October 3, 2024 • 59 mins
In 2022, David Fisher receives an email from Crystal Jenner, a New Zealand woman living in Australia. She has approached him as her last hope after six years of trying to find a solution to Natalia stealing her photos.
David hears from her, her mother, and a friend who also had had her pictures stolen, one of the men who fell victim to Crystal's face, and a lawyer analyses why Crystal has struggled to get the law to help her.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
How are we going to do this? How did you
envision this? Triptball or natural? My name is David Fisher.
I'm an investigative reporter for the New Zealand Herald, and
that is me speaking. Back in June twenty eleven, I
was at a roadside food court on the Southern Motorway
in Auckland. The Glamorous Life of a Journalist if you've
(00:22):
listened to episode one, I mentioned this meeting briefly. This
happened a few months after my investigation into Natalia Burgess
went live in The Herald on Sunday, The Facebook Predator,
we called her. Then I exposed Natalia after learning she'd
been impersonating a number of young women on social media.
She'd been using their photographs to lure teenage boys and
(00:45):
young men into online relationships. It took me a while
to get Natalia to talk on the record, and I
eventually met up with her at another glamorous dining destination,
the Muffin Break in Westfield Wall in South Auckland. During
that time, I've been building a relationship with one of
the women Natalia had impersonated. It was Natalie's photographs that
(01:08):
she'd been using for one of her main personalities. Natalie
and her mum, Kushler, had been fighting Natalia for several
years at that point, with Natalie's photographs being used as
the basis for Laura West, one of Natalia's main characters. Laura,
you may remember, was the young woman killed off by
(01:29):
Natalia in a fictional car crash at the end of
twenty ten. We picked this truck stop as an in
between location. I picked Natalia up and drove her there.
In the article about the meeting between Natalia, Natalie, and Kushler,
I wrote about how Natalia couldn't take her eyes off Natalie.
(01:52):
As I sat there and watched the two speak, I
could see Natalia reaching out on a number of occasions
to touch New on the arm. She was clearly enamored
to meet her victim, to meet the woman whose face
she'd used, But it took some prompting to get to
the point of what we've come there to do. We've
(02:13):
been sitting here for twenty five minutes half now. I
haven't heard you apologize yet. Do you feel you need to?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, of course I do.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I am absolutely.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
So heartfully sorry that I here's your naders for all
of these people, plus now plus as I was reminded
that I forgot that.
Speaker 6 (02:35):
Plus one of your friend's daughters.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You know, yes, she was a little Yes, I said
to Italia.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
Actions are what sorry?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Story? You know, just the word actions?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
What works?
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Very late? Say sorry, sorry, sorry about the most You're
actually out there? Any help, confessing everything, putting this to
a stop once and for all. Then that's when I'm
to believe that your.
Speaker 8 (02:58):
Li was finished.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
I mean I was, so you carry on the stands
your can you? Because I mean no, just be so
out like you said on sixteen minutes, you know, just for.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yourself, yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The three women discussed a lot during this conversation. We'll
dive back into this in a later episode when we
go more into what Natalie was up to prior to
her and I crossing paths in twenty eleven. We've been
about an hour in that sticky cheap food cart when
I said this to Natalia. You say you want to stop,
and you say you want to get better, and you
say you don't want to do it anymore. Doing that
(03:32):
is going to be really hard, and you're going to
have to give things up, and you're going to have
to make yourself do it. Natalia told me and Natalie
she wanted to stop listening back to that conversation and
that assurance. Thirteen years on, almost are naive taking Natalia
at her word, because, as you've probably worked out by now,
Natalia didn't stop in twenty eleven.
Speaker 9 (03:53):
So my name is Crystal Journa and I was originally
born in New Zealand. I've moved over to Australia when
i was twenty seven and I'm now.
Speaker 10 (04:06):
Thirty seven, so going on ten years living here.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Crystal emailed me towards the end of twenty twenty two.
She told me that a woman called Natalia Burgess had
been using her social media images, and that she'd done
so for almost a decade, crafting false identities that were
then used to trick men and women. Back in twenty eleven,
Natalia had used such images of other people to create
(04:31):
a world of danger and drama and excitement, though she
pulled in believed everything was real. A few years after
she was exposed, after I had outed her, Natalia ended
up in jail. I thought that was the end of
her story, but when Crystal reached out to me, I
(04:51):
discovered that jail was just a short break in a
two decade fantasy that Natalia has played out online. For
the past year, investigating the extent of Natalia's online lies,
spoken to many of the men and women that have
fallen victim to those deceits, and tried to find out
what can be done to stop her. I didn't think
(05:12):
I've investigating Natalia again, but now that I am, I'm
starting to wonder if I missed the real story the
first time it was told. I'm David Fisher and this
is Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer.
Speaker 10 (05:36):
My name's Lucy L.
Speaker 11 (05:37):
Jenna and I currently live in the UK. My daughter
is Crystal Jenna who lives in Surface Paradise in Australia,
and she's basically had her profile used by somebody called
Natalia Burgers for years now, which has impacted a lot
(05:59):
on her life, because, yeah, she's been selling her photos
and basically been trying to pretend that she is the
person behind the pho shows.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Crystal has been living an awesome surfers Paradise life since
arriving in Australia in twenty thirteen. If you haven't been
to Surfers, as the locals call it, you've probably seen
images of it associated with Australia, the skyline of apartment
buildings towers above Golden Sand beaches. The local toroism organization
(06:31):
Destination Gold Coast uses words like iconic to describe it,
calling it an entertainment playground famous for world class nightlife,
holiday vibes and a pumping atmosphere.
Speaker 9 (06:44):
I currently own a couple of businesses, one being a
cleaning company, which I've been doing for the last three
and a half years.
Speaker 10 (06:52):
And I've got a couple of staff that also work
for me, so that's great.
Speaker 9 (06:57):
And I also have a woman's clothing boutiques, so rangers
from like women's active wear, cocktail dresses, and swimwear as well.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And that was a lot of what Crystal used social
media for pushing her business, showing fresh clothing designs, young,
cool creations perfect for the Gold Coast. But that's not
all that was on Crystal social media. She works hard,
but she plays hard too, absolutely living what she calls
her best life. I asked Crystal's mom to describe her daughter.
(07:30):
It's hardly an unbiased view, but this is the life
that Crystal made.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
She's so social.
Speaker 11 (07:36):
Her photos are fun like Obviously she's always having a
good time. Number One, she's super attractive, so she's got
very colorful photo. She's always smiling, laughing, you know, obviously
having fun out with her friends.
Speaker 10 (07:52):
She's got a jet ski.
Speaker 11 (07:53):
So she's out at the beach, She's out with her
dogs a lot. You know, they're just photos that would
appeal to a lot of people because it looks like
she's having a really good life. She's got everything going
on for here, so I think that's attractive to most people.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Crystal's life was so appealing she became the new face
of a cluster of false identities used by Natalia Burgess
since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 9 (08:17):
I would say, stemming back almost eight years now, I've
had random contact with males that all approach me and say, hey,
I've come across a profile with all your photos.
Speaker 10 (08:30):
I've been talking to like.
Speaker 9 (08:33):
A version of use of a cat versh version of you,
not realizing that you're actually a totally different person.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
This is how it usually unfolds. And when I say usually,
Crystal's been through this quite a few times over quite
a few years. It's generally, but not always, men who
approach her they will have connected with the false profile
and in most cases had some sort of prolonged engagement
with a person who has generally been called Kaylei. That's
(09:03):
the chosen first name, and it's an interesting one because
you might recall from the first episode there was the
name Natalia Burgess used for the child she invented, the
child whose fictitious mum, Laura West, died in that car crash.
Kaylie is the name used for almost all of Natalia's fakes,
(09:25):
since she came out of jail the same first name
and a succession of surnames. And when Crystal was told
of and directed to those fake profiles, there was a
pattern that developed when she tried to visit them.
Speaker 10 (09:38):
So usually I'm blocked.
Speaker 9 (09:40):
My personal profile on my Facebook or any social media
is blocked.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
To see how her face is been used, Crystal has
to ask the men again usually men, but not always,
to send her screenshots.
Speaker 9 (09:53):
It'll be any photos that I potentially had, well, any
photos that I actually.
Speaker 10 (09:57):
Had that were public on either my.
Speaker 9 (10:02):
Instagram or my Facebook, so anything that I had it
ahead in or anything that I might have also been
tagged on from friends pages. It would have usually myself
as a profile picture. She also used multiple of my
friends photos and made other profiles on Facebook using their
photos as well, and they would all the profiles would
(10:24):
talk to each other, I guess, making it look more
authentic like And.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's not just that Natalia has used Crystal's face. She
also mined crystal social circles for images to support the
new Kaylee false identities. She's even taken photographs of Crystal's friends'
children off their social media accounts and use them, claiming
they are children of her own.
Speaker 9 (10:50):
This Kaylee person has all these other friends. The profile
will have multiple selfies of myself in whatever caption she
chooses to use. Initially, I was a single woman. Over time,
I've become now as single map. She's used my friend's
children's boat I was from also mostly from Instagram.
Speaker 10 (11:11):
I find there's where she finds a lot of her content.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Now it's the same pattern as twenty eleven, but now
with photos of real children, not just the baby voice
that Natalia would use on phone calls. Crystal doesn't have children,
well she does if you include her beloved dogs. But
by taking photographs of other people's children, possibly even images
(11:36):
in which Crystal features, Natalia is able to add another
layer to the fancy world she's creating for Crystal, this
has gone beyond annoying. There was the awkwardness of men
contacting her and what they expected.
Speaker 9 (11:50):
I mean, obviously, the person she's trying to be is
a lot different to who I am. I mean, like
her alias of me, it does seem like a very
different profile to how I live my life and who I.
Speaker 10 (12:06):
Am friends with. I think she almost plays like, you know, I'm.
Speaker 9 (12:10):
A single woman looking for love, and that's how she
ends up talking to these men.
Speaker 10 (12:16):
I'm almost like a helpless person.
Speaker 9 (12:18):
In her the way that she promotes me, like you know,
single woman just looking for love and someone to help
her out.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
And there was the sinking feeling of having photographs of
big events in her life taken and news for another purpose.
But there was also the impact on Crystal's business. As
a fashion designer and retailer, Crystal needs to be able
to show off her weirs. Social media provides a great
platform to do so, and modeling from Crystal and her
(12:46):
group of friends provides a great showcase and a personal
connection between the viewer and the designer. But not so
much when every photograph is a new chapter in Italia's story.
Speaker 9 (12:58):
I did start making all of my photos and everything private,
so you know, my social media, my Instagram account is
our private. My Facebook, I've borne and physically changed all
my photos so it's friends only to try and stop
it from happening. But on the odd occasion, because I
do own a couple of businesses, I might open up.
Speaker 10 (13:19):
My profile, for instance, for a week or so did
potentially do some advertising.
Speaker 9 (13:24):
And I mean within a week, all my new photos
that I might have will be taken and a new
profile will be made again.
Speaker 10 (13:33):
So just literally any photos that she can get hold of,
she will use.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
The impact isn't felt solely by Crystal. Being a parent
means you never stop worrying about your kids, feeling protective
of them, wanting the best for them, and that was
Lucille for Crystal, along with a growing realization that what
was happening in the online world was having a real
world impact.
