Melissa Caddick’s foot ‘was in bag or a shark’, inquest hears

Forensic experts believe eastern suburbs fraudster Melissa Caddick’s foot was either inside a bag or a shark before drifting washing ashore.

Anthony Koletti told NSW State Coroner’s Court on Friday he believed Melissa Caddick was an honest financial adviser until learning the truth in court proceedings. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Forensic experts believe eastern suburbs fraudster Melissa Caddick’s foot was either inside a bag or a shark before drifting along the surface of the South Pacific Ocean and washing ashore.

An expert report tendered to the inquiry into the con woman’s disappearance said the designer sneaker in which the decomposing foot was found probably had enough buoyancy for both the foot and the shoe to stay afloat.

The presence of young barnacles and larvae and the absence of older crustaceans and algae meant the foot was probably drifting along the surface of the water and “either enclosed in a bag or inside a shark before that”.

Caddick is alleged to have swindled at least $20m from investors, including family and friends, in a Ponzi scheme, and disappeared the day after her $15m mansion in Dover Heights was raided by fraud investigators.

Her foot was found inside the sneaker on Bournda Beach, near Tathra on the NSW south coast, in February 2021.

One bizarre theory originally put forward was that Caddick had somehow amputated her foot and arranged for it to be found on the remote beach in a bid to fake her own death.

The forensic report’s author, David Griffin, a principal research scientist in the CSIRO’s ocean unit, said it was safe to assume that the foot did not travel from Sydney within the week before it was discovered on February 21 in 2021.

“So the remaining question is whether the shoe could have drifted to southern NSW from Sydney in the period from November 2020 to February 2021,” he said in the report.

“The transport consequences of a shark being involved are well outside my area of expertise, so I will not comment on that.”

Mr Griffin said there were a number of factors that could have influenced the speed and trajectory of the foot before it washed ashore on Bournda Beach, including ocean currents and whether it sank to the bottom of the ocean.

“It can fairly safely be said that a straight line distance of 230km over 93 days is perfectly achievable regardless of depth (as long as the body is free drifting), given the chaotic, energetic nature of ocean circulation,” he said.

Anthony Koletti, 40, told NSW State Coroner’s Court on Friday he believed Caddick was an honest and diligent financial adviser until learning the truth in court proceedings following his wife’s disappearance.

Mr Koletti, a hairdresser and DJ, said there were many layers to the distress he’d experienced since the raid and his wife’s disappearance a day later on November 12.

Dean Jordan, representing the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, asked Mr Koletti if he believed he and Caddick would still be living a happy life together if the watchdog had never raided his home.

Mr Koletti answered: “I just believe she‘d still be alive.”

He said the intense media frenzy had added to his distress and his testimony was at times contradictory.

When Mr Jordan asked if Mr Koletti’s distress had caused him to lose objectivity, perspective or the plot, he answered: “I don’t believe so.”

Mr Koletti, who has in music alleged ASIC tortured his wife, accepted that lead investigator Isabella Allen acted professionally if distantly during the raid on their property.

At one point, Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan told Caddick’s brother Adam Grimley that his facial expressions were dramatic, which prompted him to leave the hearing room.