Speaker 1: On the morning of June thirteenth, twenty sixteen, a young
Speaker 1: eighteen year old man left his home in Perth, Australia
Speaker 1: to help someone he knew fix a computer. He was trusting, intelligent,
Speaker 1: and unaware that the visit had been carefully planned for weeks,
Speaker 1: and by the end of the day he would be dead,
Speaker 1: and the investigation into his disappearance would uncover one of
Speaker 1: Western Australia's most jaw droppingly cruel and disturbing crimes. This
Speaker 1: is the story of Aaron Lee Pajeech. Sweetman, my name is.
Speaker 2: Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim,
Speaker 2: a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast and material intended for a mature audience.
Speaker 2: Listener discretions. Ees, we just had a very good laugh
Speaker 2: we did over here. We did it shows our immaturity,
Speaker 2: oh man, I think it started with your immaturity.
Speaker 1: Though, what okay? To be fair? To be fair, we
Speaker 1: were having squabbles, marital squabbles in a fun way, you know,
Speaker 1: where we're goofing and that sort of thing with each other.
Speaker 1: And I took a little cloth to like clean glasses with,
Speaker 1: and I tossed it in Nicole's face, but her face
Speaker 1: was sitting right beside the microphone because we were doing
Speaker 1: mic testing, and it made the best splat sound. And
Speaker 1: then so I was laughing, and I gave it to
Speaker 1: Nicole so she could throw it in my face and
Speaker 1: then she made the splat sound and she was laughing.
Speaker 1: It was it was a great way.
Speaker 2: You were like, I wish life had good sound effects
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: I do wish because like it obviously makes a sound,
Speaker 1: but it's not generally audible. Things like that. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the mic being right there, it was almost like a
Speaker 1: real life cartoon. It was.
Speaker 2: You were laughing so freaking hard.
Speaker 1: It was good.
Speaker 2: You were laughing too well, mostly because it was just
Speaker 2: like the fuck.
Speaker 1: Well, you were really offended at first, but I threw
Speaker 1: the rag in your face, but then I passed it
Speaker 1: to you when you were happy that you had your chance,
Speaker 1: and then you started laughing your ass off when you
Speaker 1: got me in the face.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Is it normal? Do other people like
Speaker 2: flip each other off more in a day than they
Speaker 2: would say? I love you? Is that normal?
Speaker 1: Okay? Usually follow it up with.
Speaker 2: An I love you or something, which is yeah, we yeah,
Speaker 2: it's funny. In here. I think some people would probably
Speaker 2: think we have some serious issues.
Speaker 1: Probably, but but it works. It works somehow, it works.
Speaker 1: Something else that really works is Patreon. You can go over,
Speaker 1: you can get some behind the scenes content, you can
Speaker 1: get extra episodes and support this podcast. Just like Kelsey
Speaker 1: Queen by Polar b, Timoth, The Crystal Hodge, Leslie Lipper,
Speaker 1: and Chelsea Buszard t Bow, They've all signed up on
Speaker 1: Patreon and they get their little shout out because hey,
Speaker 1: they're super cool and they support us.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, Right, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Do you want to know what else is fantastic? The
Speaker 1: fact that we got a shout out in an article
Speaker 1: today a website called feed spot featured us in twenty
Speaker 1: best Victim Stories Podcasts and we rounded out at number
Speaker 1: three on the list, And I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's a super big deal because that's something
Speaker 2: we try to do.
Speaker 1: We do and it's so it's kind of interesting because
Speaker 1: as we started the podcast, we wanted to do that
Speaker 1: focus on that a little bit more, right, But as
Speaker 1: the podcast aged, as we kind of learned what we're doing,
Speaker 1: we learned how to tell the stories better and really
Speaker 1: portray the stories from the victims, Well, what the.
Speaker 2: Monsters get the attention that they do. It's just I
Speaker 2: don't know, it doesn't really make sense. I know, you know,
Speaker 2: when and a monster does has killed like a one
Speaker 2: hundred people, it's pretty hard not to have that focus
Speaker 2: on them. But like, generally you can take it off
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Definitely. There's times where, yeah, we center around perpetrators and
Speaker 1: that's the life of true crime and that's how kind
Speaker 1: of how it goes. Yeah, but when you can tell
Speaker 1: victim stories, we're always happy to do so. And it's
Speaker 1: really nice to see that recognition coming in for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really great.
Speaker 1: And I also have one more thing I want to
Speaker 1: talk about.
Speaker 2: Really, Oh wow, you're full of beans.
