Lake Mungo (2008)

[bunniefuu]

I feel like...something bad

is gonna happen to me.

I feel like something bad

has happened.

It hasn't reached me yet,

but it's on its way.

I don't know why it's important.

It's like how it helps people, like,

dealing with her loss,

like making up stories about ghosts

or whatever.

Alice kept secrets.

She...kept the fact

she kept secrets a secret.

It's hard for some people to understand,

but you have to believe you're to blame

or else there's nothing to hold on to.

Police and emergency service.

My daughter, Alice, has gone missing.

We need some...

- How long ago did you last...

- She was in the dam...

looked everywhere.

- Do you know where you are?

- We're on the other side of the dam.

- She's been missing for quite a few...

- Okay.

- Please send someone now.

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

- We don't know where she is.

- Hello, June, can you hear me?

The normally tranquil setting of Ararat's

Norval Dam was shattered yesterday...

with the disappearance

of 16-year-old Alice Palmer...

while picnicking with her family.

We received a call around

6:00 pm. tonight of a missing girl,

and on discovering

the nature of the situation...

we called in the search-and-rescue

divers from Melbourne.

Police divers entered the water around

10 o'clock with SES volunteers...

joining a fruitless search...

Matt and Ali had swum out

to the middle of the dam.

I could see them from where

I was sitting at the picnic area.

I think we'd been in the water

for about 15 minutes,

and I said that I was gonna get out.

It was cold.

So, I started swimming back

and she didn't come out with me,

so I thought

she's gonna stay in there.

I remember Matty got out,

and a few minutes later,

I heard him ask where was Alice.

So, I stood up

and looked out across the dam,

and the water was completely still.

So I called out.

I looked out over the water

to see if I could see her.

And both the boys had kind of checked,

you know, the bush land behind.

I could see Alice's towel,

she'd left it on the ground,

and she clearly hadn't got

out of the water...

because then, you know,

she would have picked up her towel, so...

Yeah, that was the last time

that I saw her.

Police continue to hold grave fears

for 16-year-old Alice Palmer

who disappeared while picnicking

with her family.

Police search-and-rescue divers...

We were told to go home,

and if the search-and-rescue divers

found anything

then they'd let us know immediately.

It felt very strange in the car

on the way home

because there was one empty seat.

One minute she was there and then gone.

I went back to stay

with the Palmers that night.

We were just mostly waiting,

mostly waiting for news.

For bad news. There was that expectation.

We got a call from Russell on his mobile

about 9:00 at night.

And he said there'd been an accident

at the weir,

and Alice had gone missing.

So, we thought

that we better go to Ararat.

I remember June was a bit funny

about seeing Iris,

there was a strange feeling between them.

It felt a little strange

having my mother there.

Mum and I, there for Alice,

just didn't feel like the right order

of things.

It was an awful, awful night.

Worst night of our lives.

I went into Alice's room later that night

and her phone went off a couple of times,

but I didn't answer it.

I remember, the bed was made.

I remember thinking

how neat everything looked.

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

She'd said that Alice is missing

and presumed, like, she drowned

and I didn't not believe her,

but, I don't know,

it was kind of hard to take,

so I actually called Alice's mobile.

I just...

Maybe wanted to see if...

Hope it was a joke or something,

I don't know.

It was just a real shock.

Just didn't really feel like it was real.

Everything was the same as always,

but people were saying Alice had drowned.

Are there any memories from that night

that stand out for you?

I remember we had the porch light on.

Still do, actually, just in case.

And why is that?

Just in case she comes home, I guess.

All right, get in.

The SES divers located Alice's body

at approximately 9/25 p.m.

They used sonar to locate her.

And she'd drifted some way

and come to rest on a shelf at the bottom

of the storm water system in the dam.

Obviously contacted the family

immediately.

As soon as we were told

that they'd found the body,

June and I went down to the dam.

Georgie'd come over to keep Matt company.

It was all very official and formal,

and they asked me to sign a statement

of identification.

June stayed in the car.

And, you know, on reflection,

I think that was a mistake

because she didn't have any closure.

I just couldn't bring myself

to identify Alice's body.

She'd been underwater

all that time and it...

I guess it's not how I...

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

I thought that was my responsibility

as Ali's dad, you know.

That's what a father does.

The car stalled on the way back

from the dam.

But the only gear I could get it into

was reverse.

So, we drove back into town in reverse.

Which was either that or walk.

And given everything that had happened,

seemed like the better option, really.

The autopsy was performed on the Monday,

the 27th.

Then the coroner released the body

on Tuesday, the 28th.

