Approche production.
Across the last year and a half, we've tried in this podcast to uncover and understand which parts of all the information we've gathered irrelevant to Eden's case. Of course, there's been a lot of information put forward. Some of it relates directly to Eden's death, some of it relates to suspicions around what might have happened, and some of it delves into the themes that have come up in
the investigation. This episode is about that final point we've heard in the Eden Westbrook case that numerous experts and witnesses have said that there are problems and inconsistencies on how police handled the case from the artset. There are questions about why some key witnesses took more than nine years to be interviewed, and even then it wasn't a formal interview, it was a conversation that really went nowhere.
And at the heart of this there's a family who nearly ten years ago lost a daughter, a sister, and a friend just one answers. Earlier this month, one of Tasmania's coroners released an inquest into the findings of a lady called Helen Bird. Helen was forty three and lived in the south of Hobart.
In twenty ten, Helen Bird was found dead in her shed in Hobart. A police investigation ruled it a suicide. Thirteen years later, the case was re examined by a coroner. He's now found her husband was responsible.
You might right now think that what's this got to do with the in Westbrook case. Well, that team have poured over the coronial findings of both cases and want to address some of the striking similarities. The first is that Helen didn't seem to have any reasons to want to take her own life, much like Eden. At the time of their deaths, they were planning for the future. Eden had a camping trip planned with Jason, and.
Then she said, look, I'm gonnam, I got to get some stuff for camp. We're going camping this weekend. I'm going to get dad to take us to town and get some supplies. I said, no worries, I love you, and off she went and got Hunter and Jason and they headed down to Saint Helen's which is only a couple of kilometers away.
Jason, I'm just going to ask you, do you remember that drive to go and get supplies for Thanks? Talk to me about the drive.
We just girls needed stuff camp and that weekend Dad take me down the store and need this need that jumped in the car went down. I stayed in the car. I don't get out. They go and do their stuff, they come back. It was all just simple as that.
The coroner of both cases was the same coroner. Each case was deemed a suicide without an inquest. On the thirty first of March twenty eleven. The original coroner found that Helen died of asphyxia and that no other person contributed to her death. In particular, she named Helen's husband, who the coroner found.
Had no involvement in her death.
He's an extract from Eden's findings without inquest from the same coroner. These are their words, but not their voice.
I am satisfied that there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding Eden's death or that any other person was involved. I am further satisfied that Eden acted with the express intention of ending her life.
Back to the Helen Bird case, the couple were married for more than two decades and had three children together. She was a palliative care nurse and the bread winner.
In twenty seventeen, six years after Helen was found, a female detective got concerned. It was due to new information. There was a fire that destroyed a house where Helen's husband was living. Suspicions were raised when detectives discovered that Mark Bird had fraudulently lodged two previous insurance claims worth hundreds of thousands of dollars concerning his two previous homes. He was sent to jail for four years.
The court heard he suffered from PTSD, struggled with alcohol and drug abuse, and was convicted for setting fire to property and then making false insurance claims.
Then the real work began. A detective started to investigate further. She spoke to witnesses that said Helen wouldn't have wanted to leave her kids. The female detective found out mister Byrd was having an affair the time of his wife's death, which he hadn't disclosed to police. The detective then prepared a detailed report in November twenty twenty one, and the Chief magistrate later reopened the investigation based on new evidence.
An inquest was held into Helen's death in late twenty twenty three and finalized in twenty twenty four, but let's quickly skip back to twenty ten when Helen passed away. Helen's husband was the one that found her body. He allegedly cut her down with a Stanley knife. When police found Helen's body, the constable from the forensic services didn't take measurements the scene. They didn't fingerprint the DNA or
the knife, the rope, or an alleged suicide note. In a surprising coincidence, the same constable who failed to undertake basic examinations and measurements in Helen's case was the same one who attended Eden's crime scene. Helen's actual investigation on the day was left to a constable without it seems too much direction from more senior officers who attended the scene. A constable was also responsible for doing the investigation into
Eden's death on behalf of the coroner. With a new investigation going on around Helen's death, the police detective went back to the rope to test how it would frey in different circumstances. The testing raised doubts and questioned her husband's version of events on the day of Helen's death. Further testing concerning a slipknot also raised an issue about the husband's version. Like the CCTV footage in Eden's case,
the rope in Helen's case had not been kept. This meant the well meeting police needed to improvise based on forensic photos from the crime scene. This new coronial inquest the ones'd just taken place, was handed down fourteen years since Helen's death. The new coroner found that she was murdered and that her husband was involved.
