Lake Mungo (2009)

1. I feel like something bad is gonna happen to me.

2. I feel like something bad has happened.

3. It hasn't reached me yet, but it's on its way.

4. I don't know why it's important.

5. It's like how it helps people, like, dealing with her loss,

6. like making up stories about ghosts or whatever.

7. Alice kept secrets.

8. She kept the fact she kept secrets a secret.

9. It's hard for some people to understand,

10. but you have to believe you're to blame

11. or else there's nothing to hold on to.

12. Police and emergency service.

13. My daughter, Alice, has gone missing. We need some...

14. How long ago did you last...

15. She was in the dam... Looked everywhere.

16. Do you know where you are?

17. We're on the other side of the dam. She's been missing for quite a few...

18. Okay.

19. Please send someone now.

20. I need you to talk to me for a second.

21. We don't know where she is.

22. Hello, June, can you hear me?

23. The normally tranquil setting

24. of Ararat's Norval Dam was shattered yesterday

25. with the disappearance of 16-year-old Alice Palmer

26. while picnicking with her family.

27. We received a call around 6:00 p.m. tonight of a missing girl,

28. and on discovering the nature of the situation

29. we called in the search-and-rescue divers from Melbourne.

30. Police divers entered the water around 10:00 with SES volunteers

31. joining a fruitless search...

32. Matt and Ali had swum out to the middle of the dam.

33. I could see them from where I was sitting at the picnic area.

34. I think we'd been in the water for about 15 minutes,

35. and I said that I was gonna get out. It was cold.

36. So, I started swimming back and she didn't come out with me,

37. so I thought she's gonna stay in there.

38. I remember Matty got out,

39. and a few minutes later, I heard him ask where was Alice.

40. So, I stood up and looked out across the dam,

41. and the water was completely still.

42. So I called out.

43. I looked out over the water to see if I could see her.

44. And both the boys had kind of checked,

45. you know, the bush land behind.

46. I could see Alice's towel, she'd left it on the ground,

47. and she clearly hadn't got out of the water

48. because then, you know, she would have picked up her towel, so...

49. Yeah, that was the last time that I saw her.

50. Police continue to hold grave fears for 16-year-old Alice Palmer

51. who disappeared while picnicking with her family.

52. Police search-and-rescue divers...

53. We were told to go home,

54. and if the search-and-rescue divers found anything

55. then they'd let us know immediately.

56. It felt very strange in the car on the way home

57. because there was one empty seat.

58. One minute she was there and then gone.

59. I went back to stay with the Palmers that night.

60. We were just mostly waiting, mostly waiting for news.

61. For bad news. There was that expectation.

62. We got a call from Russell on his mobile about 9:00 at night.

63. And he said there'd been an accident at the weir,

64. and Alice had gone missing.

65. So, we thought that we better go to Ararat.

66. I remember June was a bit funny about seeing Iris,

67. there was a strange feeling between them.

68. It felt a little strange having my mother there.

69. Mum and I, there for Alice,

70. just didn't feel like the right order of things.

71. It was an awful, awful night.

72. Worst night of our lives.

73. Mmm-hmm.

74. I went into Alice's room later that night

75. and her phone went off a couple of times, but I didn't answer it.

76. I remember, the bed was made.

77. I remember thinking how neat everything looked.

78. I got a call from Alice's mum, June.

79. She'd said that Alice is missing

80. and presumed, like, she drowned

81. and I didn't not believe her,

82. but, I don't know, it was kind of hard to take,

83. so I actually called Alice's mobile.

84. I just...

85. Maybe wanted to see if...

86. Hope it was a joke or something, I don't know.

87. It was just a real shock.

88. Just didn't really feel like it was real.

89. Everything was the same as always,

90. but people were saying Alice had drowned.

91. Are there any memories from that night that stand out for you?

92. I remember we had the porch light on.

93. Still do, actually, just in case.

94. And why is that?

95. Just in case she comes home, I guess.

96. All right, get in.

97. The SES divers located Alice's body at approximately 9:25 p.m.

98. They used sonar to locate her. And she'd drifted some way

99. and come to rest on a shelf at the bottom of the storm water system in the dam.

100. Obviously contacted the family immediately.

101. As soon as we were told that they'd found the body,

102. June and I went down to the dam.

103. Georgie'd come over to keep Matt company.

104. It was all very official and formal,

105. and they asked me to sign a statement

106. of identification.

107. June stayed in the car.

108. And, you know, on reflection, I think that was a mistake

109. because she didn't have any closure.

110. I just couldn't bring myself to identify Alice's body.

111. She'd been underwater all that time and it...

112. I guess it's not how I...

113. I didn't want to remember her in that way.

114. I thought that was my responsibility as Ali's dad, you know.

115. That's what a father does.

116. The car stalled on the way back from the dam.

117. But the only gear I could get it into was reverse.

118. So, we drove back into town in reverse.

119. Which was either that or walk.

120. And given everything that had happened,

121. seemed like the better option, really.

