376: Jeans Around Her Knees, Lost CCTV & a Case That Still Haunts Australia | Phoebe Handsjuk

It started with a locked door in a luxury Melbourne apartment building. A concierge pushed harder, expecting a pile of trash, until she saw a woman’s body lying in blood on the other side. The victim was Phoebe Handsjuk, a 24-year-old resident of the building, and her death would spark one of Australia’s most baffling and controversial investigations. From strange details at the scene to decisions that raised serious questions, the case quickly unraveled into something far more disturbing than it first appeared. How did Phoebe end up in the garbage room and why were so many critical questions never fully answered…. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources 7NEWS Spotlight | ABC News (Australia) | All That’s Interesting | Daily Mail | Dark LA True Crime | MamaMia | Medium | North Scott Lance | Nine / 9Now | PhoebeHandsjuk.com | Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) | The Age | The Crime Talk••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:15Speaker 02

  On December 2, 2010, this security camera recorded one of the last images of Phoebe Handsjuk. Seven hours later, she'd be dead.

• 1:25Speaker 04

  Phoebe was fun.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Do you believe she committed suicide?

• 1:29Speaker 04

  No, I don't.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  She's really special. Like, you don't meet many Phoebes in life.

• 1:34Speaker 05

  I mean, it's the bizarre nature of her death that makes people say, "How could this have happened?"

• 1:43Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleep.

• 2:06Annie Elise?

  Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistically. With me, Annie Elise, and I don't even know what to say to tee up today's case. It is all fucking kinds of psychotic. Sorry, there I go, cussing in the first like few minutes. Thanks YouTube, you're gonna flag me. Um, I don't even know where to begin with it. It is so wild, and I don't want to say my worst nightmare because I feel like there are so many things that I have learned through my journey in true crime that are my worst nightmare, but this is right up there with it. And so, I hope you're in a place of zen. I hope that you didn't just eat, and maybe I should also say like, prepare to be,

• 2:51Annie Elise?

  I was gonna say flabbergasted, but I hate that word, prepare to just be like in a rage, like a blind rage, okay? Now, let me just kind of shut up and jump into it for you, but imagine pushing open a door at work and then realizing that something is blocking it, only to notice then, there's like a smear of blood underneath it. So you push harder and harder, just enough to peek inside, and you see a woman's body lying in a pool of blood. Well, that is exactly what a concierge at the Valencia Luxury Apartment Building in Melbourne, Australia, walked into on the evening of December 2nd, 2010. One minute, she was looking for a broom, hunting, trying to find one,

• 3:35Annie Elise?

  and then the next, she was staring at a nightmare. Now, her shift otherwise had been totally normal, aside from a few false fire alarms earlier in the day, but she had cleaned up the lobby spotless, and now it was time for her to sweep. So with no broom in sight, she headed toward the backrooms, eventually trying the garbage room, the trash chute room, where she would think that this cleaning supplies would be. And when that door wouldn't open, she just shoved it open again and again, assuming that maybe it was a bag of trash blocking it, maybe somebody had put their cardboard boxes in there, hadn't broken them down, which a lot of people do in annoying buildings, just saying it. And just kind of thinking like, okay, I gotta squeeze my way in there and then I'll figure out what this problem is.

• 4:19Annie Elise?

  But once she got it open, just that little crack of it, she realized that what was blocking that door was not trash at all. It was a body, a woman's body, bloody, motionless, and surrounded by garbage. And the smell, I mean, rotting food mixed with the metallic scent of blood? Horrific, makes you wanna vomit, right? That's why I said, I hope you didn't eat. Now, this victim was 24-year-old Phoebe Handsjuk. And this discovery would kick off an investigation so baffling and so mishandled that it still infuriates people today. The concierge, upon discovering Phoebe, obviously ran for help, and police and paramedics, they arrived very quickly.

• 5:03Annie Elise?

  But here's where things take the first of many disturbing turns. Paramedics were not allowed to touch Phoebe, not to check her temperature, not to confirm whether she had a pulse, nothing. From the moment that the authorities stepped into that room, Phoebe was treated as if she was just unquestionably dead. Nobody could touch her, nobody could work on her, nothing. Later, though, multiple people would point out that she might have been alive when help arrived. Now, we will never know for certain whether or not she was alive because no one was able to check, nobody was permitted to check on Phoebe. So who was Phoebe? And how did this 24-year-old beautiful woman end up dead in a garbage room of this high-rise

• 5:48Annie Elise?

  luxury apartment building where she lived? Well, very quickly, police learned that she resided on the 12th floor with her boyfriend, Anthony Hampel. And despite almost no investigating, they just locked in onto this theory almost immediately. Phoebe must have fallen down the building's trash chute. That's it. No foul play, just she fell down the trash chute, as though that is so easy to do. And if you've never seen a trash chute, let me just explain it. It's this vertical shaft in very tall buildings where residents will go, they open up the lever, I mean, it's kind of like a cabinet door, but why am I having such a hard time describing this? Like, you pull it downwards, you toss your trash bag into it, and it flies down the chute

• 6:30Annie Elise?

  into the trash, and it flies all the way down, you know, gravity takes it into the trash room or whatever. And then as like this trash compactor in many of them at the very bottom where it compacts it. They thought Phoebe somehow fell down this trash chute and then just plummeted and landed 12 floors below. And unfortunately, her injuries, they did match the fall and the compactor blades. I mean, her right foot was almost completely severed. She also had multiple cuts along her legs, severe bruising on her backside, and the force of the impact completely compressed her body. She was originally 5'9" and her corpse measured at about 5'5" after this fall.

• 7:14Annie Elise?

  Which, just think about that, if you've ever seen, and I don't mean to make light of it when making this comparison, but have you ever seen like cartoons where the cartoon character gets knocked on the head with like a hammer or something like that and their whole body shrinks, like almost like accordions? That's what happened to a degree with Phoebe. It is awful to think about. Now, here's the part that really shocked me when I was researching this. Investigators believed that Phoebe survived that fall, that 12-story fall. Not for long, but long enough to fight like hell and try to get herself up and out of there. On the floor of the trash room, there was a trail of blood, starting right beneath the chute and dragging all the way to the door where her body ended up ultimately being found.

• 7:57Annie Elise?

  Meaning that she likely regained consciousness, tried to crawl for help, and then made it all the way to the exit before ultimately collapsing. So now, we have this woman, potentially alive after a 12-story fall. You have paramedics who are prevented from checking her condition and helping her, and you have police who immediately jumped to this conclusion of her falling down the chute accidentally and they're able to now like neatly tie up this case with a little bow on it, right? But nothing about this case and nothing about Phoebe's death was neat. Because the deeper that you go, the more disturbing that it gets. As if Phoebe's death wasn't disturbing enough, her body revealed details that were downright bizarre.

