WEBVTT

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Shocking evidence, jury drama
and witness cross-examinations.

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The Case Of podcast takes you inside
the biggest trials in the country,

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reporting the in-depth detail of how
courts work and who's in there each week.

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We've brought you Erin
Patterson's mushroom murder trial,

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the case of Toya's murder
in Cairns, a Canberra cold case,

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the two intruders and many more.
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A heads up before we start. This podcast
contains some strong language.

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This is an electronically recorded
interview between Detective Sergeant

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Andrew Campbell and Tobias
Frederick Suckfield.

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At the Lismore Police Station.
A young German backpacker.

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is sitting in a police interview room

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What is your purpose for being
in Australia? Well, actually,

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for learning a lifestyle. I finished
university, so... and I like to travel,

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I like to learn different
lifestyles, different cultures.

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Tobias Silkfall came to Australia
for the trip of a lifetime.

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But now he's come to a police
station in country New South Wales.

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He says his girlfriend is missing.

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And police are asking him
questions about what's happened.

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The purpose of this
interview is to record...

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your version of Simone
Strobel going missing. Okay.

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It's February 2005.

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For the past six months, Tobias and his
German girlfriend, Simone Strobel,

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had been travelling
the east coast of Australia.

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He's 24 and she's 25.

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But last night, He says Simone walked away
from their campsite at a caravan park.

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And she hasn't come back.

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I don't know where she is, man.
I'm really, really worried. And I'm,

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I don't like mental sick
when she's not coming back.

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I don't know what I can do. We're
in a different country. We're not really,

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we don't speak this language very good.
And so we know nobody. Okay.

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We're not at home. Tobias is lean.

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He has light brown hair with sun
bleached tips that kiss his shoulders.

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He's got a small goatee beard
and he's wearing a beaded necklace.

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He says he and his girlfriend had been
having a great time doing the backpacker

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thing across Australia.

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Our players still
travelling together and yeah,

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we had such a good time together
and we're going deeper and deeper in life.

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At the moment, they have two
others travelling with them,

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Tobias' sister has come over
from Germany with a friend,

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and all four of them were staying
at the campsite in Lismore together.

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But last night, Tobias says he
and his sister started arguing.

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Something to do with their
family back in Germany.

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My sister says some stuff, that verse.
We had just a conversation,

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and then she says something.
I don't know actually what she said,

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but I had a different opinion.

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Tobias says his girlfriend Simone
tried to break up the argument and

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She said, stop, stop saying, stop saying,
that's boring stuff. Let us talk about...

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bad things or funny stuff or something
like that and then she stand up and she

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walked away.

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And on time that she took none
of her personal possessions with her.

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She had nothing. She stands
straight up and walked away.

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And she had just a shirt,
a skirt and no shoes.

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The detective listens quietly as Tobias
recalls the argument with his sister...

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and how Simone walked away after
she told them to cut it out.

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The detective wants to know more about how
Tobias and Simone have been getting along.

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Your relationship
was quite strong, was it?

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with someone is

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What do you mean, strong? It's close.
Good, yeah, very good, very close.

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He keeps pushing the point. Have you
had any problems? No, no problems.

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And circling back to what was going
on between them that night.

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So was it an argument?

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Between yourself and Simone? No, nothing.
Why are you asking these questions five

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times? Tobias is getting riled up.
He leans in closer to the detective,

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hand gestures. It's only toward the end
of the interview that the detective lands

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a question he's been building up to. I'm
investigative journalist Richard Baker.

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I first heard about this story years ago.
The young German backpacker who

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disappeared into the darkness
from a caravan park in Lismore.

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Like so many before her, Simone had
packed her bags and set off on a big

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life-changing trip overseas.

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The case always stuck with me
because of how tragic that was.

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that she probably set off
with such hope for the future,

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but she never made it home.

