On the evening of Thursday, December 2, 2010, a concierge within a luxury Melbourne, Australia apartment building headed to a ground-floor garbage or refuse room in search of a broom. As she attempted to open the door, it appeared to be obstructed from inside the room. After several attempts, the woman was able to push the door open & this was when she was met with a very disturbing scene. She found a young woman lying in a pool of blood beside a garbage bin with blood streaked around the room.
The woman lying on the floor was 24-year-old Phoebe Handsjuk who lived in an apartment unit twelve stories above with her boyfriend, Antony “Ant” Hampel. She had plummeted 40 meters or 131 feet from the 12th floor, down the building’s garbage chute. It was clear that Phoebe had survived the fall, but the garbage compactor at the bottom had nearly severed her right foot & she had tragically bled to death in the darkness of the room, all alone, amongst other people’s garbage. But, how had she gotten into the chute & why?
Phoebe Handsjuk was born on May 9, 1986 to parents Natalie & Dr Leonard Handsjuk, who worked as a psychiatrist. She was the older sister to two brothers, Tom & Nikolai.
She was described as a wild child who was easily noticed, not because she sought out attention, but because she had an amazing presence that couldn’t be ignored. Phoebe was a very active, athletic girl who loved running & martial arts & felt at peace near the ocean. During her time in school, she was very popular & an overall exceptionally social person who had a close group of friends.
Natalie & Len divorced & sadly, when Phoebe was only fourteen, she turned to drugs & alcohol in order to cope with her social anxieties & depression, using speed, ecstasy & marijuana. At age fifteen, she ran away from home for 8 weeks & later told her mom that she lived with an unknown male, who had just been released from prison, his partner & their new baby. After an incident of domestic violence between the couple, Phoebe left & came back to live with her mom. When she was 16, she had a relationship with a teacher who was in his thirties.
Because Phoebe suffered from depression, she was being treated with medication as well as counseling to assist her although her grandmother indicated that Phoebe would often stop taking the medications as soon as she felt better. She felt things deeply, was very sensitive, caring & compassionate & had a fierce sense of justice. Those that were close to Phoebe knew they could always count on her as she was very protective of her family & loved ones & had an especially close relationship with her grandmother who she often confided in.
Phoebe had big aspirations for her future & hoped to one day travel abroad & provide aid work in India.
When Phoebe was 23, she took a job as a receptionist at the Linley Godfrey hair salon in South Yarra & this is where she crossed paths with 39-year-old Ant Hampel. Ant was not only a customer of the salon, but also a prominent events planner who surrounded himself with wealthy & attractive friends. He was the son of Supreme Court Judge George Hampel & his stepmother was County Court Judge Felicity Hampel.
After dating for about six months, in October 2009, Phoebe moved into Ant’s home, the Balancea Apartment on St Kilda Road. The luxurious building which held 84 apartments also had access to amenities that included a heated indoor pool, sauna, spa, steam room, gym, 24-hour concierge as well as an Italian restaurant. The average price of a unit within the building was $1.5 million.
Some were skeptical of the relationship between Ant & Phoebe as they had a stark difference in lifestyle & background & many wondered what brought two seemingly opposite individuals together. Some of Phoebe’s friends felt that she drifted away from them after she began her relationship with Ant. Others indicated that Ant was controlling & Phoebe had no voice in the relationship.
Phoebe sought a simple life that was immersed in her love of the arts; she cherished experiences & connections over material possessions & lived a bohemian lifestyle with a love of travel whereas, Ant was very much accustomed to a life of luxury & often attended extravagant parties while networking with influential people within high society. His world revolved around maintaining an impeccable image that upheld his family’s reputation.
The relationship between Phoebe & Ant was very tumultuous & she left him four times in the six weeks before her death, but Ant always managed to convince her to return. During these breakups, the couple would separate for 2-3 days at a time & Phoebe would go & stay with family & friends. She confided in her family as well as her therapist that she felt she could never live up to Ant’s expectations & it appeared that his behavior toward her was both emotionally & verbally harmful. She was concerned that Ant’s controlling nature was isolating her from those that she loved which exacerbated her struggles with depression & alcohol dependency.
According to Ant, he never asked her to leave nor had he verbally or physically abused her. He said that when Phoebe wasn’t drinking, things were great between them & the only thing they argued about was her drinking. He described Phoebe as a binge drinker who could go up to three weeks without a drink.
