Speaker 1: So what are we doing?
Speaker 2: How are we going to do this? How did you
Speaker 2: envision this? Triptball or natural? My name is David Fisher.
Speaker 2: I'm an investigative reporter for the New Zealand Herald, and
Speaker 2: that is me speaking. Back in June twenty eleven, I
Speaker 2: was at a roadside food court on the Southern Motorway
Speaker 2: in Auckland. The Glamorous Life of a Journalist if you've
Speaker 2: listened to episode one, I mentioned this meeting briefly. This
Speaker 2: happened a few months after my investigation into Natalia Burgess
Speaker 2: went live in The Herald on Sunday, The Facebook Predator,
Speaker 2: we called her. Then I exposed Natalia after learning she'd
Speaker 2: been impersonating a number of young women on social media.
Speaker 2: She'd been using their photographs to lure teenage boys and
Speaker 2: young men into online relationships. It took me a while
Speaker 2: to get Natalia to talk on the record, and I
Speaker 2: eventually met up with her at another glamorous dining destination,
Speaker 2: the Muffin Break in Westfield Wall in South Auckland. During
Speaker 2: that time, I've been building a relationship with one of
Speaker 2: the women Natalia had impersonated. It was Natalie's photographs that
Speaker 2: she'd been using for one of her main personalities. Natalie
Speaker 2: and her mum, Kushler, had been fighting Natalia for several
Speaker 2: years at that point, with Natalie's photographs being used as
Speaker 2: the basis for Laura West, one of Natalia's main characters. Laura,
Speaker 2: you may remember, was the young woman killed off by
Speaker 2: Natalia in a fictional car crash at the end of
Speaker 2: twenty ten. We picked this truck stop as an in
Speaker 2: between location. I picked Natalia up and drove her there.
Speaker 2: In the article about the meeting between Natalia, Natalie, and Kushler,
Speaker 2: I wrote about how Natalia couldn't take her eyes off Natalie.
Speaker 2: As I sat there and watched the two speak, I
Speaker 2: could see Natalia reaching out on a number of occasions
Speaker 2: to touch New on the arm. She was clearly enamored
Speaker 2: to meet her victim, to meet the woman whose face
Speaker 2: she'd used, But it took some prompting to get to
Speaker 2: the point of what we've come there to do. We've
Speaker 2: been sitting here for twenty five minutes half now. I
Speaker 2: haven't heard you apologize yet. Do you feel you need to?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course I do.
Speaker 4: I am absolutely.
Speaker 5: So heartfully sorry that I here's your naders for all
Speaker 5: of these people, plus now plus as I was reminded
Speaker 5: that I forgot that.
Speaker 6: Plus one of your friend's daughters.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, she was a little Yes, I said
Speaker 1: to Italia.
Speaker 7: Actions are what sorry?
Speaker 4: Story? You know, just the word actions?
Speaker 1: What works?
Speaker 5: Very late? Say sorry, sorry, sorry about the most You're
Speaker 5: actually out there? Any help, confessing everything, putting this to
Speaker 5: a stop once and for all. Then that's when I'm
Speaker 5: to believe that your.
Speaker 8: Li was finished.
Speaker 5: I mean I was, so you carry on the stands
Speaker 5: your can you? Because I mean no, just be so
Speaker 5: out like you said on sixteen minutes, you know, just for.
Speaker 1: Yourself, yourself.
Speaker 2: The three women discussed a lot during this conversation. We'll
Speaker 2: dive back into this in a later episode when we
Speaker 2: go more into what Natalie was up to prior to
Speaker 2: her and I crossing paths in twenty eleven. We've been
Speaker 2: about an hour in that sticky cheap food cart when
Speaker 2: I said this to Natalia. You say you want to stop,
Speaker 2: and you say you want to get better, and you
Speaker 2: say you don't want to do it anymore. Doing that
Speaker 2: is going to be really hard, and you're going to
Speaker 2: have to give things up, and you're going to have
Speaker 2: to make yourself do it. Natalia told me and Natalie
Speaker 2: she wanted to stop listening back to that conversation and
Speaker 2: that assurance. Thirteen years on, almost are naive taking Natalia
Speaker 2: at her word, because, as you've probably worked out by now,
Speaker 2: Natalia didn't stop in twenty eleven.
Speaker 9: So my name is Crystal Journa and I was originally
Speaker 9: born in New Zealand. I've moved over to Australia when
Speaker 9: i was twenty seven and I'm now.
Speaker 10: Thirty seven, so going on ten years living here.
Speaker 2: Crystal emailed me towards the end of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: She told me that a woman called Natalia Burgess had
Speaker 2: been using her social media images, and that she'd done
Speaker 2: so for almost a decade, crafting false identities that were
Speaker 2: then used to trick men and women. Back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: Natalia had used such images of other people to create
Speaker 2: a world of danger and drama and excitement, though she
Speaker 2: pulled in believed everything was real. A few years after
Speaker 2: she was exposed, after I had outed her, Natalia ended
Speaker 2: up in jail. I thought that was the end of
Speaker 2: her story, but when Crystal reached out to me, I
Speaker 2: discovered that jail was just a short break in a
Speaker 2: two decade fantasy that Natalia has played out online. For
Speaker 2: the past year, investigating the extent of Natalia's online lies,
Speaker 2: spoken to many of the men and women that have
Speaker 2: fallen victim to those deceits, and tried to find out
Speaker 2: what can be done to stop her. I didn't think
Speaker 2: I've investigating Natalia again, but now that I am, I'm
Speaker 2: starting to wonder if I missed the real story the
Speaker 2: first time it was told. I'm David Fisher and this
Speaker 2: is Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer.
Speaker 10: My name's Lucy L.
Speaker 11: Jenna and I currently live in the UK. My daughter
Speaker 11: is Crystal Jenna who lives in Surface Paradise in Australia,
Speaker 11: and she's basically had her profile used by somebody called
Speaker 11: Natalia Burgers for years now, which has impacted a lot
Speaker 11: on her life, because, yeah, she's been selling her photos
Speaker 11: and basically been trying to pretend that she is the
Speaker 11: person behind the pho shows.
Speaker 2: Crystal has been living an awesome surfers Paradise life since
Speaker 2: arriving in Australia in twenty thirteen. If you haven't been
Speaker 2: to Surfers, as the locals call it, you've probably seen
Speaker 2: images of it associated with Australia, the skyline of apartment
Speaker 2: buildings towers above Golden Sand beaches. The local toroism organization
Speaker 2: Destination Gold Coast uses words like iconic to describe it,
Speaker 2: calling it an entertainment playground famous for world class nightlife,
Speaker 2: holiday vibes and a pumping atmosphere.
Speaker 9: I currently own a couple of businesses, one being a
Speaker 9: cleaning company, which I've been doing for the last three
Speaker 9: and a half years.
Speaker 10: And I've got a couple of staff that also work
Speaker 10: for me, so that's great.
Speaker 9: And I also have a woman's clothing boutiques, so rangers
Speaker 9: from like women's active wear, cocktail dresses, and swimwear as well.
Speaker 2: And that was a lot of what Crystal used social
Speaker 2: media for pushing her business, showing fresh clothing designs, young,
Speaker 2: cool creations perfect for the Gold Coast. But that's not
Speaker 2: all that was on Crystal social media. She works hard,
Speaker 2: but she plays hard too, absolutely living what she calls
Speaker 2: her best life. I asked Crystal's mom to describe her daughter.
