An Australian Death and a
Suspicious Ruling of Suicide

On December 2, 2010, Phoebe Handsjuk, a young Australian woman, was discovered dead at the bottom of a garbage chute in what was bizarrely ruled to be a suicide by the local coroner, despite heavy suspicion placed on her partner, Antony Hampel. This is the story of the night she was reported missing. 

THAT NIGHT

Antony Hampel, known to all as Ant, drove his Range Rover into the Balencea building’s basement car park at 6.05 p.m., using his security fob to open the gate. He’d made an early start in the gym that morning at 8.15 a.m., then left home just after 9 a.m. for a busy day at his events company in Richmond, interspersed with meetings off site.

Using his personal key fob, which only gave access to the level where he lived, he took the lift and let himself into his twelfth-floor apartment. He later couldn’t remember if his front door was locked when he arrived. His American Staffordshire bull terrier, Yoshi, greeted him effusively. As usual, Yoshi showed no shame for the mess he’d made, pulling cushions from the couches and generally causing chaos. Ant hated mess of any sort, but seemed to allow Yoshi latitude in an avuncular way.

There was no sign of his flatmate and partner, Phoebe Handsjuk.

Their relationship had been pretty rocky of late, with Phoebe threatening to move out; Phoebe moving out, then back in; Phoebe drinking too much; Phoebe disappearing to spend time with people Ant considered ‘low-lifes;’ tearful returns, and prescription drugs to help her sleep it all off and start again.

When Ant looked on the kitchen counter, he noticed Phoebe’s keys and handbag. That was puzzling. You could leave Balencea without keys, but you couldn’t get back in. And where would she go without her handbag?

Several Post-it notes containing strange scribbles were stuck to the kitchen counter. The cleaner had wiped the benches down the previous day, so the notes were new. He went into the bedroom and found what he later called a ‘shrine’ on the bed, consisting of a photo of himself and Phoebe, a photo of her cat, and a whole lot of ‘rambled notes … the notes she writes when she’s smashed and they don’t make a lot of sense’, as he later described them. There were candles burning, and Phoebe’s hair-straightening tongs were on the floor, plugged into a socket in the bathroom.

At 6.51 p.m., about forty minutes after Ant came home, Phoebe’s father, Len, called her on her iPhone.

Len and Ant have different memories of what happened next. According to Len, who based his recollection on the numbers shown on his phone bill, Ant answered the call on Phoebe’s phone. Ant said he didn’t hear Len call Phoebe’s phone, but called him from his own phone at 6.52 p.m. because he thought Phoebe might have gone to meet Len.

When they spoke, Len explained he was trying to call Phoebe because she’d arranged for the three of them to catch up for dinner that night at the Golden Triangle, one of her favourite restaurants, to celebrate Len’s birthday two days earlier. Len was ringing to ask what time they should meet.

‘She’s not here,’ Ant said. ‘Her bag and keys are here, so she can’t be too far away.’

The news worried Len. The day before, Wednesday, Len and several other members of the family had received a strange text message from Phoebe’s iPhone number. The message said:

Hi family. I am in bed and about to sleep and when I WAKE I will transform into the most incredible human bein you’ve ever seen … (not). I will go to hospital. It’s safer there and I hear the special tonight is tomato soup … Delicious! Nutritious! I love you all very much but not enough to send an individual text. Sorry about that, but time is sleep and I must b on my way … … Merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream. xo

Phoebe had sent the message to Len, Ant, her boss, Michelle Silvana, her mother, Natalie, her brothers Tom and Nik, her grandmother, Jeannette Campbell, and Natalie’s partner, Russell Marriott.

Natalie received the message just as she was boarding a plane in Alice Springs to fly home after a nine-week stint working in the Western Desert. She was so concerned that she called her mother, Jeannette, in Mallacoota, a coastal township in eastern Victoria, and asked her to check on Phoebe.

Also perturbed by the strange message, Jeannette rang Ant on his mobile at 10.35 a.m. and asked him if Phoebe was all right. He said he hadn’t seen the message and had left Phoebe sleeping peacefully that morning, but he’d swing by and check on her, as his office wasn’t far from home. Jeannette then sent Natalie a text saying Ant had assured her that Phoebe was fine. When Natalie arrived in Melbourne later that day, she sent Phoebe a text asking her to call when she woke up.