Speaker 11 (14:00):
She's quite an emotional person as well. She's quite deep
and you know, she looks like this, well she was
blonde at the time she's start now, but she looks
like this, like cute little blonde, you know. But she's
actually a very very deep person, and especially when she
found out that these guys were getting seriously hurt through this.
(14:20):
It really impacted on her, so she had to take
down all her profiles. Social media plays a big part
in her business because she needs to advertize and she's
part of the brand of her business, so it impacted
on everything this.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Sial told me that during the years this unfolded, there
was a time when Crystal was struggling with depression. That's
not necessarily because her life and her friend's life was
constantly being mined for catfishing content. But it shows, says
these hell that perfect life photos you see on social
media aren't necessarily a reflection of what's really happening.
Speaker 11 (15:00):
I see that, like you said, the photos of somebody
and you think, well, their life's perfect, they must have
the best life ever. But in the background, there are
a lot of things going on with people, including her.
So for her, it was like a massive impact, especially
on her financial side, because she just couldn't put anything
(15:21):
public up because as soon as she put something public up,
Natalia would take the photos and create another profile with them,
and she didn't want to hurt any anyone.
Speaker 10 (15:30):
Else to get hurt.
Speaker 11 (15:31):
But also she's got to run a business.
Speaker 9 (15:34):
As well.
Speaker 11 (15:34):
So yeah, it was really really difficult.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
After I first heard from Crystal, I made contact with
some of the men whom Natalia had lured in using
her photos. Some of these men who were tricked by
Natalia's profiles would sooner than later come across the real
Crystal online, and they mistakenly thought she was the woman
with whom that she had secrets and sexual experiences online.
(15:58):
Since Crystal had spoken to them, she was able to
put me in touch with them. So who are these men?
Largely good dudes living complicated lives.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I'm Jaden Marin and I did own a beekeeping company
for the past ten years.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I'm currently in a rehab Jaden has a meth and
feedomin addiction for which he's seeking help. It was an
addiction that contributed to the prison sentence he had just
finished serving when he met Natalia, or rather he met
Kaylie Rose.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I just recently got out of jail after spending five
and a half months in there. So I got out,
and I might have been out a couple of weeks
and then got back into drug using, and I was
using quite a lot of myth then. So I was
talking to quite a few women because I just got
(16:56):
out of jail, basically, So.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
This was Jaden lonely, wasted and a long time without
genuine warmth, cruising Facebook with hope in his heart and
meth andphetamine in his brain. It's not a great combination
for rational decision making. I met with Jaden when he
was in a rehab clinic in Auckland. He's trying to
get to grips with the addiction that led to a
general breakdown of life in then prison. It was the
(17:21):
right move and I hope it goes well for him.
He was clear minded when we spoke, and he did
so because he recognized how easily someone could be sucked
into Natalia's world. So Jaden was sitting around wasted Facebook,
scrolling and thinking about women.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
I've seen the friend rest or whatever. And then there
was a photo of quite a good looking young blonde
lady and I had a quick flick through the photos,
obviously went through her page a little bit, and she
was constantly posting updates, probably maybe four times a day,
(17:59):
constant photos out and stat us updates.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
And this and that. At this stage and for some time,
Jaden thought the woman who contacted him was as she
presented herself. They started chatting, and one thing that sticks
with Jaden is how eagerly the false accounts sent messages.
Natalia drove the conversation with question after question. Jaden, meanwhile,
(18:24):
wasn't the most ideal conversation partner.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Obviously, I was high on drugs, preoccupied with other people
around me, doing my own thing, and I was trying
to just answering a question. Then there'd been another question
come through all of these messages having EXO on the
end of them, so obviously being a male or that
kind of caught my attention, like, oh, a beautiful woman,
(18:47):
and then she's engaging in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Jaden's interest was beyond Pete. He wanted to know who
this woman was, so went from messenger to the page profile.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Obviously I've gone through that a Facebook page. Was got
quite interested and they looked at the woman.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
The detail that was in the profile was compelling. When
Jaden began exploring the fake profile, it was the detail
that convinced him that she was real.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
She was uploading I'd say, two photos every day and
they're all different, Like whoever had done this, They'd put
a lot of work into this fake Facebook profile and
they muster. They had quite a lot of photos of Crystal. Like,
you went through the profile and it just looked like
a normal Facebook profile. Yeah, it looked quite genuine.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Jaden wasn't the only person at his house that night.
There was a bit of a gathering going on, part
of what was distracting him from a deeper conversation with
the woman he had just met online. But the real
difference to the busy house that night was that, by
a chance, one of those people present knew the real Crystal.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
There was maybe a five year old child and a
photo but with darker skin, and he noticed straight away,
He's like, she doesn't have a kid here on with
this profile.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
As they looked more deeply, other cracks and the fiction emerged.
It took a couple of hours digging and a suspicious
mind already triggered by the photographs of the child, but
there were a number of tales which exposed the page
as fake. Then they made contact with the real Crystal.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
He was friends with the actual Crystal on Facebook, and
we made contact with her and then let her know
what we had found out.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
What it followed is not unfamiliar to Crystal. The fake
page was exposed shut down and Jaden added to the
list of blocked people who couldn't access Natalia's page. This
whole scenario playing out one drug addull evening and left
Jaden with a feeling that hasn't shifted and why he
spoke to me.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
I find it quite disturbing. I talked to quite a
few women while I'm single anyway, you know, I am
a maleso. We do what we do. But I found
it quite actually sickening and disturbing. Was always to the
point where, you know, it made me sick of the stomach.
(21:10):
Were what this woman was doing, half for what it
was doing, partially with the effect that she was having
on Crystal's life. But then if I'm just one of
the people that she's talking to, how many more people
out there is this happening to it?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I spoke to a few men who just didn't realize
the extent of Natalia's deceit. When I told them I
was doing a podcast about this. Many didn't want their
voices heard. They didn't want people who might recognize them
to connect their voice to the stories they told of
the woman they met online. It speaks to the shame
and the embarrassment that a lot of these men feel
about being deceived in a lot of ways. They're like Jaden,
(21:50):
tough guys. There's staunch guys in the real world, guys
who never really give a clue as to what's happening
beneath the surface. I get a few of them to
talk to me, some of them on the record, like Jared,
who lives in Western Australia. These are his words read
by a voice actor.
Speaker 12 (22:08):
What you need to do is get her daughter help,
because obviously she's got her daughter helping her with the
lies and story as well. She used to call me
in the morning saying she just wants a daddy that
her own daddy doesn't want her.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
After I told him there was no daughter. That was it.
The message has stopped. And there's Jake, who lives in Auckland. Jake, well,
he's been pretty messed up by the situation. When I
first spoke to Jake, he was open to an interview,
and then he wasn't, and then he goes to me.
But when we did speak, he told me just how
(22:42):
heavily invested he became in Natalia's world.
Speaker 12 (22:45):
A guy committed suicide over it. That's where I would
have been heading if I'd kept on with it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Jake's likely referring to Peter Russell there, who we spoke
about in episode one. But while it's the opinion of
his mother an ex girlfriend that Natalia is responsible for
his death, my experience is that it's extremely uncommon for
there to be a single reason for suicide. Jake had
a close connection to Natalia, so close and one that
(23:10):
lasted long enough that she adopted his surname for some
of her false characters Jake and Cayley because that's the
name she was using. Kaylie Rose were involved for around
nine months.
Speaker 12 (23:22):
We started talking a lot every day for a couple
of months. I said we need to meet, and she wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
When talking about the guys that Natalia had been involved with,
Jacob described them as really vulnerable, and they were vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
That is.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
One man I spoke to lived in an isolated rural
Australian town, some of those places that would disappear in
a blast of sandy wind. For him, Natalia or Kaylee
as he knew her, was a way out of the
life he had Like the others. She promised him something
that wasn't real, something that couldn't be because she wasn't real,
(24:02):
but as is often the case with Natalia, it seemed
real to him. For years, Crystal had no idea who
was behind the fake profile. There were bread crumbs, little
clues along the way that hinted at a source. Sometimes
there were phone numbers connected to the fake accounts, and
(24:24):
when there were phone numbers, they were New Zealan numbers.
It was a frustrating puzzle until Crystal heard from a
friend back home.
Speaker 9 (24:32):
I had him bessage from one of my friends back
in New Zealand, Sophie, and she said, I think it's
this woman.
Speaker 10 (24:40):
She's made fake profiles of me in the past.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
I've had issues with her for years and years and years.
Speaker 13 (24:49):
So I'm Sophia Jarrett and my friends call me Sophie. Currently,
I'm based here in Darwin and Australia. I encountered Natalia
Burgesson about twenty eleven, and my most recent encounter.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
With her yeah, probably a couple of years ago now.
Speaker 13 (25:08):
So she's been a part of my life intermittently for
the last however long.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Remember Abbe, Laura's sister, Abbey who called Bernie to tell
who Laura had died back in episode one, Abby was
created using the face of Sophie Jarrett, and not only Abby.
Sophie has since encountered many false identities over the years,
for which she holds Natalia responsible. The West sisters, Abbi, Laura,
(25:35):
and the others seemed to have served a number of purposes.
Natalie would use the different accounts to message each other,
discuss family matters and social activities, kind of putting meat
on the bones of a skeleton of falsehood. We know
the Laura West fake identity went back to at least
two thousand and eight, and that Laura's sisters were long
(25:56):
a part of the identity and Natalia had built Sophie
didn't actually discover Natalia had been using her image until
twenty eleven, but we know now that Abby, as she
was called, had been around for a while already.
Speaker 13 (26:10):
So this was when Bibo was huge and everyone was
on Bebo. My friends came across this montage, like a
eulogy montage, with my face all over it, and so
my friend Brooke was kind of panicked, like a U Okay,
I've just seen this video. It says rip and it's
(26:32):
got your face all over it, and I was sort
of shocked.
Speaker 10 (26:37):
And kind of didn't.
Speaker 13 (26:38):
Really believe it, and I was like, no, I'm fine,
I'm here, I'm at Auckland, I'm totally alive.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So Iphi got Brooke to send her a link to
the video so that she could see it.
Speaker 13 (26:48):
And it was one of those with some really sad
funeral music on it and just all these photos of
me saying rap atbe Williams. And that was the first
that I'd ever been made aware that my photos had
been used by someone else.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
At that point, Sophie didn't know who Natalie Burgess was.
No one did actually until April of twenty eleven, when
I'd worked out that she was behind the fakes that
were engaging with teenage boys. Nobody had any idea as
to who was doing it, or how or what their
motivations were. So for Sophie it was really unnerving to
(27:27):
be sitting watching a funeral reel of photographs when she
was supposed to be the person who had died.
Speaker 13 (27:34):
To ladge a formal complaint and make police report about
my images being used, I'd printed off all of the
photos and because I found some BBO profile stuff and
just everything I could find, and I printed off a
stack of paper and brought it into the police station
and said, this woman's.
Speaker 10 (27:53):
Pretending to be me. What can I do about it?
Speaker 13 (27:56):
At this point, I'm actually when I realized she was
me online and I found out she lived in Auckland
as well, I was actually really panicked, and I was
actually really afraid for my personal safety because that's when
I don't know what she's capable of. I'm is she
actually talking me in real life? I posted a lot
on social media about what I'm doing, and so I
(28:18):
was actually kind of scared and wanted something to be
done about it. And when I was there, they're like, well,
there's actually no laws against this right now. You know,
in twenty eleven, there was no protection like identity theft prediction.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That's one part of the story we'll come back to later.