It was very strange spending Christmas Day

with the family up there

while Alice lay alone in the morgue.

I don't know, it was just like I hadn't

seen her for a week or anything, like...

Yeah, it didn't feel real.

Death takes everything eventually.

It's the meanest, dumbest machine

there is, and it just keeps coming...

and it doesn't care.

There's nothing else

to know about it, really.

It was a somber day

for the family and friends of Alice Palmer

who gathered to pay their final respects

to a young woman taken too soon.

She was a great person.

Very popular, clever, lovely.

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

Alice is remembered as a happy,

fun-loving girl with a zest for life.

Described as always putting others...

The Palmers were really doing it tough

at that time.

And when I think of

how bad it was back then,

it's hard to imagine

how much worse they would get.

Ten days after Ali's funeral,

so that makes it the 15th of January,

stuff started happening around the house.

Noises in the roof,

and sounds coming

from outside the window

and other movements

that seemed to come from Ali's old room.

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

and we got a pest controller to come in

and check for termites.

But it didn't help at all,

the door kept slamming and we still kept

getting the noises from her room.

There was just something weird

about that house.

It had a really strange feeling about it.

I really can't explain to you

what it was exactly,

but you'd go in there and just have

this bad feeling, like, in your gut.

I started having these nightmares,

and they were so distressing

that sometimes

I just wouldn't want to open my eyes.

I'd woken up,

but I didn't want to open my eyes.

There was one particular one,

it was quite vivid and recurring.

Alice would come down the hall

still dripping from the dam

and just stand at the foot of our bed,

just staring at us.

It was quite terrifying,

as I said, I didn't want to open my eyes.

By early February

my nightmares were getting so bad

that I began to go for walks at night,

sometimes for hours at a time,

just so that I didn't have

to go to bed at night

and close my eyes and go to sleep.

Sometimes I would actually go

into people's houses.

I didn't feel

like I was doing anything wrong.

I guess I really just wanted to be inside

someone else's life for a while.

Georgie, do you remember

how Russell was doing at that time?

Yeah, Russell was...

He was working a lot at that point.

I think that might have helped him

with his grief.

Send it through without any explanation.

Russell and I met actually

on the Gippsland Catchment project in '98

and worked together on that.

So, you guys have known each other

for a few years?

Yeah, a good few years, yeah.

Do you remember how he was affected

after Alice's death? What changed?

It was work as normal,

and that was troubling actually.

I didn't really know

what to say to him about that.

You never spoke about it?

Not really.

Everyone grieves in their own way.

And it wasn't really my place

to be telling him how to feel.

But I certainly...

I certainly was concerned.

I was really grateful that I had my work.

And, I mean, I felt really guilty

about that at the time.

But, you know,

I just wanted to get on with it.

Then one night, in late February,

I came home from work,

and I was sitting in the kitchen

and I heard a noise coming

from Ali's room.

So, I went into Ali's room,

and I don't really know why,

but I sort of found myself sitting down

in the chair in front of the dresser.

And before I could kind of work out

what I was doing there,

Ali walked in and she went over

to her desk

and started sharpening a pencil,

and then she looked like she was checking

for a text message on her phone.

And, you know,

I was completely freaked out.

She was completely oblivious

to my presence.

And then I don't know what happened,

I must have moved the bed

or, you know,

squeaked my shoes or something,

but she went completely rigid.

And I knew then that she knew I was there.

And she slowly turned around and

she looked me right in the eye fully for,

you know, what felt like forever.

And then she just came at me and stood up

and said, "Get out! Get out!"

And I just got up

and went out as fast as I could.

I could hear Russell crying.

And he was here in the kitchen,

Mathew and I both found him in here,

and he was sobbing.

He was absolutely inconsolable.

Do you believe Russell

when he says he saw a ghost?

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

And he wouldn't...He's not

the kinda man to make something up.

So, I believe he saw something.

Whether it's a real ghost or not,

I don't really know.

But I'm sure he saw something.

I remember trying to talk

to members of the church

about how to help June

and how to help the Palmers.

But there just didn't seem like

there was anything we could do.

I think part of the reason was

because they weren't churchgoers.

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

I don't even know what June believes in.

I found myself mostly concerned

about Mathew.

I guess

because those two were always so close,

I was worried how he would cope.

I remember he was spending

a lot more time alone.

We were all worried about him.

Mathew came in with some unusual bruises

on his body.

They were unusual

in terms of their distribution and depth.

We obviously took a history,

trying to exclude trauma,

but there was certainly no history

of trauma that he was able to give us.

We tested him for vasculitis,

and we also excluded any poisoning

or toxins in his system.

