October 14, 2024 • 57 mins
Warning: This episode contains discussion around suicide.
In 2011, after outing her for her catfishing, David Fisher sat down with Natalia Burgess for an interview about why she had done what she had.
13 years later, David revisits that interview as he looks for answers as to why she has done what she has, and gets insight from a psychologist on the potential motivations behind her behaviour.
Suicide and depression help services:
If it is an emergency and you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
For counselling and support:
- Lifeline: http://www.lifeline.co.nz, call 0800 543 354 or text 4357 (HELP)
- Suicide Crisis Helpline: www.lifeline.org.nz/services/suicide-crisis-helpline, or call 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
Youth services:
- Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234
- What's Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm)
- Depression helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202 (available 24/7)
- Helpline: Need to talk? Call or text 1737
- Aoake te Rā (Bereaved by Suicide Service): Call 0800 000 053
For more information and support, talk to your local doctor, hauora, community mental health team, or counselling service.
The Mental Health Foundation has more helplines and service contacts - click here for information
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains references to suicide. You can find links
in our show notes to support services. For over twenty years,
Natalia Burgess has created online fantasy worlds using photographs lifted
from the social media accounts of others. She has crafted
worlds where she's pretty popular and surrounded by a group
(00:23):
of friends who are equally beloved. She could have stopped
at breathing life until all these characters and just basked
in the attention that they received, living as Abbi Becker,
Rachel Kayley and all the other names. But she went
so much further. She's the writer, director, and producer of
(00:44):
her own cinematic universe, where the most extraordinary things can
and usually do happen, and often they happen because Natalia
engineers it to be so. Remember, she has called herself
up a tear. She's convinced people to become online friends, lovers,
(01:05):
surrogate grandparents for children who didn't exist. Her characters have
fallen pregnant and miscarried. She's killed off characters with car
accidents and suicide, then broken the news over the phone
to people who shock at the loss. Is still palpable today,
as you've heard over the last three episodes. Many of
(01:26):
those full Bonatalia have strong feelings about her behavior.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
And to this day always looking over my shoulder. I
don't want friendships because of this.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It's her and annoy that she's done all this for
what what reason would she get out of doing this?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It was crazy. It was like she knew where to
hit us were her.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
She's just shadow stalker. I don't trust people. You just
want to co sort the skirl ours, give her a
shake and say what's wrong with you?
Speaker 5 (01:52):
That was almost to the point where it made me
sick and the stomach well of what this woman.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Was do we I'm so so and agree with her.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
She just doesn't get the fact that she's messing with
people's lives.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
She's a monster. She is a monster with no conscience.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You can understand the pain and heartbreak that these people
have felt. It took years for some of them to
realize the truth about how they have been betrayed. Many
are still living with the pain and trauma from those
incidents now. But another thing many share is a need
to understand Natalia, to understand why someone they didn't know
(02:32):
caused them so much pain. My name's David Fisher and
I'm the investigative journalist who exposed Natalia thirteen years ago,
and ever since I've wanted that too. I want to
know what makes Natalia tick, and I know just the
right person to help me understand the puppeteer.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I'm doctor Justin Barry walf She, a forensic psychiatrist. Have
been doing that for about thirty years. What that means
is I am a psychiatrist that works with people that
come into contact with law in various ways, particularly those
people that can make criminal offenses.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Justin works with a wide range of people with mental
health issues who have committed crimes from the low to
the most serious end of the scale. I met Justin
because of the work he was doing identifying people who
have particular fixations with politicians.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
I work as the lead clinician for the Fixator Threat
Assessment Center, which is a novel service that deals with
people that communicate in concerning and threatening ways with politicians.
The reason for doing that is not tech politicians, but
because it identifies a group of people are often an
urgent need of intervention and mental health treatment.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
As a journalist, when I'm writing about people who do
unusual things, I find it possible to ignore the question why.
It's a question that scratches at me because it's not
just an enough to explain what someone is doing. Rather,
I need to understand what drove someone to do what
they did or behave as they have. When it came
(04:10):
to finding a mental health professional with an expertise and
people who had fixations who was stalkers, Dr Barry Walsh
is the perfect sounding board to help me understand Natalia.
I provided Dr Barry Walsh with as much base information
as I could, and that included all the stories published,
But I first encountered Natalia and the judges sentencing notes
(04:33):
from twenty thirteen and the parole reports when Natalia sought
to be released from jail. First though a caveat, one
from me and one from Dr Barry Walsh, but both
with the same message. What we learn here is speculation,
albeit speculation informed through three decades of experience. Here's Dr
(04:55):
Barry Walsh with the same message.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I qualify what I'd say first by indicating I've never
interview this woman. So there's a great deal. I don't
know about it.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
But there's enough there to get an inkling, a speculative
inkling that for me rings true. With all I now
know about Natalia.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
What strikes me about this woman is from a psychiatric perspective.
I see it primarily as having difficulties and profound difficulties
based on the information that's available to me in her
personality functioning, this sense of identity, and the way in
which she expresses herself, and that includes presumably in her sexuality,
(05:34):
and in her ability and facility to relate to other people.
I think these are the kind of things that probably
are contributing to this extraordinary pattern of behavior that we're seeing.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
An extraordinary pattern of behavior, well, that's one way of
putting it. But before we get any further, we need
to take a step back. For three episodes, we've heard
from a lot of Natalia's victims. We've been talking a
lot about Natalia and her characters, but not as much
(06:07):
about the woman herself. I think it's about time you
met Natalia properly to give you a better, more rounded
picture of who she is. I need to share what
I've learned about her over the last thirteen years. And
the first thing I'll tell you about Natalia is that,
in spite of all that she has done, I like her.
(06:29):
She's a bright, bubbly personality. She's also self aware and
she's fragile. This is chasing ghosts, the puppeteer, and it's
time we met the woman who's pulling the strings. Natalia
(06:54):
raved Burgess was born in nineteen eighty four. She's of
some own ethnicity and adopted into a Parlagy or European
family who adoptive parents are hard working, church going people
whose lives have largely revolved around their service to the
Salvation Army. The Natalia Io Church is an important part
(07:14):
of her life. With her parents' lives dedicated to service
through the Salvation Army, they moved around a lot, so
while Natalia might have started in Hamilton, there were periods
lived in Palmsden North and Christchurch and for a period
on the West Coast of the South Island. The West
Coast is one of New Zealand's least diverse communities. In
(07:37):
twenty twenty three, when nine percent of New Zealand's population
identified as Pacifica, the community on the West Coast was
a fraction, not even two percent. It's hard to describe
how isolating that experience would have been. In her nineteen
ninety two class photo from Westport North School. Natalia is
one of the few facing the camera who is not European,
(08:00):
and of those kids, she's the only one who's not Malory.
By her teenage years. Though Natalie was in christ Church
at Avonside Girls High. In classmates I've spoken to, they
remember her as trouble, someone who gossiped, caused drama, and
this was something she acknowledged later in her interview with
(08:20):
sixty Minutes.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
I started stealing to buy friends, and that's probably where
it all started. From buying friends. I can remember very
vivili asist your money and then invite everyone in the
classroom fish ships for lunch.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It was around this period she told me that she
began to abuse alcohol and drugs.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
It started off.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Just like alcohol and we done in christ Church and
agree spa hero one for a little bit. And then
I went to Rehead and supposedly that saved the whole world,
but it didn't.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
It was just a great, big lie. And then we
came up here and I was introduced to pee and
then that was.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
The end of it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
How's that decade old audio quality? If you've been listening
since episode one, then you may recognize that crackle and
all that background noise. That was back in twenty eleven
when I interviewed Natalia for the first time at the
Muffin break in the Westfield malland Monaco, You'll recall that
it took me a while to get the interview with Natalia.
(09:19):
I'd written several stories by the time Natalia finally agreed
to chat, all of them from the perspective of her
victims and those who have been hurt by her. But
this was the first time I really got to know
her story in her own words, though her story can
also be found through court documents from around the country.
There's a lot of darkness in Natalia's backstory, drug abuse,
(09:41):
addiction issues, gang connections.
Speaker 7 (09:44):
I don't know who I.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Am without the drugs because the drugs have been in
my life since I was Bourte. I'd been part of
different games. I've been part of, you know that kind
of stuffed at I was Bourte.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And there's prostitution as well in her past.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
So motions related to with a six week no But
you've been fought by police workers six weekly.
Speaker 7 (10:07):
Why did you do that?
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Where did Jandigo past hitch?
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Yeah, when you're quite young then was that it was
a long time ago down there.
Speaker 7 (10:14):
I was fourteene.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Natalia left christ Church around the age of seventeen or
eighteen and moved to Auckland. That criminal offending continued there,
which was when Natalia started down the path that leads
us to this podcast. Back in twenty eleven, Natalia told
me that in christ Church she had never used the
(10:40):
Internet because the family didn't have a computer. But in
two thousand and one, when Natalia moved to Auckland with
her family, she did have access, and that's when her
relationship with social media began. Back then, the Internet was
very much in its infancy, the age of dial up
modems that you couldn't use the same time in order
(11:01):
to make a phone call. When Natalia ventured online, she
found a corner of the Internet called usenet, a network
of online discussion forums broken up into specific interest areas
used at birth a lot of the terms we now
use online, such as faq or spam and sock puppet,
(11:23):
the term used for online false identities. And that's where
Natalia started using a character called Chickadee and creating an
online persona. That was the beginning of sprawling fancy worlds
that would last for decades.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Yeah, that was like when we first moved to Auckland,
and that was the found a net that was using
different handles rather than different personalities.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
Then it was just an emits of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
As technology developed, it created further richer opportunities.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
And the more the years prose, I think, the more
I got better at it and the more I got clever,
and all technology came into handlight elf wound.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
It's difficult to track when exactly catfishing became what appears
to be a full time job for Natalia. I can
guess that as more social media networks launched that she
slowly found a way online. It was MySpace in two
thousand and three, Bibo in two thousand and five, and
the big one, Facebook in two thousand and six. We know,
(12:28):
for example, that one of her first fully fleshed out
characters was called Amy, who found life on Bibo in
its early days. We also know that it was around
two thousand and six that she started taking the photos
that formed the basis for the Laura West character. At
this time, Natalia was in Wellington because court documents show
(12:53):
that she lied to the charity for Pregnant Young People
about expecting a child, and while in Wellington, there were
two teenagers that she became involved with. I can't say
too much about the case, but I did speak with
the mother of these boys, who recalls the Talia calling
with some big news.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
She said she was pregnant to one or the other
of the boys. This was our first grandchild. They thought
they could handle it, but she's obsessive.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
This was around the time Natalia sought shelter at the
Home for teenage Mums. Ultimately, she was convicted of ford
because well, she wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
I don't know if she knows herself where the truth
ends and the facts begin.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
She tells so many stories.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
She weaves in these stories, she finds out about all
their friends and weaves in people in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
By two thousand and eight, Natalie was in prison and
even from behind bars, was able to reach out and
connect with those she was falling. Another mom I spoke
to a woman whose son Natalia formed a relationship with
through a false character record communication, with her switching from
mainly online to mainly tell her phone. It was only
(14:01):
much later that she learned Natalia had been in prison
and at a time inside overlapped with the increase in
voice calls, but it wasn't only voice calls. Even when
in prison, Natalia claimed she could go online. When I
introduced Natalia to the woman who was the face for
Laura West, this is what she said during that conversation.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
All those times there was chances for me to go online,
still pretend to du online. We could guard there would bring.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Us uff in.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
By twenty ten, Natalie was out of prison and living
with her parents back in Auckland, not far from Monaco.
