Deceased/Not Found AUSTRALIA - Ms Lesley Trotter, 78, Homicide, Brisbane, 28 Mar 2023

[Interested_But_Confused]

Lesley lived on the top floor but was body corporate president/secretary and was very much in charge at her complex. Nothing happened there without her say-so.

This could be really important information. People have focused on Lesley's tendency to sort through the bins, but based on what you've just said, the bins were probably just one small part of her larger attempts to enforce the rules at the complex.

Sadly, IMO that increases the likelihood that someone might have borne a grudge against her.

 

[mussopossum]

This could be really important information. People have focused on Lesley's tendency to sort through the bins, but based on what you've just said, the bins were probably just one small part of her larger attempts to enforce the rules at the complex.

Sadly, IMO that increases the likelihood that someone might have borne a grudge against her.

I wonder if anybody new moved into the complex recently in the last 12 months. If she had been the way that she is described so long I would think if somebody would want to do harm it be long before now.

 

[Doesitmakesense]

This could be really important information. People have focused on Lesley's tendency to sort through the bins, but based on what you've just said, the bins were probably just one small part of her larger attempts to enforce the rules at the complex.

Sadly, IMO that increases the likelihood that someone might have borne a grudge against her.

I didn't realise she lived on the top floor. This puts a bit of a different spin on things. MO it's a bit different leaving your door open when your just stepping a few metres to the bins, I see it differently changing levels completely to be outside.

 

[iamshadow21]

You're most welcome, but I'm not sure my insights are that helpful. I guess its like a pair of eyes on the streets near where things took place.

I don't imagine rubbish truck drivers to be very sensitive either but who knows!

Lesley lived on the top floor but was body corporate president/secretary and was very much in charge at her complex. Nothing happened there without her say-so.

I've seen cases where the roughest of guys found a body, and even years later, on the stand at the trial maybe, they're in floods of tears over it. It's a very sobering, shocking thing. The guy who found little Cupcake McKinney was a seasoned, experienced FBI agent who had had a long career, and he cried openly on the stand talking about finding her. Little Baby Jane Doe/Christmas Doe '88 from Georgia was found by a logging truck driver who stopped to relieve himself and out of curiosity, investigated the dumped piece of furniture she was concealed within, encased in concrete. The news articles describe him 'crying like a child'.

The guys with the roughest exteriors can have the softest hearts.

And I don't know if they talk about it amongst themselves, but I imagine it's a secret fear many garbologists carry that they'll one day find a body in their truck, or not find one, as happened here.

Nobody with a heart wants to deny another human being the right to be treated with dignity after death. And when you drive a dump truck or pick up skips, there is a non-zero chance that one day, it's going to be your truck a body is found, or at least transported, in.

MOO

 

[Plover99]

Does anyone have access to The Australian?
This was posted about 5 hours ago.
Headline reads:

Lesley Trotter’s mystery bin death deepens: ‘You could be in the same building as a murderer​

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/lesley-trotters-mystery-bin-death-deepens-you-could-be-in-the-same-building-as-a-murderer/news-story/b0379a38323fb3cf8315b8806b1d0f4c?amp

 

[SouthAussie]

Does anyone have access to The Australian?
This was posted about 5 hours ago.
Headline reads:

Lesley Trotter’s mystery bin death deepens: ‘You could be in the same building as a murderer​

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/lesley-trotters-mystery-bin-death-deepens-you-could-be-in-the-same-building-as-a-murderer/news-story/b0379a38323fb3cf8315b8806b1d0f4c?amp

Yes, I can read it.
Long article with lots of new stuff in it. Thanks for posting the link.


(Paraphrased) ... it says that in their canvassing of neighbours the police have asked people if they ever saw Lesley climb into a bin. In case Lesley climbed into the bin herself.

