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Cold-blooded murderer or a grave miscarriage of justice? Sue Neill-Fraser breaks silence
Sue Neill-Fraser was convicted of killing her partner of 18 years, Bob Chappell, on their yacht on Hobart’s Derwent River on Australia Day 2009.
The case against her was circumstantial – there was no body, no weapon and no witnesses to the murder, plus she’s always said she didn’t do it.
Despite being released on parole four years ago, Sue Neill-Fraser says she will never be truly free until she is declared innocent of her partner’s murder. Supplied
Now, aged 72, and having served 13 years of her 23-year sentence, you’d think Neill-Fraser would just get on and enjoy the time she has left.
Instead, she revealed to 60 Minutes in her first interview since being released from jail that she is preparing to drop a bombshell on Tasmania’s justice system.
Neill-Fraser’s case has hung heavily over the city of Hobart for nearly two decades.
It’s been one of the country’s most controversial criminal cases, with allegations of a bungled police investigation and a trial that some legal experts say turned into a farce.
It’s all made Neill-Fraser more determined than ever to clear her name.
“Sitting with a wrongful conviction is like having an infected thorn in your mind,” Neill-Fraser told 60 Minutes.
“It’s there all the time.”
Investigators dismissed her story – that she left Chappell happy and alone on the yacht – as fiction and had a very different version of events.
Police concluded, and the court agreed, that Neill-Fraser attacked Chappell down in the boat’s saloon, using a wrench to beat him to death, or at least until he was unconscious, before somehow winching his body up two flights of stairs.
Then, when Chappell’s body was up on the deck, the case against her was that she manoeuvred it over the railing to drop it into an inflatable dinghy below, at some point attaching a fire extinguisher to the body, before dumping it somewhere in the Derwent River.
“I have a slipped disc that I’ve had for about 35 years, and I would’ve had trouble lifting anything over about 10 or 12 kilos,” Neill-Fraser told 60 Minutes.
Police found their yacht, the Four Winds, the next morning – partially submerged and Chappell missing.
Bob Chappell disappeared from a yacht moored in Hobart’s Derwent River in 2009. Supplied
Within days of Chappell’s disappearance, police decided it was a murder investigation and his partner of 18 years became their prime suspect.
Whether or not you believe Neill-Fraser’s version of events from that night, every murder investigation needs a motive.
And Tasmania Police said Neill-Fraser’s was clear and simple – she killed Bob for his money.
"I'm normally quite private about this sort of thing, but people need to know when Bob went missing, I had over $80,000 in cash in a bank account," Neill-Fraser told journalist Amelia Adams.
"I paid for my half of the yacht outright. I had two rental properties and a farm. I didn't need money."
Despite never taking responsibility for the crime, Neill-Fraser was released on parole from Hobart’s Risdon Prison in 2022, 10 years early.
In a bombshell interview in 2019, a decade after Chappell went missing, Meaghan Vass told 60 Minutes she and two other men went onboard the Four Winds thinking no one was there. Supplied
"It was an anti-climax because I knew that the fight was only just beginning, the real fight," she said.
That fight, to overturn her murder conviction, will be no easy feat, but Neill-Fraser says she has good reason to hope.
Key evidence ignored
Dr Bob Moles is an adjunct professor at Adelaide’s Flinders University and Australia’s foremost expert on miscarriages of justice.
He’s spent years scrutinising the key pieces of evidence that cost Neill-Fraser her freedom.
One of the most compelling was a sample of DNA the size of a dinner plate, found on the deck of the Four Winds.
It was matched to a then-15-year-old homeless girl, Meaghan Vass.
Police suggested the DNA may have been walked onboard, on an officers’ shoe.
But in a bombshell interview in 2019 - a decade after Chappell went missing - an emotional and troubled Vass told 60 Minutes she and two other men went on board the Four Winds thinking there was no-one there.
She said she vomited on the deck after witnessing one of the men murder Chappell.
It should have been Neill-Fraser's ticket to freedom, but when she appealed her conviction, Vass changed her story in court.
"I felt rather sorry for her, that level of distress, and that was the first time anyone in our family had heard what I believed to be the truth," Neill-Fraser said.