• 8:41Annie Elise?

  For one, she wasn't wearing shoes. Also, her jeans, they weren't on properly. They were pulled down below her knees, the zipper undone. And this studded belt that she was wearing, that she had on, it was only looped through two of the five belt loops. Just kind of dangling, like it had been like thrown on in a rush. So, I mean, nothing about her appearance made any sense or tracked with her falling down a trash chute. And look, I don't know what your body goes through as you're tumbling down this chute, 12 stories. But I also don't know anybody who is walking to a trash chute area, even just to just toss in their garbage bag, barefoot,

• 9:24Annie Elise?

  with their pants at their knees, with their zipper undone, belt only through a few loops, and I get it, the fall could potentially, you know, maneuver and move some of those things. But, mm, something just is not landing right here. So right away, three big questions were hanging over this case like a very dark cloud. One, was this a homicide? Did somebody force Phoebe into that trash chute, assuming that the 12-story fall would kill her and finish the job? Two, was this in fact some sort of freak accident? Had she been taking out the trash and then somehow slipped into the chute? Which, by the way, when I lived in New York, I lived in many a buildings that had trash chutes. It's not that easy to fall into one of those.

• 10:07Annie Elise?

  So that on the surface, already to me at least, feels impossible. And it becomes even more impossible when you consider that based on her injuries, Phoebe would have had to likely have gone down that chute feet first. Which tell me, how do you accidentally go from standing upright to then in a trash chute, feet first, falling down? I could maybe, maybe get on board with understanding, like, if she threw a bag in and it was stuffed because it was so big. So she leans into the chute and starts pushing it and pushing it to try to force it down and then somehow, even though I don't believe this could ever happen, pushes so hard, the weight of her, like, she loses her feet from underneath her and then she just gets sucked in. That already in itself feels possible.

• 10:51Annie Elise?

  But I'd get more on board with that than I would have, how does she accidentally fall feet first into a chute? Because chutes also, by the way, are usually at least, what, two to three feet off the ground where that little door opens and when you throw stuff in, so like... The math ain't mathin'. Now, the third question is, could she have taken her own life? And if so, in arguably one of the strangest methods that we have ever seen or covered on this podcast. Which I know that your brain probably went like, there is no universe in which somebody ends their life this way by climbing into a trash chute? Fair, 100%. But that didn't stop the investigators. That didn't stop them from theorizing that.

• 11:34Annie Elise?

  In fact, self-harm, it was actually one of their top theories almost immediately. Which that kind of brings me back to what I said earlier. Phoebe's case was never handled with the diligence that it deserved. And failures started the second that the first responders arrived. Now, the biggest mistake was refusing to let paramedics examine her at all. That single decision, it erased the chance of determining her time of death. Whether Phoebe died five minutes before help arrived, or five hours earlier than help arrived, I mean, we'll never know. And that's not a minor oversight. That is foundational to any investigation. It establishes a timeline. It narrows suspects. It helps identify foul

• 12:18Annie Elise?

  play or not. I mean, it's step one in every single case. Build the timeline. Get the time of death. And Phoebe never got it. Why, you might be asking? Because Sergeant Forster claimed that he didn't need the paramedics to check on her. That she, quote, "looked deceased." And because he had 38 years of experience backing up his gut feeling, they all just needed to get on board with that. Which, hi, experience does not replace procedure or science. And in this situation, it cost the investigation critical information. If Phoebe was alive, even barely, she was denied any chance at survival with that decision.

• 13:00Annie Elise?

  She was denied urgency and denied accuracy in her own investigation. And here's the heartbreaking part. As if that's not heartbreaking enough, the timeline that we do have, it makes the lack of a time of death even more infuriating. Security cameras captured Phoebe leaving her apartment at 11:44 a.m. that same day, right after the fire alarm was sounded. She was gone for about 20 minutes before returning with her dog. But that footage is the last confirmed sighting of her alive. Everything after that, I mean, a void created by complete negligence. So yes, we know that Phoebe was

• 13:39Annie Elise?

  alive around noon, but her body wasn't discovered until 7:00 p.m. And without a confirmed time of death, thanks again to paramedics being blocked from examining her, there is this massive seven-hour window where anything could have happened. That alone should have put the investigators on high alert, in my opinion. But instead of tightening up the investigation, the police made mistake after mistake after mistake, starting with a big one. They did not secure the crime scenes. Plural. Scenes. Plural. And I say that because had they even considered the possibility of a homicide and this being foul play, then that meant that there were

• 14:24Annie Elise?

  three potential crime scenes they needed to preserve. And I'll get into those in a minute, but for now, just know that none of them were locked down. None of them were protected or treated as evidence areas that needed to be examined. They were simply just left alone. Then came mistake number two, which honestly blows my mind. They didn't request the building's CCTV footage right away. And this wasn't some rundown complex with a single camera out over by the mailboxes. This was the Valencia, this upscale, luxury, high-security apartment tower loaded with cameras. I'm talking cameras in basically

• 15:05Annie Elise?

  every single corner. And this was 2010, not the 1960s. I mean, video surveillance was everywhere. Yet, for whatever reason, investigators waited at least a day, maybe even longer, before finally asking for the footage. And by then, it was too late. The building's system automatically- had taped over the hard drives. It was this automated system where every two days it was taping things over, meaning that hours of footage and Phoebe's last known movements had already been erased. In the end, all the police were able to recover were partial clips from three of 14 cameras. And that's how they ended up getting that footage of Phoebe leaving with her dog at 11:44 a.m.

• 15:49Annie Elise?

  and returning 20 minutes later, but they weren't able to get anything else. No hallway clips, no evidence of who went in or out of her apartment, no footage of whether she was alone near the trash chute, nothing. And here's what's absolutely infuriating about that. Securing that footage, it should have been step three on any investigator's checklist, maybe even arguably a bigger step and like a higher stake step. Right after the time of death and securing the scene, it's like you get the footage. You start building your timeline. CCTV could have answered nearly every single critical question. Questions like, was Phoebe alone that day? Was anyone with her on the 12th floor garbage level? Did she enter the chute area voluntarily?

• 16:34Annie Elise?

  Did somebody follow her? But because that footage was lost, or I should say erased, we will never know. And look, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself and pissed for no reason. Maybe the cameras showed nothing. But it's also possible that maybe they held the piece of evidence that would have blown this entire case wide open. But either way, the investigators didn't seem to care. From day one, they acted like homicide wasn't even on the table in Phoebe's case. And here's the wild part about that, too. The mistakes that we've talked about so far, they are the least shocking errors in this investigation because it only spirals from here.

