Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Disappearance of Katie Walker podcast. Over
Speaker 1: the last week, several mainstream publications have helped bring more
Speaker 1: attention to Katie's story and more of the Australian public
Speaker 1: are now aware of what is starting to feel like
Speaker 1: just a complete failure on behalf of New South Wales
Speaker 1: Police and what I would call incombatance. Is the subject
Speaker 1: of today's podcast, and I will be speaking to Lucas
Speaker 1: from Proof Investigations, who is the PI that Katie's family
Speaker 1: have hired to.
Speaker 2: Help them find answers.
Speaker 1: First though, just to recap, as we know, Katie was
Speaker 1: last seen walking down Alexander Street onto Gaelock Avenue in
Speaker 1: Tamarama at one twelve pm on May twenty third, and
Speaker 1: that timestamp there is quite important to remember because this
Speaker 1: week I also saw text messages sent from New South
Speaker 1: Wales Police to one private residence on that street where
Speaker 1: they were requesting their CCTV footage, and in that text
Speaker 1: message the police asked, hey, can you send uzoil footage
Speaker 1: from two pm until eight pm? Despite the fight, Katie
Speaker 1: was on the street at one twelve pm. And when
Speaker 1: I read that message, I fought like, surely not, surely
Speaker 1: they cannot be that incompetent, but yes, it appears they are.
Speaker 1: And the person who received that message their camera on
Speaker 1: their houses at the top of Gaelic Avenue, so maybe
Speaker 1: some maybe one hundred or so meters from where Katie
Speaker 1: was last seen, and that angle could.
Speaker 2: Have captured something crucial.
Speaker 1: But yes, in the message I saw, the police asked
Speaker 1: for footage from the wrong fucking time, like sorry to swear,
Speaker 1: but the wrong fucking time, like it's it's just infuriating,
Speaker 1: and you know this person. When they got the message,
Speaker 1: they then spent a while pulling together footage from that
Speaker 1: six hour window from to till a as requested, and
Speaker 1: they dropped that off at the police stay on a
Speaker 1: hard drive and they then never heard from the police again.
Speaker 1: And the police never followed up saying, hey, could we
Speaker 1: also get the footage from one to two as well?
Speaker 1: And they also didn't send them a message and hey,
Speaker 1: could we also get the footage from after eight pm?
Speaker 1: Because when they realized, hey, Katie was not seen in
Speaker 1: any footage. Again, it's presumably because well she'd already left
Speaker 1: or she was still there in a property perhaps, And
Speaker 1: then yeah, when I found this out and I spoke
Speaker 1: to the person, I said, could you please go back
Speaker 1: and retrieve the footage from one pm to two pm
Speaker 1: and then footage from after eight pm, but especially the
Speaker 1: one to two pm window, because as we know, that
Speaker 1: is when Katie was on the street, and as they
Speaker 1: then logged onto their system to do that, they couldn't
Speaker 1: do that because so much time has now passed that
Speaker 1: all the new footage since then has overwritten all the
Speaker 1: old stuff from that day and it is gone forever,
Speaker 1: which is just fucking like you can't.
Speaker 2: It's inexcusable.
Speaker 1: And I emailed New South Wales Police media asking how
Speaker 1: they could get this so wrong, and I of course
Speaker 1: never received a reply. And I also emailed New South
Speaker 1: Wales Police media asking what inquiries have they actually made
Speaker 1: on that street where Katie disappeared, As since my content
Speaker 1: had started rolling out, one resident who lives meters from
Speaker 1: where Katie was last seen had no idea about her
Speaker 1: disappearance until they saw my content and realized, oh shit,
Speaker 1: this is the street I live on. There's my house
Speaker 1: in the back of this guy's video. And you know,
Speaker 1: they never received a knock on the door from the
Speaker 1: police to ask if they saw anything or had any information,
Speaker 1: despite as far as I'm aware, the police implying to
Speaker 1: Katy's family they did that. And again like if I
Speaker 1: knew the police hadn't done that, I would have done
Speaker 1: that when I first found out about this. But for
Speaker 1: these the most simple boxes here, the footage and knocking
Speaker 1: on doors would have been the first thing ticked off.
Speaker 1: But I can't understand how that foot has been lost.
