The Horrifying Case of Tiahleigh Palmer

[Music] hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video we're going we're going down under down underwater to australia so look forward to that you know grab a fosters stick on the barbie dodge a snake and puncheroo to queensland we're off to to a place called logan city south of brisbane there the tour burns were foster parents and in 2015 along came tiale palmer and we will take it from there so let's give it a good [Music] it was a hot sunny summer's day in the middle of january 2015 which is still baffling to me that a 12 year old tiali palmer tia arrived at a house in chambers flat a fairly rural area about 40 minutes from downtown brisbane she gave a g'day to her new family a foster family the tour burns the tour burns were made up of daddy rick mama julene and two sons 18 year old trent and 19 year old josh at 12 years old tia had already been in the foster system for about five years at this point her mother cindy gave her up to to the system uh when she was seven years old cindy at the time she was in an abusive relationship there was violence at home and she thought well it was the right thing to do she couldn't she couldn't take care of her it wasn't safe for tia anymore with her she brought her to the department of child protection and while he entered the system cindy would spiral into drugs police custody and eventually homelessness and so and he eventually ended up with the tor burns it's all good she'd been you know with in and out of i guess a few families none of them worked out obviously but hopefully you know the tour burns would be the one they were well respected in the community and it seemed like a good home for tia to grow in they had horses even the only misgiving cindy had who t was still close with was that she'd be living with two teenage boys she didn't like that at all rick and julien had been married for over 25 years rick had been a truck driver but after injuring his back he he couldn't hack it anymore and so started a fast food business out of a van called nothing healthy here wait is that the food or him he did this with trent and josh it was apparently an american style fast food joint which is judging by that picture hot dogs end of list julian in the meantime ran a daycare out of the house and so as the months passed the four piece family became a five piece it was they seem to be doing great tia attended morriston state high school not terribly far from her new home maybe 20 minutes and seemed to be settling in pretty well there and now on the 30th of october 2015 was a friday it started out you know like any other normal day always does tia had been living with the tour burns for about nine months uh at this stage and so spooky season right uh did they celebrate halloween in australia the day before halloween something spooky happened that morning rick drove tia to school dropped her off at 10 past eight and off he went however tia was not seen at any classes at the high school she was a complete no-show that's cool after dropping tia off rick went to pick up a few bits in bob's hurs cars he loved automobiles and then he arrived home a couple of hours later he got a call from the school saying you know tia was never never there that is when she was reported missing now tia had run away from home from their home a couple of times before as you can imagine you know being a foster child not the easiest but every time she did do a leger she was nearly always found you know within a within a few hours she'd show up eventually not this time the police began looking for her rick posting on facebook asking if anyone had seen her at all nothing this wouldn't be publicly announced for a few days something which would be criticized later the police never informed the public of a missing child that would be a big deal later you know seems like nobody cared about her but at this stage it wouldn't matter on the 5th of november less than a week after she had been reported missing a discovery was made not the kind of one you would want on the banks of the pampama river south of brisbane lay the body of a young girl it was fisherman who stumbled across her searching for snapper flathead but instead they found tia she had just been dumped there in the mud reeds and shallow water tea was naked apart from underwear which had been pulled down and she was like in a heavy state of decomposition so when the body was actually discovered iding who this was was was quite difficult under the hot you know november sun and it definitely wasn't possible to determine a cause of death but it was determined to be tia and so now you've got a missing person's investigation as a murder investigation queensland police have identified a body found on the gold coast as twelve-year-old tiali palmer she hadn't been seen since last friday as she made her way to school in logan her remains were discovered on the banks of the pimpama river on thursday evening it's very important that we speak with anybody who was there over the last seven days and and that's even if they think that they can't help us even if they saw nothing that's really important to us that they come forward and tell us that they saw nothing so who do you eat oh look at first well you start with the obvious ones the tour burns did you have anything to do with the death of team league fun absolutely not all right how was your demeanor that morning she was on on camera she was happy you know it's really sprightly you know um yeah just and i was sort of pleased that she was happy that day you know we're gonna have a good day is there anything you can tell me about this man nothing at all i just um just i dropped her off they are questioned extensively but the investigation moved on the school where t it was last it was canvassed students questioned when was she last seen police investigating the suspected murder of queensland school girl tiali palmer will this morning take their search for information to the place she was last seen they admit they still don't have a motive or no clear cause of death in fact they say they