Four artworks worth thousands of dollars each are missing from dead fraudster Melissa Caddick’s $6.1 million Sydney home.
Investigators who trawled through the fake financial adviser’s home and contents insurance policy, which listed 19 artworks, noticed four key pieces were missing after she disappeared in early hours of November 12.
Two works by Israeli artist David Gerstein were gone, including bright metal wall sculpture ‘Exotic Birds’, which is worth more than $5,000.
‘Diver’ by Australian artist Adrian Lockhart, which used to hang in the upstairs dining area of her home in Dover Heights, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, was also unaccounted for.
‘Diver’ by Australian artist Adrian Lockhart (pictured above Caddick and her husband Anthony Koletti) used to hang in the upstairs dining area of her home in Dover Heights
David Gerstein’s sculpture Exotic Birds was another of the four pieces of art that disappeared
Another of Lockhart’s work – which normally sell for up to $8,000 – called ‘Washing Off The Sand’ was missing, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Liquidators said Sydney’s Canturi Jewellers also had $100,000 worth of jewellery, including a diamond necklace, which the 49-year-old paid for but failed to collect.
The last people to see Caddick alive were members of the Australian Federal Police, who raided her home at 7am on November 11 during an investigation into the mother-of-one for stealing millions of dollars from her clients.
Insolvency firm Jones Partners believe she took almost $30 million from investors and spent most of it on her lavish lifestyle.
Caddick vanished from her $6.1million Dover Heights home (pictured) about November 11 last year. She had paid the mortgage in advance up until mid March
Caddick (pictured centre) is survived by her husband Anthony (pictured right), a 15-year-old son, parents Barbara and Ted Grimley and brother Adam.
Court documents showed she used a Qantas American Express credit card to spend $250,000 at Dior, $236,150 at Canturi Jewellers, $60,000 at Chanel, and $250,000 on shoes and designer clothes.
About $63,000 was blown on Fijian holidays, $37,000 on trips to New York and several trips to Aspen that cost around $120,000.
Despite telling her friends she owned an apartment in Aspen, that claim appears to have been false.
Caddick also often sold last season’s designer goods at Hock Your Frock – a luxury online second-hand store that spruiks items that are immaculate and no more than four years old.
Human remains including what appeared to be stomach flesh and a belly button have washed ashore on a beach 150km away from where missing Caddick’s (pictured) foot was found
ASIC investigator Isabella Allen alleges Caddick hit her with a barrage of questions when authorities raided her $6.2million Dover Heights mansion on November 11 (pictured is bodycam footage of the raid)
A report by liquidator Bruce Gleeson, which was handed to investors, is believed to said the scam artist took more than $1 million from her parents.
They thought the money would go towards the apartment Caddick bought them in Edgecliff, for which she paid $2.66 million in 2016.
Her brother Adam Grimley also gave her about $150,000 to help with the mortgage for their parents, but the family have since found out the money was used to fund her extravagant lifestyle.
The mounting financial issues come as Caddick’s family were given the news that her foot was found washed up on the NSW South Coast last week.
Pictured: Melissa Caddick and her husband Anthony Koletti before she went missing on November 12
Conwoman Melissa Caddick is pictured, right, with her husband Anthony Koletti
Soon there will also be the question of what happens next to her remains – a matter for the State Coroner, a NSW Police spokeswoman said.
‘There’s not really a rule book’ for this sort of situation, said Professor Jo Duflou, the former longtime clinical director at the state’s Department of Forensic Medicine.
Generally speaking a person’s remains would be released to loved ones once they’re no longer required for investigative purposes.
But Prof Duflou said there likely wouldn’t be a problem with the remains staying in the morgue until the rest of Caddick’s body – or as ‘much of it as can be’ – was found.
Forensic pathologists are working to confirm whether other remains that have washed up along the coast in recent days are linked to Caddick.
Caddick’s decomposed foot was found in a grey and white Asics Gel Nimbus 22 at Bournda Beach, near Tathra on the NSW South Coast
The search expands: In the coming days, when the seas are calmer, police will search the ocean off Dover Heights for clues to Melissa Caddick’s disappearance
Police revealed late on Tuesday that a ‘discoloured’ torso found at a beach at Mollymook on Friday belonged to an unknown male. The DNA profile will be compared against the missing persons database,’ a police spokeswoman said.
Caddick had also paid her mortgage on her Dover Heights mansion in advance up to March 2021, allowing her husband Anthony Koletti some breathing room following her November disappearance.
But Caddick’s once big-living family now face the issue of her $19,000-per-month repayments – as well as the likelihood her receivers could sell her property to recoup investors’ funds.
A court also recently scrapped an allowance for Mr Koletti to pay for his usual living expenses – funds which had covered everything from the food they ate, the electricity they used and their $1,300 per month pet insurance bill.
Melissa Caddick’s family face a series of grim choices in the days ahead
Theories rage about what happened to Caddick in the meantime. One victim, who knew Caddick for two decades, told Daily Mail Australia he was open to the popular but extremely unlikely theory she was still alive.
‘Everyone thinks she is alive and just kicking with one foot,’ he said. ‘She would have had an exit plan set up ages ago.’
Criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro told News Corp: ‘I believe she had a plan. It’s unlikely on impulse she would have ended her life.’
Superintendent Joe McNulty, commander of the NSW Police Force Marine Command, has said Caddick’s shoe ‘needs extensive analysis to see how long it was in the water.’
‘It’s a vital clue where hopefully marine biology can provide some answers,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.
Supt McNulty has cast doubt on whether Caddick’s Gel Nimbus 22 sneaker could have been in the water for three months and said he had never known remains to travel so far south.
Assistant Commissioner Michael Willing has likewise suggested Caddick may have been on the run prior to her disappearance.
That’s even as police said their drift modelling appeared to show that her body could have hit the water at Dover Heights and travelled as far south as Bermagui, not far from where her body was found.
Police will once again search near Dover Heights when seas are calmer. ‘They (the searches) will occur in due course,’ a spokeswoman said.
At this point, police suspect Caddick has likely died by suicide, but aren’t ruling out foul play.
Daily Mail Australia revealed on Monday that Caddick had taken out a $120 per month life insurance policy prior to her disappearance.
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