True Crime Conversations

00:02 It's 7pm on a November Wednesday in 2016, and Paul Warren is sitting in his living room in Melbourne, helping his seven-year-old son with his math homework. 00:11 The phone rings, and he sees on the caller ID that it's one of his two daughters, Christy. She lives with her mother, Paul's ex-wife, in a nearby suburb. 00:20 As he puts the phone to his ear, he hears screaming. A woman's guttural, desperate screams. 00:28 Christy, he asks, his stomach tightening in panic. What's going on? 00:33 She manages to say two words. 00:36 Two words that will change Paul's world forever. 00:40 Ellie, dead. His beautiful 20-year-old daughter Ellie is gone. 00:55 I'm Gemma Bath, and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. 01:05 Despite only being 20 years of age, Ellie Warren was a seasoned traveller. She'd been to multiple continents on countless adventures since the age of 17. 01:15 In 2016, she was on a months-long trip to Mozambique, Africa, when Paul got that horrific call from his youngest daughter. 01:25 His eldest child, his beautiful Ellie Rose, was dead. 01:30 For the last 10 years, Paul, a retired industrial engineer, has found himself forced into the role of unlikely investigator, as both local and Australian authorities dragged their feet while investigating his daughter's death. 01:45 He has been the one uncovering new evidence. He's been the one gathering witness reports. He's been the one tracking potential suspects. 01:55 In 2023, after years of insistence from Paul, an inquest was held in Melbourne. It stopped short of declaring Ellie's death a homicide, something Paul can't wrap his head around. 02:08 He's released a book called Hunting Ellie's Killer, chronicling his fight for the truth. 02:14 Here's Paul. 02:22 Paul, thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations. Can you tell us about Ellie? What made her special? 02:28 Oh, look, Ellie and I, you know, our relationship was a blossom. We got along like a house on fire. It was quite amazing, really. And it's a terrible loss for me. It's really heart-wrenching. 02:42 And, you know, like she'd come around to the house at any time, break in, and I'd come in and she'd have a big cheeky smile on her face. And we just did everything together. We went camping and we went sailing and it's amazing. It's just completely devastating for me. 03:03 She was such an adventurous girl. She'd been overseas quite a few times before she turned 20. 03:10 And, you know, she was very robust, very intelligent. 03:17 And cheeky. She would debate anything. She was actually very intelligent, extremely intelligent, Ellie was. And I would have a debate with her and I'd try and keep up with her. But it was very difficult at times, you know. She was just... 03:33 The one thing that she liked to debate the most was about creation and how it all started and everything. I used to tease her about it. But, yeah, so that was fun. And she was basically, you know, any father would be proud of a daughter like Ellie. She was just so wonderful. 03:53 And as you can see, like if you look at her background before she turned 20, She passed away. She'd been overseas quite a few times. So she loved it. And when she was in Tufo, she was loving it there. You know, she did her dream swimming with the whale sharks and the manta rays and everything. And, you know, the Facebook pictures. And I used to get back to her about that. But she loved it when she was there. And it was her element, you know. 04:22 Because she planned to do marine biology, didn't she? That was her kind of next plan in life? 04:27 Well, yes. When she was coming back, she was going to James Cook University, you see, to do that. So what she was doing was she was trying to cram everything in and she worked three jobs, four jobs sometimes. She'd be so tired, you know. She'd come to my place and she'd say, pick me up, Dad, from Waves and come and see Sam and me because she didn't have time, you know, and she saw us for 20 minutes but she fell asleep on the couch because she was so tired. Yeah. So, yeah, she would work and work and work and work for months and then next minute she'd get enough money to go away again on her next trip. 05:00 But earlier that year she went to South Africa where she studied the sharks and she loved that, loved it in 2016. Then she went over, she did a trip around Australia mid-June 2016 and then she was off to Mozambique. So, you know, she just never stopped. She was amazing. 05:20 It's incredible to be a seasoned traveller at the young age of 20, but that is exactly what she was. Did you ever worry about her? I mean, going to somewhere like Mozambique? 05:30 Oh, no, no, no. You never worried about Ellie. Even her friends would say, you know, Ellie would stick up for her friends. Like when she was at school, a teacher was aggressive with one of the students and I went in to see the principal and the principal said to me, look, we agree with what Ellie has said here. But it's the way she goes about it. And, you know, when I got out of the interview, I just gave – Ellie looked at me and I looked at her and she smiled and I smiled back with a high five and said to her, look, you know, it's good that you stick up for your friends, but it's the – you've got to handle it a bit more diplomatically, Ellie. 06:06 But you see, she goes in all guns blazing. Nothing ever worried her. So I had no really – you know, I was confident that she could deal with anything and everything, to be honest, Gemma. 06:21 Because when you look up the kind of travel concerns from back in the time, which you've included in your book, it was things like sexual assault, spiking, kidnapping, but you were confident that she was, you know, had her wits about her. 06:34 Well, she told me that she was going to be with a group of people, a group of scientists, and I thought that they were credible people, you know, they're qualified and She was going over there to do a marine biology study and studying all the marine life between Madagascar and Tufo. It was quite amazing. When I was over there, I couldn't believe it. I went over there and I was having a cup of coffee up on the second level of where I was staying and I'm looking out and I'm thinking, what's that water? And the whales were there floating around, spurting water in the air and they were only about 50 metres off the shore and I thought, this is incredible. 07:15 You know? 07:15 Because it is a beautiful place, isn't it? 07:17 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The beach and everything's beautiful. And it's all the palm trees. But it hasn't got, as Ellie says, you know, it hasn't got the suburbia stuff, you know. It's got tin sheds and all that sort of stuff. And it's back in the day. 07:32 It's like, you know, Seaford here hasn't really changed into a big shopping centre. It's got the old shop. So it still is not a lot there. There's a few big buildings and they're starting to get it. you know, to develop it a little bit. But at the moment, it's just, it's a beautiful place, yeah. And it's one of the big diving hubs for Mozambique where all the divers go. So Ellie was in her element there. There's no question about it, Gemma. 07:59 So tell me about the setup. She'd gone there to kind of join a group and basically do lots of dives and stuff. So she formed friends with like people around the same age who were doing the same thing. They were all living together. 