She told me later that she'd given up drugs at
this point, which we'll come back to. We also know
that she was obsessed with Shortened Street, New Zealand's longest
running soap opera at the time. She would go on
(14:50):
to link her false characters to several of the actors,
claiming either a connection by family or in one case,
claiming that she was carrying an actor's child. Speaking to
me in twenty eleven, a year later, Natalia said that
she had wanted to give it all up.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
I think I was just trying to get rid of it,
Like I got rid of Amy and then I got
seen to jail.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
End the story.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
Amy got rid of I got rid of got seen
to Jaile Inger player story and I dad.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
Deal with anybody ir again. And then when I got
out of jail, I'm not what happened.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I think I just went on Laura's a great profile
and then I just he hatted talking Van and I
had a horrible day at home.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
I think in the probation.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
Officer they had really about session and then I just
ended up starting.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
All over you.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
The death of Amy is not the last time Natalia
killed off her character, but she had plenty of other
characters to take her place. Laura, Rachel Becker, Abby, this
was their time to shine. That's when Natalia's schemes and
machinations went into high gear. The number of people she
engaged with ramped up. This is when she started catfishing
(16:02):
the likes of Ethan and Sam from episode one, when
she met the mother and daughter Bernie and Emma. When
she went after around forty boys from Saint Thomas's School
in Canterbury, it was all consuming, an all but guarantee
that someone somewhere was going to take action, and that
(16:23):
turned out to be me revealing her identity in twenty eleven.
Two years later, she went to jail and when sentenced,
the judge told the court Natalia had around forty convictions
in total, multiple convictions for fraud in number for not
complying with court orders. There she stayed until May twenty fifteen,
(16:46):
when she was released on parole. That is, until she
was caught in breach of a parole condition that she
wasn't to access the Internet, and that led to a
return to jail and another six months on her sentence.
She was eventually released in November twenty fifteen. Then at
(17:06):
some point in twenty sixteen, Kaylie Rose emerges We're in
the face of Crystal Jenna and starts messaging Danica Baxter.
With all that in mind, let's go back to Dr
(17:26):
Justin Barry Walsh, and again I must stress he is speculating.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Look, the first thing is that she sounds like she's
been doing this since the internet's been available to do this,
which leads me to speculate that even prior to that,
she had a proclivity for or a tendency to invent
or to fantasize about herself and who she was. Because
(17:52):
that doesn't just start suddenly. I think that it highlights
that there are enduring aspects of his secological makeup. One
of the things that strikes me is she has this
incredible capacity and tendency in quite a self destructive way,
ultimately to lie and to lie about everything, to lie
(18:12):
about her identity, and to exaggerate in kind of grandiose
and fantastic ways at times as well. You don't look
at all these dramatic things she's claimed. Now, there is
a term for that. It is just a description of
the behavior. We call it pseudo logia fantastic, which just
means a fantastic lying when translated in my experience and
(18:35):
from the limited literature about this as a behavior when
it emerges in the context of personality disturbance, because there
can be other things sitting underneath it, it often seems
to relate to someone who has a profound sense of
inadequacy about who they are, not sure who they are,
and a desire to lie in order to be or
(18:56):
to possess things that she doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Which from reminded me of something that Tarlie has said
on Sixty Minutes.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
I've never felt a traits of and I've never felt
love a mess. I literally didn't like how I was,
I hated my life and so that's when I first
created Amy.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Back to Dr Barry Walsh, as I've had a sense
of inadequacy and low self esteem in terms of who
she is and what she aspires or would like to be.
I mean, so it suggests that one of the functions
of these fantasies is to meet this terrible need that
she has to fill this awful gap. She doesn't know
(19:37):
who she is, and she feels very bad about how
she views herself.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I told Doctor Barry Walsh about the elaborate family tree
I'd found which mapped out the relationships between the personas
the one reference back in episode three.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
That's an extraordinary amount of time and commitment to create
that kind of family tree. All of the stuff that
she does takes an awfu way work. So this consumes
her life. She's spectated in a sense, on this endless
drive to engage it in these ways. She's not just
doing it in her spare time.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
That actually feeds back to one thing that Talie has
said to me in twenty eleven that stood out.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
As much as everyone says they were all faked, that
was my life. I was living on the end of
that cat room, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
I got up in the morning, I went to church,
I did the work stuff, I did whatever I was
doing in a normal day.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
It wasn't my fake's life that I was living. It
was my life.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That makes any sense, it kind of does.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
But but you didn't put your life or your life
gets dissminated through a different place, personalities or whatever it
might be, or.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
No, because when I talk to people on the phone
and it's fake, it's fill my life.
Speaker 7 (20:51):
That I lived.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
She definitely was investing a lot of time in this.
At one point in our chat, she guesses it creating
about ten differentiles, though also stresses how complicated tracking multiple
accounts can be.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
But I don't usually talk to more than one person
at a time. I didn't horribly compared.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I don't know how you keep tracking it anyway, you
keep tracking things.
Speaker 6 (21:14):
In or.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
Stuffed up. So many times I've called this wrong person,
I pulled myself the wrong name. I've called the wrong
boy the wrong name.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
You go.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It should be stressed here. And doctor Barry Walsh did
stress this when we spoke that while we have some
insight from Natalia herself, we are doing a fair degree
of speculation. We also have parole reports which make reference
to mental health and the sentencing notes. There's also Natalia's
(21:45):
own words in which she has spoken of a diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
We know from what you've written about that she's set
to you has borderline personality disorder.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
That's right. Here's me talking to Natalia in twenty eleven,
had mental health assessments.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
Do you want another day?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
I really want to know because I want to try
and understand why this has happening.
Speaker 9 (22:06):
Ball on my personality disorder. Yeah, the musciple personality disorder.
So when I create these people, I actually think I
am these people. Sometimes when I get that caught up
in those worlds, I.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
Used to think I was that person.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Doctor Justin Barry Walsh called this a somewhat problematic diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
What it's trying to capture is a group of people
who do struggle with their sense of identity and struggle
in their relationships with others. And one of the things
you commonly see with these people is they're both terrified
of being abandoned and feel threatened by intimacy. And it
may be that she's got that to do an extreme degree,
(22:50):
and that she has this terrible need to establish relationships
and it's easier for her to do it online. It's
less threatening for her, and it's easier for her to
sustain those relationships of the relationships mostly online. Another thing
that supports the speculation is the extraordinary sense of drama
(23:13):
connected to so much of what she does and the
stories that she tells, and that's I'm guessing both to
elicit sympathy and support. But I wonder also whether because
of her lack of sense of self, of good stable identity,
she actually struggles to properly feel emotions, so she needs
exaggerated and extreme events to feel real. I think one
(23:37):
of the other striking things about this is how little
regard she shows for the feeling and welfare of other people,
because the amount of harm that she creates. And it
may be that she's just really impaired in her understanding
of how other people are and therefore really impaired in
(23:58):
a capacity to feel empathy, so that there isn't the
restraint that most of us would have from us acting
in these ways, because we would understand just how ghastly
and distressing it may be to other people. Don't know
the details of a treatment, but it's pretty clear that
it is resistant to the kind of things that might
change our behavior in most of us, particularly criminal sanctions.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
But he thinks there's a deeper issue here.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
I think this woman is looking for relationships. I suspect
that she really struggles in real life relationships, and it
is this drive for relatedness, this wish to feel connected,
that is another motivation, and that would be consistent with
her then seeking out these kind of relationships where she
(24:46):
can function as younger than she is, so maybe less
mature and maybe a little bit regressed, if you like,
in more need of care and support, and have a
kind of maternal relationship with the older woman that is
sustained for years. So it has been my thought that
looking at this, if you look at it from a
(25:06):
relationship perspective, there's both clearly a sexual aspect to the behavior,
but also this need for her to establish relationships. When
I looked at the materials that you sent through, what
she starts appalling and the harm that she's created is terrible,
and her baby is have been exploitative. Yet you can't
(25:29):
help but feel sad for a woman that seems utterly
lost and as you say, without love.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Let's just pause there for a minute, since we set
out to tell the story. I've had a lot of feedback,
and a lot of it is really negative towards Natalia,
and I understand that she's had a terrible impact on
a lot of people. But one of the issues I've
had in trying to understand Natalia is knowing there's a
(25:58):
gap in her life that she'd been trying to fill
for twenty three years. Like Dr Barry Walsh, I've also
been unable to shake a feeling of sadness the Natalia's plight,
and yet it can be so difficult at times to
put to one side the damage she's caused, so I
(26:18):
can see clearly this person who's been such a wrecking
ball like this. For example, when we first met in
twenty eleven, Natalia spoke of an eighteen year old with
whom she had formed an eight month relationship through the
persona Abbey Abby, you recall, was Laura West's sister, the
(26:38):
one who announced her car crash death to the world
and then called Bernie to break the news in person. Well,
Abby was also being used to catfish men and form relationships,
and one young man's relationship with Abby led to eight
months of drama until Natalia killed abbe off. This time
(27:01):
it was death by suicide. It's worth noting that while
one version of Abby died, the version that would later
call Bernie was still alive. There weren't just singular versions
of these characters. Natalia had her own multi verse that
she was working with. Less soap opera now and maybe
more Marvel movie anyway. Off the back of Abby's death,
(27:25):
Natalia used that incident to berate the young man herself.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
We thought once and I blamed him for Abbie's peace,
and I got quite aratical Edhiman yelling and screamed and
was great grinth and an abusive shit.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Adam, you created a fake pershono. They have a romantic
relationship with an eighteen year old boy and then killed her.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That's that's second. That's really awful. There were times when
I just wasn't sure how to respond. I don't think
she was particularly interested in or even aware of any
judgment I might have. There was a lot of which
she seemed unaware, and even when interviewing Natalia, she struggled
(28:15):
to separate her fantasy world from the real world, or
to even really get her facts straight. She claimed during
our interview, for example, that she had been in Palmston
North in two thousand and nine. Yeah, I know she
lived there at one point, but she was in jail
between two thousand and eight and twenty ten. She also
(28:38):
told media that by twenty eleven she had spent much
of the last six years in jail, which isn't entirely true.
