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From The Desk -The Debbie Fahey Files: Was the Scene Staged? · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: A Poche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Adam Shand. And this is my Friday
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: feature from the desk. In August 1981, 22-year-old Deborah Joy
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Fay was found dead in a Melbourne motel room. The
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: official explanation was a heroin overdose, self-administered. The coroner found
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: that on the evidence seduced, it was not possible to
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: conclude whether whether Debbie's death was accidental or otherwise. But
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: reading between the lines, there was a presumption of suicide.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: No suspicious circumstances. Just another sad casualty of the heroin
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: epidemic sweeping the nation. For more than 40 years, that
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: appears to have been the end of the story. But
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I've been looking closely at the circumstances surrounding Debbie's death
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: with her daughter Des.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Cockroach infested. and from what I can gather from historical pictures,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: it actually wasn't that. It was actually a little bit
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: more upmarket than the red brick sticky carpets and vibrating
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: bed that I'd imagined for a number of years.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: You can find the full episode in the show notes
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: where I talk to Des. And the closer we look,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the more questions emerge. Because there are things about that
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: motel room that simply don't sit comfortably with the story
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of a woman who went into a room alone, prepared heroin...
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: injected herself and died. Start with the heroin itself. There
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: were multiple syringes at the scene. There were four foils
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of heroin. But there's another detail that just jumps off
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the pages of the coroner's file. Where was the heat source?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Heroin at the time generally had to be prepared for injection.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Yet among the items documented at the scene, there appears
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to have been no obvious source of heat with which
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Debbie could have prepared the drug. There was a blackened spoon,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: suggesting it was used in the process, but no lighter,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: candle or any other heat source. So how was the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: heroin prepared? Was something simply overlooked or removed? Or had
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: somebody else prepared it? I'm trying to contact the cop
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: who attended the scene through Facebook, but he's yet to respond.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Then there's the telegram Debbie allegedly sent on the day
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of her death. A strange message, supposedly from Debbie, which
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: seems almost tailor-made to create a narrative around what happened next.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: That Debbie was walking away from her life and couldn't cope.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's exactly what it was. But more than four
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: decades later, surely we're entitled to ask, who actually sent it?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: We know who received it. Alistair Farquhar McRae, known as Sandy.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: McRae wasn't some peripheral figure who happened to know Debbie.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: We've established that he was her boyfriend. He subsequently identified
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Debbie's body and described himself as her fiancé.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I didn't expect to find what I found. So the
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: first file that I received was the body card and
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: it actually had a deposition of a witness statement from
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Sandy McRae.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: McRae would later be convicted of four murders. a cold
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and heartless killer who took lives for profit and convenience.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: He may be one of Australia's most prolific murderers, but
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: few would know his name. Former senior Victoria police officer
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Noel Ashby believes McRae may also have had knowledge or
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: involvement in other suspicious heroin deaths involving women around Melbourne
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: during that era. That doesn't establish that McRae killed Debbie Fay,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: but it raises a question that that I don't believe
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: can simply be ignored. Was Debbie's death really a self-administered overdose,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: or was the scene designed to look like one? Think
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: about what was apparently left behind. The heroin, multiple syringes,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the circumstances surrounding that strange telegram, and yet apparently no
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: obvious means of heating and preparing the heroin. Were these
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: simply the chaotic remnants of drug use? Or with somebody
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: creating a picture, investigators would immediately recognise a young woman, heroin,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a syringe, an overdose. And if the scene was staged,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: who had the opportunity to do it? Who was with
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Debbie in the hours before she died? Who supplied the heroin?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Who knew which motel she was staying in? Who saw
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: her enter the room? And crucially, who saw anybody else
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: enter or leave? These questions matter because Debbie wasn't simply
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a statistic from Melbourne's heroin epidemic. She was a young woman.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: She was a mother. And her daughter has spent most
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: of her life wondering what actually happened to her mother.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: So today from the desk is an appeal for information.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for anyone who knew Debbie Fay in 1981.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Anyone who knew Sandy McRae. Anyone who knew them as
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a couple. anyone who worked around Melbourne's brothels, massage parlours,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: hotels or drug scene during that period. Perhaps Debbie spoke
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to you about McRae. Perhaps you knew whether she was
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: frightened of him, planning to leave him or having problems
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: with him. Perhaps you know who supplied her drugs. Perhaps
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you've heard something about Debbie's death over the years that
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you dismissed as gossip. And I'm particularly interested in people
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: who remember other women dying from apparent heroin overdoses in
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: similar circumstances. Because former Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby has raised
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: questions about a number of deaths from that period. Were
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: they unrelated tragedies during Melbourne's heroin epidemic? Or is there
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: a pattern that nobody recognised at the time? We don't know.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And that's precisely why I'm asking. I'm not accusing Sandy
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: McRae of killing Debbie Fay. Not yet, anyway. I'm asking
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: whether the original conclusion about Debbie's death deserves to be
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: looked at again. Especially as McRae is seeking parole in
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: South Australia, having served his sentence for murder. And because
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: four decades later, the evidence raises a disturbing possibility. What
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: if investigators in 1981 weren't looking at the aftermath of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: an overdose? What if they were looking at a scene
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: somebody wanted them to believe was an overdose? If you
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: know anything... Even something you think is insignificant, contact me
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: confidentially through Real Crime with Adam Shand, either on Facebook
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: or my personal email, adamshandwriter at gmail.com. All communications will
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: be treated with strict confidence. Don't assume somebody else has
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: already told us. Don't assume that after 45 years it
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. One person listening to this podcast has already
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: changed what we know about Debbie's story. Now she is
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: literally speaking from the grave to her daughter and me.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: There may be somebody else listening who knows what happened
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: inside that motel room. It's time to speak up. I'm
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Adam Shand. This is From the Desk. If you want
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to report a crime, please call Crime Stoppers on 1800
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: 333 000. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this
• 8:26
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