REPLAY - Episode 18 - Karen Ristevski

0:16 Welcome everyone, to another episode of Two Crime Besties.

0:19 Hey Emma, how you going? I am fantastic, Meg.

0:23 I am off the back of a fairly impromptu trip to Bali with some

0:29 really gorgeous friends of ours and feeling relaxed and lovely.

0:35 Yeah, nice. And sure, we've had enough

0:37 cocktails to last year for a little bit longer.

0:39 Might have thank you very much for for taking on that easy

0:43 street update in one of our recent episodes because that

0:45 happened while I was away. So you did a great job.

0:49 Thank you thank you taking one for the team.

0:51 But I actually think there's another easy straight update

0:54 today. Do you wanna?

0:56 Do you wanna give? Us the the background on what's

0:58 been happening. There's been a little bit more

1:00 coming out just slowly about that because now obviously he's

1:03 been arrested and he's sitting in jail in, in Rome that I think

1:07 I guess people are just coming forward, you know, who know him

1:10 of when he was living in Australia and that sort of

1:11 thing. So finding out a little bit more

1:13 information about who he was because his name's been released

1:15 and now that's gone off the top of my head where his name is,

1:18 but he's an interesting character in this was, as we

1:22 said in the episode, he was in the file all along.

1:25 So he was a 17 year. Old love that for Ron.

1:29 Oh, Ron has it. All the time.

1:30 He's all over that stuff. Yeah, yeah.

1:32 But yeah, he was 17 at the time and he was attending Collingwood

1:37 College, which is the school where Susan Bartlett was a

1:41 teacher at, teaching arts and crafts.

1:44 So there is a connection there where they may have known each

1:46 other. So that's curious.

1:49 Well, that's true. So is that his?

1:51 Brother came out to say that. I.

1:54 Think so. I think so.

1:55 But now his brothers, like, come out again to say like, oh,

1:59 actually I got it wrong. He wasn't there.

2:01 But although other people have then also come out to say he was

2:04 there anyway, His name is Perry Corumbus.

2:08 There we go. That's it.

2:09 Yeah. I'm sorry if I said that wrong.

2:11 No, yeah, you can jump online. You can find like there's now

2:13 like photos been released to him and stuff so you can see what he

2:15 looks like. But yeah, so he's, so he had, he

2:19 was pulled over on the night, which I find interesting is

2:22 obviously driving, which I was. I don't know whether he was

2:24 legally driving or not at 17. That's I don't know if you were

2:28 allowed to get your license back.

2:30 Yeah, I don't know. But he was driving pulled over

2:33 and he had the knife in the boot, which he told police at

2:36 the time he just was, he had, he saw it on the at the railway

2:40 station and so he picked it up. So the knife was tested and to

2:45 be found to be the knife involved.

2:49 However, they've seemed to have just believed that story, that

2:52 he's picked it up and it's not related to him.

2:54 Because when we were doing our research for this, yeah, we

2:58 believe the knife was found at a train station.

3:00 Yeah. So that's who it was found by.

3:05 So yeah, I've put a few things together since in terms of that.

3:08 And that seems to be Yeah. So to me, that seems curious as

3:11 to why that wasn't followed up further at the time.

3:15 Mm Hmm. But.

3:16 Anyway. Although maybe we just didn't

3:18 know and they maybe they couldn't pin anything on him at

3:21 the time. Like we don't know the fact that

3:23 he was interviewed. OK, yes, he had the murder

3:25 weapon in his car. Yeah.

3:27 Surely the police would be extremely suspicious of that.

3:30 Whether they could? Prove anything?

3:32 Well, obviously they weren't able to prove anything further

3:35 to that at that point. So until the DNA evidence

3:40 basically was being followed through, they would have had

3:43 their list of 130 odd suspects that they were wedding out

3:47 slowly. And I don't think that was being

3:48 done in a hurry by any means. So they were wedding those out.

3:52 Obviously, those top sort of eight that we mentioned in our

3:54 episode were ruled out quite quickly through that DNA

3:57 evidence and he was still on their list and they were getting

4:01 to him, but he skipped the country and so therefore wasn't

4:05 tested. But they have since tested a

4:07 family member and it was a match.

4:11 So interesting. Obviously they still would want

4:15 to do a direct test on him. Yeah, to confirm that for sure.

4:19 But obviously. But this was enough to for them

4:22 to Co that, yeah, they need to be looking into this guy.

4:24 Yeah. But they had to keep it all so

4:26 quiet because they needed him to move out of Greece to be able to

4:29 arrest. Him just waiting.

4:30 Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

4:32 I mean, sometimes you think, you know, the cops are doing nothing

4:34 and they're terrible at their job, whatever.

4:35 But I think we have to have that understanding that sometimes

4:37 they do just need to keep quiet to do their job.

4:39 So. And we don't know every, we

4:41 don't know everything. No.

4:42 Yeah. So good on Victoria poll.

4:45 Yeah. And thankfully it sounds like, I

4:48 mean, look, everything will come out as it comes out.

4:51 But yeah, they've got somebody who they, you know, very

4:54 strongly suspect was involved in this crime.

4:57 And we're just waiting now for extradition to Victoria.

5:00 So he's still in. Rome is a really long process.

5:03 It could be 6 months or more before we actually get him out

5:05 of Rome. At this point because of the,

5:07 there's a quite a huge appeal process that occurs.

5:11 So once we, it has to get to a quite a few levels of appeals

5:15 which he'll he'll appeal all of them 'cause he's currently

5:17 saying he's got nothing to do with this.

5:19 So he will appeal at all levels they believe.

5:22 So it could be a long time before we see anything and have

5:25 him here in Australia to then have a trial.

5:27 Yeah. But, well, we'll just keep you

5:30 updated as we find, yeah? We'll keep doing updates as we

5:33 as we learn more information about the case.

5:36 The other one I wanted to bring up actually before we start

5:38 today's. Case.

5:39 Was the Meninda the. Brother.

5:42 Have you been watching the new Netflix series?

5:44 I started it not last night, but the night before.

5:47 Yeah, right. So I don't know about you, but I

5:50 find when we're researching a case, I really need to focus on

5:54 that one case. Otherwise, other things get in

5:57 my head and then I get. Facts.

5:59 And. Ideas muddled.

6:01 Up. Yeah, yeah.

6:02 So anyway, Peter and I were just.

6:05 Sort of. Looking for something to watch

6:07 the other night together and I'm like, oh, let's let's give it a

6:09 go because you've spoken to me about it.

6:12 Tell. Me.

6:12 Tell us your take on the interpretation.

6:15 So this is a recently released, it's called Monsters on Netflix.

6:20 It's definitely brought the Menendez case to a lot more

6:23 people. And I've had, I've actually had

6:26 several work colleagues mentioned to me, Oh my God, I

6:28 listened to your case. Yeah.

6:30 And then I've watched Monsters and wow, it's a really

6:35 different, really different taste on it.

6:37 So tell, tell me what you think knowing that now that yeah,

6:40 you've watched the whole thing. Yeah, I, I wasn't a fan of the

6:43 Netflix series. And I look, The thing is, I

6:45 think you've got to remember it's a dramatization.

6:47 It isn't like completely and utterly factual.

6:49 Yeah. Because watching it, it did

6:51 frustrate me because of a lot of the facts that I knew of the

6:54 case. Yeah.

6:55 Were altered in that show. It's I would had a sort of a

6:59 take on it where I was like, oh, OK, maybe they're playing it out

7:02 of like they're presenting it in a way of like how people could

7:05 have seen it and then flipping it.

7:06 And I know this is actually how they, their perception of it.

7:11 Interesting kind of way to film this show, I think.

7:14 But it still didn't work for me. I don't know.

7:17 It didn't. Yeah.

7:19 I don't know. I think because I have, I have a

7:21 degree of empathy for them. And that show wants you to think

7:26 they're monsters. And I, I can't come at them

7:30 being pure monsters because of what they were they, they was

7:35 inflicted upon them. Yeah, so the.

7:37 Series basically implies that that maybe didn't happen.

7:40 Yeah. And I mean, I'm getting that

7:42 vibe already. As I said, I haven't watched

7:44 right through to the end yet, but that's gross.

7:48 To me because. There's so much evidence to

7:51 support the fact, and we talk about this in our episode.

7:53 If you haven't listened to our episode on the Menendez

7:55 brothers, please go back and have a listen because yeah, we

7:58 make our feelings very much known.

8:01 You mentioned when we were chatting about it the other day

8:03 that there's another documentary coming out there.

8:05 Is another documentary coming out where Eric Menendez,

8:07 particularly, I'm not so sure of Lyle what in what he's had

8:10 involvement in it, but particularly Eric has had some

8:14 input into that documentary. OK, where they interview him or

8:17 whether he's just given advice on the background.

8:19 I don't know yet. It hasn't 'cause it hasn't been

8:21 released, OK. But there is another one coming

8:23 out very soon and I think that that would could be a more

8:25 factual. So it depends on what you're

8:26 looking for. Look, I really enjoyed this.

8:28 So this was also made by the same people who did the Dharma

8:31 one. Oh yeah.

8:32 And I really liked that. Yeah, that was good.

8:34 But I just wonder whether because I had researched

8:38 Menendez Brothers so heavily and had such an understanding of it

8:43 that it it just influenced my opinion on it.

8:46 I've heard other people also come to me and kind of get

8:49 generally like it. Like so I don't biased.

8:51 I don't know. But listen to our podcast maybe

8:54 if you want the facts of what the case actually, you know,

8:58 ensured. Yeah.

9:00 Yeah. And then you can make your own

9:01 judgement. But I guess, I guess it's a

9:03 reminder to watch everything quite critically.

9:05 Like everybody has their own agenda.

9:10 And I mean, even when we're researching things like I, I

9:14 know you're the same. We just, we tend to form an

9:17 opinion, which we're very sort of vocal about when we're

9:20 talking through the episodes. I think you guys have an idea of

9:23 what we think at the end of the day, but everyone's entitled to

9:29 their own opinions and we're super curious to hear what what

9:32 everyone has to say. Yeah, no, I'd love to hear.

9:34 I mean, opposing thoughts on it and, you know, try and change

9:38 our minds and our opinions. That's it.

