Last Seen Katoomba 02 | The Boyfriend

This is an ABC podcast.

Just a warning before we start, this podcast contains some strong language and themes.

Also, if you haven't heard episode one, head back and start there.

You want to, this is an inquest into the suspected death of Belinda Peasley.

Belinda was last definitely seen at about 8.50pm on 26 September 1998.

She was 19 years old.

This is a recording from the inquest into Belinda Peasley's disappearance and suspected death, held 14 years after she disappeared.

It's rare to get video and audio of an entire inquest, but documentary filmmaker Helen Barrow, who's working with us on this podcast, was granted access to the courtroom to record all three weeks of it.

There are threats, arguments, phone taps, everything that played out behind the closed doors of that courtroom.

It's kind of like a window into Belinda's life in 1998, the world she lived in, the people that surrounded her over those last few months of her life, and the fear she felt.

Your Honour, there is some evidence that there is a code of silence in the Blue Mountains and in particular in Katoomba.

Now that silence was considered a virtue.

We will at this inquest explore whether there is such a code of silence and whether the various people who have made statements to to the police are in fact telling the truth or whether in fact they know something else that they have not yet revealed.

I'm Gina McEwen and this is Unravel.

To get an understanding of what might have happened to Belinda, I'm piecing together evidence from the last few months of her life with testimony from the six main persons of interest named in Belinda's inquest.

Episode by episode, we'll look at each of these six people.

In this episode, the first person of interest, her boyfriend.

What do you mean by, I like it, it's very important, hold on.

Very important you tell the full truth.

Do you understand?

Yes,

so don't mince words.

Your Honour's role at the conclusion of this inquest is to hand down findings as to whether Belinda died and if she died,

the date, place and cause of her death.

Phil Strickland's a criminal lawyer.

He's the counsel assisting the coroner at Belinda's inquest, so you're going to hear from him a lot.

His job is to question everyone in the witness box.

He's got a reputation for being tough, with a relentless stare that can make you crack.

And right now, he's looking at the guy who was Belinda's boyfriend at the time she went missing.

For legal reasons, we're going to disguise his voice and call him Jason.

I want to ask you some questions about your relationship with Belinda Peasley in 1998.

Yes.

Jason isn't in his 20s anymore, and he's bulkier now than the days when he met Belinda.

As he sits in the witness box, he looks awkward in a button-up shirt.

You were her boyfriend at some stage in that year, is that correct?

Correct.

When did you begin going out with her?

Roughly end of June, start of July of 98.

Jason has strong roots in the mountains.

He was in the local footy scene and he comes from a footy family.

Jason and Belinda got together a couple of months after she moved to Katoomba and they were basically inseparable.

They shared a love of heavy metal music and movies.

And Jason moved into Belinda's house pretty much straight away.

So I really liked her.

She was a cool chick.

We enjoyed the same music together.

She was fun to be with, but it was everything else that went with it that I didn't like.

Right.

Everything else was the drugs.

Yes.

Belinda moved to Katumba to start fresh, set up her life and raise a three-year-old son.

But like a lot of 19-year-olds, she wanted a bit of a social life too.

She gravitated towards a group of people she knew through friends of friends, a group known around town as the Junkies.

Remember this was 1998.

The so-called heroin epidemic was wreaking havoc across Australia.

Heroin was way more common then.

It was high quality and cheap because it was flooding in from Southeast Asia and it was the drug of choice for a lot of young people.

The Blue Mountains was no exception to the epidemic and Jason was worried about Belinda's drug use.

He smoked a bit of weed with Belinda and she used speed.

But in those last few months of her life, she'd also started using heroin more often.

Did you approve of the fact that she used speed and heroin?

No I didn't like it no.

Did you tell her you didn't like it?

Yes on many occasions yes.

But he says he liked Belinda so he stuck by her.

She was beautiful.

She was a beautiful girl.

Just three months after they'd got together Belinda vanished.

Here's what we know so far about the last night Belinda was seen alive.

Her neighbours reported to police they could hear yelling and things smashing coming from the direction of her house.

And Belinda had ended up at hospital with cuts on her hand.

