Latest / Crime Uncovered / Amanda Harris Murder: Daniel Eckersley Case Explained | True Crime Documentary

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Amanda Harris Murder: Daniel Eckersley Case Explained | True Crime Documentary · Crime Uncovered

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A mother spends the last week of her life trying
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: to save the man she loves. She calls his family.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: She takes him to the doctor. She does the talking
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: because he can barely speak. She believes, right up until
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the final morning, that if she just holds on a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: little longer, gets him a little more help, everything will
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: be okay. Now, she has no idea that the person
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: she's trying to save is about to become the reason
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: her three children grow up without a mother. This is
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the story of Amanda Jane Harris, a story that starts
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: with love and ends in a kitchen in a quiet
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Australian suburb, with a knife, a fire, and three children
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: who saw it all. A note before we begin, this
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: episode contains descriptions of domestic violence and a killing witnessed
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: by children. I'll keep the details measured, but if that's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: difficult for you, please take care of yourself. Amanda Jane
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Harris was born on September 23, 1981, in New South Wales, Australia.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Her early life was unsettled. Her parents separated while she
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: was still a child. For a time, she lived with
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: her mother, her stepfather, and her siblings. When she was
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: around eight or nine, her home situation changed again, and
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: she went to live with her brother and her grandmother.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Her grandmother would become one of the most important people
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: in Amanda's life. Not just a grandmother, but in her
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: own words after everything happened, her best friend. In the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: year 2000, at 19 years old, Amanda made a decision
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that would shape the rest of her life. She moved
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to Victoria to live with her mother and stepfather, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it was there, around 2001, that she met a man
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: named Daniel Eckersley. Daniel was born on October 15, 1979,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: in Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs. His childhood had its own instabilities.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: His parents split when he was about five. His relationship
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: with his father was on and off for years, shadowed
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: by his father's alcoholism and violence. His bond with his
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: mother was warmer, but her death in 2004 hit him hard,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and by his own account, it triggered a relapse into
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: heroin use. He left school after year nine. He described
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: himself as an average student who was often in trouble.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and he spent time in youth detention as a teenager.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: But he also turned his life toward something stable. He
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: trained as a baker, completed an apprenticeship, and built a career,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: eventually working for well-known bakery and supermarket employers. Underneath that
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: steady work history, though, was a long relationship with substances
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that began shockingly young. He started drinking at 10 to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: 13 years old. He was a heavy drinker who binge
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: drank regularly. He started smoking cannabis at 13 or 14,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and by adulthood he was using it daily, growing his
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: own supply. He began using heroin as a teenager and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: entered a methadone program around 21. Over the years, he
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: also used amphetamines, misused prescription medication, and experimented with a
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: long list of other drugs. In the year before the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: events that would define his life, he told a psychiatrist
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: he was drinking 6 to 12 beers a day, alongside
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: regular cannabis use. None of this stayed hidden from Amanda's
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: family for long. Soon after the relationship began, they started
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: noticing his temper. According to relatives, Daniel didn't make Amanda's
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: family feel welcome. He was argumentative at gatherings. He seemed
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to dictate what Amanda could and couldn't do. She rarely
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: visited relatives, and when she did, he reportedly called repeatedly
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: asking when she'd be back. Amanda's mother came to believe
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: he only really let Amanda leave the house to go shopping.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Amanda's sister, Louise, remembered seeing bruises on her sister's body.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Bruises Amanda always had an explanation for. There was also
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: violence that reached beyond the relationship. Around 2009, Daniel damaged
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: walls and furniture at a home he shared with Amanda
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and her mother, assaulted her mother's partner, and threatened him
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: with a knife. He was convicted of criminal damage and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: intentionally causing injury and given a community-based order requiring anger management,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: mental health treatment, and drug and alcohol treatment. Amanda's brother, Mark,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: separately said Daniel once threatened to cut his throat. Then,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: around 2010 or 2011, after being assaulted outside a gym,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Daniel returned to confront the men responsible, carrying a knife
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and a hammer. Nobody was injured. but he was convicted
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: on weapons and cannabis charges and served roughly four months
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: in prison. Here's a detail that matters. Despite all of this,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: there was no record of Daniel ever being convicted of
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: serious violence against an intimate partner, and Victoria Police had
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: no formally recorded family violence incidents between him and Amanda