The coroner, Robert Webster, has found mister Bird likely forced his wife to breathe in toxic fumes, rendering her unconscious. The coroner found mister Bird then tied his wife up with a rope, and she died from asphyxiation. He'd also been having affairs. On the eighth of July twenty ten, mister Bird called police claiming he'd found his wife unconscious in the shed at Blackman's Bay. Police say the investigation is ongoing and they're urging anyone with information to come forward.
The coroner believed that Helen was incapacitated shortly before her death. The coroner believes that the wrote was placed around her neck. Mister Bird then made the scene look like a suicide. He placed a phone at a photo of their kids and a letter on the workbench of the garage. Sadly, it seems that the letter was regarded as a suicide note by police when it wasn't really. It was a
letter say how unhappy she was in her marriage. This new female detective who investigated further checked phone records, calls, and text messages of the victim. The coroner said a series of miscalls and text from mister Bird to his wife that morning.
Were contrived by mister Bird in order to provide himself with an alibi.
The context of these texts in the lead up to the death were also inconsistent with the previous communications. Helen's husband, mister Bird had given false versions of events to police and to friends and family, the coroner said. Following his wife's death, mister Byrd received three hundred and ninety thousand dollars in life insurance and death benefits. Initially, this didn't
spark suspicions by the original investigating police. The coroner that handed down their findings last week was critical of the initial police investigations. These are his words, but not his voice.
It was inadequate. Investigating police should not accept what they are told or what appears from the scene to be a death by hanging. Such a death should be treated as suspicious death until investigations conclusively establish otherwise.
As you've listened to the last ten minutes of content, you can appreciate the similarities with the Westbrook case. The key difference here is that the matter was reopened by the direction of the Chief Magistrate and a coronial inquest was held. This was largely due to the persistent and determination of the female detective. A full autopsy was done by a highly experienced forensic pathologist in Hobart. Eden's was
done at Lonceston General Hospital by a pathologist. The autopsy photos in Eden's case haven't been handed over to an independent expert authorized by the Westbrooks, despite concerning evidence from Eden's sister about the possibility of blunt for's trauma and comments made by Kim, the delivery driver who first found Eden. In the case of Helen's death, the forensic pathologist highlighted.
The difficulties in distinguishing are hanging by suicide, the possibility of a lack of restraint or defensive type injuries in the case of a suspected murder, and the possibility of a murder being staged as a suicide by hanging.
From what we can see, it appears the pathologist undertaking Eden's autopsy didn't consider alternative scenarios, but we have not had the benefit of reading the autopsy report. The expert engaged number half of the Westbrooks has but has been stymied in finalizing the report due to the non provision of the autopsy photos.
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, whether they should be viewing them or not.
But as far as I'm concerned as a consultant forensic pathologist who've been retained in this case or any other case, and it's the same for every case with the appropriate training or even more training than the individual who they have carried out the post mortem examination, then I fail to understand the reasoning behind any refusal, and it's not occurred in any request that I've made ever over my career. And as I said, before they form part of the post mortem examination. They're not just.
An addendum. They're there as.
The autopsy record, as are the histology slides and any other investigations such as toxicology, which are always made available.
Now.
Each state differs.
In their requirements as to what hurdles one.
Has to jump in order to obtain materials, including photographs, but it is always the current has the authority to release or not release any.
Particular item in relation to the investigation of the death. But I've never not been able to obtain the photographs, although sometimes it's been somewhat.
Difficult both of these. When I read the decision in the Helen Bird case, both hanging cases involves a victim with no real motive to commit suicide. Both victims had a real love of their family.
I was relieved.
I was angry today.
I was believed because I think that if we had walked away at times where we felt like it was all too much, we would have missed this opportunity to prove Eden did not take her own life, and that in fact, people are using suicide as a weapon to murder people made I.