sadly may never know so she was dropped off at the school and then she just disappeared she must have left the school quite early because you know teachers none of the teachers saw her she never attended any uh classes but a few students said yeah senior she was wondering that hall's having a grand all time so finding out when she left was quite difficult also she had a backpack and uniform where were they any sex offenders in the area they were brought in questioned over 300 of them but uh that wasn't a huge lead either it seemed to be going nowhere fast the tour burns they must have seen something though you know she lived with them they might have the key they might just not know it tiali was buried on the 14th of november her funeral attended by over 600 people from the community and beyond [Music] almost five months after the death of tia lee palmer her killer has yet to be identified and mother cindy fears that a 250 000 incentive may not be enough the personal people who know something about this are too loyal to whoever they're helping so i'm guessing that money is not really going to be an issue the people who did it should know that we're not giving in that we have a team of detectives that are committed to uh to finding out what happened and so they should never feel at ease as 2015 became 2016 summer turned to autumn no no new leads emerged in the investigation at all the tor burns were ruled out sex offenders too there were no other likely suspects you know in the area and due to the level of decomposition tia left behind very little clues as to what what actually happened to her [Music] police thought she skipped school that day then perhaps as she was out and about a passing motorist kidnapped her that was one theory you know one of many again i would like to just remind um people that there is a reward available in relation to this investigation it's a 250 000 reward which is available to anybody who provides information leading to the apprehension of the offenders but more importantly as i've said before there is also an indemnity from prosecution available for any person who may have may have been a part of the offence but didn't actually commit the murder themselves it wasn't until may 2016 six months after tia was discovered that um the first real lead came up crime stoppers received an anonymous tip someone called in and had information they had a story to tell and it was about tia and it flipped everything on its head they told of how tia had complained about having stomach cramps in the last couple of weeks of october and how on the 29th of october the torberns had a family meeting the next day tia disappeared this essentially led the police to do a spit take and start re-examining things they had kind of put to bed already maybe the tor burns were just really good at hiding stuff well not in this case actually because around the same time rick daddy rick was also accused of sexual abuse of children out of julene's daycare so this was of course completely surprising to everybody it seems like the tor burns had circled the wagons after tia disappeared to maintain their uh you know respectable family image and around that time the police placed secret recording devices in the torbern home and it revealed her rick and julene coached the boys and also how cracks began to form eventually armed with the evidence they had which also proved they'd committed perjury as they could prove they were lying and had lied they brought in julene and josh [Music] what happened was that anonymous tipster who who called crime stoppers they'd gotten facebook messages from wannabe boy band member trent torburn and the messages went a little something like this basically trent had been having sex with tia tia was 12 he was 19. so he raped her he feared tia became pregnant and went to his parents they had a family meeting and the next day tia friend disappeared out to me and he started to cry and he said mum i've done something terrible and he said um i've had a sexual encounter was yeah and i said oh my god mate i was absolutely stunned shocked i said oh my god how could you let something like that happen i said we will deal with it rick was very concerned because he knows the implications for a boy of his age with a girl of her age he was adamant about him doing jail time that he would go to jail for something like this so we were concerned she could be pregnant or something that evening thursday the 29th of october they had a uh you know family discussion and after rick essentially told everybody julene and the two boys get out of the house especially two boys go somewhere here you'll be seen by others so he was left in a house with tia see behind uh closed doors rick was well what i like to call a real piece of [ __ ] extremely controlling and the rest of the family was afraid of him including young tia she grew to fear him quickly she never wanted to be left alone with him and she started running away from the torbern home and she was alone with rick that evening when they returned the rest of the family uh he told them she was gone she was in fact in his shed and would be dumped along the river the next day the last time that you saw what you saw in life when was it in a bedroom sitting on my bed like i said good night there yeah and um expressed to her that she needed to stay there and put herself to sleep when she was ready sort of thing and where was rick i think he was outside the kitchen door like waiting maybe come back outside okay was there anyone else in the house nobody else in the house no and then you left the exact words it's all taken care of or something what do you mean by that said don't worry don't ask any questions i've taken care of it um and i went to go to her room and he said don't go in there you know you said that he was a bit worried about what might happen to trent yeah so we're going from that to killing a while you're out yeah i would never have left the house if i thought that i had no indication no feeling that he would do something like that at all zero on the believability scale the sightings of tia at