But she was telling her friends that she wanted, she felt that she needed to get out of that situation and it wasn't healthy. So I believe Beth was actually having a sexual relationship with another young man at the Times.

1:13:19 Yeah. I mean, it sounds to me like she'd recognise that this wasn't something that was going anywhere or going the way she wanted it to go necessarily, and she needed to get out of the situation. Yeah, so I, I do wonder whether because Fergus was pretty damn set on her staying, you know, and convinced her to stay and everything, but so I wonder whether he did he snap, you know, when she said no, I want out of this. I've I've met someone else, you know, maybe he has. He's done though. He's the one who's cracked it and fit of rage murdered her.

1:13:52 And then he's gone back to Vivian at home and maybe confessed to her. Fuck, I've done this. I've, I've murdered her and this is horrific. What am I going to do? And maybe that's where she's gone back to the scene with him and things have been found of hers to see what what happened. That's where and that's where the you know, the dune has been lifted up over and then, you know, those sorts of things. Maybe she's the one who's gone and done that. Maybe she was the one who carved the A in to make it, although maybe not, I don't know, like.

1:14:20 I really don't know it's. That throws me that whole thing, yeah, but yeah. I mean, that situation kind of makes a bit more sense that she'd kind of have the time to have a cigarette there. Yeah. Because you think if you've just done this like frenzied stabbing and you're in the heat of the moment. Yeah, you're not gonna sit and have a cigarette. It doesn't get the hell out of there. Yeah, that to me always seemed implausible. Yeah, like, whereas to me, if they've both gone back again after the fact and, you know, to check the scene or whatever, and then and then they've left and then Fergus has gone.

1:14:51 Fuck, she's and maybe she's then gone. Hey, well, this is not OK what you've just done to her. That's horrific. I can't stand like, you know, and that's when he's killed her too. I mean, that's that's the only scenario I can put this all together. But then I know that he, you know, he's supposedly at Marni's house, but is she just saying something to his timeline and that because her timeline doesn't match either? I don't know. That's where it all gets so messy. I think you can't. Put it together.

1:15:19 Yeah, look, I think we're never going unless, you know, Vivian miraculously shows up one day and confesses everything. I really don't think we're ever going to know. No. I think the other thing that sort of fits with that last theory that you were saying actually that I've just made a note of is when at the murder scene, the knife was actually left next to Beth's body. Yes, when the DNA testing was carried out, it was like a 99 point something percent chance that the DNA on that knife belonged to Vivian Cameron.

1:15:54 But that was not the knife used to make those wounds on Beth. Exactly. So that knife had been planted. Yeah, but or had it had because they actually don't know whether that knife was used in the stabbing. They know it wasn't used to make the A in her chest or in her in her stomach, but they don't know what I I don't think that's ever been concluded, whether that was the knife that actually was used for the murder. Though they basically said this is definitely it's definitely not the only knife. Like if it was sort of those potential there's marks that potentially that knife made, but it could have been entirely this other.

1:16:29 There's definitely a different blade that was used in the stabbing to that blade and that blade could have made all of them. The other one could have made some of them. So it could be both knives or it could be only the other one that's not being found. Yes, so. And again, that's never been found. No. So that block the the back at the Cameron's house is a crime scene photo of a sponge in the sink and a knife which matches the one that was found. Like it's in the same set or whatever, same set as the one found at Beth's.

1:17:04 And there's blood on the sponge that clearly she has cut herself at home, like, I mean, as all of us have in the kitchen doing things that she's cut herself in there. So that would suggest that maybe that blood was from then, you know, that's where that Dnas come from. And I don't know. Yeah. There's so many question marks over this case and so few people who can make statements that marry up to each other and to actually get true answers that I don't know that we'll wait. Yeah, we'll ever find.

1:17:32 That's why I sit at the top of this, you know, that I find this case to be ridiculously frustrating. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. One day, you know, you would think as time goes on we may find out more information. I mean I, I think. I think it would require time travel to be possible to go back to the moment in time when it occurred. Or maybe some more information from Fergus or Mani, I I don't know. I don't think we're gonna get that, no. I mean, he's still a very respectable man in what he does these days.

1:18:02 I believe he is like the managing director of the Philip Island Grand Prix track, you know, And he's. Yeah. So he's living a life and doing all those things. He's, you know, and if he's an, he's an innocent man. Good on him. That's great. I hope he is an innocent man. Yeah. And we could be predicting something, you know, putting something out there that's not, not true at all. But I don't know, Vivian being the murderer also doesn't actually make all that much sense for me. Same. Not on her own.

1:18:32 No, no. I guess we should probably leave it there. It's there's, you know, I'd really be interested to know what other people think. So please leave comments for us and let us know. We'd love to love to hear what everyone else thinks and whether anyone else has any other theories. Yeah, poster theories for us Tagus. Love to know what anyone else thinks. Yeah, for sure. So thanks everybody for joining us for another episode of Two Crime Besties. I can't believe we're up to episode 10 already. That's crazy.

1:18:59 It's cool.

1:19:03 According to one of the bit of research I was doing about, you know, how successful podcasts become successful, you need a Bank of around 100 episodes before you really start to gain any traction. So, you know, Oh, we'll.

1:19:19 Keep slugging away, I'm enjoying this. We'll get you 100 before we know it. Yeah. Do you have any shout outs today? I don't, but you do. There was one you sent me during the week. Actually, there's a couple you sent me during the week. I don't know what I sent. You. Well, one of them was your brother. I'm not gonna shout out my brother.

1:19:40 Joe, I want Joe No. Joe Mercury. Yeah, one of my really good workmates. I think we actually mentioned her in the last episode as her as her handle, which is Moon Dogs. I was a good person. That's her. Yeah. Yay, he has been so lovely to us. She's shared lots of our posts and received some really lovely feedback from her. So thank you so much Joe. We really appreciate your support and we appreciate everyone's support. We I thought we've had some really good feedback. A lot of you know, constructive stuff coming our way as well.

1:20:13 I'm throwing up your. Polls on like TikTok lately and stuff. We've had a lot of interaction with that. So that's been really great. So keep that up too, because we want to hear what your thoughts are. Yeah, you join in with the conversation. Right. And if you want us to cover a particular case, get in touch, let us know. Get in touch with DMS. Is that what the kids say these days? Slide into our DMS, is that right? Not in a creepy way, OK? No. No Dick pics. No. We had to go there. God. All right, Have a great night everyone, and we look forward to joining us on the next episode of Two Crime.

1:20:49 Besties see you next week. Stay curious. Crime besties.