Catfish accused took ex’s mum on ‘wild goose chase’
The woman at the centre of an inquest into the “catfish” suicide of her high-school girlfriend took the girl’s mother on a “wild goose chase” in the hours after her death, the court heard.
Police & Courts
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- ‘We created Brayden together’: Catfisher tells inquest
- Woman behind alleged catfish romance faces family
The woman at the centre of an inquest into the “catfish” suicide of her high-school girlfriend took the girl’s mother on a “wild goose chase” in the hours after her death, the court heard.
It came as Camila Zeidan, 27, was told “no one believes you” on a dramatic third day of the inquest into the 2013 death of Renae Marsden.
Ms Zeidan is accused by police of inventing the character Brayden Spiteri to manipulate Glenhaven hairdresser Renae Marsden into unknowingly continuing their lesbian love affair after they had split. She has not been charged with any offence.
The inquest heard Ms Marsden had begun dating a man named Angus Young, which had allegedly infuriated Ms Zeidan, so she allegedly introduced Ms Marsden to the fictitious Brayden in 2011.
Ms Zeidan claims Ms Marsden knew all along Brayden, supposedly serving time in jail for a drunken motorbike crash which killed a mate, was fake and that he was a front for their own lesbian affair which their families would never accept.
Counsel assisting the coroner Sasha Harding read a message exchange where Ms Zeidan, who admitted she loved Ms Marsden, was glowing of the new online boyfriend in Ms Marsden’s life.
“He’s a great guy Renae and he has never done anything to hurt anyone … we were more just friends,” Ms Zeidan wrote.
“He has changed you so much, the way he loves you Renae, it’s beyond love.”
Ms Harding asked her why the pair would speak that way about a person they both knew as fake.
“That’s how we went about the character,” Ms Zeidan said.
The inquest heard Ms Marsden sent videos of a sexual nature to Brayden and when she asked him to reciprocate he was not forthcoming.
“Because she was going along with the character,” Ms Zeidan said.
The inquest heard Ms Marsden also begged Brayden for his lawyer’s details so she could collect keys to his storage locker and take a memento of their relationship.
“There’s some things that just don’t make sense to me ... I want to talk to your lawyer,” she told him in one message. “LOL ok, I’ll see what I can do, I wish you would just leave this,” the response said.
Ms Zeidan said the communications with Brayden were part of their delicate charade.
“The story was we’d say he was in jail so that no one would ask to meet him and that she’d be allowed to see me as freely as she wanted,” she said.
On the day Ms Marsden plunged to her death from The Gap at Watsons Bay on August 5, 2013 her mother Teresa Marsden received a text from “Brayden” saying “sort your daughter out, she’s threatening to kill herself”.
Deputy State Coroner Elaine Truscott asked Ms Zeidan why she then took Mrs Marsden to a home and claimed it was Brayden’s sister’s house, when Brayden never existed.
“I don’t remember that, I just remember that we went and we drove around looking for her,” Ms Zeidan said.
Ms Truscott responded: “You’re deliberately saying that to avoid responsibility for taking Renae’s mother on a wild goose chase”.
As Ms Marsden’s family broke into tears and began walking out of the court room Ms Harding said: “You’re not telling the truth. You can hear from the court room no one believes you”.
“This is an opportunity to come clean, to tell the family what happened on the fifth.”
Outside the inquest Ms Marsden’s brother Luke said the distraught family had hoped for answers.
“After seven years you’d think a person with half a heart would tell the truth, I look around and I see my family in tears … no family ever deserves to be broken like this,” he said.
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