• 17:19Annie Elise?

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• 18:04Annie Elise?

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• 18:42Annie Elise?

  Now by this point, investigators had already narrowed Phoebe's death into two neat little boxes. She either took her own life and didn't expect to survive the fall but did, or she accidentally fell into the trash chute, feet first, while taking out the garbage. That was it. One or the other. Case solved in their minds. Except, the truth was, nothing about this was simple. And those conclusions, they made even less sense the deeper that you look. Remember how I said that there were potentially three different crime scenes? Let me break them down for you. Number one would have been the garbage room on the bottom floor where Phoebe's body was found, obviously. Number two would have been the garbage room

• 19:26Annie Elise?

  on the 12th floor, the same floor that Phoebe lived on, because that would have been the point of entry. And here's the first major red flag. The upstairs trash room had specks of blood inside of it. Obviously, it was a crime scene. It wasn't random blood either, it was Phoebe's blood. And think about what that means for a second. That means that you have blood in the trash room on her floor from before her body even went down the chute, which, why would there be blood there unless something happened in that room? Unless she had already been injured? Coincidence? I mean, uh, no. Now, the third potential crime scene would be the apartment that she shared with her boyfriend, Anthony,

• 20:09Annie Elise?

  who goes by Ant for short. And that's what I'll be referring to him as the remainder of this episode. So, once police confirmed that Phoebe was a tenant of this building, they went up to the apartment to speak with Ant. He was home, and he claimed that he had walked in from work around 6:00 PM, which, for reference, remember, Phoebe's body was found a little after 7:00 PM. Paramedics arrived around 7:30 PM. But here's where things get strange. Actually, scratch that, stranger. He admitted that he already knew that Phoebe was missing. The two of them were apparently supposed to meet Phoebe's dad, Len, for dinner that night. But according to Ant, when he got home, Phoebe was gone. He had just assumed that she had left early. No panic, no concern, just, okay, she left

• 20:52Annie Elise?

  early, I'll meet her there, just kind of shrugged it off. But then, at 6:52 PM, her dad, Len, called, asking where they were. Len thought that Phoebe was with Ant. Ant thought that Phoebe was with Len. Meanwhile, no one had actually seen Phoebe. So, her dad, Len, freaked out, understandably, and he begged Ant to file a missing persons report. But Ant refused. Which, why, you may be asking? Well, because he assumed that Phoebe would, quote, "show up eventually." Then, as if this night wasn't already bizarre enough, Ant just kept chugging along, and he ordered takeout. Takeout for one, I should add. Takeout from a restaurant where the three of them were supposed to have dinner

• 21:36Annie Elise?

  that night. And it wasn't just any restaurant. It was Phoebe's favorite restaurant. It was called The Golden Triangle. Let me just pause there for a moment. If your partner is missing and their dad is calling you panicked, who just casually then is like, ah, she'll show up eventually. We're not going to worry about it. I'm going to order pad thai for one and just chill, even though it's her favorite restaurant, even though I should be at that restaurant with her right now, even though, even if I think she's missing and coming back, I'm still only ordering for one and not getting noodles for her. It makes no sense. And we're not done. Aunt told the police that when he got home, the apartment was a complete mess. Not normal clutter, but chaos. He says that the

• 22:17Annie Elise?

  front door was unlocked, broken glass was scattered all over the kitchen floor, blood was on the computer desk, the mouse pad, even a door frame, and a cushion inside was ripped to shreds. And I'm not talking like frayed or like chewed from an animal violently torn. And I wanted to explain that a little bit more because yes, they had a dog, but by all accounts, this wasn't typical dog behavior. And Aunt was supposedly shocked by it, which again, if you're walking into your apartment and you're shocked by the state of the apartment, why are you refusing to report your partner is missing? Why are you saying she'll turn up eventually? Obviously, there's

• 22:58Annie Elise?

  something weird going on, right? And there were also some details in that apartment that felt staged. Post-it notes with like these scribbled thoughts on them were just laid out in the kitchen, which I guess is something that Phoebe apparently did whenever she would be drinking. Photos of Phoebe and Aunt were spread across their bed, almost as if they were like intentionally displayed. Phoebe's purse, wallet, keys, and phone charger were all in the apartment and left behind. Her hair flat iron was still plugged in and hot, and there were candles burning throughout the apartment. So it looked like somebody had left this apartment abruptly, mid thought, mid routine,

• 23:39Annie Elise?

  mid life. And again, if I walked into that scene, I would lose it. I mean, blood, broken glass, missing girlfriend, a house that looked like a freaking tornado came through it, and you have this cushion ripped to shreds. I mean, that's a 911 call. That's not just a panic moment, or even like having a seed of doubt. That is when you call 911 just innately, right? But Aunt, nothing. No panic, no urgency, no missing persons report, just dinner plans that they didn't go to, obviously, and then take out for one. And somehow, even when the police told him that Phoebe had died, he wasn't shocked by that either.

• 24:21Annie Elise?

  His reaction kind of stood in stark contrast compared to her family, who were obviously devastated and just like obliterated by this news, just absolutely wrecked. So while the investigators were busy slotting her death into either this accident or self-harm category, the apartment itself and Ant's behavior, they were already screaming something else entirely different.

• 24:45Speaker 07

  I know when I, when I found out that she was dead,

• 24:50Speaker 07

  I couldn't get off the floor for half an hour.

• 24:58Annie Elise?

  Now, again, this wasn't Ant's reaction. Investigators were already leaning toward their neat little theories, but anybody with a sliver of common sense could see that nothing about this situation was neat, right? And that's when Ant sat them down and gave his explanation, one that he believed accounted for everything. As I said, Phoebe was only 24 years old. And in that short life, she had already experienced a lot of emotional turmoil, especially in the last couple of years. She and Ant had been together for about 18 months. And according to him, Phoebe had struggled with severe mental health issues the entire time that they were dating. Her biggest battle being depression. The kind of it isn't just sadness, but it's paralyzing.

• 25:43Annie Elise?

