Phoebe Handsjuk
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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In December 2010, a 24-year-old woman was mysteriously found dead at the bottom of a trash chute inside an Australian apartment building. She had plummeted 12 stories.

But the fall wasn't what killed her. She somehow managed to survive, but eventually bled to death before she could get help. Foul play was quickly ruled out, but her loved ones believe investigators conducted a botched investigation. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 161, The Phoebe Handshuck Story. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

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On December 2nd, 2010, the police were called to the Valencia, a luxury high-rise apartment building located at 454 St. Kilda Road in Melbourne, Australia. The police received a call about an unresponsive woman in the apartment building's trash room. One of the building's staff members said that she went to the trash room looking for a broom, but when she got there, something was blocking the door.

When she shoved the door open using her shoulder, she discovered something that resembled a mannequin preventing the door from opening all the way. It was the building's trash room after all, so she thought maybe one of the residents had tossed the mannequin away. At first, the mannequin scared her, so she quickly closed the door.

But she decided to check again, and that's when she realized she was wrong. It wasn't a mannequin. It was the body of a young woman lying in a pool of blood next to the large trash bins. When the Melbourne police arrived at the Valencia around 7.15 p.m., the trash room was exactly how the employee described. A young woman was lying on the ground with a significant amount of blood around her body.

Her denim jeans were pulled down to her knees, and one of her legs had been so badly injured, it was virtually severed from the rest of her body. Her body was slumped against the compactor at the bottom of the building's trash chute. When the police arrived, she was already dead. The woman was identified as 24-year-old Phoebe Hansjuck.

Born on May 9th, 1986 in Melbourne, Australia to parents Natalie and Len, Phoebe was described by her family as a wild child. She grew up with an intense love for nature and open spaces, especially the ocean. Her family describes her as being incredibly social growing up, a popular girl at school who made friends quickly. She was also very active and athletic. She played basketball and loved running.

Phoebe also enjoyed physical challenges like rock climbing and hiking. Her family said Phoebe was the kind of girl that you could always count on. If you were someone she considered a friend, she would be loyal to you until the very end. And it wasn't just her friends. She was also loyal to her family. She was extremely protective of her family and loved her brothers. She had a close relationship with her grandmother, Jeanette Campbell.

Her grandma was someone that Phoebe regularly confided in. But outside of socializing and athletics, Phoebe started experimenting with drugs and alcohol when she was about 15. Like some teenagers her age, Phoebe started drinking and using drugs to cope with her anxiety.

Although she was a social butterfly, she was anxious and struggling deep inside. So to cope with it, she started taking prescription antidepressants and sought counseling. By 15, she started hanging out with the quote-unquote wrong crowd. She started experimenting with drugs like alcohol, speed, ecstasy, and marijuana. Around this time, she also ran away from home and was gone for almost two months.

She lived with an ex-convict, his partner, and their young baby during those eight weeks. She eventually decided to go back home, and that's when she agreed to get back on her medication and seek out more therapy and counseling. By 16, Phoebe started dating a teacher at her high school who was twice her age. This relationship initiated a pattern of her getting involved with much older men.

For most jurisdictions, the age of consent in Australia varies between 16 and 17. In Melbourne, where she was from, the age of consent was 16 years old. So although the teacher was twice her age and an educator at the school, they weren't technically breaking any laws. Now, the teacher eventually transferred to another school so that they could continue their relationship until they eventually broke up.

While Phoebe was dating the teacher, she also was dealing with her parents' divorce. Now, not all teenagers react to divorce the same way, but her parents' separation was tough on her, and this only seemed to heighten her depression and increase her drug and alcohol use. Phoebe bounced around a few different jobs as she grew out of her teenage years and into adulthood.

But by the time she was 23, she landed a great job as a receptionist at an upscale salon, the Lindley Godfrey's Hair Salon. This seemed to be a perfect job for her. She was always described as being outgoing and easy to talk to. She made friends quickly so that she could easily speak to the salon's clients.

and working in an upscale salon suited her. Phoebe was incredibly beautiful with a high sense of fashion, so it just seemed to fit her perfectly to work in this type of culture. Not long after she started working there, she met 40-year-old Antony Hample. Antony, who goes by Ant, regularly made appointments at the salon to get his hair cut.

