Speaker 1: This podcast started with the story of Laura West, how
Speaker 1: this blonde, attractive, promising young woman lost her life in
Speaker 1: a car crash. You've heard how her death left a
Speaker 1: young daughter without a mother and sisters grieving the loss
Speaker 1: of their brightest light. And of course you know now
Speaker 1: that Laura didn't exist, and that there was no car crash. Instead,
Speaker 1: the crash, Laura, her sisters, and her daughter were all
Speaker 1: just the creation of one woman, a woman called Natalia Burgess.
Speaker 1: In twenty ten, Natalia killed off Laura like a character
Speaker 1: in an end of season soap opera. At that point,
Speaker 1: Natalia had been creating online fantasy worlds and deceiving people
Speaker 1: online for so long she had outlasted some of the
Speaker 1: world's biggest social media companies. She's told me she started
Speaker 1: doing this in two thousand and one when she was seventeen,
Speaker 1: and now Natalia is forty. But on the Internet she
Speaker 1: can be whatever age she chooses to be, and for
Speaker 1: a time, when she first put on the face of
Speaker 1: character Laura Jane West, she was sixteen. In recent times,
Speaker 1: she's used Crystal Jenice Photographs to create the person of
Speaker 1: Kaylie Littellly, a twenty seven year old single mum. Sometimes
Speaker 1: Kaylie has a different surname, but no matter the name,
Speaker 1: the game remains the same. To live the life online
Speaker 1: she feels she can't have in our real world with
Speaker 1: those invented selves. She insinuates away inside the lives that
Speaker 1: those convinced she is real, and once inside their lives, well,
Speaker 1: there's a reason she's called herself the puppeteer. She plays
Speaker 1: with people's lives, and so far in this series, we've
Speaker 1: been talking about the boys and men she's targeted, and
Speaker 1: there's many of those stories to tell, but there were
Speaker 1: other stories to tell, stories about others Natalia has fooled.
Speaker 1: Because for Natalia has not just boys and men. She's
Speaker 1: also gone after families.
Speaker 2: She's a shadow stalker and she got so far into
Speaker 2: my personal space. I don't trust people. It was like
Speaker 2: she was.
Speaker 3: Stalking you from Afarre, knowing every movie it had done.
Speaker 1: This is Emma and her mum Bernie, talking about their
Speaker 1: encounter with Laura West and Laura's sister Abby, all characters
Speaker 1: created by Natalia Burgess over about two years. Natalia breathed
Speaker 1: life and reality into those characters, so much so that
Speaker 1: she convinced Bernie and Emma that she was a blood relative,
Speaker 1: that she was Emma's cousin and Bernie's niece. Unlikely as
Speaker 1: it sounds, it shows how completely utterly convincing Natalia can be,
Speaker 1: and just how good she is at taking the threads
Speaker 1: of someone's life and weaving them into a convincing narrative.
Speaker 2: To know about a family member I hadn't spoken to
Speaker 2: and who he had passed away, people would go by
Speaker 2: different Alis's but knew their proper birth name.
Speaker 1: It was part of a process that led to Natalia's
Speaker 1: false characters becoming fully integrated into Bernie and Emma's lives.
Speaker 1: Once inside their lives, Natalia then created scenarios and situations
Speaker 1: that would turn Emma and Bernie's world upside down.
Speaker 2: Even to this day, I'm always looking over my shoulder.
Speaker 2: I don't want friendships because of this. To watch my
Speaker 2: daughter's self destruct on some silly little dream. This woman ad,
Speaker 2: I'll never forgive it.
Speaker 1: With that control, Natalia put Emma and Bernie inside the
Speaker 1: false world she created, then fed them a stream of scenarios,
Speaker 1: some good, some bad, but all carried out by invented characters.
Speaker 1: Put mother and daughter on a roller coaster of emotions
Speaker 1: as they were drawn through love, romance, heartbreak, and the
Speaker 1: made up car crash that killed Laura West. We've heard
Speaker 1: from a few mothers in their daughters so far. In
Speaker 1: this case, the likes of Crystal and Lucy el Jenna
Speaker 1: knew from the start of their interactions with Natalia that
Speaker 1: they were dealing with a catfisher for Ebra and Bernie,
Speaker 1: though they were lied to and tricked for years. It's
Speaker 1: a type of catfishing wildly different to anything else we've
Speaker 1: discussed so far in this series, and not like any
Speaker 1: other case I've heard before. This is Chasing Ghosts the
Speaker 1: Puppeteer and I'm David Fisher, an investigative reporter who started
Speaker 1: trying to understand Natalia Burgess thirteen years ago, and every
Speaker 1: time I think I'm getting close, something comes along that
Speaker 1: completely changes the game in terms of volume. Natalia's false
Speaker 1: characters churned through guys in depth and intensity, though she
Speaker 1: seems to be looking for something else. I don't think
Speaker 1: I understood this when our paths first crossed. I found
Speaker 1: over the years when bring out an investigation into an
Speaker 1: individual that a profile builds my head. The quirks Tech's
Speaker 1: personality traits of the person on whom I'm intensely focused.