Speaker 2: It's hardly an unbiased view, but this is the life
Speaker 2: that Crystal made.
Speaker 6: She's so social.
Speaker 11: Her photos are fun like Obviously she's always having a
Speaker 11: good time. Number One, she's super attractive, so she's got
Speaker 11: very colorful photo. She's always smiling, laughing, you know, obviously
Speaker 11: having fun out with her friends.
Speaker 10: She's got a jet ski.
Speaker 11: So she's out at the beach, She's out with her
Speaker 11: dogs a lot. You know, they're just photos that would
Speaker 11: appeal to a lot of people because it looks like
Speaker 11: she's having a really good life. She's got everything going
Speaker 11: on for here, so I think that's attractive to most people.
Speaker 2: Crystal's life was so appealing she became the new face
Speaker 2: of a cluster of false identities used by Natalia Burgess
Speaker 2: since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 9: I would say, stemming back almost eight years now, I've
Speaker 9: had random contact with males that all approach me and say, hey,
Speaker 9: I've come across a profile with all your photos.
Speaker 10: I've been talking to like.
Speaker 9: A version of use of a cat versh version of you,
Speaker 9: not realizing that you're actually a totally different person.
Speaker 2: This is how it usually unfolds. And when I say usually,
Speaker 2: Crystal's been through this quite a few times over quite
Speaker 2: a few years. It's generally, but not always, men who
Speaker 2: approach her they will have connected with the false profile
Speaker 2: and in most cases had some sort of prolonged engagement
Speaker 2: with a person who has generally been called Kaylei. That's
Speaker 2: the chosen first name, and it's an interesting one because
Speaker 2: you might recall from the first episode there was the
Speaker 2: name Natalia Burgess used for the child she invented, the
Speaker 2: child whose fictitious mum, Laura West, died in that car crash.
Speaker 2: Kaylie is the name used for almost all of Natalia's fakes,
Speaker 2: since she came out of jail the same first name
Speaker 2: and a succession of surnames. And when Crystal was told
Speaker 2: of and directed to those fake profiles, there was a
Speaker 2: pattern that developed when she tried to visit them.
Speaker 10: So usually I'm blocked.
Speaker 9: My personal profile on my Facebook or any social media
Speaker 9: is blocked.
Speaker 2: To see how her face is been used, Crystal has
Speaker 2: to ask the men again usually men, but not always,
Speaker 2: to send her screenshots.
Speaker 9: It'll be any photos that I potentially had, well, any
Speaker 9: photos that I actually.
Speaker 10: Had that were public on either my.
Speaker 9: Instagram or my Facebook, so anything that I had it
Speaker 9: ahead in or anything that I might have also been
Speaker 9: tagged on from friends pages. It would have usually myself
Speaker 9: as a profile picture. She also used multiple of my
Speaker 9: friends photos and made other profiles on Facebook using their
Speaker 9: photos as well, and they would all the profiles would
Speaker 9: talk to each other, I guess, making it look more
Speaker 9: authentic like And.
Speaker 2: It's not just that Natalia has used Crystal's face. She
Speaker 2: also mined crystal social circles for images to support the
Speaker 2: new Kaylee false identities. She's even taken photographs of Crystal's friends'
Speaker 2: children off their social media accounts and use them, claiming
Speaker 2: they are children of her own.
Speaker 9: This Kaylee person has all these other friends. The profile
Speaker 9: will have multiple selfies of myself in whatever caption she
Speaker 9: chooses to use. Initially, I was a single woman. Over time,
Speaker 9: I've become now as single map. She's used my friend's
Speaker 9: children's boat I was from also mostly from Instagram.
Speaker 10: I find there's where she finds a lot of her content.
Speaker 2: Now it's the same pattern as twenty eleven, but now
Speaker 2: with photos of real children, not just the baby voice
Speaker 2: that Natalia would use on phone calls. Crystal doesn't have children,
Speaker 2: well she does if you include her beloved dogs. But
Speaker 2: by taking photographs of other people's children, possibly even images
Speaker 2: in which Crystal features, Natalia is able to add another
Speaker 2: layer to the fancy world she's creating for Crystal, this
Speaker 2: has gone beyond annoying. There was the awkwardness of men
Speaker 2: contacting her and what they expected.
Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, the person she's trying to be is
Speaker 9: a lot different to who I am. I mean, like
Speaker 9: her alias of me, it does seem like a very
Speaker 9: different profile to how I live my life and who I.
Speaker 10: Am friends with. I think she almost plays like, you know, I'm.
Speaker 9: A single woman looking for love, and that's how she
Speaker 9: ends up talking to these men.
Speaker 10: I'm almost like a helpless person.
Speaker 9: In her the way that she promotes me, like you know,
Speaker 9: single woman just looking for love and someone to help
Speaker 9: her out.
Speaker 2: And there was the sinking feeling of having photographs of
Speaker 2: big events in her life taken and news for another purpose.
Speaker 2: But there was also the impact on Crystal's business. As
Speaker 2: a fashion designer and retailer, Crystal needs to be able
Speaker 2: to show off her weirs. Social media provides a great
Speaker 2: platform to do so, and modeling from Crystal and her
Speaker 2: group of friends provides a great showcase and a personal
Speaker 2: connection between the viewer and the designer. But not so
Speaker 2: much when every photograph is a new chapter in Italia's story.
Speaker 9: I did start making all of my photos and everything private,
Speaker 9: so you know, my social media, my Instagram account is
Speaker 9: our private. My Facebook, I've borne and physically changed all
Speaker 9: my photos so it's friends only to try and stop
Speaker 9: it from happening. But on the odd occasion, because I
Speaker 9: do own a couple of businesses, I might open up.
Speaker 10: My profile, for instance, for a week or so did
Speaker 10: potentially do some advertising.
Speaker 9: And I mean within a week, all my new photos
Speaker 9: that I might have will be taken and a new
Speaker 9: profile will be made again.
Speaker 10: So just literally any photos that she can get hold of,
Speaker 10: she will use.
Speaker 2: The impact isn't felt solely by Crystal. Being a parent
Speaker 2: means you never stop worrying about your kids, feeling protective
Speaker 2: of them, wanting the best for them, and that was
Speaker 2: Lucille for Crystal, along with a growing realization that what
Speaker 2: was happening in the online world was having a real
Speaker 2: world impact.
Speaker 11: She's quite an emotional person as well. She's quite deep
Speaker 11: and you know, she looks like this, well she was
Speaker 11: blonde at the time she's start now, but she looks
Speaker 11: like this, like cute little blonde, you know. But she's
Speaker 11: actually a very very deep person, and especially when she
Speaker 11: found out that these guys were getting seriously hurt through this.
Speaker 11: It really impacted on her, so she had to take
Speaker 11: down all her profiles. Social media plays a big part
Speaker 11: in her business because she needs to advertize and she's
Speaker 11: part of the brand of her business, so it impacted
Speaker 11: on everything this.
Speaker 2: Sial told me that during the years this unfolded, there
Speaker 2: was a time when Crystal was struggling with depression. That's
Speaker 2: not necessarily because her life and her friend's life was
Speaker 2: constantly being mined for catfishing content. But it shows, says
Speaker 2: these hell that perfect life photos you see on social
Speaker 2: media aren't necessarily a reflection of what's really happening.
