Transcript
Alex (0:00)
Buying a car in Carvana was so easy I was able to finance it through them.
Ben (0:03)
I just.
Alex (0:03)
Whoa, wait, you mean finance? Yeah, finance. Got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options all within my budget.
Charlie (0:12)
That's cool.
Alex (0:12)
But financing through Carvana was so easy. Financed, done and I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed, right? That's what they said. You can spend time trying to pronounce financing or you can actually finance and.
Ben (0:24)
Buy your car Today on Carvana financing.
Alex (0:27)
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Ben (1:14)
If you're enjoying Casefile and looking for your next true crime story, check out the newest Casefile Present series Julie's Gone Julie's Gone investigates the disappearance of 19 year old Julianne Garcia Saleh who went missing from her Melbourne apartment in July 1975. Julie had only recently arrived in Australia from the US. Now, five decades later, Helen Thomas has uncovered new evidence, witnesses and fresh leads in one of Australia's most haunting cold cases. Julie's Gone is available now. Wherever you get your podcasts, stay tuned to the end of today's episode to listen to the trailer. Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre for suggested phone numbers, for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. Please note that the names of several witnesses in this episode have been changed. The main thoroughfare of o' Connell street in the heart of Dublin was bustling with foot traffic on the afternoon of Thursday, October 10, 2013. Even though it was a cold day, tourists were ambling along the wide footpaths, taking in the city's sights and sounds while office workers hurried by them. Everything about the scene was entirely Typical for the setting, with one exception. A young girl who was all alone appeared to be in a distressed state. She looked to be a teenager and was dressed in dark jeans, a purple hoodie with a grey woollen jumper over the top and flat black shoes. She stood at about 5 foot 6 and had a slim build and long blond hair as well as braces on her teeth. Most notably, she was obviously shivering and seemed to be crying as she gazed around with fearful, timid eyes. Her skin had a washed out pallor. The girl wandered along o' Connell street, coming to a stop outside of the Central Post Office, an imposing Greek Revival style building that is the principal post office of dublin. Built in 1814, it features six fluted Ionic columns along the front and three ornamental statues on top of its roof. Its striking appearance has made the GPO building a landmark for Dubliners and tourists alike. The teenage girl stood between the building's columns looking distraught. Passers by were beginning to notice her, including two uniformed officers of the Garda Sheikhana Island's National Police who were patrolling the area. The officers approached the young girl and asked her what was wrong. The girl either couldn't or wouldn't reply. The officers asked if she needed help. Again, she said nothing. Using hand gestures, she indicated that she was experiencing pain in her abdomen. She also held up her fingers to explain that she was 14 years old. The officers wondered if perhaps the girl was from overseas and couldn't speak English. She didn't have any luggage on her, nor any identification. The officers decided that the best thing to do was to take her into custody for her own safety as she was clearly vulnerable and distraught. The girl was taken to the nearby Children's Hospital on Temple street, just a short distance from the GPO building. She was ushered into a cubicle in the emergency department with a curtain pulled around for privacy. Physicians examined her while a detective arrived to speak to the girl as well. She appeared to be in good health, aside from being somewhat emaciated. What was more concerning was her behaviour. Although she was polite, she was clearly uncomfortable. She hid her face behind the long strands of her blonde hair and averted her gaze whenever anyone tried to make eye contact. The girl also remained entirely non verbal, no matter who spoke to her. She was questioned for hours, but never said a word. Nurses who spoke languages other than English were brought in to try talking with her, to no avail. Eventually, she found a way to communicate. The girl began drawing pictures on a piece of paper. They were rudimentary illustrations with stick figures representing people. First, she drew herself on an aeroplane, suggesting she had flown to Ireland. She also sketched an image of a gun and another of a crucifix. When she drew a bed with a girl on top of it, surrounded by men standing all around her, one of the nurses began to cry. Over the next few days, the GPO girl, as she came to be known, was moved from her cubicle to a private room elsewhere in the hospital. Whenever anyone attempted to touch her, she would physically recoil from the contact. Doctors and the police alike suspected that she had been sexually abused, perhaps even exploited. Certainly, her drawings seemed to suggest she had been trafficked to Ireland for sexual exploitation purposes. Her clothing was forensically examined for signs of sexual assault, and although these tests returned negative, this did little to allay concerns. While physicians did their best not to