Episode 22 - Maria Korp

0:15 Welcome back, everybody to episode 22 of Two Crime Besties.

0:19 Thank you so much for joining us again.

0:21 Hey, Emma, How's it going, Meg? Yeah, good, good.

0:24 We had a good morning. We're we're travelling, OK.

0:27 We're just both panicking that we don't have our ducks in a row

0:29 today. But I'm sure the brain matter

0:31 will, you know, fall in a place. 11 would hope.

0:35 I I feel like I say to Peter every night before we record.

0:40 Oh, my God. I don't know enough.

0:41 I need to, like, cram. It's like cramming for an exam

0:43 or something. Yeah.

0:45 But I feel like we always end up knowing more than we think we

0:48 know. Yeah.

0:49 At least being able to discuss more than I think.

0:52 Yeah, we think we're going to be able to discuss.

0:54 It reminds me of that feeling in the car as I drive to school on

0:57 a Friday when we turn on the Squeeze kids.

1:01 You listen to that podcast too? Yeah.

1:02 If you don't guys with kids, it's great.

1:04 It's a news. Daily News podcast Yeah, so.

1:08 We have a bit of a drive to school, so it's great fills in

1:09 our time when the kids are actually like learning about,

1:12 you know, current restore. Current affairs?

1:15 Yep. Yep.

1:16 And so on a Friday morning, they do a quiz and it's five

1:19 questions for the kids versus 5 questions for the parents.

1:22 And they're so unfair. Oh, the questions so unfair.

1:26 And so every time the kids obviously win.

1:28 But I feel that panic every time when it gets to that Friday

1:31 morning when the kids like they're answering their five

1:33 questions on it. And then when it says it, Bryce

1:35 says to everyone like, all right, parents, let's get that

1:37 grey matter. And, you know, work working and

1:40 everything. I'm.

1:40 I'm immediately like, I don't know anything.

1:42 I don't know. Yeah.

1:43 I don't know. Think about current affairs.

1:44 Yeah. Exactly what do I know?

1:46 All I know is what's popped up on my Instagram feed this week

1:48 to. Ask me a question about, you

1:51 know, Taylor Swift this week and I'll be able to answer it.

1:53 Yeah. But yeah.

1:54 Oh, God, yeah. Panic.

1:55 And then, I mean, they win anyway, so I barely ever get any

1:57 questions right. Do you ever get many right on

1:59 that? I've I've come so I've equaled

2:02 with my kids before. They always get 5 out of five.

2:04 One of my sons in particular has amazing recall.

2:07 He's just got a Yep, got a brain for it so he can remember facts.

2:12 Look, I think as an adult we have so many things that we have

2:16 to remember, and kids literally just have to worry about

2:20 remembering answers for a quiz. Yeah, but we have questions

2:24 sometimes, like names of politicians and stuff too, which

2:26 I'm like, I know that that's happening in whatever country,

2:29 Yeah, but don't ask me the name of the politician that's

2:32 involved in. It agreed, agreed, agreed.

2:35 Anyway, So how did you go this morning?

2:36 Oh. I sucked.

2:37 I think I got two out of 5I. Think I got 3 this morning.

2:40 Yeah, no, I didn't do great. Yeah, and I'm assuming the kids

2:43 got five out of five. But they.

2:46 Sorry, they are really easy. They give so many hints and like

2:49 look, Mason generally gets them the 1st at the first instance,

2:54 but then like there's all these like 10 bloody clues as to what

2:57 the answer is. After that I'm like, Oh my God,

2:59 make it easier. But I guess they're spanning

3:01 like primary schools, so from the younger years.

3:05 But anyway, it is a great podcast.

3:07 Check it out. Yeah, it's great.

3:11 Has there anything else been happening in your life this

3:14 week? Pretty, pretty, pretty regular

3:18 week this week, yeah. Yeah, no, not too bad.

3:21 But I hear you've got a new member of your family.

3:23 We do. We've taken on a new member of

3:25 the family and I couldn't be more delighted.

3:28 It's. That's beautiful.

3:29 It really is. It's beautiful.

3:30 We've named him and he's actually, you know, really

3:35 settled well into our family. Yeah, we got a robo vacuum mop.

3:41 Most valued valuable team member for all.

3:43 Absolutely, if anyones thinking about getting 1.

3:47 So we've had him for a bit over a week now and he is brilliant.

3:54 So took I think it took like a few goes to few goes around the

3:57 house to map it out, but he's he's got the house completely

4:00 mapped out now. Love that he knows where he can

4:03 mop and where he can't mop. We didn't have to tell him.

4:05 He just knows that he's going on carpet or going over a mat and

4:08 he won't feels all that mop the mat.

4:11 He'll just even if the mats on a tiled surface.

4:13 Right. He's great.

4:15 Oh, I love that. Yep.

4:16 Yep. Yeah, for anybody who wants to

4:19 know, it's a Robo rock. We're not sponsored by them, but

4:22 please, if they want to, I'll. Take one.

4:25 I love that when we're out last week and you guys had just sort

4:27 of got it and Peter had sent you through the video of him, pretty

4:31 put the GoPro on it, yeah. He is loving it.

4:34 More than I am. The joy on his face in the video

4:37 as he's like leaning down and like getting into the camera

4:39 shot of the robovac going around it was absolutely.

4:42 He's he's been testing, been testing him out by putting

4:47 different substances on the floor and seeing if he'll be

4:50 able to clean them, for example. So we've had these elements.

4:52 Oh yes, he's loving it. We've had Milo on the floor.

4:56 We did flour because he thought maybe the flour mixing with the

4:59 water. Like what if it leave?

5:00 No not all good. Anyway, highly highly recommend

5:05 I. Love that, it's so beautiful.

5:10 Anyway, let's get into today's case.

5:13 Today we're talking about Maria Corp and probably best known as

5:17 the body in the boot case. Again, this story is based in

5:21 Victoria and you know, it's it's one that I absolutely remember.

5:26 Yeah. And when when we were looking

5:29 into this case, I definitely there were things about it that

5:33 I'd forgotten and then was reminded by when we were

5:37 looking. Into I still visualized the news

5:39 stories that were coming out about this at the time.

5:41 It was very salacious. Very much so, yeah.

5:44 I mean, there's a bit of scandal involved, isn't there, which we

5:48 will get into. But so first of all, the story

5:53 with the story, the case I guess is about a woman named Maria

5:57 Corp. She was born Maria Matilde on

6:00 the 14th of January in 1955 in Madeira, Portugal.

6:04 She was born to a like quite a poor peasant family.

6:09 They lived in a village that was quite remote and they lived off

6:14 the land. Apparently they had quite a big

6:16 property and they were fairly self-sustaining.

6:19 And I, I believe their house didn't even have running water.

6:24 Oh wow. Or flushing toilet.

6:25 Like, you know, to, to think of somebody born in 1955 growing up

6:30 in in a village like that, it's sort of is a little bit

6:33 unfathomable. Yeah, for us living, you know.

6:35 Yeah, in Melbourne that. Sort of stuff.

6:37 It's yeah, that is yeah, yeah. Yeah.

6:39 So I mean, she grew up, you know, in very happy.

6:42 She had lots of brothers and sisters and they were a very

6:46 good devout Catholic family. And Maria was brought up, you

6:50 know, with faith being sort of a real like cornerstone of her, of

6:56 her upbringing and of her family.

6:59 She like, lived growing up in that in that village, I guess

7:05 you only have access to certain people.

7:07 But she met somebody who or she actually had a couple of loves

7:11 of her life when she lived there.

7:14 Yeah. She growing up, she had a

7:16 neighbour. His name was Fernando, and I

7:20 know his name was Fernando. Love that.

7:23 And he, they sort of grew up together and then fell in love.

7:26 But he went off, I think it was to like the Angolan war and he

7:29 was killed there. So that was, you know, a very

7:32 fairly short lived relationship for her.

7:35 And not long after that she actually met a man by the name

7:38 of Manuel de Gauche. They met in Portugal and married

7:42 not very long after. She was 19 when they got

7:44 married. So incredibly young.

7:46 Yeah, yeah, definitely. They decided, I guess to be

7:50 looking for better opportunities and and somewhere to raise their

7:55 future family and they decided when Maria was 21 years old to

8:00 move to Melbourne. Do you know, did you find out

8:02 any information about why they chose Melbourne?

8:05 No, not particularly. Because I don't think they had.

8:07 It's not like they had other family here or anything.

8:09 Like that, it was all on their own, which I mean, God, that

8:11 would be so that's such a huge step to make and to raise or

8:15 incredibly brave, like to move to a whole other country.

8:17 People who do that for me, I'm so impressed with them to be

8:21 able to. Then they didn't speak much

8:23 English, or barely. I don't think they spoke any

8:24 English when they arrived. Like to.

8:27 I love the stories of, you know, how they did learn to speak

8:29 English by speaking to their neighbours.

8:31 Like they basically have, you know, English lessons out in the

8:33 street with their neighbours, which I just, I mean, good on

8:35 them. That's amazing.

8:36 It's incredible. Yeah.

8:38 They moved to Koolaroo to start with, so sort of northern sort

8:43 of side of Melbourne. And then they eventually

8:47 settled. I think they bought a home in

8:50 Greenvale or bought a unit in Greenvale.

8:52 Eventually they went on to have a daughter by the name of Laura.

8:58 And you know, it was quite an idyllic little family life.

9:01 It was the three of them. They, you know, they established

9:04 themselves here. They had jobs, they were, you

9:06 know, going about their their lives as any immigrant would.

9:09 And yeah, really sort of assimilated into Australian

9:12 culture. And Maria and I believe Manuel

9:17 as well, they they still upheld a lot of their customs and

9:21 traditions from Portugal. They certainly still practiced

9:24 their Catholic faith. Yeah, but unfortunately, when

9:29 Laura was nine years old, Manuel died of a heart attack.

9:32 Yeah, tragic. Incredibly tragic.

9:35 And so that left. I mean, how isolating must that

9:38 have been for Maria? They had no family here on.

9:41 Her own as a single mum, like entirely like no family with her

9:44 at all. That's really hard.

9:45 And and I know that there was sort of thoughts of maybe going

9:48 back to Portugal at that point or even prior to that.

9:50 I think Manuel was keen to sort of set himself up sort of

9:54 financially, I think to then go back to Portugal.

9:55 It was kind of what they're, I think that's if he had stuck

9:58 around, that's potentially what he would have pushed for.

10:01 Whereas I know Maria was absolutely loving living here in

10:04 Australia. So she really once, I mean, when

10:06 she what did become a single mum, she really like, you know,

10:09 buckled down on like, you know, going, no, I'm going to do this

10:11 on my own here and stay in Australia.

10:13 I mean, she could have just picked up her daughter and taken

10:16 her home to family and things in Portugal and had support network

10:19 around her in that way. But she wanted to stay here in

10:21 Australia. She saw the opportunities and

10:24 she was such a hard worker like and you know, that's.

10:27 She's just impressive, a very impressive woman to be in that

10:33 situation. I can't even imagine to be in

10:35 that situation with very little, well, with no family support.

10:38 I mean, I assume if you're in that situation, your friends

10:41 sort of become your family and become your support network.

10:44 So, and from what I can gather, Maria had quite a close knit

10:47 group of friends who sort of rallied around her and helped

10:50 out. But at the end of the day, I

10:52 just don't know that like anything really, substitutes

10:56 family. Yeah, I mean, it depends, I

10:58 guess. I mean, everyone's different in

10:59 that scenario of who your family is.

11:00 Like that's true and how what your connections are with them.

11:04 But I mean, I know you and I would both be the same in terms

11:07 of our connections to our families.

11:09 I wouldn't be without them. Like, you know, if tomorrow I

11:11 was offered the world's greatest job internationally, you know,

11:14 having to pick up my kids and move without my family around

11:18 me, even though there's this bucket of money being dangled at

11:20 you, I, I think I'd say no. I was like, you know, like,

11:24 because I, I, I would want my family around me, you know, like

11:27 kind of thing. Whereas obviously she found her

11:30 independence, you know, and wanted that life for her

11:33 daughter. What a different life like.

11:35 So she obviously wanted something better for her

11:37 daughter than what she had. So yeah, you know, she's grown

11:39 up in a peasant village with, as we said, no running water,

11:43 living off the land. And I believe as a child, they,

11:47 her and her siblings worked the land.

11:49 They would go to school for a few hours in the morning, but

11:51 that was it. And then they would be working.

11:53 So she obviously wanted a better life for Laura or a different

11:57 life for Laura. And, yeah, so she's stuck with

12:00 it. And as you said, she worked

12:02 really hard. She had a full time job while

12:04 Laura was going through school. Yeah.

12:07 She worked full time at the South Pacific tire factory.

12:11 She was a factory hand and like that would have been a really

12:15 hard job, I bet. Physically difficult job, I

12:18 think. But apparently she excelled at

12:20 it. Apparently she was fantastic.

12:23 She was really reliable, you know, did all the things she

12:25 needed to do. And I think because of the type

12:28 of work that it was, it enabled her to be at home in the

12:32 afternoons and evenings with Laura from.

12:34 Working together, she like would finish work at 3:30.

12:36 You know, like the time. To go and like whip down the

12:38 street and pick up her kids from school.

12:39 So yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah.

12:42 So at the South Pacific tire factory, she met what would, I

12:46 guess, come to be the third love of her life, Joseph William

12:50 Corp. Now, he was born on the 4th of

12:54 July in 1958 in Swan Hills, so in regional Victoria.

13:00 He as a youngster was, was a bit of a character.

13:04 I don't think school was for him.

13:06 He wasn't very academic. He was, I've heard, and I know

13:10 we used this word in a previous episode of ours, but he was

13:14 quite a charismatic young man. To describe.

13:17 Him and it has been used by several people.

13:20 Yeah, he was a Collingwood supporter.

13:24 He was very sporty apparently. Maybe we should just clarify for

13:27 various listeners about what Collingwood supporters what this

13:30 sort of the stereotype of a Collingwood supporter is.

13:32 We might lose a few listeners if we actually say what we really

13:35 think. Well, it's AFL, it's Aussie

13:39 Rules football for those international I guess, but we

13:42 have the Magpies, the Collingwood team, which is, it's

13:45 basically fairly well known that you basically either break for

13:48 Collingwood or any other team like it's you.

13:51 You love them all. You hate, you love.

13:52 Them all you hate them, There is no If you don't break for

13:55 Collingwood, you hate them. Yeah, if you break for

13:57 Collingwood, you are Collingwood.