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Then, in late 2024, I heard that one
of the key figures in this mystery,

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someone who was there that night,
wanted journalists to take another look at

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the case.

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me. It's a story that's tangled with lies.
It shocked the city of Lismore,

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caused a trail of damage over decades,
and seen police take extreme and desperate

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measures. But despite
all that, 21 years later,

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there's still no justice for Simone.
I want to know why.

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From Unravel, This is Lies in Lismore.

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Simone Strobel's trip to Australia
was by far her biggest adventure.

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She'd travelled in parts of Europe before,
But she'd never been this far from home.

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Her parents were pig
farmers in Bavaria, Germany.

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She grew up on the farm
with her brother and sister,

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Simone went to church.
She was part of the local music club.

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And she went to house
parties and gigs too.

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After high school, she studied at a
teacher's college and was working as

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a kindergarten teacher
before she set off overseas.

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When Simone arrived in Australia, She was
in awe of the landscape and the wildlife.

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She travelled with Tobias from town
to town, doing jobs along the way,

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making new friends with
the people she worked with.

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She was on a life-changing adventure.

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That is... Until February 11, 2005.

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when she arrived in the inland city
of Lismore in northern New South Wales.

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To find out more about
what happened to Simone,

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I went to the town where
she spent her last day,

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I found myself standing on the main
street with a Lismore local.

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Cath Adams.

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So we're in Woodlark Street
in the middle, and there's more CBD,

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and just heading towards... Keen Street.

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She grew up in this town.

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And she's been a journo and photographer
here for most of her life.

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She's taken me to an intersection.

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where you can pretty much see all
the places the four Germans were that day.

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There was an Irish pub here
where the two men had lunch.

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and right nearby, a hotel called The
Golem, where they had drinks that night.

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Uh... Simone and Tobias

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and they're traveling companions.
I look at the CCTV footage of them outside

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the Golan Hotel. It looks vastly
different now than what it did then.

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It's been flooded, so now it's closed.

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From here we can also
see the caravan park.

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where the backpack has stayed.

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It's probably about 100 meters, I think.

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A little bit more than that. Yeah.
And how long has that caravan path been on

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that site? Oh, God, I can't remember.
It's been there as long as I can remember.

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gets flooded there so you know it's known
that that's always gets evacuated during

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flood time.

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Lismore is well known for its floods.

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We see signs of that everywhere in town.

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Back at the ABC studio.

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Kath tells me about the day she found
out about Simone. It was Sunday afternoon.

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I was in the office filing the photos
that I'd taken earlier in the day.

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She worked at the local
paper she'd grown up with,

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The Northern Star. It was, you know,
a paper people love to hate, but,

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you know, they also loved it a lot.
And it was a daily newspaper.

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Six days a week it came out.
Late in the afternoon,

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says the newsroom got a call from police.

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You know, we were winding up

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and then we got this message
come through to the newsroom

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and it was telling us
that there was a backpacker

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who was missing in the Lismore CBD

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and we didn't really take it
terribly seriously at the time.

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Lismore isn't a very big place,
so we were a little bit incredulous,

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like how can somebody go
missing in the Lismore CBD?

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But the Chief of Staff sent
the journalist and I down

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to go and have a look
and ask some questions.

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It was a bit unusual. Lismore wasn't
exactly a number one destination

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for backpackers.

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The town was an odd mix of uni students,
hippies and more conservative farming

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types.

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There were far more popular places nearby.

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It's probably more
of a town that people are

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travelling through on their way somewhere
else. You know, Nimbun's just up the road,

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Byron Bay, it's only
about 45 minutes away.

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The police told Kath
and her journo colleague

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that the missing backpacker had
been staying at the caravan park

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on the edge of Lismore's CBD.

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On the way over there, they saw
something that made Kath feel uneasy.

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SES workers who were
looking through the drains

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that were near the caravan park
where the group had been staying,

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Lismore has, you know,
as well known as being a flood town,

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so it has these really deep concrete
drains running through the CBD

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that channel the water
coming down off the hill.

