Part 2: The Party Is Over

Summary

Summary of "In)Justice: Killer Privilege"

Episode: Part 2: The Party Is Over
Release Date: June 5, 2025
Host/Author: Katie Strick, Evening Standard | Message Heard

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Introduction: A Mother's Nightmare

The episode opens with Katie Strick issuing a content warning about its depiction of violence, grief, and depression.

Katya Faber, the grieving mother of Alex Morgan, poignantly recounts the intense nightmare she had the night before receiving the devastating news of her son's death:

"Alex's face was pushed against mine and he was screaming and his eyes were filled with terror and he was in pain. It was almost as if his face had melted into mine."
— Katya Faber [00:10]

This vivid dream, experienced on the morning of December 30, 2014, eerily coincided with the actual time of Alex's brutal murder, leading Katya to contemplate a primal connection between her subconscious and the tragedy.

The Morning of the Tragedy

At 6:13 AM, Katya awakens from her nightmare, unaware that Alex is being violently attacked by his wealthy friend, Bennet Von Werter, at the opulent Zurich Gold Coast.

"The moment of Alex's death on his death certificate is not precise... I can't help but think that actually I do know when he died, which was at 6am and 13 minutes passed."
— Katya Faber [01:41]

Katya's relentless hope that her son might have simply had an accident swiftly dissipates when Interpol officers break the news to her at 2 AM.

"It's like being hit by a truck. You just can't breathe... I have to just scream. It's the most horrific feeling."
— Katya Faber [04:07]

The Aftermath: Shattered Innocence

The episode delves into the immediate chaos and confusion following Alex's death. Katya initially feels a misplaced sympathy for Bennet, the young heir from a privileged background, but this suspicion soon turns to outrage as more disturbing details emerge.

Christine Brandt, a Swiss journalist, describes the early media frenzy surrounding the case:

"This very brutal evil crime happens in a place where everything seems to be perfect. That was very special."
— Christine Brandt [07:41]

The press struggled with Swiss privacy laws, slowing the release of information but feeding public intrigue with snippets of the horrifying crime scene at the Von Werter villa.

Community and Grief: The Ripple Effect

Alex's death doesn't just devastate his family but also ripples through his circle of friends and the broader community, shattering the illusion of safety in the affluent enclave of Kuzenacht.

Andre, Alex's school friend, shares the profound impact of the loss:

"Losing someone I really held close to my heart was not easy... it's shocking that something so horrific can happen so close to you."
— Andre [11:18]

Similarly, Sam, another close friend, discusses his struggle with substance abuse as a coping mechanism:

"The first couple years, I couldn't process it and I felt guilty and I leaned heavily to my addictive side."
— Sam [11:42]

Katya's Personal Struggle: A Mother's Grief

Katya's journey through grief is intensely personal and multifaceted. She grapples with profound physical and emotional pain, manifesting in PTSD, panic attacks, and a complete transformation of her identity.

"It was so physical, certainly for me, and it just rips you open... almost like having to learn to walk again."
— Katya Faber [18:56]

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, a trauma and bereavement expert, provides a professional perspective on Katya's experience:

"It changes you as a human being. You are turned upside down and inside out."
— Dr. Joanne Cacciatore [19:50]

Katya's longing for communal support is evident as she navigates the isolation that often accompanies such profound loss.

The Eulogy and Funeral: A Community Mourning

Katya meticulously plans Alex's funeral to celebrate his life rather than dwell solely on his tragic death. The service, held two weeks later, is a testament to the impact Alex had on those around him.

Sam contributes to the funeral with a personal song, "Purple Licks," reflecting his deep connection to Alex.

"I just poured all of those stories and his sort of life into this song."
— Sam [15:42]

Thousands of mourners gather, illustrating the community's collective grief and the shattered sense of invincibility once felt in Kuzenacht.

The Legal Battle Begins: Facing Privilege and Power

Two years post-tragedy, the full horrifying details of Alex's murder are revealed, exposing the extreme brutality and challenging the initial narrative that hinted at a possible accident. Katya discovers the true extent of the violence inflicted upon her son:

"Bennett had rammed a candle so far down Alex's throat... he had suffocated to death as he was being strangled."
— Katya Faber [27:32]

Christine Brandt underscores the gruesome nature of the indictment, highlighting the substantial injuries Alex suffered compared to Bennet's minimal injuries.

