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A coroner has dismissed a claim by Melissa Caddick's husband that he did not know anything about her disappearance.
More than two years after the conwoman mysteriously vanished, Deputy State Coroner Elizbaeth Ryan found she died, but could not figure out how, when or where.
Ms Ryan said detectives should have referred her November 2020 disappearance to the NSW homicide squad.
"Early dismissal of the possibility that Ms Caddick had been harmed by another person created the risk that information which might shape the direction of the investigation may have been lost," the coroner said during her findings on Thursday.
The inquest also found the missing fraudster's husband, Anthony Koletti, could not be ruled out as being involved in her disappearance, with Ms Ryan calling his inconsistent evidence "regrettable".
"It is fair to say that when he was not creating further inconsistencies, he was attempting to account for them with opaque and at times unintelligible explanations," she said.
The part-time hairdresser and DJ contradicted himself on multiple occasions during the inquest, including suggesting Ms Caddick was a keen runner and had potentially gone for a jog the morning of her disappearance, despite CCTV footage showing she had not run in weeks.
"Explanations which he offered for the many contradictions simply did not make sense," Ms Ryan said.
His lawyer, Judy Swan, put his murky evidence down to "his limited intellectual capacity", however, Ms Ryan did not agree.
"His discrepancies are too numerous and too persistent to be attributable to stress and lack of intellectual sophistication," she said.
The inquest found Mr Koletti had "some awareness" of Ms Caddick's movements during the days before and after her disappearance, but made a conscious choice "not to disclose it".
Ms Ryan opened her findings by saying she believed Ms Caddick was dead.
"I believe it is appropriate for me to say at the outset, I have concluded that Melissa Caddick is deceased," she said.
"However, a more problematic issue is whether there is enough evidence as to how she died."
The long-running coronial examination delved into the circumstances leading to the 49-year-old Sydney fraudster's disappearance and her mindset at the time.
Caddick's badly decomposed right foot in a running shoe washed up on a beach on the south coast of NSW three months after her disappearance, leading authorities to presume her dead.
Police and investigators from corporate regulator ASIC raided Caddick's Dover Heights home on November 11 2020.
Two days later she was reported missing by her husband.
The officer-in-charge of the investigation into her disappearance, Detective Sergeant Michael Foscholo, told the inquiry last year he believed the fraudster took her own life.
Caddick, a self-styled financial adviser, preyed on mostly friends and family to steal up to $30 million through her investment scam, using the money to fund her lavish lifestyle before disappearing.
Her eastern suburbs mansion was sold for close to $10 million in January.
A collection of jewellery, once owned by the fraudster, has also attracted large sums, with a recent auction garnering $800,000 that will go towards paying back victims.
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A captivating case involving a vanished conwoman, an evasive husband and a washed-up severed foot could remain a mystery forever.
The lengthy inquest into the disappearance of Sydney fraudster Melissa Caddick has made just one concrete finding: she is dead.
Forensic pathologists, family members and even orthopaedic surgeons were among those called to give evidence into the woman's disappearance in November 2020.
However, Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan has been left scratching her head about what happened in the days surrounding Ms Caddick's shock disappearance.
The coroner dismissed a suggestion that a raid by corporate watchdog ASIC on the fraudster's home days before she vanished was conducted inappropriately, despite objections from her family.
"I believe (Caddick) died as a direct result of ASIC's negligence, cruelty and inhumanity," her husband Anthony Koletti told the inquest last year.
Mr Koletti, a part-time hairdresser and DJ, said he and his wife were not offered food, water or medicine during the 12-hour raid of their Dover Heights home.
However, the inquest heard Ms Caddick was outwardly calm during the search warrant, even taking an afternoon nap.
Much of the coroner's criticism was instead reserved for Mr Koletti himself, who was found to have purposely withheld information relating to his wife's disappearance.
Ms Ryan said he could not be ruled out as being involved, calling his consistently murky evidence "regrettable".
"It is fair to say that when he was not creating further inconsistencies, he was attempting to account for them with opaque and at times unintelligible explanations," she said on Thursday.
Mr Koletti continuously contradicted himself during the inquest, including suggesting Ms Caddick was a keen runner and had potentially gone for a jog the morning of her disappearance, despite CCTV footage showing she had not run in weeks.
"Explanations which he offered for the many contradictions simply did not make sense," Ms Ryan said.
His lawyer, Judy Swan, put his unintelligible evidence down to "his limited intellectual capacity", however, Ms Ryan did not agree.
"His discrepancies are too numerous and too persistent to be attributable to stress and lack of intellectual sophistication," she said.
She found Mr Koletti had "some awareness" of Ms Caddick's movements during the days before and after her disappearance, but made a conscious choice "not to disclose it".
The lack of police referral of the missing person case to the NSW homicide squad and the "early dismissal" of the possibility that Ms Caddick had been harmed by someone else created a risk of losing key information, Ms Ryan said.