Speaker 11: I see that, like you said, the photos of somebody
Speaker 11: and you think, well, their life's perfect, they must have
Speaker 11: the best life ever. But in the background, there are
Speaker 11: a lot of things going on with people, including her.
Speaker 11: So for her, it was like a massive impact, especially
Speaker 11: on her financial side, because she just couldn't put anything
Speaker 11: public up because as soon as she put something public up,
Speaker 11: Natalia would take the photos and create another profile with them,
Speaker 11: and she didn't want to hurt any anyone.
Speaker 10: Else to get hurt.
Speaker 11: But also she's got to run a business.
Speaker 9: As well.
Speaker 11: So yeah, it was really really difficult.
Speaker 2: After I first heard from Crystal, I made contact with
Speaker 2: some of the men whom Natalia had lured in using
Speaker 2: her photos. Some of these men who were tricked by
Speaker 2: Natalia's profiles would sooner than later come across the real
Speaker 2: Crystal online, and they mistakenly thought she was the woman
Speaker 2: with whom that she had secrets and sexual experiences online.
Speaker 2: Since Crystal had spoken to them, she was able to
Speaker 2: put me in touch with them. So who are these men?
Speaker 2: Largely good dudes living complicated lives.
Speaker 1: I'm Jaden Marin and I did own a beekeeping company
Speaker 1: for the past ten years.
Speaker 2: I'm currently in a rehab Jaden has a meth and
Speaker 2: feedomin addiction for which he's seeking help. It was an
Speaker 2: addiction that contributed to the prison sentence he had just
Speaker 2: finished serving when he met Natalia, or rather he met
Speaker 2: Kaylie Rose.
Speaker 1: I just recently got out of jail after spending five
Speaker 1: and a half months in there. So I got out,
Speaker 1: and I might have been out a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: and then got back into drug using, and I was
Speaker 1: using quite a lot of myth then. So I was
Speaker 1: talking to quite a few women because I just got
Speaker 1: out of jail, basically, So.
Speaker 2: This was Jaden lonely, wasted and a long time without
Speaker 2: genuine warmth, cruising Facebook with hope in his heart and
Speaker 2: meth andphetamine in his brain. It's not a great combination
Speaker 2: for rational decision making. I met with Jaden when he
Speaker 2: was in a rehab clinic in Auckland. He's trying to
Speaker 2: get to grips with the addiction that led to a
Speaker 2: general breakdown of life in then prison. It was the
Speaker 2: right move and I hope it goes well for him.
Speaker 2: He was clear minded when we spoke, and he did
Speaker 2: so because he recognized how easily someone could be sucked
Speaker 2: into Natalia's world. So Jaden was sitting around wasted Facebook,
Speaker 2: scrolling and thinking about women.
Speaker 1: I've seen the friend rest or whatever. And then there
Speaker 1: was a photo of quite a good looking young blonde
Speaker 1: lady and I had a quick flick through the photos,
Speaker 1: obviously went through her page a little bit, and she
Speaker 1: was constantly posting updates, probably maybe four times a day,
Speaker 1: constant photos out and stat us updates.
Speaker 2: And this and that. At this stage and for some time,
Speaker 2: Jaden thought the woman who contacted him was as she
Speaker 2: presented herself. They started chatting, and one thing that sticks
Speaker 2: with Jaden is how eagerly the false accounts sent messages.
Speaker 2: Natalia drove the conversation with question after question. Jaden, meanwhile,
Speaker 2: wasn't the most ideal conversation partner.
Speaker 1: Obviously, I was high on drugs, preoccupied with other people
Speaker 1: around me, doing my own thing, and I was trying
Speaker 1: to just answering a question. Then there'd been another question
Speaker 1: come through all of these messages having EXO on the
Speaker 1: end of them, so obviously being a male or that
Speaker 1: kind of caught my attention, like, oh, a beautiful woman,
Speaker 1: and then she's engaging in the conversation.
Speaker 2: Jaden's interest was beyond Pete. He wanted to know who
Speaker 2: this woman was, so went from messenger to the page profile.
Speaker 1: Obviously I've gone through that a Facebook page. Was got
Speaker 1: quite interested and they looked at the woman.
Speaker 2: The detail that was in the profile was compelling. When
Speaker 2: Jaden began exploring the fake profile, it was the detail
Speaker 2: that convinced him that she was real.
Speaker 1: She was uploading I'd say, two photos every day and
Speaker 1: they're all different, Like whoever had done this, They'd put
Speaker 1: a lot of work into this fake Facebook profile and
Speaker 1: they muster. They had quite a lot of photos of Crystal. Like,
Speaker 1: you went through the profile and it just looked like
Speaker 1: a normal Facebook profile. Yeah, it looked quite genuine.
Speaker 2: Jaden wasn't the only person at his house that night.
Speaker 2: There was a bit of a gathering going on, part
Speaker 2: of what was distracting him from a deeper conversation with
Speaker 2: the woman he had just met online. But the real
Speaker 2: difference to the busy house that night was that, by
Speaker 2: a chance, one of those people present knew the real Crystal.
Speaker 1: There was maybe a five year old child and a
Speaker 1: photo but with darker skin, and he noticed straight away,
Speaker 1: He's like, she doesn't have a kid here on with
Speaker 1: this profile.
Speaker 2: As they looked more deeply, other cracks and the fiction emerged.
Speaker 2: It took a couple of hours digging and a suspicious
Speaker 2: mind already triggered by the photographs of the child, but
Speaker 2: there were a number of tales which exposed the page
Speaker 2: as fake. Then they made contact with the real Crystal.
Speaker 1: He was friends with the actual Crystal on Facebook, and
Speaker 1: we made contact with her and then let her know
Speaker 1: what we had found out.
Speaker 2: What it followed is not unfamiliar to Crystal. The fake
Speaker 2: page was exposed shut down and Jaden added to the
Speaker 2: list of blocked people who couldn't access Natalia's page. This
Speaker 2: whole scenario playing out one drug addull evening and left
Speaker 2: Jaden with a feeling that hasn't shifted and why he
Speaker 2: spoke to me.
Speaker 1: I find it quite disturbing. I talked to quite a
Speaker 1: few women while I'm single anyway, you know, I am
Speaker 1: a maleso. We do what we do. But I found
Speaker 1: it quite actually sickening and disturbing. Was always to the
Speaker 1: point where, you know, it made me sick of the stomach.
Speaker 1: Were what this woman was doing, half for what it
Speaker 1: was doing, partially with the effect that she was having
Speaker 1: on Crystal's life. But then if I'm just one of
Speaker 1: the people that she's talking to, how many more people
Speaker 1: out there is this happening to it?
Speaker 2: I spoke to a few men who just didn't realize
Speaker 2: the extent of Natalia's deceit. When I told them I
Speaker 2: was doing a podcast about this. Many didn't want their
Speaker 2: voices heard. They didn't want people who might recognize them
Speaker 2: to connect their voice to the stories they told of
Speaker 2: the woman they met online. It speaks to the shame
Speaker 2: and the embarrassment that a lot of these men feel
Speaker 2: about being deceived in a lot of ways. They're like Jaden,
Speaker 2: tough guys. There's staunch guys in the real world, guys
Speaker 2: who never really give a clue as to what's happening
Speaker 2: beneath the surface. I get a few of them to
Speaker 2: talk to me, some of them on the record, like Jared,
Speaker 2: who lives in Western Australia. These are his words read
Speaker 2: by a voice actor.