exacerbate the girl's trauma, the story of the mystery girl found in central Dublin made headlines and the subject of human trafficking became a national talking point. The GPO girl's identity was a total mystery. She still wasn't speaking, but she did appear to at least understand some English. It was speculated that she may have been flown from Eastern Europe to Ireland by an organised crime gang, or at least one criminal who held her under total control. A police guard was maintained outside of her hospital room at all times, and a female liaison officer was appointed to handle the delicate nature of the GPO girl's case. The girl was also given a guardian named Orla Ryan, who shared that she was extremely concerned about the welfare circumstances of this young person. The GADA launched Operation shepherd, their name for the investigation into the case. Missing person reports were examined, but none matched the GPO girl. People who had been in the vicinity of the GPO building on Thursday, October 10, 2013, were tracked down and interviewed, while CCTV footage from nearby cameras was reviewed. Homelessness services, child protection agencies and juvenile liaison officers all over Ireland were checked to see if they had any record of the girl, as were hotels and hostels, along with lockers at public transit stations and lost luggage facilities. Detectives reviewed plane manifests from countless flights to see if any passengers matched the description of the GPO girl and spoke extensively with airport police. But none of these inquiries led anywhere. In an attempt to find some record of the girl's family, Garda officers meticulously searched through recent death notices in case her parents had recently passed, leaving her all alone. Noticing that the girl had had orthodontic work, they also reached out to dentists to check their records. Despite their efforts, no clues emerged that would help them identify the girl. As the days turned into weeks and almost a month went by, the GPO girl remained in her hospital room. She passed the time watching television or sometimes painting her nails, still staying silent at all times. Although she was pleasant towards hospital staff and members of the gada, she was also unmistakably cagey. When officers requested to take her fingerprints in the hopes of identifying her, she refused. Nor would she let them take her photo. Detectives began to resort to clandestine methods to obtain the information they needed. First, they recovered her fingerprints after clearing a used plate from her room. However, the prints matched nothing in their systems. Next, a scheme was concocted to allow them to take a photo of the girl. She was told she would be moved to a new room and as she was escorted from one room to another, a nearby officer managed to surreptitiously snap her picture. The photo was grainy in quality and only captured the girl in profile. Her long hair was scraped into a messy bun on top of her head as she looked straight ahead with eyes that appeared tired, with heavy bags. Her right hand was raised to her mouth and she was sucking on her index finger in a childlike way, as though self soothing. It wasn't a perfect photograph, but it captured enough of the girl's appearance that someone who knew her might be able to recognise her. Detectives sent the picture to Interpol, an international organisation that facilitates police cooperation in the hopes they might be able to identify the girl. But they couldn't. Irish detectives were growing desperate. Four weeks had now passed since the girl was found and all of their leads had dried up. They began to wonder whether going public was the key to solving the mystery. They weren't permitted to do this due to the girl's status as a minor and likely victim of crime. But perhaps the courts would grant them an exception due to the extraordinary circumstances. When detectives told the GPO girl of their plan, she became visibly distraught, shaking her head no at the prospect of her photo being shared. But Ireland's High Court gave permission for the picture to be published. And on Tuesday, November 5, the police held a press conference at Garda headquarters. As the GPO girl's photograph was held up, AGADA spokesperson beseeched the public. Do you recognise this girl? Did you pass her in a distressed state in the city centre? Any information is vital to this investigation. A special phone line was set up for the public to call with tip offs. After the press conference wrapped, the calls started coming in. People rang from all over Ireland, sharing their theories and possible leads, with the press conference making international news. Calls were also made from locations as far away as Cyprus and Canada. Yet none of these were helpful in identifying the GPO girl either. It was the middle of the night in Australia when the Garda held their press conference, but within a few hours of its broadcast, Australians were waking up to start another day. One police officer in the western Australian capital of Perth saw the report about the GPO girl in Ireland along with the photo of her that the Garter had shared. He thought it sounded remarkably similar to another case from two years earlier and much closer to home two years prior. In 2011, a 15 year old girl named Hope moved from New Zealand to Perth with her parents and three brothers. The international move was a big