The realization propels Katya into a relentless legal battle against the deeply entrenched and affluent Von Werter family, who employ elite legal defenses to protect their own.

"I could never have imagined that it would take as long as it did... pushing you further into hell more than you can imagine."
— Katya Faber [35:02]

The Strain on Relationships: Anger and Resilience

Katya's unwavering pursuit of justice strains her personal relationships, exemplified by a physical altercation with her close friend, Helen Hunter.

"The anger was monumental. You could feel it like a hurricane about to land."
— Helen Hunter [30:58]

Despite moments of intense conflict, Katya and Helen reconcile, their friendship evolving into a bond of soulmates supporting each other through unimaginable grief.

The Role of Media and Public Perception

The high-profile nature of the trial attracts global media attention, turning Katya into a notable figure in the quest for justice.

Sasha Battiani, a journalist closely following the case, remarks on Katya's indomitable spirit:

"She can bite and she can fight for her rights and for what she thinks is important."
— Sasha Battiani [30:02]

Katya's proactive engagement with the media serves both as a platform for her story and as a strategic move to counteract the influence of Bennet's affluent background.

Conclusion: A Lifetime of Advocacy

As the episode concludes, it underscores Katya's transformation from a grieving mother to a relentless advocate for justice. Her determination not only seeks closure for her own loss but also challenges systemic inequalities within the justice system influenced by wealth and privilege.

"She will not ever stop. I think being part of the legal framework of Alex's murder case was an outlet for Katya."
— Helen Hunter [33:28]

Katya's story is a powerful exploration of how privilege and power can interfere with justice, and the profound personal toll such battles exact on those seeking truth and accountability.

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Key Themes and Insights

• Privilege and Power: The juxtaposition of Bennet's wealth and Katya's fight against systemic barriers highlights how privilege can obstruct justice.

• Grief and Resilience: Katya's journey illustrates the multifaceted nature of grief and the resilience required to channel pain into purposeful action.

• Community Impact: Alex's death shatters a facade of invincibility within a privileged community, revealing underlying vulnerabilities.

• Media's Role: The extensive media coverage both aids and challenges Katya's pursuit for justice, navigating public perception and privacy.

• Legal Struggle: The legal battle serves as a microcosm of broader societal issues regarding equality and the influence of wealth in judicial outcomes.

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Notable Quotes

• "It's like sleepwalking through life... having to learn to live again."
  — Katya Faber [18:56]

• "What we really need... is someone to turn toward us and to sit with us and to care for us."
  — Dr. Joanne Cacciatore [21:32]

• "You're expected to keep functioning. It is on a different level. It kind of infuses everything in a way that certainly, in my experience, other griefs didn't."
  — Katya Faber [18:56]

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Conclusion

"In)Justice: Killer Privilege" paints a poignant and harrowing portrait of a mother's struggle against overwhelming odds in the quest for justice. Through Katya Faber's story, the episode delves deep into themes of privilege, grief, resilience, and the intricate interplay between personal loss and systemic injustice. The detailed recounting of events, enriched with personal testimonies and expert insights, offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of the profound human and societal impacts of Alex Morgan's tragic death.

Transcript

[Katie Strick]

This episode contains descriptions of violence, grief and depression.

[Katya Faber]

Alex's face was pushed against mine and he was screaming and his eyes were filled with terror and he was in pain. I could see a shadow walking behind what looked like a sofa walking backwards and forwards. And this terrorized person in pain was basically just. It was almost as if his face had melted into mine. It was almost as if I was the person going through this horror. But not quite, because I could see the terror in his eyes. It's. It's hard to describe.

[Katie Strick]

This is Katya Faber, Alex Morgan's mother, telling me about the dream she had the night before she learned the news that Alex had been killed. Even 10 years on, she remembers it vividly.

[Katya Faber]

I'd never had such a dream and it woke me up and I didn't know what it was that I seen. I knew it was violent and horrific and painful and it was just awful. It was just awful. And I actually had to kind of stagger to the bathroom and I was retching. I was so horrified.

