City Homicide (2007) s04e05 Episode Script
Ratters
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srt by GeirDM It's OK, Judy, it's OK.
(SOBBING) You're gonna miss Violet, aren't you? We'd better get moving.
I hear you.
I'm hanging for a coffee.
See you next time, Donny.
You should get a discount, we're here that often.
Corey, that's not funny.
Yeah, but it's true.
We'll probably be back here next week.
('CHASE THAT FEELING' BY HILLTOP HOODS PLAYS ON RADIO) She's young, Iithe and homely Wise by no means Known one guy She's for his eyes and only He's a lying phoney Leaves crying, lonely Separates the pain by staying high and though she Turn it down, will you?! Why? The old bag's not gonna complain.
She can chase that feeling It's got a hold in me Get me a double shot, yeah? Don't chase that feeling Like I've Been looking for Something that's good for the rich Yeah The blind and the poor Baby, I've Been looking for (CAR ENGINE ROARS) Something that's good for the rich Yeah The blind and the poor Sometimes I feel we strive for Hugh? Callous deeds Other mindless acts of greed Ain't jack for free I think they'd try a tax to breathe It's like we fight to remind us that we bleed I take flight in the night (TURNS UP MUSIC) 'Cause peace of mind's the only time that we're free Hi.
Strong latte with two sugars and a macchiato, thanks.
We all chase that feeling Oi! Who's that? What do you think you're doing? Thanks, mate.
And I'm a chase that feeling It's got a hold on me I'm a chase that feeling like Corey! Seriously, turn it down! It's not right for us to Corey? Corey! It's got a hold in me And I'm a chase that feeling Chase that feeling.
I went to get our coffees and came back to this.
Do you always come to the same place? Yeah.
Yeah, best in town.
I'm a bit of a coffee nut.
They have this great blend.
it's all Fairtrade.
I can't believe this is happening.
I see bodies every day, just not like this.
If you wouldn't mind having Mr Lavington checked out by the ambos? Thank you.
Sure thing.
Screwdriver to the throat.
By the amount of blood, it looks like it got an artery.
Judging by the position of the body, it looks like he exited the van, came round the back.
To confront whoever was trying to break in.
Looks like the body-snatching might be the point here.
So Corey's collateral damage.
Mm-hm.
A few people heard the screeching of tyres.
A couple saw a silver station wagon speeding away from the scene.
(PHONE RINGS) No-one witnessed the murder itself.
Jennifer Mapplethorpe.
Yeah, we're here.
Yes, Sarge.
Straightaway.
What's up? The old lady, Violet, who they were transporting, her daughter's waiting for her at the morgue, wants to see her mother.
Ms Natoli.
Can I see my mother now? Um, We're not from the morgue.
We're detectives.
Your mother's body has been involved in an incident in transit and it may be a little while before you can see her.
What do you mean? What sort of incident? Well, we can't give you the exact details at the moment, but we do need to inform you that your mother's body has gone missing.
Missing? What does that even mean, missing? It appears it may have been taken.
This is them.
This is those bastards at the home.
Excuse me? I told them I'd be getting an autopsy, and now this.
I'm sorry, I thought your mother died of natural causes, a stroke.
Did you say that you requested an autopsy? That I did.
I complained and complained about the care at that nursing home - the muck-ups with her medication, the neglect.
My mother's death wasn't natural causes.
They killed her.
Now they're trying to cover it up.
Give me a break.
They did this to cover up shortcomings in care? Fees, government grants, licences - there's a lot of money at stake in aged care.
And if they accidentally killed one of their residents Uh, 'accidentally' being the magic word? This man had a screwdriver shoved in his throat.
If they're trying to sweep things under the carpet, they're doing a pretty poor job.
Maybe they panicked, weren't expecting to be confronted.
You got to admit it stinks a bit.
The daughter accuses the home of murder, then the body goes missing.
I'll tell you what's gonna start stinking soon - that body if we don't find it.
I've already had the Media Unit on the phone.
The case of the disappearing corpse.
So get to it.
Find me that old broad.
But with all due respect, we're looking for a murderer, not a body.
Exactly.
Our best hope of finding Violet Natoli is to work out who killed Corey Mayer and why.
Well, the nursing home's gotta be up there.
Violet's daughter, Stella Natoli, emailed through a list of complaints she lodged.
It's pretty extensive.
Maybe Corey was the target.
Hugh Lavington said they went to the same coffee shop every day.
It could be that somebody was waiting for him? Nick and I will follow up Corey's autopsy.
We'll go to the nursing home.
It's about time someone took Stella Natoli's complaints seriously.
(CHEERY PIANO MUSIC PLAYS) I've personally been over Violet's medical logs, everything for the last week, and there have been no problems.
For an 80-year-old, she was in good health.
Well, she's not in such good health now.
We've got a copy of complaints that Stella Natoli emailed you about her mother's care, as the owner/manager.
On 1 July, she was given a double dose of antidepressants resulting in diarrhoea and dizziness.
And on the 17th, the same thing happened again - she was given a double dose of her medication.
When I found out what happened with Violet's medication, the staff member involved was fired immediately.
So you admit it's fortunate the medication Violet was given wasn't any stronger.
Of course! But there's nothing we give Violet that could have caused a stroke.
I checked.
So what about something you failed to administer? I beg your pardon? Well, say one of your staff forgot to give Violet her blood thinners.
It's possible that that could have contributed to the stroke, right? (EXHALES) Is it possible, Mr Hamilton? Well, theoretically, yes.
But I've implemented double-checks, warnings to all staff.
There was no mishap in her meds.
Just as well.
Stella Natoli's not the only person who's been sending you warning letters, is she? You're on final notice from the National Aged Care Board.
One more stuff-up and they'll yank your license, they'll close you down.
You've got a lot to lose, haven't you, Mr Hamilton? Yes, I do! I guess it's lucky Violet's body isn't available for autopsy.
Excuse me? What are you suggesting? We're suggesting you stole Violet's body to cover up criminal and medical negligence.
That's ludicrous! Corey Mayer caught you in the act, tried to stop you.
You panicked and you lodged a screwdriver in his throat.
No, absolutely not.
Well, according to your staff, you left the nursing home shortly after the coroner's drivers left with Violet's body, right after Stella Natoli called you and warned you she was getting an autopsy.
So you wanna tell us where you went? Out! I just went for a drive to the park.
Violet's death hit me hard.
I went to clear my head.
Is there anyone who can vouch for you? No.
But it's the truth.
I didn't kill anyone, intentionally or otherwise.
We'll need you to come to the station and make a statement.
Of course.
Now, Mr Hamilton.
This isn't over yet.
You here for Corey Mayer's autopsy? That was the idea, yeah.
Might be a bit of a delay on that one.
Usually, when a friend or relative is brought in, whoever knows them is excused.
In this case, everyone knew Corey.
Didn't know morgue staff were that close to the coroner's drivers.
Corey also worked nights here as a forensic assistant.
Moonlighting? Didn't know that was allowed.
It's not.
.
.
important we take this opportunity to discuss this morning's events.
This has been a shock to all of us, not only to those of you who worked closely with Corey.
If any of you need time off or to speak to anyone, let me know.
In the meanwhile, Ronnie and I will handle all of the work involving Corey.
Right, that's all.
Thanks.
James, allow me to introduce you to two of our best customers.
Homicide.
Detectives Buchanan and Mapplethorpe.
James Boyd, morgue director.
I suppose Ronnie's explained the delay in the autopsy.
Yeah, she did.
But since we've come down here, we'd like to speak with his friends or coworkers or anyone who worked closely with Corey.
We can organise that for you.
In the meantime, you'll want to speak to Damien Sanders.
He's Corey'swas Corey's supervisor.
They really stole a body? Have you any idea who? We were hoping you might be able to share some information with us.
Yes, of course.
Sorry.
So, how would you describe Corey Mayer? Corey was a great guy.
Funny, popular, particularly with the ladies.
Did you know him very well? Yeah.
I make a point of getting to know all my team.
We're a very tight-knit crew.
it's the nature of the work, I guess.
So you knew that he was working for both the coroner's contractors and the morgue? Oh, yes.
We're supposed to keep very defined lines between us, conflict of interest and all that, but Corey said he needed the money and I didn't see the harm.
Ooh.
Any idea why he might have needed that money? Sorry? Was he in any money trouble that you knew of? Uh, I don't think so.
Why? Our receptionist said that Corey was killed trying to protect the body.
Your receptionist? Sheshe heard it on the news.
Oh.
Well, we're trying to keep our minds open as to motive at this stage.
