CONSPIRACY: Phillip Island Part 1
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High crime junkie, i'm your host ashly flowers .

and i'm .

bit and the story I have for you today, IT, is one where none of the pieces fit perfectly together no matter which way you look at IT. Because just when you think you figured that out, I promise you, you haven't. So buckle up, crime junkies. This is the story of bath barnard and Vivian Cameron part one.

After taking a bit of time off work, september twenty thirty, one thousand nine hundred and eighty six is sergeant Cliff ashes first day back at work and as you can imagine, and that means catching up on everything he's miss. I'm sure he's assuming they'll be an easy day, considering the small community of Philip island, australia is typically pretty crime free. So he should be able to catch up on a bunch of paperwork that's piled up.

But about nine five in the morning when two men walk into the station, his easy first statement is, shadow sergeant ash actually knows these guys. They're Donald Cameron. And in cans, who are part of the prominent Cameron family.

The family owns a bunch of land. They have the political tizer there on the island. So in the community where everyone knows everyone, everyone really knows the cameras anyway, surgeon ash asked what he can do for them, and Donald mother something about there having been some kind of domestic disturbance.

And then he started to reamed ling about something having to do with family fights affair that his brother fergus was having with this Young woman in bath, barnard. And he doesn't make a ton of sense, but eventually, like ten minutes into this rambling, sergeant ash in A B Donald, and is like, what are you getting at? And Donald says, quote, it's bath.

I think she's not. Well, so a doctor, he says this, that he finally gets to what I think is crucial information they may have wanted to start with. And he says that he had just been over a beth farmhouse where they found her lying on the floor with blood everywhere.

Start with that. That seems like way more than just not well, right? Do they even check if he's still alive?

start. And ash has the same question I am. He's obviously taken a back by this information, but especially taking a bag because now that he knows what he's dealing with, he doesn't understand why neither of these guys seem even overly concerned.

But this gets a season officer, so he immediately jumps into action and ls for back up from a police station on the mainland. And he does this because, I mean, the population of Philip island is super small, so they have to call her back up whenever they need even just a few more officers for anything. And should this turn out to be the worst case scenario, they don't even have a homicide unit there, so they need help from outside.

Now, phila violin is connected in the mainland by a bridge, so it's easy to get a few more officers over on short notice. But after this initial call for backup surgeon, ash knows that he's gona need some immediate help between now and when they arrived. So he calls another local officer back to the station who was out like on another job or something.

But once he's back, all four of them had to beth farmhouse so that these two officers in n Donald and in and Donald, are leading the way in their car. Two officers following behind in theirs. After about ten minutes, they pull up to best place, and initially everything looks pretty Normal, at least from the outside. So surgeon ash makes the decision to go in.

wait for mice. De, not on this. Like, what about preserving the crime scene?

Well, that's the thing. He doesn't know if there is a crime scene to like preserve or anything because Donald were so vague, honestly, he's thinking that could very well still be in their need help. So he and for back up when you know, he doesn't know minutes could be at the essence here. So he walks up the path to the back door, and he notices that the door, the screen door, are both unlocked and act open a little bit. According to an episode, the podcast, the vanishing of Vivian Cameron by case file presents, he opens each door enough to let himself in where he proceed slowly and cautiously down this long hallway, and only takes him a few steps before he comes across a bedroom.

And even though he's expecting blood, what he sees isn't what he was imagining, because there he sees who assumed to be bath, lying on her back on the floor with this White floor quilt pulled up to her nose, the top of her head is facing the door, and her eyes are halfway open. But even though her eyes are open, surgeon s. Knows there's nothing behind them. Her cold stair and the huge pool of blood can jailed around her make IT clear that she's deceased and there is nothing he can do to help her.

So is this the same thing that Donald and ian saw? Because, I mean, this kind of, she's immel gone and they were like, oh, like, she's not. Well, I don't know. great.

IT doesn't get any less weird from here, but yeah, this is the same thing that they saw. So ash walks over, carefully, takes the corner of the blanket in between his fingers and pulls IT back just a time bit, which revealed a few of baths injuries. And these are brutal.

Her throat has been cut literally down to the bone, and her upper lip has this large gash likely from a knife. And actually that slice was so vicious that IT knocked out one of her front teeth, which is lying near her body, along with a wooden handle knife. So after seeing just how violent this attack was, urgent ashes now more concern than ever with preserving the scene.

So he carefully places the quilt backward was, and he just had straight back outside to where the other men are still waiting for some kind of update, according to a book titled the phillip lent murder by vicki e portrayals and paul daily, which, by the way, Vicky portray OS, has become like the foremost expert. And I think of these are able to find on this case. And it's really because of her work that we were able to put a lot of this episode together.

And the podcast, even that we reference, is based on this book, so high, five to vi. But based on her book, IT doesn't take long before homicide detectives arrived from the mainland. And they are the ones who begin processing the scene, starting with the room the bath was found in. Now, to give you a sense of a layout, there are two beds that are push to either corner of the room, one the bet sleeps in, and then an extra bed.

And there is a dresser that sits in between them with like a line up a few nicknacks on IT and several items are kind of just scattered around the realm and not like in a big disturbance, but just like the people live here kind of way, like there's a hat hanging off the post on the spare, but stuff like that. Now what's clear to them is that the attack started in baths bed. There is blood on the sheet.