  Which if you've ever dealt with it yourself or if you've watched somebody you love go through it, you know how it can really flip on and off like a switch, right? One day she functioned like everything was normal, but then the next, she couldn't get out of bed. She couldn't eat, she couldn't shower. It just like, it swallowed her whole. And because Phoebe felt like such a burden, she began pulling away from the very people who were trying to help her. She worried that she was too much for Ant. And it didn't help that Aunt, forty-three years old by the way, to her twenty-four-years-old, he wanted kids. And Phoebe loved children, but she was terrified of passing her depression on. But meanwhile Aunt felt the clock ticking. So that pressure, it was always present, and

• 26:26Annie Elise?

  it really did feel like a pressure cooker. She tried to fight it, she tried therapy, medication, doctors, she did all, you know, the right things by standards, but she also discovered that alcohol was what numbed her pain faster than any prescription medication. And Aunt referred to that dependency as quote "the monster" in her life. Now Phoebe wasn't always like this. Her family described her as warm, deeply empathetic, someone who felt everything intensely, in a good way. She was creative, constantly writing poetry or journaling, but that over time, that spark disappeared. And this brings us to Aunt's justification

• 27:06Annie Elise?

  for why he wasn't shocked when she died. He claimed that Phoebe had been in an especially bad state the night before her death. When he came home from work, he said that it was obvious that she was struggling. So, he cared for her, he ran her a bath, made her dinner, gave her her vitamins, and then put her to bed. Then, later that night, Phoebe sent a very bizarre text message to her family. And it was unsettling enough that everybody immediately knew that something was wrong. It read, "Hi, family. I am in bed and about to sleep, and when I wake," all caps, "I will transform into the most incredible human being you've ever seen." Dot, dot, dot, "not. I will go to the hospital. It's safer there,

• 27:48Annie Elise?

  and I hear the special tonight is tomato soup." Dot, dot, dot, "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." Dot, dot, dot. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. Exo. Now, obviously, and rightfully so, her family, upon receiving that text message, they panicked. That text sounded like someone who was about to check herself into a hospital, or somebody who was completely unraveling, just coming undone. They called, they texted, they tried everything, but Phoebe didn't respond. She said that she was going to sleep, so eventually, they reached out to Ant instead.

• 28:31Annie Elise?

  But Ant just told them not to worry. He said Phoebe was fine, she's just asleep, that he had everything under control. But that message was the last contact that her family had ever received from her. So clearly, not everything was fine. Ant insisted that he thought that a good night's sleep would reset things. However, by the next morning, the day that Phoebe died, he believed that she was drinking again. And he claimed that he could tell because when he got home later, there were two half-finished glasses on the kitchen counter. And he said that he smelled vodka in them. Police later confirmed that Phoebe had been drinking at some point. Her blood alcohol level was a .16,

• 29:13Annie Elise?

  twice the legal limit to drive in the United States and three times the limit in Australia. They also found Stillnox in her system, which is a prescription sleeping pill. However, Phoebe wasn't prescribed Stillnox. Ant was. But he told the police that she actually took it regularly. And the combination of alcohol and Stillnox, I mean, it's not great. You're never supposed to mix alcohol with heavy prescription medication, especially sleeping pills. And I'll explain a little bit more about that later. But here's what's infuriating. Those two glasses that Ant mentioned, they were never tested. The liquid inside, also never tested.

• 29:55Annie Elise?

  All we have is his word that they smelled like vodka. Could they have been laced? Could they have been something else? Could it have been some sort of mixture? Who knows? They were never tested. Ant also claimed that he had been calling Phoebe all day from their landline. Because according to him, her iPhone had been broken for two days. She never answered. So let's recap that. You have this deteriorating mental state, a very cryptic and kind of bizarre text message, medication that wasn't hers, alcohol, yes, confirmed in her system, and Ant, who says that none of this shocked him. It's a compelling story, conveniently compelling, but does it actually explain what happened to Phoebe? Which also begs the question,

• 30:40Annie Elise?

  how did Phoebe send this strange cryptic text message to her family if her phone was supposedly broken? Well, this is where Ant's story starts to twist a little bit. Because depending on the day, he would have a different explanation, or rather, different phones. Ant claimed that whenever Phoebe's iPhone broke, she used an old Nokia. But according to him, Phoebe lost that Nokia sometime between Monday night and Tuesday, after a night of drinking. So then, which device sent the bizarre text? The broken iPhone? The supposedly lost Nokia? Nobody seems to know. And here's where things get even more suspicious.

• 31:21Annie Elise?

  Four months after Phoebe's death, the investigators finally seized Ant's phone. And on it, they found a log showing that on the day that Phoebe died, Ant called Phoebe's Nokia. The same phone that he insisted she no longer had. And the call wasn't just a missed dial or a quick dial. It connected for 13 seconds. Ant claimed he didn't remember making that call, which, I'm sorry, but if you're calling a phone that you believe is lost and the call connects, that's probably not something that you would forget, right? 13 seconds is certainly long enough for somebody to speak, breathe, answer, or for you to hear something on the other end. So why didn't he remember it?

• 32:05Annie Elise?

  And why call a phone that you are certain is gone? Which, you know what, let me just do something really quick. For science, I'm gonna put a timer on for 13 seconds, just so you can really see how long that is. Let's go here, stopwatch, start. One, two, three, go.

• 32:35Annie Elise?

  Stop. That was 13 seconds. You're telling me it's just dead air? I don't think so. So let's go back to Tuesday really quick, okay? The day that everything unraveled. Ant said that because Phoebe wasn't answering the landline, he assumed that she had simply gone to dinner without him. But then, even after learning that she wasn't with her dad, he said he still wasn't alarmed. He did admit that it was weird that she left without her purse or her keys, but he still figured that she would be back soon. So his concern... It really only kicked in after one moment later that night, which in his words, he says, "I thought, you know, well, she'd turn up and I just hoped that because it just didn't make any sense. And even her keys, you know, like I thought that she wouldn't leave the building,

• 33:19Annie Elise?

  but then I thought, maybe she's so smashed, maybe she's back in an hour or two, usual mode of sitting on the couch, wondering where she was and what she was doing and knowing I couldn't do anything. I ordered some takeaway food and when the guy came to deliver it, he knocked on my door and he said, "Why are the police downstairs?" And that's when I knew, straight away, I knew. So if we're accepting Ant's version of events, Phoebe was spiraling mentally. She had been drinking and her behavior had become erratic. Conveniently, that narrative also aligned perfectly with the police suspicions that she may have taken her own life. Now, the police might argue that they were keeping an open mind through all of this, but there is no universe

• 34:03Annie Elise?

  where that is true. Because they didn't treat the apartment as a crime scene, not even close. Remember, blood was found in three different places inside that apartment: on the doorframe, on the computer desk, and on the mousepad. Now, only one of those samples, the blood on the doorframe, was tested. And that sample was Phoebe's. The blood on the desk and the mousepad, it was never tested. No explanation, no follow-up, nothing. And Ant, despite being the last person known to have seen Phoebe alive, wasn't even treated as a person of interest. They didn't take his phone, they didn't seize his SIM card, they didn't take their shared computer, the one sitting right next to the blood. They just took his statements

• 34:47Annie Elise?

  at face value and walked away. And here is my issue, and I know a lot of you guys are thinking it too, but in cases where a woman goes missing, or a woman dies under mysterious circumstances, how many times do we later discover that the husband or the boyfriend was involved? And it's not prejudice, it's statistics, I promise you. But that aside, there's something else, something that the police overlooked, something that suggests that Phoebe may not have been alone in that building the day that she died. And once you hear it, things start looking a whole lot less accidental.

