Speaker 1: All right, my name is Christine. I am the surviving
Speaker 1: sibling of David Phillips.
Speaker 2: David was the eldest of the two Phillips siblings. Their
Speaker 2: parents ran a small corner shop in the southeast Melbourne
Speaker 2: suburb of Mentone. David joined the police force, Christine became
Speaker 2: a nurse, so an average middle class family until nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three.
Speaker 1: So it was May ninety three when we got a
Speaker 1: phone call from ethel Ball to tell us that David
Speaker 1: was under suspicion of murder.
Speaker 2: What ethel Ball, by the way, is at There's a
Speaker 2: second ex wife and Lachelle's mum.
Speaker 1: Not long after that I was at we I got
Speaker 1: a phone call from a detective Giles up the Townsville.
Speaker 1: C just questioned who I was and then asked me
Speaker 1: did I think he was capable of murder?
Speaker 2: This was just six weeks after les Ball had gone missing,
Speaker 2: and even then it seems police were already looking at
Speaker 2: David and for his sister Christine.
Speaker 3: The call was a shock.
Speaker 1: Well, we dropped, capite. I heard in my hand.
Speaker 2: She knew he had gotten involved in something that wasn't
Speaker 2: above board in his Melbourne policing days. She knew he
Speaker 2: could threaten violence. She knew he could even threaten to
Speaker 2: kill people, but actually murdering les, an innocent pensioner was
Speaker 2: a totally different accusation.
Speaker 1: Detective Giles asked me to keep a diary by the phone.
Speaker 1: I said, why, we haven't seen him or heard from
Speaker 1: the family for years. He said he will ring.
Speaker 3: You said that we won't, But the detective was right.
Speaker 2: David, who had little contact with his Melbourne family since
Speaker 2: moving to Queensland, did phone Christine and she needed that
Speaker 2: diary by the phone to make a record of her
Speaker 2: brief converse with him, and he.
Speaker 1: Said, don't hang up, it's me.
Speaker 2: So I hung up.
Speaker 1: Those big brothers don't tell little sisters what to do.
Speaker 1: So he rang back and I said, what the hell
Speaker 1: have you done? He said, what do you think? I
Speaker 1: don't know what toype answer that was. I said, what
Speaker 1: is going on? He said, I can't talk. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm being bugged and you're probably being bugged as well.
Speaker 3: I bugged.
Speaker 2: David meant he knew police were listening to his phone calls,
Speaker 2: so that police officer, when he called you, asked if
Speaker 2: you thought your brother was capable of.
Speaker 3: Murder thirty years on May, I ask you the.
Speaker 2: Same question, do you think your brother was capable of murder?
Speaker 3: Back then?
Speaker 1: Probably not, But having listened to everyone's stories over the
Speaker 1: thirty four years, who knows?
Speaker 2: It's important You know that Christine isn't completely convinced her
Speaker 2: brother murdered las, So when you hear what she's about
Speaker 2: to reveal, you understand that she's not out to try
Speaker 2: and make David look guilty. Because while Christine isn't sure
Speaker 2: if David murdered Laz, she knows that her brother was
Speaker 2: capable of violence. She saw it herself.
Speaker 1: I went up to Queensland to see the kids with
Speaker 1: a friend, a surprise visit. He was extremely extreme, annoyed
Speaker 1: that we didn't let them know they were coming. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to surprise the kids because we were very close,
Speaker 1: very close. We stayed in our motel, we went to
Speaker 1: visit the kids. There's a hole in the plaster wall?
Speaker 2: Is there all?
Speaker 1: What's happened here? Someone full now? I can't remember which
Speaker 1: one said it. So Daddy came home angry.
Speaker 2: But the most shocking example of David's potential for violence
Speaker 2: came in nineteen ninety two, a year before Les went missing.
Speaker 2: Christine was getting married and decided to do the right
Speaker 2: thing invite David and the Phillips family to her wedding.
Speaker 1: We sent out our wedding invitations. I sent there's eight
Speaker 1: weeks ahead. Give them the opportunity to say yea if
Speaker 1: they could afford it. Now they've got four daughters, my
Speaker 1: husband had a niece and nephew. I'm not keen on
Speaker 1: having flower girls, so I said, we won't have flower girls.
Speaker 1: So I let him know. I said, but every family child,
Speaker 1: it's going to have a special job. Had it all
Speaker 1: worked out, I told him that. So he received the
Speaker 1: invitation must have sparked something off in him.
Speaker 3: Christine was with her mum when the phone rang.
Speaker 1: And I could hear him verbally abusing so loud derogatory
Speaker 1: language and said, I will be down to shoot you all,
Speaker 1: Christine's fiance and the whole lot of you. He was
Speaker 1: extremely abusive, foul language and threatened to fly down and
Speaker 1: shoot us all on our winning day, every single one
Speaker 1: of us he goes.
Speaker 3: He threatened to fly down to Melbourne and.