We were unable

to turn up anything conclusive.

And several weeks after this,

the bruises just resolved spontaneously.

And we were never able

to really establish a cause for them.

My name's Steve Wilkie.

I'm Mathew's best friend.

I usually stay at Mathew's house

two or three times a week.

We started a band together,

so, we normally play music at my house.

Mathew seems a bit quieter,

but he was always pretty quiet,

so, I guess there wasn't really

any warning bells going off or anything.

Well, I had heard

about June going into people's houses.

And Mathew never really seemed

to want to talk about any of that.

I never asked him about any of it.

I know that he was always interested

in photography.

And he was...

At this time, he was starting to pursue it

with more passion.

Mathew came to me, he was very keen

to find out anything about photography.

So, I was more than willing to help out,

that's what I do.

So, he was picking my brains

about just about anything to do with it,

from equipment, down to techniques,

down to lighting, you know.

But he was a great asset,

so, I mean, eventually I employed him.

Mathew, can you talk to me

about the photographs

of the backyard that you've been taking?

Yeah, basically I've taken that same photo

with that composition for, I think,

every 4 months for the past 4 years.

And it's just a photograph

of the backyard.

Looking out,

you can see the hills in the distance.

It's just like a little project

that I set up for myself when we got here.

And what was in the April 28th photograph

that was different?

Well, it's basically the same shot,

but it would appear

that Alice is standing against the fence.

Do you remember what the reaction

in the house was at the time?

I wouldn't say the mood was good,

but it was better than before.

It was like... Like it gave us

sort of something to focus on, I think.

All of us.

The photographs were taken

on the 3rd of April,

and they were developed on the 4th,

and I looked at them, I think on the 5th.

And looked at the dams and the water

levels and I was quite happy.

But it was only the following night

that it was pointed out to me by my wife

that there was something

in the background

in Norval Dam, this image came up.

When I first looked at the photograph,

I didn't know what to make of it.

The image was quite unsettling

because it certainly looked like Alice.

It was an incredibly discomforting image.

And I became convinced

that Alice was still alive.

I didn't have any rational explanation

for who was in those photos.

But I did know something about Alice

that June didn't.

I'd seen Alice's body.

I didn't think she was alive.

I knew she wasn't.

I became convinced

that Russell had made a mistake.

He himself said

that it didn't look like anybody anymore.

June was so convinced

that I'd made a mistake

that I actually started

to have doubts myself.

I started to think

maybe I'd made my mind up

that it was Alice's body

before I'd looked,

and that the circumstances

were so compelling for me,

that I'd decided that it was her.

More than three months after the funeral

of Ararat teenager Alice Palmer,

her grieving parents formally requested

her body be exhumed

from the general cemetery.

There has been some contention

from the Palmer family

about the accuracy

of the original body identification.

June and Russell Palmer were adamant

that DNA testing be carried out.

They just couldn't be sure that the body

they identified was indeed Alice.

And today, almost...

Alice's body was exhumed in the presence

of the funeral director, Dr. Slatter,

and there was a representative

from the coroner's office also.

And it was then transported

to Ararat Base Hospital

where they took the DNA samples.

And she stayed there

until the results came back.

A few days later we received a copy

of the coroner's preliminary report,

and Alice's identity was confirmed

by the DNA sample match.

It was only after they'd confirmed

that it was Alice's body

that I realized how much that I'd invested

in the possibility of it not being her.

You know, I can't tell you

how much I wanted there to have been

a terrible mistake,

even if it had been mine.

Really, really wanted there to have been

somebody else's kid in that dam.

A runaway, a m*rder victim.

Just anybody else's,

just as long as it wasn't my kid.

Just as long as it wasn't Alice.

Yes, it is.

Stop it.

Oh, my God.

Alice was reburied two days later,

on the 7th of June.

But the question remained,

who or what was in those photos?

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

- What did you hear?

- I was hearing noises. Sort of...

They didn't really relent.

I kept hearing noises in the hallway.

So, I thought,

"Well, I'll just set up a camera

"to see if I see anything,

see something".

The first night I looked back

and there was footage of a figure

moving from the lounge room

across the hallway to the front door.

You're on Voice FM, 8:02.

I'm Helen Bath and we're taking calls

with psychic consultant, Ray Kemeney.

Next we have Nadia on the line, Ray.

Hi, Nadia, how are you?

What can I do for you?

My question is about career,

and I've also got a question about family.

It was around about that time I decided

to seek out the advice of Ray Kemeney.

I had heard Ray on the radio

over the years,

and opinion was quite divided,

some thought he was the real deal,

others were unconvinced.