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So they were there looking in those
drains for any sign of this backpacker.

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And I guess that was the first inkling
that maybe it wasn't just a lost person

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for me.

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When Kath and the journo
got to the caravan park,

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they went straight to the kiosk.

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The person there
directed us towards a van,

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a white van and a little tent
that were parked inside the park.

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We went over to the van.

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There was a girl and a man sitting
kind of in the van in the doorway.

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They had the door open
and they looked a bit stressed.

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The man in the doorway was Tobias
Sookful, Simone's boyfriend.

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He just looked like a bit of surfy,
blonde hair, blonde-longish hair.

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The woman was his sister, Katrin.

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We approached them and introduced who we
were and asked if they would talk to us

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about their missing friend.

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And they seemed pretty confused.

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They seemed a bit upset,
but the girl, she told us to fuck off.

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Katrin said Simone had only been missing
for a day When the journalist and I walked

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away though we thought that was an unusual
reaction to people offering you know

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to get the word out
about their missing friend

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By Monday morning, it seemed like all
of Lismore was talking about Simone.

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That front page of the Northern Star
had the photo of Simone and the headline,

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Where's Simone? Kath can vividly recall
the photo of the young backpacker.

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She's standing on a beach facing
the camera with wavy shoulder-length hair.

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Pretty beautiful, big smile, you know.

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She was probably closer
to my age at that time.

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I could see myself in her a little bit.

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Rumours about where Simone might be
and what might have happened swept through

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town. Had she gone, you know, gone to
Nimbin, had she gone to Byron, you know,

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down to the bay to get away.

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Turns out, police had been wondering
the same thing on the first day she

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was reported missing.

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It seems they were considering the
possibility that Simone might have found

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her way to another town.

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So they tried to find out more
about her from her boyfriend,

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and more about what happened that night,

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in that recorded interview
at the police station.

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By that time, Simone had
been missing almost 24 hours.

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Could you explain to me Simone's
situation at home, her family's situation?

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Oh, she lived at home to her family.

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She had a very, very close
relation to his parents.

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He says they each lived in small villages,
not far away from each other.

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We're not just a couple.
We are very, very good friends.

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So we know us six, six and a half years.

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and our first date and the whole thing
was growing like a very love story,

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like a movie that was very romantic.

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Yeah, and I'm falling in love
and I still live in love with her.

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She's a very nice girl.

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They'd arrived in Lismore from another
campsite about two hours down the coast.

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There were four German travellers
squeezed into an old Toyota Hi-Ace van.

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There was the couple, Tobias and Simone,

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and then their temporary
travelling companions,

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Tobias' sister Catrin
and their friend Jens.

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They set up camp at the Lismore
Tourist Caravan Park.

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Simone and Catrin went to check out the
shops and have some lunch Tobias and Jens

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did their own thing and had a feed at the
Irish pub Later at night time they all met

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up at a pub in the centre of town

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the Golan Hotel,

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not far from where they were staying.

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So I'll take you back to, you went
to the Golan Hotel about nine o'clock.

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Did you drink? Yeah, I'm not sure.

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I found mine a lot, yeah.
And then we had four beers.

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Each of us had four beers.

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The detective wants to know
exactly what type of beers.

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Four is the right one.
Is the Gold Stars the right one?

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Four X Gold? Gold, yeah.
So you were drinking Middies?

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Middies. And Simone had four of that?

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Four Middies, yeah.
Was she an intoxicated drug?

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No, no, not me. four light beers. Nobody's
struggling with these four light beers.

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So you left the Golan.
At what time do you think about it?

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I never wear a Glock,
so I'm not built in...

00:16:07.560 --> 00:16:09.580
I reckon above my land in the Glock.

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He says they all headed back
to the caravan park together.

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They grabbed another beer
and sat around their campsite.