adjustment for Hope, who had grown up in a small town and now found herself living in a capital city. Moreover, she found out that her home school credits from New Zealand were not recognised by the Australian authorities, so she would have to fly Find a way to complete her education Hope enrolled at a tafe, a kind of vocational education and training provider in Australia. Unlike universities which focus on academic study, TAFE's offer courses that focus on more practical job specific skills. It is also possible to complete senior secondary studies at TAFE instead of enrolling in a high school. Hope found it difficult to make friends in this new environment as she was shy and somewhat sheltered. Everything changed however when she met Emily Scaberis in July 2011. Emily was completing the same course as Hope and was warm and friendly. She also had a remarkable background. Emily was only 15 like Hope, but she was already a champion gymnast who ranked number one in the world for her age group. She shared her online Facebook page for her gymnastics with Hope who saw that more than 3,500 people were following it. There were lots of photos of Emily performing in competitions, many of which had numerous likes and comments. Despite Emily's incredible achievements, she was down to earth and easy to talk to. She told Hope about her family who were of Russian heritage and didn't live in Perth. Emily's parents had separated and her mother had moved to France to be close to her own parents who lived there. Emily's twin sister Chloe had gone with her. Meanwhile, Emily's father was in Sydney where he worked as an Interpol agent. One day Hope invited Emily to visit her home where she met Hope's family. After that, Emily began visiting frequently and sometimes stayed the night. Hope's parents were happy to have her there, feeling sorry for the young teenager whose own relatives were far away. Emily became like another member of the family and felt like the sister Hope had always wanted. In December 2011, Emily told Hope that she was going to France for Christmas. Her parents had decided they should all spend the holidays together, despite their separation. On Friday, December 16, Emily flew to Paris. A couple of weeks later, Hope was scrolling through Facebook when she noticed a troubling post someone had shared on Emily's page. It was a link to a news article about Emily's family. According to the article, Emily's father had killed his ex wife and daughter Chloe before taking his own life. Emily had been spared from the murder suicide, but had been the one who discovered the grisly crime scene. Hope and her family were horrified by this news. They wanted to help Emily, but didn't know how. Hope's mother, Belinda, sent Emily a message to check in with her. Emily explained that she was staying with a family friend who was a judge in Florida until the police wrapped up their investigation and she figured out what to do next. Stunned and all alone, she didn't know what her next steps should be. Belinda invited Emily to come stay with their family. She and her husband were even open to adopting the orphaned teenager, if that was what she wanted. Emily gratefully accepted the offer. As it happened, the judge she was staying with was an expert in adoption cases. So he helped organise the papers and sent over Emily's official documents. Then Emily flew back to Perth. She was no longer taking her TAFE course and it was decided she should go back to school. So in February 2012, just as the school year was beginning, Belinda took Emily's birth certificate to Girraween Senior High School and enrolled Amelie. Later on, however, the family received a call from the school with a concerning update. They said that the birth certificate looked forged. Belinda's husband decided to call the judge in Florida, whom they had only previously had email contact with. He spoke to the judge's receptionist, who said that the judge had not dealt with any Australian adoption cases or had contact with anyone in Australia for several years. At around the same time, Emily told Hope that her father who had died, wasn't her biological father. She had actually been conceived via sperm donation and the donor was a lawyer based right there in Perth. Emily planned to contact him. Hope found this story very strange and now the bizarre circumstances were piling up. The revelation finally came when Hope's family received a phone call from a private investigator who had been hired by the lawyer Emily said was her real father. Concerned by this false claim, the lawyer had asked the investigator to find out whatever he could about Emily Scaberis. As it turned out, Emily wasn't her real name, she wasn't a Russian gymnast and nor was she even a teenager. Her real name was Samantha Azapadi and she was a 23 year old woman from Sydney with a history of fraud. Samantha had first come to police attention four years earlier, in November 2007 when she was 19 years old. She had been in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton at the time, posing as an individual named Lindsay Lana JonBenet Coghlan. Authorities found she had done so with intent to defraud. Three years later, she came to attention for a similar scheme 633 kilometres south in the Queensland capital of Brisbane. There she had tried to enrol at two schools using the name Dakota Johnson, the same name as a Hollywood movie