Speaker 1: Shot you, yep, and everyone at the wedding. That's what
Speaker 1: I heard, he was screaming through the phone. I just
Speaker 1: took the phone offer. Yeah, she just stood there. She
Speaker 1: goes what just happened? I said, ignore it? Wow she
Speaker 1: was Then she met and vomited. I thought, if this
Speaker 1: kills her, I didn't know what I was going to do.
Speaker 1: It didn't because you're a strong lady. My father was
Speaker 1: shattered and we just I rang him back up, said
Speaker 1: the invitations null and boyd never want to see you again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, threatening to shoot your sister and all the guests
Speaker 4: at her wedding is shocking, but it's also so outlandish.
Speaker 4: It's tempting to dismiss what David said as an idle threat.
Speaker 4: But Christine and David shared a mutual friend, a man
Speaker 4: called Bob, and he didn't think David was joking. Bob
Speaker 4: decided to attend the wedding to protect Christine and her
Speaker 4: wedding guests in case David showed up.
Speaker 1: And I couldn't figure out why he was sitting at
Speaker 1: the back of the church because I actually told him
Speaker 1: what David said. So I said, for Bob, why'd you
Speaker 1: sit the back of the church.
Speaker 4: Bob responded by rolling up his trouserleg.
Speaker 1: He had a gun in his boot, anyally passing out.
Speaker 1: I said what the hell, and he goes, no one's
Speaker 1: going to ruin your day, and he said, I've got
Speaker 1: another one after the car seat.
Speaker 4: So he took David's threat pretty seriously, and he was
Speaker 4: going to protect you if needed, on your wedding day
Speaker 4: from your own brother.
Speaker 1: My parents were absolutely shattered.
Speaker 4: It can't be easy talking about your own late brother
Speaker 4: in this way. Why do you want it made public?
Speaker 1: Oh, I think just falz and for my parents. They
Speaker 1: went to heaven thinking that their son's a murderer and
Speaker 1: didn't have any answers. I'm actually doing it for them
Speaker 1: and Paul Ez.
Speaker 4: I'm Joe Townsend and I'm Callum Deness.
Speaker 2: This is perfect alibis exchanged.
Speaker 4: As you heard last episode. In twenty twenty three, Coroner
Speaker 4: Gallagher accepted Leanne's evidence that David's lying and violence only
Speaker 4: began after his stroke in nineteen ninety four, a whole
Speaker 4: year after Les went missing. Christine believes the coroner got
Speaker 4: that wrong. The coroner seemed to be of the opinion
Speaker 4: that David really only turned violent after his stroke. I
Speaker 4: wouldn't think so, but every story you've told us pre
Speaker 4: dates his stroke. Did the coroner get that right?
Speaker 1: Probably? Not, because if you weren't violent, why would you
Speaker 1: bring up and threatened to kill a family.
Speaker 4: In our interviews and in police audio, we've heard a
Speaker 4: chorus of people from different sides of the family describe
Speaker 4: David as a violent liar. Greatest liar about him found.
Speaker 5: To Yeah, he did have a temper, definitely intimidated by him.
Speaker 6: I heard him say, well, if you can't do anything,
Speaker 6: then break his knees were.
Speaker 7: Sitting in the largermen.
Speaker 5: I could hear him say on the phone call, We'll
Speaker 5: have to get rid of him.
Speaker 4: Right at the start of this podcast, we told you
Speaker 4: that we found clues that coroners and police missed and
Speaker 4: that we thought we could prove who murdered Les. So
Speaker 4: in this episode, we're laying out our case against David
Speaker 4: Phillips cal We've established that David was violent and a
Speaker 4: liar before his stroke. So let's start with when Les
Speaker 4: was last seen alive. The coroner found that was Sunday,
Speaker 4: the eighteenth of April, when David, Margaret, and the four
Speaker 4: kids left to visit display homes and family friend Tony
Speaker 4: Hoyer called by to find Lez, apparently setting off to
Speaker 4: catch the train to Brisbane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so In making that finding, Coroner Gallagher put aside Leanne'
Speaker 2: account of seeing Les in hospital, saying it didn't happen,
Speaker 2: but Leanne genuinely believed it did, and basically said that
Speaker 2: if you don't discount what Margaret, David and Tony said,
Speaker 2: then the eighteenth was the last sighting of Les alive.
Speaker 4: So we've proven David is a liar. We can strike
Speaker 4: his account out. What about Tony Hoyer?
Speaker 2: There's two problems with Tony's account, right. First, Tony was
Speaker 2: always crystal clear with police in nineteen ninety three that
Speaker 2: he had no idea what day it was that he
Speaker 2: saw Les, only that he thought it was a Sunday,
Speaker 2: and police in that first investigation and pretty much ever since,
Speaker 2: have just assumed that he was talking about the eighteenth
Speaker 2: of April. Okay, But in all the different versions of
Speaker 2: that day he's given in all the years since, the
Speaker 2: one thing that he's stuck to is that he has
Speaker 2: no idea what day this alleged sighting happened.