And as the receptionist, Phoebe regularly spoke with Ant when he went in for a haircut. Although he was almost twice her age, the two instantly hit it off. And after only a few conversations at the salon, they started dating. Phoebe was smitten with Ant from the moment that they met. He was the son of a retired Supreme Court judge and a stepson of a current serving judge.

Not only did he come from a wealthy and well-distinguished family, but he was also handsome. He had a high-paying job and was well-connected with affluent friends. So it's no wonder someone like Aunt caught Phoebe's attention, and it's no wonder he was interested in her as well. The age difference didn't seem to bother either one of them. Phoebe was 23 and Aunt was 40.

When Phoebe was 16, she dated her teacher, who was also twice her age. And Ant was known to date girls a lot younger than him. The two were almost complete opposites. He liked everything to be organized and clean. While on the other hand, Phoebe was a little bit messy. She preferred to leave post-its everywhere to remind herself to do things.

He was a social butterfly who enjoyed going out every night. While she sometimes liked to just stay in and enjoy her time alone. But despite all of their differences, they fell for each other. And around six months of dating, she moved in with him.

When the police arrived at the Valencia apartments at around 7.15 p.m. and saw Phoebe's body on December 10, 2010, they said that they had never seen anything like it. A trash room inside a luxury high-rise apartment complex isn't a common place to discover a body. Then there was her condition. Her body was covered in blood and lying next to the trash compactor.

Her denim jeans were pulled down towards her knees. She had deep cuts to her thighs and hips, and her right foot had been so badly injured that it was almost severed from the rest of her body. An ambulance was called to the apartment at 7.20 p.m. and arrived about seven minutes later. But paramedics weren't allowed inside the trash room when they arrived.

According to investigators, the area was secured because it was considered a crime scene. Even paramedics couldn't go inside and render any type of first aid or emergency response. The paramedics waited for the next several hours in the hallway while only the police were allowed inside.

No one touched Phoebe's body until the coroner performed her autopsy. No one rendered CPR. No one felt for a pulse or to see if her body was cold or warm. No one at the scene touched her at all.

The Balencia is a 23-story high-rise apartment in Melbourne. Spread out across the 23 stories, there are 84 apartment units. And like many high-rise apartment buildings, there are trash chutes throughout the building. This is how most people who live on the higher floors throw their trash away. Then all the garbage is collected in bins at the bottom of the chute. The bottom floor is where Phoebe's body was discovered.

But what was she doing at the apartment building? Well, that's where she and her boyfriend Ant lived. About six months after they met at the salon, Phoebe moved into Ant's apartment on the 12th floor of the Valencia. So that explains why she was there. But what happened next? Well, there's no dispute that Phoebe fell 12 stories down the building's trash chute and hit the compactor at the bottom.

But the bigger question here is why? Within hours of finding Phoebe's body, the police ruled out any foul play. They said they didn't find any evidence in the trash room suggesting that she had been murdered. But if she wasn't murdered, then what happened to her? Well, investigators had their theory. They believe that she put herself in the trash chute on the 12th floor where she lived with her boyfriend.

She then fell 30 meters down to the trash room on the first floor. But the fall didn't kill her. After she hit the compactor and nearly severed her foot off, she was still alive. She somehow managed to survive the fall, but eventually died from blood loss. Her body was found several feet away from the bottom of the trash chute.

Investigators also found blood drag marks suggesting that she tried to get herself up and tried to get the door to get some help, but she didn't make it. But why would Phoebe put herself in the trash chute and fall 30 meters to the ground? Well, according to investigators, the answer is simple. Suicide.

Within five days, homicide detectives announced they believed Phoebe had committed suicide. But the coroner thought it was an accident. Either way, suicide or accident, the investigators and the coroner were sure about one thing. This wasn't murder.