122. The autopsy was performed on the Monday, the 27th.

123. Then the coroner released the body on Tuesday, the 28th.

124. It was very strange spending Christmas Day with the family up there

125. while Alice lay alone in the morgue.

126. I don't know, it was just like I hadn't seen her for a week or anything, like...

127. Yeah, it didn't feel real.

128. Death takes everything eventually.

129. It's the meanest, dumbest machine there is, and it just keeps coming

130. and it doesn't care.

131. There's nothing else to know about it, really.

132. It was a somber day for the family and friends of Alice Palmer

133. who gathered to pay their final respects to a young woman taken too soon.

134. She was a great person. Very popular, clever, lovely.

135. She was... I don't... Yeah.

136. Alice is remembered as a happy,

137. fun-loving girl with a zest for life.

138. Described as always putting others...

139. The Palmers were really doing it tough at that time.

140. And when I think of how bad it was back then,

141. it's hard to imagine how much worse they would get.

142. Ten days after Ali's funeral, so that makes it the 15th of January,

143. stuff started happening around the house. Noises in the roof,

144. and sounds coming from outside the window

145. and other movements that seemed to come from Ali's old room.

146. So, we re-hung the door to Ali's room,

147. and we got a pest controller to come in and check for termites.

148. But it didn't help at all,

149. the door kept slamming and we still kept getting the noises from her room.

150. There was just something weird about that house.

151. It had a really strange feeling about it.

152. I really can't explain to you what it was exactly,

153. but you'd go in there

154. and just have this bad feeling, like, in your gut.

155. I started having these nightmares,

156. and they were so distressing

157. that sometimes I just wouldn't want to open my eyes.

158. I'd woken up, but I didn't want to open my eyes.

159. There was one particular one, it was quite vivid and recurring.

160. Alice would come down the hall still dripping from the dam

161. and just stand at the foot of our bed, just staring at us.

162. It was quite terrifying, as I said, I didn't want to open my eyes.

163. By early February my nightmares were getting so bad

164. that I began to go for walks at night,

165. sometimes for hours at a time,

166. just so that I didn't have to go to bed at night

167. and close my eyes and go to sleep.

168. Sometimes I would actually go into people's houses.

169. I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong.

170. I guess I really just wanted to be inside someone else's life for a while.

171. Georgie, do you remember how Russell was doing at that time?

172. Yeah, Russell was... He was working a lot at that point.

173. I think that might have helped him with his grief.

174. Send it through without any explanation.

175. Russell and I met

176. actually on the Gippsland Catchment project in '98

177. and worked together on that.

178. So, you guys have known each other for a few years?

179. Yeah, a good few years, yeah.

180. Do you remember how he was affected after Alice's death?

181. What changed?

182. It was work as normal, and that was troubling actually.

183. I didn't really know what to say to him about that.

184. You never spoke about it?

185. Not really. Everyone grieves in their own way.

186. And it wasn't really my place to be telling him how to feel.

187. But I certainly... I certainly was concerned.

188. I was really grateful that I had my work.

189. And, I mean, I felt really guilty about that at the time.

190. But, you know, I just wanted to get on with it.

191. Then one night, in late February,

192. I came home from work, and I was sitting in the kitchen

193. and I heard a noise coming from Ali's room.

194. So, I went into Ali's room, and I don't really know why,

195. but I sort of found myself sitting down

196. in the chair in front of the dresser.

197. And before I could kind of work out what I was doing there,

198. Ali walked in and she went over to her desk

199. and started sharpening a pencil,

200. and then she looked like she was checking for a text message on her phone.

201. And, you know, I was completely freaked out.

202. She was completely oblivious to my presence.

203. And then I don't know what happened, I must have moved the bed

204. or, you know, squeaked my shoes or something,

205. but she went completely rigid.

206. And I knew then that she knew I was there.

207. And she slowly turned around and she looked me right in the eye fully for,

208. you know, what felt like forever.

209. And then she just came at me and stood up and said, "Get out! Get out!"

210. And I just got up and went out as fast as I could.

211. I could hear Russell crying.

212. And he was here in the kitchen,

213. Mathew and I both found him in here,

214. and he was sobbing.

215. He was absolutely inconsolable.

216. Do you believe Russell when he says he saw a ghost?

217. Yeah, I do. I believe he saw what he saw.

218. And he wouldn't... He's not the kind of man to make something up.

219. So, I believe he saw something.

220. Whether it's a real ghost or not, I don't really know.

221. But I'm sure he saw something.

222. I remember trying to talk to members of the church

223. about how to help June and how to help the Palmers.

224. But there just didn't seem like there was anything we could do.

225. I think part of the reason was

226. because they weren't churchgoers.

227. So, didn't know how to offer them comfort.

228. I don't even know what June believes in.

229. I found myself mostly concerned about Mathew.

230. I guess because those two were always so close,

231. I was worried how he would cope.

232. I remember he was spending a lot more time alone.

233. We were all worried about him.

234. Mathew came in with some unusual bruises on his body.

235. They were unusual in terms of their distribution and depth.

236. We obviously took a history, trying to exclude trauma,

237. but there was certainly no history of trauma that he was able to give us.

