Missing Melbourne mum stepson twist: Family conflict revealed in Karen Ristevski mystery
EXCLUSIVE: A YOUNG man has sensationally come forward to reveal he is the stepson of missing Melbourne mum Karen Ristevski and has been questioned by detectives.
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A YOUNG man has sensationally come forward to reveal he is the stepson of missing Melbourne mum Karen Ristevski and has been questioned by detectives.
Anthony Rickard has revealed he is the son of Karen’s husband, Borce, from a previous relationship, and lived with the family for several years.
Mr Rickard says he did not kill his stepmother, who has been missing from her Avondale Heights home for 24 days.
But he says he did have a motive to hurt her — anger over a family conflict.
The 32-year-old says he cannot account for his movements on the day she vanished.
In an extraordinary interview with the Herald Sun, Mr Rickard, who admits battling an ice addiction, says:
HIS father does not “have it in him” to kill;
MRS Ristevski, 47, would not spontaneously walk off, but had spoken in the past about making plans to leave the family;
HE phoned Mrs Ristevski about 10 days before she vanished, to confront her about the family conflict, which he says has been “swept under the carpet”.
The Herald Sun has chosen not to reveal the nature of the conflict Mr Rickard alleges has plagued the family. But an aunt of Mr Rickard has backed his story, saying both her and an ex-partner have also spoken with detectives.
Mr Rickard, himself a father of two, came to the attention of missing persons detectives after being interviewed at Sunshine police station last week over an unrelated matter.
“They asked if my dad had been up this way, if he knows anyone up this way, does he have (other) properties,” Mr Rickard said of a subsequent meeting with detectives at his Diggers Rest home.
“I said (to police), ‘If you’re going to say it, say it’.
“So I got them to say, ‘Did you kill your stepmum?’.
“I said, ‘I would have liked to ... ’.”
Mrs Ristevski, the owner of a Bella Bleu women’s boutique, was reported missing after allegedly walking from her home about 10am on June 29.
Her husband, the last person to see her, told police she had left to calm down after a disagreement about the couple’s finances.
Missing persons detectives have questioned Mr Ristevski and seized two cars from the family, although it is standard practice to interview close relatives of missing persons.
Police have not publicly named a suspect.
Mr Rickard said: “It was a shock that she disappeared after my phone call to her.
“I had nothing to do with that besides calling her to confront her — the next thing I know she’s gone.
“Then I felt the guilt that it was because of me, ringing up to confront her.”
He said his first thought was that Mrs Ristevski had ended her own life or had chosen to disappear. “You can only suppress it (guilt) for so long,” Mr Rickard said.
In another development, police have contacted the Herald Sun this week after the paper interviewed a woman who claimed she had been accosted by a strange man along the footpath behind the Ristevski house.
Victoria Police later refused to comment on whether detectives were pursuing that line of inquiry.
Spokeswoman Melissa Seach said they would not be providing a “running commentary” on the investigation.
FAMILY SECRET GAVE STEPSON A MOTIVE
FLYERS plastered across bus stops and light poles, bushland searches and a family’s tearful public pleas … the case of Melbourne woman Karen Ristevski began like any other missing person mystery.
But the investigation has now taken a bizarre twist, as her estranged stepson claims the Ristevski family has for years hidden a secret conflict.
Anthony Rickard says he was asked by detectives if he had killed his stepmother.
“I said, ‘I would have liked to’,” he tells the Herald Sun.
When I ask the 32-year-old the same question, he shrugs and at first laughs it off with a joke.
“I’m very capable,” he says when the question is repeated.
“If you’re going to do something like that you’ve got to be prepared to spend the rest of your life in jail ... I’m not a jailbird.”
Mr Rickard admits he is angry and says he has the motive to want his stepmother dead — his anger over the secret.
Troubled by what he describes as a “nightmare” childhood, the father of two tells me he has recently upped his intake of ice.
He can’t remember where he was on June 29 — the day Mrs Ristevski disappeared — although a stamp on paperwork shows he visited a pharmacy to have documents signed.
When I meet him, Mr Rickard is nervous and hasn’t been sleeping.
In the past three months, he’s lost 15kg and his relationship.
He points to a blue, swollen hand, an injury he says he got from punching the side of his couch in a moment of anxiety.
He knows he looks rough, and adds he is used to being considered the black sheep of a well-to-do family.
But he wants to speak up even if no one believes him.
Mr Rickard says he was 14 when he first moved from the care of his mother, whose surname he shares, to Avondale Heights with his dad, stepmother and younger half-sister Sarah.
It’s the same home from which Mrs Ristevski vanished more than three weeks ago.
He says the family provided clothes, food, a warm bed — everything a troubled kid from “the hood” had wanted.
But, he claims, a family conflict tore them apart.
It would be understandable if police viewed him as a suspect, he says.
Conversations with Mr Rickard bounce from one topic to the next; he criticises his stepmother yet says later: “I don’t hate her, because I can’t — she showed me love.”
For a long time, he says, the family problems were “swept under the carpet”, but last month he felt it was time to face his past.
Encouraged by his ex-girlfriend, Mr Rickard phoned Mrs Ristevski about 10 days before she vanished.
“I said (to his girlfriend), ‘If you want me to dig up the past I will do that’,” he says.
“So I rung her (Mrs Ristevski) ... what I wanted to talk to her about she knows exactly why.” It was then a “shock” to hear his stepmother had disappeared and he wonders if his call was a trigger. “I had nothing to do with that (the disappearance) besides calling her to confront her — the next thing I know she’s gone,” he says.
“Then I felt the guilt that it was because of me, ringing up to confront her.”
Mr Rickard came to the attention of detectives last week after he was interviewed by police at Sunshine over an unrelated matter.
There was a phone call and a knock on the door from detectives on the Friday afternoon.
On Friday, he made a formal statement. The conversation at his kitchen table, he says, was the first time he has spoken to authorities about his secret past. But relatives say he has previously opened up to them and they are prepared to back his claims.
An aunt, Melinda Dawes, says she was contacted by detectives on Wednesday night. “I told detectives then it’s (the conflict claim) not something that’s just come out in the last couple of weeks, it’s something we’ve known about for a long time,” Ms Dawes says.
She says her nephew confided in her a decade ago. “This is hurting him, he needs to let it out,” Ms Dawes says.
“He has always kept to the same story … I’ve never had a reason to doubt him.”
Until this week, investigators had been presented with a number of theories about Mrs Ristevski.
Mr Rickard’s story may not provide the answer they are looking for.
But police appear to be listening when he insists “none of it is as it seems”.
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