08:10 Yeah, basically there was a place called Casa Barry where they were actually huts. They weren't actually houses. So it was still huts. And, you know, the science group was called Underwater Africa, and they were based at that place as well. So there's photos of her where she gets back on the computer and talking to all her colleagues there who, you know, they all have a chat about what they do a dive what they discovered and study about things and that and they were also um probably um catching animals and putting tags on them and things you know so it's all that scientific marine biology stuff that ellie was into and she loved it loved it she was in her element seriously it was it was a pity you know a couple of days before she uh was meant to come home that this happened you know i think she's in the wrong place at the wrong time and um And, you know, like when I went over there, the locals, the locals were fine with me. 09:08 I didn't have a problem with them. I thought they were all very nice. But the thing is, they think that tourists are wealthy, irrespective of who the tourist is, because you come from another country and they're so cool over there, you know. Yeah. 09:23 What have you been able to piece together about Ellie's last day? Because she started the day kind of doing a last dive, she watched the sunset and she actually kind of checked out of that accommodation, didn't she, and checked into a backpackers kind of thing? 09:37 Well, the best that you can find of the description of the day comes from Jade O'Shea, her friend, who she was really good friends with. She was a bartender at Casey Barry at the inquest and transcript. And it starts with that there's a... Well, it was at the inquest that there's a photo of Ellie sitting at Casey Barry with her friends and she's got a two-litre bottle of water. So she's starting the day with, you know, doing the right thing because she had a dive the next day. So she's not going to be out of control that night or anything. 10:09 So they drove her to a place called Parango Backpackers and she put her luggage in there and they drove off to Victor's Bar. 10:21 Victor's Bar was an area where it's a tin shed and that's where they all congregated and had a dance and a couple of drinks there. 10:30 So she wanted to get back to a friend so she didn't check in and the manager there, Johan, he said that he didn't see Ellie and didn't check in and she was very strong though to carry her luggage and that's from her swimming. She was a very strong girl. She was only little. She wasn't tall. And she hurried up to get back to her friends, you see, at Casey Barry. And they were dancing and enjoying themselves there. And then they were told that there was a party on at one of their friends' place. 11:05 And so they ended up going there about 8 o'clock to a party. 11:10 And the power is very unreliable in Mozambique or Tufo especially. And the power was off and there was no warm, no cold beer. It was all warm. So Ellie wouldn't... She liked a beer, but she didn't... 11:28 she wouldn't drink it warm, you know, so there obviously wasn't a lot there. And she got a bit bored with the party, so she decided to go back to Victor's Bar. And there was nobody, nothing to have been nobody there because she went back to Casey Barry then, I think, to get her phone. But the guy there, you know, the manager there at Casey Barry, this is about 10 o'clock, I suppose, he said that when Ellie came back, she had a bottle of water in her hand, you know, so... So she wasn't drinking a lot that night. 12:00 That's a key factor that came up in the inquest. 12:03 And then her friends saw her again at Victor's Bar. 12:06 Yeah, what happened was she walked back then. 12:09 I think she went to get a phone because they put a phone at reception because there's a lot of petty theft there and they don't want to get their phone taken because it's their communication for back home. So it's too difficult to get another one and all that sort of stuff. So they leave it there. so that when they go out and then they come and get it later. But Ellie, I think, picked it up because it was found in her luggage at Parango Backpackers. So obviously she picked it up at some time and I think that was the time she did. And she walked back along the beach, which is about 800 metres walk from Casey Barry to Victor's Bar. 12:44 And as she walked back, she met Jade and Jade said, oh, we've been looking for you. And she said, oh, I've been looking for you. And see, that's her close friend. So she's not going to leave them in a hurry, I can tell you now. And Jade turned around at the inquest and said that Ellie said she was just going to go to the bar, probably to get a drink. 13:05 And that was probably 60 metres away from where they were sitting, I'd say, on the log. 13:11 And she never came back. So that was one of the things that was really, at that point in time, is crucial. And I tried to get information when I was over there on that, but nobody... See, the trouble is Victor's was always plastered by 10 o'clock, you know. That's the way they were over there. 13:32 And nobody had any information. There was a couple of Israelis there that there was another guy helping Victor. He said he spoke to them and they told him that they were in the army. 13:47 And that was a conversation that he was interested in, so he remembers that. 13:51 Would it have still been in complete blackout at that point, do you think? 13:54 Yes, yeah. Look, probably, probably, yeah, the power would have been off. And you can't see anything in front of you. When I was there and the power went off when I was there, and I couldn't even see the ground that I was walking on, you know. So, yeah, it's pretty pitch black. 14:13 But you see, Ellie had been there for six weeks. She knew it's only a small, people got to understand, it's only a small fishing village. It's probably lucky to have 500 people there, you know what I mean? A thousand people live there. 14:25 So it's only a small place. It was only because that's where all the diving places are. A lot of tourists go there for the diving, you know. 14:33 So did her friends eventually just give up waiting and go home? What happened? 14:38 They were sitting on the beach and time went by and then all of a sudden they said, oh, where's Ellie? And then Victor said, I'm closing the bar because I haven't got any customers. And Ellie wasn't around. And they assumed that Ellie had gone back to the backpackers to go to sleep because she was diving the next day, you see. 14:55 Yeah. 14:56 And they didn't suspect anything because they've been living there and they've never had things like this happen. 15:03 But what happened was they decided to go to the toilet. So they walked to the toilet block. Now, the toilet block's locked at night, but they walked to the toilet block and Ellie wasn't there where she was found the next morning, you see. 15:16 And that was about midnight? 15:17 About midnight, yeah, that they did that. So they ended up getting back about 12.30, 1 o'clock to Casey Barry. And that's what Jade said at the inquest, that she walked across. And what they do is they go behind the toilet because the toilet's locked. 