9:39 Yeah. I mean, I'm very careful with my

9:41 research in that generally, I mean, not that I'm gonna get

9:43 everything right, but I don't generally take things as fact

9:46 until I've seen it in a number of places, you know, that sort

9:48 of stuff. And checking reputable sources.

9:51 Yeah. Which is why I think when I

9:54 watched it, I was like, I don't think so, yeah.

9:57 There's even watching the episodes that I have so far,

10:00 there's a few things I'm like, well, I know that didn't happen

10:02 and I know that happened that way and.

10:03 Yeah. Yeah, so I guess they've taken

10:05 some creative license to make it more entertaining or whatever.

10:08 That definitely made the two boys unappealing.

10:13 Yeah. And yeah, I don't know.

10:15 I don't. I don't know if that's a

10:16 positive or negative thing, because at the end of the day,

10:18 they did do what they did. Yep, but context is a lot.

10:22 Absolutely. Especially in this or in any

10:25 case. Yeah, especially in this case.

10:28 Yeah, all. Right.

10:29 Yes, Interesting. Should we get into today's case

10:32 then? Let's do that.

10:33 So this one I think we sort of thought wasn't gonna be a big

10:35 one until you get into it and sort of start researching it and

10:38 go. There's actually a fair bit

10:39 here. So yeah.

10:41 So today we're gonna talk about Karen Ristevski.

10:44 So Karen Ristevski was from Avondale Heights in just western

10:49 suburbs of Melbourne, which again is in our sort of local

10:53 ish to us, on the other side of town to us.

10:56 So this case is fairly recent. So it was very, it's very fresh

11:00 in our minds. I know I remember a lot of this

11:02 occurring in real time. So, yeah, but The thing is now

11:06 researching, it's like you sort of get a different perspective,

11:09 I guess, of what you saw from the news, you know, four or five

11:12 years ago when this was occurring, longer than that now,

11:14 actually more like 8 years ago, yeah.

11:16 So yeah, we'll get into it, get into it.

11:20 Now, before, before we get into it, Oh yeah, we need to discuss

11:25 some pronunciations. Oh yeah, sorry.

11:28 Karen's husband, who is a pivotal character in this story.

11:34 So. His name, his name is, well, we,

11:39 we were talking about the, the pronunciation of his name.

11:42 We've decided to call him throughout this podcast, Boris.

11:46 His name is actually Borche. We've also heard on different

11:51 publications in in different podcasts when we've been

11:53 researching this, people calling him boss.

11:56 Yeah, there is a home video in which he refers to himself as

12:01 Boris. And that's why we've decided to

12:03 go down that path. A lot of the more reputable news

12:07 agencies who've also covered this story also call him Boris.

12:11 So that's what we're doing. But it's probably worth noting

12:14 that his name is actually BORCE, and probably pronounced Borce.

12:23 You know, traditionally. Dare say he's Australianized it,

12:26 yeah. And gone with Boris, as you

12:28 know. Yeah, as we tend to do here in

12:30 here in Australia. Yeah, so.

12:32 Boris and Karen So Karen was born in Wellington in New

12:36 Zealand on the 7th of Feb 1969. Boris and Karen had a daughter

12:45 together named Sarah. There is a lot of information

12:49 about Sarah out on the Internet. She's been interviewed by a very

12:54 prominent program in Australia, 60 Minutes.

13:00 It's a very interesting interview and we are going to

13:02 talk about that a lot today. Yeah, But definitely go and have

13:06 a watch because it really informs what, you know, a lot of

13:10 the opinions that we've had for the episode today.

13:13 Boris actually has a son from a previous relationship as well,

13:18 Anthony. He lived with Karen, Boris and

13:23 Sarah during his teen years, but in his 20s and at the time of

13:29 Karen's disappearance and subsequent like known murder and

13:34 he wasn't living with the family at the time.

13:36 And again, we will get into his involvement in this sort of

13:39 later on down the track. Yeah.

13:42 So Karen went missing from their beautiful Avondale Heights home

13:48 on the 29th of June in 2016. It was a Wednesday morning,

13:53 nothing sort of out of the ordinary according to everybody

13:56 around her. She left home at 10:00 in the

14:00 morning after what Boris describes as an argument over

14:05 money. So Karen and I guess did Boris

14:09 Co own that that the clothing business?

14:13 I believe so. I believe it was family business

14:15 there. Yeah, he he was in.

14:16 On it, did he? Work at all in that business.

14:20 I got a vibe that potentially he may have maybe had a little bit

14:25 of to do with the books, maybe on an odd occasion, but.

14:29 OK, well, he was certainly not all that happy according this is

14:33 all According to him at this point.

14:35 He wasn't happy that the day's takings from the day before were

14:39 only $850 and it wasn't enough to sort of make ends meet for

14:43 the business, which, so they had a clothing store called Bella

14:48 Blue at was at Water Gardens Shopping Centre.

14:51 Yeah, they had also within the previous months, they had a

14:55 second site that they'd actually closed down at a different

14:58 shopping centre in Melbourne. So obviously the business wasn't

15:01 going all that. Yeah, well.

15:04 Yeah, there was a fair bit of debt attached to the business.

15:06 Yeah. I believe the business itself

15:09 had a roughly $600,000 debt and as a couple they had around

15:16 $1,000,000 debt. Is that is that?

15:18 1.11.2 million, OK, including a mortgage, some credit card debt,

15:22 yeah. So there's a.

15:23 Significant amount of money owed, yeah.

15:26 And so look, I can understand if you're owning your own business,

15:30 that's a financially that's a tough that's a really tough gig.

15:35 And if you're in that amount of debt, absolutely you'd be

15:38 watching the books every single day.

15:40 Yeah, according to Boris, he's had this argument that, you

15:42 know, there's only been $850 worth of takings.

15:46 I believe Water Gardens Shopping Center had actually like they,

15:53 they'd been like, looking for their money.

15:55 So things were really tight. Hadn't paid rent.

15:59 Hadn't paid rent or they would. They would.

16:00 Definitely owing rent. And so, yeah, Boris is saying

16:06 they've had an argument about the previous day's takings.

16:11 Now all mind you, Sarah was home this morning previous to the

16:16 argument. Yeah, but Boris was just

16:19 watching TV on the couch while Karen was in the study trying to

16:24 sort of work on the books and figure out what to do.

16:26 I think she was actually looking at potentially was she looking

16:31 at another line of clothing? I.

16:32 Think she's looking at some designs and stuff and what

16:34 colours she might order of certain things for the for the

16:37 store. Yeah, right.

16:38 So she's asked. Sarah's opinion on colours or

16:40 something and. Right.

16:41 So she's looking to try and I don't know further the business

16:45 in some way obviously. Doing some buying or whatever.

16:47 So yeah, yeah, add to the the range or something in the store.

16:51 Yep. Yep.

16:52 So she's. Yeah, according to Boris,

16:55 they've had this argument and she's left the house.

16:58 Which so Sarah had already Sarah left for she was doing in some

17:03 an internship or something. Yes, she was.

17:05 She was a graphic. I think now she's a graphic

17:07 designer. So I believe she was doing an

17:09 internship. She just.

17:10 Turned 21 a few weeks prior and had left the morning herself to

17:15 go off to do this little, this bit of a job that she was doing.

17:17 So she wasn't home. I think she might have left sort

17:19 of, you know, 8:30-ish in the morning or something.

17:23 And then so this is all sort of, according to Boris, has taken

17:25 part. Now this argument has has taken

17:28 place after Sarah has left. Yeah, Yeah.

17:31 So they've had their argument. And According to him, she's then

17:33 left the house to cool down after an argument.

17:37 And then as the days progressed, Sarah has been trying to contact

17:41 her just as she was. She's very close with her mum

17:44 and her dad and there has been no response from Karen

17:48 throughout the day from text messages or phone calls that

17:51 Sarah has made. Obviously she's gotten home from

17:54 her day's work as well and still and mum's not home.

17:57 Boris has explained to her mum's gone out for a walk to cool off.

18:00 We had a bit of an argument have she hasn't come back but she's

18:03 fine and they've headed out for the evening for dinner at his

18:07 parents house I believe. Yeah, that's right.

18:09 Yeah, so they've headed there for the evening.

18:11 Again, no sign of Karen when they come home from dinner and

18:15 they head off to bed with still no sight.

18:17 Yeah, so. Sarah describes this as like she

18:21 was sort of bit taken aback, like her mum and dad had had

18:27 arguments before and her mum had gone for a walk or gone for a

18:30 coffee or, you know, just sort of left the house to cool off a

18:32 little bit but had never been gone for this long.

18:36 And I think Boris kind of dismissed any, you know, any

18:42 concerns that Sarah had basically saying, yeah, she'll

18:45 be right. She'll, I'm sure she'll.

18:47 She's just with a friend or whatever, she'll.

18:49 Probably stay in a friend's house or something.

18:50 Yeah, but yeah. But that wasn't, wasn't that,

18:53 that had never happened before. She'd always come home and, you

18:57 know, at least by the time it was time for bed, I think even

19:00 even sooner, generally speaking. Yeah.

19:02 So Sarah was quite concerned. Now she's a 21 year old woman,

19:06 but she's still living in the home of her mum and dad.

19:08 So that's that's a difficult position for an adult child to

19:14 be in. You trust your.

19:15 Dad, he was the one there with her, you know, when she's got

19:17 left the house, I guess. But the fact.

19:19 That she hadn't been able to contact her mum all day, that'd

19:21 be that'd definitely raise some suspicion.

19:23 Yeah, for sure. I yeah.

19:25 But yeah, I think the type of person Boris was is.

19:29 I think you're right, would be pretty overbearing and trying to

19:32 be hard to argue against it for sure.

19:35 Yeah, so they've gone to bed and then the next morning, obviously

19:38 Karen hasn't returned to the house and they've decided to go

19:43 to Avondale Heights Police station to report her missing.

19:48 Mm hmm. According to Sarah, the

19:52 constable who took the initial report was very dismissive.

19:57 She said he basically said that, oh, she's probably at the

20:02 pokies, just give it a couple more hours and wait until she

20:05 comes home. Yeah, Sarah and Boris see why

20:12 they wouldn't say if. If I was reporting my husband

20:15 missing and a police officer said that to me, I'd be like,

20:18 well, no, he literally never goes to the pokies.

20:20 No, you need to listen to me. This is.