star. Samantha faced a string of charges related to using a false identity to claim welfare benefits, receiving a $500 fine and a suspended sentence in September 2010. After that, Samantha Azapadi had returned to her home state of New South Wales for a time, briefly joining a small Christian community in the Blue Mountains and convincing their pastor to take her in. Somehow, she'd ended up in Perth by mid 2011, fatefully crossing paths with Hope and her family. By March 2012, her story finally unravelled and she was arrested and charged with defrauding Social Security by Western Australia Police's major fraud squad. Samantha was also admitted to Grey Lans Hospital, the state's largest mental health inpatient facility, and was kept there for six weeks. Almost two years later, in November 2013, a police officer in Perth who was familiar with the case saw the story about an unidentified sex trafficking victim discovered in Dublin. Although Ireland was halfway across the world from Perth, the girl in question looked remarkably similar to Samantha Azapadi, even in profile. The police officer contacted his counterparts in Dublin and alerted them to the girl's possible identity. At around this same time, the Garda Sherkhana received another call from someone closer to home who had recognised the GPO girl as well. It turned out that Samantha Azzapadi had some family members in Ireland. After her parents split up when she was young, Samantha's mother began a relationship with a man named Joe, who became a stepfather to Samantha. The couple had two sons together, Samantha's half brothers. After the relationship broke down, Joe moved back to his native island, but maintained a relationship with Samantha. She had flown over more than a month earlier to visit him and her half brothers in the town of Clonmel, about a two hour drive southwest of Dublin. Samantha had stayed with her extended family for some time before abruptly leaving Joe hadn't worried when she did so. Samantha could sometimes be a bit erratic and an abrupt departure wasn't necessarily unusual for her. Strangely, though, she'd left her belongings and identification behind. She had travelled to Ireland using a fraudulently obtained Australian passport issued in the name of Georgia McAuliffe. After more than 2,000 police hours and a cost of around a quarter of a million euros, the GPO girl had finally been identified. The public was outraged. There had been genuine concern and an outpouring of support for Samantha Azapardi when she was believed to have been an underage human trafficking victim. Now it turned out that she was a 25 year old con artist who had inexplicably pretended to be in a vulnerable situation. The sympathy was instantly revoked. Samantha's state appointed guardian, Orla Ryan, requested to be withdrawn from the case. Orla explained that while she remained concerned about Samantha's welfare, she was a child protection specialist and Samantha was clearly not a child. There was debate as to whether the Irish authorities should charge Samantha with a crime. Some members of the public were in favour of this due to the waste of police time and resources. But she couldn't be charged with making a false report, as she had never made any report at all. She had stayed silent the whole time. People speculated as to whether her ruse had been a spontaneous action on Thursday, October 10, or whether she had planned it in advance. When the Garter searched the mobile phone she had left at her family's house, it revealed she had researched children's hospitals in Ireland and the uk. This appeared to hint at a plan. But what her end goal had been was a mystery. Samantha hadn't made any financial gain or obtained any benefits due to her actions. Instead, she'd just spent four weeks in a hospital bed. As Operation Shepherd's lead detective, Dave Gallagher, remarked in the documentary series Con Girl, for some people, a month in hospital would be a kind of hell. Ultimately, the Irish police decided not to charge Samantha Azapati with anything, determining that it wasn't a criminal matter. They also had sympathy for the fact that the young woman clearly had some mental health issues, even though a psychiatric report decreed that she had no condition that would allow authorities to detain her. When detectives asked Samantha if she would be willing to return home to Australia, she nodded without saying a word. She still hadn't spoken since being identified. Two Garter officers escorted Samantha home on her flight to Sydney, which was being paid by Irish taxpayers. She didn't speak once during the almost 24 hour journey. But Samantha didn't stay in Australia for long. Years later it would emerge that she somehow travelled back to Ireland just six months after being returned to Australia in April 2014. Going by the name Indy O', Shea, she moved to County Leitrim and took a job as au pair. She claimed to be the unacknowledged illegitimate daughter of Princess Madeleine of Sweden. The family she worked for didn't recognise her as the GPO girl and had no idea anything was amiss until Samantha abruptly abandoned the job, leaving behind a large amount of cash in her wardrobe along with multiple papers that had the name Samantha Azzapadi on them. She had stayed only a few months, departing in the summer to whereabouts unknown. Casefile will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.