Speaker 1: It helps build an understanding of who you're dealing with,
Speaker 1: to understand the reasons why your subject might behave in
Speaker 1: a certain way. And with Natalia, I had such a
Speaker 1: profile in my mind. It was built with interviews with
Speaker 1: those she had interacted with and after spending hours with
Speaker 1: her doing interviews, and the foundation of the profile I'd
Speaker 1: built was what I'd learned that she was targeting young
Speaker 1: teenagers online, and she created a carousel of characters through
Speaker 1: which she engaged with those boys. Back then and for
Speaker 1: years after, Natalia, in my mind, was someone driven by
Speaker 1: an urge to connect with young teen boys for sexual reasons.
Speaker 1: Now I think I know better there's something else driving Natalia.
Speaker 1: The turning point was discovering Bernie and Emma in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: who Natalia become involved with fifteen years ago. Until now,
Speaker 1: I'd seen Natalia as a predator. Now, for all the
Speaker 1: pain she's caused, I see her differently. Emma was at
Speaker 1: high school when she met Natalia online through the Laura
Speaker 1: West character. Emma had not long had her first child,
Speaker 1: who has been looked after by Bernie, and trying to
Speaker 1: adjust to the dual roles of being a teenager and
Speaker 1: a mum.
Speaker 3: I received a friend's request on Facebook and then I
Speaker 3: had a message in the message request saying to me,
Speaker 3: I'm your cousin's cousin. I was like, okay, we've never
Speaker 3: heard of you. And then I was asking her, you know,
Speaker 3: how she knew my family and things like that, and
Speaker 3: she was saying everything to the point where it was
Speaker 3: like she was in the family and she knew too much.
Speaker 3: And then she said that we had already met where
Speaker 3: men with hunaus and beerre just in passing generally. And
Speaker 3: then she knew a lot about me to the point
Speaker 3: where she knew my son's father. She knew the whole
Speaker 3: family rite down to the tea.
Speaker 1: Just in case there's any confusion. Natalia didn't know and
Speaker 1: hadn't met Emma or Bernie. Let's also remember Laura West
Speaker 1: isn't real. And yet Natalia was able to introduce family
Speaker 1: facts and personal information that helped Ford's trust very quickly.
Speaker 1: And that's even though Bernie was doing all she thought
Speaker 1: a good parent should do.
Speaker 3: That was at that time where you know, Mum still
Speaker 3: patrolled our facebooks and having that sense of security. Mum
Speaker 3: was even given me the twenty questions like who is this?
Speaker 3: I was like, well, she seems to be a cousin
Speaker 3: of a cousin. So that's how you know. Mum got
Speaker 3: on board because she ended up calling her Auntie.
Speaker 1: Bernie had ruled the computer stayed in the sitting room.
Speaker 1: She wanted to know who's at the other end of
Speaker 1: the internet connection. She needed to know the part words
Speaker 1: of kids' social media accounts, and she even insisted on
Speaker 1: speaking on the phone to this Laura West, who become
Speaker 1: friends with her daughter. None of that was a barrier
Speaker 1: to Natalia.
Speaker 2: When she mentioned a family member that I hadn't spoken
Speaker 2: to for at least fifteen years, that's oh, okay, you
Speaker 2: do know, yeah, it must be the relation of that relation.
Speaker 2: I'll telling you something that you wouldn't I. She knew
Speaker 2: so far into my life. She knew I had lost
Speaker 2: my son and where he is laying at Reece. She
Speaker 2: knew the cemetery, she knew the date, she knew a
Speaker 2: date that was born. A lot of you know Emma's girlfriends,
Speaker 2: they didn't know that because it was quite a while ago.
Speaker 2: But this is how first she got into my personal life.
Speaker 1: Hook line and Catfish.
Speaker 3: It was like, my life consisted of messaging her twenty
Speaker 3: four to seven because she was bringing tyme be a
Speaker 3: life story, and I'd always say, oh, should we you know, hey,
Speaker 3: cous you know, because it got to the point where
Speaker 3: I believe that your you know cousin, So I was
Speaker 3: like calling your cousin.
Speaker 1: There were things that didn't add up. They were minor
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until later that they were red flags,
Speaker 1: seen only with the benefit of hindsight. For example, and
Speaker 1: this is consistent with Natalia's targets. She avoided video calls
Speaker 1: or FaceTime, and she would organize meetings in real life
Speaker 1: only to have some drama emerged that meant that the
Speaker 1: meeting couldn't go ahead.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, the car broke down or I'm too
Speaker 3: junk to drive or what was the other famous one?
Speaker 2: I miss the bus.
Speaker 3: I missed the buss. That's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was like, it's fair to say that
Speaker 1: Emma was a volatile teenager. She was just sixteen at
Speaker 1: the time that she met Natalia. When Natalie was around
Speaker 1: a decade older. Emma thought she was bonding with a
Speaker 1: long lost cousin who was the same age. Both of
Speaker 1: them navigating their difficult teenage years. In reality, something different
Speaker 1: was happening. As would emerge in the years to come.