15:31 So when she walked there, Ellie wasn't there. And then the next morning when they found out about Ellie and she looked at the crime scene, well, they could see it from where it was roped off, that where Ellie's body was was where she walked across at 12 o'clock and she wasn't there. 15:51 So Ellie was found the next morning at about 5am by a fisherman, as you say, outside the toilet block. 15:58 Yes, that's correct. At 5am her body was found. So something's happened to her between 12 and 5am. 16:07 And later on I discovered that her top was ripped apart. So that's happened, you know, during that time frame. So she's had some physical altercation with somebody to have that. The top was ripped apart from her shoulder. The whole shoulder was exposed and down her torso here was just ripped apart, you know. How can that happen? You know, it's got to happen. Some sort of physical altercation has happened between 12 and 5, you know. 16:35 When you think back on that evening that you got that news that Ellie was no longer here, what sticks out to you from that night, from hearing that horrific update from her travels? 16:49 Oh, I was just dreaded. It was terrible, you know, to get that phone call from Christy. She was just screaming out. I couldn't understand it. 17:00 And Nicole got on the other end of the phone and said, oh, we've heard that somebody's died in Mozambique and what's the chances of it being Ellie? Because it was pretty high because, you know, not many Australians sort of, venture over there um so uh yeah i didn't know what to do it was devastating really i had sam with me and you know he didn't know what was going on and i was sort of um you know very agitated and just it's terrible terrible when you get something news like that but it was confirmed 10 minutes later when nicole run me back and she said look poor ellie's gone i've now determined that I thought, oh, God, terrible. 17:47 Nicole is, for listeners, Nicole is your ex-wife. 17:51 Was it hard being so far away, not being able to just be there where it happened or get to Ellie's body? 17:58 Yes, yeah, that's the difficult part. You know, if it had happened here, you would be out there with the detectives trying to sort things out. But being so far away was difficult. But I must admit, DFAT, Initially, in the first stages of the investigation, were very good. They gave us a lot of information. They told us that Ali, because there's monsoons there and it was raining a lot, that it's going to be very difficult to transport Ali's body back to Maputo for her first autopsy. 18:29 And it took about four or five days, you know, and I'm thinking, oh, God, she's in a bloody freezer truck going across all this bloody land over there. 18:39 What do I do? And they said, well, you can't fly over because all the airports are shut because it's so bad. And I said, well, look, I want to go and get Ali's body back at least. You know, I want to go over there and bring her home. 18:51 And they said, well, you could do that because you can fly to the body's going to go to South Africa for the second autopsy, which Nicole and I agreed with because... 19:01 We were told that Mozambique might not be reliable enough, you know, information. So, yeah, so we agreed to that. And that's when I went over and brought her back, you know, and that was on the 18th. 19:15 But my investigation really started when I rung Dr Klett when I got back from that, from bringing Ellie home. I rung her on the 20th of November. 19:27 And she told me that Ellie's Airways was packed full of sand. And I thought, well, how can that happen, you know? 19:37 She said, I said to her, I said, do you think it's foul play? And she said, look, it's looking like that, Mr Warren. She said, I'll have to wait for the toxicology results. But there's also bruising and marks on her face, which has become more evident over time. And she said when the Mozambique autopsy got it, it might not have shown as so severe, but at the stage that she got Ellie's body, it was very severe. And when I went over there and I had to view Ellie, it was very devastating. 20:11 You know, I wouldn't recommend any family do that because it's heart-wrenching. And my sister viewed Ellie and she said, look, there's no question with the marks and bruises on Ellie's face that she struggled. You know, she was in a, you know, there's... There's definitely foul play here. And we knew then that just looking at our body, and so did Dr Klepp, you know. 20:33 So Dr Klepp was the second pathologist that did the autopsy. We often hear about when someone dies overseas, about the family bringing that person home. 20:45 I'd never heard someone describe what that actually felt like before I read your book. And I want you to share with listeners the reality of that because you were sitting in, you know, 25A and your daughter was in the cargo hold. 21:03 And that, can you explain what that felt like? 21:12 Well, here I was sitting there and I was served food and everything and It came across me that, you know, Ellie's body is below in a coffin and I'm transporting her back. And it was just, it's devastating because, you know, I was starting to think that this should be Ellie, my seat coming home, you know. 21:44 And, yeah, it was just, yeah. 21:52 Yeah, you start to think of the things, you know, the good things and the memories on the flight. And it's a long flight, put it this way, it's a long flight back. 22:03 And to know that she was below and not up top with me, sitting next to me or her coming home on that flight was something that... 22:17 It's devastating. But you know what? Families, I think, need to go and do this because it's important to go over there straight away and to bring the evidence back and your loved one's body back. But it's hard. It's not easy, Gemma. It's devastating. Yeah. 22:38 Yeah, I just, it was a very difficult trip home, very difficult and very upsetting to know that Ellie's body was below me in a coffin on the plane. It's one thing that... 22:56 Yeah, I still look back at that trip and that's when I put it in the book. It was very difficult for me to go over that because it was so raw, you know, it was so soon too that, you know, this sort of thing happens and you've got to transport them back in that manner and it's just. 23:15 It's such a juxtaposition that you explained, you know, her down below your up top. 23:19 It's devastating, yeah, it's devastating, you know. 23:23 Yeah. 23:23 In terms of having to identify her body, you know, you felt you had to do that as her dad, but could anything have prepared you for that experience? Because so many families do have to unfortunately do that. 23:36 And I can only imagine it's one of those memories that you wish you never had. 23:40 My sister said to me, you don't have to go in, Paul. I said, yes, I do. 23:44 I said, I have to go in. And I viewed her and she looked smaller and her body was, she had makeup on, but you could still see the marks. The marks were still coming through the makeup even. So it was quite severe, the marks on her face. It was. Do you mean bruising? Bruising, yeah, around the lips especially. And then her cheeks were all marked and her nose was all pitted as if she'd been pushed down and tried to struggle to get out of the sand. You could see it. You could see it. It was all there. 