There is blood smear on the wall next to IT, and some that even spattered on the dresses that are in between the two beds. But what's interesting is, like I said, the whole room isn't destroyed. I mean, even the lamp that was on the dressing is still upright.

That hat that I said is still hanging there. So have there have been a big scuffle in this room? You would think some of that we've gotten knocked over.

Yeah the way you're describing IT makes me think that maybe he could have been .

sleeping when he was attacked yeah, that's exactly what they end up thinking because as they look around the rest of the house, there is any evidence of a struggle in at the of the other rooms either. I M, there's actually not much of anything in the rest of the house, just some blood on a tap that was unlike the bathroom sink and then on a room tower like .

someone tried to wash up.

Yeah, maybe IT was weird, is like there isn't even any indication that her house was broken into if he was attacked in her bed. Like there was just that crack open door that they walked through.

So almost like let her killer .

in maybe right? So SHE left them in or on an island this small like IT actually isn't super unusual to leave your door unlocked. And again, if she's in bed, left the back door unlocked. So even as security conscious as he was, someone could have entered her house without even her knowing.

So was IT unlocked when Donald and the earlier.

I assume so like i've never seen that said explicit, they say that the door was cracked open. So yeah and then when police got there is not like there any instance of four century, right? Like even they had to so i'm pretty sure I was unlocked and and again, maybe even crack when they got there.

And so police are pretty confident that the killer entered and exited through that back door. And once their crimes and examiners scope out even further, they spot one more little piece of evidence right outside on the path leading from the door. It's just two small droplets of blood.

So before they can touch or move anything, they have to get at all photograph. Then once that's done, they bring in experts to dust the place for prince. After that, only then do investigators remove the quilt from beth's body to get the full extent of her injuries.

And when they do, immediately they know they are dealing with your run of the mail homicide, because her top has been pulled up, revealing that the letter a was carved, her torso. The a is large, taking up most of her torso, with the tip pointed up towards her head like the tip of the a. And this cut bread is deep, so deep that, according to the phillip island murdered book investigators noted, the slashes had cut through beth chest and stomach muscles I mean down to her ribs.

Oh my god, I may can tell that IT wasn't made with just three long cuts to form the a someone with the knife when in multiple times on both sides of the a like slashing IT over and over again. Vicky also says in her podcast that beth also has multiple stab wounds to her neck and chest and defensive wounds on both of her hands. Now, as they continued to pull back the quill even further, IT reveals that her arms and legs have been smear with blood, almost like whoever killed her rub their hands like all along her extremities.

And whoever did this, they took their time. Like nothing about this scene feels random to police. This attack was personal, one committed by someone who felt a lot of rage toward her.

I mean, we're on in an island that list can be that long.

It's not. And really the whole of IT all might come back to the way the Donald that iran rolled into the police station. I know I think what they were trying to doing all their rehab ling, was give context for what they found, which wasn't helpful when initially we just need to to get to bed like best in trouble.

right? They started with.

she's not, well, you won. IT was massive trouble. Now that context is very important. So here's what surgeon ash knows at this point.

Bed has having an affair for a little over a year with a mean name, fergus Cameron. Now fergus, remember, is Donald brother. He's one of the man who came into the police station.

And ian, the other guy who came into the police station is mary to sister money. So he's his brother in law. Now death was not married, but focus is he has a wife and two kids at home. And you can imagine that his wife, Vivian, who everyone calls vive, wasn't thrilled when SHE recently confirmed suspicion SHE was having about him having an affair. In fact, Donald e. And say that things had come to a head between the couple just the night before, when they had this massive argument about the affair that escalated to the where vivi broke a wine glass and stabbed for this in the back with a piece of IT, or I broke IT over his year, and then the piece I got him in the back.

Affair or no affair. I do not love this dynamic in the slighest.

No, I made this happen. IT is toxic and and straight of abuse. But there are questions about how this happened. Trust me, we will get there.

Now, I guess the cut was so bad that Vivian ended up taking focus to the hospital to get stitches after he's discharged. They decided that they just needed some space. So viv took focus to marian. Ian, how? So his sister and his brother in law, he stays the night there and vivid went back home to be with their boys, or at least that's where they assume he went and the boys .

didn't go to the hospital too.

no. So according to an article published in the age, they're only about like eight and five. And the fight between focus and viv happened late at night when they were sleeping sometime between nine and ten.

So they had called mario to just sit the house with the boys until they got back. But like I said, they decide to spend the night away from one another. Viv drops for off SHE goes home.

None of them hear anything from viv for the rest of the night. And I mean, you tude. But then in the morning they do hear from someone. It's just not vive. So fergus, brother Donald, he and his wife pam, got a phone call from a friend who told them that he had fergus and waves, but SHE needed someone to come take them because vive still wasn't back and he .

had to get to work. We.

and confused.

we all are so vivid, gets home from the hospital and money home, takes fergus to money and leaves again.

Yeah, he apparently called this woman at like three in the morning and said that he needed her to take the boys because he was at the hospital with fergus and they go back .

to the hospital.

No, by three. A M. Fergus was at manian. Ian and viv is supposed to be at home. Horn focus have already gone to hospital their back. So no one was going to the hospital or at the hospital or anything related to the hospital at three. So why vive having .

this lady come get the boys?

That was the big question for the whole family, because down and pam get this call and they weren't involved with any of the stuff the night before. So this is like the first time they even think something in's weird.

