Shandee Blackburn: Murder victim was told ‘one call and you’re dead’

Shocking voice messages left for Shandee Blackburn in the year before her murder provide a potential avenue for police.

Nicola Curro, a friend of murder victim Shandee Blackburn, says she knew Shandee’s ex-boyfriend was bombarding her with threats of violence. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

Police are trying to gain access to abusive voice messages left for Shandee Blackburn by her former boyfriend John Peros in the year before her murder that were initially beyond their reach.

Almost 2000 text messages between Shandee and Peros were recovered by investigators after she was savagely attacked with a knife while walking home from work in sugar and mining town of Mackay in February 2013.

There are gaps in the exchanges, where Shandee would beg Peros to stop his cruel and hurtful taunts including telling her to kill herself, and corresponding text messages from Peros could not be found.

Shandee’s murder is being examined in investigative podcast series 'Shandee's Story'.

Investigative podcast Shandee’s Story reveals an explanation: an app called HeyTell that allowed Peros to send voice messages to her phone.

When police first downloaded and decoded the contents of Shandee’s iPhone 3 in the days after her murder, the technology did not extend to HeyTell audio files. But the technology is evolving all the time, providing an avenue for further investigation.

Shandee’s mother, Vicki Blackburn, says police have told her they still have her phone and further efforts are being made to retrieve the audio messages with updated software.

Several of Shandee’s friends from the Gold Coast have spoken about the voice messages and the upsetting effect they had on her.

A jury in 2017 found Peros not guilty of Shandee’s murder in less than two hours.

Central coroner David O’Connell last year found Peros did in fact kill Shandee, but he did not find fresh and compelling evidence that could result in him being charged again under double jeopardy laws. He emphatically denies involvement.

Shandee had left Mackay on Queensland’s central coast in 2012, moving to the Gold Coast, after breaking up with amateur boxer Peros. It had been an emotionally abusive and dysfunctional relationship that had dented her confidence and self-esteem, and she was looking for a fresh start. Peros was seven years older than her and says it was her decision to leave.

He paid for her flight and gave her money in her first month away to find her feet, even helping her win a confidential settlement from her old workplace.

Vicki Blackburn has a different view, believing her daughter was coerced into leaving town.

Their problems followed Shandee south, with witness statements and text messages obtained by police showing their blazing rows continuing from a distance.

Steve Phillips had a brief fling with Shandee on the Gold Coast before they became flatmates. Shandee played Peros’s HeyTell messages to Phillips with her iPhone speaker on.

“Basically, the messages from him were all him calling her a slut and talking about her cheating on him,” Phillips told police.

“He would just call her a liar and she would scream back at him to leave her alone, calling him an arsehole and calling him crazy.”

He added Shandee claimed her ex said to her: “If I ever wanted you dead, all I have to do is make one phone call and you’re dead.” She said her ex knew men who could actually do this, Phillips said.

On the Gold Coast, Nicola Curro and Shandee worked together for part of 2012 in a marketing company that went door to door raising money for charities. They made for a striking duo.

Shandee Blackburn, right, with friend Nicola Curro.

“I was a giant and she was like this tiny little girl,” says Curro. “We just hit it off from the beginning. It just seemed like she was really trying to sort of be a different person.”

Mostly they had a lot of fun, but Curro remembers Shandee being upset by her former boyfriend’s HeyTell voice messages.

“I know the messages were threatening. I asked to hear, but she didn’t want to sort of let that out,” she says, adding: “I feel like you could tell if someone was maybe over-exaggerating things to get attention. It definitely was not like that.”

Breanna Shepheard was Shandee’s manager at the marketing company, XL. It was a tough, ­commission-only gig and Shandee was only there a short period when the team was sent to her hometown, Mackay.

Shandee playfully riding a child’s bike, in a picture taken by her friend Nicola Curro.

Shandee appeared fearful. It may have been related to a prior assault on Shandee by two women in the town, but Shepheard ­believed she was worried about seeing her former boyfriend.

“We were in the car and I ­noticed she was crying and that she had been arguing with this ex-boyfriend back and forth. It was on this app we used to use … called HeyTell,” Shepheard says.

Shandee played her some of the HeyTell messages, the tone varying wildly from one to the next. “So going from ‘I love you, we were good together, come back to me’, and then the next one being ‘You’re a bitch, I hate you’.

“Like, very angry and then somewhat loving in the next message. And they were right back to back to back. It was making her really upset. I remember her crying and shaking.”

Shandee’s Story is an investigation by national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas. The third episode, Toxic Love, is available to The Australian’s subscribers.

Anyone with information about the murder of Shandee Blackburn can contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at: [e-mail]