She certainly would have been on remand a lot due
to the sheer number of charges against her, but at
that point her only long term prison stint had been
from two thousand and eight. Means that trying to actually
(29:01):
make sense of Natalia's story can be really difficult. She
doesn't really know her own story and what she does know,
I'm never really sure what I can believe. As a journalist,
I'm best working off the facts, and the only definite
facts we have in this case are her times before
the courts didn't help back in twenty eleven, that at
(29:25):
every opportunity Natalia minimized her actions.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
It started off.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
Running games and then it turned into the great big
mess representment.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Right now, I don't think anyone's going to think it's
very funny being rung up and.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Told that a friend of theirs is dead. I wanted
to do that again that isn't quite true. There's Bernie,
Emma's mum, who Natalia directly phoned to break the news
that Laura West, her niece, was dead. But she also
confronted an eighteen year old about Abbie's death as well.
(30:00):
And back in twenty eleven, I also spoke with a
young woman who'd been friends with Amy Marie West, Natalia's
original fake account.
Speaker 10 (30:09):
I thought she was my best friend, my sister. We
talked on the phone about everything.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
In two thousand and nine, Natalia as Laura called her
to tell her that Amy had died from suicide.
Speaker 10 (30:22):
I felt there was nothing I could do for myself anymore.
Amy had texted me just before she committed suicide saying
she loved me and she was sorry. Then I got
that phone call, which completely broke my heart. It is
a twisted, messed up story, and it has affected a
lot of people.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
That young woman went on to receive psychological care after
this ordeal. I kept saying to her that her targets,
those she had hooked into relationships and those that she
had manipulated, that they were just kids, That there was
so much younger than.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
She was, seventy year old boys, and girls. That does
seem to me, like that's a ten eleven year age
to fruce, but not.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
When you say you're eighteen.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
I was that caught up in my own little fancy
will that the rest of the world like this around
me didn't exist.
Speaker 7 (31:14):
I didn't really care as.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
The building next door fell down the steps and broke
his head, because that wasn't part of my online will,
in my online fancy.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Natalia also seemed to think that people shouldn't just believe her.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Attend to somebody that a friend of theirs was dead
their friends.
Speaker 7 (31:32):
I didn't know that they must dog notether than my
shit they came out of my mouth. If it sounds plausible.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And that distancing from responsibility, well, that echoed some of
what Natalie had messaged me online.
Speaker 11 (31:47):
Who got hurt? If I wanted to have sex with them,
I would have made it happen, don't you think? But
I never did. Everything was fake. Nothing was real, fake
plane tickets too, Just a tad hurtful. But hey, you
play they with fire, you will get burned.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Natalia told sixty Minutes that she got a thrill out
of creating the characters and then putting the scenarios into play.
Speaker 6 (32:09):
They were the puffets, and I was the puffetier, and
I was just pulling the strings and sitting back and
watching the show.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
I was the puffetier and I was.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
The audience, you know, and I kind of got off
and that sometimes when I used to watch and fight
over me, kind of made me feel like I was
fifteen again, you know. People were fighting over me and
fighting over the fact that they wanted to be my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And she told me that the kick she got was
like drugs. And so each time she says she's going
to stop, it has continued. The only quiet period I've
found over twenty three years, aside from dialing it down
a bit when she was in jail, there's been this
last year when Natalia found out I was investigating her again,
(32:55):
and perhaps that's because she knows what happened last time
I broke the story. The media went wild, police got
into gear, and she went to jail. It's a bit
like the theory which Dr Barry Walsh felt carried some weight,
that she's moved away from underage boys because she'd been caught.
(33:15):
It's as if she's trying to avoid the trouble she
knows is coming down the track, but Natalia held the
view that she could be stopped only not through her
own actions. I had asked her about this in twenty eleven,
putting forward to her what seemed like an obvious way
to stop her from going online. Do you think you
(33:37):
should get rid of the computer?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
I don't.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
I don't have my phone now, But you've.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Been online in the last three or four days.
Speaker 7 (33:43):
Yeah, my phone, right. Do you think you need to
get rid of your phone too?
Speaker 6 (33:48):
No?
Speaker 7 (33:48):
This may be freeing.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Rather, this was the Tarlia's view of how she and
we could be free from what she herself has called
sex little head games.
Speaker 7 (34:01):
What does work is a mental intervention.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Then I get put in places like respite where I
have to face up to what I've been doing.
Speaker 7 (34:10):
People can all.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
Talk about what they can do to help me and
what they do, but no one actually steps up and
goes we'll calcurves, We'll make you'll find out what's going
on in that horrible A look at it first.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
The more I learned, the deeper I studied Natalia, I
found myself caught between a horror and her actions, and
a surge of empathy towards a woman who's more to
deal with the most, and I have to keep reminding myself,
pulling myself back to the damage that she has caused.
Even more than that, understanding the long and deep hurt
(34:44):
that she has created. For this investigation, there were many
interviews carried out, and many of those reminded me of
the toll Natalia has exacted from the world. While they
all moved or provoked me in one way or another.
There who interviews particularly which will sit with me for
a long time. The other one, well you'll hear that
(35:07):
in the next episode. But right now, in a story
that's not as black and white as it seems, is
a particularly haunty darkness in the form of Peter Russell's mom.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Laura Laura West. She was a stunning, beautiful, blonde haired girl.
He really loved her. He talked to me about her,
tell me what his plans were.
Speaker 12 (35:31):
She just played games with him, you know, I just
really played games with my son and really got him
in a bad place, to the pot where.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
He couldn't deal with life, and he went and committed
suicide over her.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
This is rawn Ford. You heard her back in episode one.
His son, Peter Russell died in twenty ten. His name
has come up a few times in this story. He
was dating Emma, and you've heard some of Peter's stone
in earlier episodes, but now you're going to hear much more,
and you're going to hear it from Raywan his mum.
(36:09):
And what you will hear is a grief that is
deep and raw. For all the time that has passed
since Peter died, it's going to be hard to listen to,
but it's a necessary part of this story because it
shows just how dark the saga is the impact and
(36:29):
ramifications of behavior by Natalia Burgess. Peter Russell died on
October twenty seven, twenty ten. When Raymond and I spoke
last year, it happened to be the thirteenth anniversary of
his death. It wasn't planned that way, but the anniversary
(36:49):
of his death hung over our interview like a cloud.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
It's today.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
It's the last day that I ever see why son alive.
My son was dead by midnight tonight.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
I was twenty one years old when he died, based
in christ Church, had a young son at the time
from an earlier relationship, and three months before his death,
he had been in a relationship with Laura Jane West.
He thought he was dating a vivacious, blonde, twenty year
old Aucklander, a young parent like him who had a
(37:21):
small daughter called Kaylee. Peter thought Laura was at the
center of a bubbly online social group of young women.
In reality, there was no Laura and no social group
of young women. It was all Natalia for Peter, though.
It was real, so real that he and his real
(37:41):
life girlfriend Emma went their separate ways. When I spoke
to Emma, she told me that she had stepped aside
so her first love, Peter, could forge a relationship with Laura,
the woman that she believed was her cousin. It was
so real, and Peter he got about as serious as
it gets.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Give me that much to him. He asked her to
marry him, though really he must have loved her deeply.
He was happy.
Speaker 12 (38:10):
He was so happy that, you know, he had found
somebody and he was going to go up north and
he was going to meet her and get asked her
to marry him, and they were going to get married.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
And then she went.
Speaker 12 (38:23):
Overseas and married somebody else, and he really broke his
hearts when undone what he done.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
I need to be clear here that this is Raven's opinion,
a mother's view on why her boy took his life.
Speaker 13 (38:37):
There was an.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Official inquiry into Peter's suicide, but the coroner ruled that
any findings as the cause of his death in that
official setting could not be made public. Natalie was not
held responsible in any capacity for Peter's death. Raven, though
she links Peter's death to his heartbreak after the collapse
(38:58):
of the relationship that was the only solid thing he
could rely on in a tumultuous phase in his life.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
The game she played with that boy and the mental
anguish that she put him through was just unbelievable. One
minute she'd be in contact with him, and then next
minute she'd be in hospital when something had happened. And
then she'd been overseas and she married somebody else, and
then she come back and wanted to be with my
(39:26):
son again, and just juent games.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
It was an intense relationship that played out almost entirely online.
The timeline of when it started is a bit vague. Natalia,
when I spoke to her in twenty eleven, she put
the start date around April twenty ten, and she linked
their relationship to her quitting drugs.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
I gave up the drugs the day me and Peter
got together.
Speaker 6 (39:50):
So April eleventh, two thousand and ten, was the day
that I gave up all.
Speaker 7 (39:57):
That was like the day after I got al jail.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
It was that much though, that Peter proposed to Laura,
posting his video on social media asking her to marry him.
It's possible that their relationship could have started while Natalie
was in prison. We know from other victims and from
Natalia's own words that she was still able to access
the Internet while she was inside. At any rate, Peter
(40:21):
and Natalia never met in person despite the escalation and
their relationship. Laura, as she was, accepted the wedding proposal,
but later canceled their first physical meeting, which was to
take place at Christchurch Airport two months later, like Natalia
did with Emma and Bernie and later with Danaka and Lisa.
(40:43):
There was a reason why Laura said she had to
go to England instead, because her father had a heart attack.
It was in June twenty ten that Raymond understands Laura
broke up with Peter, claiming she'd married someone else instead.
I should note that Natalia has a different version of
(41:03):
events on how the relationship ended and her decision to
not meet with Peter.
Speaker 7 (41:08):
I think because towards the ended it was forwards the
end of the relationship. I said, I was going to
go down to the Zeeca and thanks.
Speaker 6 (41:16):
She's got too much for me mentally, trying to pretend
to big R plus physically it got too much. Like
me and Peter used to argue towards the end of
the last three or four weeks of.
Speaker 7 (41:27):
Our relationship, and oh my god, when when he.
Speaker 6 (41:31):
Argues with me, I used to argue back twice to
set and I think I just got there, got too much.
Speaker 7 (41:35):
So I was just like that stuff I And so
when he ended it, it was such a relief.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
His mom and she ended it.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
I ended it.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Yeah, No, he ended it.
Speaker 7 (41:46):
If I saw her the Bigo page, I show you
the message that he ended.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
I tried, my very very hunt, tried to get us
back to Heaven, Laura back together and to.
Speaker 7 (41:57):
Try and stop the fighting.