20:22 So out of character for him. Yeah, but they didn't.

20:25 Well, Boris certainly didn't do that.

20:27 And I guess Sarah would have taken the lead from Boris at

20:30 that point. Yeah, and I think, I mean, it's

20:32 been latched onto for Boris in terms of like, oh, they're

20:34 dismissing us there 'cause he, he apparently then said, you

20:37 know, come back at midday if she still hasn't been, you know,

20:40 heard from. So I do think that there's a bit

20:43 of the, the police sort of playing it a little bit to see

20:46 what's the reaction from people if we play, if we play it cool.

20:49 I mean cops and, you know, notoriously known for keeping

20:52 their cool in situations and making sure that their their

20:55 demeanour is kept low and then the reaction of other people is

20:58 what they watch for. That's actually a really good

21:01 point. Yeah.

21:02 So I think if if they had stood there and said no, no, no, no,

21:05 she doesn't do the pokies, this is not OK.

21:07 We need, we need help. Now I do think that maybe

21:10 something more would have happened.

21:11 I'd be surprised if it wouldn't have.

21:13 That would be really shithouse. And if that's the case, then you

21:16 know, that's really poor on that police.

21:17 Officers, they kind of just went, oh, OK, we'll come back

21:20 in. Yeah, because I think that would

21:22 have been Boris leading that. And he would have, I mean,

21:24 clearly he didn't really want her being looked for, you know.

21:27 So I think he would have walked out of there going, Oh yeah,

21:30 shit cops, you know, and that's he's, he's used all of that to

21:33 his advantage then with Sarah. Yeah, that's, that's an

21:36 interesting take and I think absolutely valid.

21:38 Like, yeah, it's, it's just. Just horrible.

21:42 I mean, he was playing the concerned husband right from the

21:45 get go. Wasn't.

21:46 He Yeah, yes, playing. The interesting thing is, at

21:50 this point, when they've gone to the police, they hadn't

21:52 contacted any of Karen's friends.

21:54 No, he hadn't run. With anybody to find if she was

21:57 staying the night with, you know, where she'd stayed the

21:59 night now that he had not made a single phone call.

22:02 So it wasn't until midday when they did go back to the police

22:04 station that yeah, that's when the cops did kick into gear and

22:08 people and friends were contacted and told or ask the

22:11 question, have you seen Karen? Because yeah, Boris hadn't done

22:14 any of that private prior to that.

22:16 I mean, which again, she's a 21 year old woman.

22:18 Wouldn't you think she could even jump on the phone to an

22:20 auntie or a friend or something and say, hey, have you seen mum?

22:24 Because I can't get hold of her. Which?

22:26 I find all very interesting. It absolutely is, yeah.

22:30 We will get further into why we think that is probably a little

22:34 bit later on in the episode. But Needless to say, that didn't

22:40 happen. And the police were the first

22:43 ones to contact close friends and family at that point when

22:48 they've gone back at midday and been like, well, she still

22:50 hasn't shown up. Yeah, they've contacted friends

22:53 and family, none of whom had seen her or heard from her.

22:56 No. What had she taken?

23:00 Supposedly taken with her when she went for this walk.

23:03 Yeah, so she's taken supposedly her phone and her handbag.

23:07 Was there anything else that she took with?

23:08 Her. No, I think that.

23:09 Was it but? Still, I mean, who takes the

23:11 handbag to go for a walk to cool down?

23:13 I mean, I can take the phone, definitely.

23:14 Yeah, yeah. They lived in Avondale Heights

23:18 and their house it was it's a stunning house.

23:20 It was worth 1.1 million Australian dollars, so really

23:24 nice family home. It backed onto the Maribyrnong

23:28 River and there were walking tracks all along there, so you

23:33 would think if she was gonna go for a walk to cool off after an

23:35 argument, she'd go for a wanderer.

23:37 Along the river, you know, like. But you wouldn't.

23:39 I wouldn't take my handbag for a wanderer.

23:41 We've got a Creek out the back of our house.

23:43 Yeah, I might. Well, I I do.

23:45 I take my phone and my dog. Yeah, exactly.

23:48 Most important thing, yeah. And that's it.

23:51 A a poop bag? Yeah.

23:53 Not for me. I knew you'd go there.

23:57 So yeah, it's just. Really bizarre that like, you

24:01 know, he, I don't know. Yeah, right from the get go.

24:05 There's so many red flags that make me go.

24:08 Absolutely, and I do think the cops were onto it pretty quickly

24:11 to be honest, that there was more to this.

24:13 I think the police have later come out to say that they

24:15 suspected Boris's involvement from very early on.

24:18 Yeah. And so he was definitely watched

24:22 under that sort of lens for a very long time.

24:25 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was within the first

24:28 few days even of the of her being reported missing that they

24:31 put a device on his vehicle, which unfortunately either they

24:36 don't really know whether he took it off or whether it fell

24:38 off, but they query whether which one.

24:40 Yeah, yeah. So they were, they were

24:42 definitely keeping an eye on him for sure of what his his

24:45 movement was and what was going on with him because they did

24:48 suspect something. Yeah, I feel like there was

24:50 another tactic that was used. They put Boris and Sarah in

24:54 front of the media a couple of days after after Karen was.

24:58 Reported Yeah, on July 4th, yeah.

25:00 And so this was the first press conference that the family kind

25:04 of was involved with. It was at the front of the

25:06 Avondale Heights police station. And his behaviour, you can

25:11 again, go on YouTube and you can see the whole press conference.

25:15 His behaviour's bizarre. Sarah is clearly incredibly

25:21 distressed. Like, it's actually quite

25:23 confronting to watch because you can easily put yourself in her

25:26 shoes. Not that we will hopefully ever

25:29 know what that feels like. Yeah.

25:31 But you can see the absolute agony in her and the distress in

25:35 her. Yeah.

25:37 And the perceived distress in Boris.

25:41 Yeah, he's interesting, that's for damn sure.

25:44 He's got this like really gruff look on his face, like it's not,

25:48 it's not. There's nothing soft about him.

25:50 There's nothing. It's just like, it's like he

25:53 looks angry. Actually, he looks angry.

25:55 Police are kind of, as we said, are quite suspicious and they.

25:58 Interviewed him about July 8th, I think it was actually pulled

26:01 him in for his first formal interview in what he, yeah, knew

26:06 of the situation, which obviously at that point he was,

26:09 he denied any, you know, any wrongdoing other than just just,

26:13 he kept actually going back over at that point even about sort of

26:16 dismissing that it wasn't their finances were fine, even though

26:20 they had an argument. He kept really reiterating this

26:22 fact around, like, you know, yeah, but we're not in a, you

26:25 know, in a dire situation with our finances and was, like,

26:27 trying to, like, justify that where the cops were quite taken

26:30 aback by that because there wasn't really no concern in that

26:33 interview around where Karen was.

26:35 It was more about justifying that you know that their

26:37 finances aren't as bad as it sounds.

26:39 And. Like if you're in $1.1 million

26:42 of debt that you can't finance on a monthly basis, you're in

26:46 trouble. Yeah.

26:47 Like, and he, OK, Boris was not really working at the time.

26:52 He had lot of odd jobs. He was an Uber driver for a bit.

26:57 He did like construction labouring like as in like.

27:02 Just here and there like. There was nothing, No.

27:05 No. So to me, if you're in a family

27:07 situation where you've got a business that's running that you

27:09 know needs some help to get going properly, it's isn't going

27:14 great. And then what?

27:15 What's he doing sitting around watching TV?

27:16 Like why isn't he working? Why isn't he going out and

27:18 paying the mortgage so that the business can pay for itself

27:22 rather than the money out of the business having to pay for the

27:25 mortgage as well as all the other debt and have, they're

27:28 living a pretty huge lifestyle in that, you know, well.

27:30 They had really expensive cars, like Karen's car was a Mercedes,

27:35 like a really like sort of later model Mercedes.

27:37 And yeah, they they were certainly portraying a certain

27:41 image out there. Yeah, I mean there's no one.

27:44 I mean we're talking here 20/16/2017 Even then trying to

27:47 live off of 1 wage for a family, you know it's pretty difficult.

27:51 I mean, I can't imagine sitting there going, oh, it's sweet.

27:53 The wife's business is going to pay for all of us to live this

27:55 life business, the life of. $600,000 in debt.

27:58 Yeah, and I, I can't. You'd hope.

28:01 You'd hope that eventually that might.

28:03 Be the case. But you can't just pretend like

28:06 that's happening before it's. Actually happening, but they're

28:08 hard work like you know you you've got to put in what you

28:10 know you get out of it it's. A7 day a week, like she was

28:13 working in retail in a major shopping centre.

28:16 Yeah, that side of town like that, that's, that's hard.

28:20 Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of hours.

28:23 That's a lot of people. Yeah, but I guess the biggest

28:26 crack really showed for Boris at a second.

28:32 Oh God, I can't speak press conference, conference in front

28:36 of the media then on July 14th. So this is really interesting.

28:40 So Patricia Gray, who was Karen's aunt, came forward.

28:44 And so she was the one out the front speaking.

28:46 And Boris and Sarah were standing behind her during this

28:49 one. And so the idea was to, again,

28:52 just put that call out, you know, if anyone knows anything

28:55 or said anything, come forward, You know, And immediately a

28:59 Channel 7 reporter asked the question, Boris, did you kill

29:04 your wife? And the reaction from him was

29:09 pretty awful. I mean he, he, they shut it

29:12 down. Very quickly well, he he the

29:14 look on his face is really interesting because he kind of

29:17 looks stunned yes and then he is like his mouth looks like like

29:23 like puckers and the the press conference gets immediately shut

29:30 down and it's. But even like the auntie's

29:32 reaction, you can to me a sense there's a little bit of that

29:35 she's maybe on the cusp of thinking that, yeah, Boris is

29:41 part. Of kind of not been thinking.

29:43 It totally, yeah, because you can sense she even says like she

29:46 goes, oh, I think that's an inappropriate question.

29:49 But her reaction isn't no, no, no, no.

29:51 Like it's not an immediate defence.

29:53 Do you know what I mean? It was a more of a oh.

29:57 Being prepped on how to answer. This yeah, yeah.

30:00 And I want to say get on to it. Like, yeah, I feel like that.

30:04 She was definitely thinking already.