<modsnip: Brief paraphrasing of a paywalled article is allowed, not paraphrasing what the entire article is about>

 

[HinterlandObserver]

This could be really important information. People have focused on Lesley's tendency to sort through the bins, but based on what you've just said, the bins were probably just one small part of her larger attempts to enforce the rules at the complex.

Sadly, IMO that increases the likelihood that someone might have borne a grudge against her.

Strata management would have the info on anyone making any complaints too

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Yes I can read it too, thanks @Plover99!
And @SouthAussie!

 

[TootsieFootsie]

While Lesley was on good terms with some neighbours, she was involved in clashes with others. Having abused at least two neighbours with racist remarks.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

A "bin diver" (a person who goes through bins themselves) said that someone who looked like Lesley chased him down the road once, saying "there is a bag, did you take the bag?" "No, I didn't". That happened about 8 weeks ago, and (for whatever reason, it doesn't say) he assumed she was speaking of a bag of containers.

That could be the stuff that a neighbour said they put aside for her.

 

[Plover99]

Yes, I can read it.
Long article with lots of new stuff in it. Thanks for posting the link.


(Paraphrased) ... it says that in their canvassing of neighbours the police have asked people if they ever saw Lesley climb into a bin. In case, Lesley climbed into the bin herself.

It seems that nobody has ever seen Lesley climb into a bin (one neighbour said Lesley would tip a bin over, if she wanted to reach something) ..... and "foul play is firming as the most favoured scenario of investigators".

Detectives called off the search, thinking that there is no way of finding Lesley .... "despite her body being recorded on a rubbish truck’s CCTV camera as a bin was emptied into it just over six weeks ago".

The long investigation has left residents on edge.

While Lesley was on good terms with some neighbours, she was involved in clashes with others. Having abused at least two neighbours with racist remarks.

If a bin was overloaded, Lesley would remove items (presumably so the bin would close) and leave those things on the ground or in the driveway.

A "bin diver" (a person who goes through bins themselves) said that someone who looked like Lesley chased him down the road once, saying "there is a bag, did you take the bag?" "No, I didn't". That happened about 8 weeks ago, and (for whatever reason, it doesn't say) he assumed she was speaking of a bag of containers.

The bin diver said he would have checked the bins on Lesley's street that day, because he checks bins fortnightly according to their recycling day. He told the police this, in case they come across his DNA.

Lesley was in a bin from a building next to her own, a neighbour put the bin out. Blood was found where that bin is stored, it is unknown if it is related.

A neighbour said that Lesley also had run-ins with a man who kept dilapidated vehicles on the grass verge nearby (in the street behind the units). Lesley told the neighbour that she told the man to go back to where he came from (Iraq).

A 20-year old Uni student who lives in the building next door said Lesley would take baked goods and plant cuttings to neighbours, and that she was a kind sweet woman, always lovely.

Police are investigating 3 scenarios:
1. that Lesley met with foul play
2. that Lesley went into a bin, and then had a medical episode
3. some sort of misadventure

Due to Lesley's position in the bin, they are more suspicious than not.

The last time anyone spoke with Lesley was at 12:02am, according to phone records. And she used the phone for an hour or two after that.

Thank you for telling us what this article said. There is certainly a lot there.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Right I'm going to fire my Google alert. Just joking

 

[TootsieFootsie]

It does sound like she could have rubbed some people up the wrong way...

 

[HinterlandObserver]

LT sounds a bit like my old pop who I lived with growing up.
Casual racism was totally acceptable for their generation sadly.
Definitely a potential motive IMOO.
Especially if someone knew her routine of the bins and it was easy to try to make it look like something else.

Also phone in use until 2am give or take.. how much sleep was this old girl running on? Was it usual for her to be up so late?
Wonder if she was an insomniac?

 

[iamshadow21]

It does sound like she could have rubbed some people up the wrong way...

I'd still rather have been neighbours with her than (as it appears) an uncaught murderer who would kill someone over the mediocre, common-as-muck flaws of being a garbage martinet and a bit of a racist. Murderer trumps all of that for awfulness.

