The Melissa Caddick inquest is underway and has already unveiled bizarre details surrounding her disappearance. Namely secret codes, her husband Anthony Koletti‘s apparently suspicious behaviour, and… dead pigs wearing shoes?
A coronial inquest into the 49-year-old’s presumed death began on Monday and is due to run for 10 days.
Melissa Caddick vanished from her Dover Heights home in 2020 during an investigation by ASIC over her alleged Ponzi scheme where she was accused of mishandling up to $30 million. Months later, her severed foot — still in its running shoe — was found on a beach by campers. She’s presumed dead, but whether she died by suicide or there was foul play remains a mystery.
So far, the NSW State Coroner’s Court has heard both from Caddick’s brother Adam Grimley and from police who were in charge of investigating her disappearance. The new info is pretty grim, and at times, absurd.
According to the inquest, police investigating Melissa Caddick’s disappearance considered throwing a bunch of dead pigs with tracking devices — some with running shoes on — into the ocean as an experiment. You know, to monitor shark behaviour? In case that’s how her foot got severed, obviously.
When Detective Sergeant Steven Morgan — who acted as homicide consultant on the case for six months — was asked if the experiment ever took place, he said: “I don’t know.” FFS.
Morgan’s testaments did turn out to be useful though: his notes showed that Caddick had an insurance policy in place in the event of her suicide.
Caddick also once told a friend, while walking along the cliffs near her home, that if she was “going to end it, it is going to be here.”
“If it all gets too much for me you will find me at The Gap,” she told her brother Adam Grimley on a separate occasion, per News.com.au.
Police considered the possibility of Caddick taking her own life at the nearby “suicide area” (cliffs around Dover Heights) because she was “under enormous stress” due to the ASIC investigation. #CaddickInquest
— Kate McClymont (@Kate_McClymont) September 13, 2022
While this seems pretty consistent with theories she died by suicide and fell off the cliffs near her Dover Heights home (at least, that’s one of the theories that emerged after her severed foot was found in the ocean), Caddick was reported as missing once before in 2012.
During turbulent times after her then-husband Tony Caddick discovered her affair with Anthony Koletti, Caddick went missing for a short time. At the time, she gave her friend a 4-letter code that she said should be passed on to her brother in the event of her disappearance.
My head is spinning, but these are not the only bizarres detail to emerge from the inquest.
Counsel assisting the coroner Louise Coleman also revealed to the court officers initially suspected Koletti played a role in her disappearance after speaking to her son, who is referred to as “Witness B”.
FYI, her son said he heard the front door of his mum’s mansion open and slam shut in the early morning of the day she disappeared — it’s possible that was the last time anyone saw or heard from her.
“It is plain from the brief of evidence that as early as 13 November 2020, each of the three police officers that had attended Mr Koletti’s home that day and had subsequently spoken with Witness B held concerns regarding the accounts provided by Mr Koletti and suspected that he might have been involved in some way in Ms Caddick’s disappearance,” she said, per News.com.au.
“[Sergeant Trent Riley] states that Mr Koletti had told him several lies, that his story had changed multiple times, and that he made ‘strange and unusual comments about different aspects of his version’.”
The husband of Melissa Caddick, Anthony Koletti, was “evasive, vague and inconsistent” when he reported his wife missing 30 hours after she had vanished, the inquest into her disappearance and presumed death has heard. #CaddickInquest
— Kate McClymont (@Kate_McClymont) September 13, 2022
Koletti said he checked the cliffs of Dover Heights after Caddick disappeared, which Coleman described as “strange” because he told officers Caddick was fine and didn’t suffer from any mental health issues.
He also told police that if Caddick had fled, she was probably at the Meriton in Bondi Junction — but there’s no record of her ever staying there before.
Another officer told the court Koletti had a “composed, relaxed and seemingly uncaring persona… unlike any other person I had taken a missing person’s report from previously.” The same officer said Koletti’s story “did not seem to make sense.”
One unnamed officer even went as far as to write in a document that they were “of the view that Koletti had likely killed the deceased.”
However, Detective Sergeant Michael Foscholo — who was in charge of the investigation — said he was “of the personal view that (Ms Caddick) has taken her own life shortly after leaving the house”.
He also said he found “no evidence to support the theory” that Koletti was involved. PEDESTRIAN.TV is not implying that Anthony Koletti played any part in Melissa Caddick’s disappearance.
NSW police criticised for not exploring the many inconsistencies in Melissa Caddick’s husband’s account to police at the time she went missing. Also no crime scene investigation of house or cars done until 19 days after she went missing. #CaddickInquest
— Kate McClymont (@Kate_McClymont) September 12, 2022
On top of all that, it looks like the police investigation of Caddick’s disappearance lacked some pretty important steps.
The court heard police didn’t conduct a crime scene examination of Caddick’s house or cars until *19* days after she disappeared. In fact, Koletti didn’t even make a police statement until November 13. By then, his wife had been missing for more than 24 hours.
The inquest is set to continue for the next week. It will involve witnesses such as Koletti, police, psychologists, ASIC investigators and even an ocean currents expert. I wonder what they’ll have to say about the pigs.
If you need mental health support, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or chat online.
Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
You can also reach the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 or chat online.
If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
