Speaker 1: Appoche production.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the first episode of a new series of
Speaker 2: Our Little Lady. Across the next four weeks. We've got
Speaker 2: some big updates to share.
Speaker 3: Well, and welcome to one session when the local time
Speaker 3: has just gone six semitable be getting into the game
Speaker 3: very surely, keeping in mine on one session is one
Speaker 3: hour ahead of Brisbone and it's around twenty six degrees
Speaker 3: outside for everyone, Thank you please.
Speaker 2: I can share with you that we recently went back
Speaker 2: to Saint Helen's to visit Jason and Amanda.
Speaker 4: So just got to Jason and Amanda's house.
Speaker 2: Dogs are going crazy Jason's on the moa. On the
Speaker 2: front of the moro I've just noticed as a sticker,
Speaker 2: which is the sticker we mentioned in one of the
Speaker 2: episodes a little while ago. Now let's go and say
Speaker 2: hi to everyone. Hello puppies, Hello puppies. While we were there,
Speaker 2: we got to sit down with Jackie Lamby and to
Speaker 2: bring you those episodes across the next few weeks.
Speaker 5: There's nothing that I hate more than cover up. So
Speaker 5: for me, it's all about what's the right thing I
Speaker 5: was brought up to know right from wrong. Don't cover
Speaker 5: up because we're never going to get there and that's
Speaker 5: what it is. It's just a bloody cover up up there.
Speaker 5: Disgusts me. No, I don't think so. No when it
Speaker 5: comes to people's lives, because I'm ready. So who's been
Speaker 5: worzy injustices?
Speaker 2: It all coincides with the tenth anniversary of Eden's death
Speaker 2: on the eighteenth of February twenty fifteen. Kurna found that
Speaker 2: Eden died on the seventeenth of February, so that date
Speaker 2: will need to be changed. The family believes strongly, based
Speaker 2: on the evidence available to them, that Eden died on
Speaker 2: the eighteenth. In this episode, as the title suggests, we
Speaker 2: thought we'd update you on the compelling reasons why this
Speaker 2: case needs to be reopened and independently investigated. These reasons
Speaker 2: are not just our work, but the body of work
Speaker 2: that's been done by the Westbrook team. To start, I'd
Speaker 2: like to focus on section fifty eight that the Tasmanian
Speaker 2: Corners Act, which states that the Chief Magistrate may reopen
Speaker 2: investigations for a number of reasons, and these reasons include.
Speaker 1: A the investigation was or may have been tainted by fraud,
Speaker 1: or b the investigation was not sufficiently thorough or was
Speaker 1: compromised by evidentiary or procedural irregularity, or c there are
Speaker 1: mistakes in the record of the findings, or d new
Speaker 1: facts or evidence affecting the findings have come to light,
Speaker 1: or e The findings were not supported by the evidence,
Speaker 1: or f there is another compelling reason to reopen the investigation.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, the Westbrooks have a number of grounds they can pursue,
Speaker 2: including the mistake in the date of the debt. As
Speaker 2: you've heard over the life of this podcast, new facts
Speaker 2: and evidence have come to light. There's also a strong
Speaker 2: view that the investigation, including the forensic was not sufficiently thorough,
Speaker 2: particularly when police failed to treat the death of a
Speaker 2: child the suspicious. Let's get into some of the compelling reasons.
Speaker 2: The first for reopening is the failure of the coroner
Speaker 2: and the Chief Magistrate to provide autopsy photos to the
Speaker 2: forensic pathologist authorized by Jason and Amanda.
Speaker 6: I was able to obtain the whole file, including the
Speaker 6: post mortem examination report, but not the microscope slides or
Speaker 6: the photographs taken during the post mortem examination.
Speaker 2: Now, remember, Jason and Amanda don't need to see these,
Speaker 2: but they do want an independent expert to view them,
Speaker 2: so that he can finalize his report.
Speaker 7: My understanding is that they are available or present in
Speaker 7: the complete file, but they were not provided to me,
Speaker 7: which causes me great concern because any photographs speak a
Speaker 7: thousand words, and they are very In fact, they are
Speaker 7: essential and integral to a post mortem examination. They form
Speaker 7: part of the autopsic report, although they're not written words.
Speaker 7: They're photographs.
Speaker 8: But what they do do is they assist in the
Speaker 8: interpretation of an injury and the identification of the injury.
Speaker 7: And it may be that there are.
Speaker 8: Injuries present on the deceased that haven't been described or
Speaker 8: have been incorrectly described in the autopsio report, and if
Speaker 8: one has the photographs for reference, these sorts of problems
Speaker 8: can be sorted out.
Speaker 2: We heard from Eden's sisters that her face was bruised
Speaker 2: and her teeth cracked or smashed when they applied makeup
Speaker 2: to her face just before she was cremated.