Speaker 3: Right. What's the second problem.
Speaker 2: Well, Tony said that Les was on his way to
Speaker 2: catch the train from Townsford to Brisbane. But what the
Speaker 2: coroner seems to have missed is that the train didn't
Speaker 2: run on Sundays, So that's inherently implausible.
Speaker 4: Can't have happened exactly. David's alibi was also quite clever
Speaker 4: because the kids often went to see display homes it
Speaker 4: occurred around Easter holidays, so by assuming this was the eighteenth,
Speaker 4: it suddenly looked like all three adults had the same story.
Speaker 4: But if you accept what Tony saw never happened on
Speaker 4: a Sunday, then the whole alibi falls apart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this mistake has kind of haunted this case ever since.
Speaker 2: This assumption that Tony corroborated what David and Margaret were saying.
Speaker 4: Right, So if you strike that out, when was the
Speaker 4: last time Les was really seen alive?
Speaker 2: Right? So Les made a phone call one evening on Thursday,
Speaker 2: the fifteenth of April, to the Phillips house, and one
Speaker 2: of David Leanne's daughters and Les's granddaughter, Samantha, picked up
Speaker 2: the phone. She said her granddad sounded angry and wanted
Speaker 2: to speak to David. Now, she couldn't recall exactly what
Speaker 2: night it happened, except that her other sister, Rochelle, was
Speaker 2: still in hospital. Margaret also witnessed the call and said
Speaker 2: it happened on a Thursday night and that was when
Speaker 2: Rochelle was in hospital, So it corroborated what that other daughter,
Speaker 2: Samantha said.
Speaker 4: So we've got him on the Thursday exactly. But the
Speaker 4: coroner accepted David's account that the call happened the next night,
Speaker 4: on the Friday. They seem to have missed Margaret's statement then.
Speaker 4: And what's even weirder is that David actually didn't stick
Speaker 4: to his story. He later told police this call happened
Speaker 4: a whole week before.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, I know it sounds like we might be getting
Speaker 2: into the weeds here, but it's actually really important because
Speaker 2: not only does this make that Thursday evening the last
Speaker 2: time Les was heard from alive, but we also think
Speaker 2: he was murdered that night, which will come to in
Speaker 2: a moment. But before we do that, we need to
Speaker 2: talk about money again. Police have always focused on the
Speaker 2: thirty one thousand dollars that Les transferredly in and when
Speaker 2: they interviewed her about this, she always sounded defensive.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we are aware that your father had leant
Speaker 1: you money.
Speaker 4: At his own free will. Next question, Okay, there's.
Speaker 8: A total of thirty one.
Speaker 9: Well, we like to talk to you about the fines.
Speaker 8: No need to where the day guy. He gave his
Speaker 8: own free will, that's it. No, No, he gave it
Speaker 8: to you. He gave it to me. I'm free will.
Speaker 2: But there's something that everyone missed that block of land
Speaker 2: in Townsville. So let's put down a thirty three thousand
Speaker 2: dollars deposit. David and Leanne said that Les was planning
Speaker 2: on building a house on that block of land and
Speaker 2: then selling it for a profit.
Speaker 4: Yes, but everyone else believed the house was for the
Speaker 4: Phillips to live in as a loan or a gift.
Speaker 4: Margaret and Samantha think Les was planning on living with
Speaker 4: the family in that big house, although Lachelle's side of
Speaker 4: the family disputes that.
Speaker 2: Yes, but David and Leanne's names were actually on the
Speaker 2: building plans, and it was David who paid for those
Speaker 2: plans to be drawn up. In fact, the draftsmen even
Speaker 2: called Les once to double check if he was the
Speaker 2: client or if it was David.
Speaker 4: So all the evidence suggests that this house was meant
Speaker 4: for the Phillips.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: And we found a statement in a police file, a
Speaker 2: statement that nobody seemed to notice since from the Department
Speaker 2: of Veterans Affairs, saying that in December nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: Les informed the department that he intended to spend sixty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars building a house on that block of land.
Speaker 4: And Les was a stickler for those sort of things.
Speaker 4: You know, when he bought the house in Cardwell, he
Speaker 4: paid for twelve months home insurance upfront, changed his address
Speaker 4: with the government agencies, opened a new bank account.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was really on top of these things.
Speaker 2: And when you add the sixty grand for the home
Speaker 2: that everybody believed was going to be for the Phillips
Speaker 2: to the thirty three thousand dollars he put down for
Speaker 2: the block of land itself and the thirty one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars he transferredly in, that's potentially one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars of Lessus savings that could have been going
Speaker 2: to the Phillips.
Speaker 4: That's way more money than anyone ever realized was going
Speaker 4: their way. And in the nineteen nineties, that's really big
Speaker 4: money exactly.