30:06 Look. You know, I guess the police

30:09 investigate those closest to missing people, slash murder

30:13 victims because it's often the people closest to you that will

30:19 perpetrate these types of crimes.

30:21 Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's

30:23 understandable that Boris was interviewed in those early days

30:27 and the police had their suspicions.

30:29 The police aren't idiots. They know what they're looking

30:32 for and they know the kinds of behaviours that they're looking

30:35 for. And I feel like Boris kind of

30:39 played right into them right from the get go.

30:42 Yeah. And surely the family would have

30:43 had an A similar sentiment, although you probably would

30:48 never want to believe the worst of your family members.

30:51 So hard because the fact of the matter is, even though you're

30:53 thinking it and going, Oh my God, I think he would have done

30:56 it. The cops have got to still build

30:57 their case. Even though you think that that

30:59 that's you're like you're on the money and you're like, he

31:01 definitely did it. You've got to have the evidence

31:04 to actually get him to trial. But if you think about like

31:08 Karen's family and you think, OK, her sister, her auntie,

31:12 whatever, you wouldn't want to believe that her husband had

31:17 done that to her because that's just so close and so difficult

31:21 and that would blow. I mean the fact that Karen was

31:26 missing and at this point presumed deceased.

31:30 Well, I mean, that's the thing they're first grappling with,

31:32 isn't it? It's that first idea of hey,

31:33 this isn't looking good, that she's gonna turn up alive.

31:36 For that then to, for you then to be like, Oh my God, this is

31:41 potentially at the hand of our family member.

31:44 Yeah. The husband that she's brought

31:45 into our family. Yeah, that would be.

31:48 Oh my God. I can't even imagine I.

31:50 Can't even. No, no, no.

31:54 Yeah, it's. I think that it was about this

31:58 point, though, where Vasco inserts him into himself, into

32:04 this, which is Boris's brother. Vasco Ristevski comes out at

32:09 this point and says, oh, it's all right, people, it's OK,

32:12 everyone, it's all right. She's alive.

32:15 She's just in China. She's she's got no self a fake

32:19 passport. So don't worry about it.

32:20 Don't worry about it. It's cool.

32:21 Like the fact that she hasn't used her actual passport.

32:23 Don't worry. No, because it's a fake one.

32:26 She's just living up in China. Yeah, 'cause I mean, I know that

32:29 I'd be able to go and get a fake passport tomorrow.

32:31 What, Like, Nope, Nope. Not everyone knows how to do

32:35 that, I don't think. Yeah, Vasco, that's just, I

32:37 mean, most people don't know how or where or wouldn't literally

32:41 wouldn't do that. No.

32:44 So the fact that for him that was like, oh, that's an easy 10

32:47 know exactly what's happened. So she's.

32:48 Just all. Good babes.

32:50 I'm supposed to try her on a on a fake passport.

32:54 He's quite the character he. Is, but he comes, he comes back

32:57 into the the picture a little bit later on with some

32:59 interesting stuff too, so. Yeah, just, yeah, just real

33:02 quick, just real quick on his little fake passport.

33:05 Oh yeah, the police obviously looked into it.

33:09 There was literally nothing to suggest that that had happened.

33:13 No, she'd also never used a cent of money out of there.

33:16 She'd withdrawn no money, no cash from their account.

33:20 She'd used no credit card, no bank card.

33:23 She hadn't used her Medicare card.

33:24 So she hadn't been to a doctor, she hadn't attended a hospital,

33:29 nothing. There was no digital footprint

33:32 for this woman. Other than the mobile phone

33:36 tracking, yeah. So that was where.

33:39 So at this point, they'd sort of worked that the mobile phone had

33:42 been pinging off of a tower towards the Mastodon Mount

33:47 Mastodon. Yeah.

33:48 So this was along the colder freeway, and it had sort of that

33:53 they were able to track Boris and Karen's phones going a

33:57 certain distance up the colder freeway towards the Macedon

34:01 Ranges. Yeah.

34:02 And Boris's phone was turned off in about 2425 minutes into that

34:06 trip. That's right.

34:07 But Karen's phone stayed on for longer.

34:09 It was turned off eventually. About two hours, right?

34:12 Yeah, yeah. So they were basically, they

34:15 knew that Boris was either had either been with Karen on this

34:20 trip or you know that. But the phone was definitely in,

34:23 you know, in that trip. So I think I'm trying to

34:26 remember when they released, it was a bit further on when they

34:28 released that footage of the car.

34:30 I remember it being on the news really predominantly where they

34:34 got some CCTV footage as well of the the black Mercedes driving

34:39 along New Digger's Rest I think it was.

34:41 Yeah, it was New Digger's Rest. They actually didn't release

34:44 that footage until after her body was found in 2017.

34:49 In Feb of 2017 so. They were hunting for anything

34:53 like which because they were following the route of like

34:55 obviously like thinking, OK, this is where the mobile phones

34:57 are kind of pinging from towers. They can only pick up so much,

35:00 you know, information in terms of where the that they actually

35:04 are. It's only a direction that

35:05 they're heading really. Mm hmm.

35:06 So I guess then they would have been hunting every CCTV with,

35:09 you know, on all the roads and things to try and find, see if

35:11 they can spot a car that looks familiar.

35:14 But yeah. I wonder what the difference is

35:16 between 2017 CCTV slash dash cams and 2024.

35:22 I feel like every car on the road now has a dash Cam.

35:24 Yeah, I think there's a lot more again now than they would have

35:27 been then. Yeah.

35:28 For sure. And it's we're not that far

35:30 removed from it. It's what is it, seven years?

35:32 Yeah, it's not that that long ago, but I think you'd still

35:34 find there'd been increased for sure and even just the quality

35:37 of the video that you'd get. Exactly.

35:39 I just feel like they'd be the only thing that might have

35:42 hindered it was the passage of time.

35:45 Yeah. So like, we've got dash cams in

35:47 our cars and I think there's like a rolling 48 hours or

35:52 something. Or maybe, maybe a rolling 96

35:55 hours actually, but then it just records over, over same.

36:01 Yeah, it doesn't. Go to the cloud kind of thing or

36:02 anything. I don't.

36:04 Yeah. Pay extra, maybe.

36:05 Yeah, maybe. I don't think so.

36:06 So like, we've got it for if, you know, we're in an accident

36:09 or someone hits that car or something, you can press a

36:11 button. If you press a button on it,

36:13 it'll record. Record it.

36:15 Yeah, right. That forever yeah but so you

36:19 know maybe timing would have played a part in this if if

36:22 there were more dash cams if there were dash cams around

36:24 potentially yeah maybe but the fact that they were able to get

36:27 this CCTV many many months later makes me think that they

36:31 probably had it a lot earlier than.

36:33 I think so. I think that they were what?

36:35 They then. Releasing things when it was

36:36 suited to them to get the information they needed for

36:39 sure. Yeah.

36:40 So basically they started looking and actually started

36:43 like doing full searches of areas in that northern N region

36:46 sort of to learn valley started looking bushland.

36:50 They actually drained some dams and scoured all the bushland and

36:55 grasslands in a particular area where they thought maybe could

36:57 be a potential area for her body.

37:00 However, it wasn't until February 20th, 2017 so that they

37:06 actually found Karen's body. There were a couple of guys

37:10 working out in the Mount Macedon region.

37:13 Yep, couple of brothers they were, they were tapping a pine

37:16 tree or something like that, doing something like about out

37:19 in the in the in the area and kind of research.

37:21 Or something called. They were.

37:23 They were. They were horticultural.

37:25 Yeah, people, I. Don't know, like doing stuff

37:29 with trees? They were, they were sort of

37:31 more off the beaten track than, yes, a normal day Walker, sort

37:35 of, you know, a day hiker. Yeah, the city might be.

37:38 That's it, Yeah. And so they were actually, they

37:41 was got, they got this waft of a smell, which was like, what the

37:45 hell is that? Like, you know, And so they

37:46 started looking around to sort of see what this smell was and

37:49 unfortunately came across some remains that we're sort of

37:53 poking out of the ground near these trees that were laying 2

37:57 trees that sort of fallen near each other and creating this

37:59 kind of V shape. And there was a skull, I

38:03 believe, and a foot that was sort of coming out of the

38:06 ground, which obviously, you know, animals had sort of

38:08 disrupted the scene a little bit as well.

38:11 And so, yeah, they called the police in pretty quickly.

38:14 Took an extra day obviously to then actually confirm that

38:17 unfortunately that they it was the remains of Karen Restevsky

38:21 found in Mount Macedon. Her body was incredibly

38:24 decomposed at the time, so I think it was 8 months following

38:27 her disappearance that her body was found.

38:31 So it had been out in, you know, sort of over summer.

38:36 Animals had certainly played a part in disturbing the remains,

38:43 and when the autopsy was done, her body was so badly decomposed

38:50 that they were actually unable to establish A cause of death.

38:55 So they looked at whether or not she was potentially strangled or

38:59 shot or stabbed or, you know, lots of, lots of.

39:02 Head injury or something or yeah.

39:05 But nothing was conclusive. So I guess the the police at the

39:12 time had sort of been putting together a narrative of what

39:15 they thought had happened on the day and the inference from them

39:21 was that an altercation had happened in the home following

39:24 an argument about the money. They kind of thought that that

39:27 was probably very likely, and something had come about that

39:34 meant Karen met an untimely end. So there were a couple of

39:39 different ways they sort of thought that might have

39:41 happened. They thought maybe Boris had

39:43 pushed her and she'd fallen and hit her head on something and

39:47 that had that had caused her death or that he'd actually

39:51 strangled her. Yeah.

39:53 The police forensically investigated the house.

39:56 At the point that they'd found Karen's body, they were able to

39:59 obtain a warrant to search lots and lots of different things in

40:05 the house. So not only looking for forensic

40:08 evidence, but they were also able to seize laptops and other

40:12 digital devices. They were.

40:13 They basically tore the house apart and checked everything.

40:17 They did not find any blood or any microscopic particles of any

40:22 kind in terms of DNA in that house.

40:24 So I think at that point the police were pretty satisfied

40:29 that Boris had probably strangled her.

40:34 Now we know because we're true crime buffs or true crime best

40:38 two crime besties, that generally speaking, if somebody

40:43 has been strangled, their hyoid bone has been damaged.

