‘It’s murdering them by proxy’: The women’s deaths not counted as domestic violence

Every six days, an Australian woman is killed by domestic violence. It’s a shocking statistic and a problem Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labelled a national crisis, but a 60 Minutes investigation has revealed there are many more victims losing their lives who are not being counted.

They include women who are driven to take their own lives after suffering relentless abuse and potential hidden homicides, in which murders are staged to look like suicides.

There is no national data but it is feared that if these deaths were counted, the domestic violence death toll would be significantly higher than the homicide figure.

Charli Powell, 17, and Molly Wilkes, 22, are two of these invisible victims.

At the time they took their own lives, both young women were in abusive relationships, a fact overlooked by investigators, and their deaths have not been counted in domestic violence statistics.

Sharon Moore with a photo of daughter Charli Powell. Credit: 60 Minutes

Charli’s mum, Sharon Moore, and Wilkes’ mother, Julie Adams, told 60 Minutes this needed to change, saying they wanted their daughters’ deaths to be counted as domestic violence homicide, and their abusers punished.

“It’s murder, just using the victim’s own hands as a murder weapon. It’s putting them in a place where there’s no way out and it’s murdering them by proxy,” Adams said.

In February 2019, Charli Powell’s body was found by her boyfriend in a toilet block in Queanbeyan, just across the border from Canberra.

When police arrived at the scene, attempts to resuscitate Charli failed, but what they did next is something Moore will never understand.

Despite Charli’s boyfriend being wanted by police on an unrelated matter, he was let go from the scene of the crime without being formally questioned.

Charli Powell was found dead in Queanbeyan in 2019.Credit: 60 Minutes

“They didn’t interview him,” Moore said. “They said that he could go home. The officer in charge said that he was very upset at the time, so she said to him, ‘You go home and have a cup of tea. Get yourself together and then come back and see us’.”

If the warrant had been executed, officers would have discovered Charli’s boyfriend was on bail for allegedly assaulting her across the border in the ACT just months earlier.

Michael Bartlett is retired but the former police officer-turned-criminal defence lawyer assisted Moore in getting an inquest into Charli’s death. He says the decision by police not to execute the warrant is inexcusable.

“The boyfriend was the last person to see her alive. He’s the only person who saw her hanging and he’s not considered a person of interest at all. They just let him go with a warrant in existence. It’s appalling.”

It would be eight months before police finally caught up with Charli’s boyfriend, but by then the brief account he had provided police at the scene had changed, from why she left his home in the early hours of the morning to where he went to search for her and how he found Charli.

‘Now, it sounds like something maybe out of an Agatha Christie novel but … it’s way, way more common than we think.’

Professor Jane Monckton-Smith, forensic criminologist

In March 2022, an inquest was held into Charli’s death. Moore was hoping for an open finding but the coroner ultimately found Charli’s death was “self-inflicted” – but did acknowledge it was in the “context of domestic violence”.

In her findings, the coroner said she “relied heavily” on the pathologist’s report, but Bartlett says the pathologist was never told about domestic violence, and the autopsy was not an internal examination.

“The pathologist is a very eminent expert but you’ve got to realise, he gets the police reports saying this is a suicide. He, in my view, was given a completely incorrect contextual description of what was going on.”

No formal recommendations were made to the police and Charli’s case was referred to the NSW Domestic Violence Review, a committee tasked with identifying failings in the system. However, due to a lack of resources it has yet to list her case for consideration.

“In her findings, [the coroner] actually says she’s unsure of what occurred that evening. If she’s unsure of what occurred, how can you make a final judgment? I just wanted it to be an open finding, so maybe later down the track if something comes to light, it can be reopened and reinvestigated,” Moore said.

60 Minutes sent Charli’s case to Professor Jane Monckton-Smith, a world-renowned British forensic criminologist who specialises in coercive control, stalking and homicide.

Professor Jane Monckton-Smith is a world-renowned forensic criminologist.Credit: 60 Minutes

She and her team at the University of Gloucestershire have studied hundreds of DV homicide cases and have identified eight critical stages for when a relationship can turn deadly – including a history of violence and stalking, and triggers such as a woman attempting to end the relationship.

She says authorities are too often missing these crucial warning signs and too quickly ruling potential suspicious deaths as suicides.

“There are many, many cases that we’ve been involved in where a really poor decision is made at the scene, which means that that scene wasn’t locked down, so they’re not collecting the forensic evidence that’s necessary. Of course, if you don’t do that, that evidence is lost forever.”

Monckton-Smith says she was “shocked” reading Charli’s case and, in her opinion, authorities missed “so many” red flags. While we have to accept the coroner’s findings, she says, police should have factored in the role domestic violence played in her death sooner.

“Irrespective of what actually happened that night, there are questions that should have been asked at the scene at the time, and subsequently, and answered.”

Monckton-Smith said, in her opinion, an open finding would have been “far more appropriate” in Charli’s case “because nobody really knows because the questions weren’t asked”.

Monckton-Smith has started counting domestic abuse-related suicides and she says her research shows these deaths could be significantly higher than the DV homicide figure. She also estimates up to 30 per cent of those deaths could be potential staged suicides.

“Now, it sounds like something maybe out of an Agatha Christie novel or something, but I can tell you I work on these cases every day and it’s way, way more common than we think.”

Monckton-Smith says whether the death is suicide or homicide, if domestic violence is involved, there is no difference.

“We’re talking about violence and control and abuse that never, ever stops, something that we’re looking at in the UK very, very newly – but France and other countries across Europe, what they are looking at is that domestic abuse-related suicide can be manslaughter.”

Molly Wilkes’ mother, Julie Adams, would like to see Australia follow suit.

Wilkes moved to the US state of Nevada and married her Australian husband in Las Vegas in 2020, but Adams says the relationship was toxic.

Molly Wilkes as a child with her mother, Julie Adams.Credit: 60 Minutes

“She had no money, she had no income, and he restricted any money that she had to the point where she was grateful if he would buy her a bus ticket to get somewhere,” Adams said. “And then it was occasionally physical as well. She had sent me through photos of where he’d given her a black eye. She was really very much in a virtual jail in their house.”

Adams says Wilkes had tried to leave her husband six times in the lead-up to her death, but never made it home.

In June 2022, Wilkes was found dead in the garage of her home. Her suitcases were packed by the door. The county coroner ruled her death a suicide.

“I always knew that women were most at risk when they were in the process of leaving their partner. I just never in a million years thought she was at risk to herself,” Adams said.

After her daughter’s death, Adams found text messages on Wilkes’ phone from her husband that she says reveals some of the relentless abuse her daughter had been enduring in the months and days leading up to her death.

Among them are texts threatening to “murder” Wilkes and calling her “pathetic”, a “whore” and to “dig a hole and bury yourself”.

“There were thousands and thousands of messages, just one after the other after the other after the other, just tearing her down at every opportunity. I had no idea that it was just every day, day in and day out, this type of abuse. How can anyone survive that? We can’t continue to let women take their own lives and for men to walk away scot-free.”

National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 737 732. Crisis support can be found at Lifeline (13 11 14 and lifeline.org.au), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467 and suicidecallbackservice.org.au) and Beyond Blue (1300 224 636 and beyondblue.org.au).

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