Speaker 1: And this person who lives meters from where Katie was
Speaker 1: on that street had no idea. And again when I
Speaker 1: asked New South Wales Police about this and knocking on doors,
Speaker 1: I didn't receive a reply to that either.
Speaker 2: And for those of you who aren't in the media
Speaker 2: and unaware.
Speaker 1: What police media is, I'll read you this from their
Speaker 1: website and it says the primary purpose of New South
Speaker 1: Wales Police Media Unit is to manage public communication, handle
Speaker 1: media inquiries and support active investigations.
Speaker 2: AKA.
Speaker 1: The entire purpose of that unit is to provide media
Speaker 1: like myself journalists like myself with statements and guidance to
Speaker 1: assist with our coverage and so we can report accurately
Speaker 1: on their investigations and also to help them with their
Speaker 1: public appeals. But since I started this podcast, and I've
Speaker 1: emailed them several times and I've you maded them pretty
Speaker 1: much with everything I've spoken about on this podcast, I
Speaker 1: haven't had a single response, And in my opinion, that's
Speaker 1: because they just do not care about Katie Walker. And
Speaker 1: that was made apparent, you know, to me in my
Speaker 1: opinion this last week, when one of the detectives on
Speaker 1: her case, after he returned home from a vacation I
Speaker 1: believe or an you will leave, which Katie's family had
Speaker 1: no idea about, and they were questioned in that week
Speaker 1: why they had no correspondence. He told Katie's family this
Speaker 1: week that they have made no progress at all, which
Speaker 1: isn't surprising because it sounds like they've put no effort in. Therefore,
Speaker 1: how could they make progress when they've done nothing to
Speaker 1: try and progress this case? And for those still just
Speaker 1: baffled like me, just why and how they can have
Speaker 1: such little care for this and just get so much wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm now going to be joined by Lucas from Proof Investigations,
Speaker 1: who I kind of speak to you daily. To be honest,
Speaker 1: between me and him and Katie's family were all communicating
Speaker 1: and sharing everything we figure out, and this is what
Speaker 1: we feel the next steps need to be Hello, Lucas,
Speaker 1: how you doing, Like, hey, yeah, I'm good for your
Speaker 1: first time on the podcast, which is weird to me
Speaker 1: because we speak pretty much every day in the last two.
Speaker 3: Weeks, maybe two three times today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you were driving to work do with it
Speaker 1: another job and you said it. You just feld me like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's my routine now, Like because we're sharing all this
Speaker 1: information and the leads were getting constantly and the podcast
Speaker 1: I'm doing today, I've just been talking about what we've
Speaker 1: been chatting about the police's lack of just interest in
Speaker 1: my opinion and proaction, and like, why do you think
Speaker 1: the police just don't seem to care.
Speaker 3: I think from the start they you know, they saw
Speaker 3: the final footage of Katie at Tamarama were near those stairs,
Speaker 3: and also they've been given information against misinformation or information
Speaker 3: on Katie's you know mind of thought at the time
Speaker 3: or now we're finding out information about that. You know,
Speaker 3: she wasn't really like that. She was a mother that
Speaker 3: really wanted to be with her kids. So I guess
Speaker 3: we saw that information they just you know, put one
Speaker 3: on one together. They said, okay, it's easy. You know,
Speaker 3: she was last scene at these stairs. She must have
Speaker 3: gone into the water. That's it.
Speaker 1: And when you say fed this information like about her
Speaker 1: state of mind which maybe suggested the suicide for you,
Speaker 1: Like all the people closest to her, her friends, family, none
Speaker 1: of them have said that.
Speaker 2: It's more.
Speaker 1: From my understanding, they questioned that mine she met in
Speaker 1: the pope and he maybe implied she could have been suicidal.
Speaker 2: And he's the man who knows of the least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, these these friends that these friends that that the
Speaker 3: police have interviewed, they they didn't interview the friends that
Speaker 3: we found that were closest to her. So for example,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth and and Justine. I I approached them through a
Speaker 3: post that I saw Elizabeth post on on Katie saying
Speaker 3: where is my friend Katie? Can anyone helped? So I
Speaker 3: approached her and said, hey, you know, this is who
Speaker 3: I am. Can we talk? And and I haven't received
Speaker 3: an email from the police a few weeks later because
Speaker 3: the dad was pressuring the police into interviewing them, and
Speaker 3: they emailed me saying, hey, can you give me the
Speaker 3: details for these for these friends because we don't know
Speaker 3: who they are.