Right, um Well, I always assumed that Corey worked two jobs to pay off his car, some flashy sports number.
But now I think of it, I know he gambled.
Online poker.
Online poker was the least of Corey Mayer's worries.
$30,000 in debt.
But Jen reckons his friends at the morgue said that he was loaded.
Far from it.
His sports car's on the verge of being repossessed.
The finance company takes repayments out of his wages every week, which is where these guys come in.
Cash4U Fast Loans.
So he took out a loan to pay off his loans? Beautiful, isn't it? Thought we'd pay Cash4U a visit, see what kind of collection policy they have.
Anthony Rackham? Something tells me you two aren't here for a loan.
You know this man? Corey? Yeah, I know him.
Why? We understand he owes you quite a bit of money.
Yes, he does.
Said we could sort something out, put him on a payment plan.
He was meant to come in last week but he didn't show.
Some people would be too scared to tell you they can't pay their debts? (PHONE RINGS) Me? I don't see why.
You don't have a criminal record for assault? A simple misunderstanding.
And receiving stolen goods? I was never convicted.
I'm a businessman now.
I did a course.
Now, what's this about? Corey Mayer's dead.
He's been murdered.
So, what are you suggesting? Why the hell would I kill him? Maybe you went around there to collect what he owes you, teach him a lesson, things got out of hand.
For one, I don't do the collections myself.
I've got business associates that do that for me.
And two, you don't kill people who owe you money.
How does that get you your cash back? It doesn't but it sends a clear message to your other customers.
You listen to me.
I do a service to this community.
Families that can't eat until their next pay cheque.
Old blokes facing eviction.
I do them a favour when no-one else will.
I buy them some time.
And when they can't pay? I give them some more time.
And when they still can't pay three months down the track, and your interest doubles their loan amount? I'm not a charity, Detective.
Cause of death, as I'm sure you worked out without 12 years of specialist training, is a large, flathead screwdriver shoved into his neck just so.
The attacker managed to lacerate Corey's internal carotid artery.
I'm guessing there was a bit of blood at the crime scene.
Yeah.
Arteries are pretty tough and that screwdriver isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
You'd need a fair amount of force to cause that damage.
Corey's killer had to be physically strong.
That's my tip.
There's traces of pseudoephedrine in his bloodstream but I'd say that's par for the course with the hours Corey was working.
There's no sign of major illness or liver damage yet, but the latter would have only been a matter of time.
We've got a search warrant for Corey's apartment.
Any chance of getting the keys? Don't they teach lock-picking at the academy anymore? Maddison should be able to get them for you.
Did either of you know Corey well? Oh, typical alpha male.
Crowed the loudest.
Bit of a cock, really.
We'd crossed paths a few times.
I caught him eating fish and chips in here once.
We had a few words.
He kept clear of me after that.
Not my cup of tea.
Yeah, we're not the only ones who thought that.
Yeah, I went out with Corey for a while.
Hell, who didn't? Corey was a hit with the ladies? Corey just hit on all the ladies.
It was pure probability - you try your luck enough times, you're gonna get some wins.
When we were here earlier, we spoke to Corey's coworkers and friends.
Why didn't you come forward? After he cheated on me the third time, I kind of reviewed our friendship status.
And we didn't work together anymore.
I asked to be swapped to day shift to get away from him.
This is his locker.
He worked last night on night shift, so his stuff should be here, including the keys to his love nest.
Simon Wilden.
Fiona Connell.
And these don't look like Corey's.
So, this is how he planned to pay off his debts.
Corey Mayer has been stealing from the dead.
Two diamond rings, three gold wedding bands, an antique watch and $300 in cash.
These were all found at Corey's apartment last night.
Add those to the items we discovered in his work locker And Corey Mayer's been a very busy boy.
And you're sure he's been nicking them off dead bodies? Yeah, we're sure.
A couple of the items had identifiable inscriptions.
Other items were reported missing by families.
Some of the bank notes had blood on them.
Gross.
To say the least.
What we haven't found is a $50,000 Tiffany's engagement ring reported missing two weeks ago.
JEN: it belonged to a young woman called Amelia O'Brien.
She was killed in a head-on collision.
Her fiancé wants the ring back.
He's heart-broken, poor guy.
The theft's being investigated.
The cops at the scene remember seeing the ring but all deny taking it.
It seems they're telling the truth.
it'll be Corey Mayer.
What a low-life.
So it wasn't Violet Natoli's body the killer was looking to steal.
Breaking into the van was a clever piece of misdirection.
They were after that ring? They must have thought Corey had it on him.
be keeping it in his locker.
Who do we know who'd like to get hold of a ring like that? I loan people cash, they pay me cash.
I don't accept bits and bobs for debts.
So Corey never paid you with items of jewellery, watches anything like that? Course not.
And you never sold any items for him? What, like a fence? What kind of business do you think I'm running? We've got a warrant here to search out the back of your premises.
Now, do you wanna make things easy for yourself by cooperating? You're saying I answer some questions, we can sort something out? I'm not saying anything, Mr Rackham.
Corey might have paid me a couple of times with goods, a nice watch here and there.
Corey was stealing those items from corpses.
What? Sick little bastard.
If I'd known he was nicking them off dead people, there's no way I would have taken them.
But stealing from the living's alright? So, do you know anything about a $50,000 Tiffany's engagement ring? No.
You didn't kill Corey Mayer to get it, take back what he owed you? Of course not.
And I heard about his murder on the radio.
Whoever had killed him had nicked some old lady's body.
Why the hell would I do something like that? To distract the attention from yourself.
Because you knew otherwise you'd be our chief suspect, we'd come looking for that ring.
But since we're not so easily distracted, maybe we'll start having a look around your premises right now, since you don't know anything.
Alright, alright.
I know about the ring.
But I don't have it.
And I didn't kill Corey for it.
One of my associates paid him a visit at his apartment.
Corey didn't have the cash but he promised to give me that ring.
And did he do that? No, he didn't! Some prick killed him.
He was meant to bring it around yesterday, said somebody at his work had it.
That's it? We're done? We're done.
For now, Mr Rackham.
I have a warrant here to search these premises for stolen goods.
I've got a lead on the car - silver Hyundai station wagon reported stolen last night from Moonee Ponds.
That matches the car spotted speeding away from the crime scene.
Still u n recovered but now we've got a numberplate, should make things easier.
Thanks to uniform's search on Cash4U, Rackham's being charged with possession of stolen goods.
A lot of stolen goods.
He's definitely Corey's fence.
Did he have the ring? No.
But that doesn't mean he hasn't sold it on already.
I'll see if Sarge can authorise some surveillance.
Rackham says that someone at Corey's work's got the ring, not him.
But I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit him.
He could be telling the truth.
Nick and I have been checking out staff rosters.
Not everything was stolen on the days Corey was on duty, and Corey was away sick the day the ring came in.
So he has to have an accomplice.
So we could be looking at a falling out amongst thieves? What about Corey's ex? Maddison? Nick's already checked her out.
No, she was not on shift that day either.
Corey Mayer didn't just work at the morgue, right? He worked as a driver for the coroner too, alongside this guy, Hugh Lavington.
What's to say he doesn't have the ring? He couldn't have killed Corey on his own.
There was no blood on him when we got to the scene and no time for him to wash and get rid of the body before then.
Doesn't mean he wasn't behind the job.
He knew better than anyone where Corey was gonna be that day.
We'll check him out.
OK.
I'll grab Nick and head back to the morgue.
Waverley's already here.
Our reputation in the community is at stake.
The public needs to be able to trust the morgue.
That's precisely why we need to continue our investigation - to clarify matters.
Look, we're scientists, doctors, not petty thieves.
If people were to find out we're under suspicion Detectives.
I can assure you my staff know how to be discreet but we can't ignore this problem.
I don't believe there is a problem.
Well, then there's no need for you to be concerned.
My detectives won't hold you up any longer than is necessary.
OK, Mapplethorpe, Buchanan? Ma'am.
Yes ma'am.
, We've information that another morgue staff member may be involved in the theft of property from corpses.
As I was just explaining to the Commander, there is absolutely no way.
I simply don't believe that Corey could have stolen while he was on duty here.
Stolen items were found in Corey Mayer's locker.
Then he must have stolen them when he was doing his driving job.
Look, I'm sorry to be so insistent here but I have put in place so many security measures to stop this sort of thing from happening.
Checkpoints, countersigning, video surveillance.
You have video footage? Absolutely.
I can have it sent across to Homicide.
Please.
That would be very helpful.
And can you explain the security procedures? Of course.
And then you'll see there is absolutely no way that Corey could have stolen while he was on duty here.
