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- [00:01]
Ashley Freckleton
Warning. This is a true crime segment and not suitable for children. It contains references to sexual violence and suicide which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you are not alone. Contact Lifeline on 13, 11, 14 or visit lifeline.org au for 24 hour support.
- [00:20]
Michelle Laurie
We don't know precisely. It's a voice that will send shivers down your spine.
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Matthew Tankard
Standoff with police wanted fugitive step 19 times.
- [00:27]
Michelle Laurie
The suspect lured the victim into the war. Biggest legal dramas in Hollywood Today is a major to show what the system can do.
- [00:35]
Matthew Tankard
This is true CRIME tonight.
- [00:38]
Michelle Laurie
This is True Crime tonight. And I'm your host, Michelle Laurie. I'm here with my producers, Matthew Tankard.
- [00:43]
Matthew Tankard
Hello.
- [00:44]
Michelle Laurie
And Ruby Bartzis.
- [00:45]
Ruby Bartzis
Hello.
- [00:46]
Michelle Laurie
And every single Sunday night from 6 till 7, we'll bring you the latest headlines, true crime book and documentary recommendations and interviews coming up later this hour, we'll talk to Ashley Freckleton, one of the central voices in the Apple TV docu series Twisted Yoga. But up next, the latest breaking true crime news.
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Ruby Bartzis
This week marked 100 days since Nancy Guthrie, the 84 year old mother of US Today show host Savannah Guthrie went missing. The local sheriff's department issuing a statement saying they remain fully committed to the investigation despite three months passing since her disappearance. New South Wales launches inquiry into whether Ivan Milat committed far more murders than he was convicted of. This investigation could possibly link the backpacker killer to some of the 58 unsolved murders and missing person cases in New South Wales. Families hope the review will finally uncover answers after decades of uncertainty. And the man accused of abducting and killing Kumanjai Little Baby has been excused from appearing in court. In Alice Springs, 47 year old Jefferson Lewis is facing three charges, including one count of murder after the five year old girl was found dead. The case will return to court in July.
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Michelle Laurie
I thought Kumenjayi Little Baby was this child's name, which I thought was beautiful. I mean it's a devastating story. We see the photo of this little girl. It's awful. But you pointed out to me, you said, no, I don't think that is her name. I think that's. So I googled it and I found this. It's fascinating. Kumanjayi is a term used among Walpiri and other central Australian aboriginal language groups to replace the birth name of any person who has passed away, honoring their spirit. And then so I guess I see the combination of little baby is telling us that the lost person is a little girl, a little baby. God, it's so awful, that story. So Tragic. But in a way, there's no but. But in a way, it takes me back to the Ivan Milat story, which is thinking that, you know, if there's 58 unsolved murders in New South Wales, that's 58 sets of parents. That's 58, you know, all of them were someone's baby. And to lose someone and not know for such a long period of time, how, why, where, who is devastating.
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Ashley Freckleton
Yeah.
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Ruby Bartzis
And it's decades. It's not like it's even recent.
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Michelle Laurie
I think there is a temptation to pin any missing person on Ivan Milat. I've noticed over the last couple of years, there's lots of, where was Ivan when that person went missing? Cause he did work around Australia a lot. He did move around a lot. And the fact that he was convicted of eight murders in the end does feel a bit light to me.
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Matthew Tankard
Yeah. And, I mean, you'd have to be pretty unlucky to get caught for everything if you're. If you're a serial killer.
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Michelle Laurie
Yeah.
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Matthew Tankard
You get caught for every single one,
- [03:32]
Michelle Laurie
particularly where he was. I mean, Belangolo State Forest, for one thing. The fact that they found those remains in the first place was an incredible long shot, a million to one. And I remember watching a documentary about it, and they were talking specifically about the Australian outback. And the. The. It's something like. It's made up of so many colors. Like, I don't notice that when I look at the bush, I see, I don't know, green, pale green, and they're like, no. When you really break it down, it's got every color in the kaleidoscope in it, which makes it hard to see anything in it, if that makes sense. So one of the sets of remains from the Ivan Milat case was wearing an orange T shirt and was found in the orange T shirt. But from a couple of meters away, you couldn't see it. Even a color as bright as orange blended in. Camouflaged. Wow. Yeah. So the fact that he was caught at all is quite miraculous.
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Matthew Tankard
Yeah.
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Michelle Laurie
And the fact that they found the remains. They did is miraculous. He never led them to any. So I can understand the thinking that there's probably others.