• 35:31Annie Elise?

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• 36:16Annie Elise?

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• 36:35Annie Elise?

  Let's start with something that we already touched on. Those two glasses, the ones sitting in the apartment. Aunt insisted that they both had some sort of vodka mix in them. But what's strange is that the glasses weren't side by side. They were left on opposite ends of the kitchen island, almost like two people had been sitting across from each other just drinking and chatting. Now, could Phoebe have poured both drinks for herself? Maybe. Her blood alcohol level was extremely high when she died, and alcohol can definitely make people do irrational things, but it's still odd. And if there was nothing suspicious, why not clear this up? Fingerprint the glasses, right? If they only showed Phoebe's prints, we'd have our answer. Great. But the glasses? They were never tested.

• 37:19Annie Elise?

  Just another investigative failure in this growing list that you will see. And then comes in this detail, one that's barely discussed anywhere, but we found it in our research. A witness reported seeing a man in the building that day, someone that she didn't recognize. And she saw him at about 4:00 PM. Being buzzed to the 12th floor, Phoebe's floor. Now, in this building, you couldn't just ride the elevator wherever you wanted to go. You needed a key card or you needed somebody to buzz you up. And this man didn't swipe anything. He simply pressed 12 and the elevator granted him access. Meaning that someone on the 12th floor let him in, buzzed him in. The woman who reported this didn't think that he lived there. She had never seen him before.

• 38:03Annie Elise?

  So she went straight to the investigators with this information. But the police brushed it off. They said that the man was a contractor doing work for a resident. They even showed her a photo. But when she looked at the picture, she wasn't sure that it was the same guy. Now, could she be wrong? Yes, absolutely. Eyewitnesses can misremember. But the fact that she couldn't confirm it? It does leave room for doubt. Was this man possibly meeting Phoebe? Was he drinking with her? I mean, the timing is lining up. The two glasses on the counter suddenly don't feel like an accident. And then there's one more detail, one that should have been like a forensic goldmine. There were muddy shoe prints found in the 12th floor hallway.

• 38:46Annie Elise?

  Shoe prints leading directly from Phoebe and Ant's apartment. And these prints, they were never measured, photographed, or analyzed. And remember, Phoebe was barefoot when she died. As for Ant, I mean, we don't know, so whose footprints were these? And the possibilities do start to range from like mundane, non-eventful, to downright chilling. Maybe Ant had dirty shoes. Maybe it was somebody else entirely. Maybe it was the mystery man who was buzzed up at 4:00 PM. But because the prints weren't documented, we will never know. And that's what pushes this case into conspiracy theory territory. Not because people want to be on one and start going all on the conspiracy train,

• 39:30Annie Elise?

  but because every avenue that should have been explored was ignored. Now, remember, all of this, the calls, the glasses, the mystery man, the hallway prints, it all surfaced within a few days of the investigation. And then on December 7th, barely five days after Phoebe's body was found, the detectives dropped a bombshell. No second party involved. No foul play suspected. Case closed as a non-homicide. Their conclusion? That Phoebe voluntarily entered the trash chute on her own. Not while taking out the trash, that theory was dismissed. Their reasoning was more anatomical. Because Phoebe fell, feet first. They believe that she physically climbed into the chute herself.

• 40:15Annie Elise?

  Remember, if she had slipped while tossing a bag, she would have gone down head first. Her feet would have come up from under her. The injury to her foot, however, remember, it almost severed her foot because of the compactor blades. I mean, that totally proved otherwise. Which it sounds crazy, right? But before you completely rule it out, here is the theory that the coroner and the police really clung to. They say Phoebe was extremely drunk, that her blood alcohol level was a 0.16%. Add that to the Stillnox, a sleeping medication that she had not been prescribed, but aunt had, and combining the two of those, it can cause hallucinations, memory gaps, even sleepwalking.

• 40:55Annie Elise?

  So the official explanation became this kind of like bizarre hybrid of accident and self-harm. Phoebe was in this sleepwalking state, wandered to the trash room, climbed into the chute, and then fell without fully understanding what she was doing. Not self-harm, not a homicide, just a tragic side effect driven accident. And the coroner doubled down by pointing to a lack of internal organ damage, arguing that if Phoebe had been shoved, then she would have hit the chute differently, sustaining different injuries.

• 41:28Speaker 04

  So as a family, to hear the finding, what was that like?

• 41:32Speaker 08

  Well, we were shell shocked. We were numb walking out of that place.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  Numb?

• 41:38Speaker 08

  We were numb.

• 41:38Annie Elise?

  And that was that. A young woman ends up dead under circumstances that make almost no logical sense, and people tasked with finding the answers just essentially shrugged it off and said, "She climbed in. Case closed." Except it wasn't, not even close. And I should also mention, the coroner didn't just stand by his theory, he escalated it. He even recommended that the Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration...

• 42:05Annie Elise?

  Take the recommended dosage for Stillnox, that sleeping pill, and cut it in half. Saying it's too severe, it's too strong, the recommended dosage should be cut in half. And then with that, he effectively just kind of like slammed the book shut. Case closed. Except for almost everyone else, the case was anything but closed. People who loved Phoebe and even total strangers who stumbled across her story in the media, they could not accept this conclusion. And one detail stood out above all of the others. The blood that was inside Phoebe and Ant's apartment. Which, let's just, you know, for devil's advocate, for shits and gigs, let's play along with the official theory for a second. I tried to get my mind to go there while I was researching this, just to see like,

• 42:50Annie Elise?

  am I getting too stuck in my ways? So let's just say that Phoebe was in some kind of Stillnox alcohol-induced haze, sleepwalking her way through the day. Okay, fine, fair enough. But then, if that's the case, how do you explain shattered glass on the kitchen floor, blood in multiple locations inside the apartment, and also the bizarre state that the apartment was found in? Which the coroner tried to explain it. His explanation was that Phoebe dropped a glass while she was drinking it, that she cut herself trying to clean it up. That's how her blood ended up on various surfaces. And in his own words, he said, "At some stage, she dropped and broke a glass. At a later point, she attempted to clean up the glass fragments

• 43:34Annie Elise?

  and may have placed them into a plastic rubbish bag while cutting herself in the process." He went on to say, "At some later point, shoeless and without her bag and keys, she left the apartment and her dog and the lit candles and went to the refuse room, which is the trash room, on the same floor, where a small portion of blood from her earlier cut was subsequently found. And she is likely to have put a bag of rubbish into the chute at this time." Which, okay, on paper, it sounds almost reasonable, except none of it was verified. Investigators never searched the bags surrounding Phoebe's body. They didn't find broken glass in any trash bag. They didn't confirm that she was taking out garbage.