Turns out, her boyfriend Jason was with her at the house that night.

So let's go back to the start of the evening.

Belinda had been out drinking, and Jason told the inquest he met up with her in Katoomba about 5.30 or 6pm, and they'd headed back to her house in a taxi.

He says as soon as they arrived, Belinda started storming around the place.

So we went inside and so that's when she walked straight into the bedroom and I sat on the lounge.

That's when I heard the smashing starting in the bedroom.

And what kind of smashing?

Glass or something else?

No yeah glass.

It was the bedroom window.

Went to see what was going on and yeah she was throwing things around the room.

Yeah I think say after that went to the bathroom, closed the door and started I could hear the smashing of

I think maybe the mirror and bathroom screen while she was in there.

Jason says Belinda was saying things like no one loves me and I feel all alone and he says this is the first argument they'd ever had.

Do you know why she became angry at you?

No I don't know.

Could you see any blood at that stage?

Mainly in the bathroom I think.

Jason says he saw blood on the shower screen, the mirrors and maybe the floor.

I sort of say calmed her down a a bit and sat on the lounge and grabbed some paper towel and started cleaning her hands up.

I think maybe

lit another cigarette for her.

But Jason says it wasn't long before she started yelling again.

What was she yelling?

It's my house and I can do what I want.

So yeah then proceeded to go back into the bedroom

where she say shut the door and

leant against it and I couldn't get into the room.

Just across the road from from Belinda, her neighbour Ian Griffiths was out in his driveway unpacking the tools from his truck around dusk and he overheard all of this.

I met up with him one afternoon on Belinda's street to talk about what he saw.

I heard the breaking glass

and yelling, so that really got my attention and I walked further down to the backyard to see what was going on.

So Ian walked down to his fence and looked over at Belinda's place.

And he didn't expect what happened next.

The TV came through through the kitchen window

and landed on the ground outside.

The argument continued for about five or ten minutes and then

Belinda

left the house through the front door.

He says he saw Belinda take off down the road and then Jason came out chasing after her.

They stopped a few houses down in the middle of the street.

She was calling me a prick,

telling me to fuck off.

She hated me

And then I remember I'd said, so I don't care what you call me.

You know, I'm taking you back to the house.

So, and then there's walked up, slowly walked up the road, say with me, with my arms around her.

Ian watched as Jason and Belinda walked back past him.

But even though he was just a few meters away, he says they didn't see him.

He saw them go up to her front door, and that's when it all started up again.

It was like someone flicked the switch and

Belinda ripped the front fly screen door off its hinges and they went inside the house and continued the raging argument.

After they went inside, Jason says Belinda told him to leave.

She went into the bedroom, packed me a bag and threw it out the front door and told me to go.

Did you indicate to her that you were thinking of terminating the relationship?

No.

What was your main feeling at this point in time?

Were you fed up?

Were you sick of it?

Were you concerned for her?

All of those things?

Say, yeah, all of the above, I'd say.

Yeah.

So you were getting angry yourself now?

Not so much angry, no.

Yes, I had had enough.

Jason says he walked out and jumped on his BMX bike.

As he took off up the road, he turned and saw Belinda go back inside the house, and he could hear more smashing as he rode away.

He says this is the last time he ever saw her.

Not long after Jason left, the police police showed up.

They saw a cut on Belinda's right hand and she seemed intoxicated.

So they took her up to the hospital, the last place she was seen alive.

So that all happened on the Saturday night.

Then two days later, on the Monday morning, Jason says he rode his BMX back to Belinda's house.

And what did you notice when you arrived back there?

So yeah, that the front door was open.

A few more windows had been smashed.

So he walked in, had a look around,

so surveyed the damage, and

so then had a look around for Belinda.

Then what happened?

What did you do?

So he went back upstairs and sat on the lounge for a bit.

I went to the Burma petrol station before I went there and grabbed myself a pie, sausage roll and a drink and sat down and ate them and sat around for a while.

He says he waited there for a couple of hours and then he left.

Now, there's a note on the police reporting system from that same day.