While the coroner could not rule out murder, she also could not rule out suicide, arguing Ms Caddick "could well have regarded suicide as her only escape from her personal and professional catastrophe".
The 49-year-old self-styled financial adviser preyed on mostly friends and family to steal up to $30 million through her investment scam, using the money to fund her lavish lifestyle before disappearing in November 2020.
Months later, her badly decomposed right foot, still attached to a running shoe, washed up on a beach on the south coast of NSW, leading authorities to presume her dead.
The inquest found, while "unlikely", it was possible Ms Caddick had cut the foot off herself or with the help of someone else.
Ms Ryan took less than two hours to deliver her 54-page-long findings, concluding by apologising to the family Ms Caddick left behind.
"I wish the inquest could have provided the sense of peace that can come from these findings," she said on Thursday.
"I regret that positive findings cannot be made as to the cause and manner of Melissa Caddick's death."
Outside court, Ms Caddick's brother leant on the horn of a car as Mr Koletti pushed his way through a media scrum to take the passenger seat.
The pair drove off with Ms Caddick's parents in tow, none the wiser about the circumstances of their daughter's death.
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The NSW police officer who tasered a 95-year-old woman with dementia could have his charges upgraded after the great-grandmother died from her injuries.
Constable Kristian White was charged with three offences just hours before Clare Nowland died in Cooma Hospital on Wednesday night.
He was suspended with pay after tasering Mrs Nowland at the Yallambee Lodge aged-care facility in Cooma last week when she failed to drop a steak knife.
Mrs Nowland, who weighed just 43kg, clung onto life for a week after sustaining critical injuries in the incident, including a fractured skull.
White, 33, is due to face court in July on three charges, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault.
The most serious of the charges, recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
When asked at a press conference on Wednesday night if the charges might be upgraded, Police Commissioner Karen Webb said that was possible.
She described the tasering as "a nasty incident" but maintained the police investigation had been carried out properly and without prejudice.
"I am confident that this matter is before the court without interference," she said.
Ms Webb defended the decision to suspend White with pay, saying people were innocent until proven guilty.
"He's afforded the same opportunity as any other resident and his employment will continue to be reviewed, but at the moment he's still suspended from the workplace," she said.
NSW Police issued a statement saying the 95-year-old died peacefully, surrounded by family and loved ones.
"Our thoughts and condolences remain with those who were lucky enough to know, love, and be loved by Mrs Nowland during a life she led hall-marked by family, kindness and community," the statement said.
Police Minister Yasmin Catley also offered her condolences to the Nowland family.
"We will continue to offer support to the Nowland family as they mourn this loss and we urge people to respect their privacy at this time," she said.
The state opposition is pressuring the government to release vision captured on the two attending officers' body cameras.
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Rock icon Tina Turner, known for hits including What's Love Got to Do with It and Simply the Best, has died in Switzerland at the age of 83 after a long illness, her publicist says.
The US-born singer came from humble beginnings in the state of Tennessee to reach global super-stardom.
She was admired for overcoming her abusive 16-year marriage with performing partner Ike Turner to find solo-career success in her mid-40s.
She had rose to fame as a duo with Ike in the 1960s and '70s.
Hits like River Deep - Mountain High and Nutbush City Limits stormed the charts in several countries.
As Turner revealed much later, the marriage was torture for her, with Ike beating and bullying her.
She eventually fled from him at the age of 37.
She gave up all financial claims to the music they jointly created in order to get through the divorce quickly and launch the next chapter of her career.
In a career spanning more than 60 years, Turner won eight competitive Grammy Awards and has a star on both the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the St Louis Walk of Fame.
She duetted at the Grammys with Beyonce for a rendition of Proud Mary which featured both the powerful singers, in sparkly outfits, mirroring each other's choreography.
Other notable duets through her career included performing with David Bowie, Sir Mick Jagger and Jimmy Barnes.
At the age of 45, she shone in the spotlight with the album Private Dancer, her solo breakthrough in 1984.
From then on she filled stadiums and music stages all over the world.
Throughout the 1980s and '90s the "Queen of Rock and Roll" thrilled audiences with her powerful voice, daring costumes, sexy dance routines and boundless energy.
She landed numerous hits, from What's Love Got To Do With It? and Proud Mary to We Don't Need Another Hero and Simply the Best to name a few.
After a farewell tour in 2009, she retired into private life and later became a Swiss citizen.
With her German partner Erwin Bach, a record company manager who was 16 years her junior, she had lived on Lake Zurich since the 1990s.
They married in 2013 at a lavish wedding at their lakeside villa.
In 2021 she was inducted into the US Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
"If they're still giving me awards at 81, I must have done something right," she joked at the ceremony via video link from Switzerland.
Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock to a sharecropper family on November 26, 1939, had suffered from colon cancer and kidney failure.
Her husband donated one of his kidneys to her in 2017.
In the autobiography My Love Story in 2018 she wrote about the many painful experiences in her life but honoured Bach as her saviour and her greatest love.
with Reuters
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