So when they get this call, they may contact with E N and money and kind of exchange notes in and mari fill done on pin on what happened the night before this call that they got that started out weird is weird or now that they know everything because now everyone's like, okay, Vivian essentially lied, right? No one, what is the hospital? Why did you have this woman come get her kids?

No one knows is going on. And yeah, no one knows where libyan is now. So basically, what is up happening is this friend who was watching the kid.

He gets the older kid on the bus with her son to go to school. Donald swings by to pick up the Younger kid, and then they start looking for viv. But SHE, along with one of their vehicles, this lend cruiser, which has a flat bed truck for halls, can think like a pick up truck.

Both her in the pickup truck are like M, I, A. So that all like the back story. Again, I know I give you a little bit more, but this is all the back story that ash had when he went there.

So he already knows, like when they go looking for who could have done this to bed, that he is tied up in this love triangle type thing with, you know, fergus and Vivian. And they know that focus. He says he's with his family all night. And they know now that Vivian is missing.

So I feel like you skipped a huge chunk. How did ean and danny make their way to best stop warning?

I'm actually not sure if they explain all that right at this very moment. I mean, obviously, there are a lot of gaps to fill in. And you know people investigating need to talk to.

But at least for the moment, investigators, they just know four things. They're trying to move quickly. They know fergus and vive had a huge fight about the affair. Vive called another woman to watch her kids in the middle night. Bath is down dead, and now viv is missing.

so viv is suspect.

Number one, SHE is an according to viking impulse book. Until they get more information, focuses on that list too. Like just because his brother in law and his sister say that he's at their house doesn't like have them totally writing the sky off, just like minutes into their investigation, at least not yet.

So where exactly is fergus at this point?

So he is still at money in irans. And this is kind of where a bunch of things start happening all at once. But i'm going to walk through everything like wanted a time to bear with me. One of the first things they do is send one of the officers they are at the scene to go get a doctor from the local hospital to go check on focus and break the news to him that bath is dead.

So Donald ian haven't told him. No.

they say they went straight to police after they found that.

So and why are they sending a doctor to forget instead of investigator officer?

I thought IT was weird too, but I couldn't find a solid explanation other than sending the doctor to check. Now make sure he's okay. But to me, that does not make a whole lot of sense because I couldn't be from the injuries the night before, at least in my mind, like the pictures of those on our website.

What that looks like, they life threatening by any means, I don't know, but this officer, ian, actually goes with this officer to get the doctor and then go get focus. Now the same time that that's happening, investigators also begin the collection process of everything from the house to send off testing, including the blood in bathroom room, those two drops of blood outside of the house, the smears of blood on the bathroom tax, and that travel in her bathroom. And there are also collecting things that maybe didn't jump out at first, the way blood void, things that there hoping might give them evidence as to who is in her homeless.

Like there are some cigarettes that they find. There's one cigarette in the bathroom and then a few in the kitchen. Now it's worth noting the cigarette, the bathroom is a different brand than the others, and they're stay out to police as possible evidence because as they've been talking to people, they find out that death .

was in a smoker.

What about Vivian? Or Vivian was known to be a smoker. And actually, the cigarets found in the kitchen are the same brand that he smokes.

Was fergus to smoke too?

Not that I am aware of, but IT is worth noting that apparently bex parents may have also smoked, although I can't one hundred percent confirm that. And according to Monica's reporting for the herod's son, they actually owned the house that he lives in as well as the surrounding property. And they don't live there on the islands in the house all of the time.

So IT doesn't seem like the cigarettes would have been there is, but it's not like you can tell how long cigarets have been anywhere. So they have no idea who these belong to, to all they can do is could get up hope the lab can find something on them to test and connect to a specific person. Now in this evidence collection process, they're also paying specific attention to best driveway, where there are a number of higher impressions.

Some of them are obviously from ian and Donald car and the several police cars that have accumulated on the scene, but there are some others that don't match any of the vehicles present. So they take plaster cast of the impressions that they can't match to any of the vehicles on sight at the moment, hoping to match them one day to a suspect car, possibly even the land cruiser, if they can never find that. Meanwhile, other officers are dispatched to basically go stake out the homes of Vivians two siblings who live in melbourne, which is across the bridge.

IT actually turns out that he was supposed to be visiting her brother in just a few days. So hypothetically, if he had something to do with this, if he had killed bad and was looking for a place to lay their thinking that. Okay, maybe he would go to her family on the mainland, which, by the way, they're sending people to stick the house out, but no one has bothered to call them and tell them that their sister is missing.

What I don't know. They do this because they don't want to give them ahead of bright like I don't know, they're still suspecting that he might be going there or this is something that just didn't happen because of crossed wires or lack of manpower. But viv sister later says they only learned about IT because there was a report that came over the radio about everything when they finally gotten touched in.

IT was weird. He wouldn't tell them really what was going on. Which again, kindly makes thing was everyone in to keep them out of life. They're not having that, so they just drive to the island, check everything out for themselves .

and all like to say vivid didn't show up at their houses.

No, he didn't. But I think it's good that they like forced themselves in front of investigators because they're able to tell them about something that at the time didn't seem like anything. But now now that they know viv is missing, IT might be really meaningful. Apparently a few days ago, vive had called her brother and asked if he could come visit him early, like he had planes to come a couple of days, but was like, hay, and we come now basically and he told her, no, just come when you're scheduled to come.