24:15 And then her body was so cold because I kissed her on the forehead, you know, and I just broke down. I started crying. It was just a terrible experience. Look, I wouldn't recommend it if – family members going in and seeing their loved one like that you know if if you probably have to designate a particular family member that's pretty strong to go in and see the loved ones in that condition it was terrible for me 24:46 In hindsight, do you wish you let your sister just do it? 24:49 No. No, I had to go and do that. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. I have no regrets about doing it. It's just devastating to do it. 24:56 And then I thought, well, what am I going to get of Ali's? So I asked the lady if I could have some, snip some of her hair. So I snipped some of her hair, put it in a plastic bag, which I'm really, really thankful that I did. because I gave a bit to Nicole, a bit to the grandmother who was devastated, Ellen, and I kept some for myself. So we've got a special bit of Ellie's DNA with us, which is important, you know, to do that. So just for other families, if you can, do something like that because it's important to have that. 25:32 We got Ellie cremated and then we put her ashes in the bay outside Mordialik and where she lived. 25:41 And, you know, a lot of allies now, DNA is gone because we did that and we haven't got anything left but a hair. So it's important to have, I think. Yeah. 25:54 And it's amazing you thought about that in the moment. 25:56 Yes, and this is where you've got to sort of think about these things. So if you can get a snip of your loved one's hair, if this dreadful thing ever happens to you, it's important to do that. 26:13 Because I've got it there at the monument, you know, I've got it. We had Sam the dog who she adored. Because her love of animals came from Nicole, who was a vet nurse, and she used to look after them. They had sick animals. It was quite bizarre. Some of the animals we had to look after. But, yeah, that's where she got that from. And Sam the dog, she was a dog, Sam. And so I've put her hair in with his ashes. 26:38 And it's on the monument where I display Ellie and all the things. That's where I talk to her in the mornings because I know that she's listening to me now. And I'm sure that she's helping me, Gemma. This is important because it's interesting when I wake up in the morning that a lot of these things come to mind about how I discovered a lot of things, you know, during my investigation. 27:02 Yeah. 27:03 Yeah, let's go back to that a bit because obviously she's found by this fisherman around 5am and for listeners, Ellie was found face down, lying flat outside this toilet block. 27:16 Correct. 27:17 But you discovered much later when you went to Tufo that you think the police might have changed her body. 27:25 Yeah, well, what happened was when I did my first trip to Tufo, I... 27:33 And Ancha, which is, she's in the book, she helped me. She was a diver over there and she got in contact with me after the 60 Minutes program went to air. 27:44 And she said she knew some people who went to the crime scene at about 6am that morning. And so I went and saw them and I showed them the picture of Ali because I got the picture a couple of days beforehand from the fisherman's grandson and I couldn't look at it, you know. All I could see was her black feet. It was devastating, you know. 28:12 No father should have to look at that. 28:13 I didn't know it existed because the AFP and the Australian government and DFAT, all they did was give us the blurred photo. But the AFP, back on the 25th of November 2016, had the clear photo but gave it to nobody. Not even the coroner. 28:29 Didn't they? 28:30 Because it's not a nice photo. You know, Ellie's in a state of undress. 28:34 Yes, that's it. 28:35 She's got sand on her and, you know, it's not a nice thing for any family member to view. But you... 28:42 It was really important you did because that's how you found out that her body had been moved. 28:47 But I had the blurred photo. That's all I had for two years. That's all I gave him. This was a clear photo, crystal clear. You could see everything in this photo. But I couldn't look at it on my trip because it was just devastating. It's something that, you know, how often does a family see crime scene photos? Yeah, it's horrible. 29:07 It's horrible, yeah. 29:08 I didn't discover the ripped apart top then. 29:11 What I did discover, though, was that these witnesses... 29:16 said that when I was speaking to them, I showed them the clear photo and they said, Ellie wasn't in that position. She wasn't lying down like that. 29:27 When they saw her, she was in a Muslim prayer position. So I did discover on that trip that the police had moved Ali's body to make it look like an accident. There's no question. Those Tufo local police, I'm not talking about the criminal police, you know, at this stage. I'm talking about the local police changed Ali's body position that morning and then I discovered later on that they changed her top, her black top. 29:54 From a ripped top to a not ripped top. 29:56 Yes. 29:57 Why would they do that? Why would they do those two things? Because a prayer position for those struggling to picture that would be hands out in front on the floor and kind of your knees curled up under you. 30:06 Yes, but your head's actually in the sand a bit more. It's a bit deeper in the sand. So why would they do that? She went to the toilet and fell over and breathed in and back to her waist. As Dr. Klebb said, chock-a-block at the inquest. full of sand. How do you do that? But the trouble is, what they didn't realise was the surface there was firm. 30:31 Hard surface. There was a little bit of soft sand on the thing, but it was a walking path with a little bit of soft sand. There was no way she could have breathed in all that sand there. And this is where my lawyer and barrister tried to tell the coroner this, but he didn't want to know about it. Unbelievable. 30:51 So this detail about the sand in Ellie's airway and you discovering when you went there that there was no sand of that kind, you discovered that two years after the fact. So once again, the father of a victim is finding out more information two years down the track than the police. 31:08 Well, this is what Charlie Benzina said. A father shouldn't have to investigate. But the information that I came back with, Charlie said, was golden, you know, Charlie Benzina was. 31:16 And Charlie is a retired detective who you connected with throughout your investigation. 31:21 Just before I went to on my first trip, yeah. And what happened was I... 31:27 And because Dr. Kleppard said that her lungs were chock-a-block full of sand or packed full of sand with my phone call, I said to my translator, Brian, and the bodyguard from 60 Minutes, I said, listen, this ground is hard. And Brian said, well, it might have been a bit softer back then, but he said, no, it's all dirty sand. So when I went to the... 31:52 I got a meeting with the criminal detective in charge of Alice Cruso. 32:02 And I sort of bluffed my way through the meeting a bit and I didn't say too much. And then I said to him, I said, well, you know, Alice's body was moved. She was murdered elsewhere. And he said, he paused for a minute and he said, He's probably thinking, how do I knew that? And he said, yes, that's correct. 