Nobody deserves to be killed. Nobody said a victim has to be 100% likeable and virtuous, either. Which is just as well, because I think all of us carry through life our own bag of problematic junk. I'd want to hope whatever I've done and said that made me, at times, probably deeply annoying and unlikable wouldn't mean people wouldn't look for me if I went missing taking the garbage out one day.

MOO

 

[kiwi50]

Yes, I can read it.
Long article with lots of new stuff in it. Thanks for posting the link.


(Paraphrased) ... it says that in their canvassing of neighbours the police have asked people if they ever saw Lesley climb into a bin. In case Lesley climbed into the bin herself.

It seems that nobody has ever seen Lesley climb into a bin (one neighbour said Lesley would tip a bin over, if she wanted to reach something) ..... and "foul play is firming as the most favoured scenario of investigators".

Detectives called off the search, thinking that there is no way of finding Lesley .... "despite her body being recorded on a rubbish truck’s CCTV camera as a bin was emptied into it just over six weeks ago".

The long investigation has left residents on edge.

While Lesley was on good terms with some neighbours, she was involved in clashes with others. Having abused at least two neighbours with racist remarks.

If a bin was overloaded, Lesley would remove items (presumably so the bin would close) and leave those things on the ground or in the driveway.

A "bin diver" (a person who goes through bins themselves) said that someone who looked like Lesley chased him down the road once, saying "there is a bag, did you take the bag?" "No, I didn't". That happened about 8 weeks ago, and (for whatever reason, it doesn't say) he assumed she was speaking of a bag of containers.

The bin diver said he would have checked the bins on Lesley's street that day, because he checks bins fortnightly according to their recycling day. He told the police this, in case they come across his DNA.

Lesley was in a bin from a building next to her own, a neighbour put the bin out. Blood was found where that bin is stored, it is unknown if it is related.

A neighbour said that Lesley also had run-ins with a man who kept dilapidated vehicles on the grass verge nearby (in the street behind the units). Lesley told the neighbour that she told the man to go back to where he came from (Iraq).

A 20-year old Uni student who lives in the building next door said Lesley would take baked goods and plant cuttings to neighbours, and that she was a kind sweet woman, always lovely.

Police are investigating 3 scenarios:
1. that Lesley met with foul play
2. that Lesley went into a bin, and then had a medical episode
3. some sort of misadventure

Due to Lesley's position in the bin, they are more suspicious than not.

The last time anyone spoke with Lesley was at 12:02am, according to phone records. And she used the phone for an hour or two after that.

So it sounds like something was going down early that morning if someone spoke to her at 12 02 am, and she used the phone for an hour or two after that. Wish we knew who she spoke with.
Did she try to call people in the hour or two later but get no response.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I think the article means that the last time she spoke to someone on the phone was 12.02 am, and that she continued to use the device, not that she made or received another call.
She may have checked her emails, or read the news or something.

 

[SouthAussie]

I wonder why the search was called off.

Is there some error with the rubbish tracking technology?
If they dig deeper might there be some kind of collapse at the landfill ... become dangerous for the crew?
Do they just think there is nothing left forensically now, even if they do stumble on something to do with Lesley?
Are they out of funds to keep funding the search? Presumably they are receiving new cases every day.

I guess every search has to end. But it must be sad for everyone - her family, the searchers, the detectives, her friends - because they know Lesley is in there somewhere.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

If they truly have called off the search because they think they're unlikely to find Lesley, I can only think of a few scenarios: one is that they believe there won't be enough left of Lesley after all this time; another is that they believe she's in another part of the tip and will now be covered with weeks' worth of extra rubbish, making it a logistical nightmare.

Sadly, this new article from The Australian appears to be painting Lesley as an interfering racist; it seems we've reached the almost inevitable point in a drawn-out mystery where the media start to muckrake the victim.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Strata management would have the info on anyone making any complaints too

Unless they decided to do nothing about it, including making a record of the complaint.