- Next we have Annie on the line.

- Hi, Annie, how are you?

I'm fine, thanks, Ray.

Thank you for taking my call.

My pleasure. What can I do for you?

I just wanted a general reading.

General not just medical.

I'm Hungarian by birth.

My parents came out here

when I was quite young.

I've got a 15-year-old daughter who lives

with her mother in South Australia.

My Christian name is actually Schultz,

but I changed it to Ray.

I think it's a more trustworthy name

for a psychic.

Australia's wog* psychic of choice.

* Here, not Anglo-Saxon.

Most of what I do is...

When I'm dealing with the sick

or the dying,

which I guess probably fits about a third

of my clients,

is to allow them the possibility

that death is not the bitter end,

that it's not the full stop.

Which is a consolation

that I'm quite happy to give them

considering the fact that what happens

after death is up for grabs anyway.

There's somebody very close to you,

someone you haven't seen for a while,

someone who is going

to come back into your life.

Someone who'll be of great comfort to you.

Anyone that fits that bill?

Yeah, I can think of someone.

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

I can see obstacles ahead of you...

but I think that this person

who is coming back to you...

is gonna make a great difference

and will be of great solace to you.

Thanks, Ray.

See you, Annie.

Where I come from,

when someone dies,

they block out all the mirrors

in the house...

to stop the...the dead

from finding their way back.

It's things like that,

that make a difference.

Hi, Annie. I'm Ray.

You're gonna die, Annie.

It's just the start

of something else, all right?

- Thank you.

- It's all right.

Okay.

I liked Ray immediately, but

he wasn't what I expected.

I don't know what I really did expect,

but there was nothing kinda spooky...

or fake about him.

Okay. Are we ready?

I want you to close your eyes...

I usually video tape my sessions...

so that they can be reviewed later

by the clients,

especially when there's elements

of trance or hypnotism involved.

I keep one copy for myself,

one copy for them.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Okay, so you're standing

outside your house.

Tell me what you see.

My house.

It's a white house.

I'm walking towards the front door.

Okay.

Now, I want you

to go inside the house.

I want you to move slowly

through the house,

I want you to describe what you see,

where you are,

just give me a guided tour.

Okay,

I'm walking down the hallway...

towards Alice's room.

What's there?

I can see Alice's shoes

outside her room.

And what does that mean

for you? June?

She always used to leave her sneakers

outside her room.

So, I want you to go

inside her room now,

open the door and just move inside.

You feel safe enough

to go into Alice's room?

- Okay.

- Now open the door.

I'm going inside her room.

You can see something, can't you?

Tell me what you see, June.

She's...

Alice is sitting in the wicker chair

at the end of her bed.

She looks sad.

I first met Ray when June

brought him home for dinner...

the night of her first consultation.

And, yeah,

I'm completely indifferent to psychics,

I don't really have a position

on them at all.

I don't really want them

to come round for dinner, mind you,

but, you know,

I didn't want to upset June either.

He was a pleasant sort of a bloke,

he wasn't ooky-spooky at all.

And I was on my best behavior.

A few days later,

maybe a week later,

I suggested to the family

that we hold a séance.

June was really keen, but I remember

Russell just flat out refused.

I think Mathew finally

talked his dad around.

Mathew, how did you feel about having

a séance held in your house?

At the time I was actually

kind of interested, sort of curious.

I don't think Dad was thrilled

about the idea.

But, yeah, I thought

it would be interesting.

And I suggested we film it,

and I recorded it with just

our video camera,

which is the PC9.

I'm getting a strong presence

in the room.

In the house.

I think we all thought

that the séance was a failure.

Ray didn't really come up with anything,

like, with any signs or anything,

so, after about an hour or so,

we called it quits,

and it wasn't until the next day...

that Mathew was reviewing

the footage...

that there was an image of Alice.

Make your presence known to us.

The new footage was completely different

to the hallway footage.

For one, it was significantly

more detailed, so it was less ambiguous.

And it was impossible to dismiss it...

as a coincidence of shadow play

and digital noise.

There was something inexplicable

in our house, that was beyond doubt.

I was concerned. This was pretty

unfamiliar territory for me.

I've never seen a ghost before.

Ray got Mathew to help him set up

3 permanent cameras inside the house...

recording in time-lapse configurations

24 hours a day.

There'd been a lot of speculation about

Ray and what he was doing there.

I mean, when people don't know...

that, of course, leads to a lot of talk

and a lot of speculation.

I had heard rumors throughout July

of video images...

purporting to be of an apparition

in the house.

But I must say I was skeptical

as to their legitimacy.