Speaker 1: I'm full of like news today almost. I want to
Speaker 1: give a shout out to Sweden, Chechia, and Canada for
Speaker 1: their placing in the World Junior's Hockey Tournament. Sweden got cold, Chechia,
Speaker 1: I got silver, and Canada got bronze. Well done to
Speaker 1: everyone who participated in the tournament. You all did absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: I know, not everyone's into hockey. We like it. We're
Speaker 1: Canadian a little stereotypical that way, I guess, but I
Speaker 1: just wanted to put that out there.
Speaker 2: Well, it was some damn good hockey. It was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it well just to kind of say, like all of
Speaker 2: the players were under twenty pretty much kids, and they
Speaker 2: just like put their heart on the ice and it
Speaker 2: was really good to watch. They all did awesome.
Speaker 1: Most these kids are already drafted into the NHL and everything,
Speaker 1: and if not, they're going to be basically so it's
Speaker 1: young NHL upcoming stars and to see them go out
Speaker 1: and give it all in the ice for their country
Speaker 1: is incredible. And now we got the Olympics that are
Speaker 1: going to be coming up soon too, so it's going
Speaker 1: to be a wild season of hockey this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I even was texting my sister, I'm like
Speaker 2: I was less stress a less stressful person before I
Speaker 2: really dove into watching sports so much, because like watching
Speaker 2: that Canada game where we you know, were if we won,
Speaker 2: we would go into the to be able to win
Speaker 2: gold and we lost. That was just like devastating anyway,
Speaker 2: one of those players though, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: Right, we got it.
Speaker 2: It's the name of the.
Speaker 1: Game, that's true, it is. But anyways, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to them because they they
Speaker 1: earned it and did an incredible, incredible job. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think with that, if there's nothing else you
Speaker 1: want to talk about, I'm ready to move on to
Speaker 1: today's episode.
Speaker 2: I'm so ready.
Speaker 1: Are you ready?
Speaker 2: I'm ready?
Speaker 1: On a scale of one to ten? How ready are you?
Speaker 2: Thirteen? Oh? You got it? Okay. I was like, yes,
Speaker 2: It take me so long because I'm like, shit, oh, thing,
Speaker 2: this is the thing. What am I supposed to say?
Speaker 1: I'm so proudy high five for that. You nailed that job. Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: if Nicole's on a scale of one to ten, a thirteen,
Speaker 1: I think we're ready to go into this episode.
Speaker 2: We sure are so.
Speaker 1: Broughton Way is the kind of street people forget about
Speaker 1: soon is you know, they turn around the corner off
Speaker 1: of it. It runs quietly through Aurelia, which is a
Speaker 1: suburb of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, where days
Speaker 1: tend to, you know, follow a very predictable rhythm. Here,
Speaker 1: cars leave in the morning, they return in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Garbage bins are rolled out, lawns are watered, and neighbors
Speaker 1: nod in passing, you know, rarely lingering in conversation. There's
Speaker 1: no reason to stop, no reason to look twice. Now,
Speaker 1: House number twenty two zat comfortably within that normal space.
Speaker 1: It was a modest brown brick house with a small
Speaker 1: front yard and a narrow driveway, indistinguishable from the others
Speaker 1: that lined the street. There were no signs that would
Speaker 1: suggest anything out of the ordinary here. It was the
Speaker 1: sort of place people passed every single day without ever
Speaker 1: registering it at all. Now, later, after everything came to
Speaker 1: light on this story, some neighbors would try to remember
Speaker 1: if they had noticed anything strange. Most, in fact, hadn't.
Speaker 1: The house hadn't drawn attention. It just simply blended in perfectly.
Speaker 1: The most noticeable feature was the presence of security cameras
Speaker 1: mounted around the exterior of the home, which were in
Speaker 1: place to help protect motorcycles that were kept on the property.
Speaker 1: Nothing about that house suggested that it would soon become
Speaker 1: the focus of a homicide investigation. Now, in the morning
Speaker 1: of June thirteenth, twenty sixteen, eighteen year old Aaron Pageech
Speaker 1: walked through the gate and into number twenty too without
Speaker 1: any hesitation. Aaron was a bit of a small individual
Speaker 1: for his age, and he was quiet and unfailingly polite.