And i'm sure that I ve just eating him life right now.

i'm sure. And to that, I mean to think that their sister was capable of murdering someone and then fleeing, I mean, that sounds impossible. But her brother, I mean, honestly, all he's wishing for at this point is for her to show up at their house just so they can know she's OK deal with whatever is next.

But he doesn't. You're right. SHE never shows whether Vivian is responsible for what happened to bath or not. They believe finding her is the key to answering a lot of their questions. So investigators start taking people down to the station for more formal, documented interviews, starting with Donald.

Now I know we have some of the basics of what happened over the last twenty four hours, but for this case, the devil is in the details. So we're going to have to go in to the details. According to the Philippine murder book, Donald starts out by explaining that at about seven forty five in the morning, he got a call from a family friend who had the two boys.

We know that he agrees to pick up the Younger boy from their house, while the older one goes to school. And he says, when he does, on the way home, he's swung by fergus and waves house. Now the two of them live on a farm that is run by several members of the family, and their house sits back from the road of this like a long driveway.

And Donald says that he didn't pull into the property. He just like slow down as he passed. But he could see that the sedan that vive Normally drove was parked in its usual parking spy, but he didn't go to track if the land cruiser was still there because IT was Normally parked in a shed, which IT doesn't sound like he'd be able see from the road, and like he didn't Normally drive that one. Anyways, I was usually focus who drove IT. So I think the whole point, the dry by, is just told for her he sees the car, but he doesn't go in what whatever.

for whatever reason, but why not wouldn't have assumed that he was home with her car was sitting there?

I agree. I think it's weird because the whole question everyone has right now is like, where is why wouldn't SHE get her kids like nothing makes sense if you take the time to drive by. The one thing i'll say is I did here that this family farm was more a compound where they all lived really close to one another. But I don't have any kind of like map or exact proximity. So I don't know if the drive bike was more like and on his way and he spotted IT rather than like going .

out of his way of thing, right?

But again, devils in the details. So where i'm going to have you read an exact quote from the next section of his statement?

sure. Quote, I got home and my wife, him ring my sister money and fergus answer the phone. He seemed really distressed and didn't want to talk to us.

So he handed the phone to marny's husband, ian. Ian diplomatically told pm that something had happened and he would talk to us later. Pm insisted that we know what had happened because we had their child with us.

Fergus then got back on the phone and told pam that there had been a row the night before, and he had been injured and had been treated at the hospital. We gathered that the row had been of a domestic nature, and IT involved bath barnard. But other than that, fergus was pretty uncommunicative. And quote, does he mean that the fight involved bath physically or more? That, like the fight was about bath?

Canon, for me, is a direct quote. I don't know. I think he means it's about the affair and just for clear this Q, I think he's talking about the time, right, when they are trying to figure what was going on and they are like conferred with one another. But before he picked up his nephew.

okay, so if he mentioned best and the affair, then they all knew about.

yeah IT sounds like the details of the affair I weren't like fully family knowledge until now. But I do know that at least according to the podcast, I mean, were all really familiar with before this. I think it's a small community.

They worked together. SHE worked on the fergus family farm, which again, more family members worked that he was like to kind of close with all of them. In addition to fact, that horn focus both also worked at this thing called .

the penguin parade together. I'm sorry, what?

Yeah, you know, there's a first for everything. Hadn't heard of IT. I need to see IT now. Apparently, phillip island has the largest colony of little penguins in the world. And the penguin pride is what they call the penguins of waddling from the sea to their burns every night.

That is an adorable background to the greasley case.

I'm actually going to send your picture, which I will show to everyone. It's a little pick me up because we got a lot of darkness ahead. Oh, isn't sweetest god.

I love that. There's like a little underduk too. You can be like face to face with the penguins.

Yeah, people come out and want him a lot of joy.

I love this OK OK.

You ve got your joy back to the sea OK. So the next part, I think, is important because IT picks up at nine o five when he says that ian called him back and said that the land cruse was missing, which I know this was like two ad breaks ago and a whole penguin parade, so you might not recall. But nine o five is the time that Donald and in or at the police station reporting bath being not well, or at least according to police.

So we know at least the timing of what he says happened next is off. No, i've seen some people really spiral on this, especially when you compare Donald timeline of events with the timing presented by other family members in their statement. But I will come to see a lot happened that morning. And there is a world where you can all of IT some of IT up to just not looking at the clock every five minutes. No, I mean, okay.

but all of this is happening just a couple of hours ago. It's not like we're trying to ask teenagers to recall you know what they were doing in a tiny window of time after school six weeks ago.

That is a deep cut serial reference, and I love you for that would.

But okay, we are timeline aside, how did ian find out that the lane presser was missing that had I don't know.

I don't think Donald asked, and I don't know if police asked Donaldson his statement. But during this call, like either on the phone, ian says to donor like hate, fergus wants us to go tell bath about the fight that he meaning for us, he and vive had the night before.

Like physically go see her.

not just give a call, right? H, why? I don't know, maybe because he was the reason for the fight isn't why .

wouldn't fergus go himself or call her himself?

I don't know.

Does he have anything to do with like how he was injured or no?

