Melissa Caddick inquest: How bizarre science experiment could solve mystery

Investigators probing Melissa Caddick’s disappearance planned to throw dead pigs off a cliff, fitted with running shoes and tracking devices in a bid for answers.

Details of the bizarre proposed science experiment – which would track the behaviour of sharks and give clues to what may have happened to the fraudster’s body – emerged at a coronial inquest into her suspected death on Thursday. 

It comes as a police officer said Caddick’s husband’s behaviour after she went missing raised alarm bells and suggested that he could have assisted the fraudster in hiding. 

And it came as it was revealed Caddick had a life insurance policy at the time of her disappearance that covered suicide.

Aside from hiding, the other dominant theory from the officer-in-charge of the case was that Caddick had self-harmed due to the pending investigation into her multi-million dollar fraud, Detective Inspector Gretchen Atkins told the inquest. 

Bizarre new details have emerged at the inquest into the suspected death of missing conwoman Melissa Caddick (pictured with husband Anthony Koletti)

Anthony Koletti (pictured on Thursday)heard at an inquest how investigators probing his wife’s disappearance planned to throw dead pigs off a cliff

‘(Detective Sergeant Michael Kyneur’s) number one theory was she had voluntarily gone missing and was potentially being assisted by (Anthony) Koletti,’ she said.

‘Does that amount to an offence on Mr Koletti’s part?’ Jason Downing SC, counsel assisting the coroner, asked Det Insp Atkins on Thursday.

‘(I) had not turned my mind to that,’ she said.

But three days after Ms Caddick was reported missing nothing gathered in the police investigation pointed to murder by Mr Koletti.

‘There’d been searches at the house, there’d been conversations with Mr Koletti … there was no evidence of homicide,’ Det Insp Atkins said.

‘If there had been anything we would have absolutely notified the homicide squad.

‘The other real possibility is she had taken her own life.’

Det Insp Atkins said alarm bells included the long delay in reporting and no subsequent sighting of Ms Caddick.

Mr Downing revealed that Ms Caddick had a life insurance policy covering suicide.

Melissa Caddick (pictured) was last seen at her Dover Heights mansion on November 11, 2021

But this discovery did not change the course of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Steven Morgan said.

Det Sgt Morgan was brought on as a consultant into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the conwoman’s disappearance in March 2021.

Caddick’s decomposing foot encased in a shoe washed ashore at Bournda Beach on the NSW south coast in February 2021, three months after the last verified sighting of her at her Dover Heights mansion in Sydney’s east.

Subsequent experiments put forward pig carcasses wearing running shoes on their trotters fitted with trackers tossed into the ocean to ascertain sharks’ behaviour.

Det Sgt Morgan told the inquest he’s unaware whether this was ever conducted but confirmed he did speak with a ‘shark expert’ from NSW Department of Primary Industries.

‘(He had) some doubt regarding the length of time that a foot had been in the water,’ he said on Wednesday.

Det Sgt Morgan was also told of some concerns regarding the initial police search that no CCTV footage had been collected or adequately reviewed promptly, nor had a land search been co-ordinated in the early stages. 

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission and Australian Federal Police raided Ms Caddick’s Dover Heights mansion on November 11, 2021. This is the last verified sighting of her.

The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan continues.

Detective Sergeant Steven Morgan (pictured) told the inquest he spoke to a department shark expert, who expressed doubt regarding the length of time that a foot had been in the water