40:47 Yeah. And that was certainly looked at

40:49 upon autopsy. But her hyoid bone had been

40:53 like, removed or like it had been dislodged.

40:56 Yeah. But yeah, they just couldn't

40:57 rule out whether or not that had happened during due to like

40:59 animals in the area or, yeah, or whether that had happened in,

41:04 you know, in the in, Yeah. To this day, Boris hasn't come

41:09 forward with how Karen's murder happened, so we actually don't

41:15 know her. Her autopsy report to this day

41:19 states that her cause of death is unknown or it's it's.

41:24 What do they do? But as a foul play of sorts.

41:28 But yeah. But it's yeah.

41:30 There was no no conclusive evidence to support to support A

41:34 cause of death. Yeah, So in amongst all of this

41:37 of, you know, Karen's body being found and also at that time,

41:41 pretty much pretty soon after that, the cops really ramped up

41:44 their focus on Boris. And lo and behold, at this

41:50 point, his step his his son Karen's stepson Anthony Ricard,

41:56 steps into the picture and out of nowhere decides to throw a

42:01 spanner in the works and says, well, Karen was and I were

42:06 having an affair like. We were doing it.

42:09 Yeah, yeah, since I was living with them when I was a teenager.

42:12 We were having an affair and our plan was always to run off

42:15 together when she was 21, when when Sarah was 21.

42:19 Yep. And and that this was, you know,

42:22 all because of the relationship between him and and Karen, that

42:26 that's probably why this happened to her.

42:29 Now there is literally 0 evidence, Yeah, every single

42:34 person, including Boris, yeah, including Sarah, every single

42:38 person who is involved in this story says that that is

42:43 absolutely, unequivocally not true.

42:48 These guys. Are fucking fruit.

42:50 Oh, he's a quite an interesting character.

42:52 I mean, he's clearly had an interesting childhood by the

42:55 sounds of things. Yeah, I mean, when it even got

42:58 to court with this case. Like he was meant to give

43:01 evidence at the at the court hearing.

43:04 His house was raided the day before.

43:07 He was refusing to give evidence at the trial, but he was

43:11 actually being the house has been raided for actually for

43:13 other reasons. He was arrested for hiding from

43:16 the police to avoid to give evidence but also for drug

43:20 charges as well as that as other things.

43:23 So he clearly had a bit of a rap sheet of his own and a bit bit

43:27 odd. He was just a bit odd.

43:30 Incredibly odd. Yeah, yeah.

43:33 He, I mean, he ended up, did he go to prison?

43:35 Yeah. Yeah.

43:36 So, you know, he had his own shit going on and he obviously

43:40 wasn't the most upstanding member of society.

43:43 Oh no, because that's the thing he does.

43:44 That was right. There was also there was the

43:46 drugs that he was being he he there was a warrant out for his

43:50 arrest 1st and drugs as well as a breach of an Ivo as well.

43:53 So. That's right.

43:55 Or you can throw him in jail and.

43:57 Yeah, so clearly apple don't fall far too fall far from the

44:00 tree. Unfortunately, I don't think

44:01 really, to be honest. So yeah, he was an interested

44:04 character. My favorite part about him,

44:06 though, when he came into this story was that he was

44:09 determined. He he was like, you know, that

44:10 his dad did this, which is not often that you have the kid

44:12 coming out, you know, going It's my dad.

44:14 He did completely the. Opposite Dad did not do.

44:18 This No. So, yeah, So Anthony came out

44:20 and he said I knew that he did it like as soon as I saw him on

44:22 that first media release, right? He goes, I saw it in his eyes,

44:26 one eye. Shitty himself and the other

44:28 one, the little like a little Terminator.

44:30 I knew he did it. One eye shitting himself the.

44:35 Other one like the little Terminator.

44:38 Oh. Mate, mate.

44:41 OK. Yeah, So interesting character

44:44 just to throw in there at that point when everyone's reeling

44:47 from stuff. So gotta love that.

44:49 Yeah. So then at this point,

44:51 obviously, yeah, they started ramping up looking at Boris, but

44:54 they get to the point of they get to have a funeral for Karen,

44:59 which I just think that this is utterly gross.

45:01 Oh, it's. So gross.

45:03 Boris was obviously he still wasn't arrested or anything.

45:06 It was without just getting closer and closer to getting

45:08 him, but he hadn't been arrested yet.

45:11 So he was at the funeral and he carried her.

45:15 He was one of the pallbearers for her coffin, carried it out

45:18 of the church. And he was just filmed by, I

45:22 mean, obviously media were further far away, but from a

45:25 distance, they filmed him just putting on this show of, you

45:30 know, emotion. He was the grieving husband, he

45:33 was bawling his eyes out. He was a pallbearer at the

45:36 front, so he was one of the front on one.

45:39 Side and her. Brother on the other and her

45:42 brother says now that he knew at that point that Boris had done

45:45 it and he had to go along with it because at that point he

45:50 hadn't been arrested. Can you imagine?

45:55 Oh, that'd be awful. I can't even like I just.

45:58 That would just be dreadful. Just even to this day that would

46:01 give you the absolute shits that he was there grieving.

46:05 Like you don't get the right. To grieve.

46:08 He wasn't grieving, no, he was just putting it on for show.

46:11 And Sarah bought it hook, line and sinker.

46:14 Their daughter, she believed her dad from, well, obviously from

46:19 the minute she asked him where her mom was on the day that she

46:23 went missing. It's, it's pretty, pretty

46:27 horrific. About coming up to a year after

46:35 Karen's disappearance, Vasco makes another little appearance

46:39 in this story. Do you know about this?

46:42 Yeah. Oh, this is this is like my

46:45 favorite. So what was it a Channel 7 show?

46:49 Was it Channel 9? I can't remember now.

46:51 Might have been I. Think it was Channel 9.

46:52 I think it was Current affair. Current Affair.

46:54 No, you were. It was absolutely A Current

46:55 affair. Yeah, yeah, A Current affair.

46:58 We're doing a story like sort of updating everyone on what had

47:01 been going on and whatever. And so they were out at the site

47:04 where Karen's body was found with an expert, the gorgeous.

47:09 Oh my God. Charlie Bezina, now he's an ex

47:13 homicide detective with Victoria Police and he is Meg and I love

47:19 him, but I have to say Meg, this is a bit of a tangent.

47:22 I wanna go for. I love a tangent.

47:24 My mum, My mum loves him more than we do.

47:26 No, she loves Ron. No.

47:28 Well, OK, So no. I was telling mum about this

47:31 case and I was telling her that, you know, Charlie makes a bit of

47:34 an appearance in this in this episode when I was researching.

47:38 I'm like, don't worry, I'll mention him.

47:39 She's like, good. And I was like, oh, but I know

47:43 he's, you know, he's not your favorite.

47:45 Ron's your favorite. Yeah.

47:47 Ron Iddles our our other amazing esteemed ex Victorian homicide

47:53 detective. And she's like, actually, no, I

47:58 actually feel like she's like, I think, I think CC's my #1.

48:02 No, he can't be. I know I might have seen her.

48:06 Drool over Ron like. But she also, like she's pretty,

48:09 goes a bit weak at the knees for Charlie too.

48:12 No, but see, no, the wrong thing makes sense to me entirely.

48:14 Like whereas Charlie for me doesn't make as much sense

48:16 because Ron looks like your dad. He does he Ron actually does

48:20 look like my dad. There's a real resemblance

48:22 there. So I'm, I'm shocked, Lynn, I'm

48:24 shocked. But there you go.

48:26 Sorry that. Well, I can't argue with her

48:28 because I I think Charlie was in is amazing too.

48:30 But they're both. Ron all the way, Yeah.

48:34 We've seen them both talk live and they are both incredible

48:38 human beings. And thank God we had them in

48:40 Victoria poll because their expertise is certainly informed.

48:44 And you know, Ron's conviction rate is like insane.

48:48 Yeah, amazing. He they they are incredible

48:50 detectives and they still consult on cases to this day.

48:54 Which is what? What he was out there.

48:56 Charlie was out there doing. So he.

48:57 Was, you know, doing a media piece about Karen's, you know,

49:03 what was upcoming to be the anniversary of Karen's

49:06 disappearance. And while they're there, who

49:09 pops up? Our mate.

49:12 Our mate Vasco walks. Out of the Bush.

49:15 Walks out of the Bush while they're filming and he is

49:17 absolutely caught unaware. Now what the fuck was he doing

49:23 in the Bush on a random day? Not on the actual anniversary.

49:28 It was a few weeks before, Yeah. What was he doing out there?

49:31 He shot himself. I told that much.

49:33 That's all the video the. Footage of it is so freaking

49:36 goal. Yeah, that guy.

49:37 I mean, what on earth? The only.

49:40 I don't even know if I'm gonna wrap my head around it in this

49:42 way, but to me, this screams guilt from Boris.

49:45 Even in that to me, he's confessed to his brother what

49:47 he's done. Yep.

49:48 And the brothers potentially headed out there because this is

49:51 where Charlie's damn good at what he does.

49:54 But the he's gone out there, I reckon to just check if there's

49:58 anything out, any other evidence left that will, that cops could

50:01 find to link his brother to this.

50:04 Because Charlie said quoted on the on the media thing saying

50:08 that he could say that's that there'd been somebody digging

50:12 around the area and he wouldn't couldn't completely rule out

50:15 that it wasn't animals. But he could certainly see that

50:18 there'd been some scratchings around the areas and some

50:21 digging happening in the vicinity of where her body had

50:25 been found. So it's just to me, he was

50:28 Charlie Bezina was on to it. He reckons that I think he

50:31 really does think that Vasco was out there double checking to

50:36 make sure there wasn't something else that could be found to link

50:38 his brother up to this. So.

50:39 Do you think Vasco was involved? I don't know about involved, but

50:43 certainly aware and yeah, and I think I reckon his brother

50:49 probably confessed to him what happened.

50:51 I think his brother was trying to, you know, though, he was

50:53 thinking he'd go and protect his brother and go and check the

50:56 scene. Yeah, but but why?

50:59 Like to me it just seemed so bizarre that he did it like on

51:04 that day as in it's just it was a random day there was.

51:07 The media that just happened to be out there on that.

51:09 Day there was nothing. It wasn't the anniversary date,

51:13 but even it was. Wouldn't you just steer clear

51:16 like, I don't know. Absolutely I.