I mean, like like I said, he got some stitches. Maybe he's not super to move around a lot, but again, you can see the photos of like the cuts he had. In my mind, that still doesn't mean I think because you also could just give her a call and give a head to like why are you sending your brother and your brother in law to tell her about the fight your wife and you had last night?

I mean, maybe he was gna end things and just didn't want to see her the fight with.

They've got to him then to me, call or heck, have them call. If the problem is like all, I just don't want to be her again like I don't understand why they have to go there, the whole trip out that just doesn't make sense to me. But IT must have made sense to Donald because he says that he drove over ian marny's house, picks up ian, and while he was there, he saw focus there at the back door. He says that fergus look just super distressed, almost like crying.

And this is before anyone even seized bath that morning.

Yet no one has any idea that bath is harm. So again, maybe focuses fighting about his marriage. I don't know. He's very upset. He's asking them to go check on his paramo.

He also asked on old if they would stop by his and gives house on their way over to bed just to see if she's there. And that's exactly what they do. They even go inside this time, look around, but they don't see, if so, then they drive to baths.

They see her car and her families work truck that they kept the property an ian state behind while Donald walked up to the back door. And this is where he does. He finds that a little bit open, cracked, about sixty eight inches, he says he calls out for bath, doesn't get an answer. And then when he stepped inside, just like when ash went inside, he doesn't take him long to find bath body lying on the bedroom floor covered with that quilt. And he says after that, they went right to the police station .

to tell the police that he wasn't, well.

not, well, right.

So what does he have to say about all this? Or Better yet, does ferget say anything about what happened that night.

So that's the thing despite sending a doctor to go check on him and make sure he's okay. No one actually takes a statement from focus that day which again.

maybe investigate not a doctor, but whatever yeah and .

you know who else? They don't take a statement from that day. And or any other of the family members in the Cameron family, White.

do they ever take their statements?

They do. And not, not one or anything they taken two days later OK.

But why I have no clue .

IT is something that is stuck with me as i've been researching this case. And look, maybe IT means nothing or maybe it's the first sign of things going sideways. But even though they don't talk to focus or the other cameras until the twenty fifth, there are others they do talk to and they're able to put together alternative time line of events for that night.

From speaking to staff at the hospital, they learn that fergus and viv arrived at the hospital at about ten, fifteen pm. The night before, but their visit was weird from the start. According to the podcast, the nurse who took care of them says at first he just noticed a cut on focus year and thought that that was the extent of his injuries, but then eventually he noticed his back was bleeding to.

But to me, the weird part is neither of them would say what happened. They would just give each other these like long, meaningful looks. And eventually they said he'd fall in through a glass window or a door or something.

But even though was like, definitely weird, even to the nurse, I didn't think that their behavior was suspicious. Ous strange as suspicious. No, he just assumed that maybe he had gotten into a fight with his brothers since, again, they're all like this. Well, knowed family, maybe he didn't want to make big thing of IT.

okay. But is that something that like happened regularly?

Not that I can tell, but this nurse, he says that vive in particular looked really concerned for him. so. Again, she's coming up with like, you know, what could have happened in her mind but because of the way vive was acting toward him, none of the things he came up with in her mind ever involved like something happening between vive and fergus themselves, because IT seemed like he was like caring for him.

Now he gets stitched up. They eventually leave the hospital. And like we already know, focus went to stay at and mary's house while viv was gonna go, stay back at their house. We ve got nothing really happening. Everything seems quiet until three A M, and that's when this family friend, who we learned is named Robin, gets a call from viv.

Now, according to Robin, viv said that he was calling from the hospital and he needed Robin and her husband to go get her boys so they wouldn't be at her house alone. Now remember, we know this isn't true. Fergus and vii ve had already been to the hospital. Neither of them returned to the hospital at any point that night, so we have no idea why she's saying this.

So obviously he is not back at the hospital, but do you know where she's making this call from?

no. So and this is the one of the most frustrating pieces of this case because there are so many answers. I think we could if we had phone records, but apparently at the time, phone companies there on the island didn't keep logs of local calls. So Robin er, her husband go to the Cameron farm to pick up the boys. Now he says when they got there, they noticed that the sedan was still there, but the land cruiser was nowhere to be seen, which to them didn't exactly stick out as a red flag because they're not really like .

looking for the land cruiser. And you also said that .

the Lancer was usually part in a shed. But I think IT is a little weird that the system is still there because, I mean, if they dive into the hospital like this story, even though we know the story isn't true, that probably would have been the vehicle that they would take. But Robin just kind of write IT off thinking maybe they could have gone in the ambuLance or someone else picked them up like, no biggie, whatever.

Now SHE also notices that vivien's black handbag is still in the house too. Now you might need, this is a little concerning, but not alarming, because again, you rush out of the house like, especially if you going take your own car, like you're just getting out of the house. He has no idea what this medical emergency was that took in the hospital.

SHE left her person behind, whatever. Now, after Robin in her husband take the boys back to their house, the next peace of the timeline investigators put together comes from one of bath barts neighbours. This neighbor says that he was woken up at a around three thirty in the morning by someone driving down their street, which might not see like a big deal.

But the street that death lived on only has maybe seven houses on IT. So the neighbors are all pretty aware of each other's comings and goings. And this vehicle stood out, this neighbor in particular, because he says, that sounds just like her sons truck.

And is that what the land cruiser would have sounded like?