Speaker 1: Natalie was soaking up the life experiences of Emma and
Speaker 1: Bernie and incorporating those experiences into the lives of her
Speaker 1: fantasy world characters, and as it became clear, she was
Speaker 1: meddling in a dangerous and difficult stage of Emma's life
Speaker 1: in a way that had significant repercussions. I've spoken about
Speaker 1: the death of Laura West, the decision by Natalia in
Speaker 1: December twenty ten to kill off the young woman that
Speaker 1: she created, causing huge upset among those she bonded with online. Well,
Speaker 1: there are layers to this, and here's the first we know.
Speaker 1: Natalia posted news of Laura's death to Facebook, but when
Speaker 1: it came to Bernie, she took a different track. That
Speaker 1: morning of December sixth, Bernie's phone rang.
Speaker 3: Every run Mom and I are to mess. We thought
Speaker 3: it was a genue when light cry for like grieving.
Speaker 3: You know, So Laura is dead and my mom was like,
Speaker 3: what do you mean she's dead? We were just talking
Speaker 3: to the other day. She was like, no, shared a
Speaker 3: car crash and she's dead. They deal with the ICU,
Speaker 3: but she didn't make it.
Speaker 1: Laura's gone. So this is Abby still Natalia, but using
Speaker 1: a different voice. This is Abby who's messaging and speaking
Speaker 1: with Bernie and Emma. This is right in the middle
Speaker 1: of the shop. News of Laura's death, and Abbie's contact
Speaker 1: has a particular purpose.
Speaker 3: How do I plan a funeral? Got no idea? You know,
Speaker 3: she would want it this way. What she says, she goes,
Speaker 3: I would like you and your mom to carry her,
Speaker 3: you know, stowed away. Well, there's no parent that she
Speaker 3: took her a pearance or no. No, she didn't talk
Speaker 3: to her a parents, So we were like her parents.
Speaker 3: Where were all she had about me?
Speaker 1: At the time. Emma wasn't at home. Remember I described
Speaker 1: her as a volatile teenager. She was juggling a lot.
Speaker 1: And there was an event one which Natalia is believed
Speaker 1: to have instigated, that led to Emma leaving home and
Speaker 1: living elsewhere.
Speaker 3: And then I've got a message or a phone call
Speaker 3: at the home saying she's dead. Your cousin is dead.
Speaker 3: And no, that's sent both of us spiraling.
Speaker 1: In that event that Natalia is believed to have instigated. Well,
Speaker 1: that was about Peter Russell. Remember Peter He was Raywan
Speaker 1: Ford's son who took his life in twenty ten. Rayman
Speaker 1: has forever linked his suicide to Natalia, entangling him in
Speaker 1: a rollercoaster relationship with Laura West, though no official inquiry
Speaker 1: has offered any reasons that can be published. Certainly, I
Speaker 1: know from covering many coronial hearings there's almost always multiple
Speaker 1: reasons for suicide. Well before the relationship with Peter and
Speaker 1: Laura came Peter and Emma.
Speaker 3: So me and Peter we met randomly. I think it
Speaker 3: was as I was always at his house in christ Church.
Speaker 3: We were on and off for a wee back, you know,
Speaker 3: so excited young love. I was like, oh, got someone,
Speaker 3: and she was like, oh, you know, asking the twenty questions.
Speaker 3: Trying to be that so called protective family member.
Speaker 1: Emma told Natalia all about Peter, including his name.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, she's I've got to
Speaker 3: be a partner now. I'm like, she was almost to
Speaker 3: the point where she had to.
Speaker 1: Have what I had.
Speaker 3: Me and Pete drifted away, That's right.
Speaker 1: Laura West cut in on cousin Emma, and.
Speaker 3: Then we just started drifting away. And then he said
Speaker 3: to me and am I was like, what's up? And
Speaker 3: he goes, I thank I'm falling in love with this girl.
Speaker 3: And I was like, you need to follow you, you
Speaker 3: need to do what you need.
Speaker 1: To do well teenage Emma. It was devastating but troubling
Speaker 1: too to see the changes that came over Peter in
Speaker 1: that difficult online relationship.
Speaker 3: He was like a schoolcad all over again, for like
Speaker 3: its fierce love.
Speaker 1: He proposed, she accepted, then rejected the proposal, cup and
Speaker 1: got together again and then broke up again. It was
Speaker 1: all the drama all the time, and the change to
Speaker 1: Peter was there to see.
Speaker 3: A huge, huge m back, like and it's like he's
Speaker 3: lost as well, like isn't doing do anything? He didn't
Speaker 3: he on benders.
Speaker 4: I still remember a.