Now, to be clear, we don't know exactly what happened to Phoebe the day that she died. But this is what we know, which is why the police say Phoebe committed suicide. This is what we know. And why the coroner says that this was an accident. From 8.47 a.m. until 8.50 a.m. on December 2nd, someone used the computer inside of Phoebe and Anne's apartment. They sent an email and used the browser Safari.

At 9.01 a.m., there was an access card used at the apartment. Like many luxury apartment buildings, residents are given access fobs to get around the complex and inside their apartments. The code 533 was used by Ant, and 664 was used by Phoebe. So at 9.01 a.m., Ant used his code 533 to leave the apartment to go to work.

When the police spoke with Ant later on, he said Phoebe was inside the apartment still asleep when he left. Around two hours later at 11.50 a.m., we have the first glimpse of Phoebe on CCTV. A camera at the apartment captured her and her dog walking out of the building after a fire alarm was set off in the building. Someone inside had accidentally set off the alarm.

Four minutes later, her 664 access code was used on the elevator to get back up to the 12th floor. This was the last time Phoebe was seen alive, right around 12 o'clock noon. Her body wasn't discovered by apartment staff until seven hours later, around 7 p.m. So there's a seven-hour time frame unaccounted for.

At 6.09 p.m., Ant returned home from work and used his access code to enter the apartment. When investigators spoke to him, he said he couldn't remember if the apartment door was locked or unlocked. But when he got inside, he and Phoebe's dog, Yoshi, greeted him. But he said Phoebe wasn't home. But strangely enough, he said her purse and access fob were in the apartment.

Now, without her access code, she wouldn't have been able to come back up to the apartment. Now, let's discuss what Ant and investigators discovered inside the apartment. When Ant returned home from work that night, he noticed pieces of broken glass on the floor leading to the kitchen. Another glass on the counter smelled like vodka.

He said he figured Phoebe might have broken a wine glass while drinking and didn't finish picking it up. She was a little messy, so it wouldn't have been out of character for her. But that's not all he noticed. There was also three fresh blood smears on Phoebe's computer mouse and desk. It wasn't a large amount of blood. It was only a few drops. But they were still wet, which meant that they hadn't been there for very long.

The broken glass and blood drops didn't seem to bother Ant too much. He didn't call the police or call any of her friends to see where she was. Instead, according to computer records, he logged on to his Facebook at 6.19 p.m. After that, he went outside to smoke a cigarette, came back inside to feed the dog, and jumped on a quick work call.

At 6.20 p.m., a second fire alarm was set off in the building and a fire truck showed up, but it quickly turned around after discovering that it was yet another false alarm. Just 40 minutes later at 7 o'clock p.m., the apartment staff found Phoebe's body and dialed 000, the equivalent of 911.

Although the police were at the complex by 7.15 p.m., no one knew it was Phoebe, not even Ant, who was upstairs in the apartment. At around 7.20, Ant placed an order for takeout at Golden Triangle Restaurant. Ironically, Ant and Phoebe had plans to have dinner at the Golden Triangle together that night with Phoebe's father, Len.

But Ant didn't order for two or three when he placed the order. Instead, he placed a takeout dinner for one. So although he had plans to go to that exact restaurant with his girlfriend that night and her dad, he decided to order it anyway. He had no idea where Phoebe was and wherever she was, she didn't have her purse or her apartment fob.

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Now, there are conflicting reports about whether aunt called her father or the other way around. But either way, whoever placed the phone call, we know that the two of them spoke that night for a little over three minutes. According to Phoebe's dad, Len, he expressed concerns about where his daughter was. He knew about her history of depression and was worried about her.

He was also concerned because he and the rest of the family had received a really strange text message from Phoebe just the day before. And now she wasn't responding to anyone's phone calls or texts. So the day before on Wednesday, Phoebe sent a group text to her father, boyfriend, aunt, her boss, her mom, Natalie, Natalie's boyfriend, Russell, and her two brothers. The text read, quote,

Hi, family. I am in bed and about to sleep, and when I wake, I will transform into the most incredible human being you've ever seen. Not. I will go to the hospital. It's safer there. And I hear the special tonight is tomato soup. Delicious. Nutritious.