238. We tested him for vasculitis,

239. and we also excluded any poisoning or toxins in his system.

240. We were unable to turn up anything conclusive.

241. And several weeks after this, the bruises just resolved spontaneously.

242. And we were never able to really establish a cause for them.

243. My name's Steve Wilkie. I'm Mathew's best friend.

244. I usually stay at Mathew's house two or three times a week.

245. We started a band together, so, we normally play music at my house.

246. Mathew seems a bit quieter, but he was always pretty quiet,

247. so, I guess there wasn't really any warning bells going off or anything.

248. Well, I had heard about June going into people's houses.

249. And Mathew never really seemed to want to talk about any of that.

250. I never asked him about any of it.

251. I know that he was always interested in photography.

252. And he was...

253. At this time, he was starting to pursue it with more passion.

254. Mathew came to me, he was very keen

255. to find out anything about photography.

256. So, I was more than willing to help out, that's what I do.

257. So, he was picking my brains about just about anything to do with it,

258. from equipment, down to techniques, down to lighting, you know.

259. But he was a great asset, so, I mean, eventually I employed him.

260. Mathew, can you talk to me about the photographs

261. of the backyard that you've been taking?

262. Yeah, basically I've taken that same photo

263. with that composition for, I think, every three months for the past four years.

264. And it's just a photograph of the backyard.

265. Looking out, you can see the hills in the distance.

266. It's just like a little project

267. that I set up for myself when we got here.

268. And what was in the April 28th photograph that was different?

269. Well, it's basically the same shot,

270. but it would appear that Alice is standing against the fence.

271. Do you remember what the reaction in the house was at the time?

272. I wouldn't say the mood was good, but it was better than before.

273. It was like... Like it gave us sort of something to focus on, I think.

274. All of us.

275. The photographs were taken on the 3rd of April,

276. and they were developed on the 4th, and I looked at them, I think on the 5th.

277. And looked at the dams and the water levels and I was quite happy.

278. But it was only the following night that it was pointed out to me by my wife

279. that there was something in the background

280. in Norval Dam, this image came up.

281. When I first looked at the photograph,

282. I didn't know what to make of it.

283. The image was quite unsettling

284. because it certainly looked like Alice.

285. It was an incredibly discomforting image.

286. And I became convinced that Alice was still alive.

287. I didn't have any rational explanation for who was in those photos.

288. But I did know something about Alice that June didn't.

289. I'd seen Alice's body. I didn't think she was alive.

290. I knew she wasn't.

291. I became convinced that Russell had made a mistake.

292. He himself said that it didn't look like anybody anymore.

293. June was so convinced that I'd made a mistake

294. that I actually started to have doubts myself.

295. I started to think maybe I'd made my mind up

296. that it was Alice's body before I'd looked,

297. and that the circumstances were so compelling for me,

298. that I'd decided that it was her.

299. More than three months after the funeral of Ararat teenager Alice Palmer,

300. her grieving parents formally requested

301. her body be exhumed from the general cemetery.

302. There has been some contention from the Palmer family

303. about the accuracy of the original body identification.

304. June and Russell Palmer were adamant that DNA testing be carried out.

305. They just couldn't be sure that the body they identified

306. was indeed Alice.

307. And today, almost...

308. Alice's body was exhumed

309. in the presence of the funeral director, Dr. Slatter,

310. and there was a representative from the coroner's office also.

311. And it was then transported to Ararat Base Hospital

312. where they took the DNA samples.

313. And she stayed there until the results came back.

314. A few days later we received a copy

315. of the coroner's preliminary report,

316. and Alice's identity was confirmed by the DNA sample match.

317. It was only after they'd confirmed that it was Alice's body

318. that I realized how much that I'd invested

319. in the possibility of it not being her.

320. You know, I can't tell you how much I wanted there to have been

321. a terrible mistake, even if it had been mine.

322. Really, really wanted there to have been somebody else's kid in that dam.

323. A runaway, a murder victim.

324. Just anybody else's, just as long as it wasn't my kid.

325. Just as long as it wasn't Alice.

326. Yes, it is.

327. Stop it.

328. Oh, my God.

329. Alice was reburied two days later, on the 7th of June.

330. But the question remained, who or what was in those photos?

331. Well, I continued to hear things, and...

332. What did you hear? I was hearing noises. Sort of...

333. They didn't really relent. I kept hearing noises in the hallway.

334. So, I thought, "Well, I'll just set up a camera

335. "to see if I see anything, see something."

336. The first night I looked back and there was footage of a figure

337. moving from the lounge room across the hallway to the front door.

338. You're on Voice FM, 8:02.

339. I'm Helen Bath and we're taking calls

340. with psychic consultant, Ray Kemeney.

341. Next we have Nadia on the line, Ray.

342. Hi, Nadia, how are you? What can I do for you?

343. My question is about career, and I've also got a question about family.

344. It was around about that time I decided

345. to seek out the advice of Ray Kemeney.

346. I had heard Ray on the radio over the years,

347. and opinion was quite divided,

348. some thought he was the real deal,

349. others were unconvinced.