Speaker 2: But Less's decision to buy that dream home of his
Speaker 2: in Cardwell meant he couldn't afford to build the Phillips
Speaker 2: a house and would probably have to sell the block
Speaker 2: of land too. In fact, the night he called up
Speaker 2: the Phillips, his bank records show he was still just
Speaker 2: short of the money he needed to close the deal
Speaker 2: on that new house in Cardwell. But the police and
Speaker 2: the coroner seemed to have missed this important point.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 4: So that's why this call and when it happened is
Speaker 4: so important. Young Samantha, the grandchild, picks up the phone,
Speaker 4: she later said to police. He sounded angry and Lez
Speaker 4: wanted to speak to David. At this point, Lez had
Speaker 4: just one working day to get the money he needed
Speaker 4: back from David to complete settlement. It was really crunch time.
Speaker 4: Leanne was in hospital in Brisbane, so he needed David
Speaker 4: to cough up that money he owed Les exactly. And
Speaker 4: this phone call is the last time anyone heard Les alive,
Speaker 4: not the Sunday as the coroner believed.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe David knew Leanne would wind up the executor
Speaker 2: of Lez's estate, and if Les was dead and couldn't
Speaker 2: go through through with buying that house in Cardwell, that
Speaker 2: would free up seventy thousand dollars and the Phillips could
Speaker 2: build their new house and of course they wouldn't have
Speaker 2: to pay back a cent of any of those thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars that they owed Les. According to another of
Speaker 2: David Leanne's kids, Danielle, after Les vanished, the family actually
Speaker 2: tried to go ahead with building that house. This is
Speaker 2: what she told police in twenty eleven. Now she's sitting
Speaker 2: with a detective as a prepare a statement. So it's
Speaker 2: quite noisy. And this piece of audio you're about to
Speaker 2: hear was Laiter handed to the inquest as evidence.
Speaker 7: Got that.
Speaker 1: Except what I remember with Pierre was he when we
Speaker 1: couldn't build the hats because it was all in his name,
Speaker 1: wouldn't real breath point, of course, the lands his name.
Speaker 4: So David said, this phone call from Les on the
Speaker 4: Thursday actually happened on a Friday. Why would he lie
Speaker 4: about that? I mean, that seems like an insignificant detail,
Speaker 4: to be honest.
Speaker 2: Well, it's because by Friday the conspiracy to make it
Speaker 2: appear as if Les was alive was in full swing.
Speaker 2: That afternoon, somebody placed a call to Les's solicitor, claiming
Speaker 2: to be Les, saying he was going to Brisbane to
Speaker 2: visit his daughter, but would be back on Monday for settlement. Now,
Speaker 2: the secretary who took that call had never spoken to Les,
Speaker 2: so I couldn't tell if it was him. That's not
Speaker 2: a trip he could make by train. He wouldn't get
Speaker 2: back in time, and it's a fifteen hour drive from
Speaker 2: Townsville to Brisbane.
Speaker 4: It seems unlikely he'd make that mammoth return journey to Celianne.
Speaker 4: She was in hospital for a planned procedure. It wasn't
Speaker 4: a sudden medical emergency, and it just seems weird that
Speaker 4: he'd bother mentioning at all if he was planning to
Speaker 4: be back in time for settlement anyway, that's right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you wouldn't call up your dentist, doctor, your
Speaker 2: lawyer and saying hey, I'm going away, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to be back for this appointment in three days time.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the train ticket was booked the next day,
Speaker 2: on the Saturday. We know on the Monday someone forged
Speaker 2: as a signature. Our investigation has uncovered that David forged
Speaker 2: a police document to falsely claim he was Australia's most
Speaker 2: decorated cop. So we know he had formed there, and
Speaker 2: we also know that while he was a police officer,
Speaker 2: he attempted to defraud his parents' business out of money
Speaker 2: by signing out a loan in their name.
Speaker 4: And when Bill Nash, the fraud scoad detective, was investigating David,
Speaker 4: he nearly charged him with fraud by deception for pulling
Speaker 4: a really low con on a series of motels in Melbourne.
Speaker 4: He would delay paying his bill, claiming he was waiting
Speaker 4: for some sort of windfall, then sneak out the back
Speaker 4: door at night. He did this to four different motel businesses.
Speaker 2: And there was something else Bill told us, which is
Speaker 2: that while his officers were following David, they also observed
Speaker 2: him pulling another con, this time for prescription drugs. I'm
Speaker 2: assuming that if you're doctor shopping, you'd be pretty good
Speaker 2: at forging signature and prescription pads. Yes, that's a core
Speaker 2: skill set of a doctor shopper, isn't it.
Speaker 10: Yes, you somehow have to come across a pad of
Speaker 10: prescriptions blank ones. It's not that hard to forge a
Speaker 10: doctor script because you can't understand the writing anyway.