I love you all very much, but not enough to send an individual text. Sorry about that. But time is sleep and I must be on my way. Merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. XO. End quote. And now the next day, after she sends this weird text, no one has heard from her and she wasn't at the apartment.

Len said that he urged Ant to call the police or ask the front desk of the apartment building to see if they had seen her. But Ant reassured him that everything was fine and that he didn't think the police would do anything because it hadn't even been 48 hours yet. So he said that he would call him back once he heard from Peavy or once she showed back up to the apartment.

But of course, she wouldn't ever come home because her body had already been discovered in the trash room downstairs. After Len spoke with Aunt, he made a few other phone calls to Phoebe's friends, but none of them said that they had heard from her at all that day. About 30 minutes later, at 8.03 p.m., the food delivery guy showed up at the apartment complex and immediately saw all the cop cars and paramedics.

When Ant buzzed the delivery driver up to the 12th floor, the driver asked him what was happening and why there were so many cop cars there. He said he had to park his bike all the way up the street and he hoped that his food wasn't cold. After Ant took the food inside, he said he decided to go downstairs and see what was happening. He found a police officer, said he lived there, and asked what was going on.

The cop said they found a woman's body in the trash room and she was dead. According to Ant, this is when he connected the dots. After hearing about the woman, he told the cop his girlfriend was missing and thought it might be her. He said he'd been at work all day and called Phoebe every couple of hours, but she never answered.

He said she suffered from depression and was taking medication, but he just thought that she was outside somewhere and would return sometime later that night. The cop asked him if Phoebe had any distinctive marks or tattoos, anything that could help them figure out who this woman was and figure out if it was in fact Phoebe. He informed the officer she had a tattoo on her right wrist that matched a tattoo he had on his own wrist.

He also said she had a piercing in her upper lip. The officer sent Ant back up to the apartment so that he could get a picture of Phoebe. Meanwhile, another police officer went to Phoebe's body to see if she had the tattoo that he described. None of them went with Ant back to the apartment. And when Ant returned downstairs, he showed them Phoebe's picture.

They soon confirmed the girl in the trash room was her, and the cops broke the news that she was dead. When Ant heard this, he was too emotional to speak with investigators, but he agreed to let them search the apartment and look around the 12th floor. When they got inside, they immediately noticed the broken glass and blood on Phoebe's computer desk and mouse. They also searched the trash chute on the 12th floor.

They found more blood in the trash room and a spot of blood on the door handle. When the police collected evidence, Ant called his father and stepmom to tell them what had happened. He then called Phoebe's father, who he had just spoken to about an hour earlier. But this time, it was to tell him that Phoebe was dead. Phoebe's family hoped the autopsy could provide more information about exactly what happened to her.

But the autopsy only seemed to lead to more questions than answers. The pathologist who performed Phoebe's autopsy noted multiple injuries on her body. She had extensive bruising and cuts to her limbs and torso. She particularly had a good amount of cuts and bruises on her arms. She also had a fractured leg with almost a complete amputation of her right foot above her ankle.

The amputation would have likely occurred when she hit the trash compactor at the bottom. Based on these injuries, the pathologist concluded that she went inside the trash chute feet first. She fell 12 stories until she hit the compactor at the bottom. That's when she severed her foot. But the fall wasn't what killed her. The pathologist believed once she landed, she tried to get up.

This is evident from blood marks found in the trash room suggesting that she was still alive. According to the pathologist, she eventually died from blood loss due to her injuries. The toxicology report showed that at the time of her death, she had a blood alcohol level of 0.16. That's more than three times the legal driving limit.

And besides alcohol, she also had high levels of prescription medications in her system, including the sleeping pill known as Stilnox. Although side effects are uncommon with this type of sleeping pill, some people who used it reported experiencing hallucinations. There's also a really good chance that the combination of alcohol and prescription jugs had an even greater effect on her.