32:22 The sand in her mouth was a different colour to the sand at the beach. And we are aware that her body was moved. And then later on, he did a report come out. And you know what the report says? And I told the coroner this. I said, it's unknown where she was murdered because they know for a fact that it wasn't a toilet block. It was somewhere else down the beach, you know, because she had the beach sand in her mouth and not the dark sand from the toilet block. And that came out in my trip. 32:53 This first trip, as you said, Gemma, I received a lot of information from that first trip. Now, if the AFP had have gone over there and put a mutual assistance request in, there's no question they would have got information. But, you see, the thing is they already had the clear photo and they didn't give it to the coroner or the family. And they're responsible, as our police authority for overseas, to give all relevant evidence to the coroner because they were helping the coroner with the coroner's investigation. And this is extremely important and families need to know this. 33:27 Now, if it becomes a diplomatic issue, right, and they realise that there's things that have happened overseas, the AFP cannot, and I mean cannot, expose another country's authorities. 33:43 So, you know, where does that leave families here in Australia? I tell you, it's hopeless, Gemma, hopeless. 33:52 After the break, Paul tells us what it's been like to discover so many new breakthroughs in Ellie's case years after her passing. 34:04 Paul, you got all these breakthroughs two years after Ellie's death. So in those two years prior, what were you being told? Was it being treated as a murder investigation at that point before you found all this evidence? 34:18 Well, you know, Gemma, it's all huff and puff, what I call it. The AFP keeps saying, oh, we're talking to you to your throes. But you've got to ask the AFP, right? right, what have they achieved? They've achieved nothing. All they do is talk, talk. And the coroner's court, delay, delay, and the AFPs, delay, delay. What they do is they hope that you will go away. 34:43 But you see, I'm persistent. I wasn't going away. 34:47 They didn't know who they were dealing with, Paul. 34:49 That's what Charlie Benzina said. He said they didn't know they were dealing with a poor warrant. That's what he told me. They're quite amazing, yeah. 34:58 Paul, let's get back to Ellie because I really want to understand. Do you think that the local police moved her body and changed her shirt Was it for tourism, to save tourism? Why would they do that? 35:11 Well, you see, the fisherman, when he discovered Ellie's body, he ran back down the beach and he came across a top business owner in Tufo, George Venter. And he was terrified, this fisherman, because he thought that he was going to be blamed for Ellie's murder because whoever finds the body there, the local police do it the easy way out, the simple way, and they blame the person who found the body probably. So... George Fender told him not to worry, let's go back. So he went back and that's because he was in control that morning of the crime scene and he told the police to rope off the area. 35:49 Now that's at 5.30. So nobody knew that Ellie moved out of Casey Barry at the crime scene that morning. So he must have rung up Callum, the manager of Casey Barry, and found out where Ellie was staying. 36:03 And It all must have been done very quickly. So the police end up banging on the door of Parango Backpackers half an hour after they found Ellie's body. Wow. That's the quickest they've ever moved, I can tell you now. 36:18 And so they got Ellie's clothes at 6 a.m. So they had her clothes, so they switched her top. 36:27 Yeah. 36:30 So it all sort of the timeline and the evidence all sort of falls into place that that's what's happened. And one of the biggest things, too, to clarify that was that when Nicole, when I spoke to Nicole, she told me that two of Ellie's favourite tops did not come home. 36:49 So they switched it with one of her favourite tops and then the other top was obviously discarded, the ripped apart top. 36:56 But eventually those Mozambique police did say it was murder and then it was the Australian police that were saying are undetermined. 37:05 Yeah, because they don't want to make it a crime. See, the AFP can't, don't want... Their mandate is to send a mutual assistance request, is that it's got to be classified a crime. And the thing is it was classified a crime by two police reports. And then the AFP commissioner's submissions comes out that it was never classified a crime before May 2023. 37:28 When Ellie's story started to come out, Sarah's story, Can you tell us about that? Because there were similarities. 37:38 Yeah, yeah. Well, Sarah contacted me and I spoke to her on the phone and she sent me the recording, actually, of what happened at the police station that night. And she said she was amazed because she went to the police station thinking she was going to get something done about it. And she realised that the guy that attacked her was a police officer. 37:58 So, yeah. So the corruption there with the local police is terrible. Like, they don't even get paid, you know. What they do is they put foreigners, they get foreigners in jail for weeing in the street or for going down the street the wrong way, driving or something, you know, some misdemeanor thing. And then they say, well, we're not going to let you out until you're paid. paid and see because they don't get paid that's how they get paid so that's what they do to the tourists there and it's a terrible thing and when i was there myself on my first trip they did that to three tourists they threw them in jail when i was there and they got bribe money from it was there any suggestion that that ellie's attacker could have been a police officer When they moved the body, I was actually suspected that they did, and then later on I realised now that they didn't, because we do know who the people are. 38:48 Well, I don't know, but a private investigator that was hired by Nicole emailed me in January this year because I contacted him about the book and I wanted to talk to him whether it's okay to put him in and all this sort of stuff and he got back to me and said that when they went over there in 2022 when the case was reopened they were broken into when they were asleep and a mobile phone and a computer laptop was stolen because they wanted to get the information to see what information they had. 39:28 And he said that was a brazen attack because that was the pick police, the top criminal police, and nobody in Tufo would break into where they're sleeping unless they really wanted the information. So... 39:43 They were on the trail of these guys and there's more than these offenders, these whatever you want to call them. I don't know. But, you know, they were on the trail of them and they know who they are, but they won't tell me. 39:57 So you think that they killed Ellie? 39:59 Yes, there's not enough evidence to convict these guys. This is the problem we have at the moment, the present time, yeah. 40:05 What can you tell us about them? Are they violent locals? Are they, like, who are they? 40:09 Well, I don't know. See, I don't know anything about it. They won't tell me. Francisco Roos said that it's probably best for me not to know anything at this stage. 