It says Jason reported Belinda going, quote, berserk on that Saturday night at her house and says she'd smashed property in windows and thrown him out.

The note also says she hasn't been seen at the house for two days and quote, at present, her whereabouts are not known.

Years later at Belinda's inquest, Jason is able to remember that he bought a pie and a sausage roll from the servo that day, but he can't seem to remember talking to police about his girlfriend.

Do you remember reporting the matter to the police on the Monday?

Not clearly, no.

If it's there, then yes, I did.

I'm not suggesting you went to the police station, but do you remember contacting the police station by phone or otherwise?

No, I don't remember doing that.

Were you concerned about Belinda's whereabouts at that time, on the Monday?

Yes.

In the weeks after Belinda disappeared, something strange started happening.

Police got a tip off money was being withdrawn from Belinda's bank account with her ATM card.

And it wasn't just one withdrawal, there were a few, and they kept happening for weeks.

Initially, there was some hope it might have been Belinda, but it didn't take long to work out who was actually making the withdrawals.

It was Jason.

Now, the bank records show that from the Tuesday, that's the 29th of September, and for the next five weeks, you made a number of withdrawals from Belinda's Westpac account.

Correct, yes.

And

you made those withdrawals?

Yes.

At any point in time, did she ever say, look, you know, use this whenever you want?

No, she never said that, no.

Did you withdraw money from the account because you knew

that

she would never find out?

No, I had all intentions of letting her know what I'd been doing with it when upon her return.

But you didn't know whether she'd be returning, did you?

No.

Turns out, on the day Jason went back to Belinda's house, he didn't just sit down and eat a meat pie and a sausage roll.

He also found Belinda's ATM card, and he took it.

Now, his story about where he found it isn't clear and it's changed over the years.

At one point he told police he found it in Belinda's bag in the bathroom.

Then years later he said he found it on top of the fridge.

Wherever he found it, he started using it.

He knew Belinda's pin because she'd sent him up the road before to get money.

When police eventually confronted him about all this, he said Belinda owed him 700 bucks.

So he'd gone to an ATM in Katoomba and taken out $300 of her money.

But what he didn't mention to police at that point were all the other times he'd used her card.

Well, you were open about the fact that you used her key card on one occasion, but you did not tell the police that you had used her key card on many other occasions apart from that.

Do you agree with that proposition?

I agree with that, yes.

So my question is, was that omission deliberate on your part?

No.

No, I'd say had they have asked, then yes, I would have told them that I used it.

But that's just speculation.

I don't know.

I wasn't trying to hide anything.

But why tell them about one withdrawal, but not tell them about all withdrawals?

I'd say that was the only one they asked about, I suppose.

The total amount of money Jason withdrew from Belinda's account wasn't $300 as he'd originally told police.

It was actually six times that, almost $1,800.

So the information you gave to police was inaccurate, wasn't it?

Incorrect.

Yes.

Isn't it the case that you deliberately

gave the police misleading information or false information about the fact that you had withdrawn

close to $1,800 over five weeks from Belinda's bank account?

No, no, as I said, no, I wasn't trying to hide it.

Did you think at the time

that

you should not be withdrawing withdrawing that amount of money, that amount of money, from Belinda's account at the time?

Yes.

I knew it was wrong, yes.

So Jason was taking money from Belinda's account after she was gone.

And as you'll find out, his movements on the night she disappeared aren't entirely clear.

It is possible that Jason just doesn't remember where he went.

because he's talking about something that happened almost 14 years earlier.

Sometimes it's hard to remember what you did last week, let alone 14 years ago.

And this is the big problem with Belinda's case.

If police had asked him about it at the time, his memory of what happened would have been fresh.

But it took police more than eight years to properly investigate Jason's movements around the time Belinda disappeared.

I spoke with lawyer Phil Strickland about this.

Looking back on the inquest, he says one of the most glaring problems with Belinda's case is how it was initially handled by police.

The initial police investigation was inadequate.

The police never treated this as a potential homicide.

They treated this as a

junkie who had gone missing and so the police didn't do any proper forensic sampling, particularly of blood samples that were in her house, in Belinda's house, and they didn't interview a number of critical witnesses.