Either way, the toxicology reports suggest that she would have been highly intoxicated at the time of her death. The police theorized that after Phoebe was seen on CCTV camera taking her dog outside shortly after noon, she returned to the apartment and started drinking heavily. Binge drinking was something that Phoebe was known to do. She had struggled with alcohol abuse since she was a teenager.

So the police believe that she accidentally broke some glass sometime that afternoon while drinking. That explains the broken glass in the apartment, and it also can explain the blood drops on her computer. They then believe that she might have gone to the trash room to throw away some of the broken glass. Although after a complete search of the trash, they never recovered any glass matching the broken glass found in the apartment.

However, that's the moment that investigators think that she either intentionally or unintentionally put herself inside the trash chute on the 12th floor. Let's talk about the trash chute because the trash chute that we're talking about is tiny. It only measured 37 centimeters by 22 centimeters and was about a meter above the ground.

When the door was opened completely, it could only open up to 22 centimeters. So to get herself inside, she would have had to open the chute door, climb up while still holding the door open herself, and get both of her feet inside.

And according to investigators, they believed that she could have only gone down the trash chute feet first with her hands down by her side. And that's because given the nature of the injuries that she had on her arms, the entire trash chute door was swept for evidence. But according to the official police report, they didn't find any of her blood or her fingerprints on it.

They also didn't find anyone else's fingerprints to suggest anyone other than Phoebe opened it. Now, you would probably think that if Phoebe had gotten herself up on the chute, she would have left her prints everywhere. She would have been grabbing onto the chute itself, the handle, everything to get herself up in there. But when investigators searched it and dusted it for fingerprints, they didn't find a single usable print.

When Phoebe's body was found, her jeans were pulled down to just below her knees. According to investigators, this might have happened sometime during the fall. But something her family found troubling was that her belt wasn't damaged and her belt was still threaded into two loops of the jeans.

Phoebe's family questions how the jeans could have been pulled down during the fall but not break the belt loops or damage the belt itself.

It also seems unlikely that she had pulled her jeans down herself before getting into the chute because that would have made it nearly impossible for her to climb up. It would have been difficult enough already to get herself up into the chute, let alone for her to do it and have her pants pulled down to her knees. This would have significantly restricted her leg movement.

It also seems strange that her jeans would have come down during the fall if she went feet first, like the evidence suggests that she did. You would think that it would be the other way around. Let's say she went into the trash chute head first. That might explain why her jeans would get pulled down. But to have the jeans go all the way down past her knees if she's going down feet first doesn't seem to make much sense.

Although Australian investigators can't explain why her fingerprints weren't found on the shoot or why her jeans were pulled down, they felt like there was enough evidence to decide whether this was a suicide or an accident.

Phoebe had suffered from depression for years. She abused alcohol and drugs. And at the time of her death, she was under the influence of prescription medications and was drunk nearly three times the legal limit. So the combination between the medication and alcohol likely significantly impaired her judgment that day. But Phoebe's family wholeheartedly disagrees.

they weren't going to accept that this was either a suicide or an accident. According to Phoebe's family, she might have been depressed and she might have abused drugs and alcohol, but she wasn't suicidal. They say Phoebe had so many plans for the future and happy events that she was looking forward to. She had an upcoming trip to India where she planned on volunteering with a friend.

She was planning her brother's 18th birthday party, which was only a couple days away. And she also had her grandmother, who she was incredibly close with, who was coming to town for the birthday party. So according to her family and the closest and closest friends, they don't think that she would have killed herself because she had so many upcoming events.

Now, I know this is something that we hear all the time. People say someone couldn't commit suicide because they were making plans for the future or they had things they were looking forward to. That's one of the many complicated things about suicide. People who are suicidal and do carry out killing themselves will often have plans for the future and exciting events that they are looking forward to.

Phoebe's family don't believe that she would have taken her own life, especially at that time, or by sending herself down a trash chute. Her relationship with Ant was rocky at the time of Phoebe's death. In fact, there was no shortage of drama in their relationship.