13:58 Thrown through? Yeah, Like, yeah.

14:00 And there's like a bit of rhetoric around like Collingwood

14:03 supporters not having all their teeth and.

14:07 Like there's generally sort of more working class, I guess in,

14:09 you know, in, you know, juxtaposition to that, you know,

14:12 the Melbourne supporter like yourself, you know, there's a

14:15 kind of a stigma around what that stereotype of what looks

14:18 like compared to a Collingwood supporter.

14:20 Yeah, anyway, like Collingwood. But you know, to each their own

14:28 anyway. So Joe was a Collingwood

14:30 supporter through and through. Like he bled for Collingwood.

14:33 You know, it was as they do, staunch supporter and had been

14:38 his whole life. Yeah.

14:40 He joined the army when he was 19, I think.

14:43 And look, I guess my dad grew up in the country, not, not near

14:47 Swan Hill, but he grew up in regional Victoria.

14:50 And the opportunities for young people, yeah, are quite limited.

14:57 So a lot of, you know, country kids choose to join the army or,

15:03 or, you know, as a way of getting out.

15:06 Yeah. And you get good pay and good

15:08 benefits and good supports. You learn skills.

15:11 And it is a bit of a, a pathway out that's not, you know,

15:15 necessarily, you know, heading to the city for university or

15:18 anything like that. So he joined the Army, but he

15:22 wasn't really an upstanding member of the Army.

15:25 He went AWOL a few times. Yep.

15:28 And like, I think, you know, eventually, I don't know how he

15:32 left or whether he was tolerably or desirably.

15:35 Yeah, I'm not. I'm not really sure.

15:36 I couldn't really get that much information around it.

15:39 Yeah. But it just kind of gives a bit

15:40 of an insight as to what he was like.

15:42 Yeah. He just sort of didn't really

15:45 commit fully to anything and. No, that's such a good way of

15:48 putting it. Didn't commit to anything.

15:49 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

15:52 He actually married a woman prior to meeting Maria and her

15:58 name was Leone. She's she has had a little bit,

16:03 there's a little bit about her out in the media.

16:05 She's she has said things about him that then form like inform a

16:11 lot of what has happened after he meets Maria.

16:17 But then looking at that through the lens, I guess of like she

16:22 was his wife and then he's cheated on his wife with Maria.

16:29 We will get there. But so she's a woman scorned, I

16:32 guess as well. But the things that she says

16:35 about what happened in their marriage and in their in their

16:38 life, yeah, really, it's just the pattern just keeps repeating

16:42 with this bloke. Absolutely.

16:44 They met in high school. She wasn't interested.

16:46 He pursued her and pursued her and pursued her until she

16:50 basically couldn't say no. He used to like rock up at her

16:53 house with flowers and he, he told her everything that she

16:57 wanted to hear. He said that he wanted to have a

17:00 family with her, that he wanted to marry her.

17:02 He wanted. And he, he even spoke, I think,

17:04 to her family about, about marrying her before they'd even

17:08 gotten to that point in their relationship.

17:10 Like it was all just, you know, it was his way, you know, it had

17:13 to be his way. And anyway, they had two kids

17:16 together. I didn't really go into much

17:20 about those two. Yeah, I think he had access to

17:23 them once they split. He didn't.

17:25 I think he did rekindle his relationship with his daughter

17:29 closer, like much later on down the track, but I think the

17:33 relationship was strained and yeah, he didn't really have much

17:37 to do with him. So he met Maria while he was

17:40 married to Leone at the South Pacific tire factory.

17:43 I think he was like the factory manager or something like that.

17:46 There was he. I think, sorry, I think you're

17:47 right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:49 And again, he pursued Maria. She look, she wasn't not looking

17:55 for a relationship, but she also wasn't, you know, looking for a

17:59 relationship. Apparently.

18:01 From what I like, from what I've heard, several people described

18:06 Joe as, at the time, I mean #1 charismatic, but also like, he

18:10 was quite good looking. Even though I look at photos of

18:12 him and I'm like, was he though? Did he just tell you that?

18:16 Yeah, maybe. Maybe.

18:17 I mean, everyone has their type. There's someone out there for

18:19 everyone. But you know, he, well, I guess

18:23 he wasn't unattractive. He.

18:24 Wasn't unattractive, we'll put it that way, yeah.

18:26 He really pursued Maria as well. Yeah, So she I don't know if

18:32 this is this is actual fact because I haven't actually seen

18:35 this anywhere else, but there is a telly movie that was created

18:38 about this. Yeah.

18:40 And it stars Rebecca Gibney as Maria Corp.

18:43 Oh, she I just. I love her.

18:46 So good practice. So rafters or Yeah.

18:49 Yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, She stars as Maria Corp.

18:52 And there's a scene in this show in this TV show, so I don't know

18:56 how factual it is, but he's pursuing her.

18:59 She's a single mom. You know, money's really tight.

19:02 And her refrigerator breaks down, Right?

19:04 And he then just rocks up to work one day.

19:08 And he's bought her this, like, state-of-the-art, amazing fridge

19:13 that, you know, Maria could only dream of because she didn't have

19:16 that much money. Yeah, and so he kind of worked

19:20 on her like that bombed. Absolutely love bombed.

19:23 Oh yeah, he'd buy her flowers. And she kept rejecting him and

19:26 pushing him and pushing him. Geez, that's funny that I've

19:28 heard that before about him. Is that?

19:30 Yeah, there's a button here, is there?

19:32 Oh, is there? Are you starting to glean a

19:34 little pattern here? Yeah.

19:35 And, you know, it got to the point where she felt like she

19:38 couldn't say no. You.

19:40 Feel like you know, you kind of repay this man how you know

19:42 someone who's doing such nice things for you.

19:44 How do you then say oh, but I don't I'm.

19:46 Actually not that into you. Fridge.

19:49 Yeah, I need the fridge, so if you could deliver that tomorrow

19:52 morning. That'd be great.

19:53 That'd be great. So look, I don't know whether

19:56 the Fridge story is true, but it was in that series.

19:58 But I'm. Sure.

19:59 That's a vibe though. That was definitely there, if

20:01 not factual, Yeah, I think. So, yeah, so they've started

20:06 this relationship while he's still married to Leone.

20:10 Yeah, at the at the start, completely unbeknownst to Maria.

20:13 And telling his wife. Oh no, no, Maria's just a work

20:16 colleague. Yeah, but she's like, well, I

20:18 keep hearing this name coming up more and more and more often.

20:21 Yeah. Yeah.

20:22 Why? Yeah, Well, there's smoke,

20:24 there's fire. Absolutely.

20:26 So they ended up, obviously, Leone and Joe split.

20:30 And like, one of the quotes that I saw that Leone had written, I

20:35 think this might have been, I don't know if this was part of

20:38 the divorce proceedings or not, but she'd written a statement

20:41 somewhere and she basically described him as possessive and

20:45 controlling. So yeah, absolutely.

20:48 Yep, that checks out. On the 26th of October in 1991,

20:52 Maria and Joe married. Have you seen the photos of the

20:55 wedding? Yes.

20:56 Oh, how funny are they? I mean, it's a very early 90s

20:59 wedding, but she's got like the gypsophil or whatever it is in

21:03 her hair and she's got the perm and the big, the big yes,

21:08 shoulders, poofy shoulders. And it's like a total early 90s

21:12 like dream. Absolutely love it.

21:15 Yeah, absolutely love it. I mean, because not that Joe was

21:19 necessarily like, rolling in the cash, like, as in like, I don't

21:22 know that he was like, ridiculously wealthy.

21:24 Not at all, he did. Make some very wise choices.

21:26 I think financially, because he did buy this really big block of

21:30 land out in Michelam, which when I saw that, I'm like, I know

21:34 that as a suburb, but I don't know Michael whatsoever.

21:37 It's not an area I have spent any time in.

21:39 Unless you're going to the airport.

21:41 Well, yeah. That's my only like connection

21:43 to that suburb. Yep.

21:44 And so I actually got onto realestate.com just to sort of

21:47 see what houses and what sort of things are out there.

21:48 And like when God, Michael, Jesus, like I mean, we're

21:52 talking, hey, this was 2000 and what 2000s that he bought that

21:56 land. So he bought the land in 1998?

21:59 Yeah, it took them seven years to build a home on it.

22:02 So it was completed in about 2005.

22:04 Yeah, that only really not like only just finished it when she

22:07 hit the fan. Yeah.

22:08 But like that he he was very forethought in doing that

22:11 because that that area. Holy cow, there are some

22:15 stunning, stunning homes. And they're on acreages like,

22:19 yeah. So I think their, their block

22:21 was like 5 acres. Yeah.

22:22 But did you see like literally over the other side of the road

22:27 is dense population housing like so the other side of that road?

22:32 Yeah, okay, lower Plenty Rd. or something on the No, it's not

22:35 lower plenty Rd. That's completely no anyway,

22:38 wherever it is. No, it's some Rd. but there's a

22:42 main road dividing it. And when you have a look at

22:44 their house, where their house is on Google map, right on one

22:48 side of the road, there's all these acreages and absolutely

22:50 stunning like mansion, yes. And literally on the other side

22:54 of the road, I think he's called the Roo, right?

22:56 And it is. All built up.

22:58 All built up, but I mean all new houses as well because it's like

23:02 a really recently developed area.

23:04 Coming in through from the city base and that's the next suburb

23:07 to boom kind of curriculum like. Exactly.

23:09 So exactly where he's bought. Oh my God, like that?

23:11 Was a really intelligent decision to split the land later

23:14 once it starts to build up more etcetera.

23:16 There's so much that that he, I mean, very intelligent financial

23:19 move, to be honest. Yeah, but it'd be built this

23:22 monstrosity of a house on there are huge.

23:25 And I loved that when they built it though that she had her like

23:28 her prayer room, basically her like the shadow shrine, all

23:30 these sorts of things for she's very into clairvoyance.

23:33 She was very into her Catholic Church.

23:36 So she had her room of all of her things.

23:38 And then he had his Collingwood room as well, as well as like I

23:41 think about 5 or 6 bedrooms. On top it was 5 bedrooms.

23:45 Yeah, but when I was looking at it, actually it was 5 bedrooms

23:48 and two bathrooms. Like wouldn't you have a third

23:50 bathroom anyway? I've got a third in that.

23:54 But and a three car garage and a massive shed out the back.

23:59 Yeah, massive shed. Yeah, love that slow man shed.

24:03 Yeah, a massive man shed. So it cost them.

24:05 I don't know how much the land cost, but the house cost them

24:08 about $500,000 to build back then.

24:11 Well, I mean, then they did bloody well because in 2005 it's

24:14 sold for 970,000 and that would have been cheap because of what

24:21 happened. Marios.

24:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean today it would be

24:24 worth 4 mil. Oh, easily, Yeah, easily.

24:28 It's like, yeah, huge. So in the monks this time, so

24:35 after they got married, while they were still building the

24:38 house, they actually had a son together.

24:40 His name was Damien or is Damien.

24:43 And so obviously Maria still had Laura from her first marriage.

24:50 And as we said, Joe's children from his previous marriage

24:54 weren't really part of this at all.

24:56 They were they were estranged from one another at the time.

24:58 So essentially in this giant mansion, it was Maria, Joe,

25:04 Laura and Damian. And Laura by this stage was an

25:07 older teenager into adulthood. So she was kind of doing her own

25:12 thing, coming and going as she pleased, but lived at home

25:15 still. Maria would pick up, still pick

25:20 up Damian from school every day. He went to Greenvale Primary

25:24 School, which was very close to where they lived.

25:28 And I think often Laura would actually take him to school

25:32 because Maria started school, started work early so she could

25:36 again. Yeah.

25:36 Early to get to school to pick him up.

25:39 Yeah. And she would leave, Maria would

25:42 leave work at 3:30 and be at school by, you know, 34345 to

25:46 pick Damian up before. Yeah.

25:48 You know, he was shuffled off to after school care.

25:50 Our school does the same thing. They've got like a second bell.

25:53 Like, our school finishes at 3:30, If there's still any kids

25:56 whose parents haven't picked them up by 3:45, there's another

25:59 bell and the kids have to go to the office.

26:01 Yep. Kids have to, Yeah, the yard

26:03 duty teachers go right. Have you got a parent?

26:04 Have you got a parent? Anyone who doesn't?

26:07 So we have to be careful claiming certain children.

26:08 We're like that one of that one is mine, but not that one.

26:10 Yeah, I can't assume responsibility for that child.

26:14 Yeah. So it's just a fairly typical

26:16 thing. And if there's any kids

26:17 leftover, you know, I'm assuming the school leftover.

26:19 I love it, you know, just left by the wayside.

26:22 I'm assuming parents get called or they go off to after school

26:24 care or whatever. Yeah.

26:25 So Maria would go every afternoon, pick Damian up from

26:31 school. Now he was, I think in Grade 5.

26:32 At the time, 11, yeah. So he was, you know, older end

26:35 of the school too. He was capable to be left there

26:37 after the bell and wait. Yeah, yeah.

26:40 So this was 9th of February 2005.

26:44 Damien's waiting for his mum to pick him up from school.

26:47 And, you know, the second bell goes and she's not there yet,

26:49 which is a bit unusual. And he could not completely.

26:52 Yeah, Like he's like, apparently he was playing on the playground

26:55 and just keeping an eye on the road and yeah, you know, she was

26:58 nowhere to be found, which was a bit weird.

27:00 So the second bell goes, he does the right thing and goes into

27:03 the office and says, you know, my mum's not here.

27:05 Yeah, So they tried to ring Maria's mobile phone and they

27:11 can't get a hold of her. Apparently over the like over

27:15 that 20 minute period from when he got to the office, over the

27:18 next 20 minutes, they called her three times and her phone went

27:22 straight to voicemail. Yeah, again, bit strange.

27:25 So they've called Joe and said, look, we can't get in contact

27:27 with Maria, can you come and pick pick Damian up from school,

27:30 which he did. And then what happened?

27:34 Yeah, so he's, he's arrived to pick up, pick up Damian, which

27:38 and he was like, oh, that's really unusual, you know, but

27:40 maybe she's had car trouble, you know, and I'm guessing this is

27:43 sort of, you know, early mobile phone times, I guess, too.

27:46 So, you know, if your phone's dead, it's dead, you know, that

27:49 we don't carry around charges, I guess, like we do these days.