Despite Neill-Fraser’s conviction and two unsuccessful appeals, Moles is quite optimistic that she’ll be able to clear her name.
"Oh, I have absolutely no doubt at all. You see, in the previous two appeals, none of the issues that I've mentioned have been included as part of those appeals," he said.
Neill-Fraser was convicted of murdering her partner on Australia Day, 2009. Supplied
"And if they were presented to the court, I am absolutely confident that if the court is doing its job properly, it would have no hesitation at all in setting aside the conviction."
The AI twist
Neill-Fraser has been out of jail for four years, but until now, she hasn’t been allowed to talk freely about the night her partner disappeared or her murder conviction.
That’s because two years after her release, Tasmania’s Parole Board imposed a strict condition that meant Neill-Fraser couldn’t fight to profess her innocence or even discuss it with anyone.
“They put a gag on me, I think the Parole Board, with the best of intentions, did not want, um, more division in the community. And I understand that. But I have been upset for 15 years and I feel it’s time.”
Last month, Neill-Fraser had her first small but critical win at Tasmania’s Supreme Court, where the judge lifted the gag order, declaring it invalid and unreasonable.
In defending Neill-Fraser’s freedom of speech, Sarah Schwartz from the Human Rights Law Centre exposed an alarming flaw in the state’s justice system.
Schwartz said the Tasmanian Parole Board relied upon an AI-generated report that contained fake case law, which she said was used to silence Neill-Fraser.
“So it was an incredibly important document in my view, and the reason why the Parole Board and the state ultimately conceded in this matter, because they saw that that document was induced with AI hallucinations,” Schwartz told 60 Minutes.
"It's so rare that people challenge parole conditions. We'd never know about any of that documentation if we hadn't challenged this decision."
Neill-Fraser says she’s now facing another terrifying hurdle after receiving threats to her life, and is also worried she could be sent back to jail.
Call it paranoia, but Neill-Fraser has no reason to trust authorities. Remarkably, that’s not stopping her.
"There are huge vested interests in keeping this quiet," she said.
“And I’d like to say now: I’m not depressed, and I’m not suicidal. And if I’m found to have suicided, I have not.”
The state’s attorney general, the premier, the solicitor general, DPP and the police commissioner all declined interviews with 60 Minutes.
But, they did say they stand by the investigation and do not support an inquiry into Neill-Fraser’s conviction.
Chappell’s son, Tim, didn’t want to speak with 60 Minutes either, because, he says, due process has been followed and Neill-Fraser’s ongoing campaign to prove her innocence is causing the Chappell family serious distress.
Statement from the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Corrections and Rehabilitation, Guy Barnett
The Government does not support an Inquiry into Ms Sue Neill-Fraser’s case.
Our Government amended the Criminal Code to allow for a further application to the Court of Appeal by a convicted person, if it is considered that there is further evidence that is ‘fresh and compelling’.
Ms Neill-Fraser has previously exercised this right, including applications to the Court of Appeal and the High Court.
Statement from Tasmania Police Commissioner Donna Adams
Susan Neill-Fraser was convicted by a Supreme Court jury in 2010, for the 2009 murder in Hobart of her partner, Bob Chappell.
Tasmania Police continues to have full confidence in both the original and subsequent police investigations in this matter.
The Supreme Court convicted Neill-Fraser of the murder of Mr Chappell, and the conviction was subject to an unsuccessful appeal in 2012.
An investigation by the office of the Tasmanian Coroner, which reviewed all the available evidence, supported the findings of the criminal proceedings.
In November 2021, the Tasmania Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed a further appeal by Neill-Fraser against her murder conviction.
Neill-Fraser was released on parole in October 2022.
Tasmania Police reaffirms its position of support as to the integrity and thoroughness of the investigation, and the prosecution which led to the conviction on a charge of murder.
Statement from Tasmanian Solicitor-General Sarah Kay SC
I do not consider that it would be appropriate for me to speak to the media, particularly as I have had no involvement in the criminal matters relating to Ms Neill-Fraser. It would also be inappropriate for me to express any view into “the Tasmanian Government’s position regarding a Commission of Inquiry into her conviction”.
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff and Tasmanian Director of Public Prosecutions Daryl Coates were unavailable for an interview.
The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions declined to comment also.
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