[Katie Strick]

It was 6.13am on 30 December 2014, when Katya woke up from that nightmare. Horror struck. What she didn't know then was that Alex was at that very moment being bludgeoned to death in an attack so hideous that a closed coffin was required at the funeral. Looking back, Katya wonders if the nightmare and the retching were some kind of primal reaction. Did her body wake her up at the exact moment that Alex was killed?

[Katya Faber]

The moment of Alex's death on his death certificate is not precise. They don't know exactly when he died. And I can't help but think that actually I do know when he died, which was at 6am and 13 minutes passed. And I think that's what I saw. And that was Alex. And I can't explain it, but there is a lot we can't explain.

[Katie Strick]

That dream. The disfigured face stayed with Katya all day. She couldn't shake it. So when a friend texted her a few hours later, asking if she'd heard from Alex, she had even more of a hunch that something was wrong. Her friend had heard a rumour that something bad had happened in Kuznecht overnight. A fight or something, and that the victim was a young man. Katya called Alex immediately. They'd not spoken in a couple of days, which was normal at the time. No response. She left messages on his voicemail. Still nothing. Eventually, Katya called the police in Zurich and they called back asking for her address.

[Katya Faber]

And they. They came to the door and. And I was expecting them. I had been told that police would come to the door, so I was up.

[Katie Strick]

Two Spanish officers from Interpol turned up at Katya's door at around 2am that night, eight hours after her friend's text message. By this point, a part of Katya was already expecting the worst.

[Katya Faber]

And I stood there shivering. And there was a policeman and a policewoman. And I remember thinking to myself, oh, of course they've sent a woman because they're going to tell me that Alex is dead. And I thought about it completely rationally. I think I was having an out of body experience at that point. I was in shock, probably. And they said, we have some news we need to talk to. And I said, well, I think you'd better come in. And I said, I think I need to sit down so you can tell me as I'm sitting down. So they said, of course. So we walked into the sitting room and I sat down and I put my hands on the armchair. And the policeman, it was the male policeman in fact, who then said, I am so sorry. He said this in Spanish, which means, your son has died.

[Katie Strick]

Katya's response was guttural.

[Katya Faber]

It's like being hit by a truck. You just can't breathe, you know, Even though I'd somehow known it. Until somebody tells you, you can't process it. And I remember thinking, I'm not here anymore. And I felt this howl of horror just come up through my throat and I started screaming and I thought, I have to just scream. I have to just get this out. And. And I didn't want to scare the children. And I ran into the kitchen and I was beating the kitchen cupboards and it's the most horrific feeling.

[Katie Strick]

Eventually she collapsed on the floor.

[Katya Faber]

But once I managed to stop screaming, the police were still there. And then again, my rational mind took over and I said, what happened? Show me what happened. Because the policeman had a piece of paper in his hand and he said, I can't show you this. And I said, yes, you can. You have to. And I think he looked at me and he kind of thought, yes, I have to. Kind of like, I'm not going to not show this to the mother. And he showed me the piece of paper and Alex's name was it. And then it had homicide. I was just crying and crying. I was just like, you know, that kind of sobbing that you can't control. You can't even breathe between sobs. And I remember the lady policeman, I think she was so young, and she knelt next to me. And I remember turning around to her and saying, I am so sorry you're having to see this. I am so sorry because it was just so awful for all of us. I remember Alex's little brother coming down the stairs and having heard me screaming. And to this day he says that but he'll. He'll never be able to get that out of his mind.

[Katie Strick]

Homicide. That was all the police had told her. The only thing she knew about Alex's death at this point.

[Katya Faber]

I knew that he had been repeatedly hit over the head. I didn't know what with. There were rumors that there had been a large candelabra used.

[Katie Strick]

So what had happened that night in the Von Vertes villa? Katya knew that Bennett had already admitted to being there when Alex died. That there'd been an altercation at his parents house. But what she didn't know was that she was about to embark on a nine year legal fight that would push her to her emotional and professional limits. Why it became such a marathon battle is a story that speaks to the world. Alex had found himself in that world of privilege and power among the European elite. And how that privilege and power can play a part in that seemingly trusted institution we like to think of as the justice system. I'm Katie Strick and this is Killer Privilege from the London Standard and Message heard Episode 2 the party is over.