Speaker 3: Message I got from me. He goes, well, she's she's
Speaker 3: broken up with me again, but I think this times
Speaker 3: for real. I'm just going to go on the bender
Speaker 3: and just ended all. I vividly remember that message and
Speaker 3: I was trying to talk him out of it, and
Speaker 3: then I called him his nickname and he goes, I
Speaker 3: need to wake up from this, Like how can a
Speaker 3: girl take advantage of me? You know, I lost everything
Speaker 3: I gave her everything. It was hard. It was really hard.
Speaker 3: He wasn't himself or he had There was a complete
Speaker 3: empty shell to the person that I fell in love with.
Speaker 3: It was quite scary to think, you know, this big, bright,
Speaker 3: bubbly personality that he always had, you know that eOne
Speaker 3: knew you for, and it's just empty, like completely and utterly. Indeed,
Speaker 3: Emma was hurting but locked it down. She was determined
Speaker 3: to give them space, not to be that ex girlfriend.
Speaker 3: But all the time she was nursing pain.
Speaker 2: That's when Abbie came, and you know, Emma was hurt
Speaker 2: of what happened. And I was watching this unfold. But
Speaker 2: Emma and her persona of a front that I'm okay,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't.
Speaker 1: Bernie's take on it, in hindsight was that Natalie wasn't
Speaker 1: getting whatever it was she was looking for from Emma.
Speaker 2: So all of a sudden, we've got a new person
Speaker 2: coming into play, and that was Abby. And Abby seemed
Speaker 2: very genuine, more so than any of the other people.
Speaker 3: Abby she was so genuine, like she was trying to
Speaker 3: say how she was disgusted how her mate ye made
Speaker 3: Laura had done what she'd done, Like she was like,
Speaker 3: you know, one of those high school friends, like backstabbing
Speaker 3: her best friend to her deserve it, Like, yeah.
Speaker 2: She was real, She's just so manipulating.
Speaker 1: Believable, Yeah, she was believable. Bizarrely, this conflict between characters
Speaker 1: played out online, Ernie and Emma watching as Laura's friends
Speaker 1: turned on her, remonstrating, yeah, we were just watching.
Speaker 5: It on face you know, you hop on Facebook or
Speaker 5: whatever it was at the time, and you'd watched this
Speaker 5: fight going on like Keyboard Warriors, but didn't.
Speaker 3: Realize it was the same person.
Speaker 4: And one was.
Speaker 2: Saying this, one was saying that, and then this one
Speaker 2: would back off off, and it was just blowing up,
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 3: Actually believed it was real.
Speaker 1: That was a wait, and it added to what Emma
Speaker 1: was already dealing with the death of a friend in
Speaker 1: a car crash. It was later that she realized the
Speaker 1: real world tragedy in early twenty ten served as a
Speaker 1: template for the death of Laura West.
Speaker 3: But it was quite weird because it was the same
Speaker 3: kind of car crash that actually happened to a lateral
Speaker 3: life friend, real person, and she genuinely died in the
Speaker 3: car crash. It was you know, I still get over
Speaker 3: pet and then all of a sudden, I'm grieving for
Speaker 3: this cousin that I'd never met but was really close with.
Speaker 3: So you know, she was playing on our emotions with
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 2: It's like she got into our emotions and she knew
Speaker 2: our stories of our friends and our family, and she
Speaker 2: could worm me way into that story and make a
Speaker 2: fiction story of it.
Speaker 1: It was crazy.
Speaker 3: It was like she knew where to hit us where
Speaker 3: it hurt.
Speaker 1: For Emma, this was a time of profound instability. There
Speaker 1: were aspects of her behavior that made it, for a
Speaker 1: time impossible for her to be at home, and with
Speaker 1: Tatalia in the mix, that volatility increased exponentially. I asked
Speaker 1: Emma what the impact was on her, but it was
Speaker 1: a mum Bernie who spoke first, self distruct Yeah.
Speaker 3: Literally, I went down the path of what stealing, getting
Speaker 3: locked up all the time. I was like so close
Speaker 3: to going jail, so close to going jail. I was
Speaker 3: getting towards the alcohol became alcohol depending at seventeen, just
Speaker 3: running myself into the ground like I was over. I
Speaker 3: was going to go join them, and I was at
Speaker 3: that stage I couldn't take any more, and then turned
Speaker 3: into the drugs as well, and I turned to the drugs.
Speaker 5: I was watching my daughter self destruct and there's nothing
Speaker 5: like go out of this.
Speaker 2: This woman destroyed my family. I was so close to
Speaker 2: losing my daughter.
Speaker 1: There was a drunken stumble by Natalia that New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve when she introduced herself with her own name. She
Speaker 1: talked fast to paper over the cracks in her story,
Speaker 1: Emma and Burnie recall, but it did create a seed
Speaker 1: of doubt. And then came the reporting about four months
Speaker 1: later who was really behind the face of Laura West?
Speaker 1: And the truth was out. But even though that reporting
Speaker 1: was followed by police chargers and at court hearing, Emma
Speaker 1: still found herself struggling to believe it was all fake.