40:19 He did say that he's off his own back. He's doing some more investigation. So there's a slight hope, but I can't see that anything's going to venture. If they can't get enough evidence by now, I don't think they're going to get enough evidence. 40:31 How do you feel about finding out all this time later that, you know, you potentially know who did it? 40:38 There's a lot of water going under the bridge 10 years later and I don't... Look, there's a slight hope. There's a slight hope that something could eventuate in the future because Francisco Roos is still looking into it. He hasn't given up. He really wants to find out who they are, but I can't see that it's going to... 41:03 It possibly could, you know, but my crusade now is more on to letting other families know of the circumstances of how the Australian authorities deal with this sort of stuff. 41:18 And that's why I've done the book, so that to make people more aware of really what does go on behind the scenes. Even the coroner at the inquest, you know, didn't want all the relevant witnesses. And in February of that year, he states, oh, there's a lot of gaps in the evidence. But there's a lot of gaps in the evidence. Wouldn't you want all the relevant witnesses? See, their doctor didn't do a good job at all. He didn't come across any sand. Yet the African autopsies said that Ellie's airways was abundance, was chock-a-block full of sand. 41:51 How is that possible? And then he didn't find the tampon that Dr Klepp said she put in Ellie's body for reparation to Australia. And how does all that happen, you know? 42:03 To explain, there were three autopsies done, one in Mozambique, one in South Africa, one in Melbourne. 42:10 Let's explain that tampon evidence a little bit because it's really important because at the start you were kind of informed that there was potentially rape involved in Ellie's attack. That tampon could have given us answers to that, couldn't it? 42:23 Yes, but sexual assault can happen in other ways too, which is, yeah. 42:28 Very true. But the issue was that tampon was never tested properly. 42:33 No, we'll just go with the autopsies. Like the first one said it was a violent death homicide. That was Mozambique, right? Yeah. Now, Dr Klepp got Ali's body and she discovered the tampon. And she said in the inquest that she removed the tampon, put it in a plastic bag and put it in with Ali's organs, which is what they do. 42:56 But didn't test it? But didn't test it, no. Because she realised then that it was going to go to Melbourne and it would be tested in Melbourne where... We have the facilities to do DNA testing. A lot of these countries in Africa don't have the proper facilities to do DNA testing, you see. And this was the big thing about Ellie's clothes too that the AFP didn't get was the DNA testing on that. So she said that it – and then Dr Klepp said in her supplementary report, oh, there is a possibility that I missed it. 43:31 How does that happen, Gemma? 43:33 You know? This is the Melbourne autopsy. 43:35 Joey Benzina's ripping his hair out of here when I told him this. 43:38 He said, you're kidding me. 43:39 That evidence is essential for DNA. That's an absorbable material and it's so vital for DNA testing. But it was lost at the coroner's court. 43:52 So that tampon has never been tested? 43:54 Never found. Never been tested. 43:56 It was never found. 43:58 No, never found. 44:00 Can you understand that? I can't. I can't. We're talking about a top pathologist here from Melbourne. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. How do you work that out? 44:14 There were no other chances for DNA, were there, Paul? Apart from that tampon, we didn't have any clothing. Did they check fingernails? But by the time it got to Melbourne, was there any DNA left? 44:23 Well, it was the tampon. The tampon got there. 44:26 Of course. But he never discovered it. So, you know, I don't know what's going on there. But with Ellie's clothes, the AFP went over to investigate for the coroner and they stopped in. You can't fly direct, so you've got to stop in Maputo. But they never went to the hospital where Ellie had her autopsy. I told Charlie this. He said, what? He said, that's one of the first things we do is we actually turn up for the autopsy. I said, oh, no. 44:54 It's so hard, Paul, because you can understand, you can kind of wrap your head around Mozambique investigations not being up to quality, but the fact that there's so many Australian kind of steps in here as well, like this autopsy, that have mistakes, big blatant mistakes that happen, I can imagine as a dad, like, that's just... Oh, it's so frustrating. It's unforgivable. 45:15 Terribly frustrating. 45:17 Paul, you had an inquest in 2023 that... 45:22 You held a protest the year prior trying to get all this happening. Why were you so determined to have this... 45:29 process happen in Australia to have an inquest into Ellie's death here? 45:33 Well, it's important here that they classify Ellie's death as a crime, a murder. And you see, the AFP tried everything under the sun to not have it a crime or a murder because that means they have to send that mutual assistance request. And the coroner's court, it's important that they classify it as that, right? 45:50 Okay. 45:50 Because then the authorities have to take things a little bit more seriously, right? But that was still up in the air after the inquest. And I must admit, I was very disappointed with the inquest. And if I had my time over again, I wouldn't have one. I don't recommend to have an inquest. I don't think the coroner's court's much chop, to be honest. 46:13 Because their finding was it's possible, it's possible that a person or persons unknown caused or contributed to Ellie's death. 46:22 Yeah. 46:22 That was what they found basically, which is like just undetermined. 46:26 Undetermined, yeah. But the one thing we did get was the cause of death. The colonel actually changed the Melbourne. See, he goes by the Melbourne autopsy. And this is a proof in the pudding because he now said, I'm changing the cause of death from undetermined, which is what the Melbourne pathologist said, to aspirating a large amount of sand. But he still doesn't clarify that it's chock-a-block, abundant, full, because it goes against his own doctor's report, you see. 46:56 Yeah. And this is where there was bias in the inquest. He didn't even want the radiologist, the doctor, as a witness. We couldn't believe it. We had to send a letter in protest to the coroner to try and get these witnesses. Even Dr Collins wasn't even taken as a serious witness. And Dr Collins then later on said that Ali was murdered. It's in the book, you know. 47:22 That pathologist that said it was chock-a-block, to use your words, can you explain what that means? It was all the way down in her lungs, so it's not like she could... 47:32 accidentally swallow sand. 47:34 That's in transcript, Gemma, in the court at the inquest. Dr Klepp says it was chock-a-block. And then she was asked about a witness that saw Ellie's body that morning. And he said that he found it strange that her mouth was packed full of sand. And she said, absolutely, I agree with that witness. 47:54 right, her body was chock-a-block full of sand when I had it. And that was after the Mozambique autopsy. So how can the coroner say that? 48:05 I can understand how painful that is. It's just, it's hurtful to you because you have no doubt that your daughter was murdered. 