Phoebe Handsjuk Case Analysis | Garbage Chute Death

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of phoebe hansjuk just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel consider supporting me on patreon and check out my podcast i will put the relevant links in the description for this video first i'll look at the background in this case move to the timeline of the incident and offer my analysis this case takes place in melbourne australia phoebe hansjuk was born on may 9 1986 her father was a psychiatrist and her mother was a veterinary nurse phoebe had two older brothers phoebe was described as creative energetic vibrant sensitive and social during her adolescence she started struggling with mood swings depression social anxiety and erratic behavior phoebe was referred to a mental health clinician she became difficult for her parents to manage she started drinking at first it didn't seem like a problem but eventually her drinking would become excessive phoebe would also eventually use drugs excessively including cocaine and ecstasy when she was 15 years old she ran away from home for eight weeks phoebe was considered quite attractive and had many men interested in her she had several relationships with men who were older than her in 2009 when she was 23 she would meet 39 year old anthony hampel anthony ran an events management company he was well known in the area his father was a retired supreme court judge and his stepmother was a county judge phoebe and anthony moved into a luxury apartment tower called the valencia in melbourne australia the couple had a tumultuous romantic relationship in the six weeks leading up to phoebe's death which i'll talk about in the timeline the incident the two had broken up and reunited four times the pair had an elite lifestyle that involved a lot of socializing events parties dinners and alcohol now moving to the timeline of the incident we moved to december 2 2010 at about nine o'clock am anthony leaves their apartment for work phoebe is seen at 11 43 am on surveillance video when a fire alarm went off and the entire building was evacuated it was a false alarm at 11 50 a.m phoebe returned to her apartment at 6 09 pm anthony arrived back at the apartment after working all day phoebe and anthony had plans that night to meet her father for dinner as anthony entered the apartment he found phoebe's purse and keys were there but there was no sign of her there were two wine glasses on the table and broken glass on the floor later the police would find blood on phoebe's computer mouse and keyboard as well as on a piece of door trim there were a number of post-it style notes containing nonsensical writing scattered around the apartment a curling iron was left plugged in and candles were burning between 706 and 709 pm an employee of the apartment building discovered phoebe's body in the garbage compactor room she was non-responsive her jeans were down around her knees the employee ran out of the compact room screaming which is an understandable reaction under the circumstances when the police arrived on the scene they were certain phoebe was dead they would not permit the paramedics to check for signs of life no individual with medical training touched phoebe's body at any point the police believed that phoebe had traveled down the garbage chute feet first falling 120 feet and slamming into the garbage compactor at the bottom it sounds like the chute went straight down and then went at a 45 degree angle into the compactor so the elbow would have slowed her descent a little but not too much anthony ordered take out food for himself it arrived at his apartment at 803 pm the delivery person told him there were police all around the front of the building anthony traveled down to see the police he approached the detective and said i live here what's going on they informed him that a woman's body had been found in the garbage compactor room anthony realized it could be phoebe after anthony described tattoos and other distinguishing features of his girlfriend the police realized the body probably belonged to phoebe later this would be confirmed phoebe's blood alcohol level was .16 which is about three times the legal limit for driving in australia and she had taken one or two zofidem pills this is a sedative also known as still knocks it has been associated with disorientation and bizarre behavior the coroner ruled phoebe's death an accent it was death by misadventure now moving to my analysis the investigation in this case was terrible there were a number of unusual or curious items that occurred in this case and during the course of the investigation i will go through a few here the police did not pull security footage from the building they didn't search phoebe's computer or phone they didn't search anthony's computer until four months after phoebe's death they only searched this because phoebe would use his computer on occasion the police did not test the blood on the computer mouse or keyboard although they did test the blood on the piece of door trim it belonged to phoebe according to a sleep expert interviewed by 60 minutes australia the adverse effects of the medication that phoebe had taken would be delusional determination which seems highly consistent with climbing into a garbage chute or physical incapacitation which of course does not the expert indicated there was no way to know which adverse effect could have occurred so i guess it was more or less one or the other that would happen phoebe had taken stillnocks before without incident it was actually not her medication the prescription was written for antony phoebe had a penchant for climbing and she studied martial arts she was strong and flexible there were no fingerprints on the outside of the garbage chute not on the handle not anywhere it looked as though it had been wiped clean there was no sign of a sexual assault it's not clear why her jeans were down around her knees the jeans were unfastened at the waist and her belt was only through the first two of five belt loops this makes it seem as though she was interrupted trying to put her jeans on phoebe could not have climbed down the chute if her pants were down but she could have of course been thrown down the garbage chute in that condition phoebe's sunglasses were recovered in the area where she was found it is believed she was wearing them on top of her head she only wore them when she was preparing to go outside the official finding from the corner said that no other party was involved in phoebe's death the time of phoebe's death was never established considering when anthony hampel came home and when phoebe's body was discovered there was about an hour of overlap there when in theory antony would have been there and phoebe still could have been alive there are reports that indicate that anthony changed his story a little bit although this is not particularly unusual anthony was never a suspect some people believe there's a possibility that anthony was involved and he should have at least been investigated i don't think he was involved the evidence supports the idea that no one else was with phoebe when she went into the garbage chute the building actually had a fairly good security system it was a log of everyone who entered including those who were buzzed up by the tenants it was an electronic log no person was monitoring it but the police were able to see the times where people entered exits were not recorded people who lived in the building could only travel to the floor where they lived the fire alarm went off the day that phoebe died this would have unlocked all the doors in the stairwell meaning there was an opportunity where somebody could have made their way to the 12th