27:51 That's a good point. We'll have car charges and

27:53 things like that. I don't think so, you know, I

27:55 think, you know, you would sort of be a bit oh, look,

27:57 something's happened that she hasn't been able to reach

27:59 someone sure, this will be fine. Yeah, maybe she broke down or

28:04 yeah. So he's picked up Damien and

28:06 he's dropped him home and stuff, but he's then gone and done a

28:08 bit of a search around the streets, just sort of just

28:10 started to drive around and sort of see if he could spot her.

28:13 I think they. Actually went home first, Yeah.

28:16 They noticed her car wasn't there.

28:17 And we're like, oh, that's really strange, like.

28:19 When he was like this, she's got a broken down or something or

28:22 having your own car trouble. So, yeah, he's driven around the

28:24 streets even to sort of if they can spot anything, but nothing.

28:29 Yeah. So that's when they've, he's

28:31 kind of like, this isn't right. I believe it was that evening.

28:35 Yeah, so I think they went home and we're like, tried calling

28:38 her again. Laura got home from work and

28:42 actually Laura got home from work as Joe and Damien were

28:47 driving out to go and look for Maria.

28:49 But they didn't stop one another to sort of figure out what was

28:53 going on. So it was once Damien and Joe

28:55 got home from, you know, tracing where they thought Maria may be,

29:00 that Laura found out that there was even anything going on.

29:03 She'd had no contact from her mom during that day, which I

29:05 don't, I don't gather was unusual.

29:08 It's not like they were in constant contact or anything

29:10 like that. But by 7:30 that night, Joe

29:13 decided to go down to, I think it was the Craigieburn police

29:16 station and report Maria missing.

29:20 And so kudos to the police on this.

29:23 They jumped right on it. They were checking phone

29:28 records. So they, because Joe had said,

29:29 I've I haven't heard from it, they were able to verify that

29:32 he'd had no contact with her that day.

29:35 They even verified with his workplace that he was at work

29:38 the whole day. They called friends and family.

29:42 Nobody had heard from her. They were on top of it that

29:45 night. I think it was even that night

29:47 they sent someone to follow Joe home.

29:50 They did, yeah. So they they were.

29:53 Well, sorry, sorry, that was actually the following.

29:56 That was the following night, was it?

29:57 Yep, sorry, Yep, jumped ahead. No, no, you're right.

29:59 Because he was very upfront, like they, when they first

30:02 interviewed him, you know, that he was really, really upfront

30:05 around the fact that, look, things weren't great in the

30:07 marriage, but they're working on it.

30:11 And so he then he said, you know, there wasn't any argument

30:14 particularly that day or any of those sort of things.

30:16 But the cops looked into this pretty quickly and discovered

30:19 that there had been a court hearing.

30:22 The day the. Day before where they had had

30:26 gone to the court for the two of them to Joe and Maria together

30:31 to remove an Ivo that had been put out on Joe.

30:35 Now that's interesting and that I again all cute.

30:39 Everyone seems to have done the right things along this way as

30:41 much as they could have. I really feel that this was one

30:44 way, and especially back in that era, I think more so.

30:48 Yeah, we're talking 20 years ago.

30:49 Yeah, talking 20 years ago, this is kind of like I'm really

30:51 impressed with what what went on here.

30:53 Clearly there was, it was very obvious things were not right

30:56 because the judge in this case pulled Maria aside away from Joe

31:00 saying Are you sure you want this Ivo removed?

31:04 And she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's we want it, you

31:08 know, lifted. And he decided the judge that he

31:11 would remove majority of the Ivo restrictions but would keep

31:17 certain things. I thought he only removed the

31:20 distance restriction. He only kept in the stuff around

31:24 harassing and yeah, Maria. So there was only, I think, one

31:29 of the multiple orders left in right.

31:34 But I mean, look, and that should just be common decency

31:36 that people don't harass and bully people.

31:38 Yeah, you shouldn't have to have a court order to state that, but

31:41 anyway, just. It just basically flags it that

31:43 if she was to go down to a police station and say this has

31:46 happened, it's not, you know? That happens.

31:49 Oh, he's away. He's breached.

31:51 He's. Breached it and therefore it's.

31:52 Yeah. Makes it that next level.

31:54 Yeah. But yeah, it's it should just be

31:56 common decency. But yeah, the fact that that Ivo

31:58 had been put in place previously for various reasons, Yeah, that

32:02 judge was on, on it, which I think's amazing.

32:05 Yeah. As much as he could when you've

32:07 got the two people standing in front of you.

32:08 And so the thing was, the judge also to his credit, told when he

32:13 went back into the courtroom, he said to them and to Joe that,

32:17 look, I understand you want this lifted, but the court cannot

32:20 just do that. He didn't say Maria's asked for

32:23 this. Like he didn't put it back on

32:25 Maria at all, that this is her fault, that this is happening.

32:28 He really, he took total onus on of it, saying I am, you know,

32:33 compelled to leave this in, but I'm happy to remove this, this

32:37 and this. Yeah, which made sure that then

32:39 the two of them leaving wasn't putting something on Maria that

32:43 was then going to cause more domestic issues.

32:46 Do you know why the Ivo was put in place in the first instance

32:50 in? Like why I couldn't actually

32:52 find any information to. That now that you're saying

32:55 that, I'm trying to think what it was.

32:56 I do believe, to be really honest with you, the only thing

32:59 I think I did find out about it was that it was actually put in

33:01 place by police. Yeah.

33:03 So there's been an. So there's two.

33:04 Different ways you can get IV OS in Victoria is that one that you

33:07 can apply for one yourself in a situation or police can actually

33:11 apply for it on your behalf. So, and I believe it was police

33:14 applied for this. On behalf on who?

33:16 The police apply for it on your behalf.

33:19 Do you have to consent to that or can they do it?

33:20 No. You don't have to consent to it,

33:22 OK? So they can put one in place

33:24 because of something they've seen or yeah, it can.

33:26 Be because they've witnessed something or something's been,

33:29 you know, disclosed to them that puts a reasonable yeah issue in

33:34 place, which I mean again, it's still has to go through the

33:35 court system and be approved via a judge, yeah, but.

33:38 And it's not an easy thing to get.

33:40 So you know, in order to get an Ivo, something really

33:43 significant must have to take. Very serious evidence, yeah.

33:47 As to why it needs to be in place, You can, you can apply

33:49 for one. Anyone can apply for one.

33:51 But actually having a judge put it down and go, yes, this is

33:53 going to remain in place is not easy.

33:55 OK. Yeah.

33:56 So I think that sort of speaks to what their relationship had

34:00 kind of deteriorated into because.

34:03 And thinking about now, I think actually part of it was that I

34:06 think it was actually his brother Gus.

34:08 Gust has. Have you pronounced that?

34:11 I think it's Gust or Gust. I've heard it pronounced both

34:13 ways the same. Yeah, so I believe he had

34:16 disclosed some issues that he had.

34:19 He was worried about Maria's safety because he had been

34:23 working on Joe's computer and he had found some emails that were

34:28 concerning, where there'd been some back and forth about I

34:32 don't want you involved. It's got to be have to be me.

34:35 There was some he had found. I think it was, yeah.

34:40 I'm trying to remember now from my reading that, yeah, there was

34:43 something that Ghost, I think had actually disclosed to the

34:45 police that meant that they were concerned for her safety.

34:49 Right, OK, yeah, yeah. And then she's gone with him

34:53 down to the court to say, Oh no, no, I'm fine, I swear I'll be

34:56 OK. Everything's good now, Yeah,

34:59 obviously rung up alarm bells for the judge, too.

35:01 So, yeah, for sure, yeah. So I think when when Joe went

35:06 down to Craigieburn Police Station though, to report Maria

35:08 missing, he didn't say anything about the Ivo.

35:11 No, he didn't. No.

35:13 But anyway, the police have obviously been able to easily

35:15 find that out just in the system.

35:17 Yeah, they did put a BOLO or a be on the lookout for Maria's

35:22 car because Joe did say that Maria's car was missing.

35:24 And so she drove a what was it, a 1995 Mazda burgundy Mazda 626?

35:34 Yeah. Sedan.

35:35 Yeah, they were everywhere back in the day.

35:37 Yeah. Weren't they like a Mazda 626?

35:39 Yeah. I just feel like everyone had

35:41 one or everyone knew someone who had one.

35:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is funny because I'm going

35:45 to bring something up about that.

35:46 Later. OK, so they, you know, they've

35:50 put this BOLO out, put the number plate out, and, you know,

35:54 yeah, start investigating all of the rest.

35:56 They also found out the police also found out that night that

35:59 Maria hadn't been at work that day.

36:01 And her supervisor or her boss said it was incredibly unusual

36:06 that like, she, she just would #1 she was an incredibly

36:09 reliable worker. Yeah, very hard working.

36:11 And she had never, in her history of employment, not

36:16 rocked up to work without letting them know.

36:17 Yes, and so I. Rarely, probably ever took sick

36:19 leave. I did.

36:20 Probably, yeah. She seems like that type of

36:21 person, doesn't she? Yeah.

36:23 Definitely. So anyway, they they're starting

36:28 to investigate this. I feel like the police probably

36:31 had a bit of a hunch. Or yeah, as I said before, I

36:33 think from the following day, then they started going hang on

36:35 like now that they once they sort of from that first initial,

36:38 you know, she's missing sort of thing.

36:40 They'd they then once they spoke to Joe a bit more and got a.

36:43 Bit from the. Following day, all that sort of

36:45 stuff, By that evening, they were like, do you know what?

36:47 When he leaves here, we're just going to put a tail on him.

36:49 So they had some cops follow him home from the police station.

36:54 And at that point he, on his way home, pulled over, took a bag

36:58 out of his car, put it in a wheelie bin, got back in his car

37:01 and drove off. The cops have obviously seen

37:03 this, pulled over, grabbed that bag and taking that into their

37:08 position to see was what was in there and look, there wasn't

37:13 anything overly. There's a lot of stuff going on

37:17 for this bloke. Oh so much shit going down.

37:20 They did actually look at also look at his house, they did sort

37:22 of to go and see if there was any evidence there.

37:25 They couldn't find any blood at that, you know, with the in

37:27 first glance of anything, they checked to see if whether there

37:31 was luggage missing. They checked to see if, you

37:33 know, there was clothing and those sorts of things had gone.

37:35 But there was still, there was no activity on bank accounts.

37:37 There was nothing missing out of the house.

37:39 You know, her phone, yeah, was missing and her and her wallet,

37:42 but that was it. So they couldn't really say

37:45 that. She certainly didn't look as

37:46 though she'd gone. I'm getting, I'm packing up and

37:48 getting away from this guy, which is a reasonable in this

37:51 situation. Maybe she decided to.

37:53 I'm out. I'm getting out and I've.

37:54 But then I guess her friends and family when they were

37:56 interviewed, because I know they interviewed Laura the following

37:58 morning and they interviewed Joe.

38:02 Yeah. And they then went and like, I

38:05 guess informally spoke with friends and family and all of

38:09 them said, no, she wouldn't have left.

38:10 Like she wouldn't have left her kids.

38:12 Yeah. There's no no even Joe like.

38:14 In all of his interviews, which I think they found very

38:16 confusing, was because he spoke about her so beautifully and,

38:19 like, she wouldn't have left her kids.

38:21 Like he was very like, no, no, no, no, yeah.

38:24 Yeah, because in his mind he's like, I'm innocent, I've done

38:27 nothing like this is what's going on, and I'm just telling

38:29 you what you need to know. But they asked that all

38:31 important question. They didn't they.

38:33 And they asked him, is there anyone that you could think of

38:36 that would want harm to to Maria?

38:41 And he answered that question quite quickly immediately that

38:45 Oh well, there is one person that I think would really want

38:48 to harm her. And that is my piece on the side

38:51 previously, Tanya Herman. And he's made out that this

38:55 Tanya is someone he is who is now an ex of his and that.

39:00 But she was obsessed with him. Obsessed with him and and didn't

39:04 really want to move on and that she wasn't happy that I was

39:07 staying with my wife. Let's get into Tanya Herman.

39:11 Can I just say previous to this as well, Maria did know about

39:15 Tanya well. Yes, so many reasons why she

39:17 knew about. Her, yeah, there's so many

39:19 different reasons. Again what?

39:21 The fuck? You know she Maria.

39:23 Maria found a dating profile of Joe's on their shared computer.

39:27 What a dickhead. Like if you're gonna hide it, I

39:30 talk. About his dating profile.

39:32 Is this got anything to do with the Latino love God?

39:36 Love God, which, excuse me, he's not Latino.

39:41 The dude, I couldn't find out exactly what his nationality

39:44 was, but I found out that there's like maybe some

39:46 indigenous aboriginal in him. Australian basically like, you

39:50 know, not Latino at all. Like, he just had so many lies

39:57 on his dating profile. Like, yeah, he said he was 40,

39:59 but he was 46 or 47, Yeah. And he said that he had like two

40:06 children when really like he probably had four.

40:10 He. Also said that he owned his own

40:12 construction company and. He was the boss.

40:14 Yeah, he didn't own his own construction.

40:16 And he had a team A-Team who he, like, managed or whatever.

40:20 Yeah. He, you know, so I guess he's

40:24 met, he's had this dating profile and he's met Tanya

40:27 Herman. Yeah.

40:28 Through the dating profile. Yeah.

40:30 So Tanya Tanya's an interesting one.

40:33 She as well has had like she had some.

40:38 Shit relationships. Yeah, she had the other.

40:40 Unfortunately, she'd been married before she'd had a

40:44 relationship, so her first relation, serious relationship I

40:47 guess, resulted in the birth of a daughter.

40:51 She then married. What was the Herman Andrew or

40:56 something? Adam's name?

40:58 I'm sorry, I forgot, I'm sorry. But she's then married the

41:01 Herman man and they've also had a daughter.

41:05 The eldest daughter of hers never lived with Tanya after the

41:10 after she and the the partner had separated.

41:13 So there's not a lot about her. I don't even I couldn't find her

41:16 name or anything like that because.

41:18 I couldn't everything, whatever, I kept saying She was a mother

41:20 of two and everywhere I was ready.

41:21 I'm like. But with there's only child,

41:23 this one child that's mentioned. Yeah, she lived with her father

41:26 and never had anything to do with Tanya again, I don't think.

41:31 Yeah. So, you know, so Tanya ended up

41:35 splitting with Mr. Herman and because apparently he was like

41:39 an alcoholic, he was abusive. It was just not a really.

41:42 She had toxic relationship after toxic relationship.