The last week of Phoebe’s life was filled with turmoil & began with a Skype call with her mother, Natalie on Sunday, November 28. Natalie noticed that Phoebe was on the call in a darkened room, still in Ant’s apartment which surprised her since she was under the impression that Phoebe had broken up with him. Her mom asked if they had resolved things but Phoebe was unable to fully elaborate since Ant was in the next room & raised her finger to her lips to signal that she couldn’t talk about it. The single time that Natalie had visited the apartment, she saw no sign of her daughter within the home. When she asked Phoebe about it, she explained that Ant didn’t like her things in the unit since he didn’t like a mess.
On Monday morning, November 29, Phoebe had her last consultation with her psychologist, Joanna Young, & indicated that she had been drinking heavily for several days, her mood was very low & she was very distressed about her relationship. It was Joanna’s belief that Phoebe was unhappy with the fact that she wasn’t an equal partner in the relationship & felt quite dependent on him.
That same evening, Phoebe & Ant went out to dinner with their friends, Matt & Julia Rockman. During the dinner, Phoebe confided in Julia about her struggles & feelings, but the conversation was quickly shut down when Ant prevented her from talking further, not wanting her to discuss their relationship issues. The Rockmans said that the dinner ended abruptly & when Ant & Phoebe got back to their apartment building, they had a heated argument while in the car park.
Phoebe left the car in tears & called her friend Brendan to meet for a drink at City Bar. According to Brendan, they shared a few drinks & Phoebe was never out of control. Since it was a Monday, the bar closed early & they left after about an hour. During their time out, Phoebe’s phone rang incessantly & records later showed that Ant had called Phoebe 27 times within one hour. She became so frustrated with the calls that she ended up throwing her phone across the street, breaking it in the process. Ant later indicated that he had called repeatedly since he was ‘desperate & very worried.’
Phoebe eventually ended up at her mom’s house at about 12:30 am, now in the early hours of Tuesday, November 30, where she spoke at length to her mom’s partner, Russell, about her relationship with Ant. Russell noted that Phoebe was drunk, but not incoherent. They spoke for hours & in that time, Phoebe said that she loved Ant to bits, but still wanted to leave him because of the way he acted when she wasn’t on the top of her game. At 3 am, Russell made up a bed & Phoebe went to sleep.
Natalie & Russell were planning to host an 18th birthday for Phoebe’s brother, Nick’s 18th birthday on Friday, the day after Phoebe died. In the week before her death, she excitedly spoke of the party that was going to be a large family event & said that she would help with the decorations.
Phone records indicate that by Tuesday morning, Phoebe returned to the apartment that she shared with Ant who had already left for work. She spoke with him that morning & told him she would be going to work, but he later learned that she hadn’t gone as her coworkers were looking for her. He indicated that when he spoke with her that day, she sounded “wasted.” Phoebe had been working as a receptionist three days a week at an advertising agency, but between October & December, her attendance was very inconsistent & she would miss days of work at a time.
Midday Tuesday, Phoebe called her psychologist & told her that she had been drinking, she was extremely distressed over her relationship & she felt ‘unsafe’, alone & helpless. They spoke for about thirty minutes & Phoebe began to calm down though Joanna felt she was potentially suicidal & gave her the contact information for crisis lines. Phoebe told Joanna that she wanted to take some sleeping pills to sleep away her pain. She ended up calling the crisis line at Alfred Hospital, but Joanna Young never went on to follow-up in regards to Phoebe’s wellbeing.
Just before 4 pm, Phoebe sent a text message to her grandmother Jeanette, to reassure her that she was okay & would call her the next day. Jeanette was aware that the relationship between Ant & her granddaughter was extremely turbulent & he was often jealous of her male friends. Phoebe had only recently come to stay with her in Mallacoota where she lived & indicated that she was very unhappy in her relationship & no matter how much she did, she felt she could never get it right
That Tuesday, Phoebe also met up with friends in Melbourne. She returned to the apartment late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning at 12:29 am, according to the building swipe records & Ant said that she was quite intoxicated, had the hiccups & got straight into bed without interacting with him.