[Christine Brandt]

It was actually just a short press release of the police when I first heard about the case. And it was not really spectacular. It was just written. There was a dead man found and then another man was arrested.

[Katie Strick]

This is Christine Brandt, a Swiss journalist and court reporter. It was around New Year's Eve that she first got wind of the news that a young man had been killed in a private villa in Ksnacht.

[Christine Brandt]

But then after a few days, I learned more and more. The case took place in Kisnacht. That's the place where the rich people are living. And the suspect was the son of a rich gallery owner. He came from a scene of rich kids who don't have to do anything and can have everything. That this very brutal evil crime happens in a place where everything seems to be perfect. That was very special.

[Katie Strick]

The press were quick to jump on the story. As Christine says, this kind of crime just didn't happen here. Not in Kuzenacht on the Gold coast where money shielded its residents, where people felt safe, where privacy was paramount. And because of those strict Swiss privacy laws, there were no names given at the start, just a slow drip feed of remarkable and Disturbing details. The police had reportedly walked in on the scene of a massacre when they arrived at the Von Werters villa. The glass top of a coffee table was lying shattered on the floor. A water purification system had been ripped out of the bar. There were pools of blood on the carpet and splashes of it up the walls.

[Christine Brandt]

Why did one kill the other one in such a brutal way? And there were no answers about it. It was something about drugs that was clear.

[Katya Faber]

My brother, he phoned me up and he basically broke the news to me that different implements had been used on Alex. And I remember almost kind of like falling down again.

[Katie Strick]

It would be two years before Katya, Christine and anyone brave enough to read the eventual indictment would discover the full horrifying details of what really went on in the Von Werter's villa that night in December 2014. Katya was so in the dark about it, she actually found herself feeling sorry for Bennett in those first soul crushing days after the attack.

[Katya Faber]

And I remember actually the first night thinking, oh my goodness, probably, you know, something must have happened and Alex might have fallen down the stairs and broken his neck and this poor guy has been arrested and it's all a terrible mistake and oh my goodness, how awful. Initially, I was really concerned about him.

[Katie Strick]

It was a messy time, full of unanswered questions. But then new details started to emerge. That Bennett was accusing Alex of being the aggressor, not him. That a photo taken at his arrest showed Bennett without a single scratch. For Katya and the rest of Alex's loved ones, these details only made matters worse. Alex's death still felt beyond comprehension. How could Bennett turn so suddenly on a friend? Had Alex really tried to attack him first? Just how many drugs had they taken? Within days, Katya's sympathy for Bennett was replaced with a rage at his seeming lack of remorse since the attack. She and Alex's friends might not have known the facts, but they knew enough to realize that something brief, brutal, something sinister had gone down between Alex and Bennett that night. It was not only the shock of losing someone close to them that rippled through the friendship group in those early days and weeks. It was the fact that Alex had been killed by a man. They'd all known, that it had happened in what they'd assumed to be the safe confines of Kakt. And it was enough to quickly shatter the veneer of invincibility they'd all grown up feeling protected by. How could this happen for me?

[Andre]

Losing someone I really held close to my heart was not easy. Something like this happens and then reality kicks in and it's shocking that something so horrific can happen so close to you.

[Katie Strick]

This is Alex's school friend, Andre, who we heard from in the last episode. Their friend Sam, the Australian newcomer to the Gold coast, was equally shaken up.

[Sam]

The first couple years, I couldn't process it and I felt guilty and I leaned heavily to my addictive side and I abused, abused substances and used it as a form of escape, you know, And I think a lot of us did when it comes to Alex. But definitely for me, it's. It destroyed my. Destroyed my love and trust for the world for a long time. And that's sad because I'm not that person. And it just happened so quick.

[Katie Strick]

Katya was acutely aware of the impact the news had had on Alex's friends.

[Katya Faber]

They just crumpled and a lot of them came round to the house and they would be shaking and they were terrified. I don't think they realized that their innocence had been ripped away from them. But I could see that. I could see that in Alex dying, they had their childhood come to an abrupt end.