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Matthew Tankard
Yeah. But at the same time, you're right. They kind of do make him a bit of a boogeyman in terms of he's responsible for every. Every missing person's case.
- [04:41]
Michelle Laurie
I've met families who've had a missing person from those decades that he was alive, basically, and have said, you know, does make you wonder. Does make you Wonder if they ran into Ivan Milat.
- [04:52]
Ruby Bartzis
Absolutely.
- [04:53]
Michelle Laurie
What an awful thing to have to wonder about someone you love. But we will definitely keep tabs on the story of beautiful little Kumadji. Little baby. Coming up, we have an interview with Ashley Freckleton. She is sort of the lead lady in the documentary series Twisted Yoga that's on Apple. It's a good documentary and she is an amazing lady. And also, we're gonna have another documentary recommendation for you. This is a Tinder. I mean, Tinder, I'm realising, is offering up an endless array of documentary fodder. Don't you love it when someone gives you a great recommendation for a new true crime documentary or even a classic one that you haven't seen? We'll talk about that over the weeks. We'll talk about great true crime books. But today I have a documentary for you. How familiar are you with the Tinder swindler?
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Matthew Tankard
I've heard of it. You know, I've never actually seen it.
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Ruby Bartzis
No clue.
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Michelle Laurie
Really?
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Ashley Freckleton
No.
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Michelle Laurie
I thought, Ruby, you'd be all over it. Are you all over Tinder? Is that a rude question?
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Ruby Bartzis
No, I've been in a relationship for six years.
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Michelle Laurie
Okay. So I think a lot of people who are on Tinder would have clicked on this documentary, Right? Well, this is the sort of next step. Now, one of the ladies from that documentary, one of the victims, is now running her own show on Netflix where she and a private investigator goes and investigate other swindlers. Love, con, revenge. And it's so good.
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Matthew Tankard
As in, what is every episode a different swindler?
- [06:13]
Michelle Laurie
Yeah, every episode's a different victim. Usually a lady, obviously, and usually a beautiful lady. Maybe middle aged lady who's divorced, got grown up kids. We all know this trope. And she's trying out Internet dating for the first time or she's chatting on Facebook or something. And this amazing man just appears out of nowhere. And they just have so much in common and such a connection. She's so excited. And then it goes horribly wrong. Here's a little bit of the trailer. So I'll give you the short story. So I'm not the swindler. I'm just a guy doing the best I can and have been supported by wonderful people. And I'm talking 10,000 every month. I never thought that I would become a victim of romance fraud.
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Ashley Freckleton
I gave him $150,000, $2 million of debt.
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Michelle Laurie
These scammers have been getting away with
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Ashley Freckleton
this for way too long.
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Michelle Laurie
Brianne Joseph is a private investigator.
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Ashley Freckleton
You recognize this guy? That's him in the green. Go, go, go. I'm like a pit bull. When I grab hold of something, I don't let it go.
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Michelle Laurie
He's hauling ass now.
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Ashley Freckleton
Haul ass with him. We're gonna find them. I'll find his Facebook page.
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Ruby Bartzis
Hi.
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Michelle Laurie
Expose them. You're rocking.
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Ashley Freckleton
Were the tears real?
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Michelle Laurie
And bring them to justice. Show him your hands. Do it. Now. Imagine if, you know you've upset one woman. The classic expression, you know, about a woman scorned, and now she's got two girlfriends with her, one of whom is a famous scorned love fraud victim, and the other is a private investigator. And they're so motivated to catch these guys. It's like it's got an element of cops and cheaters about it.
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Matthew Tankard
I was gonna say it reminds me of that old cheaters where they would go meet them in the. So are they meeting the swindlers mid act, or is it someone suspicious that they're being swindled and then they find that out? Or is it once they've been swindled?
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Michelle Laurie
We know they've been swindled, but usually they've got another victim on the go. By the time this team catches up with them, there's normally some other poor lady standing next to him with a handbag, clutching her handbag, going, what's going on, Gary? And he's like, nothing, nothing. Wait in the car. So it's quite something. It's very cathartic, I think, for a lot of women to watch this show. One of the swindlers has recently been sentenced to three years prison in Rhode island for his swindle. And so he's on one of the episodes of this show. And the lady, I think the courts awarded her about $15,000 in damages, but she had given him about $60,000. I tell you what, it does. It tells me something I already knew, but it's a really good heads up for all of us, is that when somebody comes into your life and appears to love everything you love, this was the red flag for me. Every one of these cases is about someone meeting a guy and just going, oh, my God. I'd never had a connection like this in my life. Never met anyone I've got so much in common with in that's the red flag. That's the first thing you have to be careful of, because in all of these cases, the guy was making it up. The guy was listening to you go, oh, Ruby's got a nice big dog. I've seen a photo of her dog. I'm just gonna Go on and on about how much I love big dogs.
