5. The Autopsy Photos

Appoche production.

This is Our Little Lady, the tragic story of the death of a fifteen year old girl in the tiny town of Saint Helen's. Her parents don't believe she took her own life. It's been a little while since I checked in with the parents of Eden Westbrook on the podcast. We have reached that via text about other stuff, but not officially on this channel. As you know, Jason and Amanda live in Saint Helen's in Tazzy and at this time of the year, it's starting to get a bit cold.

I think we're at thirteen mate and wet, windy and wonderfully cold.

Hey Jay, hey man, how it's nothing like working outside when it's like we always have a little bit of that pre chat before we get into the weeds of what's happening with their daughter's case. So you listening, it might feel that not much is happening, But I can tell you this next month is going to be big.

It sounds like this is the month where everything's coming together and the stars are aligning, and nine years of perseverance and for the love of Eden and truth and justice, it's all seemingly coming together. We have Channel nine under Investigation have confirmed that they'll air the show this month.

Well as the lsay and j life rewards action and I believe we're all making progressive action for a better future, not just for our Eden, but for everyone in Tasmania that's had injustices, mate, because this is huge.

Last time on the podcast, you heard Jari Weiss's mum Faith, her son was killed in Tasmania. The Karner originally ruled no inquest was needed, but thanks to Faith and her fight, the Attorney General at the time overturned that and ordered the Tasmanian Coroner to hold an inquest.

I've actually followed this story from the beginning. It's very heartbreaking to c Jr's mum because I see her like a reflection. I call her the Warrior whenever I refer to her or speak with her. She's also endured something that I believe could have been better handled and prevented if we had had disaddressed at like nine years ago. She's not alone there either. There's a lot of injustice

Look, I really admire her, Jay.

And the other day when I took Amanda down to Hobart for her to meet Faith, I said I had just seen in the back of the car and I said to Amanda, I actually want to get a photo of you two months.

I think that's a powerful photo because I.

See Faith and I see Amanda as powerful mothers, powerful women, and they're standing together now, which is powerful.

So I'd like to.

Get that out there to other mothers that need to fight for injustices that they've found in the things that have happened to them.

We're actually shy people, so for us to have to come out of our shell like.

This, it's quite quite quite.

The path to walk.

I've contacted another lady who's lost a son in a similar circumstance in Queensland. I just want to be there for these people because they've come nine years down this track, and I have a few tools.

Jay, I think I've said this before.

I don't know if you've ever if I've said it like as we've been recorded, But in the two hundred years of establishment, we've looked at this office that we're dealing with and they're claiming they've never got it wrong. And no one before Faith has ever been able.

To put it back before the Supreme.

Court and get a coronial investigation in quest happened in Tasmania.

It's never happened.

So Faith, as you heard it in your previous episode, she's the first person in history. So I've actually got a decision overturned by the Tasmanian Magistrates Supreme Court. If the current has made a decision not to have an inquest, no court, no supreme judge, has.

Ever allowed that to happen. Yeah, it doesn't get overrule. So now this has happened.

And that's really important because I don't know a person on the planet that hasn't got something wrong.

So for an office to claim they make no.

Mistakes, that pisses me off, Jay, because no one's perfect.

And if we can better that office and put a spotlight on perhaps things that.

Are going wrong, that's not a bad thing. They should be happy that we're doing this to make their job better and maybe easier.

The strength that Faith showed into fighting the system and to overturning for the first time in Tasmania a coroner's decision. How much hope does that give you?

And Jason massive hope, massive hope.

Well, we just found out how she did that and it was a specific clause and again the torpedo strips. Yeah, so through faith this path we have a very clear path. And the Attorney General in Tasmania we just happened to get along. He's recently honored Hunter, our daughter from the Air Force in Parliament for her contribution and her attendance to the Queen's jubilee, and we've sat with him and his wife and had breakfast in Saint Helen's and when we see each other, we we're quite friendly and it's.

Close acknowledgment there day.

So we feel there's going to be a time where we all to sit down with the Attorney General perhaps get what we need to happen.

For little leading and I believe.

That at least Archer, although she has been you know, quite harshly described that action that was extremely monumental.

Now that we've uncovered through the torpedo. The person that will remain anonymous at the moment through their work, their legal work, has that option that the option that faith used, has it legally never been given to you before, that's right.

Never never had an option to do that, never had a passway, never had a guide to go that way, never been instructed. That was what he's going to be the outcome.

We've got a pro bono lawyer with his hand up Hi Jane. He's willing to do those steps for us, and he knows how. He's very good.

He's registered.

Yeah, he's registered in Tasmania. He can work in Tasmania. He's currently working in Tasmania. We've I haven't sat with him.

We've spoken to a man has spoken to him a couple of times on the phone. I haven't as yet, but I've done some research on him and I'm looking forward to meeting him. But as I said before our recording, we will wait until the show under investigations.