• 44:17Annie Elise?

  They didn't even confirm the glass in the apartment had been cleaned up. In fact, according to Ant, when he came home, there was still broken glass all over the kitchen floor. So if Phoebe supposedly cut herself cleaning this glass and then disposed of it, why was the glass still there? And why wasn't the blood that was found near the computer desk and the mouse pad ever tested to confirm that it was hers? Those unanswered questions do not tie up loose ends. They actually kind of shred this theory apart, in my opinion. Now, even with the blood that they did confirm as Phoebe's, the blood on the doorframe and the tiny specks in the 12th floor room, trash room, nobody analyzed how it got there. Was it smeared, like somebody was steadying themselves?

• 45:02Annie Elise?

  Was it spatter suggesting force? I mean, those are very different stories, yet nobody bothered to find out. And then, of course, came the emotional divide. Phoebe's family refused to accept the coroner's explanation. They didn't believe that Phoebe sleepwalked into a trash chute. They didn't believe a medication mishap and a stumble explained the injuries, the timing, the blood, and the bizarre behavior leading up to her death. Ant, however, he embraced these findings almost immediately. He didn't fight them. He didn't question them. He also didn't demand more answers for the woman that he lived with. He just simply accepted the narrative as is.

• 45:44Annie Elise?

  And when reporters tried to speak with him, he just shut down completely. The few times that he was approached in public, he refused to answer questions. He turned away from the cameras and he kind of like walked off without a word.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Ant, Ant, hi. PJ from Sunday Night. Where are you going? Uh, look, I know this is a tough subject, but is it possible if we can sit down and have a chat about Phoebe? I know, I know. It is in front of the coroner, but this is the inquest, which we believe that you don't really want to happen. Is there any reason for that? I mean, her family's desperate for answers. Aunt, I mean surely, surely you must have answers yourself. It was such a bizarre death. It was such a bizarre death. I mean, your former girlfriend died falling down a chute. But it is, isn't it?

• 46:31Annie Elise?

  And when you look at the two of them, the family and Aunt, the contrast, it couldn't be more stark. Phoebe's family was devastated and determined, Aunt was silent and satisfied, which that silence speaks volumes. Phoebe's family didn't buy the coroner's findings for a lot of reasons too. The first being the injuries on her body, yes, I mean, some of them lined up with her going down the chute, but others didn't match that scenario at all. And remember, the coroner said that there was no major trauma to her internal organs. But Phoebe also had a cut on her jaw, blunt force trauma to the left side of her head, severe enough to cause brain damage,

• 47:13Annie Elise?

  and bruising that looked like finger marks wrapped around her right arm, her left wrist, and even her neck. Now, not one of those injuries, in my opinion, makes sense for a feet-first fall down a trash chute, especially the bruising around her neck. I mean, how in the world does that happen during a fall? How are you getting your own fingerprints wrapped around your neck? Like, come on. Yet somehow, every single one of those injuries was completely glossed over. No real explanation, no breakdown, no analysis, just ignored. Now, the second major issue that the family had was the trash chute itself. Falling downstairs? Okay, sure. Tripping over a railing? Possible.

• 47:54Annie Elise?

  But a trash chute? It's almost unheard of. So let's talk logistics for a second. Trash chute openings, especially in large apartment buildings, they are very small, very small. Most people do have to like shove in a bag with all the force you possibly can to get it through the opening and make it into the chute. It's not this like giant hole in the wall that somebody can easily slip into. It's not like a dumpster or something like that. And in fact, the chute in Phoebe's building, it was 21 inches wide and 11 inches high. It was also forty inches off the ground, which girl math, that's what about three and a half feet off the ground. And so you're telling me that she's gonna climb in to a chute that's

• 48:36Annie Elise?

  three and a half feet off the ground, that is not even a foot tall, it's not even two feet wide, and squeeze her body through that? And that's not even counting the hatch that you have to open first, because the hatch only opened eight inches, eight. So that is eight, because remember, it's a door. So that is a tiny little area to squeeze through. Can you squeeze your body through an eight inch gap? I don't know. So her family wondered, was it even physically possible for her to climb in? Phoebe's grandfather, a retired detective, knew exactly how to answer that, too. And he did what the investigators should have done all along. He arranged a full demonstration. He contacted the manufacturer, and he got

• 49:20Annie Elise?

  the exact same model of the trash chute. Then he had one of Phoebe's friends, nearly identical to Phoebe in size and height, they had her attempt the scenario, step by step. Now, remember, investigators claimed that Phoebe went in feet first. So that's what they tested. And her friend struggled just trying to get up to the opening. With no railing or grip points, it was nearly impossible to lift herself into that position. Then, once she tried to get her legs in, the narrow opening, that was the next problem in all of this. The only way that she could even physically fit was by pressing her arms straight above her head, which is what you would expect if that's the only way this happened,

• 50:02Annie Elise?

  then that's what Phoebe must have done, except the coroner's report specifically claimed that when Phoebe went into the chute, her hands were at her sides. So that doesn't match the physics at all. And then comes the part that, in my opinion, completely destroys the official narrative. And I'm going to put some demonstration photos on the screen for the video watchers of this episode, but Phoebe's friend is grabbing the edges of the chute, bracing herself, holding on to anything that she possibly can to get in And other people who have tried replicating it experienced the exact same thing. You can even find tons of videos online of people attempting to climb into trash chutes.

• 50:43Annie Elise?

  It's extremely difficult, it's awkward, and it is impossible to do without leaving fingerprints. Which that is the biggest takeaway. It's not just that climbing in is hard, it's that doing it cleanly, with no grip marks, no fingerprints, no evidence left behind, it's essentially impossible. Which is why the family was so adamant, like, nothing about the logistics added up with what the coroner claimed happened here.

• 51:09Speaker 04

  You're just going by yourself?

• 51:13Speaker 09

  Are you stopping there by your body?

• 51:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, my foot's on the end.