00:16:18.540 --> 00:16:22.277
At some point after that,
Tobias says the argument broke out

00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:26.640
between him and his sister about
that family matter back home in Germany.

00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:29.860
He says Simone tried to get them to stop.

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So she said, oh, come on, guys,
let us stop from different things.

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But I said to her,
wait a minute, we finished that,

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and then she stayed up, and she said, oh,
yeah, I'm not sure what I said, actually.

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I'm very confused right now. And he
says that's when Simone walked away.

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And that was actually the last
moment where I saw my love.

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He says Simone was wearing
a black sleeveless top,

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a skirt that was mainly black
with red flowers and no shoes.

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When they realised she'd been
gone for about 15 minutes,

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he says Katrin and Jens went looking.

00:17:10.900 --> 00:17:12.697
Tobias says he checked the toilet block

00:17:12.780 --> 00:17:15.120
and stayed at the van
in case she came back.

00:17:15.780 --> 00:17:17.477
But none of them could find Simone.

00:17:17.560 --> 00:17:22.485
After a lot of looking, he says they
thought Simone might have walked further

00:17:22.569 --> 00:17:24.260
away than they'd searched.

00:17:25.260 --> 00:17:30.112
But they figured she come back to the van
when she was ready so they went to bed

00:17:30.195 --> 00:17:34.924
Tobias says he fell asleep waiting for
her What did you think when you woke up

00:17:35.008 --> 00:17:40.977
at seven o and Simone wasn home I was
shocked. I go out and I wake up the night.

00:17:41.060 --> 00:17:43.080
I say, hey, Simone, it's not here.

00:17:44.380 --> 00:17:50.745
And then we set up our camp and all
these things and take a shower very quick

00:17:50.829 --> 00:17:53.760
and then go straight to the police.

00:17:54.740 --> 00:17:57.797
Tobias says they parked
the van outside the caravan park

00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:00.060
and went to report Simone missing.

00:18:00.800 --> 00:18:04.280
Then they searched the city
for hours and checked the hospital.

00:18:05.300 --> 00:18:07.920
Eventually, they went
back to the police station,

00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:10.380
which is when this interview happens.

00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:15.140
Do you have any idea
what's happened to Simone?

00:18:16.060 --> 00:18:16.920
I have no idea.

00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:22.197
I have a little bit of a bad thing
in my brain, you know what I mean?

00:18:22.280 --> 00:18:28.108
maybe she's kidnapped or some stuff like
that maybe she walked away five minutes

00:18:28.192 --> 00:18:29.217
and coming back

00:18:29.300 --> 00:18:35.826
and it's easy but she's still gone
she's she's not she's not a person who's

00:18:35.909 --> 00:18:37.677
traveling without all

00:18:37.760 --> 00:18:42.268
no shoes and going hitchhiking to nimbino
or to byron or something like that you

00:18:42.351 --> 00:18:42.957
know she has

00:18:43.040 --> 00:18:48.038
nothing she can't pay she can't get
some food she can't get some drinks and

00:18:48.122 --> 00:18:53.617
the next main reason is she don't contact
me and that is very mysterious mate

00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:59.477
very mysterious Toby is there anything

00:18:59.560 --> 00:19:01.460
you wish to tell me about this matter?

00:19:03.520 --> 00:19:10.037
No yeah please bring my girlfriend back if
there's anything you you wish to tell me

00:19:10.120 --> 00:19:13.140
I will provide you with my
details do you understand that?

00:19:13.480 --> 00:19:19.177
yeah but I have nothing to tell you I told
you the truth I told that 10 times today

00:19:19.260 --> 00:19:21.960
I understand. And I have enough.

00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:25.160
And we will try and do our best
to locate Simone for you.

00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:27.080
That's fine, then. That's very fine.

00:19:28.020 --> 00:19:30.057
Thanks, Tobias.
The interview has concluded.