[Katie Strick]

Alex's siblings lost their innocence that day too. Katya's daughter, Alex's younger sister, slept in the same bed as her mother for months after Alex died. And her youngest son, Alex's brother, kept thinking Alex was going to come back as a spirit. He was only 12 at the time and became obsessed with martial arts. What if somebody wanted to kill him too? Katya had to stay strong for her two surviving children and for Alex's friends, many of whom looked to her for strength and comfortable.

[Katya Faber]

And I felt so responsible for them in a kind of mothering sort of way. And I seemed to be the rock. Not that I felt particularly strong, I have to say, but I suppose in comparison I had life experience and I was a mother and so I looked the part and so a lot of them would come around and talk to me.

[Katie Strick]

Katya sat with Alex's body for a week after he died.

[Katya Faber]

And I would get there sort of in the mid afternoon and the light would change and it would get dark and I would just stay there and put my hand on the wooden casket and try and imagine Alex in a white tunic.

[Katie Strick]

She felt that she needed to be near him while she still had his body before he was cremated.

[Katya Faber]

And I just wanted to take the pain away, to just take his hurt away because it was just so awful. And I remember thinking if I could lie on top of the coffin and just make it better, just make it better. Because you spend your life as A mother making sure that they don't get a cold and that if their knee is scratched, you make sure that they have the antibiotic cream. And that when they break their arm, you make sure they get to ER and they put it in a cast. And you spend all your life, you know, like, don't go without your coat. And then you're suddenly meant to be okay with sitting there and your child is in a coffin. And that's her heart.

[Katie Strick]

She wrote her eulogy sitting on the side of the bath and chose wedding flowers for the funeral. Yellows and whites and soft pinks, because she wanted to rejoice in Alex's life. Her son was too young for a normal kind of funeral. The funeral itself was held two weeks after the killing, on a freezing January day at an Anglican church in Zurich, a traditional sort of building with pillars and an altar. Sam, who is a professional musician, had written a song for the funeral, Purple Licks, named after the band Alex had played in growing up.

[Sam]

I just poured all of those stories and his sort of life into this song.

[Katie Strick]

12 of Alex's friends led the service and thousands came along to sit in the congregation. School friends, ex girlfriends, local Swiss families.

[Katya Faber]

It was a sea of faces. I mean, I was surprised by how many people turned up, but I think it showed that there was a community in Zurich. And when a young person dies, so many people feel this sense of unfairness about it and of horror. It felt good to have so many people there. It was kind of. We were mourning together. It helped me.

[Katie Strick]

Team A. That's what Alex's inner circle quickly began to call themselves. Here's Andre.

[Andre]

So, yeah, we kind of, you know, had our own group of family and friends being strong for Alex.

[Katie Strick]

Friends put their lives on hold to rally around Katya in those early days and weeks. Helen Hunter, Sam's mum, was back in Australia when she heard the news.

[Helen Hunter]

And the only thing I said to Katia was, I'm coming. My greatest concern was, how is Katia going to survive? Because I don't know, faced with the same situation, whether I would have. The death of your child is life ending in almost all aspects of your being. You're wondering how your heart's still beating. I couldn't get over how she could even engage in a conversation.

[Katie Strick]

Katya is grateful for Tim A, Helen, Andre, and all the other loved ones who assembled around her as she processed her grief. Not that grief is the right word for what she was going through. There was something about the sudden unique nature of the situation that fell upon Completely different to other deaths she'd experienced. It was weightier, more physical, all encompassing. She began to suffer from panic attacks, insomnia and memory loss. Her hair began to fall out. She was diagnosed with PTSD and a dangerously high blood pressure.

[Katya Faber]

I've experienced different types of grief, you know, sibling, parent, friend. And it's difficult to put into words why child loss is different. But it's so physical, certainly for me, and I can't speak for other people, but it was so physical. It just rips you open. It's almost as if somebody's taken your heart and just thrown it somewhere and you're expected to keep functioning. It is on a different level. It kind of infuses everything in a way that certainly, in my experience, other griefs didn't.

[Katie Strick]

Katya calls it parental annihilation, that pain of losing a child.