Speaker 3: I was disgusted, like and still believing that she was
Speaker 3: my cousin, like she'd manipulated me that much. I was like, Nah,
Speaker 3: that's my cousin, and like, no, that's this not who
Speaker 3: she is, This is my cousin, Like I wanted to
Speaker 3: protect there at saying zion, I don't know why, but
Speaker 3: I was shocked and I'm thinking, well, okay, there's so
Speaker 3: many unanswered questions at the same time, so I.
Speaker 1: Was I don't know, I was shell shocked.
Speaker 2: I was numb, and I probably a lot of gelt. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I lived with the gelt because I felt I'd put
Speaker 2: my daughter through as it was like a grief.
Speaker 3: It really is like a grief proving all these family
Speaker 3: members and friends that really real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to realize, you know, someone had done this
Speaker 2: to my family and even to this day is still
Speaker 2: doing it within the mind.
Speaker 1: The relationship between Emma Bernie and Natalia as Laura lasted
Speaker 1: for nearly two years, but ended when I exposed Natalia
Speaker 1: and the Hero on Sunday. You know the story by now,
Speaker 1: that Natalia went to jail, I thought she would stop
Speaker 1: her puppeteering and then founded twenty twenty two. She was
Speaker 1: masquerading as others. But not only did she start targeting
Speaker 1: men again. Once Natalia got out of jail, she set
Speaker 1: her sights on infiltrating another family and just like the men,
Speaker 1: she now turned to Australia, landing in Adelaide, where she
Speaker 1: found mother and daughter Danica and Lisa Danika Baxter. Like
Speaker 1: Emma met Natalia while she was at school. By her account,
Speaker 1: this was twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6: I met so in a friend's Facebook group, so like
Speaker 6: just wanting friends. Then she started messaging me under a
Speaker 6: name called Kaylee. Then we headed off pretty well.
Speaker 1: Kaylie said she was a decade older than Danneka, who
Speaker 1: was sixteen at the time. In reality, Natalia at that
Speaker 1: time would have been around thirty two. This time, Natalie
Speaker 1: was using the name Kaylee. Remember that friend Emma actually
Speaker 1: lost in a car crash. Her name was Kaylee. Natalia's
Speaker 1: fantasy world had taken a different direction since jail here
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen is the earliest I've found where she's
Speaker 1: using Crystal Jenner's image. Around that time, she created a
Speaker 1: new cast of characters. She told Daniker and Lisa she
Speaker 1: had a daughter, Lily Rose, and as time went on,
Speaker 1: linked herself to the well known family from Auckland, the Littalis.
Speaker 1: Daniker is now twenty four, but she and her mum
Speaker 1: remember the woman they knew as Kaylie Rose or Kaylee
Speaker 1: Litelly was that kind.
Speaker 6: Of normal like mom life.
Speaker 7: She was blonde from New Zealand, very pretty, oh yeah,
Speaker 7: very pretty, treated us as her own sample like kept
Speaker 7: calling me her little sister, like auntie to.
Speaker 6: Her daughter, and then like my mom, her mom.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was like felt so real, so much that This
Speaker 1: is familiar from speaking with Emma and Bernie.
Speaker 6: Oh God, were talked about how literally answering the whole
Speaker 6: entire life. She's backs on me in my life, all
Speaker 6: my exys, my grandma, that Sazi passed away, and my
Speaker 6: niece sent photos to each other. She'd message down ink
Speaker 6: one minute.
Speaker 9: And then she said, I'm like, oh, were you talking
Speaker 9: to Kaye? And then she'd hang out, but then she'd
Speaker 9: talk to me and yeah, or some jobs together.
Speaker 6: She kept messing us Nelly every day, yep. And if
Speaker 6: Danny your head a roun like we had a fight,
Speaker 6: he could ring and asked for advice. And then godra
Speaker 6: Aran in Ireland. Yeah, I just really.
Speaker 4: Thought she was wrong.
Speaker 1: Kaylee called Danicas sis and Lisa mum. She messaged and
Speaker 1: spoke to both women for around six years. It sounds,
Speaker 1: I said, as if Kaylee was a part of the
Speaker 1: family brtually, even.
Speaker 6: Though that sounds we are we are starting.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's large chunks of the interview with Danika
Speaker 1: and her mum Lisa that I could play, but I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure you'd start to feel like you'd heard it before,
Speaker 1: and you would have because much of what happened with
Speaker 1: Emma and Bernie happened in just the same way. Contact
Speaker 1: started with the schoolgirl Emma or Danka, but quickly grew
Speaker 1: to incorporate their mums, Bernie and Lisa. The contact was
Speaker 1: initially over messenger, but then changed to include voice calls,
Speaker 1: and there was always a reason why those voice calls
Speaker 1: didn't include video. Here's Danika, I'm cooking dinner.
Speaker 6: I've just put Lily down for a sleeve so I
Speaker 6: don't want to wake her.
Speaker 1: And here's Emma.