350. Next we have Annie on the line.

351. Hi, Annie, how are you?

352. I'm fine, thanks, Ray. Thank you for taking my call.

353. My pleasure. What can I do for you?

354. I just wanted a general reading.

355. General not just medical.

356. I'm Hungarian by birth.

357. My parents came out here when I was quite young.

358. I've got a 15-year-old daughter who lives with her mother in South Australia.

359. My Christian name is actually Schultz, but I changed it to Ray.

360. I think it's a more trustworthy name for a psychic.

361. Australia's wog psychic of choice.

362. Most of what I do is...

363. When I'm dealing with the sick or the dying,

364. which I guess probably fits about a third of my clients,

365. is to allow them the possibility

366. that death is not the bitter end,

367. that it's not the full stop.

368. Which is a consolation that I'm quite happy to give them

369. considering the fact that what happens after death is up for grabs anyway.

370. There's somebody very close to you,

371. someone you haven't seen for a while,

372. someone who is going to come back into your life.

373. Someone who'll be of great comfort to you.

374. Anyone that fits that bill?

375. Yeah, I can think of someone.

376. Look, I won't lie to you, Annie,

377. I can see obstacles ahead of you

378. but I think that this person who is coming back to you

379. is gonna make a great difference

380. and will be of great solace to you.

381. Thanks, Ray.

382. See you, Annie.

383. Where I come from, when someone dies,

384. they block out all the mirrors in the house

385. to stop the dead from finding their way back.

386. It's things like that, that make a difference.

387. Hi, Annie. I'm Ray.

388. You're gonna die, Annie.

389. It's just the start of something else, all right?

390. Thank you.

391. It's all right.

392. Okay.

393. I liked Ray immediately. He wasn't what I expected.

394. I don't know what I really did expect,

395. but there was nothing kind of spooky

396. or fake about him.

397. Okay. Are we ready?

398. Mmm-hmm.

399. I want you to close your eyes...

400. I usually video tape my sessions

401. so that they can be reviewed later by the clients,

402. especially when there's elements of trance or hypnotism involved.

403. I keep one copy for myself, one copy for them.

404. Better to be safe than sorry.

405. Okay, so you're standing outside your house.

406. Tell me what you see.

407. My house.

408. It's a white house. I'm walking towards the front door.

409. Okay.

410. Now, I want you to go inside the house.

411. I want you to move slowly through the house,

412. I want you to describe what you see,

413. where you are, just give me a guided tour.

414. Okay, I'm walking down the hallway

415. towards Alice's room.

416. What's there?

417. I can see Alice's shoes outside her room.

418. And what does that mean for you? June?

419. She always used to leave her sneakers outside her room.

420. So, I want you to go inside her room now,

421. open the door and just move inside.

422. You feel safe enough to go into Alice's room?

423. Okay.

424. Now open the door.

425. I'm going inside her room.

426. You can see something, can't you?

427. Tell me what you see, June.

428. She's...

429. Alice is sitting in the wicker chair at the end of her bed.

430. She looks sad.

431. I first met Ray when June brought him home for dinner

432. the night of her first consultation.

433. And, yeah, I'm completely indifferent to psychics,

434. I don't really have a position on them at all.

435. I don't really want them to come round for dinner, mind you,

436. but, you know, I didn't want to upset June either.

437. He was a pleasant sort of a bloke, he wasn't ooky-spooky at all.

438. And I was on my best behavior.

439. A few days later, maybe a week later,

440. I suggested to the family that we hold a seance.

441. June was really keen, but I remember Russell just flat out refused.

442. I think Mathew finally talked his dad around.

443. Mathew, how did you feel about having a seance held in your house?

444. At the time I was actually kind of interested, sort of curious.

445. I don't think Dad was thrilled about the idea.

446. But, yeah, I thought it would be interesting.

447. And I suggested we film it,

448. and I recorded it with just our video camera,

449. which is the PC9.

450. I'm getting a strong presence in the room.

451. In the house.

452. I think we all thought that the seance was a failure.

453. Ray didn't really come up with anything,

454. like, with any signs or anything,

455. so, after about an hour or so, we called it quits,

456. and it wasn't until the next day

457. that Mathew was reviewing the footage

458. that there was an image of Alice.

459. Make your presence known to us.

460. The new footage was completely different to the hallway footage.

461. For one, it was significantly more detailed, so it was less ambiguous.

462. And it was impossible to dismiss it

463. as a coincidence of shadow play and digital noise.

464. There was something inexplicable in our house, that was beyond doubt.

465. I was concerned. This was pretty unfamiliar territory for me.

466. I've never seen a ghost before.

467. Ray got Mathew to help him set up

468. three permanent cameras inside the house

469. recording in time-lapse configurations 24 hours a day.

470. There'd been a lot of speculation about Ray and what he was doing there.

471. I mean, when people don't know

472. that, of course, leads to a lot of talk and a lot of speculation.

473. I had heard rumors throughout July of video images

474. purporting to be of an apparition in the house.

