Shanae Brooke Edwards’ last call ignored after friends called cops, Georgian politician says
A politician has accused cops investigating the murder of a Melbourne woman in eastern Europe of wasting time to save her life.
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Police investigating the murder of a Melbourne woman in eastern Europe have been accused of wasting valuable time getting to the crime scene, after receiving reports the victim was in distress.
Shanae Brooke Edwards, 31, was ambushed during a trek on Mount Mtatsminda in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi on Friday.
She called a friend in the US about 4.30pm and was heard screaming “take your hands off me” and “please let me go” while also “making noises like she was fending off (an) attack”, before the call disconnected. Concerned friends reported the incident to local police immediately.
But according to a high profile Georgian politician, authorities did not arrive on the scene to conduct a “large scale search” until 1pm the next day – after the case “became dominant in the media”.
Her body was located on a nearby hill a few hours later but the alleged killer has yet to be identified or captured.
Anna Dolidze, who founded the For People political party and previously served as Parliamentary Secretary of the President of Georgia and Deputy Defense Minister, said the delayed response by police could have been a missed opportunity to save the victim’s life, gather evidence or track down the perpetrator.
“We don’t know what the circumstance of the victim was (in the hours after her last phone call),” she said.
“The police knew immediately that it wasn’t just a regular disappearance because of the phone call yet they did not start the search immediately.”
The Tbilisi Police Department and Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
“The ministry and police officers are doing their best to find the murderer … We have some information, though I cannot talk about it due to the interests of the investigation,” Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri said earlier this week.
According to Dr Dolidze, the initial search was conducted by a group of Ms Edwards’ friends along with volunteers who responded to their calls on social media for assistance.
Dr Dolidze said she joined the “civic search effort” after hearing about Ms Edwards’ disappearance late on Saturday morning.
“This group was acting on its own conducting the search, it was really sad,” she added.
At that point, she said, there was still no sign of police or official search crews on the scene and authorities were “unresponsive” to her and Ms Edwards’ friends’ desperate pleas for help.
“Overnight nothing happened … there was no (official) physical search,” Dr Dolidze said.
“Around 1-2pm (authorities) started bringing in cars from the rescue service and vans full of workers to start an intensive search.”
Several of Ms Edward’s friends declined to comment on the tragedy, saying they were respecting her family’s request that they not speak to the media.
Dr Dolidze said the people she met in the search group who knew Ms Edwards were “shocked and lost”.
“They said she had finished work then reported that she was going to exercise in the area which was a regular thing,” she added.
“Her phone then self-dialled the last number she had called – or perhaps she did it herself – and when her friend in the US answered it was just noises and screaming like she was fending off the attack.
“It was very disturbing.”
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