Jen, let Waverley get the company line.
We need to find out how this place really works.
Oh? What's the plan? Well, Corey found a way of doing some thieving.
If he didwe can too.
So, the arrival of the body at the morgue is always recorded.
The camera is operated by the morgue staff, and it's done in the presence of a police member.
Present.
Coroner's drivers bring the corpse in, we follow them with the camera until the body is transferred.
He's all signed and logged.
Thanks.
We'll take it from here.
Once they've buggered off, our deceased is given a pat-down.
And this is where you'll find the personal items? Right.
Like this wedding band.
Hang on, did you actually turn that camera on? Of course I turned it on.
But what if you didn't? I mean, everyone's focused on the body.
Right- you could just pretend and never actually hit the record button.
Yeah, you could.
Right.
What happens next? Once the search is done, the police member signs off on the belongings and leaves and then the video camera's switched off.
If it was ever switched on in the first place.
The next step in the process is the bagging of the clothes.
James has ordered that bodies be undressed in here to preserve forensic evidence in suspicious deaths.
That'd be your lot.
There aren't any cameras in here.
No.
No police presence? None.
So theoretically, you could do the cursory pat-down in there and wait till you come in here to see if you can take anything else.
Absolutely.
You two are working for the wrong side.
Well, we were so distracted talking about the video camera, we didn't finish the search.
So all Corey had to do was distract the police member somehow.
That's easy - it's usually a fresh-faced uniform assigned to the search.
They tend to be too worried about up-chucking to actually pay attention to what's going on.
They're not used to seeing dead bodies.
So that's how Corey was ratting.
Ratting? Sadly, there's even a name for it in the morgue world.
That's terrible, Ronnie.
Yeah, it bloody is.
Words fail me.
What does that say? Oh, you'll see it in morgues all around the world.
"This is the place where death rejoices to help the living.
" The dead help us understand what happened to them so their families can move on.
It's supposed to be a reminder of what we do here, not an invitation to make a quick buck.
We'll get to the bottom of this, Ronnie.
If Corey's accomplice works here, we'll find them.
Well, it's easier said than done.
Mmm.
So what have you got? Video surveillance from the morgue.
Searching for Corey's accomplice.
But the staff are in charge of operating the camera, so there's discs all over the shop.
There's no labels, no particular order.
You little ripper.
So we're trying to check them off against the roster to see who didn't turn the camera on.
And who didn't do a very thorough search.
How did you go with the coroner's drivers? We tried interviewing Hugh Lavington but he's out of town.
That's a bit suss.
Bit lame more like it.
He's on a day trip, birdwatching.
Nothing wrong with birdwatching.
Which is irrelevant right now.
Did you search the house? Yeah.
But no sign of the ring.
The guy's a total neat freak, so didn't take long.
But we spoke to the driver who was working with Hugh that day.
He remembers the ring but he denies taking it.
Shame, because it doesn't look like the ring was stolen by morgue staff.
But how do you know that? Because we've got video of Amelia O'Brien's body arriving.
And James Boyd is right.
The footage clearly shows that the ring never made it to the morgue.
So the supervisor, Damien Sanders, receives the body and, look, there's no ring.
So how was the ring stolen and when? We haven't figured that out yet.
So where to now? Another 200 hours of video surveillance.
Even if we don't find the ring, any discrepancies in the recordings may give us the second thief and a possible murderer.
The guy at the old folks home is looking less likely.
How did you go with Ant Rackham? Dead end.
He's onto our surveillance.
The last photo they snapped of him was that.
Hah! Brilliant.
Jen, that was Ronnie.
She wants us back at the morgue, says it's urgent.
This is one of the morgue freezers, which is monitored by a motion-activated video camera.
When I came to fetch a body for autopsy this morning, I noticed it.
You think someone's been stealing from the freezer? No, in this case, I'm afraid, something's been added.
I checked the logs in here, everything's as it should be.
But back here is the John and Jane Doe section, and something doesn't add up.
We rarely have cause to come in here.
Violet Natoli.
Don't tell me she's been in there all along?! Corey Mayer's killer works at the morgue.
But if the killer works at the morgue, why hide the body in such an obvious place? Ronnie says that section of the freezer is used for unidentified corpses, Jane and John Does.
Bodies can be in there for years.
So the killer stashes the body there, waits for the heat to die down before moving it, and then disposing of it properly months down the track.
Exactly.
That's a bit risky, isn't it? It's bold.
But it's actually really clever.
It is.
If the culprit hadn't forgotten to plug the camera back in, Ronnie would never have noticed.
Have we checked the video logs on the freezer camera? It was switched off just after midnight last night.
OK, Commander Waverley's given us the all-clear to take the kid gloves off on this one.
I want every staff member at that morgue interviewed from the director down to the cleaner.
We need to check coroner's drivers and police.
Anyone who has access to that part of the morgue.
Thanks, Hamish.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
Irene Bosley? Cheers, Ronnie.
Thank God for an iron-clad alibi, hey, Gideon? Brad Knight.
NICK: Where were you yesterday morning at 9:30? JEN: That was the time Corey Mayer was murdered.
I was in my office.
I had a phone meeting with the coroner to discuss her autopsy requests.
And what about last night at midnight? That was the time the video camera on the morgue freezer was unplugged and Violet Natoli miraculously turned up at your morgue.
I was at home.
Alone? Yes.
I'm divorced.
As director of the morgue, you've built your reputation on modernising security there.
That's right.
And I made it abundantly clear there is zero tolerance for rule-breaking.
So it must have made you pretty mad when you found out Corey had been ratting from corpses? Absolutely.
I was furious.
And if he'd been alive when I found out, I might have strangled the little leech myself.
But I didn't know.
Isn't it your job to know? I know it's no excuse but I spend most of my day cooped up in the office filtering through paperwork.
I rely on my senior staff to handle the day-to-day, managing the procedures I've put in place.
Staff like forensic supervisor Damien Sanders? Yes.
Look I know Damien would never be involved in the ratting himself, but I also know there's a lot that could'veslipped by him.
What do you mean by that? He can be a bit shaky at times, has trouble concentrating.
He has a drinking problem, which is why I arranged for him to move from a pathologist's position to a supervisor's position .
.
after a few unfortunate oversights.
Correct me if I'm wrong but you've recently been demoted, haven't you, Damien? Yes.
Can you tell us why? You know why.
Well, for the purposes of the tapes, can you tell us why you've been demoted? Because I can't get through a shift sober.
You're an alcoholic.
I have a drinking problem, I admit that, but I'm not a murderer.
Your boss was aware that you were drunk on duty, wasn't he? Yes.
James should have fired me years ago.
So, if he found out about Corey ratting under your supervision, he'd have no choice but to fire you this time? Absolutely.
But I didn't know what Corey was up to.
I should have but I didn't.
Little bastard had me completely fooled.
But I didn't kill him.
Well, that's funny because right now you're high up on our list of suspects.
No alibi for the morning of the murder.
And you were at work when the body was slipped into the freezer.
Nice quiet night shift.
You could easily have just popped her in there without anyone noticing.
I didn't kill Corey, I didn't steal a body and I didn't know about any ratting.
Are you sure about that? You were happy to break the rules when it came to Corey's moonlighting.
Why not break a few more along the way? It wasn't like that.
Did you steal from bodies too? No! Never! So you never saw the ring on the deceased when it came in? No, the ring was gone when the body arrived.
You can look at the video.
Do you know anyone else who might have been ratting? Another staff member? Corey and Maddison Yeats were pretty tight for a while there.
Yeah, but they've split up.
Didn't stop them hanging around the processing room together.
You didn't like Corey Mayer much, did you, Maddison? No.
And you didn't start work until 10:30 on the morning Corey was murdered.
What, so I had time to kill him? I wouldn't waste a sleep-in.
The pathologist told us the attacker was strong.
You practise karate, so upper-body strength isn't a problem for you, right? NICK: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
You were on shift when several items were stolen from corpses.
Your supervisor said that he saw you and Corey hanging around the processing area.
We've got the roster.
We've got the video footage.
It may take us a while but we will work out who's involved.
JEN: So maybe you can help us out here.
Were you Corey's accomplice, Maddison? Were you helping him rat from corpses? No.
Did you kill him because he beat you to a $50,000 ring? No.
Or because he humiliated you and made you feel cheap? No! I didn't kill him and I had nothing to do with the ring! I knew about the ratting.
And I did it too.
I was doing a PhD and I had a few debts to pay off.
Corey said it was no big deal.
But I only ever stole cash, never any personal items.
Oh, well, that makes all the difference.