[Katya Faber]

It's like sleepwalking through life. In some ways, you don't know what to do with yourself because you're so destroyed that it's almost like having to learn to live again. Almost like being a toddler and having to learn to walk again, having to learn to eat again, having to learn to do everything again. You just don't know what to do with yourself.

[Katie Strick]

It's these layers of grief that come up in stories like this that are so rarely explored deeply. I had come across the work of Dr. Joanne Cacciatore while researching this series. She's a professor at Arizona State University who specializes in trauma and bereavement. It was helpful to get an outsider's perspective on Katya's mindset to help me understand her story on a more considered level. Dr. Katiatori says that what she often hears from grieving parents is a sense that their old self died the day their child did.

[Dr. Joanne Cacciatore]

It changes you as a human being. You are turned upside down and inside out.

[Katie Strick]

Dr. Katya Torre knows this from experience. She lost her newborn daughter 30 years ago and went into research after finding there was far from enough science on the grieving process. It affects everything from one's sleep to one's diet, to one's entire mental capacity. It quite literally changes your nature as a human being.

[Dr. Joanne Cacciatore]

It affects you in a biological way, certainly through various stress hormones and chemicals that get released into the brain every time you re encounter the threat of the absence of your beloved.

[Katie Strick]

Dr. Katya Torre brought up so many parallels that resonate with Katya's story. From the immeasurable love between a parent and a child to the illusion of safety that becomes shattered after a person experiences Such a traumatic loss. But one thing stuck with me in the loneliness that can come with living with grief, that can so often be disregarded in what is largely a grief illiterate or grief avoidant society.

[Dr. Joanne Cacciatore]

And so I hear many stories from families who have lost a child and they're in the grocery store and they see a neighbor and they lock eyes and the neighbour literally turns the cart around and goes the other direction.

[Katie Strick]

Katya says she experienced a similar kind of loneliness after Alex's death. Some supposed friends fell by the wayside after the news broke, while others leaned in, cooking her meals, helping with the funeral arrangements, sitting with her in her pain. The most powerful thing you can do for someone who is grieving, according to Dr. Cacciatore.

[Dr. Joanne Cacciatore]

What we really need, at least what I really needed, was someone just to come alongside me and pour over photographs and listen to me cry and validate my feelings. We don't really need words to come alongside grieving people. We need someone to turn toward us and to sit with us and to care for us.

[Katie Strick]

Kim, another of the mum friends from Katya and Helen's social group, was one of those who sat with Katya in those early days. She and Helen cried with Katya. They helped her clear Alex's apartment in Marylebone. They say Katya became almost unrecognisable in those first few months.

[Katya Faber]

And what I observed is she kind of imploded a bit. By that I mean, she turned inward. She honestly was struggling to get through day by day. In fact, I didn't even recognize the person because normally she's very strong, very extroverted. And during that initial time after he passed away, she was almost silent, kind of functioning by remote control.

[Katie Strick]

Katya says she longed to wrap herself in some kind of black mourning robe, like rural villagers used to do in the 19th century, as a physical symbol of needing to be treated with care.

[Katya Faber]

And I often say to people, you know, when you're about to have a baby, you go to the hospital or to these antenatal classes and they teach you to breathe and, you know, just prepare you for the birth and then what's going to happen then afterwards. So you have all this support, all the research about what is helpful. And when your child dies, there's nothing. There was no post death classes that I could go to to help me learn to breathe. And now you do this. Nothing. There was just nothing. And so you kind of invented, as you go along, you just think, okay, well, all right, this is what I'm doing.

[Katie Strick]

After the break, what really happened in the Von Werther's villa the night Alex died. Two whole years passed before Katya finally learned the full horrifying details of what went on that night in the Von Werther's family villa. It was 2017 by this point, two weeks before the trial was due to start and the indictment had just been published. It set out the events of that evening in gut wrenching new levels of detail. Katya compares it to a Greek tragedy, A painful crescendo leading to the horror of the indictment. She thought she'd been shocked already when officers turned up at her door to deliver the news when she heard that Alex had been killed by a man he'd considered a friend. And when she'd been sent a bill for 12, 17 francs for the plastic sheeting used to remove Alex's body from the villa several months later.

[Katya Faber]

And I remember reading this and looking at it and I literally had to lie down in bed and I crumpled the bill in my hand and I just wept and wept and wept. The thought of my Alex being put on this sheet and I getting the bill, it was just so awful.