Speaker 2: So David had a history of defrauding people, of forging
Speaker 2: documents and faking signatures, and as a former police officer,
Speaker 2: he knew that the longer he could focus police attention
Speaker 2: in Brisbane, the more time he'd have to get away
Speaker 2: with murder. It'd buy him time to destroy Lester's trailer,
Speaker 2: and when you look at his behavior, he seemed to
Speaker 2: constantly be trying to redirect police. At one point, shortly
Speaker 2: after Les disappeared, David called the cops up and said
Speaker 2: Les could be in tweet Heads or out at gem
Speaker 2: Fields at Mossman Gorge. He even insisted that Ed who
Speaker 2: was living on the Sunshine Coast, had something to do
Speaker 2: with Les's murder.
Speaker 4: Now, we don't have proof that David was involved in
Speaker 4: dest the trailer, but the two men who separately stumbled
Speaker 4: on that burnt out trailer both observed two blokes that
Speaker 4: appeared to be involved. One was a man who looked
Speaker 4: to be aged thirty to forty in a white ute,
Speaker 4: who was accompanied by another man. At the coronial inquest,
Speaker 4: Lachelle's lawyer submitted that the description of that first man
Speaker 4: matched David, who was thirty eight at the time and
Speaker 4: drove a white ute.
Speaker 3: That feels like a bit of a reach. It's such
Speaker 3: a vague description.
Speaker 2: A guy in his thirties with a white ute lots
Speaker 2: of those sort of guys in Townsville.
Speaker 4: Could almost be anyone crecently. But going back to that
Speaker 4: forged train ticket, could David have actually been the one
Speaker 4: to forge Less's signature and collect Lezz's ticket. Surely if
Speaker 4: he was handing over a pension card, he would have
Speaker 4: been challenged by the cashier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've always wondered about that because it's a huge
Speaker 2: risk to take if you're David. But there is that's
Speaker 2: another possibility. Margaret, she was staying at the Phillips house
Speaker 2: when Les disappeared, and she was in her late sixties
Speaker 2: at the time. Now, the name on Less's train ticket
Speaker 2: was Leslie R.
Speaker 3: Ball.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess that's a unisex name. If the ticket
Speaker 4: was Leslie Ralph Ball, it would tell you that Les
Speaker 4: was a man. But Leslie R. Ball could be a
Speaker 4: woman's name, and I guess a bored ticket officer would
Speaker 4: hardly look twice at an old lady collecting a ticket, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I've always wondered if it was David who orchestrated
Speaker 2: the scheme and Margaret who collected the ticket. Now, remember
Speaker 2: that fingerprint found in Les's car on the rearview mirror,
Speaker 2: police took fingerprints from David, Leanne and Tony they weren't
Speaker 2: a match, but they never took a fingerprint from Margaret.
Speaker 4: That's interesting because Margaret's grandkids suspected she knew more about
Speaker 4: Les's disappearance than she ever let on. Some of the
Speaker 4: kids recall that Margaret didn't attend that outing that was
Speaker 4: central to David's alibi, and when they returned home, Margaret
Speaker 4: was sweeping out the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and our favorite Irish cop, Lizz Wick Norton, also
Speaker 2: suspected that Margaret may have had more knowledge of the
Speaker 2: crime than she'd ever admitted to, And that's partly because
Speaker 2: police actually spoke to Margaret in twenty eleven, right before
Speaker 2: she died. When they spoke to her, she was with relatives,
Speaker 2: and one of those relatives told police that Margaret was
Speaker 2: worried about what questions they would ask and that she
Speaker 2: would go to jail. Police secretly recorded that conversation, and
Speaker 2: the audio you're about to hear was an exhibit at
Speaker 2: the inquest.
Speaker 1: What do you think happened to these.
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't know what think someone on the trying or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 8: I honestly don't know. I don't.
Speaker 10: I don't.
Speaker 8: I really don't know.
Speaker 1: Different things, But I try ask what you've heard?
Speaker 11: No, but you.
Speaker 4: When we listen to all the rumor and innuendo, the gossip,
Speaker 4: so we are interested in.
Speaker 10: Knowing what you have heard. But Mom, if you don't
Speaker 10: want to go there, you don't.
Speaker 9: You don't know that.
Speaker 4: We'll never know what Margaret really knew or what roles
Speaker 4: she might have played. But Michelle has a surprisingly compassionate
Speaker 4: take on this.
Speaker 5: I believe Margaret knew everything. Yeah, I don't think Margaret
Speaker 5: was involved in the actual act of killing my father
Speaker 5: and wouldn't want anyone to kill my father. She still
Speaker 5: loved him. Over many of the years, my dad wasn't
Speaker 5: that fond of her. But I do believe my still
Speaker 5: loved him. And I think Margaret witnessed what had happened
Speaker 5: and was just horrified, and she's probably had nightmares till
Speaker 5: the end of time. So one hundred percent. And I
Speaker 5: think that she was involved in like maybe the maybe
Speaker 5: the ticket, maybe the maybe I don't know, cleaning up
Speaker 5: the mess from it all, et cetera. But I think
Speaker 5: she was put up to that, and she was told
Speaker 5: to do that by David. And when David told you
Speaker 5: to do something.