So who stole the ring? Was it another assistant, a coroner's driver? I don't know.
Maddison! No, I'm serious! I do not know! Corey said there was someone else but he never told me who.
But I What is it? I don't know what it was about but I did see Corey and Hugh fighting last week.
Hugh Lavington, the coroner's driver? Yeah.
He was really getting stuck into Corey.
Back in town, Hugh? Yeah.
Mind if we have a few words? Sure.
But I was coming in later this afternoon for an interview anyway.
Consider yourself fast-tracked.
You fought with Corey Mayer before he was murdered? Yeah, last week.
But it was nothing.
Didn't sound like nothing from what our witness reported.
Raised voices, pushing, shoving.
Were you fighting over that stolen engagement ring? What?! No! You were the first to arrive at the scene on the night of the head-on collision.
You had perfect access to the ring.
No cameras for you.
So, what happened, Corey find out about you taking it, want a cut for himself? No, I didn't steal the ring.
And Corey and I would never be partners in anything, let alone crime - I hated him.
You're not denying that you fought with Corey? No.
But it wasn't about ratting.
It was about Maddison.
I like her, and Corey talked about her like she was a piece of meat.
So, yes, I took it up with Corey.
I threatened to punch his head in if he said anything more about her behind her back.
I was bluffing.
I couldn't take on Corey in a fight.
And the ring? I told the other detectives I saw the ring at the crash site, after that, I didn't see it.
Anyone at the morgue could have taken it.
The juniors down there run amok.
Their supervisor's too tipsy most of the time to know what's going on.
So you know about Damien Sanders' drinking problem? It's hard not to.
He's always outside having a cigarette plus a little nip from his hip flask.
It makes sense - Damien Sanders is outside having a drink when the coroner's drivers arrive.
So while the drivers are having a coffee, Damien accesses the van.
Out of the view of cameras.
Corey learns Damien's stolen the ring.
He confronts him because he wants a cut.
With a thug like Ant Rackham on his back, he needs the money fast.
So Corey threatens Damien, maybe he even threatens to expose Damien's part in the whole ratting scam, get him fired.
You think Damien Sanders killed Corey to silence him? I think it's time we found out.
Damien? Damien, it's the police.
Too late.
Cause of death appears to be a massive heart attack.
How long's he been dead? Couple of hours, no more.
Thanks.
Sarge, no sign of a struggle.
But plenty of evidence of his extracurricular activities.
Not more items stolen from corpses? Yeah.
But it's not money or jewellery this time.
Look.
Eskies, packing tape, buckets, ice packs, all the necessary equipment to transport organs and human body tissue.
This is a whole other kind of ratting.
We also fond the contact details for MEDtech Tissue Bank on his desk along with a map of how to get there.
Damien Sanders has been helping himself post-post-mortem.
I don't buy it.
A heart attack now? And why would he leave this evidence around his office when he knew that we were investigating morgue staff? A map on his desk? it's a bit convenient.
Does seem pretty odd, Sarge, that he should drop dead just as we were about to get the truth out of him.
I will fast-track an autopsy.
Make sure you're there for the results.
Sarge.
Natural causes - massive cardiac arrest knocked off the whole left ventricle.
Are you sure? Yeah, it's all in my report.
No sign of foul play? No signs of poisons or toxins in his system? No sign of trauma? No, nothing.
Except in the heart.
There's plenty of evidence of trauma there.
He definitely died of a heart attack.
You can go now, Hamish.
He's just done a double shift.
Thanks, Hamish.
Not convinced, Dr Buchanan? Justnot the result I was expecting.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Two days ago, if you had have told me this is how my week would turn out How you faring, Ronnie? Honestly? I feel like I've been run over by a truck.
With everything that's been going on, we checked all the freezers.
Two bodies had been tampered with after autopsy - an eight-year-old and a baby.
Their brains had been taken.
Well, this won't happen again.
You're telling me.
Hang in there.
Won't be a moment, then you can say goodbye.
Mrs Sanders? Yes.
I'm sorry for your loss.
Come on, I'll take you through.
James.
We're gonna need to speak with her when she's finished.
She had the ring the whole time? Damien gave it to her as an anniversary present.
How'd the wife take the news? How do you take something like that? "Hey, your husband, he steals baby brains, "and by the way, that ring on your finger, that's from a dead chick.
" We didn't tell her quite like that.
I mean, she just found out her hubby's dead.
I mean, she just found out her hubby's dead.
She's gonna find out sooner or later.
Sooner if the press had anything to do with it.
Cheer up, you lot.
We've got our killer.
Uniforms found the stolen car used in Corey's murder.
Fingerprints on the centre console are a match - Damien Sanders.
More good news for the wife.
But you're not convinced.
With evidence like that, it's hard not to be.
But something isn't right.
Why would Damien Sanders go to the trouble of stealing organs and tissues when he had a perfectly good scam going with the ratting? I guess some people will do anything for money.
I doubt he could even cut straight these days.
You saw his hands.
Could hardly hold a coffee cup.
Doesn't add up.
No, but the autopsy showed a heart attack.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Damien Sanders killed Corey Mayer over a stolen ring and then .
.
died of natural causes.
But you can make murder look like natural causes.
A second autopsy? Detectives, you know what you're asking me to do.
I'd be breaching the Human Tissue Act.
You can kill someone and make it look like natural causes, can't you? But how do you do it? There must be a sign, something.
I can't do a second autopsy without the approval of the coroner, you know that! Come on, Ronnie, please! Hey.
We need to find out if our theory holds up.
I can't do a second autopsy.
But I could do a continuation of the first autopsy.
If Jarvis finds out about this, we're gone.
I know, but if we go through official channels, this'll be shut down before it even gets off the ground.
It's a pretty wild theory.
If you two aren't the dynamic duo? You found something? I found something, alright.
Here.
A puncture wound.
Damien Sanders was injected in the neck with something just before he died.
How was that missed on the first autopsy? Easily.
The needle mark is almost invisible.
You can only just see it at 30 times magnification.
Given the double shift Hamish just worked, it's no wonder he missed it.
There were no signs of chemicals in the tox report.
There weren't this time either.
The killer used a chemical called suxamethonium chloride.
It's a muscle relaxant used to paralyse patients for surgery, only it's absorbed into the bloodstream so it's almost impossible to trace.
If there was nothing in the blood How do we prove my theory? The skin around Damien's wound bore traces of the chemical, still sitting on the surface.
So Damien was definitely murdered? He sure was.
Damien Sanders came to me very distressed.
He told me about the ratting.
About Corey and the ring.
How Corey was blackmailing him for it.
I told him to deal with it.
Why didn't you just fire them both? I threatened to fire Sanders .
.
but he'd found out what I was doing.
And what was that? I was taking brains from children who .
.
no longer needed them.
Think you know someone.
So you told Damien to "deal with" Corey.
What did you expect him to do? I don't know.
Give him the ring.
Pay him.
I didn't expect him to murder the boy in broad daylight.
So when Damien killed Corey, I had no choice.
You'd started going through the video logs and looking in the freezer.
I knew it wouldn't be long before you or Ronnie found out what I was doing.
It was Ronnie who found the puncture mark? Second autopsy? You framed Sanders to take the fall for your organ theft and then you killed him so that no-one would ever find out.
We didn't buy the staged crime scene with all the evidence laid out.
Why would Damien Sanders farm organs if he was making money out of ratting? So we started looking for another motive other than greed.
William, your son.
(INHALES SHAKILY) He was such a beautiful little kid.
And I had to watch him die.
Slowly.
He lost motor control.
Eventually, he couldn't walk.
Couldn't speak.
He became completely blind.
Had to wear a helmet so he wouldn't hurt himself when he had a seizure.
How can you watch your child endure something like that and then deny future generations the hope of a cure? Maybe their parents thought that they'd been through enough already.
No.
It's unacceptable.
We can help the others.
But their brains have to be made available for study after they've died.
That's why I had to kill Damien.
I couldn't risk him telling you what I was doing.
You'd stop my research.
You stole dead babies' brains for research into Batten's disease? The disease that killed my son.
But it wasn't just afflicted children whose brains you took, you took others too - babies, little kids - all without their parents' consent.
I wanted to find a cure.
I promised my son that I would find a cure.
Thought we'd find you here.
The way we're losing staff around here, I don't have much choice.
Yeah.
Ronnie, it wasn't an easy thing we asked you to do.
That oughta cover it.
(LAUGHS) Can you sneak away early? We could get a nightcap together.
Yeah, I'd like that.
But there's something I need to do first.
Alright, Violet.