Speaker 6 (41:59):
But both us, both of us, we were getting sicker
and sicker, and I just I just there wasn't any
like I couldn't tell him anything.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Again, given Natalia's tendency for fabrication, it's difficult to know
how much weight to give her version of events. One
thing that one of Peter's cousins told me back in
twenty eleven was that Peter had told family members of
his fear that naked videos he had sent to Natalia
(42:29):
would be released online, and that may also play into
the family's blame of Natalia. Natalia, though has denied ever
having any naked imagery of Peter. There are many things
Raymond will never forget from that time, load the knock
on her door eight o'clock on a Thursday morning with
(42:50):
news that no mother wants to hear.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Well, everybody heard me screaming, and the worst thing of
always having to go and actually identifying my baby.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
There's part of the interview with Raymond that we can't broadcast.
That's because New Zealand Lord prohibits talking about the means
by which someone has taken their life. It's intended to
shield the public from details that might put ideas of
self harm into people's minds. I can tell you Raymond
wasn't shielded from anything. When she went to formally identify
(43:23):
Peter's body, she could see clearly what he had done
to himself every day.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
I still go to bed now, thirteen years down the track,
and when I go to sleep, but I still see
my son land in a wall, and that's something I
can't get rid of. No mother should either have to
go to sleep like that at night and see those
pictures in her head.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
At the time her son died, Raymond had no idea
and Natalia existed in her grief. She abandoned their home
in christ Church and fled to Nelson, and there some
years later, she met Daryl. It was her first life
and together they rekindled something special in the seven years
(44:04):
it took before she could return to her hometown. And
it was in Nelson in twenty eleven that Ramond picked
up a newspaper because she saw Laura West's face on
the front page, and that's when she learned what had
really happened. So distraught, so upset, Roman took the newspaper
(44:25):
home to where she kept Peter's ashes.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
And I showed him look at what it was with
so angry. I'm so so angry with her. She just
doesn't get the fact that she's messing with people's life.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
And she remembers how that left her feeling.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Really really angry, really angry. My son took his life
because he thought he was in love with a beautiful woman.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
She's a lonster.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Incredibly, Natalia had approached Peter's younger brother before the suicide,
and then again after when the teenager sixteen at the time,
visited family in Auckland. Natalia sought him out in person
before being told to leave by a family member.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Honestly, I wanted to go looking for as Caleb and
Peter's mother, I really wanted to go and look for her,
and I really wanted to hurt her badly, but it's
not worth it.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
The loss of Peter was a bomb that sent blast
waves through Rawn's life. She has other children that she
no longer speaks to, and the haunting knowledge Peter's son
will never know his dad.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
She's just totally destroyed us.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
There's one thing Rawn wants to know from Natalia.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I want to know how she felt. How did she
feel when my son took his life? Because I don't know.
I know how I felt. I don't know how she felt,
but I'd like to know, and I'd like to know
it from her voice.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Well, I can answer that. As Natalia addressed her guilt
over Peter back in twenty eleven.
Speaker 7 (46:05):
I do feel guilty. Yeah, do you know when Peter died?
If we're going to go talk about that.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
When Peter died, I went to choose the Friday night
and I've never ever ever been one to cry in
front of people.
Speaker 7 (46:16):
I wrote down and tears.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
Yeah, I had to lie about what had happened and
why I was upset and what Peter was to me.
Speaker 7 (46:23):
But I so felt so shockingly horrible.
Speaker 5 (46:28):
And then because you know, his mum thinks that you're
the reason why Peter like said, yeah, I know she doesn't.
Speaker 7 (46:34):
I think you're not the first person to tell me that.
Speaker 6 (46:36):
But I don't understand how you can blame somebody because
it was like it's cruel and horrible, like what I
used to do.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Like what I used to do. Another example of Natalia
claiming she'd given up catfishing, and we know how that ends,
don't we. Peter would be thirty four if he was
still alive today.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
A mama's boy, Joe anywhere in everywheel with mum, go shopping,
go to housy, go to the pub, make sure mum
was all right. You know, when he was a little
kidd he decided to paint his sister, bright yellow, bright
(47:20):
canary yellow from head to toe, a little rugby h
I miss those things. I love him most.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
I'm sorry that he hate to go through what he
went through.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I'm sorry that he couldn't talk to me about it.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Those things there you were saying sorry about it sounds
Raven as if you feel guilt about what's happened as well.
Speaker 13 (47:52):
Because I up and I should have protected him. I
should have known what was going on with him, but
I didn't. Also, in your he was talking to Laura
on casebook. How can you heal a shattered heart?
Speaker 3 (48:07):
You can't.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
You can mean a broken one, but you can't heal
a shattered heart.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
It was a big step for Raven to speak with me.
She canceled once because the thought of it was just
too much. And I understand that I'm a father myself,
and over the years I've talked to many people who
have lost children. I've never understood how they can find
words to put to those feelings of grief and guilt
(48:32):
and love. But then Raven messaged me back and we
did arrange to speak, and this is what she said
when I asked her why she changed her mind.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
I have to take a stand for my son.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
I have to be his voice because he's not here
to talk, and if I could try and stop her,
I'm going to do everything I can to do it.
There's no other parent should he have to go through
what life is Amily's gone through?
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Why does she do it? What is she lacking in
her life?
Speaker 3 (49:05):
I honestly thought after my's son committed suicide over what
she had done, that that would have been her wake
up call.
Speaker 13 (49:12):
But it's not.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
She's still doing it.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Why can the government not step in and put protocols
in place to protect people? Surely there must be something
out there that the government can do.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I've spoken to a number of people for this series
who've been victims of Natalia in various ways, but Raven
has hurt more than most of them. Yet all of
them have had their lives ruined, touched in an adverse
way by Natalia. Crystal has been fighting her stolen photographs
for a decade now. Danika and Lisa were deceived for
(49:51):
six years and still feel the heat thirteen years on.
Bernie told me how she still can't trust people. Countless
other people who I spoke to back in twenty eleven
and approached again for the series who don't want to
talk again on the record as the memories are too painful.
So while Natalia's life has been difficult at times, that
(50:13):
certainly doesn't excuse the things she's done and the impact
her catfishing has had. For two years in jail in
twenty thirteen might seem like a reasonable punishment for her crimes,
but those came after earl instance in jail as well,
and in all the years since she left prison at
the end of twenty fifteen, she has faced no consequences
(50:34):
for the actions that followed. When Crystal Jenna emailed me
at the end of twenty twenty two, it was the
first time in years that I'd thought about Natalia Burgess.
My interest in where she was in the world and
what she was up to had largely ended in twenty
thirteen when she was sent to jail. In hindsight, it
feels like maybe I should have checked in, but I didn't.
(50:57):
Perhaps I thought the conviction and sentence would have sent
message that had been listened to. Perhaps it was that
Natalia's behavior was so outlandish. I thought that lightning couldn't
strike twice, but it did, and here we are now,
as the evidence mounted that Natalia had been catfishing again.
(51:18):
I knew I had to track her down and get
her side of the story that had been years without contact.
So I started with what worked last time, visiting her parents'
home in Monaco, and that didn't help. Natalia's parents had
moved and the neighbors had no idea where they're gone.
In the court file and other documents, well, the only
address that held was the old address. In the end,
(51:43):
cross referencing property records with a public registry on which
her dad was listed gave me a new address. It's
a road which repeats numbers as you go through suburbs.
So there was a bit of door knocking until finally
I found her parents' home, and perhaps only they wanted
nothing to do with me. I was hoping to find
(52:04):
Natalia right bye, here, Can you tell me where I
could find nice?
Speaker 7 (52:12):
You were very nice to us at times?
Speaker 11 (52:14):
Why should I help you?
Speaker 1 (52:15):
Well, because she's doing the same thing again and you
might want to stalk.
Speaker 11 (52:20):
Well, I'm not helping you out.
Speaker 6 (52:22):
I don't like you.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
I can understand your feel that way. While they didn't talk,
it did spark Natalia and I reconnecting in her preferred environment, Facebook.
Speaker 11 (52:34):
Leave us alone. You're trespassing if you go near me
and my family again.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
I replied, reminding Natalia of our past interactions and letting
you know that I was doing a podcast on her.
Speaker 11 (52:46):
What have my parents got to do with this?
Speaker 1 (52:48):
I was trying to find you. You're the person I
want to talk to.
Speaker 11 (52:52):
What if I just want to leave the past in
the past.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
The past isn't in the past, is it. I've been
talking to Crystal.
Speaker 11 (52:59):
Okay, fair coll But life is good right now, so
let me think about it, and it's not going in
the paper.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
In the thumbnail photographs that accompanied those messages, Natalia looks happy.
She's smiling at the camera, and at his side, a
clean shaven man leans and snuggled at her shoulder. Natalia
didn't want her story to again appear in the newspaper
because she didn't want her parents to see anything. She
(53:26):
figured they might not see a story online and almost
certainly weren't going to listen to a newfangled podcast, but
they would see it in the letterbox when the morning
newspaper was delivered. I couldn't promise her that all those
old strands of media have blended together now, so there's
no guarantee in New Zealand Herald podcast won't end up
(53:46):
on the front page or elsewhere in the newspaper, and
we don't promise people where their coverage will and won't go. Regardless,
I think Natalia would have always gone cold on me.
She didn't want to talk in twenty eleven, so it
was no surprise she again didn't want to talk to
me in twenty twenty three or twenty twenty four. What
(54:08):
she wanted to do was to keep me at arm's length,
far enough away that I'd never be able to finish
this podcast or write about her, and clearly that didn't work.
The more I investigated, the more I found there were
questions which Natalia, in my view, really needed to answer.
(54:29):
As the months went by, we stayed in touch. Sometimes
we'd talk on the phone, other times we'd message, and
there was a blended nature to those conversations. Partly it
was Natalia trying to work out how much I knew.
Partly though, Natalie was also trying to push me off
into the future just another week, just another month, or
(54:52):
trying to control what we might do, like insisting on
no photographs for a few months. The conversation went quiet.
I took a break for a long planned family vacation,
and Ethan, my producer, was working through other projects. I
started messaging to Tarli again during this time, but despite
that contact the trail had gone cold, and Natalia she
(55:17):
stopped picking up calls and responding to messages. I didn't
know where she was, possibly Auckland, possibly funk at a
possibly elsewhere in the country. As the launch date for
episode one got closer and closer, it was becoming an
increase in concern that Natalie wouldn't talk to us at all.