Speaker 12: What you need to do is get her daughter help,
Speaker 12: because obviously she's got her daughter helping her with the
Speaker 12: lies and story as well. She used to call me
Speaker 12: in the morning saying she just wants a daddy that
Speaker 12: her own daddy doesn't want her.
Speaker 2: After I told him there was no daughter. That was it.
Speaker 2: The message has stopped. And there's Jake, who lives in Auckland. Jake, well,
Speaker 2: he's been pretty messed up by the situation. When I
Speaker 2: first spoke to Jake, he was open to an interview,
Speaker 2: and then he wasn't, and then he goes to me.
Speaker 2: But when we did speak, he told me just how
Speaker 2: heavily invested he became in Natalia's world.
Speaker 12: A guy committed suicide over it. That's where I would
Speaker 12: have been heading if I'd kept on with it.
Speaker 2: Jake's likely referring to Peter Russell there, who we spoke
Speaker 2: about in episode one. But while it's the opinion of
Speaker 2: his mother an ex girlfriend that Natalia is responsible for
Speaker 2: his death, my experience is that it's extremely uncommon for
Speaker 2: there to be a single reason for suicide. Jake had
Speaker 2: a close connection to Natalia, so close and one that
Speaker 2: lasted long enough that she adopted his surname for some
Speaker 2: of her false characters Jake and Cayley because that's the
Speaker 2: name she was using. Kaylie Rose were involved for around
Speaker 2: nine months.
Speaker 12: We started talking a lot every day for a couple
Speaker 12: of months. I said we need to meet, and she wouldn't.
Speaker 2: When talking about the guys that Natalia had been involved with,
Speaker 2: Jacob described them as really vulnerable, and they were vulnerable.
Speaker 5: That is.
Speaker 2: One man I spoke to lived in an isolated rural
Speaker 2: Australian town, some of those places that would disappear in
Speaker 2: a blast of sandy wind. For him, Natalia or Kaylee
Speaker 2: as he knew her, was a way out of the
Speaker 2: life he had Like the others. She promised him something
Speaker 2: that wasn't real, something that couldn't be because she wasn't real,
Speaker 2: but as is often the case with Natalia, it seemed
Speaker 2: real to him. For years, Crystal had no idea who
Speaker 2: was behind the fake profile. There were bread crumbs, little
Speaker 2: clues along the way that hinted at a source. Sometimes
Speaker 2: there were phone numbers connected to the fake accounts, and
Speaker 2: when there were phone numbers, they were New Zealan numbers.
Speaker 2: It was a frustrating puzzle until Crystal heard from a
Speaker 2: friend back home.
Speaker 9: I had him bessage from one of my friends back
Speaker 9: in New Zealand, Sophie, and she said, I think it's
Speaker 9: this woman.
Speaker 10: She's made fake profiles of me in the past.
Speaker 9: I've had issues with her for years and years and years.
Speaker 13: So I'm Sophia Jarrett and my friends call me Sophie. Currently,
Speaker 13: I'm based here in Darwin and Australia. I encountered Natalia
Speaker 13: Burgesson about twenty eleven, and my most recent encounter.
Speaker 10: With her yeah, probably a couple of years ago now.
Speaker 13: So she's been a part of my life intermittently for
Speaker 13: the last however long.
Speaker 2: Remember Abbe, Laura's sister, Abbey who called Bernie to tell
Speaker 2: who Laura had died back in episode one, Abby was
Speaker 2: created using the face of Sophie Jarrett, and not only Abby.
Speaker 2: Sophie has since encountered many false identities over the years,
Speaker 2: for which she holds Natalia responsible. The West sisters, Abbi, Laura,
Speaker 2: and the others seemed to have served a number of purposes.
Speaker 2: Natalie would use the different accounts to message each other,
Speaker 2: discuss family matters and social activities, kind of putting meat
Speaker 2: on the bones of a skeleton of falsehood. We know
Speaker 2: the Laura West fake identity went back to at least
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, and that Laura's sisters were long
Speaker 2: a part of the identity and Natalia had built Sophie
Speaker 2: didn't actually discover Natalia had been using her image until
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, but we know now that Abby, as she
Speaker 2: was called, had been around for a while already.
Speaker 13: So this was when Bibo was huge and everyone was
Speaker 13: on Bebo. My friends came across this montage, like a
Speaker 13: eulogy montage, with my face all over it, and so
Speaker 13: my friend Brooke was kind of panicked, like a U Okay,
Speaker 13: I've just seen this video. It says rip and it's
Speaker 13: got your face all over it, and I was sort
Speaker 13: of shocked.
Speaker 10: And kind of didn't.
Speaker 13: Really believe it, and I was like, no, I'm fine,
Speaker 13: I'm here, I'm at Auckland, I'm totally alive.
Speaker 2: So Iphi got Brooke to send her a link to
Speaker 2: the video so that she could see it.
Speaker 13: And it was one of those with some really sad
Speaker 13: funeral music on it and just all these photos of
Speaker 13: me saying rap atbe Williams. And that was the first
Speaker 13: that I'd ever been made aware that my photos had
Speaker 13: been used by someone else.
Speaker 2: At that point, Sophie didn't know who Natalie Burgess was.
Speaker 2: No one did actually until April of twenty eleven, when
Speaker 2: I'd worked out that she was behind the fakes that
Speaker 2: were engaging with teenage boys. Nobody had any idea as
Speaker 2: to who was doing it, or how or what their
Speaker 2: motivations were. So for Sophie it was really unnerving to
Speaker 2: be sitting watching a funeral reel of photographs when she
Speaker 2: was supposed to be the person who had died.
Speaker 13: To ladge a formal complaint and make police report about
Speaker 13: my images being used, I'd printed off all of the
Speaker 13: photos and because I found some BBO profile stuff and
Speaker 13: just everything I could find, and I printed off a
Speaker 13: stack of paper and brought it into the police station
Speaker 13: and said, this woman's.
Speaker 10: Pretending to be me. What can I do about it?
Speaker 13: At this point, I'm actually when I realized she was
Speaker 13: me online and I found out she lived in Auckland
Speaker 13: as well, I was actually really panicked, and I was
Speaker 13: actually really afraid for my personal safety because that's when
Speaker 13: I don't know what she's capable of. I'm is she
Speaker 13: actually talking me in real life? I posted a lot
Speaker 13: on social media about what I'm doing, and so I
Speaker 13: was actually kind of scared and wanted something to be
Speaker 13: done about it. And when I was there, they're like, well,
Speaker 13: there's actually no laws against this right now. You know,
Speaker 13: in twenty eleven, there was no protection like identity theft prediction.
Speaker 2: That's one part of the story we'll come back to later.
Speaker 2: Natalia's conviction in twenty thirteen and jail sentence of two
Speaker 2: years and two months was a relief for Sophie for
Speaker 2: her a Minton end to Natalia using her photographs as
Speaker 2: the face of Abbi. It also seemed as if justice
Speaker 2: of a sort had been served. There had been too
Speaker 2: a fear that the person who was using her image
Speaker 2: online might suddenly appear in her real life, and so
Speaker 2: Natalia going to prison also brought an end to that fear.