41:45 Unfortunately. Yeah, her.

41:47 She knew how to pick him. Yeah.

41:48 And didn't she? Oh yeah.

41:50 So she's met Joe on this, you know, on this dating website on

41:57 and like, loved his profile. They've matched.

42:01 Sheila was living in Echuca at the time, which was on the

42:03 border of Victoria and NSW. So it's a significant

42:08 difference. Distance 2 1/2 hour drive for

42:10 him from Michelin. Yeah.

42:11 So they were meeting up like he the first time they met.

42:14 I think they were talking for a while online.

42:16 Yeah. And then they decided obviously

42:18 to meet up. He's driven up to Echuca for a

42:21 bit of a rendezvous, but then, you know, they continued this

42:26 semi long distant relationship. She'd either they'd meet halfway

42:30 or and I think they were like doing it like the car in the car

42:33 and like apparently they would meet at A at Lake Epiloch, which

42:38 was like a dry lake. Between like in.

42:40 Between and they would just like do it on the dry dry lake bed.

42:43 Eww, how dirty would that be? Like that's just gross.

42:49 But then his same pattern evolved around it as well in

42:52 terms of like the love bombing situation.

42:54 He's then like moved her down to Melbourne, leased her house for

42:59 her and her daughter. He's paying for that lease to

43:02 then, which she then rolls her daughter into the same school as

43:07 Joe's son and Maria's son. Maria knows that Tanya exists

43:12 because she's seen photos of her.

43:14 She saw this. Like, I mean, that we will

43:16 actually pop this photo on our socials because we will.

43:19 It's, it's, I remember, it's iconic.

43:22 It is iconic. It totally is.

43:23 I remember this photo being coming out like on the news and

43:25 stuff and it was like, so like, Oh my.

43:27 God, it's salacious, isn't it? But.

43:29 It's so not like. It's not, I know, I know, but at

43:32 the time it. Was at the.

43:33 Time. Yeah.

43:34 So it's Tanya posing in in Joe's Collingwood Guernsey.

43:41 And nothing else. Oh, she was wearing a boot.

43:43 Well, that's. True.

43:44 Well, it wouldn't in the 90s. No, I don't know.

43:49 It's just, it's just, you know, as you said, it's a pattern

43:53 repeating itself. Tanya introduced Joe to her

43:57 daughter, you know, fairly early on.

43:59 And Joe's daughter. Kept telling Maria who because

44:01 she knew about him like her a bit about it and Joe's response

44:04 to her constantly was she's just a work colleague, which I find

44:09 really horrible because Maria was just.

44:12 A work colleague, Yeah, he was fucking with her.

44:15 Taylor's oldest time. Yeah, he was fucking with her

44:19 right from the ghetto, probably. Yeah.

44:21 Yeah, so this little girl, you know, she's attending like how?

44:24 What a shit situation for her. She's attending the primary

44:27 school that her mum's lovers son also attends.

44:33 Awkward. Apparently they would like bump

44:35 into each other at the school gate.

44:36 I mean, could you imagine a car park at Mafia?

44:40 Oh, the. Mummy Mafia Mafia would be going

44:42 oh they they would have been laughing the cat.

44:44 The the the rumour mill would have been amazing.

44:47 It would have been going off, yeah.

44:49 Yeah. Yeah, there'd be no hiding that

44:51 too. No, no, no.

44:53 Because I think she did have a go at her Maria, like, I mean,

44:56 she was feisty and she didn't back.

44:58 She wouldn't back down. No, yeah, yeah.

45:01 But I mean, for Maria, Maria was basically like she knew that Joe

45:04 was doing this, but she was a single mom previous to this.

45:07 She was determined that the her relationship with Joe was going

45:10 to withstand that and that they would hopefully be together.

45:14 She wanted to not be in a situation again when she was on

45:16 her own. That's it, I think.

45:18 I think another thing that played into that as well was her

45:21 Catholic like her Catholicism and that divorce is like really

45:26 frowned upon in the Catholic Church.

45:28 And so and they've been married in the church.

45:30 They'd sort of done all of the, all of the right things by the,

45:34 by the, you know, whatever. And so for her, I think divorce

45:40 was just not even an option. No, because it went against

45:44 everything that she believed in and everything that she'd

45:46 committed to when she married. Joe, that's right.

45:48 So basically she was like, Tanya, you need to fuck off.

45:50 Yeah, yeah. But.

45:53 Back the fuck off. But Joe had promised Tanya the

45:55 world. He'd promised Tanya that, you

45:58 know, he would marry her, that they would have children.

46:01 He would leave Maria. They would have children

46:03 together, They would travel. He told her whatever she wanted

46:05 to hear. Yeah.

46:06 And Tanya fell for it. Joe not only love bombed Tanya,

46:11 he also love bombed Tanya's daughter Taylor.

46:14 Yes. Yeah, and would buy her like

46:16 really extravagant gifts, like brand new bikes and clothes and

46:20 dolls and toys and you know, really.

46:22 And so Taylor wanted this. Too.

46:25 Yeah, she wanted him around. And yeah, Oh yeah.

46:28 Yep. When they got when sort of by

46:33 the time Tanya had moved to Melbourne or to Yeah, well to

46:37 Melbourne, yeah, Joe and Tanya were on all kinds of websites.

46:42 So they were on swingers websites and.

46:45 Like married couples meeting up other to meeting.

46:48 Up other couples and look, if that's what you want to do, no

46:50 judgement. That's fine if it's within a

46:52 consenting sort of, you know, area.

46:54 But you know, this again, you think about Maria in this

46:58 context and, you know, apparently Joe and Maria, in

47:03 terms of their what their expectations were sexually

47:09 within their relationship, they never aligned.

47:11 So Joe always wanted more sex than what Maria was willing to,

47:14 yeah, you know, blame. That he sort of used that, as

47:17 you know, This is why I have to seek it out elsewhere, because

47:19 you're not giving it to me. Yeah.

47:20 And he wanted to do things that Maria didn't want to do.

47:23 Yeah. Instead of respecting that and

47:26 you know, maybe having, you know, a respectful conversation

47:28 around it or some agreement within.

47:30 Compromises in terms of what they were both comfortable with,

47:33 Yep. No, no, he just went and sorted

47:35 elsewhere. And you know, from what I can

47:38 gather, Tanya was up for whatever Joe was, which again,

47:42 in a consenting relationship that's.

47:44 Your business like Paul Maria's there.

47:46 I mean, I think she dyed her hair blonde.

47:48 She did all sorts of things to almost make herself more a

47:51 little bit more like Tanya. Just that my heart breaks for

47:54 her like. And I don't know how this

47:56 information got out there, but I read in several different

47:58 sources that Maria actually was engaging in sexual acts that she

48:05 had never previously consented to, I think because she wanted

48:10 to try and keep Joe and keep Tanya away.

48:12 Also, there was she was actually on a website with Joe and her as

48:17 a couple. There's questions around whether

48:20 or not he did that to sort of show that, whether he put that

48:24 up and she had no idea. And he was using that as a bit

48:28 of a look, see, we were working on our relationship.

48:30 Like, you know, she was wanting to be part of that or whether

48:33 she had. So maybe she had no idea of it

48:35 or was she doing that to try and please him and, and was

48:39 participating in it. Many of her friends say there's

48:41 no way she would agree to have her photo up on line and put it

48:46 out there that she would be involved in that stuff.

48:47 So there's a question mark over whether that was a bit of a, a

48:51 red herring that he was sort of placed out there in the world to

48:53 kind of go see. Look, my wife was into it.

48:56 Like, but see, I, I can't, I actually think Maria had no idea

49:00 because. Like.

49:02 She was so private with things like that.

49:05 Even her friends say that she never spoke about things like

49:08 that. You know, like you might have a

49:10 bit of banter with your girlfriends around your

49:11 relationships. Like she just didn't have that.

49:14 They didn't talk about that. And I mean, I guess a word like

49:18 the word prudish was band like bandied about by her friends

49:23 basically saying, oh, no, we never spoke about sex.

49:25 We never spoke about those kinds of things in our friendship

49:28 circle because it was sort of that was between her and Joe.

49:32 Yeah. So they didn't know what their

49:36 sexual relationship was like. And I mean, fine.

49:40 But then Joe's portraying this image that Oh no, Marie was

49:43 totally up for swinging. I mean, I mean from a.

49:47 Massive. Yeah, that's a big.

49:49 Step. Yeah, yeah.

49:50 Yeah, but then was Maria then trying to maybe keep up and like

49:55 and meet, meet Joe, like meet where Tanya was at?

50:00 Was she being, was it coercive control of like, you know, you

50:03 better do this, otherwise I'm going to leave you.

50:04 Yeah, like, yeah, who knows? That's so horrible.

50:08 It's so horrible. So we're now at the point where

50:12 Joe has been interviewed and has popped Tanya's name into the

50:16 Ethan into the mix. And really kind of in that he's

50:19 sort of, he has really said this relationship's over with her.

50:23 I'm, you know, I've been trying to tell her that.

50:26 Yeah. Yeah.

50:28 The other thing that comes out around this time, I think it was

50:32 actually in the interview, Joe disclosed the fact that Maria

50:37 had spent something like $150,000 on, like, priests and

50:42 clairvoyance, and that was a source of tension within their

50:47 relationship. So, like, that was his, I guess,

50:51 reasoning behind why she might have left or gone away or

50:54 whatever. So Maria and I think Joe drove

50:59 her to this, you know, over the time, like living with somebody

51:02 like him. Yeah.

51:03 Yeah, I can. I can absolutely see it.

51:07 She's trying to seek answers. She's paying these fucking.

51:10 Clairvoyance and he's making her feel like she's crazy.

51:12 Apparently she paid 1 clairvoyant like $50,000 Jesus

51:16 Christ just to one person and the rest of it was like

51:19 donations to the Catholic Church for counselling and and she had

51:22 always access to you know. That I'm clairvoyant.

51:25 Oh, tell me. Yeah, Yeah.

51:26 Oh, here we go. This will be good.

51:28 I am really clairvoyant that I can tell anyone who wants to see

51:31 a clairvoyant that it's absolute bullshit.

51:35 You won't get out of it what you need, and I'll be right every

51:40 time. Good one.

51:45 Yep, so. Someone probably should have

51:46 told Maria that before she spent $150,000 on it.

51:51 But then that I, I look, I just feel like that shows how

51:54 vulnerable she was and how, you know, she was really seeking

51:58 answers. She wasn't getting any answers

52:00 from Joe, so she was outsourcing that to people who she obviously

52:04 had some kind of trust in or whatever.

52:06 Yeah, and maybe they were telling her what she wanted to

52:08 hear and that fulfilled something for her in as a

52:10 stopgap in that time. Yeah, yeah.

52:13 Who knows? The police then after Joe's

52:17 formal interview and they found this bag of stuff.

52:20 So in that bag he threw away one of the keys to his Commodore,

52:24 which I think is really bloody weird.

52:26 There were receipts, a Bella Clover and some white powder.

52:29 Thank you. Yeah, that's what was in the

52:31 bag. Yeah.

52:32 So I mean, some of that will come into play a little bit

52:34 later. So just keep a keep a little

52:37 mind out for that. The like, because of what the

52:41 police discovered in the interview, they were able to get

52:43 that search warrant for the house.

52:44 Yeah. And while they were searching

52:46 the house, one of a police officer caught Joe in their walk

52:49 in robe, going through the pockets of some shorts and.

52:54 He seemed to be really cagey with it.

52:57 Now we're like, what's going on this?

52:58 Is fucking weird. Yeah.

52:59 And he pretended when he kind of got caught out, he pretended he

53:01 was grabbing a jacket. I mean, it was February in

53:04 Melbourne. Made a coat.

53:05 It's February, Melbourne. It's our hottest month of the

53:07 year. We have temperatures in the 40s.

53:08 I mean, I think at the time the temperatures, these temperatures

53:11 were in like the late 20s, early 30s degrees Celsius.

53:15 Yeah, but he's grabbed a jacket as a ruse, whatever.

53:20 But in the pocket of the shorts that the police officer found

53:23 him going through, they found this green key card and that

53:26 will play a little part a little bit later down the track as

53:30 well. Yeah.

53:31 So he's put Tanya in it as well during this.

53:34 So they've also executed a warrant at her house.

53:39 They discovered at her house that Joe was the executor of her

53:42 will and and sole beneficiary of her will.

53:47 They found the rental agreement that both Joe and Tanya had

53:50 signed and Tanya had signed it with Tanya Herman Corp as her

53:55 surname. They weren't married.

53:57 They weren't even, they weren't even living together.

53:59 But she had she, that's how she'd signed it.

54:03 And the most notable thing they found, and this is the thing

54:06 that really informed what the police did next, they found a

54:10 list. Now they have obviously gone

54:12 through everything because this list was found at the bottom of

54:16 a of a rubbish bin with rubbish on top.

54:19 Apparently lots of chocolate bar wrappers.

54:22 No judgement whatsoever. And so on this list was written

54:28 suit, balaclava, paper, gloves, socks, knife, shampoo and

54:35 conditioner. Who writes a murder list well?

54:40 Who fucking keeps a murder list after you've?

54:42 That goes in after something happens that doesn't go on

54:45 paper. And also, do you really need a

54:48 list for such a short amount of things?

54:50 Yeah, also, but like I love that this shampoo and can do.

54:52 Yeah, she's like, Oh yeah, By the way, I'm going to need to

54:54 wash my. Hair.

54:54 I'm at the supermarket. Well, I'm there.

54:57 I might as well pick up all the things I need.

54:59 I'm surprised it wasn't milk and bread.

55:04 Oh, God. So because of what they found,

55:07 they escorted Tanya down to Broadmeadows police station for

55:11 a formal interview. Yeah.

55:12 And this is where she disclosed to the police all of the the

55:18 things that Joe had promised her.

55:19 The marriage, the children, the house, the everything.

55:22 Yeah. But he'd also said to Tanya that

55:27 there was no way Maria was going to leave him.

55:29 So, you know, what were they to do about that?

55:35 What do you do? What do you do when your wife

55:38 won't leave you or won't divorce you and you've got a bit on the

55:43 side? Did.

55:44 This interview happen before or after her brother came?

55:48 Before So this interview happened on the 10th of February

55:53 as well, so the day after Maria went.

55:56 I mean, as I say again, cops are on to this.

55:58 They were very like I did. I think this is one where the

56:02 cops actually did their job so well.