That's kind of the insitutions. But nothing that i've seen like says that explicitly OK. And everything that i've seen only says that this neighbor heard the truck, not saw IT. So SHE can't even say what make your model? whatever.

okay. So just a recap.

I was a lot.

fergus in viv had an argument about bath that boiled over into a physical altercation. They go to the hospital on 15。 They go home and afterwards to E. N in money. Yes, what time do you get there again?

Or so I don't. They have said that. So he'd got to E. N. And maries sometime between one and two in the morning and there's a discrepancy there will will get there.

but sometime around one or two, okay, okay, so live drops him off at one or two leaves. SHE says she's going home, but we don't actually know where he goes.

We have no account of her in this time.

Then Robin gets this call to get the boys at three and around three thirty, when the best neighbors here is a car coming on the road that sounds like her own truck.

You got IT. okay. So that's all of the happenings like that night into the early morning hours.

Now the next thing we have is at seven forty five in the morning. That is when Robin called Donald saying, you can get a hold of vive. SHE needs someone to come get kids.

okay? And like that's when the ball starts rolling. gotcha.

right? So even though investigators are filling in more pieces for like, parts of the night and in the early morning hours, there is this missing chunk that honestly almost gets more confusing the more information they get. And they think the only person who can make sense of this is Vivian.

And at around four P. M. That same day, investigators hopes go sky high that they're gonna be able to talk to her because they get word that the land cruise er has been found.

It's found parked to close to a bus stop by the bridge that connects Philip island to the mainland. And you're never gonna believe who found IT. The vehicle was spotted by pam Cameron, Donald's wife. what? And he saw IT as he was driving home from where he worked on the mainland.

I mean.

what are the odds? Yeah, it's kind of is downing me because it's not like it's hidden.

Yeah, I know you said stuff was limited. I guess I kind of pictured that the island was still like crawling with cops looking for vive in this cruiser. So for IT not to be found in to four IT makes me think that I like.

just got part there. Well, and you think about two, they called for back up from the mainland, which they would have taken the same bridge that time did. Maybe they didn't the description.

May I get your boss over? Things get so wanky around this whole thing because IT is so strange that I wasn't found earlier, because pm even says that SHE came back over to the island on her lunch break. So hours before four o'clock, SHE comes over.

And in her statement, SHE makes note of seeing a cop car in the same place that the land cruiser is later part. And SHE does not say explicitly that the land cruiser is there as well. He just says that he assumes that police have found with, but doesn't say that the lands and IT makes me go bananas because if the Lancer wasn't there.

then what's the .

cop car doing there? Yeah, and that means that was part of later. Or if I was there, the cop should have found that he shouldn't be the one reporting IT. I have to be missing something or something hasn't been reported because something about pms lunch time sighting just confuses things for me. But that is like the theme of this case.

All things can be true. yeah. And something is missing. Well.

especially because when you learn that police theory, they have this other witness comes for this local Baker who tells them that he was making his morning deliveries, and he says he passed this same bus stop at like five A M. And he noticed a vehicle park in the same spot that the land cruiser was later found in.

But IT wasn't the land cruiser.

Well, we don't know. He does as a vehicle that got all i've ever seen reported. And so what the end of assuming is that they ve leaves the land cruiser. There are some time before .

five and that it's like .

sitting there and whether that no one reported IT or IT wasn't there and the story doesn't make sense. And again, IT does not make sense me so even if you can realize that is also, to me weird that it's a family member that clock IT and no one else the whole day is devoted to finding viv. I mean.

yes, but also what a family member is probably gonna be on the look out recognized IT easier than just a red, do you know?

I mean, that's true. IT is their their work vehicle on their family farm. Either way, I mean, I get I could just say here and talk about that one piece for hours alone, but here's what happened.

So pm says he spotted the car this time at ford. It's sitting there. She's like, oh my god, as I know what this. As he pulls over, SHE walks up and SHE notices that the driver side window is rolled down about two inches. And when SHE tried to open the door, SHE found that it's unlocked and the keys are still in the gnan. And you like quickly take stock of what is in the vehicle and he sees the gold purse, a black handbag and what he calls a Brown face washers on passenger acy, which is a term I wasn't familiar with before researching this case.

But I tell a wash me.

But IT doesn't matter. So on the dashboard, SHE saw two packs of cigarettes that were the same brand that live smoked. One of them is full. One of them had been opened, and he also saw a lighter and the keys to the phillip island circuit, which is this race track that fergus and vive invested in and where shareholders in, along with, like all of their siblings. So pym says that what he does is he takes the keys out of the ignition, SHE, grabbed the gold purse, and then he drives back to work to call Donald and tell him what he found. Oh.

why did SHE drive back to a work, not just go home, or even like some place closer with the phone?

I don't know, I don't know of work was the place with a phone. All he knows when he got there, SHE calls Donald. He told her to call the police and report that he had found the land cruiser.

So he did. But the no one picks of the phone because he turns out every single officer on Philip island is this homicide lash disappearance. So no one's even at the police station to, like, take a call.

So the place is crawling with up, just not at the station, because, god forbid anyone else have an emergency.

Yeah, I mean, they're lucky. Nothing else happened that day that we know of at least.

Yeah, seriously.

So after the police don't pick up, pam says he drove back to the lyn user, took the race track keys, rolled ball the windows, locked the door on the driver side, and then he walked over to the passenger side and saw a carving knife sitting on top of some.