Speaker 3: I was like, do you want to FaceTime? She's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm busy. I'm just getting out the shower. I've got
Speaker 3: an apployment or you know. My wife was playing up
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh good. I never thought anything
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: It sort of Talia became a major influence in Emma's life,
Speaker 1: and then later with Danica. She was with them for
Speaker 1: major life events. For Emma, it was the loss of
Speaker 1: a friend in a car crash. For Danica, it was
Speaker 1: helping her cope with the death of her grandmother.
Speaker 6: I think I told kay Lee that, oh, hey, Grandma,
Speaker 6: my Nada passed away, and then she was like, oh,
Speaker 6: I'm so sorry to hear. He was Sandy her love
Speaker 6: and support, and then when it came to us, so
Speaker 6: I think once she said I wish I was out
Speaker 6: to support you know, I'm like, no, it's all good.
Speaker 1: And guess what it wasn't long after that Kaylee's own
Speaker 1: grandmother died. It was news Kaylee broke to Danica and
Speaker 1: I can see messages from that time that Kaylee couldn't
Speaker 1: help but double down.
Speaker 10: Grandma died of old age, Vicki of cancer and May
Speaker 10: last year and Liam, when he was fifteen, he was murdered.
Speaker 1: Who were these three people? Were any of them real?
Speaker 1: There was a Vicula Tally who died in May twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: someone Natalia likely met behind bars. The two were sentenced
Speaker 1: to the same prison. Vicula Tally was serving three years
Speaker 1: on fraud chargers at the same time as that Talia
Speaker 1: had gone away. Of Liam. Danaka recalls that Kaylie spoke
Speaker 1: of him as a brother, and yet there's no evidence
Speaker 1: of a teenage at that age by the name of
Speaker 1: Liam being murdered in New Zealand in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: As for Grandma, well, it definitely wasn't Kayley's grandmother because
Speaker 1: Kayleie's just not real What's so striking about Danika and
Speaker 1: Lisa's contact with Natalia is how long it went on
Speaker 1: for by their account, and there are copies of many
Speaker 1: text mess sug just to support this. Their connection lasted
Speaker 1: from twenty sixteen through to twenty twenty two, and those
Speaker 1: messages show an incredible level of drama injected into the relationship,
Speaker 1: all in the context of Kaylee's daily life. There's plenty
Speaker 1: of mundane chitchat between the two, which we've had voiced
Speaker 1: by two actors.
Speaker 4: Pal's Lily Rose. She is playing outside.
Speaker 10: Oh cute, She's got a scooter she plays on now
Speaker 10: she's whipped it out, And.
Speaker 1: There's major life changing moments. Both the good be happy.
Speaker 4: I am moving back. My new boyfriend lives in Adelaide.
Speaker 4: Who's your new boyfriend? Nathan? No, so hopefully this swks
Speaker 4: up for you both. And the bad babe, what's happened
Speaker 4: with you and Nathan? Nothing.
Speaker 10: We had a tiny fight at two am when we
Speaker 10: were both tired. I think we are okay.
Speaker 1: Natalia would share photographs with Danaker and Lisa, One of
Speaker 1: a preschool girl was supposed to be Kaylee's daughter, Lily Rose. Instead,
Speaker 1: the child pictured is the daughter of a friend of
Speaker 1: Crystal Jenny's. Remember, Tarlia didn't only harvest crystal social media output,
Speaker 1: she cast the net wide across her friend circle in
Speaker 1: a bid to find more building blocks for her fantasy world.
Speaker 1: Natalia has such a store of photographs from Crystal and
Speaker 1: her friends that there's almost one for every occasion. There
Speaker 1: were Christmas photographs, shopping pictures, precious family moments at a park.
Speaker 1: At an early stage. The discovery they had the same
Speaker 1: birth dates delighted Daneka. It's a coincidence, she now sees
Speaker 1: with some cynicism. When Daneka was turning twenty and fictitious
Speaker 1: Kaylee was turning thirty. Four years after they first met.
Speaker 1: There are a bounty of photographs showing Kaylee celebrating their
Speaker 1: joint birthday celebrations. The messages are an archive of the
Speaker 1: fabric of life, written large by a longtime fantasist. The
Speaker 1: messaging between them covers such a broad range of life dramas.
Speaker 1: There's new loves, there's new breakups. Together, they shared joy
Speaker 1: and frustration. In one lengthy exchange, Kaylee bored, Natalia tells
Speaker 1: Danica how her current boyfriend should be treating her better,
Speaker 1: and then Kaylee goes a step further by messaging the
Speaker 1: boyfriend Danka.
Speaker 4: Was good to you and you hurt her. We just
Speaker 4: passed me off being her big sister.
Speaker 1: In Danka's case, there was at least a real relationship.
Speaker 10: Tell mom she's going to be a grandma in October again,
Speaker 10: thanks Bobe, Mom and I so congratulations.
Speaker 4: Thanks. Me and Jaden are so happy.
