Melissa Caddick and Anthony Koletti. Photo / Facebook
Melissa Caddick and Anthony Koletti. Photo / Facebook
Warning: This story contains graphic details that may disturb some readers.
Eight years before she vanished from Sydney's eastern suburbs, missing fraudster Melissa Caddick was declared a missing person, a court has been told.
The coronial inquest into the 49-year-old's disappearance began at the NSW State Coroner's Court at Lidcombe on Monday.
The inquest, before Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan, is due to run for 10 days and will examine the circumstances surrounding Caddick's suspected death, including her state of mind before her partial remains washed up on a southern NSW beach.
The witness list will include her husband, DJ and hairdresser Anthony Koletti, police, psychologists and ASIC investigators.
Her family, including her parents Ted and Barbara Grimley, were present in the court on day one of the inquest on Monday.
"I say to Melissa Caddick's family, this inquest is taking place against a particular background that many people have been financially harmed, allegedly because of Melissa Caddick's activity," Ryan said.
"But I know she is also a daughter, wife, sister and a mother. And I'm sure her disappearance from your life has brought shock, bewilderment and grief."
Caddick was last seen in the early hours of November 12, 2020, at her Dover Heights home, just hours after federal police and ASIC raided the A$6.2m property.
Officers left her home about 6.20pm on November 11 before she went to bed with her husband around 9.30pm.
The last known confirmed sighting of Caddick was by her son – who can only be known as Witness B – early on November 12.
The inquest is expected to hear from ocean currents experts after a foot – identified as belonging to Caddick – was found washed up on a beach near Tathra, more than 400km south of Sydney three months after she went missing.
Downing said that by August 2020, Caddick appeared to be under financial pressure and that during a walk around the cliffs of Dover Heights, she told a friend: "If I am going to end it, it's going to be here."
"According to that friend, Ms Caddick sometimes commented to her, 'I can't do it anymore'," Downing told court.
The court was told that during the breakdown of her first marriage, following her return to Australia from the UK, Caddick told her brother: "If it all gets too much for me, you'll find me at The Gap."
Another friend told police that around that time in 2012, Caddick had previously been a missing person after her affair with Koletti was exposed.
Around that time, she also gave another friend a four-letter "code" that she told to pass on to her brother in the event she went missing.
The corporate watchdog has accused Caddick of operating a Ponzi scheme since 2012, misappropriating A$20m to A$30m worth of investor funds, including from her friends and family, to fund a lavish lifestyle.
A foot belonging to Melissa Caddick washed up on a NSW south coast beach.
She has been accused of posing as a financial adviser, using her company Maliver, and pretending to invest millions of dollars for clients using fake CommSec portfolios.
The court was told that she on occasion spent A$236,000 at Canturi jewellers, A$270,000 at Christian Dior, A$313,846 at Flight Centre on overseas holidays to Fiji and Aspen, and A$61,000 at Chanel.
Receivers are hoping to recoup some of the stolen funds by selling off her assets.
Downing told the court during his opening address on Monday that Caddick had hired document shredders in September 2020, just over a month before her business premises were raided.
Police canvassed the neighbourhood in the hope of obtaining CCTV footage or eyewitness reports of having seen her that morning as well as doing searches of cliffs at Dover Heights.
The court was told that she made an appointment to see a lawyer on November 12; however, she never turned up to the appointment, nor did she appear in court that morning.
The court was told that Koletti did not make a statement to police until November 13, by which time his wife had been missing for more than 24 hours.
On that afternoon officers went to his home to take a missing person's report.
Downing told the court that one of the officers who attended his house noted Koletti's "composed, relaxed and seemingly uncaring persona … was unlike any other person I had taken a missing person's report from previously" and his version of events "did not seem to make sense".
"Constable Riseam suspected that Mr Koletti was somehow involved in Ms Caddick's disappearance," Downing told the court.
Koletti has never been charged in connection with her disappearance.
Bodyworn camera footage played to the court showed the officers speaking to Koletti on November 13.