- And your view on Ray?

- Also very skeptical.

I think they had me as some kind of

Rasputin figure...

mesmerizing the Palmers,

stealing their money,

doctoring the photos of Alice.

Mathew, in particular,

seemed to be really struggling.

I thought I might be able to help this boy

by being there, you know.

- Good one. Beautiful.

- Well done.

That said,

my chief motivation was professional.

Something was happening inside

that house...

and I wanted to find out what it was.

What was your reaction

to these images?

We were completely

gobsmacked by them.

But before we had time to, you know,

take in what that meant...

the Withers' video came out.

- Go on.

- Is it good?

- Yeah, it's great.

- Can I have a look?

Yeah, be careful.

Cathy and Doug Withers

were at the dam on April the 3rd,

the same day that the Bob Smeet

photo was taken.

- Be careful.

- What do you think I'm going to do?

- Give it back. Be careful.

- It's safe in my hands, babe.

It was a couple of months later,

the end of July,

when we were looking at our footage

that we'd shot down at the dam...

and came across...

A figure in the background,

which we identified as Bob Smeet,

which interested us 'cause there's...

Yeah, clearly, we didn't...We sorta went,

"It was the same day he was there...

"when he captured the image

that people have been talking about".

So, then we went

through all our footage...

to see if we perhaps

might have captured that figure as well.

- Maybe the camera had seen what Bob saw.

- Yeah. Yeah.

And we did find a figure

in the background

like the image that had been

described in his picture.

And then we looked more closely...

- and Doug zoomed in on it.

- Yeah, I got right in on the computer.

And from what, you know, could

have looked like a female figure...

from a long way away,

up close and tight,

you could see that it definitely

was neither female nor Alice.

It was Mathew.

- Do you guys believe in ghosts?

- No.

- No. No.

- No.

Well, this is where I was

when the Bob Smeet photo was taken.

I was wearing Alice's jacket, and I

looked up and I saw a man on the hill,

who turned out to be Bob Smeet.

And I didn't wanna be in a photo.

So, I walked off through the bush.

What I didn't see was there was also

a couple over there filming,

who turned out to be the Withers.

When the Withers' thing came out,

Dad came to me...

and asked me if I had been involved

in anything else.

And I didn't wanna lie to him,

so I told him.

And I explained to Dad

that I was responsible...

for the image of Alice

in the hallway...

and the bedroom, and that I created

the April 28th backyard photo...

and the séance image.

I just told him what I'd done.

Okay, so...

I got two photos,

a photo of Alice and the backyard...

and composited the images.

That's a photo that I took of Alice.

Mum kept talking about...

She was always talking

about getting Alice exhumed,

and she was really keen on this idea

that Dad had misidentified her body.

And so I knew that without more

evidence it wasn't going to happen,

so I made the photograph.

I just used an old video of Alice...

and I played that on the TV.

I had the TV

up on the book case...

and it was as simple

as rotating the mirror...

so that the reflection

of the TV came up in it.

And obviously

the mirror's quite small,

so it cropped out

the edges of the television...

and then, yeah, I just filmed that.

Same with the kitchen

and the bedroom.

What you see basically

is Alice on the television in the mirror.

Like, it wasn't about trying

to trick people.

I guess it was like something

was better than nothing.

Do you think that what you did

ultimately made it worse for June?

I think that...

Yeah. Yeah, I probably did make it

harder for her.

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

I'm not quite so sure

about his reasons.

I don't know that I...

totally...

I don't want to say

I don't totally believe what he said,

but I'm just not convinced...

that he really knows why he did it.

When it all came out, people wanted

to do stories and books...

and women's magazines,

the whole lot just went pear-shaped.

Look, we just didn't know

how to handle it.

I mean, you know, we had to protect

Matty, we had to protect ourselves,

we had to protect Ali's memory.

And we just didn't have

any experience...

of dealing with all this interest in

something that was incredibly personal...

that people wanted to make

incredibly public.

I mean, the Palmers

weren't coping well at all at that point.

And things were very bad,

they were doing it tough.

This was like the end of hope

for all of us,

but especially for June.

She just really wasn't ready

to let Ali go.

She just needed to hang on to her

a little bit longer.

And I don't think she would admit it,

but she was devastated.

She's an interesting girl.

She seemed

to not get on with June so well.

I thought they actually were

quite alike.

It was interesting that the two of them

might not get on so well.

They always seemed

very much alike...

and you could see

that Alice took a lot after June.

But, also, other things had become clear

as well after Alice's death.

That perhaps a bit of the sense

of the private

that they both shared.

Thanks for that.