Let's find out what happened to you.
srt by GeirDM It's OK, Judy, it's OK.
(SOBBING) You're gonna miss Violet, aren't you? We'd better get moving.
I hear you.
I'm hanging for a coffee.
See you next time, Donny.
You should get a discount, we're here that often.
Corey, that's not funny.
Yeah, but it's true.
We'll probably be back here next week.
('CHASE THAT FEELING' BY HILLTOP HOODS PLAYS ON RADIO) She's young, Iithe and homely Wise by no means Known one guy She's for his eyes and only He's a lying phoney Leaves crying, lonely Separates the pain by staying high and though she Turn it down, will you?! Why? The old bag's not gonna complain.
She can chase that feeling It's got a hold in me Get me a double shot, yeah? Don't chase that feeling Like I've Been looking for Something that's good for the rich Yeah The blind and the poor Baby, I've Been looking for (CAR ENGINE ROARS) Something that's good for the rich Yeah The blind and the poor Sometimes I feel we strive for Hugh? Callous deeds Other mindless acts of greed Ain't jack for free I think they'd try a tax to breathe It's like we fight to remind us that we bleed I take flight in the night (TURNS UP MUSIC) 'Cause peace of mind's the only time that we're free Hi.
Strong latte with two sugars and a macchiato, thanks.
We all chase that feeling Oi! Who's that? What do you think you're doing? Thanks, mate.
And I'm a chase that feeling It's got a hold on me I'm a chase that feeling like Corey! Seriously, turn it down! It's not right for us to Corey? Corey! It's got a hold in me And I'm a chase that feeling Chase that feeling.
I went to get our coffees and came back to this.
Do you always come to the same place? Yeah.
Yeah, best in town.
I'm a bit of a coffee nut.
They have this great blend.
it's all Fairtrade.
I can't believe this is happening.
I see bodies every day, just not like this.
If you wouldn't mind having Mr Lavington checked out by the ambos? Thank you.
Sure thing.
Screwdriver to the throat.
By the amount of blood, it looks like it got an artery.
Judging by the position of the body, it looks like he exited the van, came round the back.
To confront whoever was trying to break in.
Looks like the body-snatching might be the point here.
So Corey's collateral damage.
Mm-hm.
A few people heard the screeching of tyres.
A couple saw a silver station wagon speeding away from the scene.
(PHONE RINGS) No-one witnessed the murder itself.
Jennifer Mapplethorpe.
Yeah, we're here.
Yes, Sarge.
Straightaway.
What's up? The old lady, Violet, who they were transporting, her daughter's waiting for her at the morgue, wants to see her mother.
Ms Natoli.
Can I see my mother now? Um, We're not from the morgue.
We're detectives.
Your mother's body has been involved in an incident in transit and it may be a little while before you can see her.
What do you mean? What sort of incident? Well, we can't give you the exact details at the moment, but we do need to inform you that your mother's body has gone missing.
Missing? What does that even mean, missing? It appears it may have been taken.
This is them.
This is those bastards at the home.
Excuse me? I told them I'd be getting an autopsy, and now this.
I'm sorry, I thought your mother died of natural causes, a stroke.
Did you say that you requested an autopsy? That I did.
I complained and complained about the care at that nursing home - the muck-ups with her medication, the neglect.
My mother's death wasn't natural causes.
They killed her.
Now they're trying to cover it up.
Give me a break.
They did this to cover up shortcomings in care? Fees, government grants, licences - there's a lot of money at stake in aged care.
And if they accidentally killed one of their residents Uh, 'accidentally' being the magic word? This man had a screwdriver shoved in his throat.
If they're trying to sweep things under the carpet, they're doing a pretty poor job.
Maybe they panicked, weren't expecting to be confronted.
You got to admit it stinks a bit.
The daughter accuses the home of murder, then the body goes missing.
I'll tell you what's gonna start stinking soon - that body if we don't find it.
I've already had the Media Unit on the phone.
The case of the disappearing corpse.
So get to it.
Find me that old broad.
But with all due respect, we're looking for a murderer, not a body.
Exactly.
Our best hope of finding Violet Natoli is to work out who killed Corey Mayer and why.
Well, the nursing home's gotta be up there.
Violet's daughter, Stella Natoli, emailed through a list of complaints she lodged.
It's pretty extensive.
Maybe Corey was the target.
Hugh Lavington said they went to the same coffee shop every day.
It could be that somebody was waiting for him? Nick and I will follow up Corey's autopsy.
We'll go to the nursing home.
It's about time someone took Stella Natoli's complaints seriously.
(CHEERY PIANO MUSIC PLAYS) I've personally been over Violet's medical logs, everything for the last week, and there have been no problems.
For an 80-year-old, she was in good health.
Well, she's not in such good health now.
We've got a copy of complaints that Stella Natoli emailed you about her mother's care, as the owner/manager.
On 1 July, she was given a double dose of antidepressants resulting in diarrhoea and dizziness.
And on the 17th, the same thing happened again - she was given a double dose of her medication.
When I found out what happened with Violet's medication, the staff member involved was fired immediately.
So you admit it's fortunate the medication Violet was given wasn't any stronger.
Of course! But there's nothing we give Violet that could have caused a stroke.
I checked.
So what about something you failed to administer? I beg your pardon? Well, say one of your staff forgot to give Violet her blood thinners.
It's possible that that could have contributed to the stroke, right? (EXHALES) Is it possible, Mr Hamilton? Well, theoretically, yes.
But I've implemented double-checks, warnings to all staff.
There was no mishap in her meds.
Just as well.
Stella Natoli's not the only person who's been sending you warning letters, is she? You're on final notice from the National Aged Care Board.
One more stuff-up and they'll yank your license, they'll close you down.
You've got a lot to lose, haven't you, Mr Hamilton? Yes, I do! I guess it's lucky Violet's body isn't available for autopsy.
Excuse me? What are you suggesting? We're suggesting you stole Violet's body to cover up criminal and medical negligence.
That's ludicrous! Corey Mayer caught you in the act, tried to stop you.
You panicked and you lodged a screwdriver in his throat.
No, absolutely not.
Well, according to your staff, you left the nursing home shortly after the coroner's drivers left with Violet's body, right after Stella Natoli called you and warned you she was getting an autopsy.
So you wanna tell us where you went? Out! I just went for a drive to the park.
Violet's death hit me hard.
I went to clear my head.
Is there anyone who can vouch for you? No.
But it's the truth.
I didn't kill anyone, intentionally or otherwise.
We'll need you to come to the station and make a statement.
Of course.
Now, Mr Hamilton.
This isn't over yet.
You here for Corey Mayer's autopsy? That was the idea, yeah.
Might be a bit of a delay on that one.
Usually, when a friend or relative is brought in, whoever knows them is excused.
In this case, everyone knew Corey.
Didn't know morgue staff were that close to the coroner's drivers.
Corey also worked nights here as a forensic assistant.
Moonlighting? Didn't know that was allowed.
It's not.
.
.
important we take this opportunity to discuss this morning's events.
This has been a shock to all of us, not only to those of you who worked closely with Corey.
If any of you need time off or to speak to anyone, let me know.
In the meanwhile, Ronnie and I will handle all of the work involving Corey.
Right, that's all.
Thanks.
James, allow me to introduce you to two of our best customers.
Homicide.
Detectives Buchanan and Mapplethorpe.
James Boyd, morgue director.
I suppose Ronnie's explained the delay in the autopsy.
Yeah, she did.
But since we've come down here, we'd like to speak with his friends or coworkers or anyone who worked closely with Corey.
We can organise that for you.
In the meantime, you'll want to speak to Damien Sanders.
He's Corey'swas Corey's supervisor.
They really stole a body? Have you any idea who? We were hoping you might be able to share some information with us.
Yes, of course.
Sorry.
So, how would you describe Corey Mayer? Corey was a great guy.
Funny, popular, particularly with the ladies.
Did you know him very well? Yeah.
I make a point of getting to know all my team.
We're a very tight-knit crew.
it's the nature of the work, I guess.
So you knew that he was working for both the coroner's contractors and the morgue? Oh, yes.
We're supposed to keep very defined lines between us, conflict of interest and all that, but Corey said he needed the money and I didn't see the harm.
Ooh.
Any idea why he might have needed that money? Sorry? Was he in any money trouble that you knew of? Uh, I don't think so.
Why? Our receptionist said that Corey was killed trying to protect the body.
Your receptionist? Sheshe heard it on the news.
Oh.
Well, we're trying to keep our minds open as to motive at this stage.
Right, um Well, I always assumed that Corey worked two jobs to pay off his car, some flashy sports number.