And then, just days before the first episode went live,
(55:39):
I sent Natalia one more message, one that included a
long list of questions I wanted answered, one that let
her know the podcast was about to be released. There
was a message that let her know there were no
more tomorrows which you might push the future away, And
with that it seemed now finally she wanted to talk,
(56:03):
so next time. In the final episode of Chasing Ghosts,
the puppeteer no characters, no stolen photos, no computer screen
to hide behind. For the first time in thirteen years,
the Tania Burgess fronts up. You've been listening to Chasing
(56:25):
Ghosts the Puppeteer. Follow the podcast and the Chasing Ghost
Feed on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
you can find more on this case at inzid Herald
dot co dot z ethanselves is my producer, with audio
engineering by Alistair Boys. Thanks to my colleagues for lending
their voices to this episode. If you have a story
(56:47):
about this case, contact me at David dot Fisher at inzid,
herold dot co dot zen. And if you believe you've
encountered behavior online that matches what we've discussed in this series,
you can if won't help it netsafe dot org dot
m Z. But if you feel at risk, don't hesitate,
contact police
This episode contains references to suicide. You can find links
in our show notes to support services. For over twenty years,
Natalia Burgess has created online fantasy worlds using photographs lifted
from the social media accounts of others. She has crafted
worlds where she's pretty popular and surrounded by a group
(00:23):
of friends who are equally beloved. She could have stopped
at breathing life until all these characters and just basked
in the attention that they received, living as Abbi Becker,
Rachel Kayley and all the other names. But she went
so much further. She's the writer, director, and producer of
(00:44):
her own cinematic universe, where the most extraordinary things can
and usually do happen, and often they happen because Natalia
engineers it to be so. Remember, she has called herself
up a tear. She's convinced people to become online friends, lovers,
(01:05):
surrogate grandparents for children who didn't exist. Her characters have
fallen pregnant and miscarried. She's killed off characters with car
accidents and suicide, then broken the news over the phone
to people who shock at the loss. Is still palpable today,
as you've heard over the last three episodes. Many of
(01:26):
those full Bonatalia have strong feelings about her behavior.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
And to this day always looking over my shoulder. I
don't want friendships because of this.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It's her and annoy that she's done all this for
what what reason would she get out of doing this?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It was crazy. It was like she knew where to
hit us were her.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
She's just shadow stalker. I don't trust people. You just
want to co sort the skirl ours, give her a
shake and say what's wrong with you?
Speaker 5 (01:52):
That was almost to the point where it made me
sick and the stomach well of what this woman.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Was do we I'm so so and agree with her.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
She just doesn't get the fact that she's messing with
people's lives.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
She's a monster. She is a monster with no conscience.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You can understand the pain and heartbreak that these people
have felt. It took years for some of them to
realize the truth about how they have been betrayed. Many
are still living with the pain and trauma from those
incidents now. But another thing many share is a need
to understand Natalia, to understand why someone they didn't know
(02:32):
caused them so much pain. My name's David Fisher and
I'm the investigative journalist who exposed Natalia thirteen years ago,
and ever since I've wanted that too. I want to
know what makes Natalia tick, and I know just the
right person to help me understand the puppeteer.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I'm doctor Justin Barry walf She, a forensic psychiatrist. Have
been doing that for about thirty years. What that means
is I am a psychiatrist that works with people that
come into contact with law in various ways, particularly those
people that can make criminal offenses.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Justin works with a wide range of people with mental
health issues who have committed crimes from the low to
the most serious end of the scale. I met Justin
because of the work he was doing identifying people who
have particular fixations with politicians.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
I work as the lead clinician for the Fixator Threat
Assessment Center, which is a novel service that deals with
people that communicate in concerning and threatening ways with politicians.
The reason for doing that is not tech politicians, but
because it identifies a group of people are often an
urgent need of intervention and mental health treatment.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
As a journalist, when I'm writing about people who do
unusual things, I find it possible to ignore the question why.
It's a question that scratches at me because it's not
just an enough to explain what someone is doing. Rather,
I need to understand what drove someone to do what
they did or behave as they have. When it came
(04:10):
to finding a mental health professional with an expertise and
people who had fixations who was stalkers, Dr Barry Walsh
is the perfect sounding board to help me understand Natalia.
I provided Dr Barry Walsh with as much base information
as I could, and that included all the stories published,
But I first encountered Natalia and the judges sentencing notes
(04:33):
from twenty thirteen and the parole reports when Natalia sought
to be released from jail. First though a caveat, one
from me and one from Dr Barry Walsh, but both
with the same message. What we learn here is speculation,
albeit speculation informed through three decades of experience. Here's Dr
(04:55):
Barry Walsh with the same message.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
I qualify what I'd say first by indicating I've never
interview this woman. So there's a great deal. I don't
know about it.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
But there's enough there to get an inkling, a speculative
inkling that for me rings true. With all I now
know about Natalia.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
What strikes me about this woman is from a psychiatric perspective.
I see it primarily as having difficulties and profound difficulties
based on the information that's available to me in her
personality functioning, this sense of identity, and the way in
which she expresses herself, and that includes presumably in her sexuality,
(05:34):
and in her ability and facility to relate to other people.
I think these are the kind of things that probably
are contributing to this extraordinary pattern of behavior that we're seeing.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
An extraordinary pattern of behavior, well, that's one way of
putting it. But before we get any further, we need
to take a step back. For three episodes, we've heard
from a lot of Natalia's victims. We've been talking a
lot about Natalia and her characters, but not as much
(06:07):
about the woman herself. I think it's about time you
met Natalia properly to give you a better, more rounded
picture of who she is. I need to share what
I've learned about her over the last thirteen years. And
the first thing I'll tell you about Natalia is that,
in spite of all that she has done, I like her.
(06:29):
She's a bright, bubbly personality. She's also self aware and
she's fragile. This is chasing ghosts, the puppeteer, and it's
time we met the woman who's pulling the strings. Natalia
(06:54):
raved Burgess was born in nineteen eighty four. She's of
some own ethnicity and adopted into a Parlagy or European
family who adoptive parents are hard working, church going people
whose lives have largely revolved around their service to the
Salvation Army. The Natalia Io Church is an important part
(07:14):
of her life. With her parents' lives dedicated to service
through the Salvation Army, they moved around a lot, so
while Natalia might have started in Hamilton, there were periods
lived in Palmsden North and Christchurch and for a period
on the West Coast of the South Island. The West
Coast is one of New Zealand's least diverse communities. In
(07:37):
twenty twenty three, when nine percent of New Zealand's population
identified as Pacifica, the community on the West Coast was
a fraction, not even two percent. It's hard to describe
how isolating that experience would have been. In her nineteen
ninety two class photo from Westport North School. Natalia is
one of the few facing the camera who is not European,
(08:00):
and of those kids, she's the only one who's not Malory.
By her teenage years. Though Natalie was in christ Church
at Avonside Girls High. In classmates I've spoken to, they
remember her as trouble, someone who gossiped, caused drama, and
this was something she acknowledged later in her interview with
(08:20):
sixty Minutes.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
I started stealing to buy friends, and that's probably where
it all started. From buying friends. I can remember very
vivili asist your money and then invite everyone in the
classroom fish ships for lunch.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It was around this period she told me that she
began to abuse alcohol and drugs.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
It started off.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Just like alcohol and we done in christ Church and
agree spa hero one for a little bit. And then
I went to Rehead and supposedly that saved the whole world,
but it didn't.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
It was just a great, big lie. And then we
came up here and I was introduced to pee and
then that was.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
The end of it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
How's that decade old audio quality? If you've been listening
since episode one, then you may recognize that crackle and
all that background noise. That was back in twenty eleven
when I interviewed Natalia for the first time at the
Muffin break in the Westfield malland Monaco, You'll recall that
it took me a while to get the interview with Natalia.
(09:19):
I'd written several stories by the time Natalia finally agreed
to chat, all of them from the perspective of her
victims and those who have been hurt by her. But
this was the first time I really got to know
her story in her own words, though her story can
also be found through court documents from around the country.
There's a lot of darkness in Natalia's backstory, drug abuse,
(09:41):
addiction issues, gang connections.
Speaker 7 (09:44):
I don't know who I.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Am without the drugs because the drugs have been in
my life since I was Bourte. I'd been part of
different games. I've been part of, you know that kind
of stuffed at I was Bourte.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And there's prostitution as well in her past.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
So motions related to with a six week no But
you've been fought by police workers six weekly.
Speaker 7 (10:07):
Why did you do that?
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Where did Jandigo past hitch?
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Yeah, when you're quite young then was that it was
a long time ago down there.
Speaker 7 (10:14):
I was fourteene.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Natalia left christ Church around the age of seventeen or
eighteen and moved to Auckland. That criminal offending continued there,
which was when Natalia started down the path that leads
us to this podcast. Back in twenty eleven, Natalia told
me that in christ Church she had never used the
(10:40):
Internet because the family didn't have a computer. But in
two thousand and one, when Natalia moved to Auckland with
her family, she did have access, and that's when her
relationship with social media began. Back then, the Internet was
very much in its infancy, the age of dial up
modems that you couldn't use the same time in order
(11:01):
to make a phone call. When Natalia ventured online, she
found a corner of the Internet called usenet, a network
of online discussion forums broken up into specific interest areas
used at birth a lot of the terms we now
use online, such as faq or spam and sock puppet,
(11:23):
the term used for online false identities. And that's where
Natalia started using a character called Chickadee and creating an
online persona. That was the beginning of sprawling fancy worlds
that would last for decades.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Yeah, that was like when we first moved to Auckland,
and that was the found a net that was using
different handles rather than different personalities.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
Then it was just an emits of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
As technology developed, it created further richer opportunities.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
And the more the years prose, I think, the more
I got better at it and the more I got clever,
and all technology came into handlight elf wound.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
It's difficult to track when exactly catfishing became what appears
to be a full time job for Natalia. I can
guess that as more social media networks launched that she
slowly found a way online. It was MySpace in two
thousand and three, Bibo in two thousand and five, and
the big one, Facebook in two thousand and six. We know,
(12:28):
for example, that one of her first fully fleshed out
characters was called Amy, who found life on Bibo in
its early days. We also know that it was around
two thousand and six that she started taking the photos
that formed the basis for the Laura West character. At
this time, Natalia was in Wellington because court documents show
(12:53):
that she lied to the charity for Pregnant Young People
about expecting a child, and while in Wellington, there were
two teenagers that she became involved with. I can't say
too much about the case, but I did speak with
the mother of these boys, who recalls the Talia calling
with some big news.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
She said she was pregnant to one or the other
of the boys. This was our first grandchild. They thought
they could handle it, but she's obsessive.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
This was around the time Natalia sought shelter at the
Home for teenage Mums. Ultimately, she was convicted of ford
because well, she wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
I don't know if she knows herself where the truth
ends and the facts begin.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
She tells so many stories.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
She weaves in these stories, she finds out about all
their friends and weaves in people in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
By two thousand and eight, Natalie was in prison and
even from behind bars, was able to reach out and
connect with those she was falling. Another mom I spoke
to a woman whose son Natalia formed a relationship with
through a false character record communication, with her switching from
mainly online to mainly tell her phone. It was only
(14:01):
much later that she learned Natalia had been in prison
and at a time inside overlapped with the increase in
voice calls, but it wasn't only voice calls. Even when
in prison, Natalia claimed she could go online. When I
introduced Natalia to the woman who was the face for
Laura West, this is what she said during that conversation.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
All those times there was chances for me to go online,
still pretend to du online. We could guard there would bring.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Us uff in.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
By twenty ten, Natalie was out of prison and living
with her parents back in Auckland, not far from Monaco.