51:18 Just can't. But you know what they say?

51:20 They say that often murderers who dispose of bodies or dispose

51:25 of evidence will go back and visit the site.

51:28 Yeah. So that's.

51:30 That's creepiest. That's, I don't know what the

51:32 psychology is behind that, but it's like, is it that they're

51:34 checking to make sure everything's just so are they?

51:38 Is it like a form? Of body wasn't there anymore.

51:40 No, no, it had been removed, obviously.

51:43 Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

51:45 But yeah, but they were closing in pretty good on Boris with, I

51:48 mean, this is sort of, I mean, that doesn't say anything that

51:51 they can get on him in terms of evidence, I don't think, but.

51:53 No, but it certainly paints. It paints a picture.

51:55 Just picture. However, something else that was

51:57 very strong evidence that they were able to bring to trial, it

52:01 was something that was happened, happened a few months after her

52:04 body was found. They didn't release the exact

52:07 location. Whereas by the time Fasco did go

52:09 out, he knew where the exact location was.

52:12 But to the public, it had not been released exactly where this

52:15 location was. And a witness had come forward

52:21 who had seen a black Mercedes in a particular location and a man

52:27 standing next to that vehicle holding a shovel.

52:31 Yeah. Who fitted a description of

52:35 Boris? So the fact that this guy was

52:38 able to pinpoint a location that was very close to where the body

52:41 was eventually was found, but without knowing where that

52:44 location was at that point. This was a very strong witness

52:48 that they were able to then pretty much this was the the

52:51 nail in the coffin for for Boris that they were like, this is

52:54 pretty big that we can go in and and nab him.

52:57 Yeah. The other bit of evidence that

52:59 they had found also was when they able to do the search of

53:01 the house, they did find on iPad some pretty suspicious searches

53:06 that had been taken on there, including how police trace

53:10 phones, how to delete mobile phone data and how to police

53:13 detect blood. So yeah, he'd been someone,

53:17 someone in the house, which I guess could have been Sarah.

53:21 Also. Somebody was doing some searches

53:22 on that iPad in that house. So those sort of bits of

53:25 evidence were enough for the cops to, I think at that point,

53:29 go in and arrest Boris. I think that was 10 months after

53:35 they had found the body. Is that about right?

53:37 Yeah. So I guess it's worth noting

53:40 that so. Boris was actually.

53:41 Arrested on the 13th of December in 2017 and charged with murder.

53:49 He appeared that morning, so he was arrested at like 7:00 in the

53:53 morning. He appeared that morning at

53:55 10:00 at the Melbourne Magistrates Court and he entered

53:59 a plea of not guilty. He was remanded in custody then

54:03 with a court date of April the 18th set.

54:08 So this is what 2017 that happened late 2017, 2018 comes

54:17 along and on the 17th of July there's a two week committal

54:22 hearing to decide whether the murder charge will stick or not.

54:26 And this is when all of the financial stuff came out.

54:28 So I believe they'd sent the iPad and the laptop over to the

54:33 States for forensic analysis like so they could look, they

54:38 had a forensic accountant look into exactly where the book

54:41 stood because of course they couldn't get a like any solid

54:46 picture from Boris as to where things were.

54:48 And this is where the that over $1 million worth of debt was

54:52 like debt in terms of the business and their personal

54:55 debts combined was revealed. So at that point, like, you

55:00 know, the police thought, well, there's also a financial motive

55:02 potentially here. Yeah.

55:05 On the 3rd of August he was committed to stand trial for

55:08 murder and on the 7th of August they set that trial date for

55:13 March of 2019. And at the point the justice

55:18 said that the the the court hearing, the criminal hearing

55:22 would probably last about four to five weeks.

55:25 Can you imagine how taxing that would be on Sarah?

55:29 Oh God, yeah. Like, I mean, I, I, it's hard

55:34 because I have such an opinion on where she heads at.

55:37 And because I can't, I can't understand her thinking.

55:41 Yeah. So we can get to that a little

55:43 bit more maybe after this, because I think that warrants a

55:46 conversation in and of itself. Yeah.

55:48 Yeah. On the 13th of March of the

55:51 following year, the justice ruled that post offence conduct

56:00 could not be used to prove murderous intent.

56:05 So the justice was Christopher Beale.

56:07 He was very measured in his responses, and he sounds like

56:11 he's an incredible judge. And he basically said that

56:18 Boris's behavior after Karen's murder, now known to be murder,

56:26 cannot be used as evidence against him in a trial.

56:32 But that's kind of a huge amount of the prosecution's case.

56:38 Yeah, except for the witness. They of course, they had.

56:42 But yeah, they had the witness. They obviously had her body,

56:45 which didn't actually show that much in terms of evidence aside

56:50 from the fact that her body was obviously found in an area where

56:55 his mobile phone had been found. And then as you said, with that

56:57 witness, with his car and the shovel and the person that, you

57:01 know, they've described who, you know, couldn't, almost couldn't

57:04 not be borrowed. Yeah.

57:06 But yeah, I think that was a bit of a blow for the DPP.

57:12 I think so. I think their evidence was

57:14 somewhat, it was too circumstantial.

57:16 It was, you know, there was a little bit of a little bit of

57:20 leniency there. I guess that could be, you know,

57:24 there could be a shadow of doubt, I guess.

57:25 Yeah, I guess there's no reason that a circumstantial case can't

57:29 win, no, in terms of of prosecution, but it is more

57:34 difficult and it yeah, it it's certainly something that would

57:38 have been taken into consideration.

57:40 So I think at this point a manslaughter charge was offered

57:45 to Boris and he declined to that originally.

57:49 But then was it two or three days?

57:51 It was pretty close. It was very close.

57:52 Yeah. I think he's cut 2 days.

57:53 Before days, yeah, before we was set to go to trial.

57:56 He. He.

57:58 Backflipped. Yeah.

57:59 Back to say guilty to manslaughter, yeah, which is it

58:04 was interesting in itself because up until that point he'd

58:06 been absolutely declaring that he was an innocent man and had

58:10 no he still. Says he's not guilty.

58:11 He's just basically saying, well, I see there's some

58:14 evidence against me and I think I'd be convicted if it went to

58:17 trial. Yeah, which is what he's sort of

58:19 pretty much with all like holds to this day that.

58:21 Yeah, but he's, yeah, he's pled guilty to manslaughter and then

58:26 the sentence. Would you plead guilty to

58:28 manslaughter if you? Had there's no way in hell if I

58:29 hadn't done it, why would you do that freaking way?

58:31 No, no, I'd. I'd fight it to.

58:34 The fight to death, Absolutely. No.

58:37 So I mean, I, yeah, I think that the, I think the evidence was

58:41 reasonable enough that it was, it was quite possible that he

58:43 would have been convicted of that.

58:46 So I think that, yeah, he's, he's basically, I think his

58:50 lawyers given him the, you know, duty.

58:52 This is your only way out here. So yeah, he's he's taken the

58:57 manslaughter and then sentencing has occurred, which was very

59:01 interesting. So when we get to sentencing,

59:05 obviously victim impact statements usually get read.

59:09 And obviously there was, you know, there was her brother and

59:13 her sister, her her auntie, all these sorts of people who gave

59:16 victim impact statements. And so did, yeah, but so did

59:19 Sarah. And Sarah's victim impact

59:22 statement was basic was a character reference for her

59:25 father rather than really a victim impact statement of about

59:28 her mum. There was there was no mention

59:30 really of her mum or the impact of the loss of her mum.

59:33 Now this is a little, this is a little, I say little, but she's

59:36 a 21 year old woman. Yep, she's got her entire life

59:40 ahead of her. She has potentially a wedding or

59:46 potentially children, other things that, you know, she would

59:50 want her mum around for because as she states, they were

59:53 incredibly close. The impact of that was not noted

1:00:01 to the court and it wasn't something that, yeah, she

1:00:06 brought put forward and her. Impact statement or character

1:00:11 reference as it turned out to be, would have carried the most

1:00:15 weight. She was the most impacted by

1:00:16 this, absolutely. So she basically said in her in

1:00:23 her character reference how amazing her dad is, how he's.

1:00:26 Having father misses his, misses her mom.

1:00:30 Loved, loves, loves her mom. And she believes it.

1:00:35 She fully, fully believes it now.

1:00:37 Yeah, please go and watch the 60 Minutes interview with Liz

1:00:41 Hayes. Love Liz Hayes.

1:00:45 It's on YouTube. Go and have a look at it,

1:00:47 because this episode I think is incredibly telling about Sarah's

1:00:55 state of mind and her position in all of this and how well

1:01:01 Boris is basically controlling her from prison.

1:01:05 Yep, this is a, it's a clear case of coercive control.

1:01:09 And if you don't know what that is and or how to spot it, watch

1:01:14 that interview because that is the result of coercion control

1:01:17 100%, no question in my mind. No, but just before we get to

1:01:22 that, so the sentencing, yeah, we'll jump, we'll go back and go

1:01:26 into that bit more. But the sentencing occurred.

1:01:28 So, so basically based on her character reference for her dad

1:01:32 and so much weight was put on that by the judge.

1:01:35 He read out his statement at the end of the which they have to do

1:01:38 like to give the sentence. He has to read a hell of a lot

1:01:41 to justify why he's giving the sentence that he's giving.

1:01:44 And in that he, you know, he spoke about the horrific stuff

1:01:47 that Boris has done and how the fact that he hasn't still come

1:01:50 forward if he's, you know, saying he's guilty, but he

1:01:52 hasn't actually told us what happened, you know, and all

1:01:54 that. And it was very measured, very,

1:01:57 but also very damning that what he said.

1:01:59 And then he got to the end of that to say what the actual

1:02:02 sentence was and he based that and weighted very heavily what

1:02:06 Sarah said and gave him all of nine years maximum with six

1:02:10 years with parole, which is just.

1:02:13 Atrocious. 6 years non parole. Six years non parole.

1:02:16 Sorry. Yeah.

1:02:17 So he, I mean, it could have been a maximum of 20 years.

1:02:19 So nine years is just pitiful. And the fact is that that

1:02:24 becomes case law. So basically there's an if

1:02:27 there's another case of, you know, an intimate partner

1:02:30 murdering his wife or girlfriend or something, then that this

1:02:35 this can then be brought forward as the standard, the precedent,

1:02:39 you know, And so that can then be used.