48:12 Oh, yeah, look, and, you know, I said to the coroner, in deaths here in Australia, Your Honour, There has not been one death of anybody that's fallen in the sand and packed their lungs full of sand. Now, we have beaches here all around Australia, New Year's Eve parties. When I went to Portsea, the New Year's Eve party, everybody had their heads in the sand afterwards. They passed out. But there's not one person that's died from their lungs chock a block full of sand and then have the marks and bruises around the lips and that where you've struggled to try and lift your head. 48:48 Like Dr Klepp said in an email to DFAT, it looks like, you know, it's a possibility that Ali's head was held down into the sand. Now, what I think's happened that night is that Ellie knew who they were. She's run along the beach. They grabbed the top. Her knee's got marks, the right knee's got marks on her knee, and she's been pulled to the sand where she's hit with her knee. But when you hit the sand on your stomach... 49:14 And you get jumped on top of, Gemma, you can't do anything. You're like a turtle, you know. So what they've done is they've pushed their head into the sand to quieten her, which is what Charlie and I have come to the conclusion of. 49:27 And they've held her head too long into the sand where she's taken a deep breath and she's sucked it all in. 49:35 And, you know, the motive, I think, was definitely to rape Ellie. There's no question. And there's more than one. We know that because of what Mr Ruse has said. So I assume that there's probably a group of them. And, yeah. 49:51 Up next, Paul details how he has navigated his emotions as Ellie's dad while continuing to fight for answers. 50:00 Paul, how do you separate investigating your daughter's death and having to go through all these horrific details like tampons, like working out how your daughter died, seeing where she was, you know, left with the emotion of being a dad? Like how are you separating those two to continue fighting for her? 50:18 It's devastating really, Gemma. It's very difficult to go over the evidence and to look at all this... 50:27 evidence but that's what I take it as now like I can look at the crime scene photo because I look at it as evidence I don't look at it as my daughter's lying there anymore yeah you can't no you can't you can't and with the tampon and things and all that you know it's just yeah like I What I've uncovered in my investigation is devastating, really, not just for Ali's family, but for all families in Australia. 51:00 What really goes on is, and this is where the book and the website come together to prove it's all the facts. And I've got all the court transcripts, all the facts, everything to prove what I say. 51:15 And it's just unbelievable. 51:20 Well, you aren't the first family I've spoken to who were trying to kind of unpack a death overseas. I recently spoke to the Rigby family who lost someone in Fiji and they're dealing with similar issues where the local police kind of didn't do much of an investigation and then they've tried to do it themselves. And it really shouldn't be this hard, should it? It shouldn't be this hard for Australian families to... 51:41 losing loved ones overseas to get answers and to see a proper investigation into the deaths. 51:48 Well, you see, they don't want to get involved. It's one family. What's one family? You know, it's just they don't want to do it. The AFP are not homicide detectives. They're not trained in that area. 51:59 And it's just ridiculous, you know. That's what they do, Gemma, is they make out that it's a suicide. Look at Ali. The first police report I got was an overdose report. 52:11 How did that even happen? Because didn't the toxicology report show that she had no drugs in her system or alcohol? 52:16 Well, on the 6th of April, I get an overdose report from the police, Mozambique police. 52:22 And I didn't have the autopsy paper in front of me, but I was told on the 19th of December by the AFP officer in charge here in Melbourne that Ali's death was a violent death homicide, right? Yeah. 52:40 So when we got that police report on the 6th of April 2017, a few months later, I was furious. I rung up DFAT and said, what's going on? DFAT sent to the police that issued that report immediately. How can you say that it's an overdose when your own autopsy says that it's violent death homicide? So four days later, on the 10th of April, they issue another report saying it's homicide. So, you know, where's the credibility in that? 53:10 And this is when I discovered the AFP had been misleading the family all along because they said that a proper investigation, you know, we can't get involved. It's their jurisdiction. They're doing proper investigation. And they weren't. Nothing was being done. 53:25 What it shows me is that if you hadn't intervened and said, this is not an overdose and here's why, that report would have been what was kind of taken as golden. It's taken on the families to do this. 53:37 Yeah, they had no forensic results, no toxicology results to prove that they only died of an overdose, right? We had the South African autopsy that came through, did substantial toxicology results and it all came back negative. But then later on, We had the Melbourne autopsy in August 2017 say exactly the same thing. All the toxicology results were all negative. So they supported one another in a big way. So how can they issue a report to say that Mellie died of an agadose? 54:11 To have no answers this far down the track, to have all of these things still floating in the air, 10 years later... 54:19 What has that done to you? 54:21 How is your life at the moment trying to still, 10 years later, unravel all of this? 54:26 Well, I... 54:31 I know everything now. You know, I've discovered everything. And I am extremely frustrated with our authorities and with what happened. Over there you sort of expect corruption and things and all that, but very surprising with our authorities how they dealt with Ellie's case. 54:52 And that's what I'm saying to you before. The book and everything is about Ellie's story. And there's a good balance because it's got Ellie's growing up and initially what happened and how it happened and all that. And then it gets into my investigation a bit. But it's to expose things so that other families know what really goes on. 55:16 Was it cathartic for you writing this book or was it hard to revisit everything and revisit your memories? 55:21 This book was extremely difficult, I tell you, and I'm not doing another one, Gemma. 55:29 You're one and done. 55:30 Oh, I've done and dusted with the book. That's it. You know, like it took me a year and probably 15 months to do the book, you know, to research everything. But the whole thing is you've got to get it. It's a true story. 55:43 And at first what they wanted was to elaborate things and they wanted to do this and add to this and do that. And I said, no way. I said, this has to be a true account of everything. So I had a little bit of help and they wanted to change things up and do this and do that. And I said, no, no, you're not doing that. It has to be true, all of it. 56:07 Well, it was a beautifully written book. You're a great wordsmith, Paul. 56:12 Yeah, yeah. 56:13 I'm curious to ask you what grief feels like to you now, 10 years down the track. How do you hold on to the good memories of Ellie? 