Her family and friends said that their relationship had been going downhill for months. And just three months before she died, Phoebe's mother and brother said that they had broken up at least four times, of which they know of. But each time, they reconciled and got back together. There was a pattern going on in their relationship that seemed to last for months. First, Phoebe and aunt would get into a full-blown fight,

Many of Phoebe's close friends said that she was unhappy in this type of relationship.

Some of them even described their relationship as abusive. Just a few days before her death on November 29th, Phoebe had dinner with a friend, Brandon. Brandon recalled that aunt repeatedly called Phoebe at least six times during a 30-minute window. And at the end of the last phone call, Phoebe got up, visibly upset, and left.

Some of Phoebe's close friends and family believe Ant acted strange after she died. In one instance, one of Phoebe's friends thought he seemed to only act emotional about what happened when he was around the police or her family. But when they weren't around, he didn't seem to care that his girlfriend was dead.

Detective Justin O'Brien was the one who interviewed him the night Phoebe died. And this is what he said about Ant's behavior that night. Quote, During this time, Ant continued to cry. I observed that there were no tears running down his face, nor did it appear that there had been any at all. He was sniffling, yet there was no sign of mucus or snot coming from his nose.

His eyes were not bloodshot or red and his face appeared quite normal. Phoebe's family also questioned why he ordered takeout for one when he knew his girlfriend was missing. They also pointed out that they had plans to eat dinner together at that same restaurant that night.

They want to know why he only ordered dinner for one if he said that he thought she would return home later that night. When the case was closed as either a suicide or an accident, Phoebe's family and grandfather immediately launched their own investigation. Her grandfather, Lorne Campbell, is a retired police officer and felt like the original detectives didn't do their jobs.

They believed the initial investigation was sloppy, and they were determined to answer many of the questions the police and coroner couldn't. Like, is it physically possible for a young woman like Phoebe to climb into a trash chute without the help of anyone else? And the biggest question, why? Why commit suicide like this?

This is one of the only documented cases of someone committing suicide by falling down a trash chute. They started by buying and setting up an exact replica of the 12th floor trash chute door in Phoebe and Ant's apartment building.

Then, they had one of Phoebe's friends, Danielle, who was around the same height, weight, and age as Phoebe, to see if she could do what Phoebe did. She even wore similar clothes. The only difference with this experiment was that Danielle, the stand-in, was sober. They had Danielle lift herself up into the 22-centimeter latch opening while holding it open exactly like Phoebe would have had to do.

But after multiple attempts at doing this, she could only do it when her arms were directly above her head. And even when she did that, she only barely fit inside. She could never put her arms down at her side like investigators said that Phoebe did. But it wasn't only how small the chute was that made getting inside tricky.

The other major problem was the door. Like many trash chute doors, you have to hold it open, otherwise it shuts automatically. So as Danielle held the door open to climb inside, the door would have been pushing against her lower back. There also wouldn't have been anything to hold on to or to grip.

The family questioned whether Phoebe would have been able to do this given the amount of alcohol and sleeping pills she had in her system. When they did this experiment with her friend, the stand-in Danielle, she was completely sober. She wasn't under the influence of drugs and alcohol like we know that Phoebe was.

And just given the fact that Danielle was sober, she had a really difficult time making this work. She had to do it multiple times. It took her several attempts to do this. And even when she was able to get herself inside, she wasn't ever able to do it exactly the way that investigators said that Phoebe did it.

So Phoebe's family wonders if someone as intoxicated as we know that she was, could someone that intoxicated have physically pulled this off? They also couldn't explain how she kept her hands to her side during the experiment because again, the only way that they were able to replicate this was if the hands were directly above her head going down feet first.

They also couldn't explain the jeans. During this experiment, they were never able to replicate it so that the stand-in's jeans could have been pulled down past her knees like what we saw happen with Phoebe. They couldn't explain why the jeans were pulled down, why the belt was in perfect condition, and why it was still wrapped in two of the loops but the loops weren't broken.

Then there was the question of fingerprints. When Danielle the stand-in was doing this, she was touching everything, the latch, the side of the chute, inside of the chute. She was grabbing onto anything that she could in order to get inside the chute. So this would have meant that Phoebe would have likely left fingerprints all over this chute, but when it was tested, investigators didn't find any prints.