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

She keeps to herself a lot,

and it became clear that

that was happening with Alice, too.

They had the sense of privacy.

The sense that there is

their own private life...

that they will either choose to share

or to not share, I guess.

It's wonderful when your children come

and that new expression that you have.

But as a mother,

you've still always got doubts...

that you're not doing enough

or you're not doing the right thing.

I partly blame myself,

that's come from me.

Maybe it came from my mother.

I've never been able to...

I've never been able

to give myself over wholly to...

To June.

I feel June is a little like that, too,

that she couldn't give herself wholly

to Alice.

I hope that Alice did know

how much I loved her.

I guess I held something back a little

as she grew older.

That would be the saddest thing,

to think she might not know.

Ray suggested

that Mathew accompany him...

on one of his country Victorian tours,

where he was doing consultations,

and Mathew jumped at the chance.

- Breakfast. Your shout, I think.

- No, I think it's your shout.

I think I realized when I was away

how much I missed Alice...

and that I was never going to be able

to speak to her again.

I guess that's something that all

of Ray's clients are coming to terms with.

You know, they want to talk to someone

or make contact with someone they've lost,

and so did I.

So, I was sort of one of Ray's clients

in a way as well.

- No.

- Can I chuck it at you?

- No.

- Let's see what happens.

Well, what do you think is gonna happen?

It's gonna hit me

and then I'm gonna get angry.

That's what's gonna happen. No!

Watch yourself.

What are you doing in my room?

I don't know.

Get out!

When me and Ray went on the tour,

we left the two rented cameras

where they were, in the hallway.

I was sure there was still something

in the house.

And obviously,

'cause we were away for the 3 days,

you know,

we couldn't change the tapes or anything.

So, we knew we were probably gonna get

about, like, a day and a half of footage.

But we left them running...

and got back on August 22nd,

at which point we checked the tapes.

Only Russell and I were in the house

when these images were recorded,

Mathew couldn't have had anything

to do with them.

They seemed to prove

that there was a ghost in our house.

Alice's ghost.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Didn't used to,

but it's a hard thing to prove

or disprove.

I think...

Yeah, sometimes I think

maybe they do exist.

There are ghosts everywhere.

It's a scary world.

I don't know why it's important.

It's like how it helps people, like,

dealing with her loss,

like making up stories about ghosts

or whatever.

It threw a question mark

over everything.

I went back and reviewed all the footage

that had come before,

all the material taken inside the house

following Alice's death.

It was while I was looking at Mathew's

June 13th hallway material again,

that I noticed something

in the image.

There was a second figure,

not Mathew in the hallway

but someone else,

squatting in the dark in Alice's room.

At first I thought it was Alice.

Then I realized it was our neighbor,

Brett Toohey.

What was this man doing in my house,

in my daughter's room...

more than six months after her death?

When I found Alice's safe,

I realized exactly why he'd been there.

He was looking for the tape.

That's it.

But it was such a...

It wasn't a very nice day.

Yes.

- You did a smoke ring.

- Yes.

You two getting nice and cozy

without me.

Alice began babysitting

for the Tooheys in 2002,

and she continued

for the next two and a half years.

The Tooheys' two boys

were five and nine years old.

I literally just couldn't believe my eyes.

It just made me feel so sad.

As far as I'm concerned,

the Tooheys were complicit in Ali's death.

I believe that if it hadn't been for them,

she would have reached out to us.

She wouldn't have felt guilty.

She wouldn't have felt the burden

of that secret.

She wouldn't have been isolated.

How do you feel towards Brett now?

If he was around the corner,

I'd probably throttle him.

He seemed like a nice guy.

You know, he was nice.

We'd speak and he was never like,

you know, nasty or anything.

He had a pool at his place

and usually...

We used to swim there

sometimes.

- Yeah.

- During the summer.

So, usually we just go to his place

and have a swim there.

I was really bewildered...

- about, you know, what happened.

- Yeah.

It took a lot just to realize...

'Cause, you know,

I had no idea that Alice would...

No, be with somebody, I know.

Yeah, it was like a complete surprise.

Like, we just didn't think, you know,

she'd do something like that.

Yeah.

Why do you think Alice had the tape?

Because she didn't want them

to have it.

- Why is that?

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

They must've been really desperate

to get that tape.

From the moment

that they'd heard of Alice's death,

they would've been living

in this constant fear of being found out.

I'm glad he couldn't find it.

I'm glad he knows it's not over.

I had a lot of personal dealings

with the Palmers during this time...

as part of the investigating team...

trying to locate

Brett and Marissa Toohey and family.