Natalia's conviction in twenty thirteen and jail sentence of two
years and two months was a relief for Sophie for
her a Minton end to Natalia using her photographs as
the face of Abbi. It also seemed as if justice
of a sort had been served. There had been too
(28:55):
a fear that the person who was using her image
online might suddenly appear in her real life, and so
Natalia going to prison also brought an end to that fear.
Speaker 13 (29:07):
I thought that might be the last I had to
deal with her, but it was a few years later
that things started popping up again. I went back and
I was like twenty eighteen she had started profiles and
again of me, and twenty nineteen another profile came out,
(29:28):
and then twenty twenty one, it must have been another
one came out like she's just and throughout I didn't
realize it, but over those years that she'd been following me,
she'd packed up on other friends like Crystal and another
friend of mine, Soraya, and latch onto them too and
(29:52):
started using.
Speaker 10 (29:52):
Their profile photos.
Speaker 13 (29:54):
But she got quite ballsy in twenty and eighteen and
just started using my real name, And I thought, like,
must be a gain to her, and it's got to
be a stab at me for sure, just to start
using my actual name on these fake profiles, Like you know,
you try to stop me, but I can still find
you and still use your photos, and I'm still doing
(30:16):
what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When Crystal began to raise an alarm among her friends
over her images being used for fake profiles, Sophie knew
exactly who was behind it. This was twenty nineteen and
Cristel was being approached online by people, mainly men, who
believed she was the woman they had befriended online, and
(30:37):
for some it went much further than simply being friends.
Cristel was as much in the dark as Sophie Happen
years earlier, and she was baffled. She was being approached
by complete strangers who acted as if they knew her
well and even intimately in a way, it was a
relief to know who was behind it. Was fascinating too,
(31:01):
to discover that Natalia had taken steps to keep Crystal
from learning who she was. Natalia blocked her from accessing
her Facebook page, and when she created false identities using
Crystal's photographs Crystal's mum, Lucille, she wasn't blocked, and in
(31:22):
just a few short years, she had seen the impact
this was having on her daughter.
Speaker 11 (31:27):
I think the biggest impact was when she found out
what these guys had been through with Natalia, and to
think that they thought it was her that was doing it,
you know, like because she was the face behind everything
that they felt like they were speaking to her when
she knew nothing about it at all, and so that's
(31:48):
sort of what I had to say to her, like,
you know, it's not your fault, Like you've done absolutely
nothing wrong with Natalia identified.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Lucille did what any parent would do. She bailed up
the person who was making their child's life a torment.
She did so over messenger and provided me the exchange
with Natalia. This is an important piece of evidence because
it removes any doubt Natalie was behind the false page.
It's also important because it gives an insight into Natalia's
(32:19):
world and her motivations, and also a real vulnerability. Here's
that exchange, voice by two actors.
Speaker 14 (32:27):
Hi there, my daughter just informed me. You've been using
her photos to cat fish young boys. You have already
been to jail for this, and we'll end up there again.
Stop doing it. You are hurting multiple people and stopping
yourself from entering into a real relationship. You're an attractive girl.
Use your real photos and be you to meet someone
who wants to be with you and not a fake you.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
I'll stop doing it. I've handed the fake profile over
to her mate. I think you're looking at the wrong girl.
I'm the one in the back, the fat ugly four
eyes one.
Speaker 14 (33:00):
I know, the one with the glasses. You're not ugly
at all. Stop being so hard on yourself.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
This dialogue goes on for a bit. There's a back
and forth on which Lucy Halle counsels Natalia over her appearance,
being at ease with herself, discovering confidence, searching out those
people at a church that can offer support. She tells
Natalia that these physical things are skin deep. Here's the
real Lucille speaking again.
Speaker 11 (33:26):
So it looks like obviously she's got extremely low self esteem.
So she finds herself very unattractive, and because of that,
she uses the photos to try and get people to
talk to her because she doesn't think if she uses
her own profile that anyone would speak with her. And obviously,
(33:50):
I think that's really untrue, because I think there's someone
out there for everyone, and no matter what you look like,
she someone.
Speaker 10 (33:57):
Will accept her.
Speaker 11 (33:58):
It might not be what she's looking for, but there
will be somebody out there that accepts you as you are.
And so I was trying to say to her, look,
just be yourself and put yourself out there.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
This exchange took place over a number of days. There's
no hint of aggression or anger in Lucille's messages. If
I was to find a way to describe the messaging,
I'd say that Lucille as being a mum. She even
went so far as to have a friend who's a
psychologist speak with Natalia on the phone, and it seemed
(34:31):
like a really positive exchange.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
Thanks for all your help, and thank Crystal for being
understanding about this. It shows what an amazing mum you
are to bring up a daughter like this.
Speaker 10 (34:42):
It's an addiction.
Speaker 14 (34:43):
Once you break the habit, you will be fine.
Speaker 8 (34:46):
I need to stop blaming everyone else for my messed
up life and face it head on and come to
peace with it, and then get on the right medication again.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
When Natalia talks about the right medication, that's in the
context of her telling Lucille she will once again seek
mental health support. Natalia's struggles with mental health was something
I was very conscious of when reporting in twenty eleven.
We spoke then about the struggles she faced and how
they were managed, and it's also been very much in
(35:17):
my mind when approaching the reporting again. They had for
some time been a question in my mind as to
whether it was fair or right to bring such attention
to bear on Natalia. Ultimately, though, you're hearing this story
because the more I investigated, the extraordinary scale of Natalia's
(35:38):
catfishing became clear and the damage she was causing. I've
done what I can to make sure she has the
support she needs, and having done so, the nature of
Natalia's behavior and the issues it raises need to be
publicly aired. Meanwhile, Lucille, being mum to Natalia.
Speaker 14 (36:02):
Just feel better that you're not the only person like this.
Loads of people are in the same situation. It's self
esteem and confidence. You need to look in the mirror
and see all the great things about yourself.
Speaker 8 (36:13):
Thank you for being so understanding. You've got every right
to be mad at me and want me locked up
for this.
Speaker 14 (36:19):
Just don't do it again, as it messes up the
people whose photos you use and their lives are not
as perfect as you think. Everyone has problems.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Natalia incredibly claims she never realized she was hurting anyone.
I say incredibly because in twenty eleven, Natalia told me
she knew she was hurting people, and she'd sat down
with a woman whose face she'd used for the Laura
West character. She had heard firsthand just how distressing it was.
(36:48):
This was the last time Natalia told Lucial, and Natalia
also told Lucille that she'd contact the police to hand
herself in.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
When I rang them, they had no idea what I
was talking about and gave me the advice to hand
over everything to Crystal or someone she trusts.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
So she claimed to have done just that, telling Lucille
that the key, usiname and password for the fake accounts
have been surrendered to a friend of Crystal's. You can
have it too, Natalia told Lucille, sending her a Gmail
address and a password. Thanks, said Lucille, You're welcome, Natalie responded,
(37:25):
and that was the end of the conversation. And you know,
Lucille was feeling pretty good about the way it worked
out until she tried the password and it didn't work,
and soon enough there were new profiles circulating with Crystal's face.
Speaker 11 (37:41):
I thought after our conversation she might stop, because she
seemed to get it, and she seemed to understand, you know,
that she was doing wrong and that she should stole.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Here's the funny thing about this interaction between Lucille and Natalia.
It's actually incredibly similar to one Natalia had with Natalie
and her mum Kushler back when I first investigated this.
There was the same reaching out between the mum and
daughter and Natalia, and the same encouraging messages towards Natalia.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Just such a bright, buvely person and once you've got
that help and you can.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Drawn your personality, yeah, I think that's I mean, I
can't even get a boyfriend both, and it's not like
you know, trying, but I'm interested days ago.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
So let's just forget about Satalia of stuff now. So
if you found a new voice, I'm like, I'm just
but yeah, so awkward to lay my face, but it
was your personality that just saying you know that you
can't just go off by face value.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
And Natalia even handed over her passwords to Natalie back
then to give her control of the accounts that used
her photos. But that's not where the similarities end. Back
in twenty eleven, Natalie and Kushler were also concerned about
what the law could do to stop Natalia.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Why is this not a criminal arrestment?
Speaker 5 (39:12):
Of letters down the place a verts down? If they
have done something to protect you and telling then you
know you would you would have been probably you know
much into recovery, because in my opinion, you're probably gonna
need a lot of help.
Speaker 14 (39:24):
To get that.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
When you know an actidnaal that came out, the police,
the laws was so quick to jump out putting a
you know a law on there that you can't let's
copyright music. But do you understand why don't you upload
a picture to the Internet that's not copyright and anyone
can use it, But if it's proven to be using
in a in a bad manner, that there should be
some law around them to put a stop to that.
Speaker 10 (39:43):
Actually feel this case is so extreme.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
It's the most extreme end of cyber in the restment. Yeah,
that it could be used to shape using on all right,
and so okay, this probably doesn't have any day, is it?
Speaker 1 (39:57):
No, it's extreme ye.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Thirteen years later, Lucille was left wondering the same thing
because when she realized that Natalia didn't stop that she
carried on interacting with people as Kayleie using Crystal's face
and photos. She started to turn to the law as well.
Speaker 11 (40:18):
The only thing she can do is just keep reporting
at but nobody seems to care.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I get a copy of the police file through New
Zealand's Freedom of Information legislation Bristol. She signed a waiver
so that police could bypass who writes to privacy and
that allowed us to examine exactly what happened with her complaint.
Crystal's call to police was made on January seven, twenty nineteen,
where she's recorded as a New Zealander living in Australia.
(40:47):
When I study the police report, the details are all there.
That Crystal's photograph has been used to set up a
fake Facebook profile, that the person who did so Natalia,
had become online ends with a man who was intending
to send her a gift, and that during that call
between Natalia and the man, she dropped her phone. She
(41:11):
had claimed a camera was broken so not able to
be used for video chat, but when she dropped the phone,
she must have bumped a button because clearly it did
work and what it captured was a flash of black
or brown hair, not the blonde hair that Crystal has
or the blonde hair that Kaylie was known for. Instead
(41:34):
of sending a gift, he went searching for the real
Crystal and found her, told her what had happened, and
that's what led to Crystal calling police, not only did
she call, but she followed up with a flood of
screenshots evidence of her identity being hijacked and being used
to fool others. This included an online conversation between Natalia
(41:59):
and a friend of Christal in which Natalia admits she's
behind the fake profile. When people call police for help,
call takers assign a code to the file to guide
the path the complaint will take. But I study Crystal's
police report, I see that the call taker logged it
as A two I. A two I is a general
(42:22):
information code, an oddly generic code given Crystal's complaint alleges
that Natalia was catfishing to scam jewelry and money, and
the advice from the call taker that was for Crystal
to talk to Australian police even though Natalia was in
New Zealand, and to ask Facebook to remove the pages.
(42:44):
To be fair, that wasn't all police did. Crystal also
got an email from a detective constable who had visited
and spoken with Natalia, and the report notes Natalia made
a confession in an email to Crystal. The detective wrote.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
She used your photograph and apologized for doing so, but
there has been no specific offense identified in relation to
any criminal charges to be laid.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Within a month, Crystal had emailed the detective to report
that despite the visit from police, Natalia had again set
up a fresh Facebook page using one of Crystal's newer photographs.