[Katie Strick]

But learning the precise details of Alex's killing was to take Katya's trauma to an entirely new level.

[Christine Brandt]

The list of injuries filled more than five pages and it was terrible to read.

[Katie Strick]

Christine Brand, who is set to attend the trial as a court reporter, remembers reading the indictment in horror.

[Christine Brandt]

They took a taxi in the snowy night of Zurich to drive to the house to the villa of Bennett's father. They arrived there and they changed socks because they had wet feet. And then there are different stories that Bennett told. Clear is consumed more drugs in Bennett father's villa. And then Bennett told the police that they listened to Swedish Christmas music and they were dancing wild to the music. And somehow the situation suddenly escalated. That's one story that he told. And why the situation escalated and why Bennett started to fight like out of mind. It's not really clear. Maybe they did not agree about the music. One story was that about the drugs. Maybe Alex told Bennett to stop and he didn't want to give him more drugs or something like this. It's not really clear whether it was.

[Katie Strick]

Over music or drugs or something else is not known. But what is known is that an altercation broke out. Bennett is said to have flown into a rage, throwing Alex against a glass coffee table, which shattered, and then stabbing him with a shard of glass. He went on to bludgeon him to death.

[Christine Brandt]

It's even hard to tell about it, to speak out the words. So, I mean, nearly all the bones in the head were broken and he had teeth in his throat. It was clear Bennett hit Alex violently with a heavy candlestick. I think it was 6kg heavy, and also with a statue of a woman. And after that, he stuffed a candle down his throat. And finally he also choked him. And it was really a battle. It's terrible to describe.

[Katie Strick]

Alex suffered more than 50 injuries to just his head alone during the brutal and prolonged attack, while Bennett was left with just a small cut to his hand. According to the timeline set out in the report, Bennett covered Alex's dead body with various objects, including a Santa Claus doll and Christmas decorations. After showering, he called his father, who didn't answer. Shortly before 7am, he called the police.

[Katya Faber]

I was unable to talk for three days. I mean, when I found out what actually led to Alex's heart stopping, that Bennett had rammed a candle so far down Alex's throat and into his trachea that the contents of Alex's stomach had come up into his lungs and he had suffocated to death as he was being strangled. And that he had bruise marks on his shoulders where supposedly Bennett had either stepped or knelt on him. I couldn't talk for three days. Literally, I lost my voice.

[Katie Strick]

Katya once told me that not even Stephen King could come up with the horror of what Alex went through. And hearing those details listed out in the indictment, I can't help but agree there's a level of brutality to this particular killing that is truly difficult to fathom. Eventually, Katya regained her voice and broke the news to Alex's two younger siblings. She couldn't bear to, but the prospect of them finding out from a newspaper was even worse.

[Katya Faber]

To actually describe that, because I didn't have any other option. It wasn't that I could shield anyone. It was going to be public knowledge. That was very, very, very hard. That was very hard.

[Katie Strick]

This is the part where I think the warrior element of Katya's character really comes through. Her reaction to some of those details of Alex's death is still physical, even almost a decade after first hearing this them. You can see the torture on her face as she recalls them and the anguish of recounting the surreal moment when the police tried to return the candle found in Alex to her. I offered Katya the option of leaving out these more horrific parts of Alex's story from our conversation the next time we spoke, but she is adamant her son's story needs to be told and she is going to tell it. This is a Woman who spent the last decade fighting for justice for her son. And she will spend the rest of her lifetime fighting if she has to. She wants the world to know. I'm far from the only person who's observed this in Katya. Journalist Sasha Battiani was resolute when I asked him to describe Katya's fortitude.

[Sasha Battiani]

She's someone who would, you know, not leave the things for tomorrow but just always, always fighting for her, fighting for Alex, fighting for rights of other people who went through these horrible times. She would be a good journalist actually. You know, like these dogs, she, she can bite and she can fight for her rights and for what she thinks is important.

[Katie Strick]

By the time the trial came around, Katya still felt completely traumatised, completely disturbed. But she was no longer a shell of herself, not the imploded version Kim described. She was angry. Angry at Alex's death and the lead up to it. Angry at the police and the authorities, Angry at the lack of support and the layer of pity in people's eyes when they looked at her.