Speaker 1: It was like because they were the first people I
Speaker 1: found as well and spoke to. And they're the easiest
Speaker 1: people because they were the only people on social media
Speaker 1: posting about Katie and like search, Yeah, like the police
Speaker 1: having to ask you for their details, like fuck me,
Speaker 1: just open Instagram and then it's just for straight and
Speaker 1: again because everybody Katie was talking to most in those
Speaker 1: final days, you know, her family, these two friends in America,
Speaker 1: they're all saying one thing, that she would never do
Speaker 1: what the police think she did. And they've based this
Speaker 1: whole theory off one they comment from a man she
Speaker 1: met in the pub who they questioned, so they he
Speaker 1: kind of planted this seed of doubt that you know,
Speaker 1: the police already fought at that point. Oh, she's gone
Speaker 1: missing near the water. This doesn't look good. Then they've
Speaker 1: saw what they think were the letters in her apartment,
Speaker 1: which everybody who knows that says, well, they're not letters.
Speaker 1: They don't say she's going to take a life. It's
Speaker 1: also not her handwriting, and things are misspelled, so they're
Speaker 1: there questioning whether they're even authentic. And then all the
Speaker 1: friends and family are saying all these things about why.
Speaker 2: She would never do what the police think.
Speaker 1: But then they found this man she spoke to in
Speaker 1: the pub and he's like, no, I think she would.
Speaker 1: And they're basic, you know, the whole theory of circumstantial
Speaker 1: evidence and the word of one man who doesn't know Katie.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, that's right, I mean, And even you know,
Speaker 3: we found out they paid his handwriting. Apparently it was
Speaker 3: amazing handwriting, you know, if it was her last letter
Speaker 3: to leave to her children. Apparently that that letter was scribbled.
Speaker 3: You couldn't even read it. So I doubt it very
Speaker 3: much that that was the case. I don't see it.
Speaker 3: I see that something something else is. I think someone
Speaker 3: has the clue. Someone out there knows something that that
Speaker 3: is going to link everything up. Eventually. We even did,
Speaker 3: we even put drones out to see if there was anything,
Speaker 3: you know, to follow through with what the police have said.
Speaker 3: So we want to say, okay, let's put drones out,
Speaker 3: let's put let's go and search the cliffs and see
Speaker 3: what we find. We couldn't find anything, anything at all.
Speaker 3: Even when the parents for the dad first approached me,
Speaker 3: he said to me that the police said that he
Speaker 3: went to Tamarama as she walked all the way to
Speaker 3: the gap. Can you please told me how far that is?
Speaker 3: Because he's from England, right, And I turned around to
Speaker 3: him and I said, look like he's wearing even in sport.
Speaker 3: Who's I can't walk to the gap?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just context for the listeners who don't know that.
Speaker 1: When you know, the police had this theory Katie went
Speaker 1: into the water Tamarama. Then when they started to realize
Speaker 1: actually that's probably quite impossible given the time of days,
Speaker 1: they then had this theory. All she probably just walked
Speaker 1: to the gap, which is the well known spot up
Speaker 1: in Dover Heights. Fool close, but that's a good hour
Speaker 1: or so walk all uphill, and it's like they had
Speaker 1: nothing to base it off of it. Then we think
Speaker 1: she's ended a life and a lot of people end
Speaker 1: the life in that in that spot. Like again, nothing
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, and you didn't even like just get
Speaker 1: the droner. You've spoken to local drone pilots who fly
Speaker 1: the drones every day for the shark. You've spoken to
Speaker 1: the the surf life savers, like all the people who
Speaker 1: know that that water there and that stretch of lifts
Speaker 1: more than anyone, and they've all gone. There's no way
Speaker 1: she's gone in here. And I think one thing we
Speaker 1: should say here, Lucas that we've been saying lately is
Speaker 1: in our opinion or you know, my opinion. But the police,
Speaker 1: they just need to go back to square one and
Speaker 1: stop thinking it was a suicide and start the whole
Speaker 1: investigation again, because it feels like all this focus has
Speaker 1: been where could she.
Speaker 2: Have gone into the water? What happened on that street?