We'll see what comes.

In from that show and what comes back to the podcast, and then we'll sit down with the pro bono lawyer and he will give us the directions and he will help us go to those steps where we need to go because we've just done sure on what that show is going to open up to, perhaps more evidence and more of the lines getting connected that's getting connected.

A couple of other things that are happening in this month, in the next sort of thirty days, is that we've believe Regina Weiss's investigation into Paul Reynolds's behavior in Tasmania will be handed over.

Yes, it's the end of this month. That's what I was saying. It's a big month.

This month.

The patients and all the people that have supported us, and yourself included, has represented us really well.

Look, I'm hoping Commissioner Donna Adams is someone's going to take this seriously and act appropriately and get things done. Another strong woman in Tasmania. So I'm going to believe in her that she's in it for the right reasons. She's in it for getting to the bottom of what happened to Eden as well.

Because we're prevented, through our associates, some powerful evidence that there was foul play on the night of Eden's death, and there's a botched investigation from the start.

You can't you can't dress it up. That's what happened.

You might remember when we first began this podcast, Jason and Amanda had the feeling that the town of Saint Helen's really didn't like them. They felt the town saw them as outsiders and probably saw them as closed off. But they also didn't have the complete story about why. Jason and Amanda obviously are so driven to find out what happened to their daughter.

I'm shocked the support we're getting from most of the locals, and I'm talking probably ninety percent of people.

I drop Amanda off and I.

Sit in the car and she crosses the road to go into the little IgA.

People give way to it. They're waving at her there.

As she's walked across the road, the people on the corner saying gooday.

Down it might attend there's people saying gooday.

She's in the supermarket's basically there for milk and bread. Two minutes, mate, she's at fifteen minutes. The conversations we're having is really encouraging and supportive. I'm in a bit of shock, because, you know, even back in the start of the episode, the town hates us. I don't think the town hates us anymore.

I think we've polarized the.

Community, which is to be to be understandable.

However, they didn't really know what happened.

They just knew that we were upset, we were grieving, and when you have a grief in a death in your family and your grieving, people don't really They'll be there at the start, but then they sort of stay away from you because you know that person's they might say something wrong. But now that it's nine years coming up to ten, and they've heard the story because people that I haven't seen in ten years. Just yesterday I ran into a guy that haven't seen in ten years,

And they're really with it and they didn't know what they now know.

And so I think because of you J and what you've done in the podcast.

It's given everyone outside of the story. And you couldn't come in.

Our players driveway and sit down and talk to Jason and the Mander about it because we were heated.

At times, we're passionate.

We speak yeah, So you couldn't come and find that out just coming up our driveway and having a chat. You wouldn't have found that out in the street. They now know who we are, what we are, what we're about, our fight, our challenges.

We're human, We're just a family. We want the truth. We need to know what happened to Eden that night.

As I've said previously, Jay, Oh, where whatever happened.

But I truly did.

Not think Eden went out and committed suicide that night, mate, I think actually I don't think. I know she met up with the wrong people and there was foul play that happened, and our little Eadie was found dead the next day in the main street of our town, fifty meters from a police station. I've got to know what happened that night and why it's been.

Covered up so strongly, and we will get to the bottom of this, Jake. I will not lie until the truth.

On what happened to Eden is out, and I know to your listeners and that it's like, wow, when is this going to happen?

It will happen. It's a matter of time.

From what we understand, there is one piece missing from the coroner's report that you haven't seen, and you're a doctor that's independent. Has made an application to the coroner's court to see that that piece of information, and that information is the photos of the autopsy. Yes, yes, has the current made a decision on handing those over?

Well, the decisions know And as student's dad, I'm in shock because we've He's got Eden's sisters who dressed and did Eden's makeup at the funeral parlor, and as you know, there's things that need to be looked at.

I don't want to look at the photos in order as a.

Man, but yeah, but Byron Collins, he's qualified and trained and he's able and he wants to look at them.

Now we can put that to bed.

We can be given a definitive answer on whether there was blunt force trauma to Eden's face, teeth, bruising, or neck.

We can be explained through those photos if they're there or if they're not.

Why they're not providing them and giving us closure on.

That as parents is mind blowing.

Jay.

It's almost like a kick in the guts. And you know, I just don't know why they.

Want to continue to hurt Jason and Amanda and Eden's siblings and.

Not just us.

I can see by through the messages and now is getting this is hurting lots of people.

Even's death has affected thousands of.

People, and the people that have heard your podcast, they're just like they want answers and they're feeling for us and they would hate this to happen to them.

Can I ask what the reasons for the rejection of doctor Barron Collins is asked to see the autopsy photos? Was there any reasoning?

There are none, You're just not getting them.