floor and they would have avoided any type of electronic log it is technically possible that somebody was there but again i think it was unlikely there was an occurrence in 2018 which appears to be a coincidence and not directly tied to this case but i want to mention it here as it was highly unusual a 25 year old part-time model and dental assistant named bailey schneider was found dead in her parents home not long after telling her mother that she just broke up with her 51 year old boyfriend a gold cord was tightly wrapped around her neck but there was no indication of where the cord could have been hanging from there was nothing to attach it to the police ruled it a suicide despite this puzzling inconsistency bailey had cocaine in her system as well as three times the legal limit of alcohol interestingly the boyfriend that she had just broken up with was anthony hampel and unbelievable and potentially troubling coincidence anthony said that they were not really serious bailey told her mother something different the police investigated and found that anthony and bailey spoke frequently and went on at least two trips together furthermore the communication between the pair indicated they had been involved in a disagreement or breakup just before bailly died the investigation revealed that the circumstances surrounding bailly's death were not suspicious but they were also not entirely clear so anthony was cleared of any wrongdoing but the case itself remains a mystery to some extent moving back to the case of phoebe hanschuk we know that phoebe had a number of mental health issues including depression social anxiety mood swings suicidal thoughts and excessive substance use there was also some indication of borderline personality symptoms like self-harm but the clinician treating her did not believe she qualified as having borderline personality disorder on november 30 2010 two days before phoebe's death phoebe contacted the mental health clinician by phone and indicated that she felt unsafe which the clinician interpreted as meaning phoebe was contemplating hurting herself the clinician recommended phoebe contact a hospital but the clinician did not contact the crisis assessment team a response team that travels out to see people in crisis situations later the clinician said it would have been appropriate to call them phoebe said that she would handle the situation by taking some pills to sleep her pain away the mental health clinician was not worried about overdose the clinician had only been practicing for 15 months according to her testimony she was practicing as a clinician with a bachelor's degree which apparently is permitted in australia when asked if she had followed up with phoebe later on like to check and see if she was okay the clinician indicated that she had not she was probably busy here's what the authorities think happened the day phoebe died phoebe was intoxicated disoriented from the drugs she broke the glass by accident when she was cleaning up the shards of glass she cut herself she then walked to the refuse room on the 12th floor to throw away a bag containing the broken glass a bag like this was never recovered by the police there was blood on the floor of the refuse room and on the door handle to the garbage chute so no fingerprints but there was blood phoebe climbed into the garbage chute door which was on the wall there was nothing to hold on to and the opening was only 36.5 centimeters wide she fell down the chute to her death her right foot was almost completely severed and she suffered a deep cut on her hip from the blades of the garbage compactor her right femur was broken after this a steel trap door open and she fell into the garbage compactor room she pulled herself around the room as evidenced by blood being scattered around the room but the door was locked and she could not escape she died from bleeding out about five to ten minutes later her time of death was sometime between 1203 pm and 7pm so the conclusion essentially said that this was an accident i agree about the circumstances like it does seem like she climbed into the shoot herself but i'm not sure it was an accent i think it also could have been that phoebe was just trying to bring an end to her life she was depressed despondent and intoxicated she went to the garbage chute and climbed in she was simply trying to escape the pain so in terms of what's most likely i think that bringing end to her own life is most likely then an accent i do not think it was homicide i think this case highlights the importance of competent mental health care there are many different types of mental health clinicians with varying levels of education experience and competence in this case it would appear as though phoebe encountered a clinician who did not perform very well and had a limited level of education considering her profession the clinician initially said that she could not contact any of phoebe's family members when phoebe was in crisis due to confidentiality later the clinician admitted that a breach of confidentiality was permitted during a crisis maybe this is a situation where she should have read her code of ethics like paid attention to what she was supposed to know in order to be a clinician the clinician didn't seem to know how to assess treat or follow up which makes me wonder what did she know how to do what about her behavior indicated she was actually a mental health treatment professional it was not phoebe's job to check on the qualifications of the clinician treating her the clinician or the clinician supervisor if she had one should have recognized that phoebe's presentation was more appropriate for a more experienced clinician i think sometimes people look at substance use problems and mood swings and think oh that's not really serious in reality it's very serious substance use makes just about every mental health presentation much more dangerous what lessons can be learned in this case tumultuous relationships can be dangerous substance use only makes them worse i've covered a lot of cases where people died in the context of a bad relationship some where one person was at fault and the other person was a victim others were both people were to blame this case involved a fall down a garbage shoot i have videos on two other cases in australia that involved a woman falling off of a balcony when a male romantic partner was in the vicinity the cases of warina wright and lisa harnam there was a case in the united states that i covered where a man fell 17 stories to his death during an argument with his girlfriend amber hilberling this makes me wonder that perhaps how high someone lives in a building with a romantic partner should correspond to the level of trust and stability in the relationship like if two people are having a rough time and one of them wants to move to like the eighth floor or the 15th floor the other partner would say you know what i feel like we're more at a second floor level in our relationship instead of how many years someone has been married or something like that the real indication of accomplishment would be the height of the apartment or condominium like a young couple would be looking at another couple as role models saying wow they live on the 18th floor they must have the best relationship ever it's a sad commentary on relationships when this becomes a consideration for living accommodations those are my thoughts in the case of phoebe hanschuk please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis on this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 79,828

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Id: nHLq3okTdKo

Length: 16min 28sec (988 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021