When Phoebe Handsjuk sent the text to everyone, it caused alarm because she had a history of anxiety and depression.
The text read,
“Hi family. I am in bed and about to sleep and 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 and I hear the special tonight is tomato soup … Delicious! Nutritious! I love you all very much but not enough to send an individual text. Sorry about that, but time is sleep and I must b on my way … … Merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream. Xo”
Feeling concerned, her grandmother, Jeannette Campbell, decided to contact her boyfriend, Anthony Hampel, who lived with her in the fancy St Kilda Road unit complex in Melbourne.
Anthony answered the phone and said he was not currently with Phoebe at the time, but when he left in the morning, she seemed just fine. Ant, as he was also known, said he had not seen the message but would swing by to check on her.
Jeannette felt more reassured and texted her daughter, saying Ant ensured things were fine. Natalie sent a text to Phoebe, then asked her to call when she woke up.
That evening, when Anthony came home, he did not see Phoebe at the apartment. He did notice her keys and her handbag. That was apparently odd: you could leave the apartment building without the keys, but they would not let you back in.
About 40 minutes after he came home, Phoebe’s father, Len, called Phoebe on her iPhone. According to Len, Anthony answered the call on her phone. This is where accounts differ. Anthony says he did not hear Len’s phone ring; instead, he called him a minute later on his own phone.
Regardless, when they spoke, Len said he was trying to get to Phoebe because she had arranged a dinner for the three of them at the Golden Triangle. It was to celebrate Len’s birthday, which was two days before.
Ant then told Len that she was not in the apartment, but her bags and keys were there. That means she could not have been far. This news also worried Len, who had also received the mysterious text the previous evening.
He suggested that Anthony report her as missing to the police, but apparently, Ant wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. ‘They don’t listen until 48 hours have passed, and she’ll be back by then.”
Len then called his son, Tom, and asked him to call a mutual friend who might have some information on Phoebe’s whereabouts. He also rang Natalie and informed her of the developing situation.
Finding the Body and Initial Investigations
At the apartment building, Anthony rang the Golden Triangle, opting for takeaway that night. He buzzed the delivery boy up to his apartment.
Upon reaching the door, the delivery boy asked what was going on at the building. Apparently, the front of the building was swarming with police officers. Anthony immediately left his meal and went to the foyer. He approached a detective and asked him what was going on.
Acting Senior Sergeant Andrew Healey told him that a woman’s body was found in the trash compactor room. ‘Oh, no!’ Ant said. ‘My girlfriend is missing! Could it be her?’
Anthony confirmed that she was suffering from depression but was taking medication for it. He had made a few calls to try to reach her during the day, but the feeling was that it wasn’t the first time she would go offline, and that she’d always turn up eventually.
He also said Phoebe had left some Post-it notes, but no information on her plans for the day. Healey followed Ant up to the apartment and asked whether she had identifying marks, such as tattoos.
In the room, the detective noticed items of interest, including broken glass and blood on the floor. He did confirm the Post-it notes.
Other detectives focused on the floor. They found blood on the floor of the refuse room, which had the rubbish chute, and some blood on the door handle. After reviewing the obvious evidence, the police requested CCTV footage from the 12th floor.
Unfortunately, there were no cameras inside the garbage chute room or pointed at the exterior of the apartment where the compactor bin was found on the ground. However, elevator footage showed Phoebe entering the building with Antony at 11.24.
They went up to the 12th floor. The couple was also seen taking multiple trips in the lift between 11.35 pm and 12.14 am.
When he was questioned about their movements, Anthony said Phoebe was drunk and wanted to go to a 24-hour convenience store. He said at the time, he was trying to get her to go back upstairs and sleep it off.
At 12.14 am, she sent the text to her family. The police believe she was in the garbage room or just about to enter it. At 1.48 am, the video footage shows Hampel leaving the building alone. He told the authorities that he was going to get food after an argument with his girlfriend.
He came back a few minutes later, but it is not recorded that he went up to the 12th floor. Hampel explained that he did not have his apartment keys and, rather than wake Phoebe, he opted to sleep on a couch in the foyer.
Interestingly, the trash chute yielded no usable fingerprints, which is quite suspicious given its small size. On analysing the stomach contents, the coroner found Phoebe’s blood alcohol level was three times over the legal limit. There were also traces of the sleeping pill Stillnox.
The police initially treated the death as suspicious, but they did not find any evidence of foul play. In 2011, Coroner John Olle ruled it as death by misadventure. He agreed that Phoebe was very intoxicated, and she accidentally fell into the chute.
Anthony Hampel’s Account and his Relationship with Phoebe
Anthony said he was too upset to view the body when the detective confirmed it was Phoebe who was found. He called Len, who was devastated, and subsequently called the rest of the family to notify them.