I didn't have any blood on IT.

No, apparently was clean. So we're the pants. But SHE says he did recognize that as being the same type of knife that fergus and vivid had in their kitchen.

We'd like the thing like sad or something. Now finally, he said he opened the glove box to see if there was anything in there, but there wasn't. So SHE finally locks the passenger side door two.

But SHE still doesn't go straight home. Instead, he went over the eons place and filled him in on what he saw. He calls the police. And IT seems like he's actually able to get through to someone.

Okay, so the gold purse and the black handbag, are they both lives?

I know the handbag is the black handbag. I'm assuming the good person too, since SHE said SHE finds his license in IT, but I don't know. We will not really talk about the gold purse a time, but we'll talk more about the black handbag in a little bit.

Now when police arrive in exam in the lame cruise, er, they find everything pretty much as pm. described. But there is something else about the vehicle that stands out.

There are a few hay bills just like stacked on the back. One of them is even kind of like hanging off, because even though I describe IT like a truck, it's a flat back. There are no sides to the back of the truck. And what so strange about this is that none of the investigators at the scene over at best house saw any hay in her driveway, which seems unlikely if the current working theory is that vive drove the Lancer two baths to kill her. I mean, maybe he would have been possible to drive all over without single piece of hey falling on.

I I say, no, he bets are compact but not that act me sneezing by what IT you're covered in hey and I know that .

from being at your house and all the time yeah my daughter goes to my .

parents house and I will walk in the barn and come out just like cover veri.

So if you're moving a vehicle even like miles hour, do you think like a little piece of jostling on .

like the bed of the truck? I know some loose strands would fall out.

but there's none over at beth, and I don't know what to make of that. Like does that mean that somehow hadas didn't leave behaviors? Again, look at the picture of that we're going to put online or if you're in the APP, you can see IT right now.

I don't see how it's possible. They're literally like hanging. Unlikely IT is impossible that the hay wasn't on there. But like what again, working theory, he goes and kills bad and then loads some hay to then go dump the truck like that makes no sense to me.

Yeah, you could say maybe you can drive the car that far, but that still doesn't make sense. Like the other car.

I guess what maybe, but like we know that the dan didn't really go anywhere and a Robin clock and right done on ean clothe. And so that doesn't add up to me either. At least with the timely we have.

there's a chance to put the hang after. But that also doesn't make sense.

right? That's what i'm saying like this. This is one of the pieces that you cannot fit anywhere.

okay? I'm grasping extras here, unintended after. But you said they did those plaster impressions of the tire Marks. Just them and see, right like if it's not the cruise er then there's right bigger mystery .

gone a like the lane cruiser itself is taken way to be processed, but it's not going to be done til the next day. But really, I think in that moment, if everyone was being honest with themselves, they think they know what the results are gonna be. Because before they even get them, before they even speak with the rest of the Cameron family, they have this theory that has started to form. And investigators mind a theory that vive, in her rage over learning a fergus affair, killed bath before driving to the bridge to die by suicide.

Where did that come from?

Because her car was parked by the bridge. They think that he must have jumped.

You said the link user was found near a bus stop.

though right like a few meters away.

so SHE also could gotten on a bus and left the island.

Yes, I know that they put out a call to anyone who might have given a ride or driver to Operate the buses, taxi, stuff like that. None of them remembers seeing her, which is why I think they latch on to this idea that he must have tried to die by suicide.

okay. Ay, i'm not doubting any like bus driver or taxi memories, but I mean, how many people do they see every single day? There's no way that they're committing everyone's faces to memories. How could they remember .

this is an island though when you think about IT and it's not like they're asking them weeks later, IT was in a short window so sure someone could have forgotten someone wasn't paying attention, maybe. But for whatever reason, they're putting a lot of validity in the fact that they don't think he was on a bus, on a taxi, whatever. They know that maybe we don't know or maybe they don't know anything else. They're saying SHE parked there to go.

then jump off the bridge. I feel like i'm just like missing a dot to connect here there. Like how do you get from park at a bus stop by the bridge, jumped off the bridge to die by suicide and so quickly, yeah, like a this story, I turned on a dime.

That's what I think is so odd about this theory, is how quickly IT formed with to your point, like there's there's like missing pieces that I can I can get from a to c without A B.

Like where's the b yeah and like everyone's Operating on like a million whatever. In actuality, we don't know anything. Yeah I mean, don't even know if she's the one who actually killed bath, which is kind of the linchpin for any of this to make any .

sense yeah and I mean, like I said, it's a theory at this point. But in the first day, Vivian is the only one that they can see who has means mode of an an opportunity. And they really lean in hard on motive for this to have been heard, not just the fact that he found out about the affair and the fact that he attacked gus, they think that there was something at the crime scene that eluded to the affair too.

Specifically, that big letter a that had been cut into baths chest. They believe that Vivian might as well have signed her name on bath, because that aid to them could only mean one thing. You've read the scarlet letter, right?

Yeah, of course.

Can you give us like the third second plot refresher for those who haven't been in english one a one for a while?

sure. So it's by a Daniel hathorn and spell this woman in the sixteen hundred and who gets pregnant from a fair and has to wear this big red letter a on her clothing so that everyone knows that she's an adult, is the man after the letter to, of course not. Because IT takes place on a and settled mass choose.