Then she emailed again a month later. In both cases,
according to police records, Cristal's emails were logged, added to
(43:30):
the file and precisely nothing was done. It feels like
a good time is any to take us back to
twenty eleven, while Crystal struggled to get people to take
her case seriously. In twenty nineteen, eight years earlier, Natalia
was charged and then two years later she was sentenced
to jail for two years and two months on three convictions.
(43:55):
So what did she do then and what's so different now?
Hattison is a sharp and experienced lawyer. He's wiry like
a whippet. He's got a sense of energy about him
and the CVE that stretches from New York to New
South Wales and backhead in New Zealand. Along the way,
He's developed a depth of experience in tackling Internet related issues.
(44:19):
Ahead of speaking, I gave Chris copies of the judge's
sentencing notes from twenty thirteen and the two parole board
reports written when Natalias sought release from prison. He also
got a bundle of news articles. But what is really
after was a criminal barrister's keen eye on that twenty
thirteen conviction. What I wanted was an insight into how
(44:42):
police convicted Natalia then, and what he found was both
helpful and frustrating. First though, a primer on what makes
a crime.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Our criminal jurisdiction is it's prescriptive. And that is, unless
there's an actual section in an act or regulation that
prohibits the doing of something or mandates the doing of something,
then it's not a crime. Okay, So if it's not
in the for example, if it's not in the Crimes Act,
it's one source of where you'll find crimes, then it's
(45:16):
not a crime. And this is part of the problem
that you've been investigating, is that the law has a
vacuum over behaviors that ordinary, reasonable, decent people would say
is wrong.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
And there's another point when it comes to crime and
the Internet.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Some of the laws that we currently have that regulate
behavior of people persons, those laws can date back to
not only last century, but over a thousand years ago.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
There's been efforts to contort old laws to fit new circumstances.
Chris calls it shoeharning.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
So there's been a lot of shoehorning going on, and
the law has been slow to catch up. But the
exciting area is that because as technologies changed and behavior
has changed with it, the law has started to I
guess you could say we're seeing green shoots popping through
(46:13):
of new solutions to new problems.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Not back in twenty thirteen police had the same old
laws to apply to a brand new problem. Here, though,
are the charges Natalia faced when you're paired in court
on November twenty two, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 7 (46:31):
Natalia Yvette Burgess, you appear before me for sentencing on
the following one charge of obtaining by deception of over
one thousand dollars, another charge of obtaining by deception between
five hundred dollars and one thousand dollars, and one charge
of interfering with computer systems.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
The first thing to know is that Natalia pleaded guilty.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Judges do have some I mean they have discretions, but
they are directed to take into account sentencing principles which
are contained in our Sentencing Act, and one of the
factors that should be taken into account is the attitude
of the offender okay and pleading guilty and at an
early stage. It's a relevant matter for determining what sentence
(47:16):
it's because generally you get a discount if you're prepared
to plead guilty at an early stage. And what that
is is it's to reflect the fact that the offender
has accepted liability.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Doing so, he explains, meant that the person who's committed
the crime hasn't lumbered the state with the cost of
a trial or created additional trauma for victims, and that
happened in this case. Ultimately, when we get to it,
there was a twenty percent discount. So let's get into
the charges. There were two fraud charges technically called obtaining
(47:49):
by deception and a charge of misuse of a computer system.
One of the fraud charges isn't related to Natalie's catfishing.
It dated from two thousand and six when, through claiming
to be pregnant, Natalia stated a refuge for young pregnant teenagers.
Her only obligation was to pay living costs, which she
(48:09):
didn't and then weeks into her stage she was asked
about the money owed and for proof that she was pregnant,
which she wasn't. That led to Natalia providing a doctor's
letter which had such basic errors in grammar that the
refuge checked that it was authentic. It wasn't, and Natalie
(48:29):
was asked to leave, owing one thousand, six hundred and
fifty dollars. The other two charges are related to catfishing.
In February twenty eleven, Natalia, using the false identity of
Abbi Williams, began an online and telephone relationship with a
thirteen year old At the time, she was twenty six
(48:52):
online as Abby, she was aged between sixteen and eighteen.
As Abby. She had what the judge called telephone sex
with the boy, but that's not what she's charged with.
What comes next is. At one stage, she told the
boy she wanted access to his Facebook page as a
(49:14):
sign of trust. He provided the username and password, which
when Natalia became abusive and upset, she used to access
the account lock him out, and.
Speaker 7 (49:25):
Some of the messages sent by you purporting to be
the child caused him great embarrassment and resulted in the
loss of friendships. The offending occurred during the time of
the christ Church earthquakes, which caused considerable stress to the child.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
The second Ford charge stemmed from a three year period
during which Natalia infiltrated a christ Church family. In this instance,
it was a sixteen year old boy she targeted, posing
as Laura Jane Weston. The relationship spanned the years two
thousand and eight through to twenty eleven, with the fiction
supported by a cast of characters another Laura, a Kylie,
(50:05):
and Anna and even the child.
Speaker 7 (50:07):
You were even able to convince this young man that
you were a three year old by changing your voice
and attitude. No such child existed.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
In this case. Natalia also had access to the teenager's
Facebook page, but there's no sign she did anything untoward. Instead,
the fraud charge was because Natalia borrowed money three hundred
and seventy nine dollars to be exact, apparently to help
raise her non existent daughter, and then after a disagreement,
(50:38):
she refused to repay the outstanding two hundred and eighty
nine dollars. Chris Patterson's help here is really important and insightful.
It helps us understand why Natalie was convicted then, which
might explain why police showed little interests six years later,
starting with misuse of a computer system. This is how
(50:58):
Chris explains it.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
You were using someone else's computer system, you had to
use it not only with their authority, but also pursuance
to that authority. What I mean by that is that
if someone said to you, hey, you can use this
computer for doing our accounts each week, it doesn't mean
you can use the computer to then go in and
steal all the intellectual property from the business. Or look
(51:23):
at what people are sending each other in terms of emails.
How I've read that, and not having access to the
police's evidence they put forward is I'm assuming they were
taking it from the fact that a lot of these
victims were providing her with because she was asking for
it for their Facebook log in details, and then she
was then logging on as them, and then whilst logged on,
(51:45):
she was then doing things that they hadn't authorized her
to do, like, for example, she was sending messages to
their friends that were quite horrific in nature and quite
damaging to these poor young men.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
So wherever the face book servers were, that was the
computer system. The unauthorized access and messages that was the misuse.
It makes sense, but it seems a stretch.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
It's a little bit like trying to use a spanner
as a screwdriver. It's just it wasn't designed for that purpose.
But it's the only one that's there, so the judge
used it. It wasn't an easy fit. Obtaining by deception
was more straightforward because as you know, she was forming
these relationships with these described as boys. You could describe
(52:33):
someone as young men and then under false pretenses like
misrepresenting who she actually was, and then using those false
pretenses to then encourage them and have them pay her
some money.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
And that was the key element to the charge.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Lying per se is not a criminal offense unless it
triggers or causes a chain of reactions. And you know
why we have this provision in our Crimes Act about
obtaining by deceit. So if you lie to someone for
the purpose of obtaining a benefit or causing a loss,
(53:15):
and that benefit comes to you or the loss is
suffered by the other person, that at a real basic level,
that can be a crime. But just saying to someone
I'm a smoking hot, twenty four year old blonde and
I like to spend time at the gym, that's not
a criminal offense at all, even if it's a complete
(53:37):
fabrication that the person saying it is actually a fifty
two year old trucker from Tilmuty.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
So clearly pretending to be pregnant so you can stay
at a refuge for young mums is a flat lie
that secures a financial benefit. With the fraud charge connected
to a catfishing, it was the debts your crew through
pretending to be a teenage girl for the relationship that
she forged with that lie that made it criminal. With Natalia,
(54:06):
it added up to two years and two months in prison.
When twenty nineteen rolled around, Natalia had been out of
prison for three years. We learned from Sophie Jarrett that
she still had access to images from before she was arrested,
and we know from Crystal that Natalia harvested her images
(54:27):
to create a new character, Kaylee. In January twenty nineteen,
a week after Crystal made her complaint, it's assigned to
a detective. Another week passes, and that detective knocks on
Natalia's door. In an email later to Crystal, the detective
scrimes visiting Natalia, who admitted to using Crystal's photograph and
(54:49):
offered apologies for doing so, and she also had an
explanation as to why she'd used Crystal's image and messages
to Lucille. She'd spoken about news, drugs and being off
medication for mental health. And we can't see what explanation
she offered police. That bit's blacked out, but she explained
(55:10):
that there was some sort of trigger that led to
her using Crystal's image. It's clear from Crystal's reply that
the detective told her that Natalia was seeking help. That was,
in Crystal's words, a great outcome, no worries, said the
detective feel free to write again, And in that email
to Crystal is also this line from the detective.
Speaker 6 (55:33):
There has been no specific offense identified in relation to
any criminal charges to be laid.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
Here is barrassed to Chris Patterson again.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
We did have the Harmful Digital Communications Act come into
force and that was in July twenty fifteen. That has
two components to it. There's a civil component, but there's
also a criminal component, and the police could have used
that act, the Harmful Digital Communications Act, to bring a
(56:03):
prosecution against her. The Act sets out an essence that
it's there to protect people from harm being course to
them through their online presence, and that would have been
possibly a better road, in a more appropriate road to
go down. I think if the Natalie Burgers situation occurred again,
that's what I'd expect the police to do.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
This didn't happen. No one pointed Crystal to net Say
for guidance on the civil process where she or someone
she nominated could take action, and the police never seemed
to raise the option of the hdca's criminal pathway. That
was January twenty nineteen. By April that year, police records
(56:47):
showed Crystal again telling police Natalia is still using her
face to trick people. Crystal wrote to the detective in
no response, so she wrote again, and I think it's
fair to say her email read like that of a
woman who really needed someone to listen. Crystal told police
a new profile had been made under yet another alias,
(57:11):
and asked how Natalie was being monitored. To Crystal, she
told police it felt like her case had been put
in the two hard basket. Crystal didn't hear back from
the detective or anyone from police. As much as she
had told police, there was, according to the detective, no
crime being committed and nothing to be done.
Speaker 11 (57:34):
That's quite quite hard as our mother as well, because
you just want to go basically to narsa helland and
sort the skirl owls, you know, like give her a
shake and talk to people and say what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
It's not been easy on Crystal in the same way
it wasn't easy on Sophie or on Natalie back in
twenty eleven. Natalia has hurt many people by taking their
images and impersonating them. But you know, it's even harder
on those drawn in by Crystal's face and then subjected
(58:06):
to Natalia's manipulations. Crystal has told me this, and she's right.
We've already heard on this podcast about the men, the
boys that Natalia manipulated this way. What I didn't understand
back in twenty eleven was that it wasn't just boys
and men that Natali was treating like puppets. What she
(58:30):
did back then and has still been doing now goes
beyond your average catfisher. Natalia was creating characters, crafting their
backstories in their lives, and then trying to write them
into other people's family histories. You've been listening to Chasing Ghosts,
(58:50):
the Puppeteer follow the podcast and the Chasing Ghosts feed
on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and you
can find more in this case that inzidherld dot co
dot zed ethanselves as my producer, with audio engineering by
Alistair Boys. Thanks to my colleagues for lending their voices
to this episode. If you have a story about this case,
(59:12):
contact me at David dot Fisher at inzidherld dot co
dot inz. And if you believe you've encountered behavior online
that matches what we've discussed in this series, you can
find help at netsafe dot org dot z. But if
you feel at risk, don't hesitate contact police
So what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
How are we going to do this? How did you
envision this? Triptball or natural? My name is David Fisher.