Speaker 9: And then went to the lip. And when I was
Speaker 9: outlining the lip, the pencil lifted the lips up, which
Speaker 9: then I seen some of her teeth, her front teeth,
Speaker 9: and there was like cracks in it. It's almost like
Speaker 9: a glass shuttering, like a crack in a glass and
Speaker 9: that was like conctanding for me, like kind of stepped
Speaker 9: back because I was like, oh wow, I wasn't expecting
Speaker 9: to see that. I assume maybe it was from the
Speaker 9: fall or something. But I was also really young, so
Speaker 9: I didn't know. But I continued because I still had
Speaker 9: like a job to do. I wasn't me and she
Speaker 9: had a bruise like coming from the ear down her neck,
Speaker 9: so we put hair in her face, like hair around
Speaker 9: her neck so you wouldn't see that.
Speaker 2: We've also heard that the woman who first found Eden's
Speaker 2: body and reported it the delivery driver, was asked by
Speaker 2: police in Bridgewater some months after Eden's death she saw
Speaker 2: any marks on Eden's wrists when she found her.
Speaker 10: About six months later, I got a call from Bridgewater
Speaker 10: Police station, which is the closest to where I live,
Speaker 10: and they asked if i'd mind coming in because the
Speaker 10: coroner had a few more questions for me. So I
Speaker 10: went over and they were inquiring about if I'd noticed
Speaker 10: anything unusual about her wrists, and I said no, I
Speaker 10: didn't didn't notice anything about a risk at all. And
Speaker 10: I said, why is that and they said, oh, apparently
Speaker 10: at some stage her ricks had been tied behind her back,
Speaker 10: and I said, ah, so it wasn't suicide. And they said, oh,
Speaker 10: we don't know. And I said, well, you can't tie
Speaker 10: your own risk behind your back surely unless you're DENI.
Speaker 10: I said, so that just confirms my suspicion that it
Speaker 10: wasn't suicide. And they said, oh, well, that's up to
Speaker 10: the coroners as determined.
Speaker 2: To date, all requests to access autopsy photos have been denied.
Speaker 2: Jason and Demander have also asked the Attorney General of Tasmania,
Speaker 2: the Honorable Guy Barnett, who has the power to change
Speaker 2: the law, to intervene. Since August of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: their requests to date have fallen on deaf ears. The
Speaker 2: second compelling reason is the involvement of the disgraced Senior
Speaker 2: Sergeant Paul Reynolds as the coroner's associate, who, in the
Speaker 2: coroner's own words, provided regular oversight and direction to the investigation.
Speaker 2: He was a monster who was an alleged pedophile. He
Speaker 2: committed suicide in twenty eighteen before he could be charged
Speaker 2: for numerous offenses. This is the most prolific grooming I
Speaker 2: have seen perpetrated by one person in my career. He
Speaker 2: was responsible for making sure the police investigating Eden's death
Speaker 2: did their job well. The question has to be asked,
Speaker 2: is this not enough in itself to reopen the investigation.
Speaker 2: The third reason we think now more than ever this
Speaker 2: should be relooked at is due to a recent finding
Speaker 2: by another coroner in Tasmania in another supposed suicide hanging case.
Speaker 2: It was a case of Helen Bird in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: Helen died in the same way as Eden. Her case
Speaker 2: was closed without inquest. Like Eden, and Helen's death was
Speaker 2: also originally deemed to be suicide thanks to the hard
Speaker 2: work of a detective who investigated this case. Years later,
Speaker 2: the new coroner found that the original investigation was inadequate.
Speaker 2: The same forensic officer who attended and processed the scene
Speaker 2: in Eden's case was the same officer who attended Helen
Speaker 2: Bird's death. In the Halen Bird case, they didn't take
Speaker 2: measurements from the rope or the ladder, and they didn't
Speaker 2: take samples of the rope for DNA. To date, after
Speaker 2: numerous requests from the family and Jackie Lamby, police have
Speaker 2: not confirmed if they have the rope, or seized the rope,
Speaker 2: or took any sample from Eden's rope for DNA testing.
Speaker 5: Are the rope and the top? We need to look
Speaker 5: at those autopsic photos and I need that rope and
Speaker 5: were still to know where the rope is so has
Speaker 5: it been destroyed? Is it still in police evidence?
Speaker 2: The next compelling reason is the failure to interview the
Speaker 2: woman we know as Kate's. She was nominated by the
Speaker 2: whistleblower as someone who was with Eden on the night
Speaker 2: along with another man. The girl we call Kate spoke
Speaker 2: to the family at the vigil for Eden and said
Speaker 2: she could have stopped it. She also told Eden's sister
Speaker 2: the same thing shortly after Eden's death. To date, the
Speaker 2: only interview with this woman was informal and it was
Speaker 2: said to have been done in twenty twenty three, eight
Speaker 2: years after Eden's death. But we know from an RTI
Speaker 2: that there is no statement from her or no record
Speaker 2: of interview, even after a formal written referral from the
Speaker 2: Commission of Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: this episode of Our Little Lady. We're outlining the compelling
Speaker 2: reasons for reopening this case and undertaking an independent investigation.