56:04 Oh, I. Can't be faulted.

56:05 Because in this interview, I believe they also, what they did

56:07 was they, they kind of pulled a little bit of a bluff on it.

56:10 Well, not really because he, they decided to be honest with

56:14 Tanya and say, look, you're telling us that you and Joe are

56:18 everything. You're completely, 100%

56:20 committed to each other. He's more in love with you than

56:21 he is with, with Maria. Joe's not telling us that.

56:25 He's telling us that you guys are broken up and that it's over

56:30 and he keeps trying to tell you that and that Maria is the love

56:33 of his life and to see what her reaction to that would be.

56:37 Now there are only really short snippets of her police interview

56:41 available online, so you can't see the whole interview, but you

56:45 can see that bit, yes. And she, there is a shift, there

56:49 is a physical shift in her, like she's sort of like sitting there

56:53 chatting with them. They say that to her, and you

56:57 can see her like, she almost tenses and becomes guarded.

57:01 And I feel like that's the first point where she's like, oh, I'm

57:04 fucked. I'm fucked.

57:06 Like he's he's fucking got. He's done this to me.

57:09 I feel like that was the moment where it's clicked with her.

57:13 Yeah. And she then her tune does

57:15 change after that. And she's like, OK, so they've

57:19 been able to glean out of this that, you know, there's a lot

57:23 more to this story than anyone is letting on at this point.

57:26 Yes. Yeah.

57:28 So a few more days go by, everyone's looking for Maria.

57:33 But on this is a Sunday now, the 13th of February, there's a park

57:40 worker by the name of Rick Brown.

57:42 So he looks after the parks and sort of in and around the Shrine

57:47 of Remembrance and sort of the outskirts of the Botanic Gardens

57:51 in Melbourne, an absolutely beautiful part of the world and

57:55 a really lovely place to to visit.

57:58 Yeah, he was not rostered to work that day, but because it

58:03 was it, you know, it's February, it's warm.

58:05 I think he looked after the water features in and around the

58:08 park and he thought, well, they're probably going to need a

58:10 top up because it's been hot. Lots of evaporation happens.

58:13 And so he decided to pop into work really, really early in the

58:16 morning. I think he was like 5:00 in the

58:18 morning on a Sunday morning. What a dedicated man.

58:20 Oh, yeah. And so he'd done what he needed

58:23 to do. He topped up the fountains and

58:25 he was driving along Dallas Brooks Drive to go back to the

58:29 depot. He was going to make himself a

58:30 coffee and then head home. And as he's and as he's driving

58:34 along Dallas Brooks Dr. it's empty.

58:36 It's never empty. No, except for Sunday mornings.

58:39 Sunday morning at 7:00, Yeah. And he's driving along and he

58:42 sees a burgundy Mazda 626 sedan. Now this had been in the media

58:48 everywhere, but he actually had a very particular conversation

58:51 with a work colleague the day before about this and that was

58:54 actually what triggered his memory.

58:55 Yeah, he was like, that's that car we were talking about.

58:57 Surely so he's, you know, he says curiosity and concern made

59:01 him pull over and have a look. So he goes to the front, the

59:05 sort of front side of the car, passenger side of the car, and

59:09 lots of condensation in the windows.

59:12 He can see that there's like a moldy solid roll on the

59:15 passenger seat. There's lots of papers and pens

59:19 strewn over the front seat. He can see that there's a black

59:21 handbag upturned and an open Melway is like an open MacBook

59:27 on the back seat, I think. And as he's sort of gone towards

59:31 the the rear of the car, he can smell a really, really foul

59:36 odour. Anyway, knowing what he thinks

59:40 this car is, he's obviously called the police and they've

59:43 come in and cordoned the area off.

59:46 Well, this is when one of our faves arrives too.

59:49 I just love this woman to death. Raul Fraser happened to be part

59:54 of the missing persons squad and which their office is not far

59:58 from this spot. Like down the road?

1:00:00 I think she believes that, like she said, looking out of our

1:00:02 window, we could almost have seen the car where it was

1:00:04 parked, interestingly enough. So they got there very quickly

1:00:07 from this report from this guy, They were down there within 5 to

1:00:10 10 minutes of the call coming in, which means.

1:00:11 That they were in the office at 7:00 on a Sunday morning.

1:00:15 I know like it. It's, it's mind boggling.

1:00:17 But I think, you know, you listen to lots of stories that

1:00:20 Narelle tells, and it's like a 24/7 job doing this.

1:00:22 Yeah, role. So they were probably in

1:00:24 investigating something else. No, they all came in.

1:00:26 They were already on this case. They were.

1:00:28 They were already assigned to this.

1:00:29 Right. So were they in already working

1:00:31 this case? So they OK, right, That makes.

1:00:33 Sense yeah they'd already been assigned to it but yeah so so

1:00:36 interestingly enough that they were that close to be able to go

1:00:38 Oh my God there's somewhere there you know that were there

1:00:41 so they're literally on foot got down there and I think Narelle's

1:00:44 words are that within like 100 metres of getting to that car

1:00:47 that smell hit so they're basically they're looking at the

1:00:51 car I think they they were questioning whether or not they

1:00:53 were going to like crack into the car themselves and break in

1:00:56 but they decided to wait for the tech team to arrive to be able

1:00:58 to open the car up without then I guess potentially ruining any

1:01:02 evidence that would be on the car they're all thinking that

1:01:05 they know what they're going to find is is a dead body so

1:01:09 eventually. I mean, they said once you smell

1:01:11 the smell of decomposition, it's unmistakable.

1:01:14 You know what it is? Yeah, I would hate to smell that

1:01:16 smell. I hope I never, ever smell it.

1:01:19 Yeah. So they basically finally got

1:01:20 the boot open and they find, unfortunately in the boot is

1:01:27 this emaciated tiny body of Maria Corp.

1:01:31 She was a 5 foot two tiny. I think she weighed something

1:01:34 like 50 kilos. Yeah, you know, really.

1:01:36 Really tiny, 1. And so let alone the fact that

1:01:38 she's now been in that boot for four days, no water, no food.

1:01:43 So they look at her and immediately assume that she's

1:01:47 dead. But Norelle Fraser, holy cow,

1:01:51 she is an incredible person. She wanted to obviously make

1:01:55 sure they've got to check that, you know, obviously find vitals

1:01:57 and check for vitals. To do that, she climbed into the

1:02:02 boot. And as she was doing that to get

1:02:05 to a position where she could check her vitals, she saw her

1:02:08 chest rise and fall very shallow, but saw it immediately

1:02:13 started yelling for medical to come and assist because she was

1:02:18 alive. What the?

1:02:20 And Narelle, who is a most beautiful woman, she was like,

1:02:26 I'm staying with her. So she climbed into that boot

1:02:28 and like basically cradled her to, I mean, in her mind, she was

1:02:33 like basically saying to this woman, keep fighting.

1:02:35 We're here for you now. You are safe.

1:02:37 You are. Nobody is going to hurt you

1:02:39 again. Yeah.

1:02:41 I mean, we've heard Narelle Fraser actually talk about this

1:02:42 case in person. Yeah.

1:02:45 We've seen her live quite a few times speaking about different

1:02:47 cases. She she is incredible.

1:02:49 She has a podcast. Narelle has a podcast now called

1:02:52 Narelle Fraser Interviews NFI. Love that she she, if you ever

1:02:58 have the opportunity to go and hear her speak live, she's

1:03:01 amazing. Such a gorgeous woman.

1:03:03 Such a lovely. Great advocate for police

1:03:06 officers with PTSD. And that's yeah, her own journey

1:03:09 has brought her to that. I mean, as you can really

1:03:10 imagine dealing with serious cases like this.

1:03:14 Yeah. So she's, she's amazing, but Oh

1:03:17 my God, to be in that boot for four days and this woman has

1:03:21 she's such a fighter to be alive at that point.

1:03:23 Oh my God, I don't even know how that's possible.

1:03:25 Like it was hot. Yeah, and what she'd been

1:03:27 through Briar. Yeah, because they could see on

1:03:30 her body these marks on her neck.

1:03:32 She had a massive laceration to the right side of her head.

1:03:36 Yeah, apparently she had dried blood coming out of her nose and

1:03:39 raises and everything all over her face.

1:03:42 Yeah. So she been through it.

1:03:45 Narelle stayed with her and went to that.

1:03:48 She was taken, you know, by ambulance to the Alfred

1:03:53 hospital, which is, again, not very far away, thankfully.

1:03:57 And she was put into Maria, was put into an induced coma.

1:04:01 And while they assessed her injuries and, like, what kind of

1:04:05 state she was in. Yeah.

1:04:08 So by the time they'd sort of gotten to that point, so the the

1:04:12 car was discovered at 7:00 AM on the 13th of Feb.

1:04:15 By the time Maria got to hospital, I think it was around

1:04:18 10:30 AM, and the police were really just trying to put things

1:04:22 together. So they had the forensics out of

1:04:24 the car. They were trying to figure out

1:04:27 what had happened. I mean, it was very evident just

1:04:29 by the what had physic, the way Maria physically looked, that

1:04:35 the intent to murder had been there.

1:04:38 And obviously she's left unconscious in a boot.

1:04:41 Yeah. She had, like, blood clots and

1:04:45 ulcers and just so many horrible things.

1:04:49 At 3:00 PM, the police turned up to the Corp home and notified Jo

1:04:55 and Laura and Damian that Maria had been found alive.

1:04:59 That. Was the only thing that I loved.

1:05:01 Like when Narelle said she goes, there was a massive argument by

1:05:05 the police officers because they they were all desperate to be

1:05:09 that person to stand in front of Joe and say she's alive.

1:05:14 Yeah, and apparently he was like, oh, thank God.

1:05:17 Oh, how wonderful. I'm so glad she's been found

1:05:19 alive. Oh, great, great, great.

1:05:22 Laura visited straight away and went to see Maria in hospital.

1:05:26 Can you imagine what that would be like as a daughter?

1:05:30 To see your mum in that state after being missing, you know,

1:05:33 to be just horrible, absolutely awful.

1:05:35 Laura immediately noticed, though, that Maria was missing

1:05:41 her wedding ring, a cross pendant that she wore around her

1:05:45 neck and a pair of cluster diamond earrings.

1:05:49 That and those were three items of jewellery that Laura reckons

1:05:52 she had never seen her mother without.

1:05:54 Yeah, so it was immediately noticeable.

1:05:56 She asked the hospital staff, oh, have these been removed?

1:05:59 Like, can I take them home with me?

1:06:00 And they're like, oh, no, she came in.

1:06:02 She had not. She didn't have the one when she

1:06:04 came in. Yeah, the Joe was not allowed to

1:06:09 go and see Maria. They did immediately put in

1:06:12 place some restrictions around that.

1:06:15 They reinstated the Ivo. Yeah, Yeah.

1:06:18 Yep. So he had a 200 meter, I think

1:06:21 it was exclusion around her. So he wasn't even allowed on the

1:06:25 hospital grounds. No.

1:06:28 Yeah. I mean, good on them facting so

1:06:29 quickly in that respect, too, because, I mean, they wouldn't,

1:06:32 they knew at this point, you know, something that he was

1:06:35 involved somehow. They didn't know all of the

1:06:37 mechanisms of it yet. Well, though, I mean, I guess

1:06:40 he's he's at least naming someone who he's involved with.

1:06:45 And so at at best it's his, his ex partner who's potentially

1:06:50 infiltrated this and then and very much putting across that it

1:06:53 was her and solely her. I guess that the the cops just

1:06:56 have to be, you know, like cautious.

1:06:58 Yeah. So the next day after Maria's

1:07:01 body was found, that's when Tanya Herman's brother, Steve

1:07:06 Deakin, presented at the police station.

1:07:10 Now, he had a lot of information.

1:07:13 Yeah. And I think being her brother, I

1:07:17 don't know, he probably didn't wanna think the worst.

1:07:19 But then, once Maria's body was found and the circumstances by

1:07:22 which she was found, he just couldn't.

1:07:25 Not yeah. I mean, there'd be plenty of

1:07:26 family members who would just find that really hard to come

1:07:30 forward. I mean, you don't want to think

1:07:32 the worst of your family members or any of that.

1:07:33 Sort of thing. So no way.

1:07:35 I mean all. All credit to him.

1:07:36 Yep, for sure. Yep.

1:07:37 I mean, he, he, he would have had to.

1:07:39 And look, I, you know, thank goodness he did, because it just

1:07:42 meant that they got to the end quicker.

1:07:45 Yeah, yeah. So his statement to the police

1:07:48 was basically that that Joe was really controlling of Tanya and

1:07:54 he didn't like Joe right from the get go.

1:07:56 No, Joe had done some really, really, really weird and fucked

1:08:00 up shit to Tanya. Yeah, he'd faked his own death

1:08:03 at one point. We haven't actually spoken about

1:08:05 that yet. So.

1:08:08 Well, he was trying. To break up with her?

1:08:10 Was he like what the fuck? It was, I know he was testing

1:08:12 her. He was testing her how it was.

1:08:14 It was testing how how faithful she was and what had how much

1:08:18 love she had for him because so there was the all the lies that

1:08:21 were in his profile that she met first.

1:08:24 She thought that's, I mean, surely anyone would be like, oh,

1:08:29 you know, this is who the person is.

1:08:30 And then you discover, oh, he's not actually 47.

1:08:32 Oh, he is married. He's not single.

1:08:34 Oh, he doesn't own his own company.

1:08:35 She found out all of that was lies.

1:08:37 She did find that out. She was even introduced to his

1:08:40 family. Yeah.

1:08:42 And found out things through them.

1:08:43 Yeah. That then went, oh hang on a

1:08:45 second, that he's not telling the truth.

1:08:48 Yeah. Surely then you'd be like, Oh my

1:08:49 God, whoa, I'm out. Hold on, wait a minute.

1:08:51 He's married. Oh, OK, that's me done.

1:08:54 No, no, no. So she, she was very much in a

1:08:57 coercive control relationship to be able to somehow be convinced

1:09:00 that it's OK he lied about all those things.

1:09:03 So then, yeah, then the whole idea that he told her that he

1:09:06 was going overseas to look after one of his parents back in a

1:09:11 Latino country of sorts. I don't know which one, because

1:09:14 was it? I can't.

1:09:14 Remember I've I've written it down.

1:09:15 Give me one SEC. Yeah, he told him, told her that

1:09:18 she he was going to look after a parent who lived overseas, but

1:09:22 they didn't even live overseas. They were Australian.