Phoebe's family has many other points suggesting their claim that the investigators conducted a poor investigation. First, they didn't think that investigators properly secured the scene. Residents who lived at the Valencia were allowed to come and go for several hours.

According to the crime scene log, the complex wasn't secured until 9.35, about two and a half hours after they discovered her body. If someone did in fact have something to do with Phoebe's death, this means that during this two and a half hour time window, they could have left. Ant and Phoebe's apartment wasn't secured either until hours later.

After Ant found out Phoebe was dead, he was allowed to return to the apartment without any officers going with him. He also had a few family members meet him at the apartment. It wasn't until 8.45 p.m. that the investigators finally asked everyone to leave the apartment so that they could look around for evidence. But by that point, potential evidence might have been destroyed.

Phoebe had two cell phones. She had an iPhone 3 and a Nokia. The iPhone 3 was the phone that she regularly used, and the Nokia was one that she only used to store old phone numbers. But neither phone was collected for evidence until five days later.

When it was collected, several of the text messages sent to the iPhone on the day that she died were already read. Like one message sent by one of her friends at 1.57 p.m. and another friend at 4.31 p.m. But because the phones weren't taken in for several days, it's impossible to say whether Phoebe or someone else read the messages.

The family also blames investigators for not looking at CCTV footage from around the building. Multiple cameras are placed throughout the apartment building, including some that may have captured footage around the trash chute. But the cameras had already been erased when investigators requested the CCTV footage several days later.

CCTV footage are looping every two to three days inside this apartment building, which means that by the time investigators had reached out to the apartment complex to get the footage, they had already re-recorded over it. So everything that the building captured was rewritten over on the day that Phoebe died. The only piece of footage that they were able to find was her walking out with her dog around 1150 that day.

Everything else in the building had already been erased. By 2013, three years after Phoebe's death, her family had raised a little over $50,000 to launch a formal inquest. Not to dig too deep into Australian law, but if a death is suspicious in Australia, the family can request the coroner to conduct a formal inquest to determine or reconsider a certain cause of death.

In Australia, it's up to the coroner to conduct the inquest and determine the cause of death. They also have an assistant counsel who helps the coroner oversee the inquest. They're basically the second set of eyes to make sure that nothing is missed. And three years later, the family got what they wanted, a second look at Phoebe's case. During the inquest, everyone involved in the case was brought in.

This included all of Phoebe's close friends and family, her boyfriend, aunt, the investigators, the forensic experts, and everyone who touched the original investigation. And they were all brought in to determine what happened to Phoebe. Was this an accident, suicide, or did someone else put her in that trash chute?

After an exhaustive inquest, the coroner made its final ruling on December 10, 2014, but it wasn't what Phoebe's family hoped for. Although his assistant counsel recommended that Phoebe's death should be considered undetermined, the coroner went against this recommendation.

Based on all the evidence, Coroner Pete White ruled that Phoebe didn't kill herself, but foul play wasn't involved. Her death, according to him, was simply a tragic accident. He found that Phoebe got inside the chute in a sleepwalking state under the influence of alcohol and the prescription sleeping drug Stilnox.

Although her fingerprints weren't found on the hatch and her jeans were found around her knees, he didn't think foul play was involved. Instead, no one else was responsible for her getting inside the trash chute that day. She did it herself, and this was all an accident. But that's not where this story ends. After the formal inquest was over, everyone did their best to move on with their lives.

Phoebe's family and friends continued to fight for her, but they had no chance but to move on and accept that they may never really know what happened to her. Phoebe's boyfriend, Ant, also moved on. He moved out of the apartment building, started dating again, married, divorced, and dated again. But something strange happened years later in 2018.

In 2018, 51-year-old Ant started dating 25-year-old model and dental assistant Bailey Schneider. At the time, Ant had already moved out of the Valencia apartment building, and Bailey lived at home with her parents.