On Wednesday December 1, one day before her death, Ant left for work at 8:11 am; Phoebe again didn’t go to work & a strange message was sent from her iPhone at 10:30 am to Ant, various family members as well as her boss. The message is now commonly known as the tomato soup text:
Hi family. I am in bed about to sleep & when I WAKE I will transform into the most incredible human bein you’ve ever seen!… (not) I will go to hospital. It’s safer there & I hear the special tonight is tomato soup.. Delicious! Nutritious! I love u all very much but not enough to send an individual text. Sorry about that but time is sleep & I must be on my way.. Merrily, merrily, merrily. life is but a dream.
Ant came home at 12:40 pm after he’d gotten a call from Phoebe’s grandmother, Jeannette, to check on her because she was concerned about the text message. He found her asleep in bed & when he woke her, she told him that the night before, she had been drinking & had also taken ecstasy. She told him that she had taken two sleeping pills & was going back to bed. When Ant went back to work, he took the remaining sleeping pills with him & believes he brought them back home with him that evening.
Jeannette admitted that when she received the strange text, she had been very worried, but Ant assured her Phoebe was sleeping peacefully & that, ‘Now was the time to heal & then when she feels ok, we will work out a plan.’
According to Ant, when he got home from work Wednesday evening, he found that Phoebe was still in bed. He felt that she was still hung over & in self-loathing mode about the cycle she was in. He brought up their upcoming trip to Paris & showed her their tickets to help perk her up & indicated that she was excited. He cooked dinner & she took a bath, took some vitamins & went back to bed, sleeping through the night.
On the day of Phoebe’s death, Thursday, December 2, 2010, swipe records showed that Ant accessed the building’s gym at 8:13 am & left for work at 9:01 am. He indicated that Phoebe was sleeping peacefully with their dog Yoshi when he left. Phoebe & Ant had plans to have dinner with her father, Len, later that evening to celebrate his birthday. At 8:45 am, she sent an email & utilized the computer a couple of times. Ant said he tried to call her multiple times throughout the day on the landline since her cell phone was broken & indicated he had been unable to reach her.
Ant later explained that he took her iPhone to get repaired the previous morning, so it’s unclear how she sent the strange text the day before. Ant then changed his story & said that he may have misspoken & actually taken her phone on Thursday, the morning of her death. Phoebe also had a Nokia which she utilized for old phone numbers, but otherwise used the iPhone that Ant had given her. The Nokia phone has never been found.
At 11:43 am a fire alarm within the apartment building went off & CCTV footage showed Phoebe exiting the building with her dog at 11:44 am. The alarm was false & she re-entered the building six minutes later at 11:50 am & this ended up being the last recorded image of Phoebe alive. In the video, she showed no evidence of being intoxicated & walked in a normal manner. She returned to her 12th floor unit & used the computer again to check email. She listened to music, lit candles & possibly spent time sleeping. She ingested alcohol, likely vodka & at some point in the day, she dropped & shattered a glass & attempted to clean up the fragments, placing them into a garbage bag, cutting herself in the process.
The exact details of Phoebe’s activities between the hours of noon & 7 pm are unknown, but at some point, Phoebe had entered the garbage chute which resulted in her death.
The building’s swipe information showed that Ant returned home through the garage door entry at 6:06 pm. When he entered the apartment he was unable to recall if the door had been locked, but their dog Yoshi greeted him at the door. He believed he smelled incense in the air that had recently been burning. He found Phoebe’s purse, apartment keys & swipe card on the kitchen counter.
The apartment was in disarray & even suggestive of a fight. Broken glass shards were in the kitchen, there were two used glasses sitting on the dining room table that smelled of vodka. The glasses were never examined for fingerprints & the liquid within the glasses had also never been examined.
A cushion had been ripped apart & drops of blood were on the mouse of their shared computer. The laptop was open as was Phoebe’s Gmail account, but Phoebe was nowhere to be seen. In the bedroom, he saw what he described as a ‘shrine’ on the bed, which included random ramblings on Post-it notes & photos. Her hair straightener was on as if she was in the process of getting ready, likely to go out with her father.
Ant sat down at the computer & between 6:19-6:34 pm, he looked through Phoebe’s search history for any notes she may have left or websites she had looked at in hopes he could figure out where she was.
At 6:51 pm, Phoebe’s dad, Len, tried to call her iPhone to let her know that he was running late for their dinner, but the call went straight to voicemail. Her family found it extremely strange that within a minute of this phone call, Ant called Phoebe’s father which is something he had never done before in the 18 months Phoebe had been living with him.