But now I think of it, I know he gambled.
Online poker.
Online poker was the least of Corey Mayer's worries.
$30,000 in debt.
But Jen reckons his friends at the morgue said that he was loaded.
Far from it.
His sports car's on the verge of being repossessed.
The finance company takes repayments out of his wages every week, which is where these guys come in.
Cash4U Fast Loans.
So he took out a loan to pay off his loans? Beautiful, isn't it? Thought we'd pay Cash4U a visit, see what kind of collection policy they have.
Anthony Rackham? Something tells me you two aren't here for a loan.
You know this man? Corey? Yeah, I know him.
Why? We understand he owes you quite a bit of money.
Yes, he does.
Said we could sort something out, put him on a payment plan.
He was meant to come in last week but he didn't show.
Some people would be too scared to tell you they can't pay their debts? (PHONE RINGS) Me? I don't see why.
You don't have a criminal record for assault? A simple misunderstanding.
And receiving stolen goods? I was never convicted.
I'm a businessman now.
I did a course.
Now, what's this about? Corey Mayer's dead.
He's been murdered.
So, what are you suggesting? Why the hell would I kill him? Maybe you went around there to collect what he owes you, teach him a lesson, things got out of hand.
For one, I don't do the collections myself.
I've got business associates that do that for me.
And two, you don't kill people who owe you money.
How does that get you your cash back? It doesn't but it sends a clear message to your other customers.
You listen to me.
I do a service to this community.
Families that can't eat until their next pay cheque.
Old blokes facing eviction.
I do them a favour when no-one else will.
I buy them some time.
And when they can't pay? I give them some more time.
And when they still can't pay three months down the track, and your interest doubles their loan amount? I'm not a charity, Detective.
Cause of death, as I'm sure you worked out without 12 years of specialist training, is a large, flathead screwdriver shoved into his neck just so.
The attacker managed to lacerate Corey's internal carotid artery.
I'm guessing there was a bit of blood at the crime scene.
Yeah.
Arteries are pretty tough and that screwdriver isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
You'd need a fair amount of force to cause that damage.
Corey's killer had to be physically strong.
That's my tip.
There's traces of pseudoephedrine in his bloodstream but I'd say that's par for the course with the hours Corey was working.
There's no sign of major illness or liver damage yet, but the latter would have only been a matter of time.
We've got a search warrant for Corey's apartment.
Any chance of getting the keys? Don't they teach lock-picking at the academy anymore? Maddison should be able to get them for you.
Did either of you know Corey well? Oh, typical alpha male.
Crowed the loudest.
Bit of a cock, really.
We'd crossed paths a few times.
I caught him eating fish and chips in here once.
We had a few words.
He kept clear of me after that.
Not my cup of tea.
Yeah, we're not the only ones who thought that.
Yeah, I went out with Corey for a while.
Hell, who didn't? Corey was a hit with the ladies? Corey just hit on all the ladies.
It was pure probability - you try your luck enough times, you're gonna get some wins.
When we were here earlier, we spoke to Corey's coworkers and friends.
Why didn't you come forward? After he cheated on me the third time, I kind of reviewed our friendship status.
And we didn't work together anymore.
I asked to be swapped to day shift to get away from him.
This is his locker.
He worked last night on night shift, so his stuff should be here, including the keys to his love nest.
Simon Wilden.
Fiona Connell.
And these don't look like Corey's.
So, this is how he planned to pay off his debts.
Corey Mayer has been stealing from the dead.
Two diamond rings, three gold wedding bands, an antique watch and $300 in cash.
These were all found at Corey's apartment last night.
Add those to the items we discovered in his work locker And Corey Mayer's been a very busy boy.
And you're sure he's been nicking them off dead bodies? Yeah, we're sure.
A couple of the items had identifiable inscriptions.
Other items were reported missing by families.
Some of the bank notes had blood on them.
Gross.
To say the least.
What we haven't found is a $50,000 Tiffany's engagement ring reported missing two weeks ago.
JEN: it belonged to a young woman called Amelia O'Brien.
She was killed in a head-on collision.
Her fiancé wants the ring back.
He's heart-broken, poor guy.
The theft's being investigated.
The cops at the scene remember seeing the ring but all deny taking it.
It seems they're telling the truth.
it'll be Corey Mayer.
What a low-life.
So it wasn't Violet Natoli's body the killer was looking to steal.
Breaking into the van was a clever piece of misdirection.
They were after that ring? They must have thought Corey had it on him.
be keeping it in his locker.
Who do we know who'd like to get hold of a ring like that? I loan people cash, they pay me cash.
I don't accept bits and bobs for debts.
So Corey never paid you with items of jewellery, watches anything like that? Course not.
And you never sold any items for him? What, like a fence? What kind of business do you think I'm running? We've got a warrant here to search out the back of your premises.
Now, do you wanna make things easy for yourself by cooperating? You're saying I answer some questions, we can sort something out? I'm not saying anything, Mr Rackham.
Corey might have paid me a couple of times with goods, a nice watch here and there.
Corey was stealing those items from corpses.
What? Sick little bastard.
If I'd known he was nicking them off dead people, there's no way I would have taken them.
But stealing from the living's alright? So, do you know anything about a $50,000 Tiffany's engagement ring? No.
You didn't kill Corey Mayer to get it, take back what he owed you? Of course not.
And I heard about his murder on the radio.
Whoever had killed him had nicked some old lady's body.
Why the hell would I do something like that? To distract the attention from yourself.
Because you knew otherwise you'd be our chief suspect, we'd come looking for that ring.
But since we're not so easily distracted, maybe we'll start having a look around your premises right now, since you don't know anything.
Alright, alright.
I know about the ring.
But I don't have it.
And I didn't kill Corey for it.
One of my associates paid him a visit at his apartment.
Corey didn't have the cash but he promised to give me that ring.
And did he do that? No, he didn't! Some prick killed him.
He was meant to bring it around yesterday, said somebody at his work had it.
That's it? We're done? We're done.
For now, Mr Rackham.
I have a warrant here to search these premises for stolen goods.
I've got a lead on the car - silver Hyundai station wagon reported stolen last night from Moonee Ponds.
That matches the car spotted speeding away from the crime scene.
Still u n recovered but now we've got a numberplate, should make things easier.
Thanks to uniform's search on Cash4U, Rackham's being charged with possession of stolen goods.
A lot of stolen goods.
He's definitely Corey's fence.
Did he have the ring? No.
But that doesn't mean he hasn't sold it on already.
I'll see if Sarge can authorise some surveillance.
Rackham says that someone at Corey's work's got the ring, not him.
But I wouldn't trust him as far as I could spit him.
He could be telling the truth.
Nick and I have been checking out staff rosters.
Not everything was stolen on the days Corey was on duty, and Corey was away sick the day the ring came in.
So he has to have an accomplice.
So we could be looking at a falling out amongst thieves? What about Corey's ex? Maddison? Nick's already checked her out.
No, she was not on shift that day either.
Corey Mayer didn't just work at the morgue, right? He worked as a driver for the coroner too, alongside this guy, Hugh Lavington.
What's to say he doesn't have the ring? He couldn't have killed Corey on his own.
There was no blood on him when we got to the scene and no time for him to wash and get rid of the body before then.
Doesn't mean he wasn't behind the job.
He knew better than anyone where Corey was gonna be that day.
We'll check him out.
OK.
I'll grab Nick and head back to the morgue.
Waverley's already here.
Our reputation in the community is at stake.
The public needs to be able to trust the morgue.
That's precisely why we need to continue our investigation - to clarify matters.
Look, we're scientists, doctors, not petty thieves.
If people were to find out we're under suspicion Detectives.
I can assure you my staff know how to be discreet but we can't ignore this problem.
I don't believe there is a problem.
Well, then there's no need for you to be concerned.
My detectives won't hold you up any longer than is necessary.
OK, Mapplethorpe, Buchanan? Ma'am.
Yes ma'am.
, We've information that another morgue staff member may be involved in the theft of property from corpses.
As I was just explaining to the Commander, there is absolutely no way.
I simply don't believe that Corey could have stolen while he was on duty here.
Stolen items were found in Corey Mayer's locker.
Then he must have stolen them when he was doing his driving job.
Look, I'm sorry to be so insistent here but I have put in place so many security measures to stop this sort of thing from happening.
Checkpoints, countersigning, video surveillance.
You have video footage? Absolutely.
I can have it sent across to Homicide.
Please.
That would be very helpful.
And can you explain the security procedures? Of course.
And then you'll see there is absolutely no way that Corey could have stolen while he was on duty here.