Was extremely concerned. I was concerned for the fact that it proves that an office can get things wrong, and it saddens me that it takes so many years for
someone's troops to come out. We only got to the Helen Bird outcome due to a diligent police officer who on the side of the desk over years looked into this as she found it unusual death with Alan's case, and unfortunately, as you knowj we don't have anyone like that on the team working in the Tasmanian Police Force that's willing to put it on the side of the desk and look into this deeper.
One of the things we're most interested in the case of Helen Bird is the investigations that was done around the rope. That rope was never tested for DNA. The rope in Eden's death was also the same and it offers a glimmer of hope for Jason and Amanda.
Look, it gives us leverage this outcome with the Helen Bird case, Jay, without a doubt, we can use parallels in that case to Eden's and come up with solid I don't know what you'd call it, is a solid evidence that this needs to be reinvestigated.
The police has said that, we said that the rope came from our house, from our craypots. Okay, So if that's the case, don't you think the police would have come and checked our craypots or taken them away or something like no one.
Asked us, But they didn't.
They didn't do anything like that because it was all a crop of crap and they just made it up.
Because that's what's that's why a man's a get angry.
It looks like that's what.
The conclusion of Eden committing suicide because on the morning when a man and I got there and they're saying, Amanda said, oh, that's one of our craypot ropes. Amanda does not.
I did not say that as the twisting of my word, now them for saying that.
So if that's the reason that Eden's committed susie, because she's taken a craypot rape from the Westbrook residence on her way downtown and some five or six hours later decided to hang herself, wouldn't you, as an investigative officer go to the Westbrook home, sees the craypot that may have had the rope removed, to see if it was cut or untied. Just those forensics that you would expect to be done at no stays, Jahre is at no stays.
Did we see any police officers or investigating officers at our home asking about a rope that may have come from our crapepot. And I'll tell you why that didn't happen, because there was no crypts ropes taken from my home. Eden did not leave this property with a rope. As you know, we know the rape come from the wharf across the road on a boat that we've given them spacific name for. In the RT eyes we can see there's been no investigations into the source of the rope.
On the weekend just passed. Jackie Lamby visited Jason and Amanda as they shed in Saint Helen's.
Yeah, it's really really lovely.
Sod down to earth. It was like talking to my district, you know what I mean. It was just so real, real fair income Ausie mate. He told me about her career and defense, which I believe is in the book. I haven't read the book. Get Jackie sorry. And she was just around, yeah, right into our garden and the.
Fees and our way of living.
And she spoke about her mother's love for fees and gardening and one of the most fascinating she things found she found on that property was we've got fully grown macademia nut trees, which is something that you wouldn't expect in Tasmania, and we're getting a hundred kilograms of nuts a year and right now that's what's dropping. So we're able to test some Queensland macadamia nuts growing in Tasmania. Jakes.
She also got the chance to join you down at the memorial for Eden.
Yes, Jackie is really.
Again.
She took time out of her busy schedule to pursue here on other other things, and yeah, she was moved a little shocked at the situation where it is.
To hear it, it's different to see it.
Jay, When you're actually at the park, you feel it.
You feel where Eden died. You feel how close to the road it was, how how close to the police station, the council chambers, across the roads, the dwarf and people don't when they when they hear the story, they have
their own visuals of it. And I've met a few people that have listened to your podcasts that have come to Saint Helens and they've hooked up with us and they've all just been flown away with where Eden passed and how close it is to the police station, the council chambers and the wharf across the road obviously, and is the main highway like the main street of Saint Helens.
And she was enthusiastic, and she has no intention of backing down.
It's moving, it's nice.
I just found it truly humbling, mate, you know. And yeah, she was when she wants to fight something, she's not going to back down and she's on the fight. And yeah, we're pretty happy with where Jackie is with it and where she's going. And as you know, Jason's still got a couple of hards the eyes out that we're waiting for responses to and we've put in more letters to the Commissioner of ASMA and Police.
Jason and Amanda have already put some of these questions to the Attorney General Guy Barnatt. The Helen Bird case shows how the system can sometimes get it terribly wrong and the length of time it takes to rectify such mistakes. Fourteen years of unnecessary trauma and heightening grieving for family and friends in Helen Bird's case. On the eighteenth of February twenty twenty five, it will be ten years since Eden's death. Jason and Amanda Westbrook and their family deserve answers