Speaker 1: That's the same Jada and we met last episode. The
Speaker 1: man who found out she wasn't real the same day
Speaker 1: he met her online.
Speaker 4: Mom said how are you and Lily Rose? We're good.
Speaker 10: She was at my last scan and got so excited
Speaker 10: when she heard the baby's heartbeat.
Speaker 4: That's good to hear. And oh, she's going to be
Speaker 4: a big sister. Fingers crossed. It's a boy cross them hard.
Speaker 4: Jaden wants a boy to.
Speaker 1: A month later, the scams were in and it turned
Speaker 1: out a boy wasn't on the way.
Speaker 10: How about we name my daughter Summer Danica Louise Latali Grazier.
Speaker 4: You're having another daughter? Why my name? Because you're a
Speaker 4: little sets.
Speaker 1: And another month passes, then how's your pregnancy going?
Speaker 4: Good? Sirs? Thank you? Scan next week?
Speaker 11: That's good and oh so exciting I can't wait to
Speaker 11: give Lily her little sister.
Speaker 1: And then a month later, in a message timestamp six
Speaker 1: point thirty pm, the slow drip of news about an
Speaker 1: imminent sister for Lily Rose took a dark turn.
Speaker 4: We lost the baby. OMG, how I went an early
Speaker 4: labour Han win baby at three pm today.
Speaker 1: The drama was constant, and it often escalated to previously
Speaker 1: unreached height or sunk to new debts in a way
Speaker 1: that is reminiscent again of a soap opera seeking out
Speaker 1: a new, gripping narrative twist. For a period in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: Danika and Lisa lived with the worst of one of
Speaker 1: those scenarios. It started with a text like most did,
Speaker 1: but this time Natalia had taken on a new identity.
Speaker 12: Kaylee and Nikoma. She overdosed after Greg broke up with
Speaker 12: her this morning after losing her grandpa last night. Gregged
Speaker 12: up to her this morning. It was all too much for her.
Speaker 4: Well is she going to be okay? What about Lily Rose?
Speaker 12: She's at her grandmother's house. We've got no idea how
Speaker 12: long she was unconscious for before Ashley found her.
Speaker 4: Okay, Thanks may I Ascomb talking to please Dave her brother.
Speaker 1: That brother is Dave thet Tally, also known as Butterbean,
Speaker 1: the former pro boxer who's become quite a prominent social advocate.
Speaker 1: I've confirmed with the Tally family that this was not
Speaker 1: Dave who was messaging Dannika, and that messaging went on
Speaker 1: for days.
Speaker 4: How's Keyley in.
Speaker 12: A medical coma for now? To let her body heal
Speaker 12: from all the pills she took?
Speaker 4: Okay? Well, hope she will be okay thinking of her.
Speaker 1: There were others who rang while Kayley was in a coma.
Speaker 6: That was her, but in a different voice.
Speaker 3: It's just that's bizarre.
Speaker 1: And then Kaylee was back and sending photographs from inside
Speaker 1: the hospital.
Speaker 4: How you feeling sis like an idiot?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 4: Because he never loved me? Lol? I tried to kill
Speaker 4: myself over a loser.
Speaker 11: You were better without him. Now, listen to me. Never
Speaker 11: do anything stupid again, Promise, Keeley. I got so scared.
Speaker 11: Me and mine were crying. Liver's needs a beautiful mom
Speaker 11: in her life.
Speaker 1: The contact is constant. It's about men and relationships, cheating
Speaker 1: and being cheated on. Danica talks of being messaged by
Speaker 1: friends of Kayleie's and there's no evidence these were real people,
Speaker 1: but it was all part of an ongoing, developing narrative.
Speaker 1: When Kaylee met new guys online, she would start a
Speaker 1: group chat and pull Daniker in, this is my new guy.
Speaker 6: She would say, if I had to argue with my mom,
Speaker 6: all that we partners and all that, so used to ask,
Speaker 6: and she'll give me the best advice. Said some of
Speaker 6: the advice she gave me, it was honestly amazing, And yeah,
Speaker 6: it's so great to just touch down my name to
Speaker 6: and lean on and talk to when you need someone
Speaker 6: because she is always there.
Speaker 1: And then came the discovery it was all a lie.
Speaker 1: When Danica stumbled across the real Crystal Jenna line.
Speaker 9: She saw this photo of her on TikTok and she goes,
Speaker 9: that's Kad, but she's gone by a.
Speaker 6: Different name, right, thought, okay, this is strange.
Speaker 3: And then when we found out, Yeah, it was a shot.
Speaker 9: Big shot, especially after talking draw for what five six
Speaker 9: years Allie and then finding out.
Speaker 6: She's not real. Yeah, and he think, why would a
Speaker 6: person do this?
Speaker 1: It took Danika a while to be able to have
Speaker 1: a proper conversation with Crystal. To her, it seemed unreal
Speaker 1: that her friend, her big sister of six years didn't
Speaker 1: actually exist, and I'm real that the face associated with
Speaker 1: that friend belonged to a different woman. For a while,
Speaker 1: she wanted to go to the Gold Coast and meet
Speaker 1: Crystal face to face so she would know for sure.