00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:32.120
The time is 10.45pm.

00:19:36.760 --> 00:19:39.600
Tobias's sister, Katrin,
and their friend, Jens,

00:19:39.860 --> 00:19:41.920
also recorded interviews with police.

00:19:42.660 --> 00:19:44.320
They all told similar stories.

00:19:45.420 --> 00:19:49.217
Kath Adams says Simone's disappearance
had people fearing the worst.

00:19:49.300 --> 00:19:51.717
A lot of rumour then started about

00:19:51.800 --> 00:19:56.257
that perhaps something
untowarded happened to her.

00:19:56.340 --> 00:19:59.937
Just across the road from the caravan
park, groups of people would go.

00:20:00.020 --> 00:20:04.640
to drink and they would be there,
you know, pretty constantly drinking.

00:20:05.800 --> 00:20:12.800
It was not, I wouldn't have regarded
that as a safe place to be hanging around.

00:20:13.460 --> 00:20:17.290
Kath didn't really buy the idea that
Simone would have taken off on her own

00:20:17.373 --> 00:20:18.260
to a nearby town.

00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:21.040
She was a kindergarten teacher.

00:20:21.700 --> 00:20:26.597
She wasn't really the kind of person who
would just take off without, you know,

00:20:26.680 --> 00:20:31.855
taking anything with her, her wallet
or her shoes or her bag or anything like

00:20:31.939 --> 00:20:36.140
that. That was conversations I've had with
my colleague at the time that it wasn't,

00:20:36.280 --> 00:20:39.257
this wasn't something that you
would do as a young woman,

00:20:39.340 --> 00:20:41.390
just take off like that without anything.

00:20:41.840 --> 00:20:45.200
It wasn't the first time a woman
had gone missing in the area.

00:20:45.980 --> 00:20:50.517
Speculation started to sort
of swirl around town that, you know,

00:20:50.600 --> 00:20:52.337
maybe there was a serial
killer here at play.

00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:58.420
An Aboriginal woman named Lois Roberts had
gone missing from Nimbin in the late 90s.

00:20:59.220 --> 00:21:05.806
And she turned up, she'd been murdered,
so that murder still remains to this day

00:21:05.890 --> 00:21:06.723
unsolved.

00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:11.342
Her cousin went missing as well,
who lived probably, you know,

00:21:11.425 --> 00:21:15.257
five minutes up the road from
where Simone had been staying.

00:21:15.340 --> 00:21:18.955
So, you know, while it
was a sleepy country town,

00:21:19.038 --> 00:21:23.182
there had been these unsolved
cases that really kind of,

00:21:23.265 --> 00:21:26.360
people just started to get pretty scared.

00:21:26.800 --> 00:21:30.500
As the week went by,
concerns about Simone's fate grew.

00:21:31.560 --> 00:21:35.905
More extensive searches were done
by police and the SES close to the caravan

00:21:35.989 --> 00:21:36.822
park.

00:21:37.340 --> 00:21:39.820
Simone's disappearance
dominated local media.

00:21:41.040 --> 00:21:43.997
Tobias wanted police to use
a dog to help the search.

00:21:44.080 --> 00:21:49.097
By the time Kath was ready
to start her Thursday shift

00:21:49.180 --> 00:21:55.937
the search for Simone was into its sixth
day On her way to the newspaper office

00:21:56.020 --> 00:22:00.577
she noticed a lot of police activity
across the road from the caravan park

00:22:00.660 --> 00:22:05.697
near the grounds of a club where people
played bocce an outdoor bowling game

00:22:05.780 --> 00:22:08.997
I was starting on a slightly later shift

00:22:09.080 --> 00:22:13.697
I remember driving through the CBD

00:22:13.780 --> 00:22:18.476
By this time, you know, it had become
a real mystery about what had happened

00:22:18.560 --> 00:22:19.393
to her.