Ant indicated since he’d taken Phoebe’s phone to be repaired, the fact that he had called so soon after Len was purely coincidental as he would have had no way of knowing he had called her. He told Len that Phoebe wasn’t home, he hadn’t heard from her, but he was hoping she would walk in soon; they ended up speaking for 3.5 minutes.
Len called Phoebe’s mom to fill her in on the fact that their daughter appeared to be missing, but her keys & purse were in the apartment. She was immediately concerned & called one of Phoebe’s friends, Brenda, who she often turned to when she was upset, but she hadn’t seen her since Monday night. Shortly after, Len called Natalie back with the devastating news that their daughter had died & her body had been found near a garbage bin on the building’s ground floor.
Despite the fact that Ant found the apartment in disarray with broken glass present, blood by computer & no sign of Phoebe, he sat down to have a beer & a cigarette & make some phone calls to friends. At 7:06 pm he ordered Thai takeout food for one person from the very restaurant that he, Phoebe & Len had plans to eat at that night. At 8:03 pm, he buzzed the delivery man in who informed Ant that there was a large police presence outside.
As Ant was calling in his dinner order, the concierge made the horrifying discovery of Phoebe’s body in the refuse room. Despite her immense fall, she managed to climb out of the garbage bin & in the darkness of the room, she attempted to find the exit, but sadly succumbed to her injuries.
Police arrived at the scene of the Balencia Apartments at 7:20 pm & the ambulance arrived at 7:30 pm; because police firmly believed that Phoebe was deceased, they refused the paramedic’s request to examine her for any signs of life & left the actual time of her death as indeterminable. It’s even possible that she may have still been alive at that point.
Phoebe was found lying face up on the refuse room floor a short distance from the door. She was dressed in a tank top & blue jeans with a wide leather belt & wore no shoes or socks. Her sunglasses were on the ground near her body. Her jeans had shifted to below her thighs. The immediate cause of death was blood loss related to a severe injury to her right foot which had been almost completely severed two inches above her ankle. A smeared blood trail was found on the floor & wall.
Ant said that when the delivery driver told him about police activity, he immediately went down & was told that they had found a deceased person. He indicated that his heart sank because he knew it was Phoebe. He identified himself & gave a description of Phoebe & went back upstairs on the instruction of police. Soon, police confirmed that the deceased person found was Phoebe & Ant said, “I believe that as a result of Phoebe’s depression & alcohol abuse she took her life tonight.”
The coroner later concluded that someone of Phoebe’s size, 5’5” & 125#, would have been able to enter the chute had she wanted to. They also indicated that some of the injuries seen on her body, such as bruising, could have been inflicted prior to her entering the chute, but there were no obvious defensive injuries seen & no evidence or tissue found under her fingernails, however, there were minor injuries to the back of her hand & elbows that could have potentially been defensive in nature & had the appearance that she had been gripped by someone.
It was assumed by the coroner that the blood found in the apartment was a result of Phoebe cutting herself while picking up glass shards as well as the reason why she had gone to the garbage chute to discard a bag of broken glass. However, careful inspection of the garbage indicated that Phoebe had not disposed of any trash bags that day & forensic testing showed that her fingerprints were not on the handle of the chute’s entry point or in the vicinity of the chute nor was any blood found near the chute despite the fact that she had been bleeding. It was also questioned how her jeans were found down to her knees with her belt unbuckled because, had she gone down feet first, it would be expected that her pants would have only been pushed upward. The finding of her sunglasses next to her body in the bottom floor refuse room was also strange as it was questioned why she would take her sunglasses with her while attempting to climb into the chute.
The toxicology report indicated that Phoebe had a blood alcohol level of 0.16% as well as Zolpidem/Stilnox (Ambien) level of 0.2mg/L which suggests therapeutic use in the hours before her death or potentially an overdose many hours prior to death.
Detectives found traces of blood on the 12th floor refuse room door which was secured as well as what appeared to be traces of blood in one of the two elevators & on the concrete floor of the car park though these two areas were not immediately secured nor were they photographed & the blood was never tested.
At 9 pm, only two hours after her body had been discovered, police made statements regarding Phoebe’s death being a suicide. They approached the extremely distraught concierge of the building who had found Phoebe & told her not to be too upset since the girl had taken her own life. Because of this quick assumption, police failed to collect all of the CCTV footage from the building which had the potential of capturing anyone else that could have been responsible for Phoebe’s death.