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Ashley Freckleton
It's so horrible.
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Ruby Bartzis
It's like the perfect victim, right?
- [09:22]
Michelle Laurie
Every tiny breadcrumb you drop about your life and what you're into, I'm gonna say, oh my God, I love that. And then before you know it, you're like, this is my SoulMate.
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Matthew Tankard
And with AI as well, I know that when it's called targeted phishing. So if someone was being swindled on Tinder.
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Michelle Laurie
Yeah.
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Matthew Tankard
And say if they have kids, what they can do is they'll call the kids and really all they need is their kid to just answer and say, hello, maybe a few words. And then they've got a voice print. So then they will use that voice print to call you and you know, say that I need money, you know, I'm lost, I need, you know.
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Michelle Laurie
Yeah, yeah, right. That's the. Oh, God. There's so many ways to be scammed. It feels like a full time job some days, doesn't it? To just avoid it being scammed.
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Matthew Tankard
It does. And I know on Australian True Crime we've had a few people come on who have been scammed and it challenges the misconception that, you know, there's a lot of shame when you get scammed. You don't tell people because you don't want people to think that you're stupid. But that's not typically the case, is it? It's not really. It's quite intelligent people who typically get scammed, actually.
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Michelle Laurie
Yeah, yeah, there's. There have been studies that show that the smarter, the more intelligent the person, the higher the IQ of the person, the more likely they are to be scammed and scammed for a longer period of time. Because there's something about knowing you're smart and trusting your instincts in the first place and going, no, I think I'd know if this was weird or wrong. I'd know. And then once you do kind of realize you're being scammed, you don't want to admit it to yourself or to anyone else. Because I'm so smart. How could that be possibly happening? It must be. Okay, so many ways to be scammed, guys. But love scams are particularly, I think, brutal and hard to watch and all of that. That could be because I'm a woman of a certain age, I'm not sure. But this is a six part series on Netflix called Love Con Revenge, LoveCon Revenge. If you wanna see that, this is true crime. Tonight, across the Kiss Network with me, Michelle Laurie. And we'll be back in a minute. With our interview with Ashley Freckleton about the Apple TV docu series Twisted Yoga. Twisted Yoga is a brand new short documentary series on Apple tv. It takes us into the world of Gregorian Bivalru, who is the spiritual leader of an international tantric yoga movement and who was for many years one of Interpol's most wanted fugitives. Bivallaru is now in custody in France. Thanks in part to our guest, Ashley Freckleton.
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Ashley Freckleton
I just moved overseas. I was 25. I was exploring my spirituality, my identity, what I believe in. I was in a new city going through a breakup, and I also really enjoyed yoga. And I was just looking for a really good yoga practice to start with. I wasn't looking for a spiritual yoga school. The online branch that I first joined is called Atman Yoga Federation. Then I eventually joined the London branch, which is Tara Yoga Center. And they go by a whole list of different names depending on where you are in the world.
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Michelle Laurie
When did you become aware of this individual who was the sort of the spiritual leader of the yoga group that you had joined?
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Ashley Freckleton
I became aware of him fairly early. I was doing the online classes and I was talking to this friend that had kind of drawn me into the school. And he was based in Romania at the time, and we were talking online and he started to talk about his spiritual master or his spiritual guide. And then he sent me links and gave me his name, which is Gregorian Bibilaru. And it immediately raised red flags for me because he said, he's in hiding, he's wanted by Interpol. But, you know, look what happened to Jesus. So I went to Romania for this one month camp and ended up getting into this secret women's ashram while I was there. So there's a men's one, there's a women's one. That kind of catapulted me towards the center very quickly. I was a bit of an anomaly in that sense. So when you go into the ashram, they take all of the photos and videos of you naked.
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Michelle Laurie
What's the justification for that on the day?
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Ashley Freckleton
They say it's to read your aura.
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Michelle Laurie
Okay.
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Ashley Freckleton
When I went to Romania, I was only doing the yoga. I wasn't doing the tantra classes. And it became very clear to me that most of the people in the school were there for the tantra. And it's marketed to you as not being about sex. And they say everyone thinks tantra is about sex. It's not about sex. It's about love and living from the heart. And that was what made me feel comfortable Enough to open myself up to it a little bit more because it seemed less taboo.