1:09:24 They lived here. Yep.

1:09:26 But while he was there, he, he had, was it an e-mail that he

1:09:31 was that was sent to her saying that Joe had been in a car

1:09:35 accident and killed whilst overseas.

1:09:39 So then she to the point where she was like, Oh my God, I can't

1:09:42 live any longer without him in my life.

1:09:44 Yep. Did she?

1:09:46 Was that when she attempted to kill herself?

1:09:49 Yep. Yeah, so she attempted suicide

1:09:52 because she said she couldn't live without him.

1:09:54 Yeah, that's what Joe wanted to hear.

1:09:56 Yeah, he wanted that, Yeah. And so then, but then randomly

1:10:00 he just rings her and he and she's on the phone going like,

1:10:03 wait, what? You're dead?

1:10:06 How fucked up is that? And she just went, oh, I'm so

1:10:11 glad you're not dead. Yay.

1:10:12 But he said to her, Oh, I was in a car accident.

1:10:15 There was miscommunication. Between it wasn't like, oh, I

1:10:18 didn't know you thought I was dead.

1:10:19 No, no, no. I was just really badly injured.

1:10:22 11 days. Got it wrong. 11 days later, he

1:10:25 I'm doing this in inverted comments, he returns to

1:10:28 Australia. He'd never left Australia and

1:10:32 he's got not a mark on him. No.

1:10:33 But do you think Tanya questions that?

1:10:35 No. But her brother did.

1:10:37 Yeah. Her brother Steve was like, what

1:10:39 the fuck, man? You've been in a in this

1:10:41 catastrophic car accident, supposedly overseas, and you

1:10:44 come back and you don't even have a mark on you.

1:10:45 But. Then, and then after that fact,

1:10:47 she then meets his family. Like to go hang on, Wouldn't you

1:10:50 then go hang on? Wait, you said to me that your

1:10:52 your parents lived overseas? Yeah.

1:10:54 No, now they're here. They live here.

1:10:55 They've never been overseas. The whole thing, just what the

1:10:59 hell? Yep, he was a piece of.

1:11:01 Shit, so it was Barcelona that he said.

1:11:04 He been to, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1:11:09 And so she has not questioned anything, or maybe she hasn't

1:11:11 felt like she could question any of it.

1:11:13 I mean, she's clearly been groomed her whole life in terms

1:11:16 of her relationships and what her.

1:11:18 Yeah. Relationship about her thing,

1:11:20 yeah, unfortunately for her, I don't know where that started or

1:11:24 what have you. Like whether that was childhood

1:11:26 or what. Yeah.

1:11:27 But clearly she's been through a shit load of toxic men.

1:11:32 Yeah. So Steve also tells the police

1:11:36 on that day that on the morning that Maria disappeared, Tanya

1:11:40 turned up to his workplace in leggings, running shoes.

1:11:44 She was really flustered, hot and bothered.

1:11:46 Yeah, she told him. I think he he turned up to her

1:11:50 work at like 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning.

1:11:54 That's been more. Like 830.

1:11:55 Yeah. So he worked in Elizabeth St.

1:11:58 So again, not that far from the shrine, really.

1:12:01 And Tanya was a really fit woman.

1:12:03 She was a runner. She was a triathlete.

1:12:05 I think she cycled and whatever and so she'd run to his work.

1:12:10 He he worked at a motorcycle shop and she told him that she'd

1:12:15 had a job interview that morning, but she was dressed in

1:12:18 and. Then she'd gone for a run after

1:12:20 it. Oh, OK, yeah, OK.

1:12:22 And could could he please take her back home?

1:12:25 Yeah, because she had to get there to drive her daughter to

1:12:27 school. Her 8 year old had been left at

1:12:29 home. Alone.

1:12:31 By herself alone, Tanya then. So the brother takes Tanya back,

1:12:38 she gets her child ready for school and her child is dropped

1:12:43 off at school late and they know that because she was signed in

1:12:45 at like 9:30 or something. Taylor's obviously, you know,

1:12:51 put a few things together here. Now, 8 year olds are observant.

1:12:57 They know more than you think they know.

1:12:59 Like, you know, sometimes you'll say things, that's it.

1:13:01 You'll say things in front of a child and think, oh, they're not

1:13:03 listening. They're on their, you know,

1:13:05 device or something. They know, they know everything

1:13:07 that's going on. We know we can get more Goss out

1:13:09 of them than anyone else half the time.

1:13:11 That's it. And so she, Taylor, has gone to

1:13:14 school. The teachers report on that

1:13:17 morning that Taylor was quite distressed and that was not a

1:13:20 usual thing. Yep, she didn't want.

1:13:22 To separate from her mom and stuff.

1:13:24 It was quite. Yeah, yeah.

1:13:25 Yeah, so there was something going on.

1:13:29 Taylor actually disclosed to a group of her friends that that

1:13:35 Joe and her mom were going to murder someone or wanted to

1:13:39 murder someone. And these poor little.

1:13:42 Kids. I think she actually even used

1:13:43 the word strangle. OK, so these poor little kids

1:13:46 have taken that on and Taylor's told them not to tell anyone,

1:13:50 but one of the kids has has said to her mum, Oh my God, you know

1:13:54 this. Is what Taylor is.

1:13:55 What Taylor told me, yeah. And.

1:13:56 Which it was already in the news.

1:13:57 What was going? On exactly so the mum's then

1:14:00 gone to the police station and reported it you.

1:14:02 Just imagine the rumour mill at that school.

1:14:04 Yeah. But I mean, look, the police can

1:14:06 take that on, but I think there's a, you know, there's a

1:14:09 certain element of so much for that information was already out

1:14:13 in the media. They took that on and they

1:14:14 obviously took the report and that that did go towards what

1:14:18 ended up coming, you know, coming together.

1:14:20 At the end things up a little bit.

1:14:21 That's right. So it wasn't ultimately, you

1:14:24 know, evidence that would make or break a case, kind of.

1:14:26 Thing. No.

1:14:26 No, but it's certainly distressing.

1:14:28 It was about. A level of the.

1:14:29 School community, I mean. Those poor and that child little

1:14:32 kids. Holy crap.

1:14:36 Joe was not returning any any of Tanya's calls during this time.

1:14:40 No, he even told the police I am going to go around to Tanya's

1:14:43 like this was like probably before the body being found

1:14:45 obviously. But like he did say to the

1:14:47 police, I am just going to go around there just because I want

1:14:49 you to know I don't because I know that he obviously knew that

1:14:51 they were following him and stuff I think.

1:14:52 But he was like, I just want, you know, I am going to go to

1:14:54 her place. So I do need to just let her

1:14:56 know again like this is I don't want anything to do with you.

1:14:58 I'm just telling her again that it's ended.

1:15:01 You know here. Which is not why it turned out

1:15:03 that he'd gone there. And yeah.

1:15:07 He was playing the concerned husband.

1:15:08 Yeah, he was putting her across as like an infatuated lover.

1:15:12 You know, some he was. She was obsessed with him

1:15:15 because who? Who wouldn't be obsessed with

1:15:16 him? Yeah, that's like her brother

1:15:18 Steve. I think that's one of the things

1:15:19 he really wanted to get across in his interview, was that one.

1:15:22 Yes, I think Tanya's involved, but Joe is too.

1:15:25 Yeah, And he even brought up the whole, like, brainwashing side

1:15:29 of things. Like he'd seen this elements of

1:15:32 this coercive control in the time that he'd spent with Tanya

1:15:37 and Joe. Yeah.

1:15:38 And so he'd sort of been putting things together.

1:15:41 They'd even had a flippant conversation at some point where

1:15:45 the suggestion of killing Maria had come up.

1:15:48 And it was joked off and laughed off at the time.

1:15:52 But he then, you know, in retrospect, is looking at that

1:15:55 going, holy shit. Turns out maybe that wasn't so

1:15:57 much of a joke. Yeah, Steven agreed to wear a

1:16:01 wire, Yes. And visit Tanya at home and try

1:16:05 and, you know, get something out of her.

1:16:07 Yeah. When he gets to her house,

1:16:09 wearing this wire, he, you know, brings everything up.

1:16:12 I mean, obviously this is at the forefront of literally

1:16:14 everyone's mind. It would.

1:16:15 Have been hard to get that into the conversation.

1:16:17 That's it. And I mean, I guess he's a

1:16:19 supportive brother like he is trying to help, you know, he

1:16:23 well. She's also kind of bought him

1:16:25 into it because by going to her work, his work that morning,

1:16:28 you're really roping him involved into what she's just

1:16:31 gone and done. For sure.

1:16:32 That's that's a bit of an Arsenal act in.

1:16:34 That, yes, totally. But she wouldn't have.

1:16:35 I don't think she would have even thought about it.

1:16:38 She needed an ally, and he was the person she went to.

1:16:41 Yeah. Good on being a good.

1:16:42 Big Brother. Yeah, Yeah.

1:16:43 And so he's wearing this wire and he's trying to get her to

1:16:46 say things, but she actually says to him at that time, oh, I

1:16:50 can't. I'm not going to say much

1:16:52 because I think the police have bugged my house.

1:16:55 Right. They hadn't bugged her house,

1:16:57 they bugged him. So they actually hadn't had any

1:17:00 insight into what conversation she'd been having.

1:17:02 Yeah. But look, he.

1:17:04 She does say a few things that sort of.

1:17:07 Yeah. It was enough to sort of go, OK,

1:17:09 well, Joe's complicit in this. At bare minimum, he's got some

1:17:13 involvement. And that's kind of what they

1:17:14 wanted. Yeah.

1:17:15 They knew Tanya had done something.

1:17:17 Yes, but they now needed to know that Joe was also involved so

1:17:20 that they could really come down hard on that.

1:17:22 Yeah. After the wire, you know, after

1:17:26 this conversation where Steve's wearing the wire, the police

1:17:28 arrest Tanya. Yeah.

1:17:31 And she immediately provides this.

1:17:33 Apparently, it started in the police car on the way down to

1:17:36 the station. Yeah.

1:17:38 But then obviously continued in a formal interview.

1:17:41 She provides this, like, really long and emotional confession.

1:17:46 She confesses everything. She basically said that Joe

1:17:50 pitched the murder in. I mean, he'd actually been OK.

1:17:54 So they had attempted to kill Maria on Christmas Eve the year

1:17:59 before. What they'd done now this.

1:18:01 This. Actually, I find this a bit

1:18:02 funny. They crushed 24 sleeping tablets

1:18:07 and gave them to her. I don't know how they like what

1:18:10 the delivery was because it just made Maria just a little bit

1:18:15 sleepy, like if anyone else had 24.

1:18:17 So obviously she didn't have the full dose because anyone else

1:18:21 who had 24 sleeping tablets would not be in a very good way.

1:18:24 No, but she just got a bit sleepy and went to bed and woke

1:18:27 up the next morning, Chris. I mean, doing it on Christmas

1:18:30 Eve is a fucked act for then. Like what?

1:18:33 Those kids are going to wake up the next morning to a dead

1:18:35 mother on Christmas Day. That makes that day a great day

1:18:38 for the rest of your life. Like assholes.

1:18:41 Totally. So that clearly hadn't worked.

1:18:43 And then in early Feb is when Joe started pitching this idea

1:18:48 of strangling Maria. They sort of went about this

1:18:53 plan, about executing this plan and they bought all of the

1:18:56 things they needed. They decided to strangle her

1:18:59 with the strap of a bag. So really heavy duty sort of

1:19:04 strap. So they got everything together.

1:19:09 Joe was adamant that it was the only possible way that they can

1:19:13 be together and that this was the ultimate way that Tanya

1:19:16 could show Joe that she loved him.

1:19:20 It was an unconditional love because you were willing to do

1:19:23 this for me. 7:15 PM. The night before Maria's murder,

1:19:28 or well, Maria's attack, they met at a service station near

1:19:35 Joe's workplace and discussed the plan.

1:19:38 So the plan was that Tanya would go there the next, go to the

1:19:44 house in McCullum the next morning, wait in the garage and

1:19:48 basically strangle Maria and kill her there and take her in,

1:19:54 in her car, take her in Maria's car and dump the car somewhere.

1:19:58 They hadn't actually planned where they were going to dump

1:20:00 the car, but he told her you have to drive far.

1:20:03 Yeah. Why she decided to dump the car

1:20:06 in the middle of the city, I don't know.

1:20:09 I don't. Didn't get.

1:20:11 No, but that's what she decided to do.

1:20:13 I guess she had no other way. Like she had to dump it

1:20:15 somewhere where she could then get.

1:20:16 Home. Yeah, I think that's more the

1:20:18 point. That was like somewhere where

1:20:19 that word, yeah. Yeah.

1:20:21 So at 5:15 on the morning of the attack, sorry, 5:50 AM, Tanya

1:20:29 arrives at the house. She crouches in the corner of

1:20:32 the garage. Yeah, Joe let her in there as he

1:20:34 was. Leaving, leaving for work.

1:20:35 So he left for work at about six O 5.

1:20:37 So they've had 15 minutes together to really.

1:20:40 Open the garage door and let her come in and like hide her and

1:20:43 apparently. They had a bit of a kiss and

1:20:45 cuddle in the garage. He said to her.

1:20:49 This is a direct quote from Tanya in the interview.

1:20:53 He said to her, I love you, you don't know how much I love you.

1:20:56 Do you love me? Then show me.

1:21:00 Oh. Yeah, now Maria was up already.

1:21:06 When Joe was up getting ready for work, she was making that

1:21:09 solid roll that was then found moldy on the front seat of her

1:21:12 car. She was making lunch for Damien

1:21:15 for his school lunch and leaving it in the fridge.

1:21:18 I think Laura was due to take Damien to school that day.

1:21:21 So Maria was just trying to get everything ready so that, you

1:21:24 know, they could get up and get going.

1:21:27 Yep. Laura claims that she hears her,

1:21:30 her name being called out or screamed out at about 6:30.

1:21:35 Yeah, somewhere between 6:15 and 6:30 AM, And it's coming from

1:21:40 what she thinks is the bedroom. Yes.

1:21:42 So she gets up and she goes and checks down there, doesn't say

1:21:46 anything, like if the bed's made, you know, Mom's gone to

1:21:48 work. In her mind, she's all intensive

1:21:50 left. She's like, I don't know.

1:21:51 It's just, yeah, in a day. She sort of then sort of puts it

1:21:54 down to I must have been dreaming.