school the sightings which made the police believe that she actually had been dropped off at school false sightings they wore school uniform every day in school is like groundhog day you know i'm sure they thought they saw her rick never dropped her off that morning that was all a story he told the police i didn't know about it until um until she had been murdered um and i was informed later that day of everything that had happened and she had had sex with my brother at a point i don't know when dad called us into the lounge room to um yeah to discuss that um there was a few things happening trent had um it was at that point that i was then informed about what tran had done with tia and dad called us in sat us down and proceeded to explain that trent had had sex with tia and you know i really didn't want to look at either of them and that proceeded to say that we all had to protect trent we will have to um keep a story amongst all amongst everyone um and public and everyone else that that the next day tia was going to go missing from school but he then informed me that tea was his exact words by tia is no longer with us um and also he said i hope you understand what that means during that discussion at home did you discuss with you the intricacies of how she was killed no i still don't know what happened there i just know that he did that he didn't do it um right and he said to us that it's best we don't know how it happened because the less we hope the less we can tell rick murdered tia because his son slept with her raped her and feared she may be pregnant why seems to be to protect the family image reputation i mean this [ __ ] abused sexual abuse other kids so i i wanted i wanted to try and tell the police that i that i've been told what had happened but i knew that if i did that i wouldn't make it ten steps out of the door julian and josh became witnesses for the state after they cracked and so it was after rick they went it was determined that he genuinely did drive to the school that morning even though tia was already dead i guess he wanted to make sure his car was spotted and it was on cctv driving by the school in mid-september rick's car was seized the police guessed it had been used for something can you tell us why your car was seized can you tell us why your car was seized by police there's out of the gate you're on private property please okay nothing to die you'll have to speak to the crime and corruption commission and the [ __ ] storm hit the tour burns not long after it was the 20th of september 2016 that the entire family were taken into custody julene and josh who they did cooperate both were charged with perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice trent was charged with two counts of perjury attempting to pervert the course of justice and also incest rick he was charged with murder and interfering with a corpse and then get a load of this shortly after rick was arrested he collapsed overnight he was taken by ambulance here to the princess alexandra hospital would you understand he's been involved in some kind of self-harm incident and it's believed he may actually face a bedside hearing here in hospital rather than face being lay courthouse today it seemed that at the time of his arrest he knew the rosters were coming and they were not going to take him alive they did though he had taken a load of pills attempting to off himself if only he had the same level of success with that as he did with the rest instead he was placed in a medically induced coma he then woke up a few days later and it was like yep alright so uh where were we oh you killed a child yeah it would come out during the trial that tia had told her foster mother about the abuse and she did nothing the week before her death she also tried to move to a friend's house and the department of child safety were also notified they did [ __ ] all it was only when of course that trent said he thought she may be pregnant that something happened the worst thing in the end josh was sentenced to three months julene 18 months trent was sentenced to four years and rick the big dirty bastard he got life without the possibility of parole for 20 years your conduct throughout all of the offending is made more shocking for the deliberateness of your actions and your willingness to coerce every member of your family to maintain false accounts in an effort to cover up your despicable behavior and now in 2021 i'll accept rick they're all out and about so that's fun what wasn't fun though was trent's time in prison he got the shite kicked out of him understandable she had nothing to say about her son becoming a target julian what's your response about your son being attacked in prison did he only tell you she was being abused most recently in may 2021 it was announced that rick was to be called before an inquest they needed to determine how tia died he pled guilty to avoid a trial and hence young he avoided really having to say anything about how it actually went although he did say it's kind of drawn a blank on this whole one guys sorry this letter penned by the killer is the only insight he's ever given into the crime in it he writes i have no memory of the night this happened and not much memory of the past two and a half years i don't know how i could in a sane mind do what i have done and that is the end of that one quite a twist a hell of a disturbing one for sure it's like if in you know the sixth uh sense if bruce was he wasn't just a ghost he was also a sex offender what uh royal family that was either gruesome foursome nothing healthy here definitely applied well that's another one from oz in the books glad i kept my amazing striking accent in the books mike [Music] thank you so much for watching i really appreciate you uh taking the time all right here go on i'll see you as always real soon in the next video until then please look after yourselves stay safe [Music] you

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 1,990,667

Keywords: that chapter, tiahleigh palmer

Id: Ck3JCjeCfdM

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 04 2021