I'm an investigative reporter for the New Zealand Herald, and
that is me speaking. Back in June twenty eleven, I
was at a roadside food court on the Southern Motorway
in Auckland. The Glamorous Life of a Journalist if you've
(00:22):
listened to episode one, I mentioned this meeting briefly. This
happened a few months after my investigation into Natalia Burgess
went live in The Herald on Sunday, The Facebook Predator,
we called her. Then I exposed Natalia after learning she'd
been impersonating a number of young women on social media.
She'd been using their photographs to lure teenage boys and
(00:45):
young men into online relationships. It took me a while
to get Natalia to talk on the record, and I
eventually met up with her at another glamorous dining destination,
the Muffin Break in Westfield Wall in South Auckland. During
that time, I've been building a relationship with one of
the women Natalia had impersonated. It was Natalie's photographs that
(01:08):
she'd been using for one of her main personalities. Natalie
and her mum, Kushler, had been fighting Natalia for several
years at that point, with Natalie's photographs being used as
the basis for Laura West, one of Natalia's main characters. Laura,
you may remember, was the young woman killed off by
(01:29):
Natalia in a fictional car crash at the end of
twenty ten. We picked this truck stop as an in
between location. I picked Natalia up and drove her there.
In the article about the meeting between Natalia, Natalie, and Kushler,
I wrote about how Natalia couldn't take her eyes off Natalie.
(01:52):
As I sat there and watched the two speak, I
could see Natalia reaching out on a number of occasions
to touch New on the arm. She was clearly enamored
to meet her victim, to meet the woman whose face
she'd used, But it took some prompting to get to
the point of what we've come there to do. We've
(02:13):
been sitting here for twenty five minutes half now. I
haven't heard you apologize yet. Do you feel you need to?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, of course I do.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
I am absolutely.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
So heartfully sorry that I here's your naders for all
of these people, plus now plus as I was reminded
that I forgot that.
Speaker 6 (02:35):
Plus one of your friend's daughters.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
You know, yes, she was a little Yes, I said
to Italia.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
Actions are what sorry?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Story? You know, just the word actions?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
What works?
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Very late? Say sorry, sorry, sorry about the most You're
actually out there? Any help, confessing everything, putting this to
a stop once and for all. Then that's when I'm
to believe that your.
Speaker 8 (02:58):
Li was finished.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
I mean I was, so you carry on the stands
your can you? Because I mean no, just be so
out like you said on sixteen minutes, you know, just for.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yourself, yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The three women discussed a lot during this conversation. We'll
dive back into this in a later episode when we
go more into what Natalie was up to prior to
her and I crossing paths in twenty eleven. We've been
about an hour in that sticky cheap food cart when
I said this to Natalia. You say you want to stop,
and you say you want to get better, and you
say you don't want to do it anymore. Doing that
(03:32):
is going to be really hard, and you're going to
have to give things up, and you're going to have
to make yourself do it. Natalia told me and Natalie
she wanted to stop listening back to that conversation and
that assurance. Thirteen years on, almost are naive taking Natalia
at her word, because, as you've probably worked out by now,
Natalia didn't stop in twenty eleven.
Speaker 9 (03:53):
So my name is Crystal Journa and I was originally
born in New Zealand. I've moved over to Australia when
i was twenty seven and I'm now.
Speaker 10 (04:06):
Thirty seven, so going on ten years living here.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Crystal emailed me towards the end of twenty twenty two.
She told me that a woman called Natalia Burgess had
been using her social media images, and that she'd done
so for almost a decade, crafting false identities that were
then used to trick men and women. Back in twenty eleven,
Natalia had used such images of other people to create
(04:31):
a world of danger and drama and excitement, though she
pulled in believed everything was real. A few years after
she was exposed, after I had outed her, Natalia ended
up in jail. I thought that was the end of
her story, but when Crystal reached out to me, I
(04:51):
discovered that jail was just a short break in a
two decade fantasy that Natalia has played out online. For
the past year, investigating the extent of Natalia's online lies,
spoken to many of the men and women that have
fallen victim to those deceits, and tried to find out
what can be done to stop her. I didn't think
(05:12):
I've investigating Natalia again, but now that I am, I'm
starting to wonder if I missed the real story the
first time it was told. I'm David Fisher and this
is Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer.
Speaker 10 (05:36):
My name's Lucy L.
Speaker 11 (05:37):
Jenna and I currently live in the UK. My daughter
is Crystal Jenna who lives in Surface Paradise in Australia,
and she's basically had her profile used by somebody called
Natalia Burgers for years now, which has impacted a lot
(05:59):
on her life, because, yeah, she's been selling her photos
and basically been trying to pretend that she is the
person behind the pho shows.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Crystal has been living an awesome surfers Paradise life since
arriving in Australia in twenty thirteen. If you haven't been
to Surfers, as the locals call it, you've probably seen
images of it associated with Australia, the skyline of apartment
buildings towers above Golden Sand beaches. The local toroism organization
(06:31):
Destination Gold Coast uses words like iconic to describe it,
calling it an entertainment playground famous for world class nightlife,
holiday vibes and a pumping atmosphere.
Speaker 9 (06:44):
I currently own a couple of businesses, one being a
cleaning company, which I've been doing for the last three
and a half years.
Speaker 10 (06:52):
And I've got a couple of staff that also work
for me, so that's great.
Speaker 9 (06:57):
And I also have a woman's clothing boutiques, so rangers
from like women's active wear, cocktail dresses, and swimwear as well.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And that was a lot of what Crystal used social
media for pushing her business, showing fresh clothing designs, young,
cool creations perfect for the Gold Coast. But that's not
all that was on Crystal social media. She works hard,
but she plays hard too, absolutely living what she calls
her best life. I asked Crystal's mom to describe her daughter.
(07:30):
It's hardly an unbiased view, but this is the life
that Crystal made.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
She's so social.
Speaker 11 (07:36):
Her photos are fun like Obviously she's always having a
good time. Number One, she's super attractive, so she's got
very colorful photo. She's always smiling, laughing, you know, obviously
having fun out with her friends.
Speaker 10 (07:52):
She's got a jet ski.
Speaker 11 (07:53):
So she's out at the beach, She's out with her
dogs a lot. You know, they're just photos that would
appeal to a lot of people because it looks like
she's having a really good life. She's got everything going
on for here, so I think that's attractive to most people.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Crystal's life was so appealing she became the new face
of a cluster of false identities used by Natalia Burgess
since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 9 (08:17):
I would say, stemming back almost eight years now, I've
had random contact with males that all approach me and say, hey,
I've come across a profile with all your photos.
Speaker 10 (08:30):
I've been talking to like.
Speaker 9 (08:33):
A version of use of a cat versh version of you,
not realizing that you're actually a totally different person.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
This is how it usually unfolds. And when I say usually,
Crystal's been through this quite a few times over quite
a few years. It's generally, but not always, men who
approach her they will have connected with the false profile
and in most cases had some sort of prolonged engagement
with a person who has generally been called Kaylei. That's
(09:03):
the chosen first name, and it's an interesting one because
you might recall from the first episode there was the
name Natalia Burgess used for the child she invented, the
child whose fictitious mum, Laura West, died in that car crash.
Kaylie is the name used for almost all of Natalia's fakes,
(09:25):
since she came out of jail the same first name
and a succession of surnames. And when Crystal was told
of and directed to those fake profiles, there was a
pattern that developed when she tried to visit them.
Speaker 10 (09:38):
So usually I'm blocked.
Speaker 9 (09:40):
My personal profile on my Facebook or any social media
is blocked.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
To see how her face is been used, Crystal has
to ask the men again usually men, but not always,
to send her screenshots.
Speaker 9 (09:53):
It'll be any photos that I potentially had, well, any
photos that I actually.
Speaker 10 (09:57):
Had that were public on either my.
Speaker 9 (10:02):
Instagram or my Facebook, so anything that I had it
ahead in or anything that I might have also been
tagged on from friends pages. It would have usually myself
as a profile picture. She also used multiple of my
friends photos and made other profiles on Facebook using their
photos as well, and they would all the profiles would
(10:24):
talk to each other, I guess, making it look more
authentic like And.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's not just that Natalia has used Crystal's face. She
also mined crystal social circles for images to support the
new Kaylee false identities. She's even taken photographs of Crystal's friends'
children off their social media accounts and use them, claiming
they are children of her own.
Speaker 9 (10:50):
This Kaylee person has all these other friends. The profile
will have multiple selfies of myself in whatever caption she
chooses to use. Initially, I was a single woman. Over time,
I've become now as single map. She's used my friend's
children's boat I was from also mostly from Instagram.
Speaker 10 (11:11):
I find there's where she finds a lot of her content.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Now it's the same pattern as twenty eleven, but now
with photos of real children, not just the baby voice
that Natalia would use on phone calls. Crystal doesn't have children,
well she does if you include her beloved dogs. But
by taking photographs of other people's children, possibly even images
(11:36):
in which Crystal features, Natalia is able to add another
layer to the fancy world she's creating for Crystal, this
has gone beyond annoying. There was the awkwardness of men
contacting her and what they expected.
Speaker 9 (11:50):
I mean, obviously, the person she's trying to be is
a lot different to who I am. I mean, like
her alias of me, it does seem like a very
different profile to how I live my life and who I.
Speaker 10 (12:06):
Am friends with. I think she almost plays like, you know, I'm.
Speaker 9 (12:10):
A single woman looking for love, and that's how she
ends up talking to these men.
Speaker 10 (12:16):
I'm almost like a helpless person.
Speaker 9 (12:18):
In her the way that she promotes me, like you know,
single woman just looking for love and someone to help
her out.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
And there was the sinking feeling of having photographs of
big events in her life taken and news for another purpose.
But there was also the impact on Crystal's business. As
a fashion designer and retailer, Crystal needs to be able
to show off her weirs. Social media provides a great
platform to do so, and modeling from Crystal and her
(12:46):
group of friends provides a great showcase and a personal
connection between the viewer and the designer. But not so
much when every photograph is a new chapter in Italia's story.
Speaker 9 (12:58):
I did start making all of my photos and everything private,
so you know, my social media, my Instagram account is
our private. My Facebook, I've borne and physically changed all
my photos so it's friends only to try and stop
it from happening. But on the odd occasion, because I
do own a couple of businesses, I might open up.
Speaker 10 (13:19):
My profile, for instance, for a week or so did
potentially do some advertising.
Speaker 9 (13:24):
And I mean within a week, all my new photos
that I might have will be taken and a new
profile will be made again.
Speaker 10 (13:33):
So just literally any photos that she can get hold of,
she will use.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
The impact isn't felt solely by Crystal. Being a parent
means you never stop worrying about your kids, feeling protective
of them, wanting the best for them, and that was
Lucille for Crystal, along with a growing realization that what
was happening in the online world was having a real
world impact.
Speaker 11 (14:00):
She's quite an emotional person as well. She's quite deep
and you know, she looks like this, well she was
blonde at the time she's start now, but she looks
like this, like cute little blonde, you know. But she's
actually a very very deep person, and especially when she
found out that these guys were getting seriously hurt through this.