Speaker 3: You do it, You do it, you do it, you
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about David's confession of murder to the Skull.
Speaker 4: It's highly unlikely that David physically ripped Les's wind pipe
Speaker 4: out or found some elderly stranger to help him move
Speaker 4: Les's body and then executed that stranger. David was a
Speaker 4: renowned liar, and that is so far fetched.
Speaker 2: It is, But then again, there was a pattern to
Speaker 2: his lies. So David really did receive commendations as a
Speaker 2: police officer, but only two, not the eleven that he claimed.
Speaker 2: And he really did know the police officer he accused
Speaker 2: of dumping Adel Bailey's body, and had been to this
Speaker 2: officer's property in Regional Victoria. He just embellished all these
Speaker 2: other false details. Here's Bill Nash's take on David's murder confession.
Speaker 10: There's an element of truth. It is possible. Everyone says
Speaker 10: it's possible. That's why Dave's suspect. But the second man,
Speaker 10: you can see Dave's logic to get rid of witnesses
Speaker 10: if he assisted Dave in the first place. But I
Speaker 10: don't think he can rule it out totally. I think
Speaker 10: it's always got to be there. You can never forget
Speaker 10: what Brian has given to the coroner to consider if
Speaker 10: you downgrade it.
Speaker 2: So, putting it all together, David had a compelling financial
Speaker 2: motive to murder Lez. It wasn't just that Les was
Speaker 2: calling in some of those loans. If Les went through
Speaker 2: with buying his house in card Well, the Phillips would
Speaker 2: be financially devastated. After Les disappeared and they discovered they
Speaker 2: couldn't build the house because the land was in Les's name,
Speaker 2: they became homeless for a period. David was addicted to
Speaker 2: prescription drugs and had to beg lie and cheek to
Speaker 2: get by.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we've also uncovered some pretty troubling evidence of
Speaker 4: his capacity for violence, threatening to break people's knees, to
Speaker 4: shoot his sister and all of her wedding guests, punching
Speaker 4: walls in the family home, not just from one side
Speaker 4: of the family either. For a hot minute there, I
Speaker 4: thought perhaps all of that bizarre behavior could be explained
Speaker 4: by thinking of him as a police informant. That might
Speaker 4: explain some of the crazier lies. But it didn't check out.
Speaker 3: No, So now let's talk about Leanne.
Speaker 2: There's no proof she was involved in Les's murder, and
Speaker 2: she was very close to her father Les. She loved him.
Speaker 2: Even Lachelle, who's not Leanne's greatest fan, admits that she
Speaker 2: was evasive and defensive about her finances and when she
Speaker 2: returned home from hospital and saw her dad's trailer, carr
Speaker 2: and possessions were gone, she did nothing. When there's this
Speaker 2: real estate agent called looking for him, Leanne told her
Speaker 2: that she was a nuisance caller and not to call
Speaker 2: there again. Although Leanne disputes this.
Speaker 4: There is one possible explanation for this that we heard
Speaker 4: from Irish cop Liz McNaughton. What was your sense of
Speaker 4: David's relationship with Leanne.
Speaker 12: Well, I believe it was definitely one of corus of control.
Speaker 12: I had the feeling that he definitely called the shots.
Speaker 12: You know, he was the one that said what was
Speaker 12: going to be when it was going to be. Certainly
Speaker 12: through the financial transactions and the money. I would suggest
Speaker 12: he was the one that was always on to Leanne
Speaker 12: to borrow the money. Yeah, I would I would suggest
Speaker 12: that debt was clever and things happening when Leanne was
Speaker 12: in hospital, so there's no way that she could be
Speaker 12: part of or no or prevent whichever, you know. So
Speaker 12: I definitely wouldn't put her in the cartgary with David, not.
Speaker 4: Just once. In twenty seventeen, Leanne told police that David
Speaker 4: was violent towards her.
Speaker 8: There was a time there where he was actually hurting me. Yeah,
Speaker 8: he would try and strangle me, an like tom.
Speaker 13: But was this before? This is before he stroke?
Speaker 4: No, it is after.
Speaker 8: But he started showing those signs prior and I'm but
Speaker 8: not so bit more verbal then, but doing that, he
Speaker 8: would then have it on a fit like I had
Speaker 8: to fit up to those rages, so he couldn't control developments.
Speaker 8: He couldn't control those.
Speaker 13: That's real stressful emotional reaction sort of response.
Speaker 8: Holding enough, yeah, bail me, and then you start seizing
Speaker 8: stuff and hrcting that way, well, just come up around.
Speaker 8: It was showing warm. He'd tear on my clothes off
Speaker 8: and I'm runn around the front trying to get away,
Speaker 8: and we get all my clothes and burn them or
Speaker 8: it was horrible.