She told me later that she'd given up drugs at
this point, which we'll come back to. We also know
that she was obsessed with Shortened Street, New Zealand's longest
running soap opera at the time. She would go on
(14:50):
to link her false characters to several of the actors,
claiming either a connection by family or in one case,
claiming that she was carrying an actor's child. Speaking to
me in twenty eleven, a year later, Natalia said that
she had wanted to give it all up.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
I think I was just trying to get rid of it,
Like I got rid of Amy and then I got
seen to jail.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
End the story.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
Amy got rid of I got rid of got seen
to Jaile Inger player story and I dad.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
Deal with anybody ir again. And then when I got
out of jail, I'm not what happened.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I think I just went on Laura's a great profile
and then I just he hatted talking Van and I
had a horrible day at home.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
I think in the probation.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
Officer they had really about session and then I just
ended up starting.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
All over you.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
The death of Amy is not the last time Natalia
killed off her character, but she had plenty of other
characters to take her place. Laura, Rachel Becker, Abby, this
was their time to shine. That's when Natalia's schemes and
machinations went into high gear. The number of people she
engaged with ramped up. This is when she started catfishing
(16:02):
the likes of Ethan and Sam from episode one, when
she met the mother and daughter Bernie and Emma. When
she went after around forty boys from Saint Thomas's School
in Canterbury, it was all consuming, an all but guarantee
that someone somewhere was going to take action, and that
(16:23):
turned out to be me revealing her identity in twenty eleven.
Two years later, she went to jail and when sentenced,
the judge told the court Natalia had around forty convictions
in total, multiple convictions for fraud in number for not
complying with court orders. There she stayed until May twenty fifteen,
(16:46):
when she was released on parole. That is, until she
was caught in breach of a parole condition that she
wasn't to access the Internet, and that led to a
return to jail and another six months on her sentence.
She was eventually released in November twenty fifteen. Then at
(17:06):
some point in twenty sixteen, Kaylie Rose emerges We're in
the face of Crystal Jenna and starts messaging Danica Baxter.
With all that in mind, let's go back to Dr
(17:26):
Justin Barry Walsh, and again I must stress he is speculating.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Look, the first thing is that she sounds like she's
been doing this since the internet's been available to do this,
which leads me to speculate that even prior to that,
she had a proclivity for or a tendency to invent
or to fantasize about herself and who she was. Because
(17:52):
that doesn't just start suddenly. I think that it highlights
that there are enduring aspects of his secological makeup. One
of the things that strikes me is she has this
incredible capacity and tendency in quite a self destructive way,
ultimately to lie and to lie about everything, to lie
(18:12):
about her identity, and to exaggerate in kind of grandiose
and fantastic ways at times as well. You don't look
at all these dramatic things she's claimed. Now, there is
a term for that. It is just a description of
the behavior. We call it pseudo logia fantastic, which just
means a fantastic lying when translated in my experience and
(18:35):
from the limited literature about this as a behavior when
it emerges in the context of personality disturbance, because there
can be other things sitting underneath it, it often seems
to relate to someone who has a profound sense of
inadequacy about who they are, not sure who they are,
and a desire to lie in order to be or
(18:56):
to possess things that she doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Which from reminded me of something that Tarlie has said
on Sixty Minutes.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
I've never felt a traits of and I've never felt
love a mess. I literally didn't like how I was,
I hated my life and so that's when I first
created Amy.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Back to Dr Barry Walsh, as I've had a sense
of inadequacy and low self esteem in terms of who
she is and what she aspires or would like to be.
I mean, so it suggests that one of the functions
of these fantasies is to meet this terrible need that
she has to fill this awful gap. She doesn't know
(19:37):
who she is, and she feels very bad about how
she views herself.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I told Doctor Barry Walsh about the elaborate family tree
I'd found which mapped out the relationships between the personas
the one reference back in episode three.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
That's an extraordinary amount of time and commitment to create
that kind of family tree. All of the stuff that
she does takes an awfu way work. So this consumes
her life. She's spectated in a sense, on this endless
drive to engage it in these ways. She's not just
doing it in her spare time.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
That actually feeds back to one thing that Talie has
said to me in twenty eleven that stood out.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
As much as everyone says they were all faked, that
was my life. I was living on the end of
that cat room, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
I got up in the morning, I went to church,
I did the work stuff, I did whatever I was
doing in a normal day.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
It wasn't my fake's life that I was living. It
was my life.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That makes any sense, it kind of does.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
But but you didn't put your life or your life
gets dissminated through a different place, personalities or whatever it
might be, or.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
No, because when I talk to people on the phone
and it's fake, it's fill my life.
Speaker 7 (20:51):
That I lived.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
She definitely was investing a lot of time in this.
At one point in our chat, she guesses it creating
about ten differentiles, though also stresses how complicated tracking multiple
accounts can be.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
But I don't usually talk to more than one person
at a time. I didn't horribly compared.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I don't know how you keep tracking it anyway, you
keep tracking things.
Speaker 6 (21:14):
In or.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
Stuffed up. So many times I've called this wrong person,
I pulled myself the wrong name. I've called the wrong
boy the wrong name.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
You go.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It should be stressed here. And doctor Barry Walsh did
stress this when we spoke that while we have some
insight from Natalia herself, we are doing a fair degree
of speculation. We also have parole reports which make reference
to mental health and the sentencing notes. There's also Natalia's
(21:45):
own words in which she has spoken of a diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
We know from what you've written about that she's set
to you has borderline personality disorder.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
That's right. Here's me talking to Natalia in twenty eleven,
had mental health assessments.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
Do you want another day?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
I really want to know because I want to try
and understand why this has happening.
Speaker 9 (22:06):
Ball on my personality disorder. Yeah, the musciple personality disorder.
So when I create these people, I actually think I
am these people. Sometimes when I get that caught up
in those worlds, I.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
Used to think I was that person.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Doctor Justin Barry Walsh called this a somewhat problematic diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
What it's trying to capture is a group of people
who do struggle with their sense of identity and struggle
in their relationships with others. And one of the things
you commonly see with these people is they're both terrified
of being abandoned and feel threatened by intimacy. And it
may be that she's got that to do an extreme degree,
(22:50):
and that she has this terrible need to establish relationships
and it's easier for her to do it online. It's
less threatening for her, and it's easier for her to
sustain those relationships of the relationships mostly online. Another thing
that supports the speculation is the extraordinary sense of drama
(23:13):
connected to so much of what she does and the
stories that she tells, and that's I'm guessing both to
elicit sympathy and support. But I wonder also whether because
of her lack of sense of self, of good stable identity,
she actually struggles to properly feel emotions, so she needs
exaggerated and extreme events to feel real. I think one
(23:37):
of the other striking things about this is how little
regard she shows for the feeling and welfare of other people,
because the amount of harm that she creates. And it
may be that she's just really impaired in her understanding
of how other people are and therefore really impaired in
(23:58):
a capacity to feel empathy, so that there isn't the
restraint that most of us would have from us acting
in these ways, because we would understand just how ghastly
and distressing it may be to other people. Don't know
the details of a treatment, but it's pretty clear that
it is resistant to the kind of things that might
change our behavior in most of us, particularly criminal sanctions.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
But he thinks there's a deeper issue here.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
I think this woman is looking for relationships. I suspect
that she really struggles in real life relationships, and it
is this drive for relatedness, this wish to feel connected,
that is another motivation, and that would be consistent with
her then seeking out these kind of relationships where she
(24:46):
can function as younger than she is, so maybe less
mature and maybe a little bit regressed, if you like,
in more need of care and support, and have a
kind of maternal relationship with the older woman that is
sustained for years. So it has been my thought that
looking at this, if you look at it from a
(25:06):
relationship perspective, there's both clearly a sexual aspect to the behavior,
but also this need for her to establish relationships. When
I looked at the materials that you sent through, what
she starts appalling and the harm that she's created is terrible,
and her baby is have been exploitative. Yet you can't
(25:29):
help but feel sad for a woman that seems utterly
lost and as you say, without love.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Let's just pause there for a minute, since we set
out to tell the story. I've had a lot of feedback,
and a lot of it is really negative towards Natalia,
and I understand that she's had a terrible impact on
a lot of people. But one of the issues I've
had in trying to understand Natalia is knowing there's a
(25:58):
gap in her life that she'd been trying to fill
for twenty three years. Like Dr Barry Walsh, I've also
been unable to shake a feeling of sadness the Natalia's plight,
and yet it can be so difficult at times to
put to one side the damage she's caused, so I
(26:18):
can see clearly this person who's been such a wrecking
ball like this. For example, when we first met in
twenty eleven, Natalia spoke of an eighteen year old with
whom she had formed an eight month relationship through the
persona Abbey Abby, you recall, was Laura West's sister, the
(26:38):
one who announced her car crash death to the world
and then called Bernie to break the news in person. Well,
Abby was also being used to catfish men and form relationships,
and one young man's relationship with Abby led to eight
months of drama until Natalia killed abbe off. This time
(27:01):
it was death by suicide. It's worth noting that while
one version of Abby died, the version that would later
call Bernie was still alive. There weren't just singular versions
of these characters. Natalia had her own multi verse that
she was working with. Less soap opera now and maybe
more Marvel movie anyway. Off the back of Abby's death,
(27:25):
Natalia used that incident to berate the young man herself.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
We thought once and I blamed him for Abbie's peace,
and I got quite aratical Edhiman yelling and screamed and
was great grinth and an abusive shit.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Adam, you created a fake pershono. They have a romantic
relationship with an eighteen year old boy and then killed her.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That's that's second. That's really awful. There were times when
I just wasn't sure how to respond. I don't think
she was particularly interested in or even aware of any
judgment I might have. There was a lot of which
she seemed unaware, and even when interviewing Natalia, she struggled
(28:15):
to separate her fantasy world from the real world, or
to even really get her facts straight. She claimed during
our interview, for example, that she had been in Palmston
North in two thousand and nine. Yeah, I know she
lived there at one point, but she was in jail
between two thousand and eight and twenty ten. She also
(28:38):
told media that by twenty eleven she had spent much
of the last six years in jail, which isn't entirely true.