(14:20):
It really impacted on her, so she had to take
down all her profiles. Social media plays a big part
in her business because she needs to advertize and she's
part of the brand of her business, so it impacted
on everything this.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Sial told me that during the years this unfolded, there
was a time when Crystal was struggling with depression. That's
not necessarily because her life and her friend's life was
constantly being mined for catfishing content. But it shows, says
these hell that perfect life photos you see on social
media aren't necessarily a reflection of what's really happening.
Speaker 11 (15:00):
I see that, like you said, the photos of somebody
and you think, well, their life's perfect, they must have
the best life ever. But in the background, there are
a lot of things going on with people, including her.
So for her, it was like a massive impact, especially
on her financial side, because she just couldn't put anything
(15:21):
public up because as soon as she put something public up,
Natalia would take the photos and create another profile with them,
and she didn't want to hurt any anyone.
Speaker 10 (15:30):
Else to get hurt.
Speaker 11 (15:31):
But also she's got to run a business.
Speaker 9 (15:34):
As well.
Speaker 11 (15:34):
So yeah, it was really really difficult.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
After I first heard from Crystal, I made contact with
some of the men whom Natalia had lured in using
her photos. Some of these men who were tricked by
Natalia's profiles would sooner than later come across the real
Crystal online, and they mistakenly thought she was the woman
with whom that she had secrets and sexual experiences online.
(15:58):
Since Crystal had spoken to them, she was able to
put me in touch with them. So who are these men?
Largely good dudes living complicated lives.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I'm Jaden Marin and I did own a beekeeping company
for the past ten years.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I'm currently in a rehab Jaden has a meth and
feedomin addiction for which he's seeking help. It was an
addiction that contributed to the prison sentence he had just
finished serving when he met Natalia, or rather he met
Kaylie Rose.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I just recently got out of jail after spending five
and a half months in there. So I got out,
and I might have been out a couple of weeks
and then got back into drug using, and I was
using quite a lot of myth then. So I was
talking to quite a few women because I just got
(16:56):
out of jail, basically, So.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
This was Jaden lonely, wasted and a long time without
genuine warmth, cruising Facebook with hope in his heart and
meth andphetamine in his brain. It's not a great combination
for rational decision making. I met with Jaden when he
was in a rehab clinic in Auckland. He's trying to
get to grips with the addiction that led to a
general breakdown of life in then prison. It was the
(17:21):
right move and I hope it goes well for him.
He was clear minded when we spoke, and he did
so because he recognized how easily someone could be sucked
into Natalia's world. So Jaden was sitting around wasted Facebook,
scrolling and thinking about women.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
I've seen the friend rest or whatever. And then there
was a photo of quite a good looking young blonde
lady and I had a quick flick through the photos,
obviously went through her page a little bit, and she
was constantly posting updates, probably maybe four times a day,
(17:59):
constant photos out and stat us updates.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
And this and that. At this stage and for some time,
Jaden thought the woman who contacted him was as she
presented herself. They started chatting, and one thing that sticks
with Jaden is how eagerly the false accounts sent messages.
Natalia drove the conversation with question after question. Jaden, meanwhile,
(18:24):
wasn't the most ideal conversation partner.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Obviously, I was high on drugs, preoccupied with other people
around me, doing my own thing, and I was trying
to just answering a question. Then there'd been another question
come through all of these messages having EXO on the
end of them, so obviously being a male or that
kind of caught my attention, like, oh, a beautiful woman,
(18:47):
and then she's engaging in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Jaden's interest was beyond Pete. He wanted to know who
this woman was, so went from messenger to the page profile.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Obviously I've gone through that a Facebook page. Was got
quite interested and they looked at the woman.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
The detail that was in the profile was compelling. When
Jaden began exploring the fake profile, it was the detail
that convinced him that she was real.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
She was uploading I'd say, two photos every day and
they're all different, Like whoever had done this, They'd put
a lot of work into this fake Facebook profile and
they muster. They had quite a lot of photos of Crystal. Like,
you went through the profile and it just looked like
a normal Facebook profile. Yeah, it looked quite genuine.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Jaden wasn't the only person at his house that night.
There was a bit of a gathering going on, part
of what was distracting him from a deeper conversation with
the woman he had just met online. But the real
difference to the busy house that night was that, by
a chance, one of those people present knew the real Crystal.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
There was maybe a five year old child and a
photo but with darker skin, and he noticed straight away,
He's like, she doesn't have a kid here on with
this profile.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
As they looked more deeply, other cracks and the fiction emerged.
It took a couple of hours digging and a suspicious
mind already triggered by the photographs of the child, but
there were a number of tales which exposed the page
as fake. Then they made contact with the real Crystal.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
He was friends with the actual Crystal on Facebook, and
we made contact with her and then let her know
what we had found out.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
What it followed is not unfamiliar to Crystal. The fake
page was exposed shut down and Jaden added to the
list of blocked people who couldn't access Natalia's page. This
whole scenario playing out one drug addull evening and left
Jaden with a feeling that hasn't shifted and why he
spoke to me.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
I find it quite disturbing. I talked to quite a
few women while I'm single anyway, you know, I am
a maleso. We do what we do. But I found
it quite actually sickening and disturbing. Was always to the
point where, you know, it made me sick of the stomach.
(21:10):
Were what this woman was doing, half for what it
was doing, partially with the effect that she was having
on Crystal's life. But then if I'm just one of
the people that she's talking to, how many more people
out there is this happening to it?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I spoke to a few men who just didn't realize
the extent of Natalia's deceit. When I told them I
was doing a podcast about this. Many didn't want their
voices heard. They didn't want people who might recognize them
to connect their voice to the stories they told of
the woman they met online. It speaks to the shame
and the embarrassment that a lot of these men feel
about being deceived in a lot of ways. They're like Jaden,
(21:50):
tough guys. There's staunch guys in the real world, guys
who never really give a clue as to what's happening
beneath the surface. I get a few of them to
talk to me, some of them on the record, like Jared,
who lives in Western Australia. These are his words read
by a voice actor.
Speaker 12 (22:08):
What you need to do is get her daughter help,
because obviously she's got her daughter helping her with the
lies and story as well. She used to call me
in the morning saying she just wants a daddy that
her own daddy doesn't want her.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
After I told him there was no daughter. That was it.
The message has stopped. And there's Jake, who lives in Auckland. Jake, well,
he's been pretty messed up by the situation. When I
first spoke to Jake, he was open to an interview,
and then he wasn't, and then he goes to me.
But when we did speak, he told me just how
(22:42):
heavily invested he became in Natalia's world.
Speaker 12 (22:45):
A guy committed suicide over it. That's where I would
have been heading if I'd kept on with it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Jake's likely referring to Peter Russell there, who we spoke
about in episode one. But while it's the opinion of
his mother an ex girlfriend that Natalia is responsible for
his death, my experience is that it's extremely uncommon for
there to be a single reason for suicide. Jake had
a close connection to Natalia, so close and one that
(23:10):
lasted long enough that she adopted his surname for some
of her false characters Jake and Cayley because that's the
name she was using. Kaylie Rose were involved for around
nine months.
Speaker 12 (23:22):
We started talking a lot every day for a couple
of months. I said we need to meet, and she wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
When talking about the guys that Natalia had been involved with,
Jacob described them as really vulnerable, and they were vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
That is.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
One man I spoke to lived in an isolated rural
Australian town, some of those places that would disappear in
a blast of sandy wind. For him, Natalia or Kaylee
as he knew her, was a way out of the
life he had Like the others. She promised him something
that wasn't real, something that couldn't be because she wasn't real,
(24:02):
but as is often the case with Natalia, it seemed
real to him. For years, Crystal had no idea who
was behind the fake profile. There were bread crumbs, little
clues along the way that hinted at a source. Sometimes
there were phone numbers connected to the fake accounts, and
(24:24):
when there were phone numbers, they were New Zealan numbers.
It was a frustrating puzzle until Crystal heard from a
friend back home.
Speaker 9 (24:32):
I had him bessage from one of my friends back
in New Zealand, Sophie, and she said, I think it's
this woman.
Speaker 10 (24:40):
She's made fake profiles of me in the past.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
I've had issues with her for years and years and years.
Speaker 13 (24:49):
So I'm Sophia Jarrett and my friends call me Sophie. Currently,
I'm based here in Darwin and Australia. I encountered Natalia
Burgesson about twenty eleven, and my most recent encounter.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
With her yeah, probably a couple of years ago now.
Speaker 13 (25:08):
So she's been a part of my life intermittently for
the last however long.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Remember Abbe, Laura's sister, Abbey who called Bernie to tell
who Laura had died back in episode one, Abby was
created using the face of Sophie Jarrett, and not only Abby.
Sophie has since encountered many false identities over the years,
for which she holds Natalia responsible. The West sisters, Abbi, Laura,
(25:35):
and the others seemed to have served a number of purposes.
Natalie would use the different accounts to message each other,
discuss family matters and social activities, kind of putting meat
on the bones of a skeleton of falsehood. We know
the Laura West fake identity went back to at least
two thousand and eight, and that Laura's sisters were long
(25:56):
a part of the identity and Natalia had built Sophie
didn't actually discover Natalia had been using her image until
twenty eleven, but we know now that Abby, as she
was called, had been around for a while already.
Speaker 13 (26:10):
So this was when Bibo was huge and everyone was
on Bebo. My friends came across this montage, like a
eulogy montage, with my face all over it, and so
my friend Brooke was kind of panicked, like a U Okay,
I've just seen this video. It says rip and it's
(26:32):
got your face all over it, and I was sort
of shocked.
Speaker 10 (26:37):
And kind of didn't.
Speaker 13 (26:38):
Really believe it, and I was like, no, I'm fine,
I'm here, I'm at Auckland, I'm totally alive.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So Iphi got Brooke to send her a link to
the video so that she could see it.
Speaker 13 (26:48):
And it was one of those with some really sad
funeral music on it and just all these photos of
me saying rap atbe Williams. And that was the first
that I'd ever been made aware that my photos had
been used by someone else.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
At that point, Sophie didn't know who Natalie Burgess was.
No one did actually until April of twenty eleven, when
I'd worked out that she was behind the fakes that
were engaging with teenage boys. Nobody had any idea as
to who was doing it, or how or what their
motivations were. So for Sophie it was really unnerving to
(27:27):
be sitting watching a funeral reel of photographs when she
was supposed to be the person who had died.
Speaker 13 (27:34):
To ladge a formal complaint and make police report about
my images being used, I'd printed off all of the
photos and because I found some BBO profile stuff and
just everything I could find, and I printed off a
stack of paper and brought it into the police station
and said, this woman's.
Speaker 10 (27:53):
Pretending to be me. What can I do about it?
Speaker 13 (27:56):
At this point, I'm actually when I realized she was
me online and I found out she lived in Auckland
as well, I was actually really panicked, and I was
actually really afraid for my personal safety because that's when
I don't know what she's capable of. I'm is she
actually talking me in real life? I posted a lot
on social media about what I'm doing, and so I
(28:18):
was actually kind of scared and wanted something to be
done about it. And when I was there, they're like, well,
there's actually no laws against this right now. You know,
in twenty eleven, there was no protection like identity theft prediction.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That's one part of the story we'll come back to later.