Speaker 6: First, I didn't even want to believe it because I'm like,
Speaker 6: what's well? I still used her like literally just bizarre
Speaker 6: and klind isel bit scared because she literally knows my
Speaker 6: tire life.
Speaker 1: Denika is haunted by this. She knows how much she
Speaker 1: has shared and that's left her feeling exposed and vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Would the real person behind Kaylee come searching for her?
Speaker 1: Would that person come to Adelaide?
Speaker 6: It's start side now actually, And now I just feel
Speaker 6: like so stupid because her talks to someone that they've
Speaker 6: hasn't met. There was a lion, you know, and it's
Speaker 6: scary at it. It put all they'll trust into this
Speaker 6: person seeking as so well, I thought, well, how can.
Speaker 9: This person do this for so long, pretending to be
Speaker 9: someone else?
Speaker 6: And why would they do it?
Speaker 8: You know, because they said she treated us like her
Speaker 8: mum and her sister and it's her and Frush and
Speaker 8: annoying that she's done all this for what what reason
Speaker 8: would she get out of doing this?
Speaker 6: So upset to me the most, you know.
Speaker 9: Talking to six years to this person thinking she's all
Speaker 9: this and then boom, find it out she's not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was very hard.
Speaker 1: Danica connected with Crystal online and learned Crystal's image had
Speaker 1: been used for years to trick people. Crystal told her
Speaker 1: about Natalia, about trying to get something done to stop it,
Speaker 1: and how she'd been unsuccessful. She told Danica, who was
Speaker 1: confused and lost with the absence of such a close friend,
Speaker 1: that Natalia likely spent so many years in contact because
Speaker 1: she'd found a special connection. It was a kind theory
Speaker 1: that Danica was the close and genuine friend this lonely
Speaker 1: imposter needed, and the one who helped ease her pain.
Speaker 6: Was actually my old fuck again, maybe she's telling me
Speaker 6: the truth. And then as when I funded camee then
Speaker 6: she wouldn't. I don't have a phone nn she were
Speaker 6: nine to me back, so even to blockly was furden
Speaker 6: me to be like, Wow, my whole entire plan of
Speaker 6: life speaks to this person. Nothing.
Speaker 1: Natalia knew the game was up. She wouldn't answer calls,
Speaker 1: didn't respond messages, and eventually Janica cut herself free in
Speaker 1: one final message, and this is what she said.
Speaker 11: What the actual fuck these past years of talking to
Speaker 11: you isn't even you? Why would you pretend to be
Speaker 11: someone else and talk to me like a fucking sister
Speaker 11: and my whole life and so you have a fucking
Speaker 11: daughter when you don't.
Speaker 4: You even faked and.
Speaker 11: Felt better about my nana passing away and caught us
Speaker 11: all family yuck.
Speaker 4: You make me sick.
Speaker 1: Danika then blocked her and in the time since, wounds
Speaker 1: have started to heal and new friendships have formed, but
Speaker 1: she still struggles to understand why Natalie has spent six
Speaker 1: years being her big sister.
Speaker 6: She still think she's just one very not only female
Speaker 6: and clearly doesn't have the life and has friends. So
Speaker 6: she's just making so many friends on social media and
Speaker 6: real connections.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and it's really sad that she doesn't feel
Speaker 1: that she can do that as herself.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And that's what I'm sad.
Speaker 3: It is that.
Speaker 6: And maybe she's jealous because Chris Stoy is absolutely stunning gown. Think,
Speaker 6: oh yeah, I could talk to a lot of people
Speaker 6: because look at her. She's staying so I can get
Speaker 6: so many people and so many guys to talk to
Speaker 6: me type of thing.
Speaker 1: I have to agree with Danika here. Cat fishing all
Speaker 1: these men is one thing, But spending years pretending to
Speaker 1: be someone's long lost relative, treating them like a part
Speaker 1: of your family. What is driving Natalia? And ties back
Speaker 1: to the bigger question that was never really asked back
Speaker 1: when I first reported on this. Who is the real
Speaker 1: Natalia Burgess? And why has she done the thing she has?
Speaker 1: I think it's about time I try and find that out.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer, follow the
Speaker 1: podcast and the Chasing Ghost Feed on iHeartRadio or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and you can find more in
Speaker 1: this case at incidherld dot co dot inz. Ethanselves as
Speaker 1: my producer with audio engineering by alistair Boys. Thanks to
Speaker 1: my colleagues for lending their voices to this episode. If
Speaker 1: you have a story about this case, contact me at
Speaker 1: David dot Fisher at inzidherld dot co dot inz. And
Speaker 1: if you believe you've encountered behavior online that matches what
Speaker 1: we've discussed in this series, you can find help at
Speaker 1: netsafe dot org, dot inzed, but if you feel at risk,
Speaker 1: don't hesitate, contact police.