And initially we were optimistic

that they would be found...

and charges laid.

But, unfortunately,

the leads that we were working with...

soon dried up,

and so the investigation stalled.

So, the police's advice to us was

that even if the Tooheys were caught,

they would get off

with a suspended sentence...

by claiming that the sex

was consensual,

which was, they claimed, you know,

supported by the video evidence.

Jason, did you know

about Alice's involvement with Brett?

No. No one did.

Obviously I didn't.

We wouldn't be going out if I did.

It was... No.

I thought we were...

I thought we were pretty good.

It just left so many

unanswered questions.

Why was she involved with him?

When did the relationship begin?

Was she in love with either of them?

I just don't know.

The Tooheys sold their house

and moved, 6 months after Alice died.

Alice kept secrets.

She kept the fact

she kept secrets a secret.

Which does change the way

that you see somebody, I suppose,

when you realize that they did

hide things from you a bit.

I think I knew one Alice

and maybe her mum knew another,

and there was another one again

that none of us knew maybe.

I found Ray's business card

taped to Alice's diary...

on the page marked

12th of July, 2005.

Why have you come to see me, Alice?

Can you interpret dreams?

Sometimes.

How do you feel when you wake up

from these dreams?

They scare me a bit.

Alice came to see me

about five months before she died.

I think she'd heard me on the radio

a few times...

and rang and made an appointment.

Take a deep breath.

Close your eyes.

I want you to imagine

you're standing outside your house.

When you can see that, you tell me.

- Okay?

- Yeah.

All right. Now, I want you to go inside

the front door.

Go into the house.

Tell me what you see, where you are.

Ray, why didn't you tell June

that you'd actually met Alice before?

Okay, I'm in the entrance...

Look, I don't think it was a case

of hiding something from them.

It was more that I was honoring

Alice's request for confidentiality.

But it was damned if you do,

damned if you don't, you know.

The living room's just directly ahead.

Then you go to your right...

and my room's in the back part of

the house as you go towards the kitchen.

Do you see anything unusual?

Anything different?

No.

No, we didn't feel

like we could trust Ray anymore.

For whatever reasons he had

of keeping that information to himself,

it still felt like a betrayal.

I wanted to help June and the family

and I think they wanted me to help them.

I wouldn't have been able to do it

if they'd known.

There was a fair bit of resentment.

Mathew wouldn't even speak to me.

But what I think really hurt them

more than anything...

was what they saw as my failure

to see Alice's eminent passing.

Looking back, like,

it's kind of strange

that someone would, you know,

be as close to us as he was...

I think, maybe, he needed us

as much as we needed him.

Alice came to see me

because she was upset.

She was a very troubled person.

"I had a dream last night.

"I was cold and wet.

I felt heavy, like I'd been drugged,

"and when I woke up,

these sensations didn't go.

"I was feeling sick and confused

and I was starting to get scared.

"I needed to see Mum to talk to her.

"I stumbled to her room...

"and as I stood there at the bed,

watching them,

"I was overcome

by this intense sadness.

"Then the sadness turned to fear.

"I just stood there

paralyzed with fear...

"and I realized there was nothing

that they could do for me anymore.

"I've never felt so utterly alone.

"Everything felt wrong. My body,

"the way things looked.

"Then I realized that there was

something wrong with me.

"I started to cry,

standing there at the foot of the bed".

Lake Mungo is in southwestern

New South Wales,

and that was the location of

the school camp that Alice went on...

from August the 2nd

to the 5th in 2005.

When she came home,

she said she'd had a good time.

I do particularly remember it

because she came home

without her mobile phone,

which we'd bought her

a month previously,

and her favorite bracelet and watch.

Yes, other than that, you know,

she didn't really talk about it too much.

Wait, guys!

Well, Kim didn't show me till about a year

after she got back from camp,

the stuff that she'd taken

on her mobile phone.

So, why'd you decide to tell June?

Well, if we didn't tell June,

then it would be

like we were hiding something.

So, I don't know why...

I don't know why, but why not?

Smile for me!

- Smile.

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

Jason told us about the phone footage

that the girls had taken at Lake Mungo.

The other girls

were looking so happy...

and she looked quite forlorn.

I was worried. I became convinced

that something had happened to her.

So, just get a little bit.

just some of it.

Kate's phone footage

was taken later that night,

once the girls had spread out over the lunettes*.

* A broad, shallow, typically crescent-shaped

mound of wind-blown material along the leeward

side of a lake or dry lake basin.

- Anywhere.

- I think that we need to get a photo.

Like Africa. Like the desert.