475. But I must say I was skeptical as to their legitimacy.

476. And your view on Ray?

477. Also very skeptical.

478. I think they had me as some kind of Rasputin figure

479. mesmerizing the Palmers, stealing their money,

480. doctoring the photos of Alice.

481. Mathew, in particular, seemed to be really struggling.

482. I thought I might be able to help this boy by being there, you know.

483. Good one. Beautiful.

484. Well done.

485. That said, my chief motivation was professional.

486. Something was happening inside that house

487. and I wanted to find out what it was.

488. What was your reaction to these images?

489. We were completely gobsmacked by them.

490. But before we had time to, you know, take in what that meant

491. the Withers' video came out.

492. Go on.

493. Is it good?

494. Yeah, it's great.

495. Can I have a look?

496. Yeah, be careful.

497. Cathy and Doug Withers were at the dam on April the 3rd,

498. the same day that the Bob Smeet photo was taken.

499. Be careful.

500. What do you think I'm going to do?

501. Give it back. Be careful.

502. It's safe in my hands, babe.

503. It was a couple of months later, the end of July,

504. when we were looking at our footage that we'd shot down at the dam

505. and came across...

506. A figure in the background, which we identified as Bob Smeet,

507. which interested us 'cause there's...

508. Yeah, clearly, we didn't... We sort of went,

509. "Oh! It was the same day he was there

510. "when he captured the image that people have been talking about."

511. So, then we went through all our footage

512. to see if we perhaps might have captured that figure as well.

513. Maybe the camera had seen what Bob saw.

514. Yeah. Yeah.

515. And we did find a figure in the background

516. like the image that had been described in his picture.

517. And then we looked more closely

518. and Doug zoomed in on it.

519. Yeah, I got right in on the computer.

520. And from what, you know, could have looked like a female figure

521. from a long way away,

522. up close and tight,

523. you could see that it definitely was neither female nor Alice.

524. It was Mathew.

525. Do you guys believe in ghosts? No.

526. No. No. No.

527. Well, this is where I was when the Bob Smeet photo was taken.

528. I was wearing Alice's jacket, and I looked up and I saw a man on the hill,

529. who turned out to be Bob Smeet.

530. And I didn't wanna be in a photo.

531. So, I walked off through the bush.

532. What I didn't see was there was also a couple over there filming,

533. who turned out to be the Withers.

534. When the Withers' thing came out, Dad came to me

535. and asked me if I had been involved in anything else.

536. And I didn't wanna lie to him, so I told him.

537. And I explained to Dad that I was responsible

538. for the image of Alice in the hallway

539. and the bedroom, and that I created the April 28th backyard photo

540. and the seance image.

541. I just told him what I'd done.

542. Okay, so...

543. I got two photos, a photo of Alice and the backyard

544. and composited the images.

545. That's a photo that I took of Alice.

546. Mum kept talking about...

547. She was always talking about getting Alice exhumed,

548. and she was really keen on this idea

549. that Dad had misidentified her body.

550. And so I knew that without more evidence it wasn't going to happen,

551. so I made the photograph.

552. I just used an old video of Alice

553. and I played that on the TV.

554. I had the TV up on the book case

555. and it was as simple as rotating the mirror

556. so that the reflection of the TV came up in it.

557. And obviously the mirror's quite small,

558. so it cropped out the edges of the television

559. and then, yeah, I just filmed that.

560. Same with the kitchen and the bedroom.

561. What you see basically is Alice on the television in the mirror.

562. Like, it wasn't about trying to trick people.

563. I guess it was like something was better than nothing.

564. Do you think that what you did ultimately made it worse for June?

565. I think that...

566. Yeah. Yeah, I probably did make it harder for her.

567. But, I mean, that wasn't my intention.

568. I'm not quite so sure about his reasons.

569. I don't know that I

570. totally...

571. I don't want to say I don't totally believe what he said,

572. but I'm just not convinced

573. that he really knows why he did it.

574. When it all came out, people wanted to do stories and books

575. and women's magazines, the whole lot just went pear-shaped.

576. Look, we just didn't know how to handle it.

577. I mean, you know, we had to protect Matty, we had to protect ourselves,

578. we had to protect Ali's memory.

579. And we just didn't have any experience

580. of dealing with all this interest

581. in something that was incredibly personal

582. that people wanted to make incredibly public.

583. I mean, the Palmers weren't coping well at all at that point.

584. And things were very bad, they were doing it tough.

585. This was like the end of hope for all of us,

586. but especially for June.

587. She just really wasn't ready to let Ali go.

588. She just needed to hang on to her a little bit longer.

589. And I don't think she would admit it, but she was devastated.

590. She's an interesting girl.

591. She seemed to not get on with June so well.

592. I thought they actually were quite alike.

593. It was interesting that the two of them might not get on so well.

594. They always seemed very much alike

595. and you could see that Alice took a lot after June.

596. But, also, other things had become clear as well after Alice's death.

597. That perhaps a bit of the sense of the private

598. that they both shared.