And finding the man who, like the married woman, isn't nearly as important as shaming the woman who he actually slept with. That's a agent. sorry. Yet the letter, a letter.

the big deal. That's yes. So it's all about this like a fair and her bing branded for the affair.

And IT, turns out, is not just required. Reading here in the U. S. Is a pretty well known book or premise in australia too and mind us the pregNancy aspect because spoiler alert, autopsy confirms death was not pregnant. The rest sounds kind of similar to this story or it's IT affair right at the heart so they think that I could stand for adult a that's the theory which and this is a technicality, but like adult doesn't really apply a bath in the affair because he wasn't married focuses the one in the triangle who .

fits the definition of an adult in a murrays. No one's taking .

I point taken, it's obviously more about the symbolism if that is what IT means because again, theory, we are a whole one day into the investigation and working on almost no facts yet. But i'm sure there are hoping the best autopsy is going to provide them. It's conducted the next day on the twenty fourth, and the corner finds that despite her death being frenzy and violent, IT was quick.

The cut to her throat severed her crowded artery and one of the stab wounds to her chest cut, prepare cardio and vena cava, meaning that he would have only lived for maybe a few minutes before the coming to her injuries. He's also pretty sure he was not alive when that a was carved into her torso. The forensic pathologist takes samples to send to the lab as well with the arrest of everything.

So we've got a pile of potential evidence slowly but surely building up and being processed. But the day that the autopsy is done is also the day that the land cruiser is processed and IT turns out the plaster cast taken from outside beth's house do match the type of tires from the land cruizers. The only thing I never see reported is if there were any other ones, or on dentists ed ones, but we know we can place the land presser there, and then they collect the rest of the stuff inside for testing, and then they send the whole thing, the whole land crews are off to be photographed and dusted for prince.

Now I know already that's a lot, but there is one more thing they do on the twenty four, and that is search fergus and viva house. Because even though their component vive isn't there, maybe there is a clue to where he went. And inside they find signs of a physical altercation.

There is blood in the hallway, blood in a spare bedroom, some in the bathroom. They also find a bloody tissue, even some clothing with bloodstains in the laundry. And there are some papers scattered around the spare room, also with blood ings on them.

but we know there was an altercation. So all this is kind of to be expected.

right, right? And also to be expected. They do find blood on the passenger seat of the siddon, which is the vehicle that fergus and vive drove to the hospital.

SHE drove him. So right now, pretty much all matching up with what we know so far. And there's bunch of samples and items that are collected from their house that are also sent off to the lab for testing.

Had Robin or her husband noticed any the blood when they went to pick up .

the boys that morning? They didn't. But that doesn't mean IT wasn't there. They didn't have any reason to go into like the spare room. IT also being kind of dark.

You didn't say there was blood in the hole too, though.

Yeah but I don't know exactly how much or where in the whole way I was like again, when I listened off all these places, I member the first time I heard this and I go my there's blood everywhere. But I didn't have seen a few crime in pictures that vicki had posted on the lic blogs for their podcast. And it's a lot less than what I was expecting.

So we're going to link out to those you need to go check out. And really, even if they had seen some blood or all of the blood, I mean, there they are because they're told they rushed off to the hospital. Also like that would probably .

track their soul, could be blood. And the night, right, they are like at these people's house, just picking up the kid. They want to go home and get back to sleep.

get the kids settled, right? So even though not everything is button up perfectly yet, investigators are fairly confident that they know what happened. This snap SHE couldn't take a loveless marriage anymore. He was eating her alive and starting to spill over into other parts of her life. This is actually backed up by some friends that they talk to who said that her marriage wasn't a happy one.

I mean, one friends even reports that viv had been going to marriage counseling by herself because forget, just didn't want to go with her, and he d even been like doing things like losing weight or dying her hair, or things that her friends thought that he was doing to try and make herself more physically attractive to focus. But this had been going on for a little bit. Even after he tries all of this, the police are like, okay, he still chose someone else like they had this craned of how this coming together.

So according to the arctic le from the herold son, police think that SHE took part of her anger out on fergus. But after dropping him off at his sister, SHE decided that the only way to end of the affair, truly once and for all, was to end bath's life. So in their theory, he left the house, drove to betzy farm house, got there around three thirty.

That's the car that the neighbor heard. They think he killed her. They think SHE carves this letter a to her chest, then tried to clean up in the bathroom, leaving her cigarettes behind that he does so.

And then they are saying, like once, the reality of what he had done said in that when he drove to the bus station, parked her car, walk to the bridge, jumped sometime before five A M, when that bagger jove by and saw her truck to them again, missing a couple of pieces, but pretty need and tidy. IT would only be a matter of time before her body surfaced. And once some of the evidence was processed, IT would put Vivian at the scene of the crime, and they could close this horrific of their island's history.

But the problem with this case is that never happened, because they never found what they were looking for, not Vivian's body, not the evidence they expected. And as quickly as they develop their theory, that theory would blow up in their face. And all of that is next week on part two.

Or you can listen right now in the crime junky APP, you can download IT in the apple ap sore google play. And in addition to part two, there is also a turn like literally hundreds of never before released bonus episodes. Just visit crime junky APP dot com for more details. And if you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide, support can be reached by calling or texting the nine, eight, eight suicide and lifeline, or by calling the national suicide prevention lifeline at one hundred two hundred three talk.

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