Len was worried when Ant told him that Phoebe wasn’t in the apartment. He suggested that Ant report her missing, but Ant wasn’t keen on the idea. He said, ‘They don’t listen until 48 hours have passed, and she’ll be back by then.’

Len, who is a psychiatrist, had called from the car park outside his office after a long day at work. Still sitting in his car, he phoned his son Tom and asked him to call a friend who might know where Phoebe might be.

Len also rang Natalie, who said she hadn’t yet heard from Phoebe. Reassured by Jeannette’s texts, Natalie hadn’t given Phoebe much thought, as she was preoccupied with preparations for young Nik’s eighteenth birthday party next day.

After Len called, Natalie rang a couple of Phoebe’s mates, including her close friend Brendan (Bren) Hession. Bren said he hadn’t seen Phoebe since Monday night, when the two of them had gone for a drink together. Phoebe had been on a bit of a bender. Meanwhile, Len decided not to drive over to St Kilda Road and look for Phoebe, but instead went home to his city apartment to have a cup of tea and change for dinner.

***

At Balencea, Ant rang the Golden Triangle to order a takeaway dinner delivery for one.

Just after 8 p.m., he buzzed the delivery boy up to the twelfth floor.

‘Man, what’s going on here?’ the delivery boy asked.

‘What do you mean, what’s going on?’

‘The front of the building is swarming with cops. There’s police cars, ambulance—I had to prop my bike up the street. Hope your dinner isn’t cold.’

To have swarms of police at Balencea was a unique event. Leaving his meal to get colder, Ant went down to the foyer and approached a detective.

‘I live here,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

The policeman, Acting Senior Sergeant Andrew Healey, told Ant that a woman’s body had been found in the rubbish compactor room.

‘Oh, no!’ Ant said. ‘My girlfriend is missing! Could it be her?’

Ant said he’d been at work all day but calling Phoebe every couple of hours on the home phone because her mobile was broken. He said she was suffering from depression and was taking medication. He’d made a couple of calls to try to find her after he’d arrived home, but he said she usually turned up by herself. Phoebe had left some Post-it notes, but no clues as to where she might have gone. Healey asked Ant whether Phoebe had any distinguishing features. Ant told him she had a tattoo on her right wrist to match one on his own wrist, which he showed the detective, and a stud in her upper lip. After sending Ant back to his apartment to find a recent photograph, Healey viewed another officer’s photos of the body.

He then followed Ant up to the apartment, where he asked if Phoebe had a tattoo on her stomach. Ant said she had. Healey examined a recent photo and confirmed that Phoebe’s facial features matched those of the dead girl in the rubbish room. At this point, he told Ant that he believed the dead girl was Phoebe. The detective later reported that he had no mobile reception in the apartment, so he went back downstairs, leaving Ant behind, and spoke to the other police, then returned with another detective to examine the apartment and its surrounds.

They noted several things of interest. Healey observed that there was a broken glass and some blood on the floor. They also saw the Post-it notes allegedly left by Phoebe. The dog was in the process of ripping up another cushion.

Ant said he was devastated. He was too upset to view the body. The detectives kept looking around Level 12, now focusing outside the unit. They found blood on the floor of the twelfth-level refuse room, which contained the rubbish chute, and a spot of blood on the door handle.

Left alone again, Ant rang his mother Suzanne Owen and stepfather Robert. There was no point asking for help from his father and stepmother, retired judge George Hampel and Justice Felicity Hampel, because they were out of town.

Ant then rang Len to tell him Phoebe was dead. He suggested that Len contact Phoebe’s brothers and come over to Balencea. Len said later, ‘I was in shock at this and just sat there on the floor.’ He called his son Tom in tears, but didn’t say what was upsetting him. ‘I didn’t want to tell him on the phone,’ Len said. ‘There’s nothing that can be done,’ he said to Tom. ‘Just come home.’ Not knowing what had happened, Tom left his girlfriend’s house in East Malvern and headed for the city.

Len also tried to call Natalie again, but she didn’t answer. A little later, Natalie was unloading her car near her home in Clifton Hill when she noticed she’d missed two calls from Len. She rang him back. ‘What’s happened? Have you found Phoebe?’ Len said in a broken voice, ‘I hope you’re sitting down. She’s dead. They found her near the rubbish bins at the apartment.’ Natalie fell on her knees in the gutter next to her car. ‘No! No! No! It’s not true! I can’t talk …’ and she hung up. When her partner, Russell Marriott, came out to look for her, he had to pick her up from the ground and carry her inside.