599. Thanks for that.

600. June was... Well, still is...

601. She keeps to herself a lot,

602. and it became clear that that was happening with Alice, too.

603. They had the sense of privacy.

604. The sense that there is their own private life

605. that they will either choose to share or to not share, I guess.

606. It's wonderful when your children come

607. and that new expression that you have.

608. But as a mother, you've still always got doubts

609. that you're not doing enough or you're not doing the right thing.

610. I partly blame myself, that's come from me.

611. Maybe it came from my mother.

612. I've never been able to...

613. I've never been able to give myself over wholly to...

614. To June.

615. I feel June is a little like that, too,

616. that she couldn't give herself wholly to Alice.

617. I hope that Alice did know how much I loved her.

618. I guess I held something back a little as she grew older.

619. That would be the saddest thing, to think she might not know.

620. Ray suggested that Mathew accompany him

621. on one of his country Victorian tours,

622. where he was doing consultations,

623. and Mathew jumped at the chance.

624. Breakfast. Your shout, I think.

625. No, I think it's your shout.

626. I think I realized when I was away how much I missed Alice

627. and that I was never going to be able to speak to her again.

628. I guess that's something that

629. all of Ray's clients are coming to terms with.

630. You know, they want to talk to someone

631. or make contact with someone they've lost,

632. and so did I.

633. So, I was sort of one of Ray's clients in a way as well.

634. No. Can I chuck it at you?

635. No. Let's see what happens.

636. Well, what do you think is gonna happen?

637. It's gonna hit me and then I'm gonna get angry.

638. That's what's gonna happen. No!

639. Watch yourself.

640. What are you doing in my room?

641. I don't know.

642. Get out!

643. When me and Ray went on the tour,

644. we left the two rented cameras

645. where they were, in the hallway.

646. I was sure there was still something in the house.

647. And obviously, 'cause we were away for the three days,

648. you know, we couldn't change the tapes or anything.

649. So, we knew we were probably gonna get about, like, a day and a half of footage.

650. But we left them running

651. and got back on August 22nd,

652. at which point we checked the tapes.

653. Only Russell and I were in the house

654. when these images were recorded,

655. Mathew couldn't have had anything to do with them.

656. They seemed to prove that there was a ghost in our house.

657. Alice's ghost.

658. Do you believe in ghosts?

659. Didn't used to,

660. but it's a hard thing to prove or disprove.

661. I think...

662. Yeah, sometimes I think maybe they do exist.

663. There are ghosts everywhere.

664. It's a scary world.

665. I don't know why it's important.

666. It's like how it helps people, like, dealing with her loss,

667. like making up stories about ghosts or whatever.

668. It threw a question mark over everything.

669. I went back and reviewed all the footage that had come before,

670. all the material taken inside the house following Alice's death.

671. It was while I was looking at Mathew's June 13th hallway material again,

672. that I noticed something in the image.

673. There was a second figure,

674. not Mathew in the hallway but someone else,

675. squatting in the dark in Alice's room.

676. At first I thought it was Alice.

677. Then I realized it was our neighbor, Brett Toohey.

678. What was this man doing in my house, in my daughter's room

679. more than six months after her death?

680. When I found Alice's safe, I realized exactly why he'd been there.

681. He was looking for the tape.

682. That's it.

683. But it was such a... It wasn't a very nice day.

684. Yes.

685. You did a smoke ring. Yes.

686. You two getting nice and cozy without me.

687. Alice began babysitting for the Tooheys in 2002,

688. and she continued for the next two and a half years.

689. The Tooheys' two boys were five and nine years old.

690. I literally just couldn't believe my eyes.

691. It just made me feel so sad.

692. As far as I'm concerned,

693. the Tooheys were complicit in Ali's death.

694. I believe that if it hadn't been for them, she would have reached out to us.

695. She wouldn't have felt guilty.

696. She wouldn't have felt the burden of that secret.

697. She wouldn't have been isolated.

698. How do you feel towards Brett now?

699. If he was around the corner, I'd probably throttle him.

700. He seemed like a nice guy. You know, he was nice.

701. We'd speak and he was never like, you know, nasty or anything.

702. He had a pool at his place and usually...

703. We used to swim there sometimes.

704. Yeah. During the summer.

705. So, usually we just go to his place and have a swim there.

706. I was really bewildered

707. about, you know, what happened.

708. Yeah.

709. It took a lot just to realize...

710. 'Cause, you know, I had no idea that Alice would...

711. No, be with somebody, I know.

712. Yeah, it was like a complete surprise.

713. Like, we just didn't think, you know, she'd do something like that.

714. Yeah.

715. Why do you think Alice had the tape?

716. Because she didn't want them to have it.

717. Why is that?

718. She didn't trust them anymore, I think.

719. They must've been really desperate to get that tape.

720. From the moment that they'd heard of Alice's death,

721. they would've been living in this constant fear of being found out.

722. I'm glad he couldn't find it. I'm glad he knows it's not over.

723. I had a lot of personal dealings

724. with the Palmers during this time

725. as part of the investigating team

726. trying to locate Brett and Marissa Toohey and family.