Jen, let Waverley get the company line.
We need to find out how this place really works.
Oh? What's the plan? Well, Corey found a way of doing some thieving.
If he didwe can too.
So, the arrival of the body at the morgue is always recorded.
The camera is operated by the morgue staff, and it's done in the presence of a police member.
Present.
Coroner's drivers bring the corpse in, we follow them with the camera until the body is transferred.
He's all signed and logged.
Thanks.
We'll take it from here.
Once they've buggered off, our deceased is given a pat-down.
And this is where you'll find the personal items? Right.
Like this wedding band.
Hang on, did you actually turn that camera on? Of course I turned it on.
But what if you didn't? I mean, everyone's focused on the body.
Right- you could just pretend and never actually hit the record button.
Yeah, you could.
Right.
What happens next? Once the search is done, the police member signs off on the belongings and leaves and then the video camera's switched off.
If it was ever switched on in the first place.
The next step in the process is the bagging of the clothes.
James has ordered that bodies be undressed in here to preserve forensic evidence in suspicious deaths.
That'd be your lot.
There aren't any cameras in here.
No.
No police presence? None.
So theoretically, you could do the cursory pat-down in there and wait till you come in here to see if you can take anything else.
Absolutely.
You two are working for the wrong side.
Well, we were so distracted talking about the video camera, we didn't finish the search.
So all Corey had to do was distract the police member somehow.
That's easy - it's usually a fresh-faced uniform assigned to the search.
They tend to be too worried about up-chucking to actually pay attention to what's going on.
They're not used to seeing dead bodies.
So that's how Corey was ratting.
Ratting? Sadly, there's even a name for it in the morgue world.
That's terrible, Ronnie.
Yeah, it bloody is.
Words fail me.
What does that say? Oh, you'll see it in morgues all around the world.
"This is the place where death rejoices to help the living.
" The dead help us understand what happened to them so their families can move on.
It's supposed to be a reminder of what we do here, not an invitation to make a quick buck.
We'll get to the bottom of this, Ronnie.
If Corey's accomplice works here, we'll find them.
Well, it's easier said than done.
Mmm.
So what have you got? Video surveillance from the morgue.
Searching for Corey's accomplice.
But the staff are in charge of operating the camera, so there's discs all over the shop.
There's no labels, no particular order.
You little ripper.
So we're trying to check them off against the roster to see who didn't turn the camera on.
And who didn't do a very thorough search.
How did you go with the coroner's drivers? We tried interviewing Hugh Lavington but he's out of town.
That's a bit suss.
Bit lame more like it.
He's on a day trip, birdwatching.
Nothing wrong with birdwatching.
Which is irrelevant right now.
Did you search the house? Yeah.
But no sign of the ring.
The guy's a total neat freak, so didn't take long.
But we spoke to the driver who was working with Hugh that day.
He remembers the ring but he denies taking it.
Shame, because it doesn't look like the ring was stolen by morgue staff.
But how do you know that? Because we've got video of Amelia O'Brien's body arriving.
And James Boyd is right.
The footage clearly shows that the ring never made it to the morgue.
So the supervisor, Damien Sanders, receives the body and, look, there's no ring.
So how was the ring stolen and when? We haven't figured that out yet.
So where to now? Another 200 hours of video surveillance.
Even if we don't find the ring, any discrepancies in the recordings may give us the second thief and a possible murderer.
The guy at the old folks home is looking less likely.
How did you go with Ant Rackham? Dead end.
He's onto our surveillance.
The last photo they snapped of him was that.
Hah! Brilliant.
Jen, that was Ronnie.
She wants us back at the morgue, says it's urgent.
This is one of the morgue freezers, which is monitored by a motion-activated video camera.
When I came to fetch a body for autopsy this morning, I noticed it.
You think someone's been stealing from the freezer? No, in this case, I'm afraid, something's been added.
I checked the logs in here, everything's as it should be.
But back here is the John and Jane Doe section, and something doesn't add up.
We rarely have cause to come in here.
Violet Natoli.
Don't tell me she's been in there all along?! Corey Mayer's killer works at the morgue.
But if the killer works at the morgue, why hide the body in such an obvious place? Ronnie says that section of the freezer is used for unidentified corpses, Jane and John Does.
Bodies can be in there for years.
So the killer stashes the body there, waits for the heat to die down before moving it, and then disposing of it properly months down the track.
Exactly.
That's a bit risky, isn't it? It's bold.
But it's actually really clever.
It is.
If the culprit hadn't forgotten to plug the camera back in, Ronnie would never have noticed.
Have we checked the video logs on the freezer camera? It was switched off just after midnight last night.
OK, Commander Waverley's given us the all-clear to take the kid gloves off on this one.
I want every staff member at that morgue interviewed from the director down to the cleaner.
We need to check coroner's drivers and police.
Anyone who has access to that part of the morgue.
Thanks, Hamish.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
Irene Bosley? Cheers, Ronnie.
Thank God for an iron-clad alibi, hey, Gideon? Brad Knight.
NICK: Where were you yesterday morning at 9:30? JEN: That was the time Corey Mayer was murdered.
I was in my office.
I had a phone meeting with the coroner to discuss her autopsy requests.
And what about last night at midnight? That was the time the video camera on the morgue freezer was unplugged and Violet Natoli miraculously turned up at your morgue.
I was at home.
Alone? Yes.
I'm divorced.
As director of the morgue, you've built your reputation on modernising security there.
That's right.
And I made it abundantly clear there is zero tolerance for rule-breaking.
So it must have made you pretty mad when you found out Corey had been ratting from corpses? Absolutely.
I was furious.
And if he'd been alive when I found out, I might have strangled the little leech myself.
But I didn't know.
Isn't it your job to know? I know it's no excuse but I spend most of my day cooped up in the office filtering through paperwork.
I rely on my senior staff to handle the day-to-day, managing the procedures I've put in place.
Staff like forensic supervisor Damien Sanders? Yes.
Look I know Damien would never be involved in the ratting himself, but I also know there's a lot that could'veslipped by him.
What do you mean by that? He can be a bit shaky at times, has trouble concentrating.
He has a drinking problem, which is why I arranged for him to move from a pathologist's position to a supervisor's position .
.
after a few unfortunate oversights.
Correct me if I'm wrong but you've recently been demoted, haven't you, Damien? Yes.
Can you tell us why? You know why.
Well, for the purposes of the tapes, can you tell us why you've been demoted? Because I can't get through a shift sober.
You're an alcoholic.
I have a drinking problem, I admit that, but I'm not a murderer.
Your boss was aware that you were drunk on duty, wasn't he? Yes.
James should have fired me years ago.
So, if he found out about Corey ratting under your supervision, he'd have no choice but to fire you this time? Absolutely.
But I didn't know what Corey was up to.
I should have but I didn't.
Little bastard had me completely fooled.
But I didn't kill him.
Well, that's funny because right now you're high up on our list of suspects.
No alibi for the morning of the murder.
And you were at work when the body was slipped into the freezer.
Nice quiet night shift.
You could easily have just popped her in there without anyone noticing.
I didn't kill Corey, I didn't steal a body and I didn't know about any ratting.
Are you sure about that? You were happy to break the rules when it came to Corey's moonlighting.
Why not break a few more along the way? It wasn't like that.
Did you steal from bodies too? No! Never! So you never saw the ring on the deceased when it came in? No, the ring was gone when the body arrived.
You can look at the video.
Do you know anyone else who might have been ratting? Another staff member? Corey and Maddison Yeats were pretty tight for a while there.
Yeah, but they've split up.
Didn't stop them hanging around the processing room together.
You didn't like Corey Mayer much, did you, Maddison? No.
And you didn't start work until 10:30 on the morning Corey was murdered.
What, so I had time to kill him? I wouldn't waste a sleep-in.
The pathologist told us the attacker was strong.
You practise karate, so upper-body strength isn't a problem for you, right? NICK: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
You were on shift when several items were stolen from corpses.
Your supervisor said that he saw you and Corey hanging around the processing area.
We've got the roster.
We've got the video footage.
It may take us a while but we will work out who's involved.
JEN: So maybe you can help us out here.
Were you Corey's accomplice, Maddison? Were you helping him rat from corpses? No.
Did you kill him because he beat you to a $50,000 ring? No.
Or because he humiliated you and made you feel cheap? No! I didn't kill him and I had nothing to do with the ring! I knew about the ratting.
And I did it too.
I was doing a PhD and I had a few debts to pay off.
Corey said it was no big deal.
But I only ever stole cash, never any personal items.
Oh, well, that makes all the difference.