She certainly would have been on remand a lot due
to the sheer number of charges against her, but at
that point her only long term prison stint had been
from two thousand and eight. Means that trying to actually
(29:01):
make sense of Natalia's story can be really difficult. She
doesn't really know her own story and what she does know,
I'm never really sure what I can believe. As a journalist,
I'm best working off the facts, and the only definite
facts we have in this case are her times before
the courts didn't help back in twenty eleven, that at
(29:25):
every opportunity Natalia minimized her actions.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
It started off.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
Running games and then it turned into the great big
mess representment.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Right now, I don't think anyone's going to think it's
very funny being rung up and.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Told that a friend of theirs is dead. I wanted
to do that again that isn't quite true. There's Bernie,
Emma's mum, who Natalia directly phoned to break the news
that Laura West, her niece, was dead. But she also
confronted an eighteen year old about Abbie's death as well.
(30:00):
And back in twenty eleven, I also spoke with a
young woman who'd been friends with Amy Marie West, Natalia's
original fake account.
Speaker 10 (30:09):
I thought she was my best friend, my sister. We
talked on the phone about everything.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
In two thousand and nine, Natalia as Laura called her
to tell her that Amy had died from suicide.
Speaker 10 (30:22):
I felt there was nothing I could do for myself anymore.
Amy had texted me just before she committed suicide saying
she loved me and she was sorry. Then I got
that phone call, which completely broke my heart. It is
a twisted, messed up story, and it has affected a
lot of people.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
That young woman went on to receive psychological care after
this ordeal. I kept saying to her that her targets,
those she had hooked into relationships and those that she
had manipulated, that they were just kids, That there was
so much younger than.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
She was, seventy year old boys, and girls. That does
seem to me, like that's a ten eleven year age
to fruce, but not.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
When you say you're eighteen.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
I was that caught up in my own little fancy
will that the rest of the world like this around
me didn't exist.
Speaker 7 (31:14):
I didn't really care as.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
The building next door fell down the steps and broke
his head, because that wasn't part of my online will,
in my online fancy.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Natalia also seemed to think that people shouldn't just believe her.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Attend to somebody that a friend of theirs was dead
their friends.
Speaker 7 (31:32):
I didn't know that they must dog notether than my
shit they came out of my mouth. If it sounds plausible.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And that distancing from responsibility, well, that echoed some of
what Natalie had messaged me online.
Speaker 11 (31:47):
Who got hurt? If I wanted to have sex with them,
I would have made it happen, don't you think? But
I never did. Everything was fake. Nothing was real, fake
plane tickets too, Just a tad hurtful. But hey, you
play they with fire, you will get burned.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Natalia told sixty Minutes that she got a thrill out
of creating the characters and then putting the scenarios into play.
Speaker 6 (32:09):
They were the puffets, and I was the puffetier, and
I was just pulling the strings and sitting back and
watching the show.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
I was the puffetier and I was.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
The audience, you know, and I kind of got off
and that sometimes when I used to watch and fight
over me, kind of made me feel like I was
fifteen again, you know. People were fighting over me and
fighting over the fact that they wanted to be my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And she told me that the kick she got was
like drugs. And so each time she says she's going
to stop, it has continued. The only quiet period I've
found over twenty three years, aside from dialing it down
a bit when she was in jail, there's been this
last year when Natalia found out I was investigating her again,
(32:55):
and perhaps that's because she knows what happened last time
I broke the story. The media went wild, police got
into gear, and she went to jail. It's a bit
like the theory which Dr Barry Walsh felt carried some weight,
that she's moved away from underage boys because she'd been caught.
(33:15):
It's as if she's trying to avoid the trouble she
knows is coming down the track, but Natalia held the
view that she could be stopped only not through her
own actions. I had asked her about this in twenty eleven,
putting forward to her what seemed like an obvious way
to stop her from going online. Do you think you
(33:37):
should get rid of the computer?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
I don't.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
I don't have my phone now, But you've.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Been online in the last three or four days.
Speaker 7 (33:43):
Yeah, my phone, right. Do you think you need to
get rid of your phone too?
Speaker 6 (33:48):
No?
Speaker 7 (33:48):
This may be freeing.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Rather, this was the Tarlia's view of how she and
we could be free from what she herself has called
sex little head games.
Speaker 7 (34:01):
What does work is a mental intervention.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Then I get put in places like respite where I
have to face up to what I've been doing.
Speaker 7 (34:10):
People can all.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
Talk about what they can do to help me and
what they do, but no one actually steps up and
goes we'll calcurves, We'll make you'll find out what's going
on in that horrible A look at it first.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
The more I learned, the deeper I studied Natalia, I
found myself caught between a horror and her actions, and
a surge of empathy towards a woman who's more to
deal with the most, and I have to keep reminding myself,
pulling myself back to the damage that she has caused.
Even more than that, understanding the long and deep hurt
(34:44):
that she has created. For this investigation, there were many
interviews carried out, and many of those reminded me of
the toll Natalia has exacted from the world. While they
all moved or provoked me in one way or another.
There who interviews particularly which will sit with me for
a long time. The other one, well you'll hear that
(35:07):
in the next episode. But right now, in a story
that's not as black and white as it seems, is
a particularly haunty darkness in the form of Peter Russell's mom.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Laura Laura West. She was a stunning, beautiful, blonde haired girl.
He really loved her. He talked to me about her,
tell me what his plans were.
Speaker 12 (35:31):
She just played games with him, you know, I just
really played games with my son and really got him
in a bad place, to the pot where.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
He couldn't deal with life, and he went and committed
suicide over her.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
This is rawn Ford. You heard her back in episode one.
His son, Peter Russell died in twenty ten. His name
has come up a few times in this story. He
was dating Emma, and you've heard some of Peter's stone
in earlier episodes, but now you're going to hear much more,
and you're going to hear it from Raywan his mum.
(36:09):
And what you will hear is a grief that is
deep and raw. For all the time that has passed
since Peter died, it's going to be hard to listen to,
but it's a necessary part of this story because it
shows just how dark the saga is the impact and
(36:29):
ramifications of behavior by Natalia Burgess. Peter Russell died on
October twenty seven, twenty ten. When Raymond and I spoke
last year, it happened to be the thirteenth anniversary of
his death. It wasn't planned that way, but the anniversary
(36:49):
of his death hung over our interview like a cloud.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
It's today.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
It's the last day that I ever see why son alive.
My son was dead by midnight tonight.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
I was twenty one years old when he died, based
in christ Church, had a young son at the time
from an earlier relationship, and three months before his death,
he had been in a relationship with Laura Jane West.
He thought he was dating a vivacious, blonde, twenty year
old Aucklander, a young parent like him who had a
(37:21):
small daughter called Kaylee. Peter thought Laura was at the
center of a bubbly online social group of young women.
In reality, there was no Laura and no social group
of young women. It was all Natalia for Peter, though.
It was real, so real that he and his real
(37:41):
life girlfriend Emma went their separate ways. When I spoke
to Emma, she told me that she had stepped aside
so her first love, Peter, could forge a relationship with Laura,
the woman that she believed was her cousin. It was
so real, and Peter he got about as serious as
it gets.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Give me that much to him. He asked her to
marry him, though really he must have loved her deeply.
He was happy.
Speaker 12 (38:10):
He was so happy that, you know, he had found
somebody and he was going to go up north and
he was going to meet her and get asked her
to marry him, and they were going to get married.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
And then she went.
Speaker 12 (38:23):
Overseas and married somebody else, and he really broke his
hearts when undone what he done.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
I need to be clear here that this is Raven's opinion,
a mother's view on why her boy took his life.
Speaker 13 (38:37):
There was an.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Official inquiry into Peter's suicide, but the coroner ruled that
any findings as the cause of his death in that
official setting could not be made public. Natalie was not
held responsible in any capacity for Peter's death. Raven, though
she links Peter's death to his heartbreak after the collapse
(38:58):
of the relationship that was the only solid thing he
could rely on in a tumultuous phase in his life.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
The game she played with that boy and the mental
anguish that she put him through was just unbelievable. One
minute she'd be in contact with him, and then next
minute she'd be in hospital when something had happened. And
then she'd been overseas and she married somebody else, and
then she come back and wanted to be with my
(39:26):
son again, and just juent games.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
It was an intense relationship that played out almost entirely online.
The timeline of when it started is a bit vague. Natalia,
when I spoke to her in twenty eleven, she put
the start date around April twenty ten, and she linked
their relationship to her quitting drugs.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
I gave up the drugs the day me and Peter
got together.
Speaker 6 (39:50):
So April eleventh, two thousand and ten, was the day
that I gave up all.
Speaker 7 (39:57):
That was like the day after I got al jail.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
It was that much though, that Peter proposed to Laura,
posting his video on social media asking her to marry him.
It's possible that their relationship could have started while Natalie
was in prison. We know from other victims and from
Natalia's own words that she was still able to access
the Internet while she was inside. At any rate, Peter
(40:21):
and Natalia never met in person despite the escalation and
their relationship. Laura, as she was, accepted the wedding proposal,
but later canceled their first physical meeting, which was to
take place at Christchurch Airport two months later, like Natalia
did with Emma and Bernie and later with Danaka and Lisa.
(40:43):
There was a reason why Laura said she had to
go to England instead, because her father had a heart attack.
It was in June twenty ten that Raymond understands Laura
broke up with Peter, claiming she'd married someone else instead.
I should note that Natalia has a different version of
(41:03):
events on how the relationship ended and her decision to
not meet with Peter.
Speaker 7 (41:08):
I think because towards the ended it was forwards the
end of the relationship. I said, I was going to
go down to the Zeeca and thanks.
Speaker 6 (41:16):
She's got too much for me mentally, trying to pretend
to big R plus physically it got too much. Like
me and Peter used to argue towards the end of
the last three or four weeks of.
Speaker 7 (41:27):
Our relationship, and oh my god, when when he.
Speaker 6 (41:31):
Argues with me, I used to argue back twice to
set and I think I just got there, got too much.
Speaker 7 (41:35):
So I was just like that stuff I And so
when he ended it, it was such a relief.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
His mom and she ended it.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
I ended it.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Yeah, No, he ended it.
Speaker 7 (41:46):
If I saw her the Bigo page, I show you
the message that he ended.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
I tried, my very very hunt, tried to get us
back to Heaven, Laura back together and to.
Speaker 7 (41:57):
Try and stop the fighting.
Speaker 6 (41:59):
But both us, both of us, we were getting sicker
and sicker, and I just I just there wasn't any
like I couldn't tell him anything.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Again, given Natalia's tendency for fabrication, it's difficult to know
how much weight to give her version of events. One
thing that one of Peter's cousins told me back in
twenty eleven was that Peter had told family members of
his fear that naked videos he had sent to Natalia
(42:29):
would be released online, and that may also play into
the family's blame of Natalia. Natalia, though has denied ever
having any naked imagery of Peter. There are many things
Raymond will never forget from that time, load the knock
on her door eight o'clock on a Thursday morning with
(42:50):
news that no mother wants to hear.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Well, everybody heard me screaming, and the worst thing of
always having to go and actually identifying my baby.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
There's part of the interview with Raymond that we can't broadcast.