1:02:41 And then all of a sudden, all of those sorts of cases start

1:02:43 getting less and less time for these sentences.

1:02:47 It's disgusting. It's really.

1:02:48 Disgusting. There was some revolting shit on

1:02:51 social media about this too. Where these hideous men were

1:02:55 writing things like Oh well if I'm only going to get 6 years I

1:02:59 might as well knock her off now. Yeah, yeah.

1:03:01 And. I'll be out in six years or

1:03:03 whatever. It's just disgusting and it's

1:03:05 not funny and it's there is nothing OK about making.

1:03:09 I'm not even going to say jokes, but they think it's funny.

1:03:11 I don't know. It's it's absolutely horrible.

1:03:16 Yeah. So the prosecution actually

1:03:21 appealed the sentence and it went to the appellate court and

1:03:25 they were able to add on. Was it 4?

1:03:29 Additional years. So he ended up still woefully

1:03:31 inadequate. Absolutely.

1:03:33 So, yeah, but so 10 years non parole, 13 as a maximum.

1:03:35 So at this stage, he's looking at being released in 2027 at the

1:03:39 age of 63. I mean, so he's.

1:03:42 Still got a lot of life ahead of him. 63 or man, I mean, have you

1:03:44 come out and still, you know, do this to another woman, you know,

1:03:48 have another partner, have another child.

1:03:49 Even at 63, I wouldn't put it past him.

1:03:52 You know, who knows he's he's still going to come out as a

1:03:55 fairly young man. And I really, I don't know.

1:03:57 I think that's pretty, pretty poor for her life and what has

1:04:02 been taken from her and what has been taken from Sarah, as much

1:04:05 as she doesn't know that and how to think and believe any of

1:04:09 things going on, it's just disgusting.

1:04:13 Oh it's it's horrible, yeah. Should we get into get into that

1:04:19 now about the Sarah's side of. Things.

1:04:21 I think so. I was, you know, we've had,

1:04:25 we've had this discussion about, about coercive control and the

1:04:29 way that it's incredibly impactful and you've got some

1:04:32 really good insights. And I know you've got, you've

1:04:35 got some stuff that you want to say about this.

1:04:38 Before we get into sort of the nitty gritty of it.

1:04:40 I think it's really worth noting that if any of the things that

1:04:44 we're about to discuss are impacting you in any way, there

1:04:49 are a lot of resources available.

1:04:51 So please reach out. So in Australia, there's 1800

1:04:55 Respect, which you can call it anytime.

1:04:58 We've got Orange Door, which you can go to for, for resources as

1:05:04 well. And we can leave those links in

1:05:05 our show notes too. But please know that if this is

1:05:09 something, if you identify with any of the things that we're

1:05:11 about to discuss, you know, please know that there are

1:05:17 organizations that you can reach out to to support you through

1:05:20 this in the immediate instance and longer term too.

1:05:25 Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

1:05:29 So look, that interview with Sarah is absolutely

1:05:35 heartbreaking. There's not no other way to look

1:05:38 at it. I mean, you watch her, she's a

1:05:41 shell of a person. I mean, I actually noted when I

1:05:44 was watching it that she's 24 in that interview and she appears

1:05:49 very immature. And again, that's that result of

1:05:52 that coercion and control, you know, that he has made her not

1:05:57 grow enough like and become. I mean, I know other women who

1:06:01 friends of mine who have lost parents, you know, at young

1:06:03 ages, not in these sorts of circumstances, yes, But you

1:06:07 know, it makes them grow up a lot faster because they've lost

1:06:10 that parent. They, you know, step into those

1:06:11 roles and those adult roles, you know, very easily and quickly.

1:06:14 She hasn't done that. She seemed still very quite

1:06:17 immature. She.

1:06:18 Talks to her dad in prison twice a day.

1:06:21 Yeah. She visits him, I think, weekly.

1:06:24 Yeah. She's still very much beholden

1:06:27 to him. And in the interview with Liz

1:06:31 Hayes, she's asked a lot of direct questions about whether

1:06:34 she thinks things have happened or like what she thinks has

1:06:38 happened or things about her dad being involved in the murder of

1:06:41 her mum. And she never answers a question

1:06:44 directly. I feel like you can really tell.

1:06:47 She's been coached in what to say.

1:06:48 And Liz Hayes absolutely thinks the same thing.

1:06:50 You can tell by the way she sort of pursues the questions and

1:06:55 also by the fact that she gets that expert to review some of

1:07:00 the interviews. Yeah, Laura Richards, who views

1:07:03 it. Yeah, she's interesting.

1:07:04 She's. Awesome.

1:07:05 Yeah, so she's a like a behaviourist.

1:07:08 She profiles and things like that.

1:07:10 She's but she's worked on a lot of DV cases.

1:07:13 She was very impressive in her work that she's done.

1:07:16 And she's watched this case out of interest more than anything

1:07:20 from the get go. It's in her field.

1:07:22 But she watched that interview that Liz Hayes did back with

1:07:26 her. And something that really stood

1:07:28 out was how Sarah described her dad as charismatic.

1:07:32 And I just can't with that because charismatic traits are

1:07:39 used to manipulate people. That's not a positive trait to

1:07:41 have. Like, you know, if you're

1:07:44 charming someone, you're manipulating them.

1:07:48 You are putting a spell. Over them.

1:07:50 And, like, who would describe their dad as charismatic?

1:07:54 Yeah, Like, there are 1000 different words I can think to

1:07:57 describe my dad. Yeah.

1:07:59 None of them would be charismatic because I know him

1:08:02 on such a different level. You might describe some, I don't

1:08:05 know, person you might meet randomly and quickly.

1:08:11 Yeah. Oh, yeah, They were really

1:08:12 charismatic. They sort of engaged me very

1:08:14 quickly. You don't.

1:08:16 I don't. I just don't think the word

1:08:18 charismatic is something you would use to describe somebody

1:08:22 you know really well. Yeah, same.

1:08:24 I, I really, I just find that really interesting.

1:08:26 She's she was, she found that really wrong, the way that that

1:08:30 came across. But the fact that she she

1:08:33 doesn't actually see that her dad has taken her mom away from

1:08:38 her and that she should be the voice for her mum and now, but

1:08:42 what Boris has done is remove that from her life.

1:08:45 So I mean, I worry that when Boris comes out of jail and is

1:08:50 in her life and physically as well as, you know, in these, you

1:08:53 know, over the phones and things like that, she's communicating

1:08:56 with him when she's actually physically there as well.

1:08:59 That her mum becomes non existent in her life entirely

1:09:02 because she's not allowed, won't be allowed to speak about her.

1:09:04 No, like it would be so awkward to discuss with her murderer.

1:09:09 You know about nice things about her.

1:09:10 Mum, I feel like they've never discussed it.

1:09:12 Like even early on they they just don't talk about her.

1:09:17 No, it's really odd. And I they.

1:09:20 Just kind of pretended like it didn't happen or something, like

1:09:24 it's horrible. Yeah, I mean, I found that

1:09:26 interview to watch was so frustrating.

1:09:28 I mean, I was yelling at the scream.

1:09:29 Or just shake her and just go sweetheart, like you're, it's

1:09:33 OK. You're allowed to be angry at

1:09:35 your dad and you're allowed to have emotions and you know and

1:09:38 want your mum back. But is she?

1:09:41 She's not. She's not.

1:09:42 No, she's. Not allowed.

1:09:44 She he has got her so under his spell that she is just toeing

1:09:50 the party line. She is spreading all the shit

1:09:53 that he sprouts to her. She's like a little parrot fit

1:09:57 for him, I think because absolutely she actually and.

1:10:00 Look, she's probably. Protecting herself in a certain

1:10:03 way as well. Yeah.

1:10:04 But if she took a minute and, or, you know, a bit of time and,

1:10:09 and really reflected on what happened, she's a really

1:10:11 intelligent girl. There's, you know, I'm sure she

1:10:16 would come to the conclusion and, and what has now been

1:10:19 proven to be and, you know, he's been convicted of her

1:10:22 manslaughter. So, you know, he killed her.

1:10:25 She would surely come to the same conclusion.

1:10:27 It's like, it's like in that interview, she has not allowed

1:10:30 herself to even think about it. No, she's not because, well, the

1:10:34 fact is like when in those situations, the person who's

1:10:37 being abused, you learn I guess to it's the path of least

1:10:41 resistance. So she's learnt that she needs

1:10:44 to be on his side because being not on his side, well, that gets

1:10:48 you killed. Wow.

1:10:51 You know, so and then not that she will automatically compute

1:10:56 that and think that, but there's a surface level understanding of

1:10:59 that, that it's not safe for her to stand up for herself or for

1:11:03 her mum. It's not safe.

1:11:06 She's not safe. I think unfortunately, like

1:11:09 there's new laws here in Australia now over coercive

1:11:12 control, coercive control, but but however those those laws are

1:11:16 only for intimate partner. So unfortunately still those

1:11:22 laws haven't gone far enough because this is coercive control

1:11:25 being done to still a family member.

1:11:27 You know, it's male to female, you know, father daughter, but

1:11:30 it's not intimate partner. So therefore those laws won't

1:11:32 apply. But I don't think that this man

1:11:35 should be allowed out and released to basically be in her

1:11:40 life now, potentially causing the same sorts of damage to her

1:11:44 life that he quite clearly caused for Karen.

1:11:48 I know that there was an article I was reading about how he's

1:11:50 been moved from one jail to another, and it was being

1:11:52 queried as to why, which they don't answer with those

1:11:56 questions, why prisoners have been moved.

1:11:58 But they did allude to the fact that it was most likely due to

1:12:03 good behaviour and the fact that he was, you know, being moving

1:12:09 forward towards reform. And it's like, hang on a second,

1:12:12 this guy ain't moving even isn't not reforming.

1:12:14 He's not, he's not learning from these things, no.

1:12:17 He he still hasn't told the police or anyone no what

1:12:21 actually happened that day. No, hasn't hasn't come out with

1:12:25 that at all. I mean as you were saying

1:12:27 before, quite. It's most likely this guy

1:12:30 strangled her since there was no blood found.

1:12:33 I mean, if he was, if there was an accident, wouldn't you think

1:12:36 he would just have come forward and said, right, Yeah, it's man.