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: before 2018. And despite everything her family worried about, Amanda stayed.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: She loved him. Together, they built a family. a son,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: born in 2009, and two daughters, born in 2011 and 2016.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: By 2015, a new problem had entered the relationship, pain.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Daniel had injured his left knee years earlier. In 2015,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: he aggravated it at work. He had arthroscopic surgery that June.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: A workers' compensation dispute followed. He went back to work,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: re-injured the knee in August 2016, had a second claim rejected,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and ended up on long-term unpaid leave while he appealed.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Chronic pain, no income, ongoing litigation, each piled onto the others.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: To manage the pain, his doctor began prescribing tramadol in 2016.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Between August 2016 and June 2018, Daniel received tramadol prescriptions
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: on nearly 120 separate occasions. By late 2017, his prescribed
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: regimen allowed for a substantial daily amount. But Daniel later
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: admitted he was taking considerably more than that, topping up
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: his prescriptions with pills obtained from friends. He also occasionally
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: took oxycodone, though he said he stopped because it made
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: him angrier. By late June 2018, something in Daniel had
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: started to shift. He later told others he was becoming
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: really paranoid. He believed at moments that he needed to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: go to a psychiatric hospital. His mood swung with his intake.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And on July 1st and July 3rd, 2018, he actually
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: called the police twice, apparently reaching out for help. Both times,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: he changed his mind mid-call and told officers instead that
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: neighbors were dealing drugs. He never told his doctor any
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of this. On July 1, 2018, Amanda called her grandmother.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: She said Daniel was extremely agitated, that he was in
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a hole, and she asked her grandmother to come to
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Victoria to help. When her grandmother spoke to Daniel directly,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: he rambled repetitively about past trouble catching up with him.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: She started arranging a trip. Over the next few days,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Amanda reached out to Daniel's estranged sister, Nicole, through social media,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: someone she hadn't spoken to in years. She told Nicole
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: that Daniel was about to have a breakdown, that his
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: depression was severe, that everything had been weighing on him
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: since his workplace injury. On July 4th, Amanda took Daniel
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to see his doctor. Both of them were tearful in
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the appointment. Amanda did most of the talking because Daniel
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: struggled to get the words out. He described depression tied
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to unemployment and lost income and admitted he'd been using
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: alcohol and cannabis to cope, though he said he'd stopped.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: The doctor found no suicidal thoughts, no homicidal thoughts, no delusions,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: no visible psychotic symptoms. He diagnosed an adjustment disorder with
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: anxiety and depression, made a mental health treatment plan, referred
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Daniel to a psychologist, and prescribed an antidepressant. Daniel would
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: later say he took two or three times the prescribed
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: dose on the very first day, hoping a bigger dose
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: would do something. There's no record he ever made it
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: to a psychologist appointment before what happened three days later.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: On July 5th, Daniel showed up unannounced at the home
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of a friend, acting erratically and claiming someone had poisoned him.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: At one point, he drove off in the friend's car,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: then came back crying and distressed. Amanda arrived to collect him.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: He was drinking beer, despite his new medication. She asked
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: him to stop. Witnesses saw the two of them crying
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and hugging before they left together. On July 6th, Amanda
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: messaged Nicole again. Daniel was okay, kind of, she said,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and it would take time for the medication to work.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: She described the week as long and draining. That same day,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: neighbors heard arguments coming from the couple's home and noticed
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Daniel behaving strangely. Saturday, July 7th, 2018. That morning, Amanda
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: tried again to reach her mother and Daniel's sister. She
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: couldn't get through to either of them. By this point,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Daniel's thinking had turned paranoid and disorganized. He had convinced
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: himself that food and household products in the home were
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: contaminated and he'd formed a delusion that would soon turn deadly.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: He believed Amanda was poisoning him and their children. That morning,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Daniel began emptying the kitchen cupboards and the refrigerator, throwing
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: food and cleaning products out of the house. Around 10 a.m.,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: neighbors heard a loud argument and doors slamming. The couple's
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: son opened his bedroom door and saw his father smashing
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: kitchen items with a hammer. Then it turned violent. Daniel
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: attacked Amanda. When she fell, he kicked her. He took
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: a kitchen knife from a drawer and stabbed her in
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the kitchen and dining area in front of the older children.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Their son tried to pull his father's hand away to
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: stop him. Daniel kicked the boy into a door. After
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the attack, Daniel took a cigarette lighter and set fire
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to a fabric couch near where Amanda lay. While doing it,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: he touched the flame to his older daughter's shoulder. Then
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: he loaded the three children and the family dog into
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the car and drove away. He never called an ambulance.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: He never tried to get her help. Neighbors heard the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: smoke alarm and smelled smoke as the family's car sped off.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: An off-duty firefighter who lived nearby called emergency services and
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: ran into the burning house. He found Amanda face down
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: near the fire, blood on the floor, the knife lying nearby.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: He dragged her out by her legs and checked for
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: signs of life. She was already gone. Believing the children
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: might still be trapped inside, He went back into the
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: smoke before being forced out. Firefighters put out the blaze
