Psychic detective ‘I help the police solve crimes’
When Debbie Malone visits theh scene off a crime sheh can see, hear h and feel what tragic g events have unfolded writes SARAH MARINOS
As Debbie Malone stepped onto the abandoned yacht in Hobart’s Sandy Bay, she sensed evil.evi She ducked below deck and felt an excruciating pain at the back of her head – like a blow from somethingg heavy.y
“My head throbbed and I could hardly talk because my teeth felt like tthey’d been broken,” Debbie recalls.
She was on board the Four Winds, the yacht where Bob Chappell, 65, was killed on Australia Day in 2009. Bob was ppresumed to be alone repairing the boat when he was killed. Ththe body of The Royal Hobart Hospital’s chief radiation physicist has never been found.
“In the saloon, I could hear Bob telling me he’d been hit from behind and that his teeth were under the flooring because they’d been knocked out,” says Debbie, 53, of what she saw when aboard the boat in 2011.
“He told me it was windy that night. He’d drifted off to sleep but was woken by a noise on the upper deck. I saw him being followed by a man in dark clothes. Bob was on his way back downstairs when he was hit. I could see him being smashed in the face with one of the yacht’s fire extinguishers – that broke his jaw and knocked out teeth.”
Debbie says she saw Bob’s body being wrapped in a sail. According to her vision, he was alive but unconscious when his killers lowered him into the ocean and to his death.
To assist police, Debbie produced identikits of three people she believes were involved. Bob’s long-time partner, Susan Neill-fraser, is not one of them. She was convicted of murder but claims she’s innocent. This year she’ll make a final attempt to clear her name and be freed from jail.
Debbie believes her. “I knew nothing about the case before I was invited on board… But I never saw any psychic evidence of Sue being involved in Bob’s murder. Sue’s a lovely lady.”
Helping to solve cold cases was never part of Debbie’s plan. The Sydney mum discovered her unusual talent around the time of the Ivanivanmilatmilat backpacker murders in the late ’80s and early ’90s. She was
working as a typesetter for a newspaper att theth time.ti “I’d go to bed, dream about the girls and know things before they were in the media. A friend who knew a police officer put me in contacontact with the backpacker task forcerce and I’d pass on information I saw in my dreams.” Debbie dreamed that the murderer lived in the Macarthur district of NSW. Eventual convicted killer Milat was indeed from Eagle Vale in that very district. Since then, Debbie has worked on a number of other cases. In 2010, she helped police investigating the death of six-year-old Kiesha Abrahams, working with the police cadaver-dog unit after Kiesha disappeared from her home in Mount Druitt, Sydney, on August 1. A relative of Kiesha’s gaveg Debbie the little girl’s pink bucket hat to help her contact Kiesha. Debbie saw Kiesha suffering emotional and physical abuse from her mother, Kristi, and Kristi’s partner, Robert Smith. “I was shown a sports-type duffel bag… large enough to conceal Kiesha’s body,” says Debbie. She told police she felt Kristi and Robert were involved, and that they’d put the little girl’s body in a bag and buried her in the bush. In April 2011, police charged the couple with Kiesha’s death. The court later found she was killed at home, and her body was placed in a suitcase and buried in bushland.
Ddebbiebbi alsol gave informationifti to police about Kay Docherty and Toni Cavanagh – two teens who disappeared in Warilla, NSW, on July 27, 1979. They’d been planning to hitchhike to Wollongong to go to a disco, without telling their parents.
Aboutt 10 years ago, ana Illawarra detective asked Debbie to help with a cold case – although Debbie wasn’t told which one. “I was given some pieces of jewellery in a small box,” says Debbie.
“I immediately said I could see Toni and Kay appearing before me… All the officers in the room looked shocked.”
Debbie believes the men involved were known, at least to Toni. They picked up the girls, then raped and killed them. Debbie provided two identikits to authorities, and while they’ve yet to find out what happened to the girls that night, Debbie hopes her work will eventually help them solve the mystery. “I hope the identikits will be released so new evidence can come to the surface.”
Reliving cases brings Debbie physical and emotional suffering,g and her psychicpy detective work can put her in danger. She’s been stalked, and her office has been broken into, but she says she pursues each lead in an effort to bring closure for families. “I let them know their loved one wants them to keep living,” says Debbie, who also does her best to provide a sense of hope.
“I pass on messages that prove families will meet their loved one again.”
‘I was shown a duffel bag large enough to conceal Kiesha’s body’