Russell then phoned Jeannette, Natalie’s mother, who had come to Melbourne from Mallacoota that day for Nik’s birthday celebrations. Russell asked her to come to the Clifton Hill house immediately.

Jeannette’s first thought was for Phoebe. ‘Is she OK?’ she asked.

Russell just told her to come soon.

When Jeannette arrived at Clifton Hill, Natalie told her that Phoebe was dead. Jeannette was probably closer to Phoebe than anyone, and she was devastated. No one could understand it. Jeannette showed Natalie two texts from that morning. She’d sent Ant a message asking how they both were, and he’d replied at 8.32 a.m., saying, ‘Thx Marm, she is sleeping beauty right now and not the beast she was! Resting well n I’ve explained now is the time to heal, then when she feels OK we’ll work out a plan.’ But there was no plan to work out now. Phoebe’s family could only nurse their sorrow at Clifton Hill, waiting for further news.

***

The scene at Balencea had been chaotic ever since Beth Ozulup’s frantic Triple-O call.

Intergraph, the emergency despatch service, had allocated the job to South Melbourne Police Unit 303, the afternoon shift van, at 7.14 p.m, and the shift supervisor’s car, Unit 251, also attended. South Melbourne is very close to St Kilda Road, so the building soon saw its first team of police—Acting Senior Sergeant Healey, Detective Senior Constable Paul Thomas, Senior Constable Justin O’Brien, Constable Clare Hocking, and Sergeant Graeme Forster, the shift supervisor.

Beth met them and held out the keys to the rubbish room.

‘I can’t go in there,’ she said. She returned to the comforting arms of a couple of female residents, who’d seen her distress and were looking after her in the office until her sister Banu arrived. Some time later, after Banu came to take Beth home, a police officer told them both not to worry too much. He said ‘the girl had committed suicide and put herself down the rubbish chute.’ Eric Giammario and Tony Basile, the manager of the company that operated the apartments, had arrived soon after the police, between 7.15 and 7.30 p.m. Eric went straight to the office and saw how upset Beth was. He didn’t go to the compactor room. He wouldn’t have been allowed in, anyway. He saw a ‘distraught’ Ant Hampel come down with the police, who asked for a room to do interviews.

Eric was trying to be as helpful as possible, and it occurred to him that the building’s security cameras might assist police, but he knew they’d need to act quickly, because he’d been having trouble with the CCTV. The looping time for the recording was too short, so the machine was recording over the top of relatively new tapes. He recalled, ‘I suggested to the police that if they needed any CCTV, they should start downloading.’ He later said that the police ‘didn’t really respond to me suggesting this’, although they did watch some footage with him in the office.

An ambulance had been called at 7.20 p.m. and arrived seven minutes later. The paramedics’ presence added to the confusion in the relatively small foyer and the corridor to the rubbish compactor room.

Kristie Cooke, one of the paramedics, ran to the focus of all the action—a doorway along the corridor, where an inert body was visible. The police officer guarding the door told her the room was a crime scene and she wasn’t permitted to enter. This went against all Kristie’s training and instincts, but the police were in charge and wouldn’t let her in. She observed from the doorway that a female was lying on her back with cuts to her right thigh and hip and with her right foot in an unnatural position, leading Kristie to believe there was a fractured ankle. She noted the body ‘showed generalised cyanosis [a bluish tinge], no spontaneous respirations and appeared deceased’.

Kristie wasn’t happy about being prevented from trying to assist. She lost a lot of sleep about it in the months to come. In fact, no medically trained person attended Phoebe after she was discovered. No one laid hands on her to see if she was still warm or checked to see if she was actually dead. The first people to enter the room after it was declared a crime scene were the crimescene specialists, who arrived some hours later. They revealed that, going by the blood trails, it was likely that Phoebe had survived the fall and crawled around trying to get out of the room.

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Excerpted from Into the Darkness: The Mysterious Death of Phoebe Handsjuk, by Robin Bowles. Copyright © 2018, Robin Bowles. Reprinted with permission of Scribe Publications. All rights reserved.