Natalia's conviction in twenty thirteen and jail sentence of two
years and two months was a relief for Sophie for
her a Minton end to Natalia using her photographs as
the face of Abbi. It also seemed as if justice
of a sort had been served. There had been too
(28:55):
a fear that the person who was using her image
online might suddenly appear in her real life, and so
Natalia going to prison also brought an end to that fear.
Speaker 13 (29:07):
I thought that might be the last I had to
deal with her, but it was a few years later
that things started popping up again. I went back and
I was like twenty eighteen she had started profiles and
again of me, and twenty nineteen another profile came out,
(29:28):
and then twenty twenty one, it must have been another
one came out like she's just and throughout I didn't
realize it, but over those years that she'd been following me,
she'd packed up on other friends like Crystal and another
friend of mine, Soraya, and latch onto them too and
(29:52):
started using.
Speaker 10 (29:52):
Their profile photos.
Speaker 13 (29:54):
But she got quite ballsy in twenty and eighteen and
just started using my real name, And I thought, like,
must be a gain to her, and it's got to
be a stab at me for sure, just to start
using my actual name on these fake profiles, Like you know,
you try to stop me, but I can still find
you and still use your photos, and I'm still doing
(30:16):
what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When Crystal began to raise an alarm among her friends
over her images being used for fake profiles, Sophie knew
exactly who was behind it. This was twenty nineteen and
Cristel was being approached online by people, mainly men, who
believed she was the woman they had befriended online, and
(30:37):
for some it went much further than simply being friends.
Cristel was as much in the dark as Sophie Happen
years earlier, and she was baffled. She was being approached
by complete strangers who acted as if they knew her
well and even intimately in a way, it was a
relief to know who was behind it. Was fascinating too,
(31:01):
to discover that Natalia had taken steps to keep Crystal
from learning who she was. Natalia blocked her from accessing
her Facebook page, and when she created false identities using
Crystal's photographs Crystal's mum, Lucille, she wasn't blocked, and in
(31:22):
just a few short years, she had seen the impact
this was having on her daughter.
Speaker 11 (31:27):
I think the biggest impact was when she found out
what these guys had been through with Natalia, and to
think that they thought it was her that was doing it,
you know, like because she was the face behind everything
that they felt like they were speaking to her when
she knew nothing about it at all, and so that's
(31:48):
sort of what I had to say to her, like,
you know, it's not your fault, Like you've done absolutely
nothing wrong with Natalia identified.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Lucille did what any parent would do. She bailed up
the person who was making their child's life a torment.
She did so over messenger and provided me the exchange
with Natalia. This is an important piece of evidence because
it removes any doubt Natalie was behind the false page.
It's also important because it gives an insight into Natalia's
(32:19):
world and her motivations, and also a real vulnerability. Here's
that exchange, voice by two actors.
Speaker 14 (32:27):
Hi there, my daughter just informed me. You've been using
her photos to cat fish young boys. You have already
been to jail for this, and we'll end up there again.
Stop doing it. You are hurting multiple people and stopping
yourself from entering into a real relationship. You're an attractive girl.
Use your real photos and be you to meet someone
who wants to be with you and not a fake you.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
I'll stop doing it. I've handed the fake profile over
to her mate. I think you're looking at the wrong girl.
I'm the one in the back, the fat ugly four
eyes one.
Speaker 14 (33:00):
I know, the one with the glasses. You're not ugly
at all. Stop being so hard on yourself.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
This dialogue goes on for a bit. There's a back
and forth on which Lucy Halle counsels Natalia over her appearance,
being at ease with herself, discovering confidence, searching out those
people at a church that can offer support. She tells
Natalia that these physical things are skin deep. Here's the
real Lucille speaking again.
Speaker 11 (33:26):
So it looks like obviously she's got extremely low self esteem.
So she finds herself very unattractive, and because of that,
she uses the photos to try and get people to
talk to her because she doesn't think if she uses
her own profile that anyone would speak with her. And obviously,
(33:50):
I think that's really untrue, because I think there's someone
out there for everyone, and no matter what you look like,
she someone.
Speaker 10 (33:57):
Will accept her.
Speaker 11 (33:58):
It might not be what she's looking for, but there
will be somebody out there that accepts you as you are.
And so I was trying to say to her, look,
just be yourself and put yourself out there.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
This exchange took place over a number of days. There's
no hint of aggression or anger in Lucille's messages. If
I was to find a way to describe the messaging,
I'd say that Lucille as being a mum. She even
went so far as to have a friend who's a
psychologist speak with Natalia on the phone, and it seemed
(34:31):
like a really positive exchange.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
Thanks for all your help, and thank Crystal for being
understanding about this. It shows what an amazing mum you
are to bring up a daughter like this.
Speaker 10 (34:42):
It's an addiction.
Speaker 14 (34:43):
Once you break the habit, you will be fine.
Speaker 8 (34:46):
I need to stop blaming everyone else for my messed
up life and face it head on and come to
peace with it, and then get on the right medication again.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
When Natalia talks about the right medication, that's in the
context of her telling Lucille she will once again seek
mental health support. Natalia's struggles with mental health was something
I was very conscious of when reporting in twenty eleven.
We spoke then about the struggles she faced and how
they were managed, and it's also been very much in
(35:17):
my mind when approaching the reporting again. They had for
some time been a question in my mind as to
whether it was fair or right to bring such attention
to bear on Natalia. Ultimately, though, you're hearing this story
because the more I investigated, the extraordinary scale of Natalia's
(35:38):
catfishing became clear and the damage she was causing. I've
done what I can to make sure she has the
support she needs, and having done so, the nature of
Natalia's behavior and the issues it raises need to be
publicly aired. Meanwhile, Lucille, being mum to Natalia.
Speaker 14 (36:02):
Just feel better that you're not the only person like this.
Loads of people are in the same situation. It's self
esteem and confidence. You need to look in the mirror
and see all the great things about yourself.
Speaker 8 (36:13):
Thank you for being so understanding. You've got every right
to be mad at me and want me locked up
for this.
Speaker 14 (36:19):
Just don't do it again, as it messes up the
people whose photos you use and their lives are not
as perfect as you think. Everyone has problems.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Natalia incredibly claims she never realized she was hurting anyone.
I say incredibly because in twenty eleven, Natalia told me
she knew she was hurting people, and she'd sat down
with a woman whose face she'd used for the Laura
West character. She had heard firsthand just how distressing it was.
(36:48):
This was the last time Natalia told Lucial, and Natalia
also told Lucille that she'd contact the police to hand
herself in.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
When I rang them, they had no idea what I
was talking about and gave me the advice to hand
over everything to Crystal or someone she trusts.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
So she claimed to have done just that, telling Lucille
that the key, usiname and password for the fake accounts
have been surrendered to a friend of Crystal's. You can
have it too, Natalia told Lucille, sending her a Gmail
address and a password. Thanks, said Lucille, You're welcome, Natalie responded,
(37:25):
and that was the end of the conversation. And you know,
Lucille was feeling pretty good about the way it worked
out until she tried the password and it didn't work,
and soon enough there were new profiles circulating with Crystal's face.
Speaker 11 (37:41):
I thought after our conversation she might stop, because she
seemed to get it, and she seemed to understand, you know,
that she was doing wrong and that she should stole.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Here's the funny thing about this interaction between Lucille and Natalia.
It's actually incredibly similar to one Natalia had with Natalie
and her mum Kushler back when I first investigated this.
There was the same reaching out between the mum and
daughter and Natalia, and the same encouraging messages towards Natalia.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Just such a bright, buvely person and once you've got
that help and you can.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Drawn your personality, yeah, I think that's I mean, I
can't even get a boyfriend both, and it's not like
you know, trying, but I'm interested days ago.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
So let's just forget about Satalia of stuff now. So
if you found a new voice, I'm like, I'm just
but yeah, so awkward to lay my face, but it
was your personality that just saying you know that you
can't just go off by face value.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
And Natalia even handed over her passwords to Natalie back
then to give her control of the accounts that used
her photos. But that's not where the similarities end. Back
in twenty eleven, Natalie and Kushler were also concerned about
what the law could do to stop Natalia.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Why is this not a criminal arrestment?
Speaker 5 (39:12):
Of letters down the place a verts down? If they
have done something to protect you and telling then you
know you would you would have been probably you know
much into recovery, because in my opinion, you're probably gonna
need a lot of help.
Speaker 14 (39:24):
To get that.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
When you know an actidnaal that came out, the police,
the laws was so quick to jump out putting a
you know a law on there that you can't let's
copyright music. But do you understand why don't you upload
a picture to the Internet that's not copyright and anyone
can use it, But if it's proven to be using
in a in a bad manner, that there should be
some law around them to put a stop to that.
Speaker 10 (39:43):
Actually feel this case is so extreme.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
It's the most extreme end of cyber in the restment. Yeah,
that it could be used to shape using on all right,
and so okay, this probably doesn't have any day, is it?
Speaker 1 (39:57):
No, it's extreme ye.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Thirteen years later, Lucille was left wondering the same thing
because when she realized that Natalia didn't stop that she
carried on interacting with people as Kayleie using Crystal's face
and photos. She started to turn to the law as well.
Speaker 11 (40:18):
The only thing she can do is just keep reporting
at but nobody seems to care.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I get a copy of the police file through New
Zealand's Freedom of Information legislation Bristol. She signed a waiver
so that police could bypass who writes to privacy and
that allowed us to examine exactly what happened with her complaint.
Crystal's call to police was made on January seven, twenty nineteen,
where she's recorded as a New Zealander living in Australia.
(40:47):
When I study the police report, the details are all there.
That Crystal's photograph has been used to set up a
fake Facebook profile, that the person who did so Natalia,
had become online ends with a man who was intending
to send her a gift, and that during that call
between Natalia and the man, she dropped her phone. She
(41:11):
had claimed a camera was broken so not able to
be used for video chat, but when she dropped the phone,
she must have bumped a button because clearly it did
work and what it captured was a flash of black
or brown hair, not the blonde hair that Crystal has
or the blonde hair that Kaylie was known for. Instead
(41:34):
of sending a gift, he went searching for the real
Crystal and found her, told her what had happened, and
that's what led to Crystal calling police, not only did
she call, but she followed up with a flood of
screenshots evidence of her identity being hijacked and being used
to fool others. This included an online conversation between Natalia
(41:59):
and a friend of Christal in which Natalia admits she's
behind the fake profile. When people call police for help,
call takers assign a code to the file to guide
the path the complaint will take. But I study Crystal's
police report, I see that the call taker logged it
as A two I. A two I is a general
(42:22):
information code, an oddly generic code given Crystal's complaint alleges
that Natalia was catfishing to scam jewelry and money, and
the advice from the call taker that was for Crystal
to talk to Australian police even though Natalia was in
New Zealand, and to ask Facebook to remove the pages.
(42:44):
To be fair, that wasn't all police did. Crystal also
got an email from a detective constable who had visited
and spoken with Natalia, and the report notes Natalia made
a confession in an email to Crystal. The detective wrote.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
She used your photograph and apologized for doing so, but
there has been no specific offense identified in relation to
any criminal charges to be laid.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Within a month, Crystal had emailed the detective to report
that despite the visit from police, Natalia had again set
up a fresh Facebook page using one of Crystal's newer photographs.
Then she emailed again a month later. In both cases,
according to police records, Cristal's emails were logged, added to
(43:30):
the file and precisely nothing was done. It feels like
a good time is any to take us back to
twenty eleven, while Crystal struggled to get people to take
her case seriously. In twenty nineteen, eight years earlier, Natalia
was charged and then two years later she was sentenced
to jail for two years and two months on three convictions.