There was an image of Alice,

very hard to decipher,

in the bottom of the frame

kneeling under a tree.

It was only after viewing the clip

several times...

that we realized

what she was doing.

She was burying something.

I mean, did you know what had

happened that night with Alice?

No.

I knew she'd lost her phone.

I knew she was upset

because that was pretty obvious.

But I didn't know why

she was upset.

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

she didn't really say anything to me.

I didn't really...perhaps,

take it that seriously at the time.

You know, it was like context.

You know, we were just having

a good time...

and I just thought

she'd gotten a bit upset.

It started simply enough.

Alice left the group...

and started walking off by herself.

But it was...Obviously,

something was distressing her.

And we wanted to try and find out

what it was.

We understood from the phone video

that she'd buried something.

We had an idea

where the tree was...

because of what we could see

from the video.

We didn't really want to go down

during the day time...

because, you know,

we didn't want to be digging,

you know, where tourists were.

So, we decided to go at night.

June and I started digging

and after a bit,

June said she'd found something

and she pulled out a plastic bag.

And inside the plastic bag

there was Ali's favorite necklace,

her ring, her watch,

her mobile phone.

Her most precious things...

buried out here on a school camp,

and we didn't know why she did that.

I mean, we knew from the video

that she'd buried something,

but we didn't know what it was.

It's low on battery.

Are you scared of dying?

Yeah, of course I'm scared of dying.

Isn't everyone scared of dying?

Would you like to tell me a little bit

about what happens in these dreams?

I feel like something bad

is gonna happen to me.

I feel like something bad

has happened.

It hasn't reached me yet,

but it's on its way.

And it's getting closer.

And I don't feel ready.

I feel like I can't do anything.

At some point,

this figure came towards her

from out of the darkness.

I recognized the face

as soon as I saw it on the phone video.

It was the same face of the body

that I had identified at the dam.

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

There is absolutely

no rational explanation...

for what she saw on that phone.

Stay far away from me.

- Oh, my God, they're coming.

- Stay away!

I am convinced

that Alice knew she was going to die.

I'm convinced of that.

Bundle up, bundle up, bundle up.

I think the figure at Lake Mungo

was an omen for her.

The burial of her possessions

was symbolic,

it was a ritual.

No, I was never convinced

that Ali believed she was gonna die.

You know, she had morbid thoughts, sure.

I mean, who doesn't?

And she had nightmares that upset her,

and enough to consult Ray.

I don't know

that anybody's really convinced...

that they're gonna die.

And what about the image

at Lake Mungo?

How do you think

Alice would have explained that?

How could she have explained it?

Look, I think Ali saw a ghost.

But she wasn't to know

that it was her own.

I believe she recorded a ghost.

I believe she recorded the future

coming to get her.

We had found out about the Tooheys, Ray,

and what had happened at Lake Mungo.

And by the time we returned home,

the house felt different. It was...

Calm.

I think that Alice wanted us

to know more about her.

She wanted us to know

who she really was,

before she...

You know, before she could leave.

In the weeks and months after Lake Mungo,

we started to feel like a family again.

It just crept up on us, really.

We were a little battered and wobbly,

but we were a family all the same.

- Hi, Ray.

- Nice to see you, Russell.

Yeah, you too. Nice. Come in.

Ray called out of the blue...

and said he was going

to be coming through town...

and asked if it was all right

if he could come round and visit.

Six months had gone by,

and I just felt

that under the circumstances,

I didn't think it could do any harm.

I think we all felt that after Mungo,

in our own ways, there'd been closure,

I suppose, to a degree.

And, you know,

for each of us it's different.

And for each of us,

we've made our own peace.

It seems strange to me

that Ali should withdraw so abruptly.

And we didn't help her,

we didn't change anything.

I think we just collectively

made a decision to move forward.

And, you know, moving...

was really a big part of all that...

Deciding to move.

It will be difficult to leave the house.

Sometimes, you know,

I just forget that...

She's not coming back.

I forget.

Okay. Close your eyes...

and imagine that you're back

standing outside the house.

Can you see it?

Go inside the house.

I'm going through the front door.

And...

Walking down the hall

towards Alice's room.

Someone's there.

I think someone's coming

down the hall.

Door's open.

Do you know who it is?

Do you want to go inside?

Yeah.

Okay.

- What do you see?

- It's my mum.

What's she saying?

She's not...

She's not saying anything.

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

Alice isn't here.

She's not here.

What's happening, Alice?

Are you talking to her?

Is she talking to you?

She's going now.

She's leaving the room.

She's gone.

Open your eyes.

She's going now.

She's leaving the room.

All the way.

She's gone.