1:21:55 Like, that's just, and she pops her head into Damien's room and

1:21:58 she's like, oh, did you hear anything?

1:21:59 And he's half asleep, you know? Nope.

1:22:02 So she actually went back to bed.

1:22:04 It wasn't quite time for them to get up yet and get ready for

1:22:07 school. So she's gone back and gone back

1:22:09 to sleep. Yeah.

1:22:11 What we now know is that Laura did hear her mum but it was

1:22:15 coming from the garage and which was directly underneath her

1:22:21 parents bedroom and so that's why she thought that's where it

1:22:24 was coming from. Tanya had put the strap around

1:22:29 Maria's neck. She had then, you know,

1:22:33 essentially like taken her to the floor and in the process of.

1:22:38 That battle between the two of them, because they were

1:22:41 basically very well matched in that sense that they were both

1:22:44 very fit and strong women. So it was not an easy task for

1:22:49 her to do is to, you know, attack Maria as much as she's a

1:22:51 very tiny person and I'm sure. She put up a fight.

1:22:54 She put up a hell of a fight. Yeah.

1:22:56 And I mean, as we said, Tanya's like a triathlete and she was

1:22:59 very fit and healthy too. And unfortunately she did

1:23:01 overpower her in the end, but it was a pretty.

1:23:04 Yeah, so she slammed Maria's head into the floor.

1:23:07 Now, this wasn't part of the plan because Joe didn't want any

1:23:10 blood, which is why they'd chosen strangulation.

1:23:12 Maria had managed to get her hand in between the strap and

1:23:15 her neck so that to, you know, try and stop that being held

1:23:18 there. And that was when Tanya then had

1:23:20 to sort of, you know, attack her more to get her hand out.

1:23:24 And that's when she's put taken her to the ground that way.

1:23:27 Yeah. Yeah.

1:23:28 Awful, awful Maria as, as we said, she's called out to Laura

1:23:35 during this time. But Tanya has overcome Maria,

1:23:43 and Tanya thinks at this point that Maria is dead.

1:23:45 She puts Maria into the boot of her own car and drives around

1:23:50 for nearly an hour. Yeah, Now during this drive,

1:23:54 Maria is actually moving in the boot.

1:23:56 She can hear Tanya can hear thumping in the boot.

1:23:59 Her testimony is later on is that, you know, she just felt

1:24:04 this overwhelming sense of guilt.

1:24:06 I say, fuck that. If you actually felt guilt,

1:24:08 you'd drive her to the hospital. And you know.

1:24:11 Dump the car at the front there and walk whatever whatever, but.

1:24:14 Yeah, but no, you dumped it in the middle of summer and what

1:24:19 the fuck did you think was going to happen?

1:24:22 Yeah. Yeah, just can't.

1:24:25 Yeah, I think so. She follows through on this 100

1:24:28 percent, 100% away from that car.

1:24:30 She takes Maria's wallet, phone and jewelry.

1:24:35 Yep, she threw that into the Yarra.

1:24:37 Yeah, it apparently the phone rang when she was walking across

1:24:40 the bridge and that's why she threw it, because she didn't

1:24:42 know what to do. She just threw it into the

1:24:44 Yarra. They never were able to recover

1:24:46 that phone. So, I mean, we're taking her

1:24:48 word for it that that's actually what happened.

1:24:50 Our phone records might have shown a phone call, I don't know

1:24:53 were the missed calls like that would appear I'm.

1:24:55 Not sure. I didn't say anything about

1:24:56 that. Well, I mean, you would think

1:24:57 so, though, yeah. Didn't you?

1:24:59 Yeah. And Joe then told Tanya that she

1:25:04 needed to destroy the rest of the evidence.

1:25:06 So she's actually done that in two separate places.

1:25:09 She took the bag of things that she used to strangle to strangle

1:25:15 Maria. So this was the strap, the

1:25:18 gloves, I think some of the clothing that she was wearing.

1:25:23 Yeah. And she's taken that to like,

1:25:25 like Epiloch. Yeah.

1:25:26 Which is where she and Joe used to do it.

1:25:31 Gross. And she's burnt it, burnt that

1:25:34 stuff, And the police were able to go there and find just the

1:25:37 silver belt buckles from the strap.

1:25:40 Strap. Yep.

1:25:41 She's then also disposed. I think she didn't think about

1:25:45 all of the things that she should have been disposing of

1:25:47 and she realized she had the shoes.

1:25:49 She was actually wearing Joe's shoes at the time because they

1:25:52 didn't want any forensic evidence of her footprints

1:25:55 anywhere. Joe's shoes.

1:25:56 So Joe's shoes would be. You know, yeah, be able to be

1:25:58 just dismissed as. Yeah, yeah, so.

1:26:01 But she didn't destroy those. So then she's gone and buried

1:26:04 those in a park in Greenville. To somewhere that one, right?

1:26:08 Yeah. And the police were, they found

1:26:09 it. She buried them.

1:26:10 Yeah. She told them where it was.

1:26:12 Yeah, well, she told them where it was and they were able to

1:26:14 recover that evidence. Right.

1:26:16 So all of her stories like really matching up and there's.

1:26:19 She's telling the. Truth.

1:26:20 Yep, she's telling the truth. Well, she had.

1:26:22 I think at this point she probably felt like she had

1:26:24 nothing left to hide. Yeah.

1:26:25 What? Yeah.

1:26:26 What do you do now? What do you do now?

1:26:27 At this point though, I guess where she's coming from is that

1:26:31 it's all been put on her. This was solely her wanting to

1:26:34 murder Maria so she can have Joe, where in reality it's Joe

1:26:40 getting Tanya to do this so he is culpable and he needs to be

1:26:43 held accountable. Absolutely.

1:26:45 She even says that in her interview.

1:26:47 She says in her police interview, she says, I can see,

1:26:52 I can see now that he's basically set me up for this.

1:26:55 Yeah. And he he can get away Scott

1:26:58 free. Yeah, and he shouldn't.

1:27:01 And of course he shouldn't. No bloody way.

1:27:03 They never found Maria's wedding ring or the cross around her

1:27:07 neck. And as I mentioned, they haven't

1:27:08 found or been able to recover her phone.

1:27:12 Given Tanya's evidence and, and her statements to police and the

1:27:19 fact that they were able to, you know, check and make sure that a

1:27:23 lot of what she'd said was true, they decided the police decided

1:27:27 to charge Joe. Yeah, they charged him with

1:27:30 conspiracy to commit an indictable offence,

1:27:35 intentionally causing serious injury, attempted murder and

1:27:39 four counts of theft, which were unrelated to the attack.

1:27:43 Do you want to talk about that? Well, I mean, what I read about

1:27:46 that was obviously like, so we go back here to the key that was

1:27:49 found, yeah, in the shorts at the house.

1:27:51 So. And a little bit of a link up

1:27:54 here of something else too. So what that key was actually

1:27:57 for what he was hiding that key from, he was stealing shit from

1:28:00 his workplace. Like what a piece of shit.

1:28:04 And like, he's, he just on so many levels.

1:28:06 The the company apparently were like, you know, knew that this

1:28:09 was happening, but they couldn't work out who was stealing the

1:28:11 stuff. Yeah, turns out it was Joe

1:28:14 pinching all that stuff. Yeah.

1:28:15 And so also somewhat related to that, though, is that Maria,

1:28:20 Maria wasn't feeling overly safe in her relationship.

1:28:23 And so she actually gave a bag of things to a friend and said

1:28:28 if I, if anything ever happens to me, take this to the police.

1:28:32 So and in that bag included quite a number of things, one

1:28:34 being photos of things that Joe had stolen from his workplace.

1:28:38 So I believe that also went towards that charge.

1:28:40 Yeah. So, but also in that bag was her

1:28:43 diary, so where she documented quite a bit of stuff that had

1:28:46 been going on between them. And notably, it had all been

1:28:49 written in Portuguese. Yeah, so he couldn't.

1:28:51 So he couldn't read it. Perfect going on.

1:28:52 Wow. I need to learn another language

1:28:54 if I'm going to have been in this situation.

1:28:56 That's such a good idea. Well, it's on.

1:28:59 Yeah. So.

1:29:00 Yeah, her diary, but also bank statements showing things that

1:29:03 he'd been purchasing for his lover and all that sort of

1:29:06 thing, but also a tube that's and rags and things that he had

1:29:12 had used and this was another attempt on her life and Ghost

1:29:15 actually backed this up originally.

1:29:17 He all back he backpedaled the brother on a number of things

1:29:19 that. He talked about.

1:29:20 Joe's brother. Joe's brother, of course.

1:29:22 Yeah, yeah. But so that the tube and the

1:29:24 rags, Joe had given them to Tanya, to sorry to Maria, and

1:29:30 asked her to put them in the exhaust of the car so that he

1:29:33 could check the oil levels of the car.

1:29:36 Yeah, No, that's, I mean, I am no car buff, but I am.

1:29:40 Well, I know how to check oil, and I certainly wouldn't be

1:29:42 shoving anything in my exhaust pipes to do so.

1:29:44 No, Fuck no. But basically he was trying to

1:29:47 get her fingerprints on this stuff to show that.

1:29:50 So if he then if he then put her in a car and did this to her and

1:29:54 gassed her, it would come out as if she committed.

1:29:56 Suicide. Yep, what a piece.

1:29:59 Of shit, but yeah, so she was on to him affair.

1:30:01 But I think actually she'd gone to Gust with it saying like, why

1:30:04 would he have got me to do that? And he was like, you need to be

1:30:07 careful. So.

1:30:09 And he actually disclosed that stuff to the cops.

1:30:11 So he then, as I say, he backpedaled later on kind of

1:30:14 trying to protect his brother a little bit.

1:30:15 But yeah. Yeah.

1:30:16 So he he was genuinely, there was lots of evidence there to

1:30:20 say that he was definitely conspiring to to kill her.

1:30:24 Yeah. But yeah.

1:30:25 But because she's still alive in hospital in this coma, it's

1:30:28 attempted murder. Yeah.

1:30:31 Yeah. So he, they arrest him on

1:30:33 February 16th. So again, brought him to the

1:30:37 cops. There's really no time being

1:30:39 left alone here. They are on tour.

1:30:41 Oh, they're on day-to-day. They are doing more on this.

1:30:43 Yeah. Tanya then pleads guilty to her

1:30:47 charge of attempted murder. Yes, on the 28th of June in

1:30:50 2005. Yeah.

1:30:52 The judge accepted the fact that if Tanya hadn't have met Joe,

1:30:56 she never would have killed somebody.

1:30:58 So the judge fully accepted that this was a singular incident for

1:31:03 Tanya. It's not like she had this

1:31:05 murderous intent for anybody else.

1:31:08 And so, and for the fact that Tanya was cooperative, she pled

1:31:12 guilty and all of that sort of stuff, and she had an excellent

1:31:16 chance of rehabilitation. Yeah.

1:31:18 She was sentenced to 12 years in prison with a nine year non

1:31:21 parole period. Yeah, as I said, she had an

1:31:25 excellent prospect of rehabilitation.

1:31:28 Tanya was released from prison in 2014, I think it was.

1:31:33 And she did. She served nine years and four

1:31:35 days of her sentence. Yeah.

1:31:38 During her time in prison, she developed a relationship with a

1:31:42 fellow inmate who she was then released into like, and was

1:31:48 living with this woman. This one was a fraudster.

1:31:53 So that's an interesting choice for her to go from a toxic

1:31:57 relationship with Joe into another potentially toxic

1:32:01 relationship. But look, I haven't actually

1:32:03 looked, even looked into where Tanya is today.

1:32:05 There's not a lot of him. Find anything?

1:32:07 So I did. I found a lot about when she

1:32:09 first left jail. Same.

1:32:11 But beyond that. And to me, honestly, that's

1:32:13 that's good. I think that means that

1:32:14 obviously I don't know whether they're still together as a

1:32:16 couple or what, whether they are or they aren't.

1:32:18 She hasn't made it back into the media, therefore she hasn't been

1:32:21 doing anything. Yeah, that's it.

1:32:23 I kind of hope that that means that she's on a far better path.

1:32:26 I would for I would imagine. So let's hope.

1:32:28 I'm sure the media would be jumping down her throat if she

1:32:30 was ever involved in her name popped up anywhere.

1:32:33 So yeah. Another thing that went towards

1:32:36 Tanya's, I guess, which sort of put her in in better light in

1:32:41 terms of the court proceedings, is that she agreed to testify at

1:32:44 Joe's trial. Yes, so to.

1:32:46 Testify against him. Too.

1:32:47 Oh, to test. Yeah, sorry.

1:32:49 To testify against him. That's it.

1:32:50 By this stage she she could absolutely see what had happened

1:32:54 and that she'd been coercively controlled into basically

1:32:59 killing his wife for him. Yeah, and I think she was

1:33:02 starting to realize, too, that it wasn't just about then him

1:33:06 like saying, oh, Tanya's gonna kill her so that we can be

1:33:09 together. I think she'd really clued in at

1:33:11 this point that his whole point here was to get to basically

1:33:15 make sure that the two of those women were out of Joe's life.

1:33:18 Yep. It wasn't about him getting rid

1:33:21 of them, getting rid of Maria so that the two of them could then

1:33:23 rendezvous off and have a perfect.

1:33:24 Life he wanted to go and. See with someone.

1:33:27 Else both of them, Yep, Yep, Yep.

1:33:29 The defence's theory. So Joe's defence, that was that

1:33:32 Tanya acted alone. He had no idea, but her

1:33:35 testimony really spoke to the fact that that wasn't true at

1:33:38 all. And I mean, there was a lot of

1:33:39 evidence to support it as well during this time.

1:33:42 So Maria is still alive. Mm hmm.

1:33:47 Laura applied to have Joe disinherited from Maria's estate

1:33:51 because he was actually, at this point the sole beneficiary of

1:33:55 her estate. So he stood to, she had a life

1:33:58 insurance policy of around $100,000.

1:34:00 She had about $250,000 in superannuation that he would

1:34:04 have inherited and also obviously her half of the house.

1:34:10 So it was somewhere around the $1,000,000 mark in terms of her,

1:34:15 her estate, her personal estate. Laura applied to the court to be

1:34:21 to have that changed, and that was granted.

1:34:24 So then Laura and Damien became the beneficiaries of of Maria's

1:34:29 estate. Yeah.

1:34:32 Again, during this time, Maria was essentially in a vegetative

1:34:36 state, still in hospital. They performed lots of different

1:34:40 tests on her to see what her viability was like, but she

1:34:44 actually had no next of kin. No, because Joe was, you know,

1:34:50 up for an attempted murder charge against her.