56:22 Yeah, look, I had an experience. I don't know. Do you want to hear about it? 56:30 Sure. Yeah, look, I had an experience and, um, It was 2019 and I thought, geez, you know, with things that go on about spirits and things, if anybody could have got back to me, it would have been Ellie, you know. And I'm thinking, well, there's nothing happens after life because I didn't even think much of it. But one day I got contacted by a clinvoyant who was very persistent on Messenger and Facebook and she was extremely persistent. 57:02 She said, look, Ellie's come to visit me. And I go, oh, yeah, blah, blah. It's a lot of bullshit. 57:08 Anyway, of course, she was so persistent, Gemma. I decided to follow it up. And I went and saw her. And she said a few things. And I thought, oh, yeah, that could be anything. She could get information off Facebook or whatever. But there was one thing that stuck in my mind that she did say. She said that Ellie will show you in a way that you will believe. And I thought, well, being an industrial engineer, you know, I'm a logical person. I take facts and logic out of everything. 57:37 That's going to be pretty difficult to show me that there is something more to life after we die. 57:44 So... 57:48 What happened to me was that I was – this was – first of all, Ellie and I used to debate creation, as I mentioned at the start. She believed that we came from the apes or the monkeys, and I said to her, well, I think the universe is so big that there's got to be something – else in the universe, something, you know, we're just a little pinhead as a planet. There's so many planets and the universe is so huge. And, you know, to me, something that's created this has got to be a superpower or something, you know. 58:24 And she didn't believe in the stories in the Bible or anything. So we had strong debates about that. And so this is relevant later when I talk about what happened to me. So it happened on Good Friday of all days, 2019. 58:43 I was sitting on the couch and I couldn't see the front door from where I was. And I heard this jingling of the keys. They were really loud, like really big, loud jingling. 58:54 And I sort of, I got up and I said, who's there? Is anybody there? Because I thought they were on the other end of the door, you know, doing this. 59:04 And as I walked over, I went past Ali's monument and the monument was to my back. And I looked at the keys and they'd stopped. 59:14 And I thought, oh, my subconscious is playing minds with me because I believe, you know, the subconscious can make you believe things or, you know, if you're worried about something, you might see something or hear something. And that's what I thought. 59:28 But then I remembered what the client said to me and I thought, you know, Ellie will show you in a way that you know. And I thought, well, just came into my mind to say, Ellie, is that you or you here? 59:42 And seriously, two of her pictures flew off behind me onto the floor. 59:50 Her pictures. Now, they didn't just fall on the ground. They ended up in the middle of the room. 59:57 I didn't see it, but I had my back to the monument. 60:05 And I was in shock. 60:08 Because what got me, Gemma, being an industrial engineer, you do the time and motion as part of it as well. 60:16 Ellie knows that timing's important to me. It was the timing. 60:21 Ellie, is that you here? 60:24 Bang, right? Now, I live on a concrete slab. No pictures have ever moved prior. Now I've been here 20 years now and since 2019 no pictures from Ali's monument have ever fallen off. 60:41 So how does that happen at that particular point in time? 60:45 Did it bring you comfort? 60:47 Well, later on I started to analyse it. An analyser could analyse what happened to me. It's Good Friday, 365 days of the year, and that's what we were debating, you know. And then you look at the timing of what happened and nothing's ever fallen prior. 61:03 Yes, I actually now believe, I didn't before, but I actually now believe that the universe has got more in store for us than what we believe. So we won't know until we die, but I think that where there is something, there's an energy that leaves the body and that life goes on after death. I actually believe that now and I believe that I will see Ali. 61:27 But I've got things that I've got to do in life. I've got to look after my son, Sam, who I love dearly. I've got my partner, Linda, and things. So, you know, I've got things that I have to still continue on here. But I do believe that once I die, I think I'm sure, 100% sure that I will see Ellie again. Yeah. Now that that's happened to me. 61:49 Now you've got the book, are you going to put down your investigator's hat? Are you done hunting Ellie's killer? 61:54 I am, basically. 61:57 I think I've got everything out there now and I think it's come to the attention of a lot of people, which is what I basically wanted, and that the people can now analyse the true facts for themselves from the book and then further investigation, they can then look at the website and now it's all on there and they They can come to their own conclusions, really, from the facts that I've got. So I think that that objective has been made and I'm happy with that, with what I've done. 62:28 And, you know, the next thing I've done is on the website now, I've put a proposal up for the Australian government to use for... 62:41 future families that die suspiciously overseas, what they should do. I've spoken with Charlie Benzina and at the book launch, Dr Collins came up to me and said that your proposal is fantastic. It's excellent, Paul. And Charlie said it was too. 62:57 Um, they said they should follow that to the hilt. And he said, I want to have my input as well, because I think that they should be more professional on their approach when they do the autopsies. And I said, really? He goes, yeah. So I'm waiting for him at the present time to give me a little paragraph that I can put in to the proposal, which is now on the website. 63:17 Uh, it's E double L Y W A double R E N dot net. 63:22 And, um, The whole thing is that the Australian authorities and government say they can't intervene with another country's investigation because it's their jurisdiction. That is incorrect. 63:37 That is incorrect. They can if they send a mutual assistance request and that country's attorney general says yes to that request. It is possible for them to get involved. 63:49 Yeah, well, you've done a phenomenal job. You deserve to rest and just remember the good of me. 63:56 Well, that's pretty hard actually because I think now what do I do now, you know? There's sort of that empty void. 64:02 It gave you the mission, didn't it? 64:04 Yeah, it gave me a mission. As Charlie said to me, Paul, he said, you know, even with some investigations that he's had, you know, we know who's done it but we just don't have enough evidence. 64:18 And he says it's very frustrating for us, but you've sort of got to move on from it. And I said, yeah, I know. I realise that. 64:27 Thank you to Paul for joining us on this episode. You can find a link to his book, Hunting Ellie's Killer, in our show notes. Make sure you're following our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for updates on this story and all the stories we cover. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.