It is known that the first part of the investigation is the critical one.

If you don't do that right, then it's often very hard to pick up the pieces later.

It's this lack of action in the first weeks after Belinda went missing that would go on to hinder every attempt to investigate Belinda's disappearance for decades.

The way police treated her case has shaped the lives of every person involved.

Her children, her family, her friends, her ex-boyfriend.

So how did it happen?

How did police miss the warning signs?

In the days and weeks after Belinda disappeared, police received a series of calls from people worried about Belinda.

And it's not like police didn't do anything after getting these calls.

They did.

But after each call, they only seemed to do the bare minimum to follow it up.

Three days after she went missing, A government caseworker who'd been helping Belinda called police.

She was worried about Belinda's welfare.

Some police officers went over to the house, including two detectives.

One cop saw blood on the floor, but they didn't test it or take a sample of it.

And that was it until 10 days after Belinda disappeared, when Belinda's mum Leslie called police to report her missing.

This call went out to another police officer at a different police station.

He went out and asked Leslie some questions.

Then he took a photo of Belinda and he pinned it up on a notice board in Katoomba.

He filed a missing person's report noting there were fears for Belinda's safety and that was about it.

This officer, Constable Matthew U'Brien, was questioned at Belinda's inquest.

Did you ever visit Belinda's residence at Trow Avenue?

I don't recall ever going there.

If you had, is it likely there would be some record of that?

Yes.

Did you think it was important for you to actually visit her house, her residence?

Look, to be honest with you,

in reviewing this information, I did question myself about why that doesn't appear to have taken place

subsequent to my attendance to Leslie Peasley's house.

Were you ever asked, or did you ever do any canvass her neighbours or anything of that nature?

No, I did not.

Even though none of these things were done, the police decided they'd done all they could.

Then, just four days after Brian got that call from Belinda's mum reporting her missing, The missing person's report was marked in the police system with a status of, quote, no further investigation.

Is it the case case that on the 10th of October 1998 there was to be no further investigation?

That's what it says.

Matthew Ubrien was a young cop back in 1998 with two years on the job.

The lack of police action around this time can't be pinned on him because the priority given to particular cases wasn't a thing decided by individual officers.

The work priorities were also up to his superiors.

But somehow, the decision was made that Belinda's case should be marked as no further investigation.

You would not expect to see no further investigation on something that required investigation, and they've done that four days after she was reported missing.

The only time you would see that this early on is if she was located and they were locating and writing off the report as no further actions required.

Karen Karakea worked as a police officer in the New South Wales Coronial Investigations team and with the missing persons unit around the time Belinda disappeared.

And she remembers Belinda's name from her time at the unit.

When I spoke with her, she was shocked to see Belinda's case notes.

She says, normally if a government caseworker, like someone from the Department of Community Services or docs as they were known, if they flag with police, they're concerned.

Police usually pay attention.

No further investigation means that they're not looking actively into it.

And it is surprising because people like docs workers, you know, they're people of authority.

They're people that the police would take their information as quite serious.

For the fact that they've raised concerns, it's certainly not something you would be marking as no further investigation.

It's just so sad, like that these things happen.

Someone's out there that's missing, she's obviously got a child, her mum's looking after the kid, and nobody cared enough to really follow up with it.

So why didn't police consider this case important enough to try and find out where Belinda was?

Even just basic steps like talking to her friends, talking to her neighbours.

It may have had something to do with an early police report.

Because the police who responded to that first call from Belinda's caseworker after she went missing, the cops who went to Belinda's house, these officers filed a report saying Belinda was, quote, an illicit drug user.

The fact Belinda had started using hard drugs, that seems to have really counted against her.

For police, the fact an illicit drug user dropped out of contact with friends and family just didn't seem that strange.

Based upon the information you had at the time, do you think that the

steps that were taken in relation to investigating her whereabouts were adequate?

In hindsight, is that still the question now?

Yes, looking at it now.

There's always a lot more that could be done.

If you review anything, you'd probably do it differently.

But I don't know what differently would be done today.