Speaker 1: But in my opinion, I think the police need to
Speaker 1: let's forget about the street for now. One question, Well,
Speaker 1: Katie's disappeared. Who could possibly want Katie to disappear? Who
Speaker 1: could benefit from somewhere from Katie disappearing, whether that's you know, financially, emotionally,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe Katie's presence, Maybe she knew something, maybe
Speaker 1: like do you know what I mean, there's all these
Speaker 1: parts of her life that were slowly uncovering from all
Speaker 1: these various people and shady characters she's met, Like let's
Speaker 1: start again, and like even you you told me a
Speaker 1: while ago. The police did question a few people, you know,
Speaker 1: we know the man from the pub, but it feels
Speaker 1: like all that line of questioning was more what was
Speaker 1: the state of mind? Like do you think Katie could
Speaker 1: have killed herself? Rather than being like, hey, where were
Speaker 1: you that night.
Speaker 3: That's that's right, that's right. And whenever I so my
Speaker 3: my my point of contact is Katie's dad. And when
Speaker 3: whenever I email him saying hey, you know, we've found this,
Speaker 3: this information, this information, and how about if the police
Speaker 3: can do this, this and this, he just writes back
Speaker 3: to me saying the police won't. The police don't want
Speaker 3: to hear it. They don't. You know, they're not they're
Speaker 3: not communicating with me. They haven't. I mean I think
Speaker 3: he's ridden to him maybe like four or five weeks ago,
Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken, and it's still he has not
Speaker 3: received an email back.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And Katie's father and brother, you know, we can now
Speaker 1: say they also went to Dubai recently. They found where
Speaker 1: Katie was staying. They went to that hotel to try
Speaker 1: and get footage of that man from that night of
Speaker 1: the incident who broke into her room, and the hotel
Speaker 1: would not hand it over. They said the police have
Speaker 1: to do it, so they passed this invo to New
Speaker 1: South Wales police.
Speaker 2: They've done nothing with that.
Speaker 3: That's right. Even I caught up in your past podcast
Speaker 3: you mentioned about the flight center about how they you know,
Speaker 3: she may have got tickets. I called flight center to
Speaker 3: see if you know, if you did actually buy the
Speaker 3: tickets and go and get them, and she's the flight
Speaker 3: center said we can only give that information out to police.
Speaker 3: And I mentioned that to the dad again, and the
Speaker 3: dad mentioned it to the police. So it's really hard
Speaker 3: to get information when your hands are tied.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as an investigator, there's only so much you
Speaker 1: can do. Like and if we had proved Katie booked
Speaker 1: that flight, then that's almost definitive that why would she
Speaker 1: end her life when she did have this plan? You know,
Speaker 1: you try to get the flag center to confirm, but
Speaker 1: for privacy, they can't pass this to the police. Again,
Speaker 1: it's another lead they just aren't following. And like it's
Speaker 1: at the point where it's like, well what the I
Speaker 1: f do, Like we Katie's family have to do.
Speaker 3: And it's obvious Katie had a plan. I mean she
Speaker 3: was you wanted to book the tickets to get out
Speaker 3: of a trailer because of a visa, renew her visa,
Speaker 3: come back to her kids and spend her life with
Speaker 3: her kids. I mean that too. Her friends does not
Speaker 3: sound like someone that will end their life.
Speaker 1: Nah, it's just sad and I think we've both felt
Speaker 1: it as well, because like you know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: consumed us, but where we've put so much time and
Speaker 1: hours and emotion into this trying to help, and like
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't even know the things you
Speaker 1: did in the early days, you know, like do you
Speaker 1: remember you're telling me you were going around the local
Speaker 1: op shops and sales shops, you know, to see if
Speaker 1: her like a turned up anywhere, because maybe if you
Speaker 1: could find that, then at least that would maybe suggest
Speaker 1: it was left behind somewhere.
Speaker 3: And she Yeah, I was actually thinking, you know, if
Speaker 3: someone was someone wants to find the bag or the
Speaker 3: high heels or anything like that, you know, maybe they
Speaker 3: might sell them at some op shop or you know,
Speaker 3: pass it on that way. I didn't find anything. I
Speaker 3: went through pretty much the Holy and suburbs where they
Speaker 3: saw secondhand stuff. Didn't find anything. We did pamphlets and
Speaker 3: stood in the street where she was last seen and
Speaker 3: gave out pamphlets to just refresh people's memories. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: it's something that's really you know, there is a clue there.