Ant confirmed that his relationship with Phoebe had been very rocky leading up to her death. She would often threaten to move out, do so, and then move back in.
Phoebe was also drinking too much and apparently disappearing for hours with people that Ant deemed ‘Low-lifes’. She had confessed concern to her therapist about her relationship being in a rough place and the growing dependency on alcohol.
Anthony said that after they would fight, she would return in tears. She would then take prescription drugs to help her sleep off the hangovers, and it would begin again afterwards.
Anthony was almost 20 years her senior, which heightened the case’s intrigue and raised suspicion against him, given his age.
When he came home that day, he did not find Phoebe in the apartment, but he was not worried, as it was not out of the ordinary. He did see what he later called a ‘shrine’ on the bed.
There was a photo of Phoebe, himself, and their cat. There were a lot of rambled notes also that she used to write when intoxicated.
When he came to terms with what had just happened, Ant called his mother, Suzanne Owen, and his stepfather, Robert. He gave them the same account.
During the coronial proceedings, legal counsel represented Ant. He did not personally testify in inquests after that. The legal team indicated no evidence connected him to her death.
Inconsistencies in the Evidence
The last known movements of the deceased were captured on the CCTV from the building. Everything except the fall.
Once she was intoxicated and they allegedly had a fight, the Coroner stated that Phoebe may have gone out of the apartment and then shimmied down the garbage chute. That said, the police never tried to re-enact this act to see if it was even possible.
There were no fingerprints on the chute, either, which, considering she would need help going down the garbage chute, made it all look improbable. Police also failed to photograph or test the blood that was found on the level 12 chute door.
Neither did they test the blood in the apartment. Had they done so, it would indicate whether violence had occurred, ruling out the account given by Anthony.
The other strange detail was that Phoebe was found with her jeans pulled up around her knees. Now, this is not the typical trajectory of clothing if she fell 12 floors by accident. One would more likely have their pants pull up as they go down.
There were other inconsistencies as well, like bruising on her arms. This is consistent with grip marks. It means she might have grabbed just before her fall.
That piece of evidence was allegedly not picked up until the detective who completed the brief for the Coroner looked at the medical examination photos.
Byron Collins, an experienced forensic pathologist, also commented about the unexplained bruising on her body, which could have happened before she fell. He pushed for an open finding rather than a suicide or accidental death ruling.
Initial Ruling and Further Inquests
Coroner Peter White concluded that Phoebe’s death had been an accident. He determined that the combination of Stillnox and alcohol in the system caused her to be in a deeply confused state.
She may have been unaware of the danger to her life, and then died due to severe blood loss when the compactor practically severed her foot on the ground floor.
In response to the ruling, Phoebe’s family publicly challenged the coroner’s conclusions. They indicated the evidence did not preclude another person’s involvement, especially regarding how she allegedly ascended and descended the chute.
Phoebe’s family opted to push for reopening the case, using specific laws to apply to the police investigation. This includes the manner in which physical evidence is interpreted and the lack of a definitive exclusion for a third party.
The family then launched a petition in 2016 to call for a fresh inquiry. This is regarding how poorly the investigation had been handled, according to them. Their goal was to reach 100 signatures. The family managed to garner 184 supporters at one point.
However, it did not change the legal status of the case. But the petition did contribute to public awareness around unresolved questions in the girl’s death. Media investigations helped keep the incident.
No further inquests were done beyond the final one in December 2014. Though the death was officially classified as an accident, the family’s campaign affected the coronial laws reforms in Victoria State. In 2018, some amendments to the Coroners Act were made.
It made it easier for families to seek a reinvestigation or a review of coronial findings where there are concerns about the handling of evidence. This reform was initiated by public discourse surrounding the Phoebe case.
There are so many questions to consider, such as why Anthony did not want to report Phoebe as missing, why she would send such an odd text to everyone, or why she would choose the garbage chute as a place to explore, even in a confused state.
These make it seem implausible that her death was an accident. There is even more scrutiny on Anthony, mainly because of the perceived legal influence, being the son of two judges.
His father was a Supreme Court justice. The fact that he was also connected to the mysterious death of another girlfriend also raises eyebrows.
The Case of Baillee Schneider
Years later, in 2018, another woman named Baillee Schneider was found dead. At the time, she was seeing Anthony Hampel.
Her parents found her in the kitchen of their home with a cord wrapped around her neck. She had been dating Anthony for nine months, and the two had an argument the night before she died.
Though he was one of the last people she spoke with, the coroner ruled her death a suicide.
It was caused by a combination of alcohol and prescription medication, because she was stressed over relationship issues. Hampel was not named as a suspect, but it did attract public interest.
As of the present, Phoebe’s death remains accidental from a legal standpoint, unless other information reveals otherwise.