00:22:19.540 --> 00:22:25.286
But as I came to that intersection of
Uralba Street and Dawson Street there just

00:22:25.369 --> 00:22:30.896
was a feeling that something had happened
There was sort of a real urgency to

00:22:30.980 --> 00:22:36.725
the police and very quickly they were
starting to put up some plastic around one

00:22:36.809 --> 00:22:37.642
area

00:22:37.760 --> 00:22:41.017
And so I drove up the road a little
bit and pulled over and called work

00:22:41.100 --> 00:22:43.257
and said something's going on down here

00:22:43.340 --> 00:22:46.220
and that's when they said
to me, yeah, they found her.

00:22:47.580 --> 00:22:49.300
The worst had happened.

00:22:50.300 --> 00:22:53.257
Police had found Simone's body
on the grounds of the bocce club

00:22:53.340 --> 00:22:55.440
over the road from the caravan park.

00:22:56.380 --> 00:23:00.560
The van and tent she shared with Tobias
were less than 100 metres away.

00:23:01.420 --> 00:23:03.500
It was really distressing to hear that.

00:23:03.840 --> 00:23:09.660
You know, we'd all had that hope that she
was in Byron, that she was in Sydney.

00:23:10.280 --> 00:23:12.357
We'd all been hoping
that that was the case.

00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:16.477
Though, you know,
I remember being upset in the car

00:23:16.560 --> 00:23:19.617
hearing that she had
been found and she'd died.

00:23:19.700 --> 00:23:25.417
The general area around the bocce club

00:23:25.500 --> 00:23:27.497
had been searched several times already

00:23:27.580 --> 00:23:31.297
but Simone's body was hidden
in a fenced off area

00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:35.237
They found her on the same day
they brought in a police dog

00:23:35.320 --> 00:23:38.537
Police couldn't see any
obvious cause of death

00:23:38.620 --> 00:23:43.977
but they were pretty sure this was no
accident because she'd been found naked

00:23:44.060 --> 00:23:49.000
her body covered with palm
fronds Someone had killed her

00:23:49.700 --> 00:23:54.347
To have something like that
happen in the heart of Lismore,

00:23:54.430 --> 00:23:59.157
it did really shake people's
feeling of security and safety.

00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:04.837
There was a sense of grief that that could
happen to a visitor to our town and,

00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:08.300
you know, a sense
of responsibility about that.

00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:12.120
It's one of those moments in hindsight
that really changes the place.

00:24:13.280 --> 00:24:17.837
Simone's boyfriend, Tobias, seemed to be
overwhelmed with emotion after her body

00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:18.753
was found.

00:24:19.400 --> 00:24:23.200
He ended up at the hospital
and was given a prescription for Valium.

00:24:24.040 --> 00:24:29.180
He said he was angry about the search and
how long it had taken police to use a dog.

00:24:30.180 --> 00:24:31.500
He was ready to lash out.

00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:34.480
So he put a call into Kath's newspaper.

00:24:35.780 --> 00:24:41.237
Tobias called the editor to express his
concern about the police investigation

00:24:41.320 --> 00:24:44.097
and he called them kindergarten cops.

00:24:44.180 --> 00:24:48.960
That became the headline the next
day with a picture of Tobias.

00:24:49.780 --> 00:24:53.440
You know, he, the kindergarten
cop, was very large bowl type.

00:24:53.600 --> 00:24:58.890
So it really stood out on the newsstand
Police were not happy with that headline

00:24:58.974 --> 00:25:03.861
It was a sharp insult toward the police
But the officers helped Tobias and

00:25:03.944 --> 00:25:07.287
the rest of the group
with all the formalities that

00:25:07.370 --> 00:25:11.930
had to come next. Things like selling
their van and finding a place to stay

00:25:12.014 --> 00:25:13.107
until they could go

00:25:13.190 --> 00:25:18.477
home. The whole of Lismore started
to rally behind these travellers.