Speaker 4: When questioned about David's stroke at the twenty twenty two
Speaker 4: in quest, Leanne was adamant that the psychotic rages and
Speaker 4: violence she described only started after his stroke. But in
Speaker 4: the audio you're about to hear, Leanne suggested the signs
Speaker 4: of David's changing behavior were apparent around the time Les
Speaker 4: went missing.
Speaker 13: And how long do you think he was unloyal and
Speaker 13: leading up to you know, you're saying that the benefits
Speaker 13: and said, you know you can see the sons. Now,
Speaker 13: how long you think he was unwell or there was
Speaker 13: you know, same year okay? Right, okay, and in that
Speaker 13: year leading up to that time, because that will probably
Speaker 13: overlap with the filament Les missing, Is that did that
Speaker 13: affect his relationship we've lived I started, Okay.
Speaker 2: As much as we've uncovered, there are still clues out
Speaker 2: there and witnesses. Police spoke to the Phillips neighbors in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three but didn't take written statements, so we
Speaker 2: don't know if they got to all of them exactly.
Speaker 4: And there was that crime Stoppers report from twenty eleven
Speaker 4: from the guy who saw a bloke covered in blood
Speaker 4: putting something in the boot of a Green Valiant by
Speaker 4: the side of the Bruce Highway and the.
Speaker 2: Phillips house cleaner. She told police she saw a trailer
Speaker 2: similar to Less full of furniture near the shopping center
Speaker 2: where David was rumored to have dumped Less's body.
Speaker 4: And there's that man who saw Les's trailer dumped in
Speaker 4: the bushland before it was burned out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're still all out there potentially, Henny, where are you?
Speaker 2: I am at yan Yan Cemetery and I am crouched
Speaker 2: in front of David's headstone.
Speaker 3: Wow, you found it. He found his grave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's right on the edge of the cemetery and
Speaker 2: a sort of huge cemetery which kind of helped me
Speaker 2: help me find it. But it's a gray granite headstone.
Speaker 2: It reads in loving memory David John Phillips, devoted husband
Speaker 2: to Leanne, very proud and loving father and grandfather. We
Speaker 2: love you and miss you. Rest in peace, and it
Speaker 2: has his name engraved in kind of gold lettering.
Speaker 3: It's pretty nondescript.
Speaker 2: It kind of looks like a lot of the gravestones here,
Speaker 2: except David's gravestone doesn't have any kind of flowers or
Speaker 2: monuments in front of it, and in fact, it's the
Speaker 2: only one in this row of headstones that doesn't have
Speaker 2: any flowers on it. And strangely, David's body isn't in
Speaker 2: this grave either. Four years after David Phillips died. David's
Speaker 2: now widow, Leanne, paid to have him exhumed, dug up,
Speaker 2: and cremated. She said it was to respect his wishes.
Speaker 2: He'd always wanted to be cremated and not buried. Apparently,
Speaker 2: if you're thinking that sounds strange, well so did we.
Speaker 2: But we actually checked with the government department that manages
Speaker 2: these things and they told us that in the previous year,
Speaker 2: thirty six people were exhumed, so it does happen.
Speaker 3: Still, I wanted to see the headstone for myself.
Speaker 2: It's a tangible connection to the case that we spent
Speaker 2: years obsessing over, even of the grave beneath it is
Speaker 2: now empty.
Speaker 11: And I think it also makes me feel sad because
Speaker 11: les Ball doesn't have a headstone. Les Ball doesn't have
Speaker 11: an in loving memory, beautiful thing carved for him, and
Speaker 11: I guess that makes me.
Speaker 1: Think I wish Lez had that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because I guess because
Speaker 2: it's a Saturday, there's lots of people here, they're tending
Speaker 2: the gravestones, they're putting fresh flowers out.
Speaker 3: Lachelle doesn't have that. No one in the family does.
Speaker 3: That's why we bury people.
Speaker 2: It's to help us remember them, to give us some
Speaker 2: way to memorialize them, to say that we love them.
Speaker 2: And it just underscores that Lachelle doesn't have that.
Speaker 5: I want to put him to rest. I like his body.
Speaker 5: I might not be around, but even a bone or
Speaker 5: something to put him to rest in his grave, in
Speaker 5: mobile moral his family are, I won't let it rest.
Speaker 3: Have you ever had a funeral or memorial service for les?
Speaker 14: No?
Speaker 5: No, because I've got nothing to have the service for.
Speaker 5: So my dad wasn't religious, but I would like to
Speaker 5: put something to rest with his family.
Speaker 4: My first impression when I met Lachelle was just how
Speaker 4: fierce she was. She was someone who wouldn't take no
Speaker 4: for an answer, who would stop at nothing to find
Speaker 4: out what happened to her dad. And I've gotten to
Speaker 4: know her now and the people that love her really well,
Speaker 4: and there's no other way to say it. Her life
Speaker 4: has been completely altered.