Speaker 13: I thought that might be the last I had to
Speaker 13: deal with her, but it was a few years later
Speaker 13: that things started popping up again. I went back and
Speaker 13: I was like twenty eighteen she had started profiles and
Speaker 13: again of me, and twenty nineteen another profile came out,
Speaker 13: and then twenty twenty one, it must have been another
Speaker 13: one came out like she's just and throughout I didn't
Speaker 13: realize it, but over those years that she'd been following me,
Speaker 13: she'd packed up on other friends like Crystal and another
Speaker 13: friend of mine, Soraya, and latch onto them too and
Speaker 13: started using.
Speaker 10: Their profile photos.
Speaker 13: But she got quite ballsy in twenty and eighteen and
Speaker 13: just started using my real name, And I thought, like,
Speaker 13: must be a gain to her, and it's got to
Speaker 13: be a stab at me for sure, just to start
Speaker 13: using my actual name on these fake profiles, Like you know,
Speaker 13: you try to stop me, but I can still find
Speaker 13: you and still use your photos, and I'm still doing
Speaker 13: what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: When Crystal began to raise an alarm among her friends
Speaker 2: over her images being used for fake profiles, Sophie knew
Speaker 2: exactly who was behind it. This was twenty nineteen and
Speaker 2: Cristel was being approached online by people, mainly men, who
Speaker 2: believed she was the woman they had befriended online, and
Speaker 2: for some it went much further than simply being friends.
Speaker 2: Cristel was as much in the dark as Sophie Happen
Speaker 2: years earlier, and she was baffled. She was being approached
Speaker 2: by complete strangers who acted as if they knew her
Speaker 2: well and even intimately in a way, it was a
Speaker 2: relief to know who was behind it. Was fascinating too,
Speaker 2: to discover that Natalia had taken steps to keep Crystal
Speaker 2: from learning who she was. Natalia blocked her from accessing
Speaker 2: her Facebook page, and when she created false identities using
Speaker 2: Crystal's photographs Crystal's mum, Lucille, she wasn't blocked, and in
Speaker 2: just a few short years, she had seen the impact
Speaker 2: this was having on her daughter.
Speaker 11: I think the biggest impact was when she found out
Speaker 11: what these guys had been through with Natalia, and to
Speaker 11: think that they thought it was her that was doing it,
Speaker 11: you know, like because she was the face behind everything
Speaker 11: that they felt like they were speaking to her when
Speaker 11: she knew nothing about it at all, and so that's
Speaker 11: sort of what I had to say to her, like,
Speaker 11: you know, it's not your fault, Like you've done absolutely
Speaker 11: nothing wrong with Natalia identified.
Speaker 2: Lucille did what any parent would do. She bailed up
Speaker 2: the person who was making their child's life a torment.
Speaker 2: She did so over messenger and provided me the exchange
Speaker 2: with Natalia. This is an important piece of evidence because
Speaker 2: it removes any doubt Natalie was behind the false page.
Speaker 2: It's also important because it gives an insight into Natalia's
Speaker 2: world and her motivations, and also a real vulnerability. Here's
Speaker 2: that exchange, voice by two actors.
Speaker 14: Hi there, my daughter just informed me. You've been using
Speaker 14: her photos to cat fish young boys. You have already
Speaker 14: been to jail for this, and we'll end up there again.
Speaker 14: Stop doing it. You are hurting multiple people and stopping
Speaker 14: yourself from entering into a real relationship. You're an attractive girl.
Speaker 14: Use your real photos and be you to meet someone
Speaker 14: who wants to be with you and not a fake you.
Speaker 8: I'll stop doing it. I've handed the fake profile over
Speaker 8: to her mate. I think you're looking at the wrong girl.
Speaker 8: I'm the one in the back, the fat ugly four
Speaker 8: eyes one.
Speaker 14: I know, the one with the glasses. You're not ugly
Speaker 14: at all. Stop being so hard on yourself.
Speaker 2: This dialogue goes on for a bit. There's a back
Speaker 2: and forth on which Lucy Halle counsels Natalia over her appearance,
Speaker 2: being at ease with herself, discovering confidence, searching out those
Speaker 2: people at a church that can offer support. She tells
Speaker 2: Natalia that these physical things are skin deep. Here's the
Speaker 2: real Lucille speaking again.
Speaker 11: So it looks like obviously she's got extremely low self esteem.
Speaker 11: So she finds herself very unattractive, and because of that,
Speaker 11: she uses the photos to try and get people to
Speaker 11: talk to her because she doesn't think if she uses
Speaker 11: her own profile that anyone would speak with her. And obviously,
Speaker 11: I think that's really untrue, because I think there's someone
Speaker 11: out there for everyone, and no matter what you look like,
Speaker 11: she someone.
Speaker 10: Will accept her.
Speaker 11: It might not be what she's looking for, but there
Speaker 11: will be somebody out there that accepts you as you are.
Speaker 11: And so I was trying to say to her, look,
Speaker 11: just be yourself and put yourself out there.
Speaker 2: This exchange took place over a number of days. There's
Speaker 2: no hint of aggression or anger in Lucille's messages. If
Speaker 2: I was to find a way to describe the messaging,
Speaker 2: I'd say that Lucille as being a mum. She even
Speaker 2: went so far as to have a friend who's a
Speaker 2: psychologist speak with Natalia on the phone, and it seemed
Speaker 2: like a really positive exchange.
Speaker 8: Thanks for all your help, and thank Crystal for being
Speaker 8: understanding about this. It shows what an amazing mum you
Speaker 8: are to bring up a daughter like this.
Speaker 10: It's an addiction.
Speaker 14: Once you break the habit, you will be fine.
Speaker 8: I need to stop blaming everyone else for my messed
Speaker 8: up life and face it head on and come to
Speaker 8: peace with it, and then get on the right medication again.
Speaker 2: When Natalia talks about the right medication, that's in the
Speaker 2: context of her telling Lucille she will once again seek
Speaker 2: mental health support. Natalia's struggles with mental health was something
Speaker 2: I was very conscious of when reporting in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: We spoke then about the struggles she faced and how
Speaker 2: they were managed, and it's also been very much in
Speaker 2: my mind when approaching the reporting again. They had for
Speaker 2: some time been a question in my mind as to
Speaker 2: whether it was fair or right to bring such attention
Speaker 2: to bear on Natalia. Ultimately, though, you're hearing this story
Speaker 2: because the more I investigated, the extraordinary scale of Natalia's
Speaker 2: catfishing became clear and the damage she was causing. I've
Speaker 2: done what I can to make sure she has the
Speaker 2: support she needs, and having done so, the nature of
Speaker 2: Natalia's behavior and the issues it raises need to be
Speaker 2: publicly aired. Meanwhile, Lucille, being mum to Natalia.
Speaker 14: Just feel better that you're not the only person like this.
Speaker 14: Loads of people are in the same situation. It's self
Speaker 14: esteem and confidence. You need to look in the mirror
Speaker 14: and see all the great things about yourself.
Speaker 8: Thank you for being so understanding. You've got every right
Speaker 8: to be mad at me and want me locked up
Speaker 8: for this.
Speaker 14: Just don't do it again, as it messes up the
Speaker 14: people whose photos you use and their lives are not
Speaker 14: as perfect as you think. Everyone has problems.