727. And initially we were optimistic that they would be found

728. and charges laid.

729. But, unfortunately, the leads that we were working with

730. soon dried up, and so the investigation stalled.

731. So, the police's advice to us was that even if the Tooheys were caught,

732. they would get off with a suspended sentence

733. by claiming that the sex was consensual,

734. which was, they claimed, you know, supported by the video evidence.

735. Jason, did you know about Alice's involvement with Brett?

736. No. No one did.

737. Obviously I didn't.

738. We wouldn't be going out if I did. It was... No.

739. I thought we were... I thought we were pretty good.

740. It just left so many unanswered questions.

741. Why was she involved with him?

742. When did the relationship begin?

743. Was she in love with either of them?

744. I just don't know.

745. The Tooheys sold their house and moved, six months after Alice died.

746. Alice kept secrets.

747. She kept the fact she kept secrets a secret.

748. Which does change the way that you see somebody, I suppose,

749. when you realize that they did hide things from you a bit.

750. I think I knew one Alice and maybe her mum knew another,

751. and there was another one again that none of us knew maybe.

752. I found Ray's business card taped to Alice's diary

753. on the page marked 12th of July, 2005.

754. Why have you come to see me, Alice?

755. Can you interpret dreams?

756. Mmm-hmm. Sometimes.

757. How do you feel when you wake up from these dreams?

758. They scare me a bit.

759. Alice came to see me about five months before she died.

760. I think she'd heard me on the radio a few times

761. and rang and made an appointment.

762. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes.

763. I want you to imagine you're standing outside your house.

764. When you can see that, you tell me.

765. Okay?

766. Yeah.

767. All right. Now, I want you to go inside the front door.

768. Go into the house. Tell me what you see, where you are.

769. Ray, why didn't you tell June that you'd actually met Alice before?

770. Okay, I'm in the entrance...

771. Look, I don't think it was a case of hiding something from them.

772. It was more that I was honoring Alice's request for confidentiality.

773. But it was damned if you do, damned if you don't, you know.

774. The living room's just directly ahead.

775. Then you go to your right

776. and my room's in the back part of the house as you go towards the kitchen.

777. Do you see anything unusual? Anything different?

778. No.

779. No, we didn't feel like we could trust Ray anymore.

780. For whatever reasons he had of keeping that information to himself,

781. it still felt like a betrayal.

782. I wanted to help June and the family

783. and I think they wanted me to help them.

784. I wouldn't have been able to do it if they'd known.

785. There was a fair bit of resentment.

786. Mathew wouldn't even speak to me.

787. But what I think really hurt them more than anything

788. was what they saw as my failure

789. to see Alice's eminent passing.

790. Looking back, like, it's kind of strange

791. that someone would, you know, be as close to us as he was...

792. I think, maybe, he needed us as much as we needed him.

793. Alice came to see me because she was upset.

794. She was a very troubled person.

795. "I had a dream last night.

796. "I was cold and wet. I felt heavy, like I'd been drugged,

797. "and when I woke up, these sensations didn't go.

798. "I was feeling sick and confused

799. "and I was starting to get scared.

800. "I needed to see Mum to talk to her.

801. "I stumbled to her room

802. "and as I stood there at the bed, watching them,

803. "I was overcome by this intense sadness.

804. "Then the sadness turned to fear.

805. "I just stood there paralyzed with fear

806. "and I realized there was nothing that they could do for me anymore.

807. "I've never felt so utterly alone.

808. "Everything felt wrong. My body,

809. "the way things looked.

810. "Then I realized that there was something wrong with me.

811. "I started to cry, standing there at the foot of the bed."

812. Lake Mungo is in southwestern New South Wales,

813. and that was the location of the school camp that Alice went on

814. from August the 2nd to the 5th in 2005.

815. When she came home, she said she'd had a good time.

816. I do particularly remember it

817. because she came home without her mobile phone,

818. which we'd bought her a month previously,

819. and her favorite bracelet and watch.

820. Yes, other than that, you know, she didn't really talk about it too much.

821. Wait, guys!

822. Well, Kim didn't show me till about a year after she got back from camp

823. the stuff that she'd taken on her mobile phone.

824. So, why'd you decide to tell June?

825. Well, if we didn't tell June,

826. then it would be like we were hiding something.

827. So, I don't know why...

828. I don't know why, but why not?

829. Smile for me!

830. Smile.

831. They're a little bit tipsy, that's all.

832. Jason told us about the phone footage

833. that the girls had taken at Lake Mungo.

834. The other girls were looking so happy

835. and she looked quite forlorn.

836. I was worried. I became convinced that something had happened to her.

837. So, just get a little bit. Just some of it.

838. Kate's phone footage was taken later that night

839. once the girls had spread out over the lunettes.

840. anywhere.

841. I think that we need to get a photo.

842. Like Africa. Like the desert.

843. There was an image of Alice, very hard to decipher,

844. in the bottom of the frame kneeling under a tree.

845. It was only after viewing the clip several times

846. that we realized what she was doing.

