WHAT TRIGGERED THE MELISSA CADDICK INQUEST
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
* Ms Caddick, 49, disappeared in November 2020, days after her Sydney eastern suburbs home was raided by ASIC to uncover her suspected Ponzi scheme.
* Her husband, part-time hairdresser and DJ Anthony Koletti, was the last person to see her and reported her missing.
* Three months later her severed foot washed up on a beach on the south coast of NSW, leading authorities to presume her dead.
MAIN FINDINGS OF CORONER ELIZABETH RYAN
* Ms Caddick has died.
* The evidence does not enable a finding as to the place, date, cause or manner of her death.
ASIC RAID FINDINGS
* The coroner dismissed a suggestion that a raid by the corporate watchdog on the fraudster's home days before she vanished was conducted inappropriately.
(Family members and Ms Caddick's husband blamed ASIC and the lead investigator Isabella Allen for the late fraudster's death, arguing she was denied food and water and was distressed during the raid).
* Ms Ryan found "no credible evidence that the search officers denied Ms Caddick medication which she required, or food and drink".
* The accusations levelled against Ms Allen were "completely without foundation", and she acted professionally in leading the search for evidence "in the investigation of a very serious fraud".
ANTHONY KOLETTI FINDINGS
* Mr Koletti reported his wife missing 30 hours after she disappeared and then gave inconsistent evidence to police, the media and the inquest.
* The coroner found Mr Koletti purposely withheld information relating to his wife's disappearance and could not be ruled out from being involved.
* "His discrepancies are too numerous and too persistent to be attributable to stress and lack of intellectual sophistication," she said.
* "I have formed the opinion that it is likely that on 13 November 2020 Mr Koletti had some awareness of Ms Caddick's movements over the previous two days, but chose not to disclose it."
SEVERED FOOT FINDINGS
* While "unlikely", it was possible Ms Caddick had cut her foot off herself or with the help of someone else.
* "The medical examinations of Ms Caddick's foot (alone) have not been able to establish whether she has died and if so, how or when this happened," Ms Ryan said
* "They do however enable the conclusion that it is most unlikely Ms Caddick's foot separated from her body as a result of a deliberate act to sever it, performed either by herself or with the assistance of others."
Australian Associated Press