So who stole the ring? Was it another assistant, a coroner's driver? I don't know.
Maddison! No, I'm serious! I do not know! Corey said there was someone else but he never told me who.
But I What is it? I don't know what it was about but I did see Corey and Hugh fighting last week.
Hugh Lavington, the coroner's driver? Yeah.
He was really getting stuck into Corey.
Back in town, Hugh? Yeah.
Mind if we have a few words? Sure.
But I was coming in later this afternoon for an interview anyway.
Consider yourself fast-tracked.
You fought with Corey Mayer before he was murdered? Yeah, last week.
But it was nothing.
Didn't sound like nothing from what our witness reported.
Raised voices, pushing, shoving.
Were you fighting over that stolen engagement ring? What?! No! You were the first to arrive at the scene on the night of the head-on collision.
You had perfect access to the ring.
No cameras for you.
So, what happened, Corey find out about you taking it, want a cut for himself? No, I didn't steal the ring.
And Corey and I would never be partners in anything, let alone crime - I hated him.
You're not denying that you fought with Corey? No.
But it wasn't about ratting.
It was about Maddison.
I like her, and Corey talked about her like she was a piece of meat.
So, yes, I took it up with Corey.
I threatened to punch his head in if he said anything more about her behind her back.
I was bluffing.
I couldn't take on Corey in a fight.
And the ring? I told the other detectives I saw the ring at the crash site, after that, I didn't see it.
Anyone at the morgue could have taken it.
The juniors down there run amok.
Their supervisor's too tipsy most of the time to know what's going on.
So you know about Damien Sanders' drinking problem? It's hard not to.
He's always outside having a cigarette plus a little nip from his hip flask.
It makes sense - Damien Sanders is outside having a drink when the coroner's drivers arrive.
So while the drivers are having a coffee, Damien accesses the van.
Out of the view of cameras.
Corey learns Damien's stolen the ring.
He confronts him because he wants a cut.
With a thug like Ant Rackham on his back, he needs the money fast.
So Corey threatens Damien, maybe he even threatens to expose Damien's part in the whole ratting scam, get him fired.
You think Damien Sanders killed Corey to silence him? I think it's time we found out.
Damien? Damien, it's the police.
Too late.
Cause of death appears to be a massive heart attack.
How long's he been dead? Couple of hours, no more.
Thanks.
Sarge, no sign of a struggle.
But plenty of evidence of his extracurricular activities.
Not more items stolen from corpses? Yeah.
But it's not money or jewellery this time.
Look.
Eskies, packing tape, buckets, ice packs, all the necessary equipment to transport organs and human body tissue.
This is a whole other kind of ratting.
We also fond the contact details for MEDtech Tissue Bank on his desk along with a map of how to get there.
Damien Sanders has been helping himself post-post-mortem.
I don't buy it.
A heart attack now? And why would he leave this evidence around his office when he knew that we were investigating morgue staff? A map on his desk? it's a bit convenient.
Does seem pretty odd, Sarge, that he should drop dead just as we were about to get the truth out of him.
I will fast-track an autopsy.
Make sure you're there for the results.
Sarge.
Natural causes - massive cardiac arrest knocked off the whole left ventricle.
Are you sure? Yeah, it's all in my report.
No sign of foul play? No signs of poisons or toxins in his system? No sign of trauma? No, nothing.
Except in the heart.
There's plenty of evidence of trauma there.
He definitely died of a heart attack.
You can go now, Hamish.
He's just done a double shift.
Thanks, Hamish.
Not convinced, Dr Buchanan? Justnot the result I was expecting.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Two days ago, if you had have told me this is how my week would turn out How you faring, Ronnie? Honestly? I feel like I've been run over by a truck.
With everything that's been going on, we checked all the freezers.
Two bodies had been tampered with after autopsy - an eight-year-old and a baby.
Their brains had been taken.
Well, this won't happen again.
You're telling me.
Hang in there.
Won't be a moment, then you can say goodbye.
Mrs Sanders? Yes.
I'm sorry for your loss.
Come on, I'll take you through.
James.
We're gonna need to speak with her when she's finished.
She had the ring the whole time? Damien gave it to her as an anniversary present.
How'd the wife take the news? How do you take something like that? "Hey, your husband, he steals baby brains, "and by the way, that ring on your finger, that's from a dead chick.
" We didn't tell her quite like that.
I mean, she just found out her hubby's dead.
I mean, she just found out her hubby's dead.
She's gonna find out sooner or later.
Sooner if the press had anything to do with it.
Cheer up, you lot.
We've got our killer.
Uniforms found the stolen car used in Corey's murder.
Fingerprints on the centre console are a match - Damien Sanders.
More good news for the wife.
But you're not convinced.
With evidence like that, it's hard not to be.
But something isn't right.
Why would Damien Sanders go to the trouble of stealing organs and tissues when he had a perfectly good scam going with the ratting? I guess some people will do anything for money.
I doubt he could even cut straight these days.
You saw his hands.
Could hardly hold a coffee cup.
Doesn't add up.
No, but the autopsy showed a heart attack.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Damien Sanders killed Corey Mayer over a stolen ring and then .
.
died of natural causes.
But you can make murder look like natural causes.
A second autopsy? Detectives, you know what you're asking me to do.
I'd be breaching the Human Tissue Act.
You can kill someone and make it look like natural causes, can't you? But how do you do it? There must be a sign, something.
I can't do a second autopsy without the approval of the coroner, you know that! Come on, Ronnie, please! Hey.
We need to find out if our theory holds up.
I can't do a second autopsy.
But I could do a continuation of the first autopsy.
If Jarvis finds out about this, we're gone.
I know, but if we go through official channels, this'll be shut down before it even gets off the ground.
It's a pretty wild theory.
If you two aren't the dynamic duo? You found something? I found something, alright.
Here.
A puncture wound.
Damien Sanders was injected in the neck with something just before he died.
How was that missed on the first autopsy? Easily.
The needle mark is almost invisible.
You can only just see it at 30 times magnification.
Given the double shift Hamish just worked, it's no wonder he missed it.
There were no signs of chemicals in the tox report.
There weren't this time either.
The killer used a chemical called suxamethonium chloride.
It's a muscle relaxant used to paralyse patients for surgery, only it's absorbed into the bloodstream so it's almost impossible to trace.
If there was nothing in the blood How do we prove my theory? The skin around Damien's wound bore traces of the chemical, still sitting on the surface.
So Damien was definitely murdered? He sure was.
Damien Sanders came to me very distressed.
He told me about the ratting.
About Corey and the ring.
How Corey was blackmailing him for it.
I told him to deal with it.
Why didn't you just fire them both? I threatened to fire Sanders .
.
but he'd found out what I was doing.
And what was that? I was taking brains from children who .
.
no longer needed them.
Think you know someone.
So you told Damien to "deal with" Corey.
What did you expect him to do? I don't know.
Give him the ring.
Pay him.
I didn't expect him to murder the boy in broad daylight.
So when Damien killed Corey, I had no choice.
You'd started going through the video logs and looking in the freezer.
I knew it wouldn't be long before you or Ronnie found out what I was doing.
It was Ronnie who found the puncture mark? Second autopsy? You framed Sanders to take the fall for your organ theft and then you killed him so that no-one would ever find out.
We didn't buy the staged crime scene with all the evidence laid out.
Why would Damien Sanders farm organs if he was making money out of ratting? So we started looking for another motive other than greed.
William, your son.
(INHALES SHAKILY) He was such a beautiful little kid.
And I had to watch him die.
Slowly.
He lost motor control.
Eventually, he couldn't walk.
Couldn't speak.
He became completely blind.
Had to wear a helmet so he wouldn't hurt himself when he had a seizure.
How can you watch your child endure something like that and then deny future generations the hope of a cure? Maybe their parents thought that they'd been through enough already.
No.
It's unacceptable.
We can help the others.
But their brains have to be made available for study after they've died.
That's why I had to kill Damien.
I couldn't risk him telling you what I was doing.
You'd stop my research.
You stole dead babies' brains for research into Batten's disease? The disease that killed my son.
But it wasn't just afflicted children whose brains you took, you took others too - babies, little kids - all without their parents' consent.
I wanted to find a cure.
I promised my son that I would find a cure.
Thought we'd find you here.
The way we're losing staff around here, I don't have much choice.
Yeah.
Ronnie, it wasn't an easy thing we asked you to do.
That oughta cover it.
(LAUGHS) Can you sneak away early? We could get a nightcap together.
Yeah, I'd like that.
But there's something I need to do first.
Alright, Violet.
Let's find out what happened to you.