A chilling witness statement in a police notebook suggests young Katoomba mother Belinda Peisley might have been bashed to death and thrown off a cliff up to 15 years ago by people she once considered friends because she ‘’wouldn’t give them what they wanted’’.
The handwritten note, tendered during last week’s coronial inquest into Peisley’s death held at Katoomba Local Court, was written by Keren Fittler, a young woman who started mixing with the same crowd as the 19-year-old, shortly after she disappeared in 1998.
This crowd included Jeremy Douglas, who once lived with Miss Peisley but allegedly broke into her house on Trow Avenue shortly before she disappeared, and his friend Saxon Holdforth.
Ms Fittler recalls hearing on a number of occasions that a woman named Bel had been ‘put over a cliff’’.
“Some of the things I have heard over the years is that Jeremy, Saxon and Olly [Peisley’s former boyfriend Oliver Tipping] took her in a car and bashed her and left her somewhere,” says the statement, written in December 2010.
“After they’ve left her they’ve come back and got her body and done some things to her before or after she was dead and chucked her over the cliff.
“I heard she was killed over drugs or she wouldn’t give them what they wanted.”
The inquest heard that Miss Peisley and her friends were addicted to heroin and would break into houses, including those belonging to their friends, to support their habits.
Mr Douglas allegedly broke into Miss Peisley’s home for a second time soon after she disappeared, telling an acquaintance — Joanne Thomson — “don’t worry, she’s not coming back any time soon”.
In her statement Ms Fittler recalls Mr Holdforth talking about pushing a woman over a cliff.
“I was in this house with Saxon and he wanted to get into my pants . . . he said they did something to somebody and they put her in a boot,” the statement says.
“I don’t know if it was she [Belinda], but they put them in a boot and apparently the body was pushed over a cliff.
“For some reason I keep thinking Blackheath Cliff near Evans Lookout.”
Mr Douglas and Mr Holdforth are people of interest at the inquiry.
Ms Fittler was due to give evidence at the inquest on Thursday but failed to attend.
Coroner Paul McMahon issued a warrant for her arrest.
Another witness, Wanda Loyndes, told the inquest Miss Peisley had been in trouble with members of the Rebels bikie club and was withdrawing from heroin on the night she disappeared.
“She owed them money for heroin and that . . . one or two thousand,” Ms Loyndes said.
“I reckon she ran off or committed suicide or something.”
Speaking after the hearing, Miss Peisley’s father, Mark Wearne, denied his daughter was in trouble with bikies.
“The evidence given regarding Belinda’s involvement with the Rebels bikie club is a total fallacy and a fabrication,” he said.
On Wednesday, March 20 the inquest heard Ms Thomson used Miss Peisley’s identification to hock stolen goods at a western Sydney pawn shop.
In the witness box, Ms Thomson denied doing that but said Mr Douglas had stolen from Miss Peisley’s house shortly before and after she disappeared.
Mr Wearne and Miss Peisley’s aunt, Sharon Versace, told the Gazette their hope is still the same — to bring some justice for Belinda and to know where her body is so her two boys, now young adults, can have some sort of closure.
Ms Versace told the Gazette Belinda was “a lovely young girl” who moved to the Blue Mountains from western Sydney when she was seven and went to Lawson Public School, before spending one year living with her in Sydney when she was 13.
Miss Peisley returned to the Blue Mountains to live in Katoomba, had dropped out of school “because she’d had children young” and she’d inherited a significant amount of money from her great uncle not long before she disappeared.
Mr Wearne said after many years, “things started happening” in the police investigation into his daughters’ disappearance “since Springwood detectives became involved and the NSW Homicide Squad came in after the last inquest [sessions] were held in October”.
“It seems to be making progress,” Mr Wearne said.
“Mr O’Farrell’s offer of a reward of $100,000 for information that can lead to finding the location of Belinda’s body still stands — and one day I would like to see him hand over the cheque. If anyone has information of use to police, please provide it to them.”
Police began searching bushland locations in Blackheath where Miss Peisley’s body might be on Friday, March 15. The inquest resumes on April 10 at Parramatta Local Court.