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and confirmed no one else was in the house. Paramedics
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: arrived just before 11 a.m. and pronounced Amanda dead at
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the scene. What Daniel did next is part of the record.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: He told the children not to say their mother was
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: dead or that he had stabbed her. Witnesses saw him
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: driving erratically, revving his car until it smoked, trying to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: open the doors of a stranger's vehicle. He drove to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: his friend's house. The friend wasn't home, so Daniel spoke
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to a neighbor while holding one of the children. She
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: noticed how agitated he seemed. Then he kicked open a
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: side door, drove his car into the garage, and shut
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the door to hide it. He stripped off his clothes
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and shoes, changed into the friend's clothing, washed his hands,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: put his own clothes in a container outside, and set
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: them on fire. He left on foot with the children
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and the dog, wandered to nearby properties, then came back.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: When his friend arrived home around 3 that afternoon, he
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: found Daniel and the children lying on a bed watching television.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Daniel claimed Amanda had disappeared or moved out. His friend
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: pushed back. He believed Amanda was dead. One of the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: children repeated a story Daniel had coached them to tell,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: that their mother had killed herself. Daniel then told his
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: friend he believed Amanda had been poisoning him and the kids,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and that it had something to do with the pills.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He said, ominously, that nothing would happen until 7 o'clock,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a statement he never explained. Police found Daniel at the house,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: entering by force, and arrested him at around 3.50 that afternoon.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: A forensic medical officer examined him that evening and found
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: him unfit for a police interview. He was taken to
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Casey Hospital under Victoria's Mental Health Act, but by the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: next afternoon, clinicians decided he wasn't actively unwell anymore and
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: revoked the assessment order. He was transferred into custody. That
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: fast recovery would later become key evidence that what he'd
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: experienced was a brief, acute psychotic episode, not a long-term
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: mental illness. Daniel indicated a guilty plea early on. sparing
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the children from having to testify at a murder trial.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: He formally pleaded guilty to Amanda's murder on April 29, 2019.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: The case against him was overwhelming. Eyewitness accounts from his
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: own children, forensic evidence from the house, the knife, the fire,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: witnesses who saw his behavior afterward, his own statements about poisoning,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and evidence that he tried to destroy his clothes. Two
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: forensic psychiatrists, one instructed by the defense and one by
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the prosecution, both concluded that Daniel had been in a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: state of severe, acute, and transient psychosis at the time
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of the killing. Persecutory delusions, disorganized thinking, emotional instability, possibly hallucinations,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and a total loss of insight into how irrational his
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: beliefs about Amanda had become. Both pointed to tramadol as
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the most likely cause, possibly worsened by the new antidepressant,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: But the sentencing judge, Justice Champion, was clear about one thing.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: The psychosis explained the killing. It did not excuse it.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: He found that Daniel's violence showed a clear intention to
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: kill and that his guilty plea confirmed his conduct had
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: been conscious and voluntary. The psychosis reduced his moral culpability
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: for sentencing because the court accepted that Daniel had no
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: way of knowing tramadol could trigger a psychotic reaction, that
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: this kind of reaction was exceptionally rare, and that he'd
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: never experienced anything like it before. The judge weighed serious
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: aggravating factors. Amanda was attacked without warning in her own home,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: knocked down, kicked, and stabbed. Her children watched. Her son
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: was kicked when he tried to protect her. Daniel lit
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: a fire near her body and burned his daughter with
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the lighter. He never sought help for Amanda. He fled
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: with the children and pushed them into a false story
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: about suicide. and he tried to destroy evidence. Against that,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the court weighed his psychosis, his lack of foreknowledge about
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the drug's risks, his early guilty plea, his genuine remorse,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and his rapid recovery. On January 30, 2020, Justice Champion
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: sentenced Daniel Martin Eckersley to 18 years in prison, with
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a minimum of 14 before he could be considered for parole.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: The judge said that without the guilty plea, he would
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: have imposed 22 years. with an 18-year non-parole period. With
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: his pre-sentence custody counted, Daniel's earliest possible parole eligibility sits
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: around July 2032, and his full sentence ends around July 2036.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: As of the most recent reporting, there's no publicly known
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: successful appeal or early release. Let's look at the evidence.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: The weapon at the center of this case was an ordinary,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: single-edged kitchen knife. about 120 millimeters long. It was found bent,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: lying near Amanda's arm, a detail consistent with the force used.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: The autopsy documented the fatal wound, which tore through a
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: major artery and caused massive internal blood loss. It also
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: documented defensive wounds on her hands, consistent with her trying
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: to protect herself, as well as injuries from the fire
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: set afterward. Toxicology on Amanda's body came back clean. No alcohol,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: no drugs, no poisons of any kind. Whatever Daniel believed
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: about being poisoned, the science found nothing. The fire itself
