Melissa Caddick’s investors were convinced she would not take her own life. But she had, of course, fooled them before.
“She’s a narcissist, and narcissists don’t take their own lives,” one investor told Guardian Australia last week. “She’s in hiding, living on our money.”
Since Caddick disappeared in November, within hours of the corporate regulator, Asic, and the Australian federal police raiding her $6m house in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Dover Heights, police in New South Wales have repeatedly said they believed she was still alive.
“We are treating the case as if she’s alive,” the state’s police commission, Mick Fuller, told Sydney radio in January.
On Friday, however, NSW police revealed she wasn’t. Authorities announced that on Sunday 14 February a decomposed foot had washed up on a remote beach in the Bournda National Park near the sleepy coastal town of Tathra.
The foot, discovered by two campers, was a match with DNA from Caddick’s toothbrush and family. The confirmation came through on Thursday night.
At a press conference announcing the discovery on Friday, the assistant police commissioner, Michael Willing, tried to strike a delicate tone. Caddick’s family, he said, were “obviously distressed”.
But, equally, the dozens of friends and associates who were defrauded after investing millions of dollars into the unlicensed investment scheme that Caddick had for years operated via her personal company, Maliver, remain in the dark.
Asic had alleged that 49-year-old Caddick had misappropriated millions of dollars in investor funds through the financial services company she operated without a licence.
She was suspected of signing on clients to manage their investments, while secretly transferring their money to her bank accounts to fund her own luxurious lifestyle which included staying at the luxury North of Nell condos in Aspen for the past three years at Christmas.
Documents tendered to the federal court indicate that for a two-year period from 2018 more than $20m of investors’ funds found their way into accounts linked to Caddick.
On Wednesday, Bruce Gleeson, the liquidator appointed by the court to work through Caddick’s accounts, said he had discovered hundreds of false documents created by Caddick and had not been able to locate any legitimate information provided to her investors.
“Instead of investing investor funds the monies were commingled on multiple occasions into accounts operated by the company or Ms Caddick personally, and share transactions did not occur in the name of the investor,” Gleeson said.
“There are hundreds of false bank statements, share contracts and share trading statements.
“At this stage, we have not identified any circumstances in which [share holding] statements provided by the company and Ms Caddick to the investors have been found to be true.”
‘We just don’t get closure’
The question of what happens next will be crucial for those investors defrauded by Caddick. One of her victims, Cheryl Craft-Reid, said on Friday that while the discovery of her remains was “a sad and tragic” outcome for Caddick’s teenage son, she remained unsatisfied.
“It’s also just a sad tragic outcome for us because we just don’t get closure,” she said.
On Friday, Willing sought to assure them police would continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding Caddick’s disappearance.
“We need to provide as many answers as we can to family and friends and everyone else who has been affected by the alleged actions of Melissa,” Willing told reporters.
A spokesperson for Asic said on Friday the corporate regulator would continue its investigations into her finances despite her death – with the case before the federal court to continue.
“Asic’s priority is to seek the return of funds to investors in the most efficient way possible,” the spokesperson said. “Asic will continue to work with the receivers and provisional liquidators to prepare for the federal court hearing listed on 7 and 8 April. Asic considers the hearing should go ahead as a priority to seek return of funds to investors.”
Despite the gruesome discovery, questions about Caddick’s movements linger. The last suspected sighting had been on 12 November, the day after the raid, when her teenage son heard the front door close about 5.30am and assumed Caddick was going for a morning run.
In the three months since, officers had combed extensive CCTV footage and followed dozens of leads with no clear picture of why she might have disappeared. Caddick had left behind her belongings, including her mobile phone, before her disappearance and left no digital footprint since.
“In 2021, it is very difficult to go missing and not be found given the electric footprint that we all leave behind and cameras and a whole range of other electronics that exist in our lives now,” Fuller said in January.
On Friday, Willing said her exact movements after she left her home remained unknown because the footage “does not cover the entire area of where she disappeared”.
“Exactly how Melissa came to enter the water is still a mystery and subject to ongoing investigations,” he said. “Police have always kept an open mind in relation to the circumstances of her disappearance, including the fact Melissa may have taken her own life.”
The exact “manner, time and cause of death is a matter for the coroner”, he said.
Even after the remains had been found, some investors were not convinced. They consider Caddick pure evil: a person who betrayed them so deeply that there is no telling what else she is capable of. “You can still survive without a foot,” one said.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14.