Speaker 3: There is there is something there that we just haven't
Speaker 3: found it yet. And I think when when we do
Speaker 3: find it, it will all come together.
Speaker 2: It feels like we're getting close yet was so far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we're getting close with the information that
Speaker 3: we're getting, and then when we try and look into
Speaker 3: that information, we get blocked by only police can to
Speaker 3: get this information, and then you sort of pass it
Speaker 3: on to the police and they're doing nothing with it.
Speaker 3: So it's it's really hard.
Speaker 1: There's also one thing for listeners to know about the
Speaker 1: police because someone I read a comment once saying maybe
Speaker 1: the police aren't sharing much information because they're onto something
Speaker 1: that they don't want people knowing.
Speaker 2: But I don't believe that's true.
Speaker 1: Firstly, because as a journalist, when you're working on an
Speaker 1: active investigation, like everything that I've reported on in my pot,
Speaker 1: I put to the police first saying can you comment
Speaker 1: on this, can you offer a statement?
Speaker 2: Can you give clarity?
Speaker 1: And if it was something of significance that they didn't
Speaker 1: want publicly out there, they would like kind of say, hey,
Speaker 1: you can't report on that, I'll share that, I'll try
Speaker 1: to suppress the content because that would interfere with an
Speaker 1: active investigation. They haven't done that once. They haven't replied
Speaker 1: to a single email I've had and even you as
Speaker 1: a PI. They've not once said to you, hey, you're
Speaker 1: you're getting in the way here, you're doing like they
Speaker 1: didn't they even tell Katie's family they're welcome to get
Speaker 1: their own PI.
Speaker 3: Yeah, towards their end of their discussions, when when Katie's
Speaker 3: dad was going to leave, the police pretty much said
Speaker 3: to him, We've come to this kind of conclusion type thing.
Speaker 3: You're more than welcome to get privately now, you know,
Speaker 3: get private drones, get private everything, and private investigator. And
Speaker 3: going back to the drone and the Life Savers, I
Speaker 3: was speaking to the lady that she did, she does
Speaker 3: the drones for the Life Savers, and she said they
Speaker 3: get they get almost every single day. You know, people
Speaker 3: come into the Life Savers and saying, there's a dance
Speaker 3: over there that looked really suspicious. That's someone that's really
Speaker 3: close to the rocks over there. I think you guys
Speaker 3: should go into it out. You know, there's someone walking
Speaker 3: and they don't they look a bit suspicious. So there's
Speaker 3: people going all the time to the Life Savers and
Speaker 3: letting them know that, you know, what they see on
Speaker 3: their walks. And there's a lot of people whoever's done
Speaker 3: that walk, will know that there is a lot of
Speaker 3: people walking, there's a lot of eyes out there at
Speaker 3: that walk.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So again that just kind of goes back to what
Speaker 1: we said earlier of the police, in our opinion, go
Speaker 1: back to the start. Stop focusing on this thing she
Speaker 1: went into the water. You know, they went into this
Speaker 1: investigation with this theory that they then seems they just
Speaker 1: tried to prove rather than actually investigating, and now they
Speaker 1: need to go back investigate, speak to every single person
Speaker 1: who knows Katie, who Katie has interacted with in Australia.
Speaker 3: You know, I agree Jegh, like if the police just
Speaker 3: go back again and just take it, take it again
Speaker 3: with expression for animation. You know Katie was you know,
Speaker 3: she wanted to be a good mum again. She wanted
Speaker 3: to get back into their lives, you know, get out
Speaker 3: of this thought that she would have done something like that.
Speaker 3: Maybe they can find the clue that they missed.
Speaker 1: Yes, so instead of them thinking where did Katie end
Speaker 1: their life, they should now think who could want to
Speaker 1: make Katie disappear?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: That's I suppose this episode of the podcast kind of
Speaker 1: letting everybody know where we're at together.
Speaker 2: People have asked.
Speaker 1: Why we haven't heard you on here so far, and
Speaker 1: I suppose because we'd like everything I've spoken about. It's
Speaker 1: what we're sharing together and with Katie's family. I've just
Speaker 1: been the voice, but it's good for people to hear
Speaker 1: you and know that this isn't just me.
Speaker 2: And hopefully hopefully.
Speaker 3: We talk a bit too much on the phone. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, if the police