Speaker 2: Natalia incredibly claims she never realized she was hurting anyone.
Speaker 2: I say incredibly because in twenty eleven, Natalia told me
Speaker 2: she knew she was hurting people, and she'd sat down
Speaker 2: with a woman whose face she'd used for the Laura
Speaker 2: West character. She had heard firsthand just how distressing it was.
Speaker 2: This was the last time Natalia told Lucial, and Natalia
Speaker 2: also told Lucille that she'd contact the police to hand
Speaker 2: herself in.
Speaker 8: When I rang them, they had no idea what I
Speaker 8: was talking about and gave me the advice to hand
Speaker 8: over everything to Crystal or someone she trusts.
Speaker 2: So she claimed to have done just that, telling Lucille
Speaker 2: that the key, usiname and password for the fake accounts
Speaker 2: have been surrendered to a friend of Crystal's. You can
Speaker 2: have it too, Natalia told Lucille, sending her a Gmail
Speaker 2: address and a password. Thanks, said Lucille, You're welcome, Natalie responded,
Speaker 2: and that was the end of the conversation. And you know,
Speaker 2: Lucille was feeling pretty good about the way it worked
Speaker 2: out until she tried the password and it didn't work,
Speaker 2: and soon enough there were new profiles circulating with Crystal's face.
Speaker 11: I thought after our conversation she might stop, because she
Speaker 11: seemed to get it, and she seemed to understand, you know,
Speaker 11: that she was doing wrong and that she should stole.
Speaker 2: Here's the funny thing about this interaction between Lucille and Natalia.
Speaker 2: It's actually incredibly similar to one Natalia had with Natalie
Speaker 2: and her mum Kushler back when I first investigated this.
Speaker 2: There was the same reaching out between the mum and
Speaker 2: daughter and Natalia, and the same encouraging messages towards Natalia.
Speaker 5: Just such a bright, buvely person and once you've got
Speaker 5: that help and you can.
Speaker 4: Drawn your personality, yeah, I think that's I mean, I
Speaker 4: can't even get a boyfriend both, and it's not like
Speaker 4: you know, trying, but I'm interested days ago.
Speaker 5: So let's just forget about Satalia of stuff now. So
Speaker 5: if you found a new voice, I'm like, I'm just
Speaker 5: but yeah, so awkward to lay my face, but it
Speaker 5: was your personality that just saying you know that you
Speaker 5: can't just go off by face value.
Speaker 2: And Natalia even handed over her passwords to Natalie back
Speaker 2: then to give her control of the accounts that used
Speaker 2: her photos. But that's not where the similarities end. Back
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven, Natalie and Kushler were also concerned about
Speaker 2: what the law could do to stop Natalia.
Speaker 4: Why is this not a criminal arrestment?
Speaker 5: Of letters down the place a verts down? If they
Speaker 5: have done something to protect you and telling then you
Speaker 5: know you would you would have been probably you know
Speaker 5: much into recovery, because in my opinion, you're probably gonna
Speaker 5: need a lot of help.
Speaker 14: To get that.
Speaker 5: When you know an actidnaal that came out, the police,
Speaker 5: the laws was so quick to jump out putting a
Speaker 5: you know a law on there that you can't let's
Speaker 5: copyright music. But do you understand why don't you upload
Speaker 5: a picture to the Internet that's not copyright and anyone
Speaker 5: can use it, But if it's proven to be using
Speaker 5: in a in a bad manner, that there should be
Speaker 5: some law around them to put a stop to that.
Speaker 10: Actually feel this case is so extreme.
Speaker 4: It's the most extreme end of cyber in the restment. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that it could be used to shape using on all right,
Speaker 4: and so okay, this probably doesn't have any day, is it?
Speaker 1: No, it's extreme ye.
Speaker 2: Thirteen years later, Lucille was left wondering the same thing
Speaker 2: because when she realized that Natalia didn't stop that she
Speaker 2: carried on interacting with people as Kayleie using Crystal's face
Speaker 2: and photos. She started to turn to the law as well.
Speaker 11: The only thing she can do is just keep reporting
Speaker 11: at but nobody seems to care.
Speaker 2: I get a copy of the police file through New
Speaker 2: Zealand's Freedom of Information legislation Bristol. She signed a waiver
Speaker 2: so that police could bypass who writes to privacy and
Speaker 2: that allowed us to examine exactly what happened with her complaint.
Speaker 2: Crystal's call to police was made on January seven, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: where she's recorded as a New Zealander living in Australia.
Speaker 2: When I study the police report, the details are all there.
Speaker 2: That Crystal's photograph has been used to set up a
Speaker 2: fake Facebook profile, that the person who did so Natalia,
Speaker 2: had become online ends with a man who was intending
Speaker 2: to send her a gift, and that during that call
Speaker 2: between Natalia and the man, she dropped her phone. She
Speaker 2: had claimed a camera was broken so not able to
Speaker 2: be used for video chat, but when she dropped the phone,
Speaker 2: she must have bumped a button because clearly it did
Speaker 2: work and what it captured was a flash of black
Speaker 2: or brown hair, not the blonde hair that Crystal has
Speaker 2: or the blonde hair that Kaylie was known for. Instead
Speaker 2: of sending a gift, he went searching for the real
Speaker 2: Crystal and found her, told her what had happened, and
Speaker 2: that's what led to Crystal calling police, not only did
Speaker 2: she call, but she followed up with a flood of
Speaker 2: screenshots evidence of her identity being hijacked and being used
Speaker 2: to fool others. This included an online conversation between Natalia
Speaker 2: and a friend of Christal in which Natalia admits she's
Speaker 2: behind the fake profile. When people call police for help,
Speaker 2: call takers assign a code to the file to guide
Speaker 2: the path the complaint will take. But I study Crystal's
Speaker 2: police report, I see that the call taker logged it
Speaker 2: as A two I. A two I is a general
Speaker 2: information code, an oddly generic code given Crystal's complaint alleges
Speaker 2: that Natalia was catfishing to scam jewelry and money, and
Speaker 2: the advice from the call taker that was for Crystal
Speaker 2: to talk to Australian police even though Natalia was in
Speaker 2: New Zealand, and to ask Facebook to remove the pages.
Speaker 2: To be fair, that wasn't all police did. Crystal also
Speaker 2: got an email from a detective constable who had visited
Speaker 2: and spoken with Natalia, and the report notes Natalia made
Speaker 2: a confession in an email to Crystal. The detective wrote.
Speaker 6: She used your photograph and apologized for doing so, but
Speaker 6: there has been no specific offense identified in relation to
Speaker 6: any criminal charges to be laid.
Speaker 2: Within a month, Crystal had emailed the detective to report
Speaker 2: that despite the visit from police, Natalia had again set
Speaker 2: up a fresh Facebook page using one of Crystal's newer photographs.
Speaker 2: Then she emailed again a month later. In both cases,
Speaker 2: according to police records, Cristal's emails were logged, added to
Speaker 2: the file and precisely nothing was done. It feels like
Speaker 2: a good time is any to take us back to
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, while Crystal struggled to get people to take
Speaker 2: her case seriously. In twenty nineteen, eight years earlier, Natalia
Speaker 2: was charged and then two years later she was sentenced
Speaker 2: to jail for two years and two months on three convictions.
