Monday 12 September 2022 02:04 AM Will the mystery of Melissa Caddick FINALLY be solved? trends now
The disappearance of brazen high-rolling conwoman Melissa Caddick after stealing more than $20million to fund her glamorous lifestyle has quickly become one of Australia's greatest unsolved mysteries.
In less than 18 months, it has consumed news headlines, been the subject of countless podcasts, YouTube clips, social media threads and spurred a television miniseries.
In months and years to come, you can bet we'll see a lot more - book deals signed, docudramas, and even a movie.
Although Caddick is long gone from her Wallangra Road mansion in Sydney's eastern suburbs, where she was last seen on November 13, 2020, the public remains fascinated by her disappearance, not just in Australia but also worldwide.
With Caddick missing, many of her secrets remain hidden, but for how long?
Here are some of the questions we all want to be answered - and how likely they are to be ever solved.
Secret one: Could Melissa Caddick be alive?
Could she be alive? Yes. Is she alive? Very, very unlikely - but the lack of definite answers will continue to fuel speculation.
While police suspect she is deceased, she has not officially been declared dead.
The NSW Coroner's Court confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that the 'inquest into the disappearance & suspected death of Melissa Louise Caddick' remains before the court.
Caddick's second husband Anthony Koletti claimed he will never know the cause of her death because CCTV footage was taken from their home during an ASIC raid (pictured) the day before she disappeared
Mr Koletti is pictured with Caddick and her son several years befor she disappeared
The matter is expected to return to the coroner's court this year, although no further hearing dates have yet been set.
A post-mortem examination of the foot found at Bournda Beach on the NSW south coast on February 21, 2021 - and matched to her DNA - proved inconclusive.
An affidavit signed by ASIC's Isabella Allen last May said it was 'unclear at this stage if the pathologist can determine the condition of the remains'.
Tellingly, NSW Police confirmed to Daily Mail Australia on April 7 that they consider the investigation closed.
'I can confirm the NSW Police Force investigation into the disappearance of Melissa Caddick has been finalised,' a NSW Police spokeswoman said in a statement.
The Dover Heights home where Melissa Caddick was last seen on November 12, 2020 before she vanished
In February, her husband Anthony Koletti's blue convertible Audi R8 V10 was sold off at auction for $295,000. She bought it for him in 2016
'A coronial brief of evidence was submitted to the NSW State Coroner on Friday 17 September 2021.'
Last May, Detective Sargent Michael Foscholo, of Paddington police, lodged a 'Report of Suspected Death to the Coroner' in Caddick's case.
He noted she is no longer on any missing person registers.
A month before that, in April 2021 - two months after her detached foot washed up - her family held a private funeral service at Matraville, Sydney.
Secret two: What happened to the money Melissa Caddick stole?
Melissa Caddick stole at least $23million from 72 investors via her fake financial advice firm Maliver.
She used much of the missing millions - by some estimates up to $40million - to fund an expensive lifestyle including buying expensive overseas holidays, jewellery, sports cars, high fashion label dresses and shoes and artworks.
Police records detailed some of her extraordinary spending, including $250,000 with fashion label Christian Dior and $50,000 with Chanel.
She spent hundreds of thousands on jewellery, with one report a single diamond ring from Canturi jewellery she owned cost $300,000.
She took overseas holidays, often flying first class. For example, she spent $120,000 on flights to go skiing at Aspen, Colorado and $63,000 on just two trips to Fiji.
She even spent $25,000 on protein shakes.
As Caddick operated a Ponzi scheme via her company Maliver, by definition, she would have used some investors' funds to make her scam look successful.
As she got hold of funds from new investors, she would make payments to earlier ones - encouraging them to invest even more.
But Caddick had assets that are currently the subject of a Federal Court case as investors seek redress.
The court ruled Jones Partners could sell her assets to pay the investors, including a 'significant' share portfolio, money held in bank accounts and vehicles.
In February, her husband Anthony Koletti's blue convertible Audi R8 V10 was sold off at an auction for $295,000, and Caddick's black Mercedes Benz CLA45 AMG went for $66,000.
Mr Koletti protested the sale, although court records showed she bought it for him on May 6, 2016, for $390,000.
The $361,250 from the sale of the cars will be distributed amongst her defrauded investors.
The liquidators also hope to sell two properties she bought.
Her Wallangra Road home at Dover Heights is valued at $9million, and she bought a penthouse at Edgecliff for her parents, valued at $2.5million.
Secret three: Did Melissa Caddick have an escape plan after ASIC raided her Dover Heights home?
When Caddick disappeared on November 13, 2020, it looked certain she had a getaway plan.
When her foot washed up on Bournda Beach in February, 2021, it either ended the escape plan theories or took them up a notch - depending on your imagination.
The point of the television miniseries, Underbelly: Vanishing Act, was to convert public fascination with her disappearance into TV audiences by dramatizing her supposed escape.
The show explored theories, including that she had a 'safehouse' on the NSW south coast where she stashed cash, that she was picked up by a yacht and she chopped off her own foot.
None have been proved true, and all appear to be little more than storytelling.
The theory about her disappearance makes the most sense is that after ASIC raided her Dover Heights home on November 12, 2020 she took her own life.
But conspiracy theorists rightly point out this hasn't been proved either.
Many people find it unthinkable that a meticulous fraudster like Caddick would not have had a plan ready to go for it, and when it appeared, she might be busted.
But what could it have been?
Secret four: Did Melissa Caddick fake her own death?
Probably the most tantalizingly popular question for all who have followed the Melissa Caddick saga.
This is impossible to know - in theory it's possible, but regarded as extremely unlikely.
'It's possible [she's alive], at the extreme end of what's possible, in that what's been recovered is a foot and medically you can survive without a foot,' criminologist Dr Xanthe Mallett told Daily Mail Australia.
NSW police commisisoner Fuller said many people had fell from eastern suburbs cliffs without their remains washing up several hundred kilometres away
'I know fact is stranger than fiction, however I don't think we can stretch the fact this far.
While people have faked their own deaths before, the emergence of her foot complicates any wild escape theory in more than the obvious way.
But it still didn't prevent speculation.
Even the NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller added to it.
There's always a chance she cut her foot off and is still alive, though it's pretty fanciful,' he told 2GB in March 2021.
'A severed foot is a great throw off.'
Secret five: Did Melissa Caddick sail off in a yacht or hop on an early morning flight?
The yacht scenario was made up by the producers of Underbelly: Vanishing Act.
Caddick did not have a passport in another name and all five of her known passports were handed over by her husband