• 51:16Speaker 09

  Yeah, what if you, if you breathed in and wiggled yourself a little bit?

• 51:20Annie Elise?

  What about if your arms were up? On top of all of that, Phoebe's grandfather said that he actually had to hold the chute in place while Phoebe's friend attempted to climb in. Because the hatch, it wasn't stationary, it had a spring mechanism. So the door kept bouncing, opening and closing, even with the slightest movement. It wasn't automatic, it wasn't stable, and it certainly wasn't designed to support someone climbing into it. So in other words, it took two sober adults, one to hold the hatch steady and another to physically maneuver into the chute, just to replicate what the investigators claimed Phoebe did. What she did alone, while intoxicated, disoriented, and possibly sleepwalking.

• 52:04Annie Elise?

  And honestly, as crazy as it seems where you're like, oh, that probably sounds like a slam dunk, that's not even the most damning part. The investigators claimed that there were zero fingerprints on the trash chute door. None. Not Phoebe's, not Ant's, not a mystery third person's, nothing. So we're supposed to believe that Phoebe opened a small, spring-loaded hatch, lifted herself 40 inches off the ground, forced her body into squeeze into an eight-inch opening?

• 52:35Annie Elise?

  Positioned herself, feet first, all well drunk and medicated, and somehow did all of that without leaving a single fingerprint behind? No smudge, no partial, no trace, no evidence that she ever touched the door at all. So that's where family and frankly, anyone paying attention, that's where they hit a wall because if she went into this shoot, someone touched that hatch and someone cleaned it. Somebody erased the evidence.

• 53:12Annie Elise?

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• 53:55Annie Elise?

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• 54:30Annie Elise?

  Now, once again, I just want to level set things and get things straight. You think a woman who was sleepwalking, on prescription meds and heavily intoxicated, was somehow able to get to the top of the trash chute hatch, feet first, without ever touching the sides of the chute, or even the walls?

• 54:46Speaker 10

  She may have been in a delusional state, but she still have to have the physical coordination to actually perform the feat. I don't, no one seems to really get that.

• 54:55Annie Elise?

  Like I've already said, the trash chute was 40 inches off the ground, which I just cannot picture Phoebe opening that hatch and then hoisting her legs up into it without using her hands as a, you know, force of balance. The idea that she somehow did all of this with her arms pinned at her sides, I mean, the way the coroner claimed that she had her arms to her sides, it makes no physical sense. That is, of course, unless she didn't get in alone. And I'm not saying that someone lovingly assisted her in some tragic plan, but more so, what if somebody forced her in? Someone who physically put her inside that chute and then wiped away any traces of evidence of themselves afterwards?

• 55:37Annie Elise?

  Because remember, the investigators found no fingerprints on that chute at all, none, not Phoebe's and not anyone else's. And it's moments like this where I kind of sit back to and think to myself, like, how is it that the official version of events in this case is actually the least plausible explanation? And Phoebe's family feels the exact same way. Which leads me to the next logical question. If foul play was involved, who could have done this? And why? And the one person that Phoebe's family cannot ignore is Ant. Now, to investigators, Ant presented himself as the picture-perfect supportive partner, patient, empathetic, always there to help Phoebe through her darkest moments.

• 56:19Annie Elise?

  But according to Phoebe's family, that version of Ant was really only half the story. They say that the relationship was volatile. Arguments were constant, breakups were frequent, on again, off again, all throughout their entire 18 months together. And those arguments, they weren't about what you would expect. They weren't about cheating, money, or jealousy. They were about the cleanliness of the apartment. See, Ant was obsessive about everything being spotless and orderly. And Phoebe wasn't, especially whenever she had been drinking. And instead of handling it like a normal disagreement, he would allegedly belittle her. He would make her feel stupid over it.

• 57:01Annie Elise?

  So much so that Phoebe left Ant four different times in the six weeks leading up to her death. Each time, Ant would beg her to return. But according to her family, sometimes these breakups were not voluntary. They say that Ant actually kicked her out on at least one occasion. Phoebe's dad, Len, even recalled picking her up, suitcase in hand, after she said that Ant threw her out. Ant, of course, denies this entirely, claiming that Phoebe left because she, quote, "needed a time out," which, who the heck even phrases something that way? But just conflicting stories everywhere you look. Now, you could argue that maybe her family is biased in this. Maybe they never liked Ant. Maybe grief intensified their suspicions toward him.

• 57:44Annie Elise?

  But it wasn't just the family raising concerns. Phoebe's doctor, Dr. Joanna Young, documented something that should make anyone pause. In her notes, she described Phoebe as, quote, "extremely distressed about relationship issues, was drinking heavily, and felt unsafe." Now, for a medical professional to write that down, Phoebe must have disclosed something serious. Even Ant's own friend, Vanessa Levin, spoke out. She had grown very close to Phoebe, and she said that she noticed some very concerning dynamics. Phoebe didn't have a voice in the relationship. Ant was very controlling. Then there was also Ant's behavior after Phoebe's death. He immediately pushed that narrative that Phoebe took her own life.

• 58:29Annie Elise?

  He didn't hesitate, he didn't question, he didn't even consider alternatives. One responding officer even documented Ant's odd emotional display that day. He noted that while Ant appeared to cry, there were no actual tears, no redness in his eyes, no flushed face, no visible signs of distress. It kind of read like somebody performing sadness rather than feeling it.

• 58:53Annie Elise?

  But if Ant was involved, why? What would make him want to harm Phoebe? Which that's a really complicated question, but here's a theory that has been shared by many people who have looked at this case. They say Ant arrived home at 6:00 and Phoebe's body was found a little after 7:00. In that short window, maybe Ant walked into a messy apartment, something that he despised, and he saw that Phoebe had been drinking again, so maybe it triggered another explosive argument. Based on her clothes and her surroundings, it did look like Phoebe had been getting ready for dinner with her dad. Her hair straightener was still on, if you remember. She still had sunglasses resting on her head. It was also early December, which in Australia is summer, and the sunset wasn't until almost 9:00.

• 59:38Annie Elise?

  So it looked as though she was preparing to leave. And remember her pants? Her pants were halfway down, her zipper undone, her belt not looped through all of the belt loops. That's not somebody who's just relaxing at home. That's somebody mid-action, someone who is interrupted. And where was that interruption most evident? In the kitchen. Broken glass everywhere. And if you remember, Ant admitted that the place was a disaster when he came home. Yet, despite declaring himself as this like neat freak, he didn't clean anything up before ordering food and just like kicking back and sitting down. So that contradiction alone, it raises some eyebrows. Then there are Phoebe's injuries.