I mean, in the world of drug users and drug addicts and criminals, I mean, being uncontactable is not really that uncommon.

Well, can I suggest one of the steps that was obvious you could have taken at the time was to visit her house.

Do you agree or disagree with that?

I do agree with that.

And another step you could have taken at the time was to have taken steps as soon as possible to interview her friends and associates.

Do you agree with that?

I do agree with that.

It wasn't until police were told about that series of suspicious ATM withdrawals from Belinda's bank account that they began to work on her case again.

By that point, Belinda had been missing for over a month.

This was when the cops finally took a statement from Belinda's boyfriend Jason after learning he was the one withdrawing her money.

But it would take over 10 years and a new police investigation before they checked his alibi.

We know Jason was with Belinda the night they had a fight when the house was smashed up.

the night she disappeared.

He says that when Belinda kicked him out, he took off on his BMX.

Where did you go?

To Alan Cameron's house.

Jason says after he left Belinda's, he rode to his mate Alan's place.

Alan and his girlfriend were there and Jason says he told them about Belinda going berserk and smashing her house up and how she'd basically kicked him out.

Jason was planning to go to the Rugby League Grand Final the next day with Alan Cameron.

So he says he stayed over at Alan's place.

And then did you stay the night there?

Yes.

Did you go back to Trow Avenue that night?

No.

You certain about that?

I'm 100% yes.

Alan Cameron told the inquest Jason might have come over that night, but he doesn't remember Jason staying over.

Alan's being questioned here by one of the lawyers, Rob Rankin.

We've beeped out Jason's real name.

Did he stay at your house on the night before the grand final?

Not to my knowledge, at all.

Do you have a recollection of seeing

before, this is on the Sunday, before

the train station?

No.

From time to time did

stay at your house?

No.

Do you recall ever staying at your house?

Not that I recall.

On any occasion?

No.

Even though Alan doesn't remember Jason staying that night, he does remember catching an early train with him the next day, on the Sunday, from Katoomba to Sydney for the NRL Grand Final.

There are plenty of people who say Jason was at the footy, and there's no evidence that he he did or said anything unusual that day.

Jason's team, the Brisbane Broncos, won, so they went out and celebrated.

There was something else about Belinda that came up when Jason was on the stand at Belinda's inquest.

Something that didn't come out until years after she disappeared.

Jason thought she might have been pregnant.

When you say Belinda thought she may have been pregnant,

I think you said a few weeks before the night she disappeared.

Is that right?

Yes.

On what basis did she think

she may have been pregnant?

I think she would more so or

say the way she said her body was changing or say morning sickness or

symptoms, I suppose.

Jason says he never saw a test, so he wasn't sure she was pregnant.

He told police he had, quote, mixed emotions about the idea because he didn't like her using drugs if she was pregnant.

Jason also knew his dad wasn't too keen on his relationship with Belinda.

Did you ever tell your father that

Belinda had said to you she thought she may be pregnant?

I may have after

she disappeared but not before, no.

Not before.

Did your father ever express to you any unhappiness at all that you were going out with Belinda Peasley?

I think so, yes.

So more so the crowd.

Well did you tell him to butt out?

It's not his business, it's mine?

Something like that?

Probably not because

I knew that he was right

about the crowd.

So you're saying what he said to you was not so much he was anti-Belinda, he was anti-the crowd she hang out with.

Pretty much, yes.

But also didn't he exp you knew he was very anti-drugs, didn't you?

Yes.

Very strongly so.

Yes.

And he told you that, didn't he?

You were in no mistake about what his views were about drugs.

Yes.

And people that took drugs.

Yes.

What did he call them?

No, they were junkies.

He didn't like them.

Jason's dad, who we'll call John, is a heavy-built guy like Jason.

When he's called to the stand at Belinda's inquest, he's a bigger presence than his son, and he's more certain of himself.

He's being questioned here by lawyer Rob Rankin.

And again, we've beeped out Jason's real name.

Were you concerned about the fact that

Belinda might fall pregnant to ⁇

No, I wasn't.

Although I was concerned that my son was

into the drugs with her.