That's because New Zealand Lord prohibits talking about the means
by which someone has taken their life. It's intended to
shield the public from details that might put ideas of
self harm into people's minds. I can tell you Raymond
wasn't shielded from anything. When she went to formally identify
(43:23):
Peter's body, she could see clearly what he had done
to himself every day.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
I still go to bed now, thirteen years down the track,
and when I go to sleep, but I still see
my son land in a wall, and that's something I
can't get rid of. No mother should either have to
go to sleep like that at night and see those
pictures in her head.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
At the time her son died, Raymond had no idea
and Natalia existed in her grief. She abandoned their home
in christ Church and fled to Nelson, and there some
years later, she met Daryl. It was her first life
and together they rekindled something special in the seven years
(44:04):
it took before she could return to her hometown. And
it was in Nelson in twenty eleven that Ramond picked
up a newspaper because she saw Laura West's face on
the front page, and that's when she learned what had
really happened. So distraught, so upset, Roman took the newspaper
(44:25):
home to where she kept Peter's ashes.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
And I showed him look at what it was with
so angry. I'm so so angry with her. She just
doesn't get the fact that she's messing with people's life.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
And she remembers how that left her feeling.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Really really angry, really angry. My son took his life
because he thought he was in love with a beautiful woman.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
She's a lonster.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Incredibly, Natalia had approached Peter's younger brother before the suicide,
and then again after when the teenager sixteen at the time,
visited family in Auckland. Natalia sought him out in person
before being told to leave by a family member.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Honestly, I wanted to go looking for as Caleb and
Peter's mother, I really wanted to go and look for her,
and I really wanted to hurt her badly, but it's
not worth it.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
The loss of Peter was a bomb that sent blast
waves through Rawn's life. She has other children that she
no longer speaks to, and the haunting knowledge Peter's son
will never know his dad.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
She's just totally destroyed us.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
There's one thing Rawn wants to know from Natalia.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I want to know how she felt. How did she
feel when my son took his life? Because I don't know.
I know how I felt. I don't know how she felt,
but I'd like to know, and I'd like to know
it from her voice.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Well, I can answer that. As Natalia addressed her guilt
over Peter back in twenty eleven.
Speaker 7 (46:05):
I do feel guilty. Yeah, do you know when Peter died?
If we're going to go talk about that.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
When Peter died, I went to choose the Friday night
and I've never ever ever been one to cry in
front of people.
Speaker 7 (46:16):
I wrote down and tears.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
Yeah, I had to lie about what had happened and
why I was upset and what Peter was to me.
Speaker 7 (46:23):
But I so felt so shockingly horrible.
Speaker 5 (46:28):
And then because you know, his mum thinks that you're
the reason why Peter like said, yeah, I know she doesn't.
Speaker 7 (46:34):
I think you're not the first person to tell me that.
Speaker 6 (46:36):
But I don't understand how you can blame somebody because
it was like it's cruel and horrible, like what I
used to do.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Like what I used to do. Another example of Natalia
claiming she'd given up catfishing, and we know how that ends,
don't we. Peter would be thirty four if he was
still alive today.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
A mama's boy, Joe anywhere in everywheel with mum, go shopping,
go to housy, go to the pub, make sure mum
was all right. You know, when he was a little
kidd he decided to paint his sister, bright yellow, bright
(47:20):
canary yellow from head to toe, a little rugby h
I miss those things. I love him most.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
I'm sorry that he hate to go through what he
went through.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I'm sorry that he couldn't talk to me about it.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Those things there you were saying sorry about it sounds
Raven as if you feel guilt about what's happened as well.
Speaker 13 (47:52):
Because I up and I should have protected him. I
should have known what was going on with him, but
I didn't. Also, in your he was talking to Laura
on casebook. How can you heal a shattered heart?
Speaker 3 (48:07):
You can't.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
You can mean a broken one, but you can't heal
a shattered heart.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
It was a big step for Raven to speak with me.
She canceled once because the thought of it was just
too much. And I understand that I'm a father myself,
and over the years I've talked to many people who
have lost children. I've never understood how they can find
words to put to those feelings of grief and guilt
(48:32):
and love. But then Raven messaged me back and we
did arrange to speak, and this is what she said
when I asked her why she changed her mind.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
I have to take a stand for my son.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
I have to be his voice because he's not here
to talk, and if I could try and stop her,
I'm going to do everything I can to do it.
There's no other parent should he have to go through
what life is Amily's gone through?
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Why does she do it? What is she lacking in
her life?
Speaker 3 (49:05):
I honestly thought after my's son committed suicide over what
she had done, that that would have been her wake
up call.
Speaker 13 (49:12):
But it's not.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
She's still doing it.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Why can the government not step in and put protocols
in place to protect people? Surely there must be something
out there that the government can do.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I've spoken to a number of people for this series
who've been victims of Natalia in various ways, but Raven
has hurt more than most of them. Yet all of
them have had their lives ruined, touched in an adverse
way by Natalia. Crystal has been fighting her stolen photographs
for a decade now. Danika and Lisa were deceived for
(49:51):
six years and still feel the heat thirteen years on.
Bernie told me how she still can't trust people. Countless
other people who I spoke to back in twenty eleven
and approached again for the series who don't want to
talk again on the record as the memories are too painful.
So while Natalia's life has been difficult at times, that
(50:13):
certainly doesn't excuse the things she's done and the impact
her catfishing has had. For two years in jail in
twenty thirteen might seem like a reasonable punishment for her crimes,
but those came after earl instance in jail as well,
and in all the years since she left prison at
the end of twenty fifteen, she has faced no consequences
(50:34):
for the actions that followed. When Crystal Jenna emailed me
at the end of twenty twenty two, it was the
first time in years that I'd thought about Natalia Burgess.
My interest in where she was in the world and
what she was up to had largely ended in twenty
thirteen when she was sent to jail. In hindsight, it
feels like maybe I should have checked in, but I didn't.
(50:57):
Perhaps I thought the conviction and sentence would have sent
message that had been listened to. Perhaps it was that
Natalia's behavior was so outlandish. I thought that lightning couldn't
strike twice, but it did, and here we are now,
as the evidence mounted that Natalia had been catfishing again.
(51:18):
I knew I had to track her down and get
her side of the story that had been years without contact.
So I started with what worked last time, visiting her parents'
home in Monaco, and that didn't help. Natalia's parents had
moved and the neighbors had no idea where they're gone.
In the court file and other documents, well, the only
address that held was the old address. In the end,
(51:43):
cross referencing property records with a public registry on which
her dad was listed gave me a new address. It's
a road which repeats numbers as you go through suburbs.
So there was a bit of door knocking until finally
I found her parents' home, and perhaps only they wanted
nothing to do with me. I was hoping to find
(52:04):
Natalia right bye, here, Can you tell me where I
could find nice?
Speaker 7 (52:12):
You were very nice to us at times?
Speaker 11 (52:14):
Why should I help you?
Speaker 1 (52:15):
Well, because she's doing the same thing again and you
might want to stalk.
Speaker 11 (52:20):
Well, I'm not helping you out.
Speaker 6 (52:22):
I don't like you.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
I can understand your feel that way. While they didn't talk,
it did spark Natalia and I reconnecting in her preferred environment, Facebook.
Speaker 11 (52:34):
Leave us alone. You're trespassing if you go near me
and my family again.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
I replied, reminding Natalia of our past interactions and letting
you know that I was doing a podcast on her.
Speaker 11 (52:46):
What have my parents got to do with this?
Speaker 1 (52:48):
I was trying to find you. You're the person I
want to talk to.
Speaker 11 (52:52):
What if I just want to leave the past in
the past.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
The past isn't in the past, is it. I've been
talking to Crystal.
Speaker 11 (52:59):
Okay, fair coll But life is good right now, so
let me think about it, and it's not going in
the paper.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
In the thumbnail photographs that accompanied those messages, Natalia looks happy.
She's smiling at the camera, and at his side, a
clean shaven man leans and snuggled at her shoulder. Natalia
didn't want her story to again appear in the newspaper
because she didn't want her parents to see anything. She
(53:26):
figured they might not see a story online and almost
certainly weren't going to listen to a newfangled podcast, but
they would see it in the letterbox when the morning
newspaper was delivered. I couldn't promise her that all those
old strands of media have blended together now, so there's
no guarantee in New Zealand Herald podcast won't end up
(53:46):
on the front page or elsewhere in the newspaper, and
we don't promise people where their coverage will and won't go. Regardless,
I think Natalia would have always gone cold on me.
She didn't want to talk in twenty eleven, so it
was no surprise she again didn't want to talk to
me in twenty twenty three or twenty twenty four. What
(54:08):
she wanted to do was to keep me at arm's length,
far enough away that I'd never be able to finish
this podcast or write about her, and clearly that didn't work.
The more I investigated, the more I found there were
questions which Natalia, in my view, really needed to answer.
(54:29):
As the months went by, we stayed in touch. Sometimes
we'd talk on the phone, other times we'd message, and
there was a blended nature to those conversations. Partly it
was Natalia trying to work out how much I knew.
Partly though, Natalie was also trying to push me off
into the future just another week, just another month, or
(54:52):
trying to control what we might do, like insisting on
no photographs for a few months. The conversation went quiet.
I took a break for a long planned family vacation,
and Ethan, my producer, was working through other projects. I
started messaging to Tarli again during this time, but despite
that contact the trail had gone cold, and Natalia she
(55:17):
stopped picking up calls and responding to messages. I didn't
know where she was, possibly Auckland, possibly funk at a
possibly elsewhere in the country. As the launch date for
episode one got closer and closer, it was becoming an
increase in concern that Natalie wouldn't talk to us at all.
And then, just days before the first episode went live,
(55:39):
I sent Natalia one more message, one that included a
long list of questions I wanted answered, one that let
her know the podcast was about to be released. There
was a message that let her know there were no
more tomorrows which you might push the future away, And
with that it seemed now finally she wanted to talk,
(56:03):
so next time. In the final episode of Chasing Ghosts,
the puppeteer no characters, no stolen photos, no computer screen
to hide behind. For the first time in thirteen years,
the Tania Burgess fronts up. You've been listening to Chasing
(56:25):
Ghosts the Puppeteer. Follow the podcast and the Chasing Ghost
Feed on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
you can find more on this case at inzid Herald
dot co dot z ethanselves is my producer, with audio
engineering by Alistair Boys. Thanks to my colleagues for lending
their voices to this episode. If you have a story
(56:47):
about this case, contact me at David dot Fisher at inzid,
herold dot co dot zen. And if you believe you've
encountered behavior online that matches what we've discussed in this series,
you can if won't help it netsafe dot org dot
m Z. But if you feel at risk, don't hesitate,
contact police
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!