847. She was burying something.

848. I mean, did you know what had happened that night with Alice?

849. No.

850. I knew she'd lost her phone.

851. I knew she was upset because that was pretty obvious.

852. But I didn't know why she was upset.

853. She didn't say that she'd seen anything,

854. she didn't really say anything to me.

855. I didn't really, perhaps, take it that seriously at the time.

856. You know, it was like context.

857. You know, we were just having a good time

858. and I just thought she'd gotten a bit upset.

859. It started simply enough.

860. Alice left the group

861. and started walking off by herself.

862. But it was... Obviously, something was distressing her.

863. And we wanted to try and find out what it was.

864. We understood from the phone video that she'd buried something.

865. We had an idea where the tree was

866. because of what we could see from the video.

867. We didn't really want to go down during the day time

868. because, you know, we didn't want to be digging,

869. you know, where tourists were.

870. So, we decided to go at night.

871. June and I started digging and after a bit,

872. June said she'd found something and she pulled out a plastic bag.

873. And inside the plastic bag there was Ali's favorite necklace,

874. her ring, her watch, her mobile phone.

875. Her most precious things

876. buried out here on a school camp,

877. and we didn't know why she did that.

878. I mean, we knew from the video that she'd buried something,

879. but we didn't know what it was.

880. It's low on battery.

881. Are you scared of dying?

882. Yeah, of course I'm scared of dying.

883. Isn't everyone scared of dying?

884. Would you like to tell me a little bit about what happens in these dreams?

885. I feel like something bad is gonna happen to me.

886. I feel like something bad has happened.

887. It hasn't reached me yet, but it's on its way.

888. And it's getting closer.

889. And I don't feel ready.

890. I feel like I can't do anything.

891. At some point,

892. this figure came towards her from out of the darkness.

893. I recognized the face as soon as I saw it on the phone video.

894. It was the same face of the body that I had identified at the dam.

895. It was Ali's body and Ali's face.

896. There is absolutely no rational explanation

897. for what she saw on that phone.

898. Stay far away from me.

899. Oh, my God, they're coming.

900. Stay away!

901. I am convinced that Alice knew she was going to die.

902. I'm convinced of that.

903. Bundle up, bundle up, bundle up.

904. I think the figure at Lake Mungo was an omen for her.

905. The burial of her possessions was symbolic,

906. it was a ritual.

907. No, I was never convinced that Ali believed she was gonna die.

908. You know, she had morbid thoughts, sure. I mean, who doesn't?

909. And she had nightmares that upset her, and enough to consult Ray.

910. I don't know that anybody's really convinced

911. that they're gonna die.

912. And what about the image at Lake Mungo?

913. How do you think Alice would have explained that?

914. How could she have explained it?

915. Look, I think Ali saw a ghost.

916. But she wasn't to know that it was her own.

917. I believe she recorded a ghost.

918. I believe she recorded the future coming to get her.

919. We had found out about the Tooheys,

920. Ray, and what had happened at Lake Mungo.

921. And by the time we returned home,

922. the house felt different. It was...

923. Calm.

924. I think that Alice wanted us to know more about her.

925. She wanted us to know who she really was,

926. before she...

927. You know, before she could leave.

928. In the weeks and months after Lake Mungo,

929. we started to feel like a family again.

930. It just crept up on us, really.

931. We were a little battered and wobbly,

932. but we were a family all the same.

933. Hi, Ray. Nice to see you, Russell.

934. Yeah, you too. Nice. Come in.

935. Ray called out of the blue

936. and said he was going to be coming through town

937. and asked if it was all right if he could come round and visit.

938. Six months had gone by,

939. and I just felt that under the circumstances,

940. I didn't think it could do any harm.

941. I think we all felt that after Mungo,

942. in our own ways, there'd been closure, I suppose, to a degree.

943. And, you know, for each of us it's different.

944. And for each of us, we've made our own peace.

945. It seems strange to me that Ali should withdraw so abruptly.

946. And we didn't help her, we didn't change anything.

947. I think we just collectively made a decision to move forward.

948. And, you know, moving

949. was really a big part of all that... Deciding to move.

950. It will be difficult to leave the house.

951. Sometimes, you know, I just forget that...

952. She's not coming back.

953. I forget.

954. Okay. Close your eyes

955. and imagine that you're back standing outside the house.

956. Mmm-hmm.

957. Can you see it?

958. Go inside the house.

959. I'm going through the front door.

960. And...

961. Walking down the hall towards Alice's room.

962. Someone's there.

963. I think someone's coming down the hall.

964. Door's open.

965. Do you know who it is?

966. Do you want to go inside?

967. Yeah.

968. Okay.

969. What do you see?

970. It's my mum.

971. What's she saying?

972. She's not... She's not saying anything.

973. I don't think she knows I'm there.

974. Alice isn't here.

975. She's not here.

976. What's happening, Alice?

977. Are you talking to her? Is she talking to you?

978. She's going now.

979. She's leaving the room.

980. She's gone.

981. Open your eyes.

982. She's going now.

983. She's leaving the room.

984. All the way.

985. She's gone.