How did you feel about the fact that your son was romantically involved with a woman who you understood to be using very hard drugs?

Well, I wasn't very happy about it.

I couldn't imagine anybody would be.

There was other evidence presented about certain comments John had made.

One of these comments came about a decade after Belinda disappeared, when when John's other son, who we'll call Dave, came back from overseas with big news.

His partner was pregnant and Dave remembers his dad saying something about it.

During the course of that conversation you said that it's easy to get rid of one like the girl at the bottom of the harbour.

No.

No, I don't think it is.

What do you say?

Do you say you didn't say those words?

No, I wouldn't have said that, no.

Because I couldn't wait to have a grandchild.

So you understood the reference to the girl, to get rid of

You meant getting rid of the pregnancy, to name the pregnancy.

No, I wouldn't, no, of course I wouldn't want him to get rid of the pregnancy.

So Dave and his dad remember this conversation differently.

It's worth noting too that Dave has previously told police that he's never really had a good relationship with his dad.

The best way of summing up this possible scenario involving Jason and his dad John is for you to hear a statement included in the brief of evidence by one detective detective who spent years investigating Belinda's case.

Detective Diane Earhart wrote this about Jason and John.

A very possible scenario was on the night of the 26th of September 1998, Belinda told Jason she was pregnant and he wasn't happy about this.

Jason has gone to speak with John a short time after this, not at Alan Cameron's as per his unsubstantiated alibi.

John, who's already quite upset about the relationship with Belinda and sees her as someone significantly contributing to his downfall and drug addictions, decides to take care of the situation.

A short time after this, he informs Jason that the problem has been taken care of.

This explains Jason's extremely unusual actions after her disappearance, including spending her money.

We've changed the names in that statement, and it's important to emphasise that this was put forward as a possible scenario.

It's not what the police said did happen.

In fact, it's one of many different possible scenarios that Detective Diane Earhart wrote about in the statement she gave to the inquest.

Diane Earhart also had theories about the other persons of interest.

And you'll hear about those people in the upcoming episodes of this podcast.

Now there's another thing I found in the brief of evidence about Jason and his family.

I don't quite know what to make of it, so I'm just going to lay out all the details for you and you can decide what you think.

It all revolves around a phone tap.

A phone call police intercepted between Jason and his mum.

I found the details in the lead investigator's summary, which was given to the inquest.

This call happened about a year before the inquest, and in it, Jason seems worried about something.

At one point in the conversation, he's referring to his brother talking to police, and Jason says, quote if he says something silly about the dead chick from Sydney he'll sink me when this telephone intercept was presented to Jason in an interview with police Jason said he thought he said dead shit not dead chick Jason also said the woman he was referring to wasn't Belinda but another woman his dad suggested he stop seeing He told police he thought his brother Dave would sink him because Dave didn't know what he was talking about.

So all of this, the summary of the the phone tap, the notes on Jason's responses, it's all in the documents given to the inquest.

But none of this was brought up at the inquest.

Jason wasn't questioned about it and nor was his dad.

I asked the New South Wales Police about this and they said they're unable to comment on telephone intercepts.

New South Wales Police also said that during the inquest into Belinda's disappearance, a number of discrepancies in the evidence were identified.

I eventually got in touch with Jason's mum.

She was on the other end of that phone call with Jason that was intercepted.

She said she didn't want to do an interview, but she did answer some of my questions by email.

I asked for her interpretation of Jason's comment about a dead chick or dead shit, but she didn't answer that question.

And she doesn't remember Jason saying that his brother might sink him.

She also said, quote, hand on heart, if I thought that my son was in any way involved in Belle's disappearance, I would have gone to the police.

And I told him as much myself.

She ended her email by saying her heart breaks for Belinda's family, and she wishes she could say something that would give them closure, but she doesn't have the answers they need.

Neither Belinda's boyfriend Jason or his dad John were ever charged with anything related to this case.

John denied having any involvement in Belinda's disappearance.

What do you say to suggesting that you might have had some involvement in her disappearance?

Ridiculous.