The manager of Valencia apartments, Eric Giamorro, urged the police to take the system’s hard drive (DVR) because he felt that it would be important for it to be reviewed based on the nature of Phoebe’s death. He was also aware of the fact that the building’s system operated on a two-day loop which meant that every two days, the previous footage was recorded over. However, police left the building that night without obtaining the CCTV footage & the cameras were left running. Eric Giamorro was befuddled by this decision & the police only mentioned that they would let him know if they needed to collect or review the footage. On the other hand, detective Sergeant Butterworth stated that he took the steps to obtain a copy of the building’s CCTV tape for the day & later indicated that he had no knowledge that the system recorded over itself every two days.
Because of this, the footage from only three to four of sixteen cameras was successfully retrieved which led to the loss of critical footage & only included a small portion of the foyer & the building entrance. Footage from an underground car park that served as an easy escape route for a potential perpetrator was lost. Phoebe’s family were appalled when they learned that much of the footage had not been retrieved & this included her grandfather, Lorne, who just so happened to be a retired detective.
18 months later, when police requested the hard drive in order to analyze the footage, Eric attempted to retrieve it from storage, but it was nowhere to be found. He immediately reported the missing hard drive to police & conducted thorough inquiries, but to this day, this hard drive remains unaccounted for.
Photos were taken of the inside of the apartment & the 12th floor & ground floor refuse rooms as well as inside the bin Phoebe was believed to have fallen into which contained blood. Fingerprints were taken from all relevant areas. Phoebe’s body was removed from the scene at 2:40 am & the scene was cleared at 5:40 am. Once back at the station, Detective Sergeant Butterworth handed over to the Homicide Squad though, again, it was considered that her death was likely a suicide rather than a homicide.
Despite the presence of blood by the computer, police did not take any of the phones or computers from the apartment & none of their electronic devices have ever been examined. It wasn’t until two years after Phoebe’s death that her family managed to gain entry into her email account that they discovered that all of her sent emails had been deleted by someone. Phoebe’s SIM card was also missing after detectives instructed Ant to keep it.
Blood within the apartment was never tested for DNA, however, the blood found in the garbage rooms & on Phoebe’s clothing were proven to belong to her. Large shoe prints that were leading away from the apartment were not photographed & no samples were taken.
By the following Wednesday, December 8, 2010, the Homicide Squad had written Phoebe’s death off as a suicide without even conducting tests to see if it was physically possible for Phoebe to enter the chute by herself.
When Len & Natalie were told how Phoebe died, they were baffled & did not believe that she would have ended her life in that manner, had she been suicidal. Natalie’s partner Russell pointed out the 18th birthday party they had planned & was firm on the fact that Phoebe & Nick were very close & she would have never committed suicide on the eve of such an important family event.
Lorne Campbell, Phoebe’s grandfather & retired police detective. was immediately suspicious when he learned of the nature of his granddaughter’s death & felt that the conclusion of suicide was premature & questioned that even had she been suicidal, would she have climbed into a garbage chute to end her life?
Lorne felt that the findings within the apartment, which included cushion stuffing as well as broken glass, was indicative that a struggle had taken place. Bruises were also found on Phoebe’s body which were consistent with an assault. It was his belief that the findings of this case were not consistent with a suicide or an accidental death & instead, believed that Phoebe had been ‘criminally killed.’ In his testimony during the coronial inquest, Lorne also criticized that the police had not seized the phones & two computers from Ant’s apartment. They had also not allowed for paramedics to examine Phoebe & determine definitively that she was deceased.
Because Phoebe’s blood alcohol level was 0.16%, he questioned if she would have had the balance or coordination to climb into the chute. She also had medications in her system that would have only worsened these effects. Lorne said that despite the fact that Phoebe was fond of alcohol, it was not fond of her & she was normally quite clumsy when under the influence.