Speaker 5: I've never gotten married because I think my Dad's not
Speaker 5: there to walk them down the aisle. I sleep with
Speaker 5: the lights on still because I'm still paranoid that someone's
Speaker 5: going to come in and murder me. I'm still paranoid
Speaker 5: to this day.
Speaker 2: That's something We heard from Michelle's family too, here's her mum,
Speaker 2: Ed and cousin Ross.
Speaker 6: It's ruined her life. She is not the girl that
Speaker 6: I thought she would be. It's ruined her life, absolutely
Speaker 6: totally ruined.
Speaker 14: Everyone in the family in the most empathetic and sympathetic way,
Speaker 14: their heart breaks for Lachelle and how it's affected her life.
Speaker 14: It just totally consumes her mind and it has for
Speaker 14: over thirty years now. Her ale at our life has
Speaker 14: been consumed twenty four hours a day by what's happen
Speaker 14: and my father.
Speaker 2: But Less's unsolved murder has eaten away at so many people,
Speaker 2: Like Detective Lis mc norton.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I just feel like, you know, I joined the
Speaker 12: police because I wanted to live in a better world,
Speaker 12: you know, and help the vulnerable people and have a
Speaker 12: voice for the people that have no voice for themselves.
Speaker 12: And I hope someday, I don't know how, but we'll
Speaker 12: find remains and they'll be lasers and you know, maybe
Speaker 12: something will come of this. But for Naya STULFI is
Speaker 12: sad that we have no closure on it.
Speaker 2: In fact, every cop who works this case spoke to
Speaker 2: us about les because much like Lis mc Norton. They
Speaker 2: just can't shake the sense that he deserved better.
Speaker 10: Unfortunately, life has this issue with me.
Speaker 2: Just let it go.
Speaker 10: I should know that's unfinished business here that needs to
Speaker 10: be sorted out. I want to know and take it
Speaker 10: as far as I can.
Speaker 15: Someone out there knows something. Let all of us have
Speaker 15: a voice for Les because he deserves it. Something terrible's
Speaker 15: happened to him. No one knows where he is. He's
Speaker 15: out there and he's own somewhere, so let's try and
Speaker 15: help him.
Speaker 4: It's a cold wintery day when we last meet Lachelle
Speaker 4: and lunch hour on the outskirts of Sydney's CBD. She's
Speaker 4: written to Queensland Police with our findings, asking for the
Speaker 4: investigation to be reopened. We have to raise our voices
Speaker 4: a bit over the traffic, din Michelle. It's a bit
Speaker 4: of a full circle moment for you. Two years ago
Speaker 4: you put a bunch of documents into Calm letterbox and
Speaker 4: that's what started this podcast, and now you're giving this
Speaker 4: letter to Freeensland Police. We're standing here at a red
Speaker 4: Australia Post letterbox. You're still looking for answers, but hopefully
Speaker 4: you're a bit closer.
Speaker 7: Every little step of the way. I hope I'm closer. Yes,
Speaker 7: it's been a while. And when I said I've got
Speaker 7: some information for you put in his letter box, I
Speaker 7: was grateful that he would actually help me to go
Speaker 7: on to the conquest, have sold what happened to my
Speaker 7: dad and charge is being laid.
Speaker 5: I would like justice.
Speaker 9: You've been working with us for two years. You've given
Speaker 9: us a lot of your time. We've asked a lot
Speaker 9: of you. Do you feel it's been worthwhile. Do you
Speaker 9: feel like you're closer than you were two years ago?
Speaker 7: Oh? Yeah, definitely, every step of the way, every little
Speaker 7: bit that you do does it is a little bit close.
Speaker 7: So definitely. Hopefully this will bring out some new evidence,
Speaker 7: will new people coming forward?
Speaker 9: Well, for now, Laschel, this is the last step hosting
Speaker 9: that letter, and once the Queens Awn Police step that letter,
Speaker 9: it's in their hands and also in the hands of
Speaker 9: the public who hopefully will listen to this podcast and
Speaker 9: bring new information forward.
Speaker 7: I really do hope the public do come forward.
Speaker 2: We've promised Lachelle will keep investigating and she's pushing for
Speaker 2: a fresh coronial inquest and for homicide police to once
Speaker 2: again turn their full attention to this cold case. If
Speaker 2: you know anything, you can contact us at lesbol podcast
Speaker 2: at ProtonMail dot com.
Speaker 3: That's l ees B a l L.
Speaker 2: Podcast at ProtonMail dot com, or contact crime stoppers. There's
Speaker 2: a five hundred thousand dollars award on offer for information
Speaker 2: that leads to a conviction. The police say that anyone
Speaker 2: that comes forward will be immune for prosecution.
Speaker 3: So now though i'm Callundness.
Speaker 4: And I'm Joe Townsend, you've been listening to Perfect Alibi.
Speaker 8: The early cars and things changed.
Speaker 11: Lot of behavior.
Speaker 13: Ora