Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Mysterious Death of Phoebe Handsjuk

On December 2, 2010, the body of Phoebe Handsjuk, a 24-year-old Australian woman, was found at the bottom of a garbage chute. Handsjuk's death was ruled a suicide by the local coroner, despite suspicion on her much older lover, Antony Hampel.

Antony Hampel, aka Ant, drove his Range Rover into the Balencea building's basement car park at 6:05 p.m., using his security fob to open the gate. Having been out early at the gym at 8:15 a.m., Hampel left the home around 9:00 a.m. for a busy day at his events company in Richmond, interspersed with meetings off site.

Using his personal key fob, which only gave Hampel access to the access where he lived, took the lift and let himself into his twelfth-floor apartment. Unable to remember if he locked the front door upon arriving, he was greeted by his American Staffordshire bull terrier, Yoshi. Yoshi didn't show shame for the mess he made pulling cushions from the couch and general chaos. Ant disliked messes, but allowed Yoshi the latitude in an avuncular way.

Upon entering the apartment, there was no sign of Hampel's flatmate and partner, Handsjuk.

Hampel and Handsjuk's relationship was in the rocky stage with Handsjuk threatening to on again/off again moves, as well as Handsjuk's abuse of alcohol. Handsjuk often disappeared, spending time with, in Hampel's opinion, "low-lifes", tearful returns, and prescription drugs to help Handsjuk sleep it off and begin soon.

Hampel noticed Handsjuk's keys and handbag on the kitchen counter, which was weird because, while you could leave Balencea without keys, you couldn't get back in. Hampel wondered where Handsjuk could have gone without her handbag.

The kitchen counter also had strange Post-it notes with weird scribbles, and they were new because the cleaner had wiped the benches down the previous day. Heading into the bedroom, Hampel found what appeared to be a "shrine" consisting of a photo of himself and Handsjuk, a photo of Handsjuk cat, along with notes with ramblings Handsjuk writes when she's drunk and don't make sense. Candles were burning and Handsjuk hair-straightening tongs were lying on the floor plugged into a socket in the bathroom.

Forty minutes after Hampel arrive home, Handsjuk father, Len, called her iPhone. Len and Ant have different recollections of that night. According to Len's memory of numbers from his phone bill, Ant answered the call on Handsjuk iPhone but didn't' hear Len call the phone, instead calling him at 6: 52 p.m. thinking Handsjuk went to see Len.

Len called Phoebe because she had arranged for the three of them to meet at her favorite restaurant, the "Golden Triangle," for Len's birthday two days earlier, to find out when they were supposed to meet.

After telling Len that Phoebe wasn't home, Len became worried when he and several family members received a strange text from Phoebe's iPhone:

"Hi family, I am in bed and about to sleep and when I WAKE I will transform into the most incredible human bein you've ever seen ... (not), I will go to hospital. It's safer there and I hear the special tonight is tomato soup ... Delicious! Nutritious! I love you all very much but not enough to send an individual text. Sorry about that, but time is sleep and I must b on my way ... ... Merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream. Xo"

Handsjuk sent the message to Len, Ant, her boss, Michelle Silvana, her mother, Natalie, her brothers Tom and Nik, her grandmother, Jeanette Campbell, and Natalie's partner, Russell Marriott.

Natalie received the message while boarding the plane in Alice Springs flying home after a nine-week stint working in the Western Desert. Concerned, she called her mother, Jeannette, in Mallacoota, a coastal township in eastern Victoria, checking on Phoebe.