Speaker 2: So what did she do then and what's so different now?
Speaker 2: Hattison is a sharp and experienced lawyer. He's wiry like
Speaker 2: a whippet. He's got a sense of energy about him
Speaker 2: and the CVE that stretches from New York to New
Speaker 2: South Wales and backhead in New Zealand. Along the way,
Speaker 2: He's developed a depth of experience in tackling Internet related issues.
Speaker 2: Ahead of speaking, I gave Chris copies of the judge's
Speaker 2: sentencing notes from twenty thirteen and the two parole board
Speaker 2: reports written when Natalias sought release from prison. He also
Speaker 2: got a bundle of news articles. But what is really
Speaker 2: after was a criminal barrister's keen eye on that twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen conviction. What I wanted was an insight into how
Speaker 2: police convicted Natalia then, and what he found was both
Speaker 2: helpful and frustrating. First though, a primer on what makes
Speaker 2: a crime.
Speaker 3: Our criminal jurisdiction is it's prescriptive. And that is, unless
Speaker 3: there's an actual section in an act or regulation that
Speaker 3: prohibits the doing of something or mandates the doing of something,
Speaker 3: then it's not a crime. Okay, So if it's not
Speaker 3: in the for example, if it's not in the Crimes Act,
Speaker 3: it's one source of where you'll find crimes, then it's
Speaker 3: not a crime. And this is part of the problem
Speaker 3: that you've been investigating, is that the law has a
Speaker 3: vacuum over behaviors that ordinary, reasonable, decent people would say
Speaker 3: is wrong.
Speaker 2: And there's another point when it comes to crime and
Speaker 2: the Internet.
Speaker 3: Some of the laws that we currently have that regulate
Speaker 3: behavior of people persons, those laws can date back to
Speaker 3: not only last century, but over a thousand years ago.
Speaker 2: There's been efforts to contort old laws to fit new circumstances.
Speaker 2: Chris calls it shoeharning.
Speaker 3: So there's been a lot of shoehorning going on, and
Speaker 3: the law has been slow to catch up. But the
Speaker 3: exciting area is that because as technologies changed and behavior
Speaker 3: has changed with it, the law has started to I
Speaker 3: guess you could say we're seeing green shoots popping through
Speaker 3: of new solutions to new problems.
Speaker 2: Not back in twenty thirteen police had the same old
Speaker 2: laws to apply to a brand new problem. Here, though,
Speaker 2: are the charges Natalia faced when you're paired in court
Speaker 2: on November twenty two, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 7: Natalia Yvette Burgess, you appear before me for sentencing on
Speaker 7: the following one charge of obtaining by deception of over
Speaker 7: one thousand dollars, another charge of obtaining by deception between
Speaker 7: five hundred dollars and one thousand dollars, and one charge
Speaker 7: of interfering with computer systems.
Speaker 2: The first thing to know is that Natalia pleaded guilty.
Speaker 3: Judges do have some I mean they have discretions, but
Speaker 3: they are directed to take into account sentencing principles which
Speaker 3: are contained in our Sentencing Act, and one of the
Speaker 3: factors that should be taken into account is the attitude
Speaker 3: of the offender okay and pleading guilty and at an
Speaker 3: early stage. It's a relevant matter for determining what sentence
Speaker 3: it's because generally you get a discount if you're prepared
Speaker 3: to plead guilty at an early stage. And what that
Speaker 3: is is it's to reflect the fact that the offender
Speaker 3: has accepted liability.
Speaker 2: Doing so, he explains, meant that the person who's committed
Speaker 2: the crime hasn't lumbered the state with the cost of
Speaker 2: a trial or created additional trauma for victims, and that
Speaker 2: happened in this case. Ultimately, when we get to it,
Speaker 2: there was a twenty percent discount. So let's get into
Speaker 2: the charges. There were two fraud charges technically called obtaining
Speaker 2: by deception and a charge of misuse of a computer system.
Speaker 2: One of the fraud charges isn't related to Natalie's catfishing.
Speaker 2: It dated from two thousand and six when, through claiming
Speaker 2: to be pregnant, Natalia stated a refuge for young pregnant teenagers.
Speaker 2: Her only obligation was to pay living costs, which she
Speaker 2: didn't and then weeks into her stage she was asked
Speaker 2: about the money owed and for proof that she was pregnant,
Speaker 2: which she wasn't. That led to Natalia providing a doctor's
Speaker 2: letter which had such basic errors in grammar that the
Speaker 2: refuge checked that it was authentic. It wasn't, and Natalie
Speaker 2: was asked to leave, owing one thousand, six hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty dollars. The other two charges are related to catfishing.
Speaker 2: In February twenty eleven, Natalia, using the false identity of
Speaker 2: Abbi Williams, began an online and telephone relationship with a
Speaker 2: thirteen year old At the time, she was twenty six
Speaker 2: online as Abby, she was aged between sixteen and eighteen.
Speaker 2: As Abby. She had what the judge called telephone sex
Speaker 2: with the boy, but that's not what she's charged with.
Speaker 2: What comes next is. At one stage, she told the
Speaker 2: boy she wanted access to his Facebook page as a
Speaker 2: sign of trust. He provided the username and password, which
Speaker 2: when Natalia became abusive and upset, she used to access
Speaker 2: the account lock him out, and.
Speaker 7: Some of the messages sent by you purporting to be
Speaker 7: the child caused him great embarrassment and resulted in the
Speaker 7: loss of friendships. The offending occurred during the time of
Speaker 7: the christ Church earthquakes, which caused considerable stress to the child.
Speaker 2: The second Ford charge stemmed from a three year period
Speaker 2: during which Natalia infiltrated a christ Church family. In this instance,
Speaker 2: it was a sixteen year old boy she targeted, posing
Speaker 2: as Laura Jane Weston. The relationship spanned the years two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight through to twenty eleven, with the fiction
Speaker 2: supported by a cast of characters another Laura, a Kylie,
Speaker 2: and Anna and even the child.
Speaker 7: You were even able to convince this young man that
Speaker 7: you were a three year old by changing your voice
Speaker 7: and attitude. No such child existed.
Speaker 2: In this case. Natalia also had access to the teenager's
Speaker 2: Facebook page, but there's no sign she did anything untoward. Instead,
Speaker 2: the fraud charge was because Natalia borrowed money three hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy nine dollars to be exact, apparently to help
Speaker 2: raise her non existent daughter, and then after a disagreement,
Speaker 2: she refused to repay the outstanding two hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: nine dollars. Chris Patterson's help here is really important and insightful.
Speaker 2: It helps us understand why Natalie was convicted then, which
Speaker 2: might explain why police showed little interests six years later,
Speaker 2: starting with misuse of a computer system. This is how
Speaker 2: Chris explains it.
Speaker 3: You were using someone else's computer system, you had to
Speaker 3: use it not only with their authority, but also pursuance
Speaker 3: to that authority. What I mean by that is that
Speaker 3: if someone said to you, hey, you can use this
Speaker 3: computer for doing our accounts each week, it doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you can use the computer to then go in and
Speaker 3: steal all the intellectual property from the business. Or look
Speaker 3: at what people are sending each other in terms of emails.