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Michelle Laurie
And it's about a higher level of consciousness, isn't it? It's about like, well, you can just come and do yoga if you want, but if you want to get more out of this and you know, learn more and become more highly evolved, do the tantra side, I would imagine.
- [14:05]
Ashley Freckleton
Yeah. And once you're on a spiritual path, you, you're taught to, in this situation, in a very dangerous situation, to question yourself rather than questioning the situation. And so any kind of boundary that you put up is your own limitation and any reservations or doubts that you have are your own demons and your own spiritual tests to overcome.
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Michelle Laurie
So when did you get to meet the man?
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Ashley Freckleton
I didn't meet him. I'm so lucky I didn't meet him. I got out. Took about 24 hours of negotiation though, to get out. They wouldn't just release me because I was in a foreign country. I didn't speak the language. I'd been blindfolded on my way to the house, so I didn't know where I was and they had all of my belongings.
- [14:50]
Michelle Laurie
Why did you choose to leave? Did you. There was a looming meeting, I'm assuming. Did you realise. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to have to go through an initiation with this guy who is in actual fact a sort of, what, in his 60s, Romanian dude? In his 60s or something? Like he's not the 70s. 70s. Okay. So he's not the kind of man that a beautiful 22 year old girl is normally going to be looking to have sex with, frankly. And so, okay, so you knew that you were, this training process was building up to that and you decided to bail.
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Ashley Freckleton
Yeah, well, it was becoming really clear to me that that was very likely going to happen. Even though they said to me, no, he will never make you do anything that you don't want to do. He would never do to you. And what really stuck with me was this woman that I met and I was talking to her and I said, how was it, you know, she'd just come back from seeing him for the second time? And she said, oh yeah, you know, I, I was, the first time I came to see him, I was crying, I was sitting in front of him and I said, this is crazy, I don't want to do this. I have a boyfriend, he doesn't know I'm here. And basically he wore her down. And then she came back, so she got invited back and she said, oh yeah, same thing again. You know, I was Sitting in front of him, I was crying. I was saying, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this. And he said, why not? We've already done it before, why won't you do it again? And he wore her down. And then she said. And then, you know, I don't know why I said this to him, but, you know, I told him I didn't want to go back a third time and he got really mad at me and I got, you know, like a bad feeling, like he was angry at me for that and I don't know why I said that. And she was shaming herself and I just couldn't help but think I would be her. I was like, I would be sitting on the floor crying, I would be saying, I didn't want to do this. And as much as these women are telling me he would never make me do something I didn't want to do, that's exactly what he did to her. And I was just terrified of this, you know, I felt like my brain had been split in two and I was really scared of what brainwashed Ashley would do.
- [16:43]
Michelle Laurie
How bad did it get when girls did say no? From what you've seen, the research that you've done, the women that you've met,
- [16:50]
Ashley Freckleton
there is a lot of rage. HE YELLS HE RANTS HE BELLOWS I've heard of sort of physical intimidation, restraint of sorts.
- [16:59]
Michelle Laurie
There's a great moment in the documentary and you talk about realising having a moment where you thought, I want to do something about this. But how? And where, if you have been trafficked internationally, who do you call?
- [17:12]
Ashley Freckleton
That's a good question. You know, I didn't know who to call and. And I tried multiple avenues before I finally felt like we were heard and we got linked in with the relevant authorities that actually could help us. Like, the first thing I did was, was lodge a complaint with Crime Stoppers International, because he was. Or maybe it was through Interpol, you know, because he was wanted at the time. And the other thing I did was contact the Royal Charity Commission in the uk, because they're a registered charity and they get all sorts of benefits for that as well as credibility, you know, oh, they're a registered charity. Well, you know, they must be. All right. There was this man in France who's in the docu series. He, for whatever reason, was. Was invested in this case already and he suspected that he might be in hiding in France, because that's where he'd previously been hiding, but he'd never had any tangible evidence or any testimony since his previous escape into hiding that that's where he was. Then he was able to he's connected to the French police, or he had a contact within the French police. And then he started to collect testimonies and forwarded them onto the police, which linked us in with Kheimard, which is the coolest thing that actually exists in France. It's a police unit that specifically specializes in cult organizations and cult abuse. So abuse by abuse within a cultic organization. They took our testimonies and it was several months after the testimonies that the arrests were made.
- [18:42]
Michelle Laurie
Thank you to our guest, Ashley Freckleton. If you would like to listen to our full hour long interview with Ashley, you can check it out on our podcast, Australian True Crime. It's available on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [18:54]
Matthew Tankard
This is True Crime Tonight with Michelle Laurie.