1:34:53 Laura being Laura, was an adult, but she because she was in a

1:34:58 beneficiary of the state, she was actually exempt from being

1:35:01 able to make any medical decision.

1:35:02 She didn't have medical power of attorney, no.

1:35:05 So the decision was made that an application was made through

1:35:09 VCAT. MM hmm.

1:35:12 For a court appointed guardian, essentially.

1:35:15 And so a man by the name of Julian Gardner was appointed to

1:35:21 oversee Maria's medical needs. And whether or not, you know,

1:35:28 withdrawing nutrition and fluid would be and sort of letting her

1:35:35 come to her natural end would be the right way to go.

1:35:39 He really took this very, very seriously.

1:35:42 Yeah. He consulted with doctors,

1:35:48 physicians, family members, friends, clergy members.

1:35:52 Yeah, priests and. 'Cause then obviously her

1:35:55 Catholic, you know, faith, faith would have really played a big

1:35:57 part in what Maria's wishes would be.

1:36:00 That's right, because Catholics don't that suicide is a sin.

1:36:04 So it's not something that Maria would want to partake in if

1:36:09 that's the way they decided they would view this.

1:36:13 But after a fairly lengthy process, he basically decided

1:36:18 that they would withdraw food and like any nutrition from her,

1:36:24 and they sort of withheld water and sort of let her come to her

1:36:28 natural end. He met with her.

1:36:30 He went to see her once he'd made this decision.

1:36:33 I mean, she was, you know, her EEG, so her brain activity was

1:36:39 minimal. Her body was deteriorating.

1:36:42 She was in a horrific stage. She was never going to get

1:36:45 better. And he so this Julian made the

1:36:50 decision, you know, to basically let her life come to its natural

1:36:54 end. He said to her there's nothing

1:36:57 more we can do for you, and there wasn't.

1:37:00 No, I think that was the right thing to do.

1:37:01 I mean, there's there are other cases around the world where

1:37:04 people have been in this state for years and years.

1:37:08 And I just feel like, I mean, they're not going to come to and

1:37:12 live a life. It's a really that's it's hard

1:37:15 look. These are decisions.

1:37:16 I think I've had conversations like this with my family, yeah,

1:37:22 but that's assuming my family are in a position to be able to

1:37:24 make that decision for me. At the time, Maria didn't have

1:37:28 anyone. Joe's not gonna want her to die

1:37:29 because that changes the charges put against him.

1:37:31 That's it. And then there's obviously her

1:37:33 family who are overseas and she hasn't really been.

1:37:36 And I think her family didn't want they.

1:37:38 Didn't want it happening. Happening, but Laura did Laura.

1:37:41 Wanted her mother. To be all the.

1:37:42 People Laura knew her best and and cared and loved for her

1:37:47 most. Absolutely.

1:37:47 Absolutely. I think that she was the best

1:37:49 source of information in that position because at the end of

1:37:52 the day, it would have been her responsibility probably to take

1:37:55 care of her mother. Yes, in that state, Yep.

1:37:57 You know, for however long it would go on for.

1:38:00 Yeah, that's it. So I but I mean, she, you know,

1:38:02 that she was in such a bad way that she would have developed

1:38:05 some kind of horrific infection, suffered even more.

1:38:08 Yeah, you know, and that just anyway, thankfully it ended the

1:38:11 way it did, I think. So.

1:38:13 Too. The thing that kind of got me

1:38:15 though was Julian made the decision that Joe could visit

1:38:18 her for 30 minutes right before on the day that they decided to

1:38:22 withdraw nutrition. Yeah.

1:38:24 And this bit kind of gets me. But he his reasoning behind it,

1:38:28 I can understand. He says that Maria was a

1:38:32 Catholic and Catholics forgive and want to see the best in

1:38:37 people. And forgiveness is was a core

1:38:40 value of Maria's. She that was something she sort

1:38:45 of led her life, you know, she that was, you know, a core value

1:38:49 for her. And so he thought that probably

1:38:54 on her deathbed, she may have forgiven Joe for what he'd done

1:38:58 or what he'd orchestrated. And so he allowed Joe to visit

1:39:03 with Maria for 30 minutes. No.

1:39:08 Yeah, I, I it was under police supervision.

1:39:11 Yeah. Not that I think that changes.

1:39:13 Only for him to see the result of his decisions.

1:39:21 Well, if that is the only way you can look at it in the best

1:39:24 way is that I hope that that that really sunk at home for

1:39:28 him, that he it is a sack of shit.

1:39:31 Total fucking sack of shit. On the 5th of August in 2005,

1:39:36 Maria died peacefully in her sleep in the early hours of the

1:39:39 morning on the 12th of August. A funeral was held for her.

1:39:43 There were more than 250 people in attendance.

1:39:47 A letter that Damien had written to his mum was read out and

1:39:51 I've, I, I can't find the full letter but I have read, read

1:39:54 excerpts of it and it is heartbreaking, like absolutely

1:39:58 heartbreaking. Joe was not allowed to attend

1:40:02 the funeral. So a couple of things here.

1:40:06 So he wasn't allowed to attend the funeral, although his his

1:40:13 his lawyer. Says that that Joe decided not

1:40:17 to attend the funeral. Bullshit.

1:40:19 OK. Wait, yeah.

1:40:22 So he's the lawyer. His lawyer worded it that he

1:40:25 couldn't attend the funeral because he would have had to

1:40:28 apply to court to get permission.

1:40:31 But but he made the decision not to go to the funeral on the

1:40:35 basis that his presence would increase media hype and detract

1:40:39 from the dignity of the funeral. That he that's, that's how big a

1:40:43 man he is. What a piece of shit didn't.

1:40:47 He didn't he watch the funeral from like on TV at home with

1:40:50 like friends and family around him.

1:40:53 He held his. Private A private funeral

1:40:56 session at his own at the home where he invited friends and

1:41:03 media, and at his private funeral at home he sang

1:41:10 Unchained Melody I. Forgot about that being the lady

1:41:13 in red. Lady in red, OH.

1:41:19 That's disgusting, but there's so much more to follow on that

1:41:25 particular day that wasn't there.

1:41:26 There is so the police get this like frenzied Triple O call,

1:41:30 which is our emergency number here in Australia from Gust Corp

1:41:35 to from Joe's brother. And also he Joe's ex-wife.

1:41:41 Oh, I did. I knew there were two calls.

1:41:43 I didn't realize she was the second one.

1:41:45 So how did she know? So he had contacted her.

1:41:47 Oh, he did. Yeah, and said he was going to

1:41:50 kill himself. Because that's what you do when

1:41:53 you're going to kill yourself, you tell everyone.

1:41:54 Tell everyone, yeah. So he'd also.

1:41:58 Contacted journalists to tell them that too.

1:42:01 Well, yeah, that's how they were there, yeah.

1:42:03 So he contacted the journalist originally to come to his house

1:42:06 to be part of the funeral he was having there, but he also

1:42:09 contacted them to tell him he was going to kill himself too.

1:42:11 Right, right. Just to make sure they had

1:42:13 every, every angle covered. Yeah, yeah.

1:42:16 When the police rock up, they, they, they can hear that his

1:42:22 mobile phone is ringing in the shed.

1:42:23 So they go. I mean, Gust must have known he

1:42:26 was in there because Gust was waiting out the front of the

1:42:28 shed and the shed was locked. Yeah, yeah.

1:42:30 And they've, the police have gone into the shed and they've

1:42:34 found Joe hanging there in a shrine.

1:42:38 Oh sorry, surrounded by a shrine of everything Joe loved

1:42:43 Collingwood memorabilia. Memorabilia.

1:42:45 Photos of Maria. Multiple letters to family

1:42:49 members. Suicide notes.

1:42:51 Yeah, yeah. But in the coroner's report, it

1:42:57 was put forward that maybe he actually didn't mean to follow

1:43:03 through on that, and that it was.

1:43:05 I hard agree with that, yeah. Staged and he accidentally

1:43:08 tripped on the ladder because the cops couldn't get in.

1:43:12 They could actually see him through the window but

1:43:15 everything was locked and they watched him place the ladder in

1:43:18 a particular way and he was reaching for the ladder but

1:43:25 couldn't grab it. And then they've managed to get

1:43:28 in and it was too late. I wouldn't be disappointed if

1:43:31 those cops were like, oh it's locked a cannon OK.

1:43:36 I I really don't. Certain that didn't happen, I

1:43:38 don't want to. Like, no, I don't look, I I

1:43:40 truly don't believe that. No, no.

1:43:42 But I also believe that he didn't intend to kill himself.

1:43:45 He was a fucking narcissist. He wouldn't have killed himself.

1:43:47 No, no, no. The world couldn't go on without

1:43:49 him being here. Oh, fuck no.

1:43:51 We all needed him. He's such a delightful person.

1:43:55 Uh huh. But basically, yeah.

1:43:57 Again, his lawyer, who? Yeah, basically claims that,

1:44:00 yeah, he was, he wanted to commit suicide because, you

1:44:03 know, from the point of like his wife's death, you know, he just

1:44:06 got worse and worse. And I just believe, and when you

1:44:08 look at the timing, it could he couldn't cope with his wife's

1:44:11 death. Yeah, because he orchestrated

1:44:16 it. Yeah.

1:44:17 I'm sorry, followed up by that, the, the the fuck stick lawyer

1:44:20 said. And he's not wrong.

1:44:22 But at the same time, I'm just, he's just, I just don't like

1:44:25 that he's put it out there into the ethos that Joe Corp died an

1:44:28 innocent man. No charges against him were

1:44:31 proven, so he died an innocent man.

1:44:35 Fucking yuck. Yeah, the only thing.

1:44:38 Don't comment. Counteracts that is obviously

1:44:40 the coroner's report, yeah. Which then 100% solely put the

1:44:43 blame on Tanya and and Joe. Yeah, he was absolutely

1:44:47 implicated. Yeah, yeah, he just had.

1:44:49 It hadn't been tried in a court of law have.

1:44:51 You day in court, but. But you know what?

1:44:53 Fucking shame on him too for not pleading guilty and putting the

1:44:56 family through a trial. At least Tanya did that, and

1:44:58 then she owned up to what she did.

1:45:00 Yeah. And I have a whole lot more

1:45:01 respect for that. I mean, not the fact that, you

1:45:02 know, she did what she did, but own up to it.

1:45:05 But I feel like even Tanya probably can't even believe that

1:45:08 she did what she. Did I think so too?

1:45:10 I think in hindsight of it all, she's kind of like, what the

1:45:13 hell? How did that even happen?

1:45:15 Yeah, You know, she was a vulnerable person in this

1:45:17 situation. And as you said, look, she's she

1:45:20 absolutely committed the most heinous of crimes.

1:45:25 She could have changed the outcome of it when she when

1:45:29 Marie was thrashing about in the boot.

1:45:30 She could have changed it at so many points, but she didn't.

1:45:34 And she has paid the price for that by spending the time that

1:45:37 she spent in prison. Let's just hope that she lives

1:45:40 the rest of her life, you know, in a positive way.

1:45:45 Yeah. I don't know.

1:45:48 I mean, you know, it's Joe Dying's Joe dying, whatever.

1:45:52 Whatevs. And as much as you know, yeah, I

1:45:54 could have would have enjoyed seeing him rot in jail for a

1:45:56 while. I don't think he would have

1:45:57 gotten a massive sentence. Unfortunately, just the way

1:46:00 things go. He wasn't the person who

1:46:04 physically strangled her. I don't know what kind of

1:46:06 sentence he would have received. So you know what?

1:46:10 I've just noticed the time again, we've gone long on this

1:46:13 one. So just a quick one though.

1:46:14 Yeah, I'll go because. Yeah, right.

1:46:16 So following all of this in years after the car that Maria

1:46:22 was found in was put on eBay for sale, eBay ended up taking it

1:46:28 down, OK, because the ad stated things like previously owned by

1:46:35 Joe Corp and the upholstery and carpet is as new and unmarked.

1:46:41 Yeah. OK, who listed the car?

1:46:44 The owner at the time, Daniel Feely fellow, but I'm sorry,

1:46:49 that's a guy from spokesman from eBay.

1:46:51 Sorry. How did But how did he gain T?

1:46:54 Whatever, but how did he gain possession of the?

1:46:56 Car. Not real sure, but yeah this

1:46:58 Mazda 1995 Mazda 626 is an absolute new condition inside

1:47:03 and out and was purchased as a luxury car priced at $48,995

1:47:09 when new. I don't think anyone would have

1:47:11 been paying that kind of money for a Mazda 626 back in 1995.

1:47:15 But anyway, yeah, it it was quite the ad, yeah, of this

1:47:21 spotless car that it unfortunately had a dead body in

1:47:24 it for four days. I'm not a dead body.

1:47:26 She was alive. Sorry, she would almost.

1:47:28 I would have just assumed they'd destroy the car.

1:47:30 Me too. I would have hoped for I.

1:47:33 Don't know, Laura. Are you sure it was the same

1:47:35 car? A. 100% yeah, They took it down.

1:47:37 eBay took down the ad and it was 100% the car.

1:47:40 Yeah, yeah. OK.

1:47:42 Yeah. So just yeah, it's a good note

1:47:44 to end on. Yeah, let's end up there, shall.

1:47:47 We. How?

1:47:47 Many good humans in the world. Yeah, yeah.

1:47:52 So true. Our next episode is on Aaron

1:47:57 Hernandez. So it's a bit of a different a

1:47:59 bit. Of a tact.

1:48:00 But tact. But you know.

1:48:02 Looking forward to that actually.

1:48:03 Yeah, it'll be a good one to to look into.

1:48:05 So based in the States. So we're heading overseas again

1:48:07 next week. Thank you to everybody for

1:48:10 listening again. If you would like to buy us a

1:48:12 coffee or a wine, head over to buy me a coffee.com/two Crime

1:48:17 Besties. And please follow us on the

1:48:19 socials, like and follow on whatever podcasting app you're

1:48:23 listening to. Yeah.

1:48:24 And we appreciate everybody tuning in again.

1:48:26 Absolutely loving the some of the conversations we're having

1:48:29 in people in boxing and stuff lately.

1:48:30 So thank you to everyone. We're really sort of building a

1:48:33 little community out there in the socials.

1:48:35 I love it. Me too.

1:48:37 Right. Stay curious, crime besties.

1:48:39 Bye.