At the conclusion of the inquest, the coroner found there was no evidence that John had the opportunity or intent to do any harm to Belinda and was satisfied that there was no clear evidence implicating John in Belinda's disappearance and suspected death.

The coroner also found there was no evidence that John had heard anything about Belinda's suspicions she was pregnant.

As for Belinda's boyfriend, the coroner said Jason had made errors, but was honest about them, so was found to be of good character.

The coroner said Jason's use of Belinda's ATM card could probably be explained by the fact that he appeared to have some legitimate claim that Belinda owed him money.

And because of his expectation she would return, Jason believed he could use her card in the meantime.

Also, the coroner said there was no evidence that Jason knew for sure that Belinda was pregnant.

Jason says he thought she might have been pregnant, but he never saw any tests.

And the coroner said there was no evidence that Jason would have been unhappy about it anyway.

On top of all that police later discovered that Belinda had gone to the doctor for a test the day before she went missing and pathology records showed she wasn't pregnant after all and the most compelling evidence in Jason's favour according to the coroner was that Jason had spoken to the police and he said he hadn't seen Belinda for two days and didn't know where she was.

The coroner found it was unlikely Jason was involved in Belinda's disappearance and suspected death.

We've contacted both Jason and his father John for comment, but they've declined to respond to our questions.

So if Belinda was on the whole fairly happy with Jason, happy at least it seems about the idea of having a baby with him, it raises the question of who she was afraid of.

As you heard in episode one of this podcast, Belinda had mentioned in the months leading up to her disappearing she was afraid of of someone, that she thought someone was trying to kill her, and she'd quote, dug a hole for herself.

So who and what was she talking about?

The year after Belinda disappeared, her boyfriend Jason told police Belinda wasn't scared of anyone.

But at the inquest, Jason admitted Belinda did seem scared.

And what made you think that she was scared?

Just say the way that she saw it changed.

Can you describe her after mainly after she got robbed?

So I'm going to backtrack here a little bit, taking you back to a few days before Belinda disappeared.

Belinda and her boyfriend Jason came home to her place and they found the house had been broken into and some of her stuff was stolen.

In a small town like Katoomba, word spread quickly and Belinda and Jason soon found out who was responsible.

It turned out they knew the people involved.

They'd been to Belinda's house and even stayed there before.

They were people Belinda had called friends.

Jason later admitted to police that he wondered if these people had, quote, bumped her off.

In other words, he thought they might have killed her.

At the inquest, Jason was pressed on why he hadn't told police about this earlier.

And which is the truth, what you told us, or what you told the police in 2010?

See,

I don't know really.

Say,

I knew that she didn't like the people.

Please hang her in.

What do you mean by like?

It's very, hold on.

It's very important you tell the full truth.

Do you understand?

Yes.

So don't.

So don't mince words.

She didn't say to you, I don't like the people.

Who did she say she didn't like?

What were the names of the people she said she didn't like?

Jason names two people.

Two people he was afraid to name at the time.

Two men who were also persons of interest in Belinda's case.

You'll hear about them in in later episodes.

But in the next episode of Unravel, we'll meet someone who knew these two men well.

Someone who believed she was Belinda's best friend.

Someone who many believe knows more than she's revealing.

Whatever I say,

you just like twist it around and say all this stuff.

Like it's just ridiculous.

Like why do I, I don't want to talk.

I don't want to say anything.

Well there's a family of Belinda Peas that who'd like to know some answers.

Yeah and so would I.

Well then why don't you answer the question?

Because you turn it around into all this stuff that's not even real.

All I'm asking is you tell the truth.

That's what I'm trying to do.

Well then do so.

If you know anything about this case, get in touch if you have any information.

Email unraveltruecrime at abc.net.au

And if this episode has raised any issues for you, please contact your family and domestic violence support services.

In Australia, for confidential counselling and support, you can contact the National Helpline for Family and Domestic Violence, 1-800-RESPECT, on 1-800-737-732.

Subscribe to Unravel wherever you get your podcasts, or download the ABC Listen app.

You've been listening to an ABC podcast.

Discover more great ABC podcasts, live radio and exclusives on the ABC Listen app.