00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:20.767
Prominent people in town felt

00:25:20.850 --> 00:25:25.755
they had to do something to help and to
honour this young woman who'd lost her

00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:26.907
life in the centre

00:25:26.990 --> 00:25:33.990
of their town. This wooden
statue is carved with angel wings.

00:25:34.248 --> 00:25:38.770
It's of Simone in her favourite dress.

00:25:39.370 --> 00:25:42.430
I'm with Jenny Dow at her
house in a suburb of Lismore.

00:25:42.513 --> 00:25:44.570
We're surrounded by birds and trees.

00:25:45.290 --> 00:25:48.850
She's showing me a picture of an
angel figurine from Simone's grave,

00:25:49.530 --> 00:25:52.290
one of the keepsakes sent
to her by the Strobel family.

00:25:53.370 --> 00:25:55.187
Jenny's been in touch
with them over the years

00:25:55.270 --> 00:25:58.830
since she helped them set up
a memorial for Simone in Lismore.

00:25:59.110 --> 00:26:04.607
The dress itself has on it the church
she used to go to in Germany

00:26:04.690 --> 00:26:07.867
and five sunflowers, the Australian flag.

00:26:07.950 --> 00:26:11.130
Jenny helped lead the community
of Lismore for years,

00:26:11.750 --> 00:26:14.467
first as a city councillor
and then as the mayor.

00:26:14.550 --> 00:26:19.530
she says a wave of grief passed
through her town after Simone's death.

00:26:20.230 --> 00:26:25.530
I think the fact that this young
woman had no family here,

00:26:26.490 --> 00:26:28.750
many of us felt like surrogate family.

00:26:29.350 --> 00:26:32.587
So there's this deep connection
and then this deep feeling

00:26:32.670 --> 00:26:35.987
that this was where this
young woman's life ended

00:26:36.070 --> 00:26:41.507
and that we had a duty of care
to her to do what was right for her

00:26:41.590 --> 00:26:42.987
and never forget her.

00:26:43.070 --> 00:26:46.670
Jenny says some people were worried
a local could be responsible.

00:26:46.970 --> 00:26:49.550
Particularly when her body
was found in that spot.

00:26:49.750 --> 00:26:52.370
It had a bocce field that was not used.

00:26:53.370 --> 00:26:58.390
An Italian, like a little club,
sports and recreation and music club,

00:26:59.030 --> 00:27:00.670
hadn't been used for ages.

00:27:01.230 --> 00:27:06.590
It was very run down and at night time
it was known it was not a safe place.

00:27:07.550 --> 00:27:10.427
When people found out
where Simone had been found,

00:27:10.510 --> 00:27:13.350
they started leaving
flowers and candles for her.

00:27:14.470 --> 00:27:16.120
I've seen pictures from the time.

00:27:16.630 --> 00:27:20.730
There were tributes with handwritten notes
stacked all along the chain link fence.

00:27:21.350 --> 00:27:27.316
The local paper ran articles almost every
day about Simone and the investigation

00:27:27.399 --> 00:27:33.365
And then Jenny says people turned their
sympathy for the backpackers into action

00:27:33.449 --> 00:27:37.910
It all started with a chance
encounter at the travel agents

00:27:38.630 --> 00:27:42.080
Jenny just happened to be there
helping out with a school fundraiser.

00:27:42.390 --> 00:27:45.287
People would come in, they knew
to buy their tickets at the back

00:27:45.370 --> 00:27:51.627
and of course I knew, well it
would have been about 10 days before

00:27:51.710 --> 00:27:56.610
that Simone had died
and her body had been found.

00:27:57.550 --> 00:28:00.930
And the police brought Tobias in.

00:28:02.030 --> 00:28:04.230
Tobias needed to get back to Germany.

00:28:05.210 --> 00:28:08.510
Katrin had a ticket and their
friend Jens was already gone.