1:12:39 So. Because.

1:12:40 I pushed her. Oh.

1:12:41 My God. Well, you would do that some

1:12:43 help, but let's say worst case scenario, he's done gone through

1:12:46 the process and he's got rid of her body like you know, but

1:12:48 then, you know, you've been caught.

1:12:50 You fess up and you say, yeah, I pushed her.

1:12:53 She fell. I didn't know what to do.

1:12:54 I've I've you know, that's when I went and took her body and

1:12:57 whatever. And that was the wrong thing to

1:12:59 do. But there's a somewhat a little

1:13:02 layer of, you know, empathy that you can have for that person and

1:13:06 potentially there's, you know, a possibility for reform and all

1:13:09 those sorts of things. But this guy's next level, I

1:13:12 reckon. And to me, he is someone who has

1:13:14 come up and he has strangled because that's full on intent to

1:13:18 kill. That's not now manslaughter.

1:13:20 That is first degree murder. Yeah, I so I, I strongly believe

1:13:24 that he's actually strangled or otherwise he would have admitted

1:13:26 anything else that went on. Agreed.

1:13:29 Is awful. But yeah, just getting into sort

1:13:32 of the coercive control stuff a little bit that look, the

1:13:35 statistics are horrific here in Australia.

1:13:38 They're horrific across the world.

1:13:40 They haven't changed much over the last 10 years.

1:13:43 Basically the statistics have remained pretty pretty much the

1:13:46 same. They go up and down in various

1:13:48 places at different times, but as a whole, across the whole

1:13:51 world, they are shit house for women.

1:13:54 Just here in Australia, 74 women were killed in 2023 and by April

1:13:59 27th, which is the latest statistic I could find for 2024,

1:14:04 already 32 women had been killed.

1:14:07 Across the world, on average, a woman is killed every 11 minutes

1:14:12 by a family member. Like that's not just, that's not

1:14:15 every like this isn't just talking about women being

1:14:17 killed. This is women killed by intimate

1:14:19 partner or other family member. So the statistics are absolutely

1:14:24 horrific. They did increase on average

1:14:26 worldwide by about 11% over COVID too, which says a lot.

1:14:31 So the more time a woman spends in her home, the more time she's

1:14:34 in, more chance she's in danger, which is just.

1:14:37 Absolutely wrong. Terrific.

1:14:38 I know Indigenous women in Australia are three times more

1:14:41 likely to be murdered at the hands of an intimate partner as

1:14:44 well. Like it's just.

1:14:46 Yeah, yeah, minorities are even more impacted in terms of these

1:14:49 sorts of things as well, which is just horrific.

1:14:52 So just to sort of put a bit, you know, we want to make sure

1:14:56 that these things aren't don't happen.

1:14:58 We want to put a stop to them. And obviously they say there's

1:15:00 laws in Australia now around coercive control as well as

1:15:04 obviously physical abuse. It can be also emotional abuse

1:15:08 and all other aspects. So if you're not sure what

1:15:11 coercive control even is, these are just 12 signs of coercive

1:15:14 control from Relationships Australia 1 being being isolated

1:15:19 from your support system, which is clearly what's happened to

1:15:22 Sarah in this situation. Monitoring your activity

1:15:25 throughout the day, so keeping track of you, which could be

1:15:28 through devices or it could be literally phone calls to you,

1:15:31 texting you, where are you when you're coming home, why aren't

1:15:33 you home yet, Those sorts of things.

1:15:35 That is coercive control denying you freedom and autonomy, which

1:15:39 again, Sarah's being denied the freedom to grieve her mum and

1:15:43 also defend her mum and be pissed at the person who's taken

1:15:47 that from her. Gas lighting is horrendous.

1:15:50 Unfortunately the word gets a bit overused these days but gas

1:15:52 lighting is horrific to experience.

1:15:55 It's basically when someone is you are telling them this is

1:15:58 what happened, explaining it to them and then telling you that's

1:16:00 not what happened, that's not how it happened.

1:16:02 It's real manipulation and it's horrible name Name calling and

1:16:10 severe, severe criticism is also coercive control, limiting

1:16:16 access to money and controlling finances.

1:16:19 Financial abuse is is horrendous.

1:16:21 And with any of these, you don't need to have all these 12

1:16:23 happening to you for you to be in a coercive control

1:16:26 relationship. It can be one of these and it is

1:16:29 bad enough and you need to be getting out of that relationship

1:16:35 coercing you or to take they take care of to take care of all

1:16:38 the domestic duties in the household.

1:16:40 They are not all female duties. Every, you know, household is it

1:16:45 should be a team, everyone pitching in, everyone doing what

1:16:48 they need to do in the household to take part.

1:16:51 Turning your children against you, which would just be

1:16:54 horrible. And using belittling you in

1:16:58 front of your children or weaponizing the children against

1:17:00 you. Or in particular sort of or #12

1:17:05 actually gets I jumped down to that one, sort of threatening

1:17:07 your children or your pets in front of you.

1:17:08 So basically using them as like weapons in that situation,

1:17:13 controlling aspects of your health or your body.

1:17:16 So not allowing you to get to medical attention or exercising

1:17:20 or getting the right amount of sleep that you need, you know,

1:17:22 making you get up and get to the kids earlier within the other

1:17:25 person. That's it's all not OK.

1:17:27 Making sure that you're not spending too much time in the

1:17:29 bathroom, heaven forbid, have a shower and have some time for

1:17:32 yourself in there even like whatever yeah that's controlling

1:17:36 you in that way is not OK Final one, regulating your sexual

1:17:40 relationships. So for example, demands about

1:17:42 the amount of times you engage in sex or the kinds of

1:17:45 activities that you engage in. So as I say it doesn't have to

1:17:49 be all 12, although these are just 12 signs of coercive

1:17:52 control and any of those are wrong, wrong, wrong.

1:17:56 So please call 1800 respect if you are experiencing any of

1:17:59 those or as here in Australia, if you're feeling unsafe, call

1:18:04 000. So I just want to make sure that

1:18:07 we have everyone understanding that this those sorts of

1:18:11 behaviors are not OK. And I really in this situation,

1:18:16 we don't want any more women losing their lives and the more

1:18:18 we can do to protect each other. Make sure that you call it out

1:18:21 if you see these behaviors. So if someone who stands by and

1:18:25 watches these behaviors happen is just as culpable as the

1:18:28 person who is infiltrating them. So everyone, let's look out for

1:18:33 each other. If you call it out, the person

1:18:35 experiencing it knows it's wrong too, and they can then feel

1:18:38 confident to be able to step up. And leave absolutely,

1:18:42 absolutely. If you're not in Australia, if

1:18:46 you're one of our listeners who live internationally, you can

1:18:49 Google supports in your local in your, in your country.

1:18:55 And please seek support, find a friend, find a family member,

1:19:00 somebody who's going to help you if you need that, that support

1:19:03 and help. Or, you know, if, as Meg said,

1:19:07 if the if the situation's incredibly volatile, you'll,

1:19:10 your local police need to be there and, and assist you

1:19:14 through that. And they're getting better and

1:19:16 better at being able to spot these things too.

1:19:19 They're trained better these days so you can reach out.

1:19:23 Don't feel you can't. Yeah, absolutely.

1:19:25 That's a pretty heavy note to end it on.

1:19:28 Sorry about that. No, I think it's incredibly

1:19:30 important. Thank you so much for bringing

1:19:32 that to the podcast because I think it is incredibly important

1:19:36 and it is something that isn't spoken about openly enough, but

1:19:41 something that absolutely needs to be.

1:19:44 And the fact that, you know, we've got a little more context

1:19:48 now around what coercive control is that you can maybe spot that

1:19:52 within somebody's relationship. You might be able to have that

1:19:55 little chat with, with a girlfriend or a family member on

1:19:58 the side and say, hey, I've just noticed this.

1:20:00 Let's how can I help you? And it might not be the first

1:20:03 time you have that conversation with the person that they, they

1:20:06 reach out and ask for your help or, or accept the help that

1:20:09 you're offering, but persist with it because it's incredibly

1:20:12 important. Yeah.

1:20:15 On that note, I well. I also just wanted to add,

1:20:18 sorry, just quickly, that like, yes, cameras.

1:20:21 Jeffsky, I honestly believe was a victim of domestic violence

1:20:25 and quite possibly coercive control.

1:20:27 But also she was a very beautiful person who was

1:20:29 incredibly caring. And that's how she needs to be

1:20:32 remembered, even if her daughter can't do it for her.

1:20:35 She was someone who gave her time and her to charity.

1:20:39 She, you know, made clothing for people who had had mastectomies

1:20:46 during breast cancer and donated them to to women to wear for

1:20:49 special events and things. So I think that she just needs

1:20:52 to be remembered as an absolutely incredible person as

1:20:54 well. So agreed.

1:20:56 Agreed. Like all accounts from everybody

1:20:58 who knew her, she was an incredible human being and you

1:21:04 know the world is the worst place without her here.

1:21:07 For sure. Yeah.

1:21:09 All right, we'll leave it at that.

1:21:11 Absolutely. Well, next week we're actually

1:21:14 talking about Elizabeth Holmes, so it's quite, quite a

1:21:17 different. Yeah.

1:21:19 Quite a different type of case, but another really interesting

1:21:22 one for you. So stay tuned for that next

1:21:25 Tuesday. We release episodes every

1:21:28 Tuesday. So please come back like us in

1:21:31 your podcasting apps, please, because it really helps, you

1:21:35 know, if you follow us, we can get our our episodes out to more

1:21:40 and more listeners. Meg is doing an absolutely

1:21:44 stellar job of getting us out there on Tiktok.

1:21:47 So please again, go and follow us over on Tiktok and.

1:21:53 Emma's trying to convince me to do more crazy stuff on Tiktok.

1:21:55 Tell us if you want us to or not.

1:21:57 I'm not I'm in. I'm in the camp of maybe not.

1:22:01 I wanna do like trending stuff. Do the dancers.

1:22:06 Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, yes, we'll

1:22:12 see. We'll see who wins.

1:22:14 Go and follow us over on TikTok and see who won that argument.

1:22:19 All right. Thank you so much for joining

1:22:21 us, everyone, and we'll see you next.

1:22:22 Week, Absolutely. Stay curious.

1:22:23 Crime besties.