Speaker 2: Another compelling reason is that any information that came forward
Speaker 2: about this investigation, whether it be during the podcast or
Speaker 2: for the eight years prior that went to police or
Speaker 2: crime Stoppers, has not been shared with the family. The
Speaker 2: Westbrooks have made several Right to information requests, but other
Speaker 2: than one triple zero call, all others have not been forthcoming.
Speaker 2: In one of the RTI disclosures, it's been confirmed that
Speaker 2: Constable Smithhurst did view the CCTV footage of the skatepark,
Speaker 2: but at two am it shows a woman talking to
Speaker 2: someone that looked like Eden, the woman with dark hair.
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Is that what you know of?
Speaker 11: This is where I mentioned when I went looking for
Speaker 11: Eden that night with Hunter and my daughter. At nine ten,
Speaker 11: I'm under that camera. At eleven ten, I'm back under
Speaker 11: that camera, stopped. I'm about to get out of the car.
Speaker 11: That hundred tells me I'm not about.
Speaker 2: The RTI disclosure stated that there had been a misunderstanding
Speaker 2: in relation to the information Smithhurst gave the Westbooks within
Speaker 2: days of Eden's debt. Did you do you know whether
Speaker 2: your car was spotted at those locations?
Speaker 11: I've parked under it. Yeah, literally, but those cameras are gone.
Speaker 11: They pulled them out. They literally within six months. They
Speaker 11: took those cameras and they're gone, and they put a
Speaker 11: whole new ridgide did set in.
Speaker 2: And that vision of that CSSTV no longer exists.
Speaker 11: No, but I had say to my wife that it's
Speaker 11: hard to see who it is because the pixels are poor.
Speaker 11: So he admits that he has seen it. And then
Speaker 11: I've got Chris Smithurst. When I tell him that the
Speaker 11: footage isn't in it, he says, it's hard to identify
Speaker 11: what's being said with two people under a camera at night.
Speaker 11: So the copers are well aware that Eden Westboro is
Speaker 11: under that camera at night at two am. Two am eighteen.
Speaker 11: Didn't die on the seventeenth, Like the current.
Speaker 2: Said, that is now impossible to corroborate the Smithhurst died
Speaker 2: a few years back. It's also interesting to note the
Speaker 2: location of the skate park to where eat It died
Speaker 2: takes about ninety seconds to walk. And then there's the
Speaker 2: multiple witnesses that have come forward to the podcast about
Speaker 2: alleged grooming at school. My police officers in town and
Speaker 2: others within the community. Are you okay that I record
Speaker 2: this conversation as a witness statement. This witness went into
Speaker 2: more detail about that night. She named a woman who
Speaker 2: was supposed to be meeting Eden that night. She also
Speaker 2: found this to be unusual, as Eden wouldn't normally hang
Speaker 2: out with this woman.
Speaker 4: I was sixteen at the time, ten and seventeen. Obviously,
Speaker 4: I felt too scared to approach my parents or anyone
Speaker 4: that could actually help me in a scenario like this,
Speaker 4: because being sixteen, you're nervous. Do you want to you know,
Speaker 4: you don't really know how to interact with someone that's
Speaker 4: a lot older than you, and you know, putting these
Speaker 4: passwords onto you.
Speaker 2: And on the eighteenth of February, it will be ten
Speaker 2: years since Eden tragically died. Ten years on her mom
Speaker 2: and dad can only imagine how Eden would be doing
Speaker 2: at twenty five years old. Such a bright and bubbler
Speaker 2: girl was such potential. Would she be married, would she
Speaker 2: have kids of her own? Could she have joined the
Speaker 2: defense force like a brother and sisters. Maybe she might
Speaker 2: have become a lawyer like a sister Sky, Or maybe
Speaker 2: she embraces her creative side that we heard so much about.
Speaker 2: What is clear is that Eden was dearly loved. She
Speaker 2: was planning a future in the short term. The camping
Speaker 2: trip with her family and meeting the boy that she
Speaker 2: was talking with online. For Jason and Amanda in a
Speaker 2: Westbrook family, they will never see Edith's potential realized, and
Speaker 2: they still don't have any answers as to what happened
Speaker 2: to their little Edie. In the next episode, we sit
Speaker 2: down face to face with Jackie Lambie and the gloves
Speaker 2: come off.
Speaker 5: I just I just want to know, you know, and
Speaker 5: you get you get I think it's you get really
Speaker 5: heavily involved, and you see they're hurt, and I just
Speaker 5: want them to have peace. It's been going.
Speaker 2: Off too long.
Speaker 5: I just we just want to know the truth. And
Speaker 5: it's more important for the Westbrooks and the kids to
Speaker 5: know what happened to their daughter and their sister. And
Speaker 5: we need to know this and they're never going to
Speaker 5: move on. And I want to know because if Eddie
Speaker 5: was it, I want people help responsible for that. I
Speaker 5: want to know what went down in