[Helen Hunter]

The anger was monumental. You could feel it like a hurricane about to land.

[Katie Strick]

This anger came close to blowing up some of Katya's friendships, says Helen.

[Helen Hunter]

I wasn't sure our relationship would survive and I wasn't blaming her for that, I was just stating a fact. And it's actually apparently not unusual for complete fracture of family units. It changed everyone's life.

[Katie Strick]

Katya and Helen ended up having a brawl during a trip to Melbourne in those early years after Alex's death.

[Helen Hunter]

And we had this knockdown brawl on the tram. The tram was full of people but it was as if nobody was there because we just went at it. And of course, you know, I said something like, you know, I'm just tired of pussyfooting around you, having to walk on eggshells, having to be conscious of offending you and touching on touchy subjects you don't want to talk about.

[Katie Strick]

Well, it was on Katya and Helen stepped off the tram. Helen had no idea what was going to happen, which way Katya would go. But then Katya walked up to her.

[Helen Hunter]

I don't know what the look on her face, I can't describe it, but we just looked at each other and we just, you know, hugged each other and went okay, lets go and get the spaghetti bolognese. That's what we did. And I think things turned around after that.

[Katie Strick]

Helen feels lucky that hers and Katya's friendship survived those turbulent few years. Ten years on, the two still describe each other as soulmates as family. But what Helen says is true. Many friends and families aren't so lucky. They do break up after traumas like this. The grief, the bitterness, the anger, it becomes too much. What might have saved Katya and Helen was Katya's ability to channel her anger into fighting the legal fight became an outlet for her, something to focus on.

[Helen Hunter]

She's just got a focused, mechanical, structured mind. She knows what to put first and then put next and on and on and on. She will not ever stop. I think being part of the legal framework of Alex's murder case was an outlet for Katya and her enduring participation would ensure that justice would be done.

[Katie Strick]

This, says Sasha, was one of the biggest reasons the trial caught the attention of the press in the way it did.

[Sasha Battiani]

You had, of course, Katya as someone who had this kind of development of going through this horrible time. And Katya was very so she was very often in the news. She was fighting for the rights of her son. And that made her also, for me, as a journalist, an interesting protagonist.

[Katie Strick]

Actually, Katya, the protagonist, was readying herself by this point. As a former criminal barrister, she'd seen firsthand what facing a rich family with elite lawyers meant when it came to achieving justice. The von Werters family had deep pockets. She knew the type of fight she had on her hands, or at least she thought she did.

[Katya Faber]

I mean, when I started on this journey of trying to, you know, get justice, whatever that means, I could never have imagined that it would take as long as it did. Brace yourself. I would have said, brace yourself. This is going to be the fight of a lifetime. It's going to push you further into hell more than you can imagine.

[Katie Strick]

The fight of a lifetime. Indeed, because what unfolded next would push Katya and Team A to their limits, as Bennett and his team did everything in their power to keep the young art dealer out of jail. In episode three, Christine tells us about the trial and the attention it brought in from across the world.

[Christine Brandt]

It was like a setting out of a Hollywood movie. It was some kind of unreal. And that was the thing that triggered the medias and the journalists.

[Katie Strick]

Alex's friends delve into the day to day realities of attending such a high profile homicide.

[Andre]

I went to the trial hoping, you know, for justice and that facts will be spilled and having a clear view or timeline of what had happened. But yeah, it was not that easy.

[Katie Strick]

And Katya tells us about the moment she came face to face with her son's killer and his family for the first time.

[Katya Faber]

And I remember thinking, what what are we doing? What on earth is going on? Why are we shaking his hand? And nothing could have prepared me for that. Absolutely nothing.

[Katie Strick]

Injustice Killer. Privilege is a London standard and message heard production. I'm your host, Katie Strick. This episode was Produced by Sophie McNulty. Ari Stott is our senior producer and James Cox is our production coordinator. Sandra Ferrari, Anna Van Beer, Prague and Jake Warren are the executive producers. Sound editing by Lizzie Andrews and Alan Lear and music composition by Tom Biddle.