On January 28, 2011, Lorne was granted access to the 12th floor refuse chute & went on to have an exact replica of the chute built with the assistance of the manufacturers. Two friends of Phoebe’s who were athletic as well as the same size as her, were asked to climb into the model chute, which measured 14.5 by 8.6 inches & sat on the wall over 3.5 feet off the ground, unassisted. There are no support structures near the entrance of the chute making the initial entry very challenging. Sarah & Viviana climbed onto the door of the model chute; Sarah was unable to pass through due to her shoulder width while Viviana did manage to get into the shaft but with great difficulty, even with the assistance of Lorne & the host of the show, who held the chute’s door open as she tried to pass through. Viviana was only able to pass through with her arms raised above her head, however, the injuries found on Phoebe’s arms concluded that they had been at her side during the fall. Phoebe’s friend pointed out that Phoebe hated confined spaces & could not ever see her friend choosing that method to end her life.
Their tests established that it was possible for a sober person of appropriate size to get into the chute, but it would not have been possible for a person with a 0.16% blood alcohol level to have the coordination to do so. Phoebe also had a therapeutic level of the sleeping pill, Zolpidem or Stilnox in her system which would have made it that much more challenging.
Using the chute replica for the show, Under Investigation, a woman named Danielle, who was the exact height & weight & wore similar clothing as to what Phoebe wore on the day she died, was brought in. Danielle immediately noted how small the entry to the chute was & instantly struggled to sit inside the opening. On her first attempt, when she finally did, the bolts that held the door in place broke, forcing the door to fall back, trapping her legs which made entry into the chute nearly impossible. On her second attempt, it took all her strength, balance & coordination to sit inside & the door continued to try to close on her back. She also was only able to slide down the chute with her hands raised above her head. By the time Danielle got through, she was shaking from the endurance & when asked if she would have been able to do this while intoxicated, she indicated that it would not have been possible.
The police believed that it would have been easier for Phoebe to climb into the chute herself rather than have a third party place her unconscious body inside though they never tested this theory. However, when Lorne conducted this experiment, Danielle’s body was easily pushed into the chute while the person held the door open simultaneously. During this experiment, it was observed that having the victim’s jeans down to the knees helped the legs from spreading apart.
It was questioned how Ant could have gained access to the building without any trace on security swipe records, but during the police investigation, it was noted that Ant’s family members & friends were able to enter the building & apartment without the use of a chip card or generating any record on the security system. Because the fire alarm had gone off that morning, the apartment block’s security system was compromised & an intruder could have gained access to the 12th floor & exited via the fire escape without a swipe card or key. This raised questions of the reliability of the system & the accuracy of the timeline provided by Ant in regards to his comings & goings that night.
In March 2013, three years after Phoebe’s death, her family was able to raise $50,000 to cover the legal fees of an official inquest into her death & they hoped that overlooked evidence would be reexamined. Ant, however, was very much opposed to the inquest & his lawyers indicated that there wasn’t evidence to suggest homicide.
The inquest took fourteen days & the coroner, Peter White, heard from 30 witnesses & reviewed thousands of pages of evidence with the assistance of a counsel. One member of the counsel, Deborah Siemensma, came to the conclusion that there wasn’t enough evidence to determine if Phoebe’s death had been accidental or deliberate & recommended an open finding which meant that the case could be reinvestigated in the future, however, Coroner White disregarded this recommendation.
The coroner’s report indicated that Phoebe’s death was simply a tragic accident; she had a known love for climbing & undertaking physical challenges which was a factor in her decision to climb into the chute. Because she was intoxicated & under the influence of Stilnox, she was likely in a state similar to that of sleepwalking & wouldn’t have thought about the injuries she would have sustained in her fall.
However, in regards to a potential sleepwalking scenario with the use of Stilnox, otherwise known as Ambien, toxicologists indicate that most of the side effects of Ambien are acts that people do on a regular basis such as cleaning or eating. The act of climbing into a garbage chute is certainly not a side effect of this as well as the fact that the drug combined with alcohol, would have significantly impaired her ability to have the coordination to enter the chute.
The coroner’s report suggests that it was when Phoebe entered the 12th floor room to discard her garbage in her intoxicated state, she made the ill-fated decision to climb into the chute, despite the fact that her garbage was never located on the ground floor. His report also indicated that as she descended, she likely pressed her extremities into the opposite side of the walls of the chute in order to control her fall. He had come to this conclusion because there were no internal injuries or bleeding that would have been expected had she free fallen. It was clear that she was conscious when she exited the chute since she managed to pull herself out of the garbage bin & move about the refuse room before she bled to death.