Speaker 3: How I've read that, and not having access to the
Speaker 3: police's evidence they put forward is I'm assuming they were
Speaker 3: taking it from the fact that a lot of these
Speaker 3: victims were providing her with because she was asking for
Speaker 3: it for their Facebook log in details, and then she
Speaker 3: was then logging on as them, and then whilst logged on,
Speaker 3: she was then doing things that they hadn't authorized her
Speaker 3: to do, like, for example, she was sending messages to
Speaker 3: their friends that were quite horrific in nature and quite
Speaker 3: damaging to these poor young men.
Speaker 2: So wherever the face book servers were, that was the
Speaker 2: computer system. The unauthorized access and messages that was the misuse.
Speaker 2: It makes sense, but it seems a stretch.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit like trying to use a spanner
Speaker 3: as a screwdriver. It's just it wasn't designed for that purpose.
Speaker 3: But it's the only one that's there, so the judge
Speaker 3: used it. It wasn't an easy fit. Obtaining by deception
Speaker 3: was more straightforward because as you know, she was forming
Speaker 3: these relationships with these described as boys. You could describe
Speaker 3: someone as young men and then under false pretenses like
Speaker 3: misrepresenting who she actually was, and then using those false
Speaker 3: pretenses to then encourage them and have them pay her
Speaker 3: some money.
Speaker 2: And that was the key element to the charge.
Speaker 3: Lying per se is not a criminal offense unless it
Speaker 3: triggers or causes a chain of reactions. And you know
Speaker 3: why we have this provision in our Crimes Act about
Speaker 3: obtaining by deceit. So if you lie to someone for
Speaker 3: the purpose of obtaining a benefit or causing a loss,
Speaker 3: and that benefit comes to you or the loss is
Speaker 3: suffered by the other person, that at a real basic level,
Speaker 3: that can be a crime. But just saying to someone
Speaker 3: I'm a smoking hot, twenty four year old blonde and
Speaker 3: I like to spend time at the gym, that's not
Speaker 3: a criminal offense at all, even if it's a complete
Speaker 3: fabrication that the person saying it is actually a fifty
Speaker 3: two year old trucker from Tilmuty.
Speaker 2: So clearly pretending to be pregnant so you can stay
Speaker 2: at a refuge for young mums is a flat lie
Speaker 2: that secures a financial benefit. With the fraud charge connected
Speaker 2: to a catfishing, it was the debts your crew through
Speaker 2: pretending to be a teenage girl for the relationship that
Speaker 2: she forged with that lie that made it criminal. With Natalia,
Speaker 2: it added up to two years and two months in prison.
Speaker 2: When twenty nineteen rolled around, Natalia had been out of
Speaker 2: prison for three years. We learned from Sophie Jarrett that
Speaker 2: she still had access to images from before she was arrested,
Speaker 2: and we know from Crystal that Natalia harvested her images
Speaker 2: to create a new character, Kaylee. In January twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: a week after Crystal made her complaint, it's assigned to
Speaker 2: a detective. Another week passes, and that detective knocks on
Speaker 2: Natalia's door. In an email later to Crystal, the detective
Speaker 2: scrimes visiting Natalia, who admitted to using Crystal's photograph and
Speaker 2: offered apologies for doing so, and she also had an
Speaker 2: explanation as to why she'd used Crystal's image and messages
Speaker 2: to Lucille. She'd spoken about news, drugs and being off
Speaker 2: medication for mental health. And we can't see what explanation
Speaker 2: she offered police. That bit's blacked out, but she explained
Speaker 2: that there was some sort of trigger that led to
Speaker 2: her using Crystal's image. It's clear from Crystal's reply that
Speaker 2: the detective told her that Natalia was seeking help. That was,
Speaker 2: in Crystal's words, a great outcome, no worries, said the
Speaker 2: detective feel free to write again, And in that email
Speaker 2: to Crystal is also this line from the detective.
Speaker 6: There has been no specific offense identified in relation to
Speaker 6: any criminal charges to be laid.
Speaker 2: Here is barrassed to Chris Patterson again.
Speaker 3: We did have the Harmful Digital Communications Act come into
Speaker 3: force and that was in July twenty fifteen. That has
Speaker 3: two components to it. There's a civil component, but there's
Speaker 3: also a criminal component, and the police could have used
Speaker 3: that act, the Harmful Digital Communications Act, to bring a
Speaker 3: prosecution against her. The Act sets out an essence that
Speaker 3: it's there to protect people from harm being course to
Speaker 3: them through their online presence, and that would have been
Speaker 3: possibly a better road, in a more appropriate road to
Speaker 3: go down. I think if the Natalie Burgers situation occurred again,
Speaker 3: that's what I'd expect the police to do.
Speaker 2: This didn't happen. No one pointed Crystal to net Say
Speaker 2: for guidance on the civil process where she or someone
Speaker 2: she nominated could take action, and the police never seemed
Speaker 2: to raise the option of the hdca's criminal pathway. That
Speaker 2: was January twenty nineteen. By April that year, police records
Speaker 2: showed Crystal again telling police Natalia is still using her
Speaker 2: face to trick people. Crystal wrote to the detective in
Speaker 2: no response, so she wrote again, and I think it's
Speaker 2: fair to say her email read like that of a
Speaker 2: woman who really needed someone to listen. Crystal told police
Speaker 2: a new profile had been made under yet another alias,
Speaker 2: and asked how Natalie was being monitored. To Crystal, she
Speaker 2: told police it felt like her case had been put
Speaker 2: in the two hard basket. Crystal didn't hear back from
Speaker 2: the detective or anyone from police. As much as she
Speaker 2: had told police, there was, according to the detective, no
Speaker 2: crime being committed and nothing to be done.
Speaker 11: That's quite quite hard as our mother as well, because
Speaker 11: you just want to go basically to narsa helland and
Speaker 11: sort the skirl owls, you know, like give her a
Speaker 11: shake and talk to people and say what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2: It's not been easy on Crystal in the same way
Speaker 2: it wasn't easy on Sophie or on Natalie back in
Speaker 2: twenty eleven. Natalia has hurt many people by taking their
Speaker 2: images and impersonating them. But you know, it's even harder
Speaker 2: on those drawn in by Crystal's face and then subjected
Speaker 2: to Natalia's manipulations. Crystal has told me this, and she's right.
Speaker 2: We've already heard on this podcast about the men, the
Speaker 2: boys that Natalia manipulated this way. What I didn't understand
Speaker 2: back in twenty eleven was that it wasn't just boys
Speaker 2: and men that Natali was treating like puppets. What she
Speaker 2: did back then and has still been doing now goes
Speaker 2: beyond your average catfisher. Natalia was creating characters, crafting their
Speaker 2: backstories in their lives, and then trying to write them
Speaker 2: into other people's family histories. You've been listening to Chasing Ghosts,
Speaker 2: the Puppeteer follow the podcast and the Chasing Ghosts feed
Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and you
Speaker 2: can find more in this case that inzidherld dot co
Speaker 2: dot zed ethanselves as my producer, with audio engineering by
Speaker 2: Alistair Boys. Thanks to my colleagues for lending their voices
Speaker 2: to this episode. If you have a story about this case,
Speaker 2: contact me at David dot Fisher at inzidherld dot co
Speaker 2: dot inz. And if you believe you've encountered behavior online
Speaker 2: that matches what we've discussed in this series, you can
Speaker 2: find help at netsafe dot org dot z. But if
Speaker 2: you feel at risk, don't hesitate contact police