On Friday, June 22, 2018, Bailey told her parents that she was going to a barbecue at Ant's house and was planning to spend the night. But that wasn't necessarily true. Instead of going over to Ant's for a barbecue, she went to work as a dancer at a nightclub in the city. She got off work around 1.08 a.m. the next day and went to a party.

Later that morning, around 10 a.m., Bailey returned back to her parents' house. Her mom said that she noticed Bailey was upset and crying. When she asked her what was wrong, she said she and aunt had gotten into a fight and broke up. Bailey's parents then left to run some errands, but when they got home, they found Bailey lying in the middle of the kitchen floor with a telephone cord wrapped around her neck.

Her dad tried performing CPR, but they were too late. When paramedics arrived, they pronounced Bailey dead. But her parents had more questions than answers when her body was taken for an autopsy. The coroner determined that Bailey committed suicide by wrapping the telephone cord around her own neck. And the reasonable cause of death was compression of the neck.

Now, to clarify this, Bailey wasn't found hanging from anything. There was nothing in the kitchen that she could have hung herself from. She was found lying on the floor with a telephone cord wrapped around her neck. But according to the coroner, she was able to kill herself by strangling herself to death.

At the autopsy, she also had drugs and alcohol in her system. She had traces of cocaine and prescription medications, and her alcohol level was .17, again, over three times the legal limit. But although she wasn't found hanging from anything, her death was ruled a suicide.

So that's now the second girlfriend in Anne's life to either commit suicide or die under very suspicious circumstances. After Bailey's death was ruled a suicide, her family fought to have the case reinvestigated just like what Phoebe's family did. But as of today, the case is closed and considered a suicide.

Like in Phoebe's case, aunt was never considered a suspect or person of interest in her death. It's either a strange coincidence that he had two girlfriends die under suspicious circumstances, or there's another unknown explanation. Phoebe's family continues to fight to have their daughter's case reopened. They don't believe that she either killed herself or this was a tragic accident.

They think someone have had to have put her inside that trash chute on December 2nd, 2010. Although it's been over 10 years, they haven't stopped fighting for her. They believe the case was grossly mishandled from the beginning and there are still so many unanswered questions. Like why they didn't find any fingerprints on the trash chute door.

If Phoebe could have gotten up there by herself, she would have touched almost everything around the trash chute, leaving her prints. But they didn't find a single one. Or why her jeans were pulled down, but the belt wasn't broken. If Phoebe fell down feet first, like the evidence suggests, how did her pants fall down?

She couldn't have pulled them down herself before getting into the trash chute because it would have been impossible to manipulate her leg to get herself up. And if she was still alive when she hit the compactor at the bottom, why would she have used her time to take her pants off then? Blood evidence suggests that she tried to get up and find help for at least 5-10 minutes before she bled to death.

Did she really use those last few minutes of her life to take her pants off? And if so, why? Then there's the evidence inside the apartment, like the broken glass and blood on her computer. Did she cut herself with the broken glass? And that's why there's blood on her computer? Did she take the broken glass to the trash room and decide to just end it all then?

But how come they didn't find any of Phoebe's blood inside the trash chute or on the door? If she had cut herself with a broken glass, wouldn't there be blood as she tried to pull herself up into the chute? Then finally the question that seems to trouble almost everyone who has heard about this case. Was it physically possible for Phoebe to get herself inside the trash chute without anyone else's help?

Could someone under the influence of alcohol and sleeping pills physically pull this off? If someone of Phoebe's height and weight could barely pull this off sober, could someone in a sleepwalking state do it? And if they could, I go back to it again, why? Why did Phoebe go feet first down a 12-story trash chute? Was it suicide?

Was it an accident, as the coroner said? Or did someone else put her in the trash chute that day? There's little question that the investigation was botched from the very beginning. But why? How did they miss so much evidence? Was it because the investigators were quick to write this off as a suicide?

Did Ant's family's influence in the justice system have anything to do with it? His dad was a former judge and his stepmom was currently a judge. To this very day, these questions don't have answers and the mystery continues to grow. A simple sad suicide case or a horrific murder. To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.

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