(43:55):
So what did she do then and what's so different now?
Hattison is a sharp and experienced lawyer. He's wiry like
a whippet. He's got a sense of energy about him
and the CVE that stretches from New York to New
South Wales and backhead in New Zealand. Along the way,
He's developed a depth of experience in tackling Internet related issues.
(44:19):
Ahead of speaking, I gave Chris copies of the judge's
sentencing notes from twenty thirteen and the two parole board
reports written when Natalias sought release from prison. He also
got a bundle of news articles. But what is really
after was a criminal barrister's keen eye on that twenty
thirteen conviction. What I wanted was an insight into how
(44:42):
police convicted Natalia then, and what he found was both
helpful and frustrating. First though, a primer on what makes
a crime.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Our criminal jurisdiction is it's prescriptive. And that is, unless
there's an actual section in an act or regulation that
prohibits the doing of something or mandates the doing of something,
then it's not a crime. Okay, So if it's not
in the for example, if it's not in the Crimes Act,
it's one source of where you'll find crimes, then it's
(45:16):
not a crime. And this is part of the problem
that you've been investigating, is that the law has a
vacuum over behaviors that ordinary, reasonable, decent people would say
is wrong.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
And there's another point when it comes to crime and
the Internet.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Some of the laws that we currently have that regulate
behavior of people persons, those laws can date back to
not only last century, but over a thousand years ago.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
There's been efforts to contort old laws to fit new circumstances.
Chris calls it shoeharning.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
So there's been a lot of shoehorning going on, and
the law has been slow to catch up. But the
exciting area is that because as technologies changed and behavior
has changed with it, the law has started to I
guess you could say we're seeing green shoots popping through
(46:13):
of new solutions to new problems.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Not back in twenty thirteen police had the same old
laws to apply to a brand new problem. Here, though,
are the charges Natalia faced when you're paired in court
on November twenty two, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 7 (46:31):
Natalia Yvette Burgess, you appear before me for sentencing on
the following one charge of obtaining by deception of over
one thousand dollars, another charge of obtaining by deception between
five hundred dollars and one thousand dollars, and one charge
of interfering with computer systems.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
The first thing to know is that Natalia pleaded guilty.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Judges do have some I mean they have discretions, but
they are directed to take into account sentencing principles which
are contained in our Sentencing Act, and one of the
factors that should be taken into account is the attitude
of the offender okay and pleading guilty and at an
early stage. It's a relevant matter for determining what sentence
(47:16):
it's because generally you get a discount if you're prepared
to plead guilty at an early stage. And what that
is is it's to reflect the fact that the offender
has accepted liability.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Doing so, he explains, meant that the person who's committed
the crime hasn't lumbered the state with the cost of
a trial or created additional trauma for victims, and that
happened in this case. Ultimately, when we get to it,
there was a twenty percent discount. So let's get into
the charges. There were two fraud charges technically called obtaining
(47:49):
by deception and a charge of misuse of a computer system.
One of the fraud charges isn't related to Natalie's catfishing.
It dated from two thousand and six when, through claiming
to be pregnant, Natalia stated a refuge for young pregnant teenagers.
Her only obligation was to pay living costs, which she
(48:09):
didn't and then weeks into her stage she was asked
about the money owed and for proof that she was pregnant,
which she wasn't. That led to Natalia providing a doctor's
letter which had such basic errors in grammar that the
refuge checked that it was authentic. It wasn't, and Natalie
(48:29):
was asked to leave, owing one thousand, six hundred and
fifty dollars. The other two charges are related to catfishing.
In February twenty eleven, Natalia, using the false identity of
Abbi Williams, began an online and telephone relationship with a
thirteen year old At the time, she was twenty six
(48:52):
online as Abby, she was aged between sixteen and eighteen.
As Abby. She had what the judge called telephone sex
with the boy, but that's not what she's charged with.
What comes next is. At one stage, she told the
boy she wanted access to his Facebook page as a
(49:14):
sign of trust. He provided the username and password, which
when Natalia became abusive and upset, she used to access
the account lock him out, and.
Speaker 7 (49:25):
Some of the messages sent by you purporting to be
the child caused him great embarrassment and resulted in the
loss of friendships. The offending occurred during the time of
the christ Church earthquakes, which caused considerable stress to the child.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
The second Ford charge stemmed from a three year period
during which Natalia infiltrated a christ Church family. In this instance,
it was a sixteen year old boy she targeted, posing
as Laura Jane Weston. The relationship spanned the years two
thousand and eight through to twenty eleven, with the fiction
supported by a cast of characters another Laura, a Kylie,
(50:05):
and Anna and even the child.
Speaker 7 (50:07):
You were even able to convince this young man that
you were a three year old by changing your voice
and attitude. No such child existed.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
In this case. Natalia also had access to the teenager's
Facebook page, but there's no sign she did anything untoward. Instead,
the fraud charge was because Natalia borrowed money three hundred
and seventy nine dollars to be exact, apparently to help
raise her non existent daughter, and then after a disagreement,
(50:38):
she refused to repay the outstanding two hundred and eighty
nine dollars. Chris Patterson's help here is really important and insightful.
It helps us understand why Natalie was convicted then, which
might explain why police showed little interests six years later,
starting with misuse of a computer system. This is how
(50:58):
Chris explains it.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
You were using someone else's computer system, you had to
use it not only with their authority, but also pursuance
to that authority. What I mean by that is that
if someone said to you, hey, you can use this
computer for doing our accounts each week, it doesn't mean
you can use the computer to then go in and
steal all the intellectual property from the business. Or look
(51:23):
at what people are sending each other in terms of emails.
How I've read that, and not having access to the
police's evidence they put forward is I'm assuming they were
taking it from the fact that a lot of these
victims were providing her with because she was asking for
it for their Facebook log in details, and then she
was then logging on as them, and then whilst logged on,
(51:45):
she was then doing things that they hadn't authorized her
to do, like, for example, she was sending messages to
their friends that were quite horrific in nature and quite
damaging to these poor young men.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
So wherever the face book servers were, that was the
computer system. The unauthorized access and messages that was the misuse.
It makes sense, but it seems a stretch.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
It's a little bit like trying to use a spanner
as a screwdriver. It's just it wasn't designed for that purpose.
But it's the only one that's there, so the judge
used it. It wasn't an easy fit. Obtaining by deception
was more straightforward because as you know, she was forming
these relationships with these described as boys. You could describe
(52:33):
someone as young men and then under false pretenses like
misrepresenting who she actually was, and then using those false
pretenses to then encourage them and have them pay her
some money.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
And that was the key element to the charge.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Lying per se is not a criminal offense unless it
triggers or causes a chain of reactions. And you know
why we have this provision in our Crimes Act about
obtaining by deceit. So if you lie to someone for
the purpose of obtaining a benefit or causing a loss,
(53:15):
and that benefit comes to you or the loss is
suffered by the other person, that at a real basic level,
that can be a crime. But just saying to someone
I'm a smoking hot, twenty four year old blonde and
I like to spend time at the gym, that's not
a criminal offense at all, even if it's a complete
(53:37):
fabrication that the person saying it is actually a fifty
two year old trucker from Tilmuty.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
So clearly pretending to be pregnant so you can stay
at a refuge for young mums is a flat lie
that secures a financial benefit. With the fraud charge connected
to a catfishing, it was the debts your crew through
pretending to be a teenage girl for the relationship that
she forged with that lie that made it criminal. With Natalia,
(54:06):
it added up to two years and two months in prison.
When twenty nineteen rolled around, Natalia had been out of
prison for three years. We learned from Sophie Jarrett that
she still had access to images from before she was arrested,
and we know from Crystal that Natalia harvested her images
(54:27):
to create a new character, Kaylee. In January twenty nineteen,
a week after Crystal made her complaint, it's assigned to
a detective. Another week passes, and that detective knocks on
Natalia's door. In an email later to Crystal, the detective
scrimes visiting Natalia, who admitted to using Crystal's photograph and
(54:49):
offered apologies for doing so, and she also had an
explanation as to why she'd used Crystal's image and messages
to Lucille. She'd spoken about news, drugs and being off
medication for mental health. And we can't see what explanation
she offered police. That bit's blacked out, but she explained
(55:10):
that there was some sort of trigger that led to
her using Crystal's image. It's clear from Crystal's reply that
the detective told her that Natalia was seeking help. That was,
in Crystal's words, a great outcome, no worries, said the
detective feel free to write again, And in that email
to Crystal is also this line from the detective.
Speaker 6 (55:33):
There has been no specific offense identified in relation to
any criminal charges to be laid.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
Here is barrassed to Chris Patterson again.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
We did have the Harmful Digital Communications Act come into
force and that was in July twenty fifteen. That has
two components to it. There's a civil component, but there's
also a criminal component, and the police could have used
that act, the Harmful Digital Communications Act, to bring a
(56:03):
prosecution against her. The Act sets out an essence that
it's there to protect people from harm being course to
them through their online presence, and that would have been
possibly a better road, in a more appropriate road to
go down. I think if the Natalie Burgers situation occurred again,
that's what I'd expect the police to do.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
This didn't happen. No one pointed Crystal to net Say
for guidance on the civil process where she or someone
she nominated could take action, and the police never seemed
to raise the option of the hdca's criminal pathway. That
was January twenty nineteen. By April that year, police records
(56:47):
showed Crystal again telling police Natalia is still using her
face to trick people. Crystal wrote to the detective in
no response, so she wrote again, and I think it's
fair to say her email read like that of a
woman who really needed someone to listen. Crystal told police
a new profile had been made under yet another alias,
(57:11):
and asked how Natalie was being monitored. To Crystal, she
told police it felt like her case had been put
in the two hard basket. Crystal didn't hear back from
the detective or anyone from police. As much as she
had told police, there was, according to the detective, no
crime being committed and nothing to be done.
Speaker 11 (57:34):
That's quite quite hard as our mother as well, because
you just want to go basically to narsa helland and
sort the skirl owls, you know, like give her a
shake and talk to people and say what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
It's not been easy on Crystal in the same way
it wasn't easy on Sophie or on Natalie back in
twenty eleven. Natalia has hurt many people by taking their
images and impersonating them. But you know, it's even harder
on those drawn in by Crystal's face and then subjected
(58:06):
to Natalia's manipulations. Crystal has told me this, and she's right.
We've already heard on this podcast about the men, the
boys that Natalia manipulated this way. What I didn't understand
back in twenty eleven was that it wasn't just boys
and men that Natali was treating like puppets. What she
(58:30):
did back then and has still been doing now goes
beyond your average catfisher. Natalia was creating characters, crafting their
backstories in their lives, and then trying to write them
into other people's family histories. You've been listening to Chasing Ghosts,
(58:50):
the Puppeteer follow the podcast and the Chasing Ghosts feed
on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and you
can find more in this case that inzidherld dot co
dot zed ethanselves as my producer, with audio engineering by
Alistair Boys. Thanks to my colleagues for lending their voices
to this episode. If you have a story about this case,
(59:12):
contact me at David dot Fisher at inzidherld dot co
dot inz. And if you believe you've encountered behavior online
that matches what we've discussed in this series, you can
find help at netsafe dot org dot z. But if
you feel at risk, don't hesitate contact police
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