However, in the experiments, the only way the subjects were able to enter the chute was with their arms raised above their heads rather than at their sides which would have made it impossible to control their fall. The lack of findings of dirt on Phoebe’s hands, arms & clothing also indicated that she had not tried to control her fall down the dirty insides of the garbage chute.
After the coroner deemed Phoebe’s death a tragic accident, her family was in disbelief & attempted to challenge these findings multiple times but struggled to even find legal representation. They were informed that it would be very challenging to find a lawyer who would stand up against Ant’s parents. Phoebe’s family will never stop believing that someone put her in that garbage chute & she absolutely did not enter on her own volition.
In addition to the coroner’s findings that Phoebe’s death had been nothing more than a tragic accident, Coroner White made one other significant finding, one requested by lawyers of Ant Hampel, that he be exonerated of any responsibility for Phoebe’s death which was granted.
After Phoebe’s body was located in the refuse room, Ant gave his statement to police officers & officer Justin O’Brien noted that despite the fact that he was crying, there were no tears coming from his eyes, despite the fact that he was sniffling, there was no sign of mucous & his eyes appeared normal without redness or a bloodshot appearance. His emotions also seemed to turn on & off depending on the situation. His tears would suddenly stop & he would appear calm & composed & then he would begin to cry & curl up on the couch.
Phoebe’s grandmother Jeannette felt that she was on a movie set & that Ant’s emotions were very bizarre. He also refused to officially identify Phoebe’s body which led the task to her grief-stricken parents. Phoebe’s parents learned that Ant had applied to be recognized as her next of kin which initially prevented her parent’s from collecting her remains from the court.
When a local detective tried to seek assistance from the U.S government to obtain Phoebe’s Gmail records, he was denied since five days after her death, the case was closed after it was deemed a suicide as U.S. authorities will only get involved in cases suspected to be homicides.
Following the coroner’s report, Ant quickly applied for Phoebe’s retirement fund to receive a death benefit payment & he received a payment of $113,000. After several months of disputes, he gave the money to Phoebe’s brothers.
Because of the strain that formed between both families, two separate memorial services were held for Phoebe, Ant’s family choosing to host one at a yacht club where many of Phoebe’s closest friends were not invited to attend. Ant didn’t attend Phoebe’s cremation, nor did he join her family in laying her ashes to rest.
Phoebe had been very close with Ant’s sister, Krissy Hampel, who faced drug trafficking charges after Phoebe’s death. Her family’s influence & connections allowed her to evade a conviction with the court citing the potential for “embarrassment to her family” as a reason. In 2016 Krissy posted an intriguing message in relation to Phoebe’s death on Facebook: “I only hope one day that the truth will come out.”
In 2018, Ant, who was 51 at the time, had been dating a 25-year-old part-time model, Baillee Schneider, for about nine months when she was found unconscious in her parent’s Melbourne home. Her parents said that just the day before, she had been fighting with Ant & when they left to go shopping an hour or two before her death, Baillee was laying on the couch with the family dog, talking on the phone. It was clear that she had poured a glass of wine & had a cigarette while they were out & listened to music on her bluetooth speaker. She was found on the kitchen floor with a gold-colored cord tied tightly around her neck & she never regained consciousness. Ant was believed to be one of the last people to communicate with her before her death.
There was no obvious spot in the kitchen where she was found that the 5’8” woman could have affixed the cord. Her death was ruled as self-inflicted asphyxiation & it was determined that Ant was at an event in the city at the time of her death. The toxicology report indicated that she had three times the legal driving alcohol limit as well as traces of cocaine in her system at the time of her death. Similarly to Phoebe, Baillee had also transformed during her relationship with Antony, becoming more secretive & withdrawn.
This is the case of to suspicious deaths that were ruled as suicides in young women dating the same men. Was it a mere coincidence or something more sinister?
References:
- Phoebe Handsjuk
- Coroner’s Court of Victoria: Finding into death with inquest
- The Age: Coroner finds Baillee Schneider death was not suspicious
- The Age: What happened to Baillee Schneider?
- Medium: What happened to Phoebe Handsjuk & Baillee Schneider?
- YouTube: Under Investigation: The mystery of the girl in the chute: How did she die?
- Hunt A Killer: The garbage chute mystery: The near-impossible death of Phoebe Handsjuk
- Wives & Knives: Phoebe Handsjuk
- Ati: The mysterious case of Phoebe Handsjuk, the 24-year-old found dead at the bottom of a trash chute