• 1:00:21Annie Elise?

  Bruises shaped like fingerprints on her neck, wrists, and arms, a cut on her jaw, blunt force trauma to her head, and those aren't the injuries of somebody who simply stumbled into a trash chute. Those are injuries of somebody who may have been grabbed, restrained, assaulted. And that leads to another possibility. Maybe the argument wasn't about the mess at all. Maybe it had something to do with the mysterious man that had been seen being buzzed to the 12th floor earlier that day. I mean, if Phoebe had company and if Ant discovered it, it certainly could have triggered a confrontation. Now, that scenario only works if the man left before Ant returned. Otherwise, he would be a witness to what happened next.

• 1:01:04Annie Elise?

  But the two glasses in the kitchen, positioned across from one another, I mean, it suggests that Phoebe wasn't alone. And like everything else in this case, that detail was never properly investigated. And there is another elephant in the room of all of this, if you can even believe it. Ant's family connections. His father, George, was a retired Supreme Court judge. His stepmother, Felicity, was a county court clerk judge until her retirement in 2023, which influence like that doesn't just disappear. It travels through systems, institutions, and a lot of favors. And we know that this isn't hypothetical, because Ant's sister Christina, she was caught trafficking drugs back in 2014.

• 1:01:48Annie Elise?

  Nine baggies of coke. And instead of prison time, she received 200 hours of community service. Most people facing charges similar to that do not walk away with community service, and many Australians believe that she received leniency because of who her parents were. So if that family could allegedly protect one child, why wouldn't they protect another? And if you're not convinced that Ant might be involved, here's something else. Ant moved on very quickly after Phoebe's death. By 2018, he was dating a 25-year-old model named Bailey. He was 51 by this point. So 51, dating a 25-year-old, I mean, his age changed, but his type certainly didn't. And then it happened again.

• 1:02:33Annie Elise?

  On June 24, 2018, Bailey was found dead.

• 1:02:38Annie Elise?

  She was seated against a kitchen cabinet with a gold cord around her neck. Her death ruled as self-inflicted asphyxiation, despite the fact that nothing in the kitchen supported a hanging scenario. There was no anchor point, no broken fixture, nothing to indicate that she had suspended herself and that there was some sort of like pull situation, which I mean like, hello, sound familiar? The coroner wrote that she was under the influence of alcohol, also prescription medication and cocaine, and that she was acting impulsively due to relationship issues. And Aunt, of course, he was all too happy to echo that sentiment. Her mother said that when she called Aunt to tell him that Bailey was dead,

• 1:03:21Annie Elise?

  he offered condolences and he immediately shifted into a speech about how he had been trying to help Bailey get her life together, framing her as the problem and him as the savior. Sounds familiar, right? Two women, same partner, same pattern, same explanation. Both officially ruled not suspicious, yet both families convinced otherwise. So at some point, you gotta look at the writing on the wall and think either this man is cursed or he's protected. And if Phoebe's death wasn't the tragedy that the investigators were insisting that it was, then what happened to her, it wasn't fate, it was enabled.

• 1:03:57Speaker 10

  The way that it is at the moment is that no one else was involved in Phoebe's death. She put herself down the chute accidentally. It's just like a case closed. And we don't believe that that happened.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  Why would anyone want to put Phoebe down that chute?

• 1:04:13Speaker 10

  It is a good question. Why, why, why would anyone? It's a very unusual way, almost impossible, I think, to accidentally put yourself down there. But it's quite a good way to dispose of someone, if that's what you wanted to do.

• 1:04:28Annie Elise?

  Despite Phoebe's family fighting for years to get her case reopened, or at the very least, just re-looked at, it has stayed closed. The coroner and the investigators seem sure of their findings and they are not willing to budge. But Phoebe's family has very strong feelings about what happened to her that day. They believe that she was murdered in cold blood.

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  Do you believe she committed suicide? No, I don't. Natalie, do you believe that Phoebe was murdered?

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  Yes, I do.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Who would want to kill Phoebe?

• 1:05:06Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:05:09Speaker 08

  Who would want to do that?

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  So what do you think has really happened to Phoebe?

• 1:05:14Speaker 08

  Well, I think she's been murdered.

• 1:05:16Annie Elise?

  That's the reality that Phoebe's family wakes up to every single day. There's no resolution, no accountability, no arrests, just unanswered questions and a story that makes less and less sense the more you look at it. And in the years since her death, her family has created a website, phoebehandsjuk.com, and it is both a memorial and a resource. On it, they lay out the details of her case, they challenge the official findings, and they share who Phoebe really was beyond the autopsy results and the headlines. Because she wasn't just a woman whose death was labeled as this accident, she was a daughter, a granddaughter, a friend, a niece, somebody who laughed, loved, yes, struggled, and,

• 1:05:57Annie Elise?

  you know, had some tough times, but somebody who created and just cared deeply about the world around her. And in the "About Phoebe" section of the site, her family writes that Phoebe, quote, "had a fierce sense of justice." Which I think that's the cruelest part in all of this. A woman who is defined by her passion for justice, died under circumstances that have never been properly investigated. Her life was full of meaning, but her death was kind of treated like a footnote, if we're being honest. Something to just, like, be filed away, wrapped up, forgotten about. Which, that disconnect, the bright, real person she was versus the inexplicable way that she died? I mean, it's what haunts everyone who hears about her story.

• 1:06:40Annie Elise?

  It's what haunts me and made me want to cover this and share this with you because it makes no sense. And until there are real answers, Phoebe's legacy is always going to be divided in two. The girl who believed in justice, and the woman who hasn't received any. And, I don't know, I'm trying to be devil's advocate and, like, see things from both sides, but to me, the writing is on the wall here. It seems so clear what did and didn't happen. I'm curious to know what you think. It reminds me a lot of Ellen Greenberg. It really does. If you're not familiar with that case, you can search it on my podcast or on my YouTube channel. It's another case where it was ruled self-harm. And it's just like, there's no way in hell that that is self-harm.

• 1:07:25Annie Elise?

  Stabbing herself to the back of the head 18 times. One wound showing that it was possibly post-mortem. Like, no. No. And again, that case also a lot of deep family connections. So hopefully one day Phoebe and Ellen will both get justice. But curious to know what you guys think about this case. Thank you so much for tuning in and for hearing Phoebe's story. And until the next one, be nice, don't kill people. Don't date anyone named Aunt. Sorry, any Aunties listening. But I think his name technically is Aunt Tony, which, so sorry. Um, and just, yeah, be a good human. And stay away from chat trash shoots. Just stay away. Alright, bye.

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