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: became its own piece of evidence. Investigators and later the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: sentencing judge concluded Daniel set the couch alight to try
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to destroy both Amanda's body and the crime scene. Everything
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: he did afterward reinforced that. Hiding the car, changing clothes,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: washing his hands, burning his own clothing, and inventing a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: story about her disappearing. As for the medical side, prescription
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: records show Daniel received tramadol on nearly 120 occasions across
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: 22 months. at a dosing structure that could climb high
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: even within prescribed limits before accounting for what he was
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: buying from friends. A later coronial investigation found the monitoring
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of that prescription to be suboptimal given his high doses,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the drug's potential for abuse, and his long history of addiction.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And yet the same investigation found the state's prescription monitoring
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: system likely wouldn't have flagged the abuse because his refill
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: patterns looked almost normal averaging close to the expected 30
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: days between fills. The extra pills were coming from outside
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the system entirely. What makes this case so unsettling is
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the collision between two very different psychological pictures, Amanda's and Daniel's.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Amanda's family described a pattern that will feel familiar to
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: anyone who has studied coercive control. Growing isolation from relatives.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: A partner who dictated when she could leave and for
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: how long. repeated phone calls demanding to know when she'd
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: be home, and unexplained bruises she always had a story for.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: No formal domestic violence report was filed against Daniel before 2018,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: but the coroner later specifically classified the killing as an
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: act of family violence, a reminder that the absence of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a police record doesn't mean the absence of harm. And yet,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: even inside that dynamic, Amanda showed enormous emotional strength in
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: her final week. She recognized her partner was deteriorating. She
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: reached out to relatives she rarely saw. She contacted his
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: estranged sister. She got him to a doctor and did
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the talking when he couldn't. She kept trying to reach
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: family for help right up until the morning she died.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Her actions paint the picture of a woman who was
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: frightened for someone else, not for herself, someone still trying
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to hold her family together as it was collapsing around her.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Daniel's psychological picture, meanwhile, is genuinely rare in forensic psychiatry.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Two independent psychiatrists agreed he experienced a real acute psychotic break,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: persecutory delusions, disreputation. behavior, a complete loss of insight. Both
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: pointed toward tramadol, layered with a new antidepressant as the
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: likely trigger. A later coronial expert offered a more cautious read,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: suggesting that withdrawal from heavy tramadol use, not just the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: drug itself but might fit the limited medical literature even better,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: compounded by his recent abrupt stop of alcohol and cannabis
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: after years of heavy use. Either way, the courts and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: psychiatrists agreed on one crucial point. This rare psychotic state
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: explains how an intentional, conscious killing, one he pleaded guilty to,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: happened at all. But it never erased his legal or
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: moral responsibility for taking Amanda's life. Five people gave victim
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: impact statements at sentencing, and each described a version of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the same devastation. Amanda's sister Louise said she felt robbed
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of the future she and Amanda should have shared, including
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: watching their children grow up together. When she first saw
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: her sister's children at the police station, their condition overwhelmed her.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: In the weeks they stayed with her, the children cried
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and screamed for their mother at night. Amanda's mother Christine
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: said she felt numb and constantly on the edge of tears,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and that she'd lost much of her ability to trust people.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: She sought counseling for herself and for at least one
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: grandchild struggling with trauma. When the sentence was announced, she
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: broke down and shouted at Daniel in the courtroom, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the three children lost both of their parents in a
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: single afternoon. Their mother murdered, their father arrested for killing her.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: After they'd watched at least part of it happen, after
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: one of them tried to physically stop it, they were
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: pulled from their home relocated to relatives, and by all
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: accounts have carried serious, lasting trauma. A community fundraiser was
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: later organized to help support the family members now raising them.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And Amanda was remembered by a former workplace as a
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: devoted early childhood educator, loved by the children in her care,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the same warmth she gave her own kids at home.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Amanda Jane Harris spent the last week of her life
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: trying to save someone she loved. She made phone calls.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: She booked a doctor's appointment. She did the talking when
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: he couldn't. She believed that if she held on a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: little longer, things would get better. That's not a story
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: about a woman who failed to see the danger. It's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the story of a woman who kept showing up for
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a man who was falling apart until the very last morning.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: If this case affected you the way it affected us,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: tell us in the comments. If you or someone you
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: know is in a violent or controlling relationship, please reach
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: out to a local support service and subscribe for more
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: real cases every week. Thank you for listening.