00:28:09.590 --> 00:28:13.047
Jens was due to go home a couple
of days after Simone went missing

00:28:13.130 --> 00:28:16.610
and had taken his pre-booked
flight before her body was found.

00:28:17.350 --> 00:28:20.787
It looked to Jenny like
the officers had brought Tobias in

00:28:20.870 --> 00:28:22.350
to help him find a way home.

00:28:23.250 --> 00:28:24.350
He was in the middle.

00:28:24.550 --> 00:28:27.887
Best of my recollection, there
was a police person either side of him.

00:28:27.970 --> 00:28:32.650
He was slumped as the person,
the travel agent,

00:28:32.910 --> 00:28:37.250
was sitting opposite him and explaining,
you know, costs and whatever.

00:28:38.190 --> 00:28:43.870
And he just looked... I couldn't...
I could only see the side of his face,

00:28:44.550 --> 00:28:46.970
but he looked despairing.

00:28:47.610 --> 00:28:52.510
He looked, you know... It looked
as if the police were supporting him.

00:28:52.970 --> 00:28:58.190
The owner of the travel agent said,
that's Tobias, she's quietly doing.

00:28:59.210 --> 00:29:04.547
He's struggling because the amount
of money it will take to get him

00:29:04.630 --> 00:29:09.527
and the body home is mind-blowing
and they don't know.

00:29:09.610 --> 00:29:14.390
She said, how about we start
something to help fund him?

00:29:14.930 --> 00:29:18.627
Jenny and the owner of the travel
agent started a fundraiser

00:29:18.710 --> 00:29:21.130
to help get Tobias home to Germany.

00:29:21.990 --> 00:29:25.127
The local paper described
how some people were in tears

00:29:25.210 --> 00:29:28.890
as they dropped off their money
to support the grieving backpackers.

00:29:30.110 --> 00:29:34.787
The article said a single mum had
donated the last $5 in her wallet

00:29:34.870 --> 00:29:37.730
and kids were donating
their pocket money to the fund.

00:29:39.050 --> 00:29:43.809
In the end, the community raised far
more than what Tobias would need for his

00:29:43.892 --> 00:29:44.627
airfare home.

00:29:44.710 --> 00:29:51.710
The rest was given to Simone's
family to help with other costs.

00:29:53.270 --> 00:29:57.764
It was like the whole town of Lismore
had shared the grief of the German

00:29:57.847 --> 00:29:59.917
backpackers,
and the community had tried as well.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.560
it could to show love and support
in whatever way possible.

00:30:04.644 --> 00:30:10.463
But all that support for Tobias and his
fellow travelers was about to start

00:30:10.547 --> 00:30:16.130
draining away. Because as the
investigations continued and details found

00:30:16.214 --> 00:30:22.270
their way into the media, it emerged
that all three backpackers had been lying

00:30:22.353 --> 00:30:27.220
to police. That's next
episode on Lies in Lismore.

00:30:39.060 --> 00:30:44.004
Jenny Dow sadly passed away just a month
after the interview she did with me.

00:30:44.088 --> 00:30:48.836
She's remembered in Lismore for her
remarkable commitment to the community

00:30:48.919 --> 00:30:50.160
and social justice.

00:30:55.360 --> 00:30:58.703
This season of Unravel is intended
to be listened to as a whole.

00:30:58.786 --> 00:31:02.665
If you haven't heard all the episodes,
you shouldn't draw any conclusions,

00:31:02.748 --> 00:31:05.800
because you haven't heard all
the sides of the story yet.

00:31:07.380 --> 00:31:14.143
If you saw anything that night in Lismore,
or if you know someone else who did,

00:31:14.227 --> 00:31:18.300
get in touch.
Unravel True Crime at abc.net.au,

00:31:23.220 --> 00:31:30.220
You've been listening to an ABC podcast.
Discover more great ABC podcasts,

00:31:36.746 --> 00:31:43.746
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