I believe it's something to do.

With because the cape calase is closed and it's not in any open investigation, so they hang on to them. However, as you know, we've made several written applications for those autopsy photos. We were even pretty much told and accepted for the all that we had to sign a document and it never happened.

So they're saying one thing and doing another, and you think.

Truly to close this matter, give doctor Warren Collins the autopsy photos and he's going to give afrimity.

Okay, Jason, if it's closed. If it's closed, and that's the reason why we cannot see the autopsy photos. How do you open it if you actually this is what we want to see, so we can determine if it is worthy to be.

Opened or not, or if it's an angle we need to really work on.

Thanks to Jason and Amanda, we were able to reach out to doctor Barron Collins and he was happy enough to have a chat to us on the podcast. Now it's important that we don't go into Eden's case, but what we can do is get the general feeling of what should be happening in a case like Eden Westbrooks.

My name is Richard Byron Collins. I'm a consultant forensic pathologist in full time private practice and I have been so since nineteen eighty five. I'm a qualified medical practitioner. I have an additional degree of Bachelor of Medical Science Honors, which is an undergraduate degree, and I'm a Fellow of the Royal College Pathologists in nineteen seventy nine in Special Forensic and so I have an extra training to be

Can you tell me why you're interested in the Westbrook matter?

Well, I was retained indirectly by the family who were concerned of the circumstances around the death of their daughter. They were concerned at the investigation of the death and with the coronial findings. In other words, I think they have another explanation for how Eden died and why she died compared with what has been provided by the coroner.

The case of Eden. What sort of things And we're not going to get into specifics of what you've seen, as we've talked about, but in the case of Eden, you request everything that the pathology has done, or do you request the whole file. What are you looking for?

It's the same in most matters that I'm asked to comment on. I request the whole file. The amount of material varies from case to case, and it may only be a couple of one hundred pages, two a couple of thousand pages, particularly if somebody has been admitted to the hospital for treatment following sustaining injuries and then dies.

And so, in the case of in Westbrook, did you were you able to obtain the whole file from the coroner?

As I understand it, I was able to obtain the whole file, including the post mortem examination report, but not the microscope slides or the photographs taken during the post mortem examination.

So you weren't able to get the photos. But were they refused or did they not have them.

My understanding is that they are available or present in the complete file, but they were not provided to me, which causes me great concern, just in the general sense, because any photographs speak a thousand words, and they are very In fact, they are essential and integral to a post mortem examination. They formed part of the autopsic report, although they're not written words. They're photographs. But what they do do is they assist in the interpretation of an

Jason and Amanda talked on the podcast around their daughters and what they saw when they went to apply makeup to Eden when she was deceased, and their allegations around that she had broken or chipped teeth and some bruising around the face. Those sorts of things would be evident in I'm guessing in the photographs if you were able to see them, one would hope.

So it depends on the quality of the photograph, and I must say they're usually pretty good quality photographs done during the post mortem examination. But yes, everything that is present on the body should be identifiable, just in the general sense, and I'm speaking in general terms and not specifically relating to the Westbrook matter. So if the appropriate photographs have been taken, then I should be able to identify everything that's present on the deceased individual.

You've been doing this for quite some time, almost fifty years. Is it unusual, yes, for a coroner to not provide the photographs if they have them in an instance like in Westbrooks.

Case, in my opinion or sorry, in my experience, and you're quite right at this almost fifty years, I have never faced this problem before, and I'm astounded that it has occurred, and it beggars belief that it has occurred, because I understand that the photographs are very sensitive and can be very disconcerting and upsetting to people who may view them, either with or without permission, or in other words,

Of the death.

But I've never not been able to obtain the photographs, although sometimes it's been somewhat difficult.

What would be a reason that they wouldn't release those photographs to you a medical professional, that we're not talking about Jason and Amanda wanting to see them. They've stated that they don't. But for you, as a medical professional, what would be a possible reason they wouldn't release them?

I suppose There are a number of reasons, but the first one that comes to mind is that the coroner or any coroner in his or her wisdom who refuses such a request may not appreciate the significance of the photographs in relation to interpretation of a post mortem examination report.

Does that essentially mean that you're a little hamstrung now, given that you've got almost a completed file from the coroner, but with one vital thing missing.

I'm not a little hamdstung. I'm totally handstrung and totally thrust because I can't provide a complete review of the circumstances in this particular case, in the Westbrook case, and as would be the same in any other case, and so I can't correlate what the autopsy findings are with

Is there any way that you can appeal the decision from the currenter not to release those findings.

No, there isn't, And I think part of the currenter's problem in this particular case, apart from perhaps not appreciating the significance of not providing the findings as far as the investigation goes, is that I'm not directly involved in the case, one could argue, and I'm not a relative, and so there are strict rules around the provision of