Speaker 1: You see, he lived with autism and was on that spectrum,
Speaker 1: something that kind of shaped how he understood the world
Speaker 1: around him and people that were in it. He was
Speaker 1: trusting by nature. He never assumed the worst in others
Speaker 1: because the worst has never been part of how he
Speaker 1: related to them. He loved computers and video games and
Speaker 1: fixing things that didn't work, so when someone asked him
Speaker 1: for help with something technical, he rarely said no. Helping
Speaker 1: to him, you know, it just made him feel useful, capable,
Speaker 1: and included. That morning, he believed he was doing exactly that,
Speaker 1: helping someone he knew install software on a computer. The
Speaker 1: invitation came from someone familiar, someone he'd known for years,
Speaker 1: in fact, so there was no reason that he shouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to trust this person. He arrived expecting a
Speaker 1: normal visit with a short task and then a try home.
Speaker 1: Aaron had no way of knowing that this was the
Speaker 1: last place that he would ever go. When he didn't
Speaker 1: return home that day, his phone went unanswered and messages
Speaker 1: weren't returned. People told themselves there were explanations for this,
Speaker 1: that he simply stayed out longer than planned, or he
Speaker 1: forgot to check in, that he would turn up soon enough,
Speaker 1: But as the hours stretched into days, a missing person's
Speaker 1: report was filed and police began their work following the
Speaker 1: last confirmed movements before he went missing. That day, phone
Speaker 1: records were checked, CCTV footage was reviewed, Names and locations
Speaker 1: were you know, gone over, and slowly, inevitably, the same
Speaker 1: address began to surface. It was on Broaton Way and
Speaker 1: when police showed up to number twenty two, there was
Speaker 1: still no certainty, just details that didn't quite sit right.
Speaker 1: Explanations they were beginning to you know, be given. They
Speaker 1: felt thin. And in the backyard after a search, something
Speaker 1: stood out. The backyard was recently altered. There was a
Speaker 1: section of concrete that looked new, even rushed. After a
Speaker 1: week of Erin's disappearance, officers returned to this house, this
Speaker 1: time with forensic teams. The concrete was broken apart in
Speaker 1: the search, and what police uncovered there would change the
Speaker 1: case entirely. Because this was not a disappearance, This was
Speaker 1: not an accident. What investigators were beginning to uncover was
Speaker 1: something far colder, a killing that was anticipated, a killing
Speaker 1: that was discussed and prepared for long before Aaron even
Speaker 1: stepped through the front gates. Of that home. This is
Speaker 1: when a quiet house on an unremarkable street became the
Speaker 1: setting for a murder that should never have happened in
Speaker 1: the first place. Now it all began on June thirteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, in Rockingham, Western Australia. This Monday morning didn't
Speaker 1: feel special. It didn't have a bunch of bad weather
Speaker 1: in the forecast, or any sort of urgency or anything
Speaker 1: that would later stand out. It was simply just another
Speaker 1: quiet start to the week, the kind of morning where
Speaker 1: people were heading to work, grabbing coffee and thinking of
Speaker 1: nothing more than what they had ahead of them, or
Speaker 1: perhaps maybe not even thinking much, but instead shutting their
Speaker 1: brains down, going into that autopilot mode in preparation for
Speaker 1: that workday. Amongst all the people and normal lives, there
Speaker 1: was Aaron Prajch. He was eighteen years old and living
Speaker 1: a small, predictable life, the kind that thrives on routine.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: Erin was on the autism spectrum, something that shaped how
Speaker 1: he moved through the world. Social cues in particular didn't
Speaker 1: always come easy to him, but he made up for
Speaker 1: it in other ways. Erin was extremely gentle and polite
Speaker 1: and unfailingly trusting. He loved computers and video games, and
Speaker 1: if someone needed help with software or tech problems or anything,
Speaker 1: Erin was usually the first to volunteer his assistance. Helping
Speaker 1: people simply made sense to him. It was who he was,
Speaker 1: and if you could help anyone, then why not.
Speaker 2: I just have to say, that's so sad that I wish. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm a very trusting person and the world we live
Speaker 2: in almost like makes it feel like you can't be right,
Speaker 2: and so that should be an awesome trait or quality
Speaker 2: of a person, but it almost makes them vulnerable, which
Speaker 2: isn't good.
Speaker 1: Well, too many people take advantage of trusting individuals. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of that situation of fool me once,
Speaker 1: shame on you, feel me twice, shame on me. So
Speaker 1: when someone is trusting and it's taken advantage of it, say, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what you did a bad thing. Don't do
Speaker 1: that right, But then I'm going to trust you again,
Speaker 1: and you, you know, you take advantage of me again,
Speaker 1: Shame on me. So the person starts recoiling and not
Speaker 1: trusting so much anymore because they feel that it's their
Speaker 1: fault when it's not.
Speaker 2: It's not that's I wish people could be trusting, but yeah,
Speaker 2: and I's like I said, it just puts you at
Speaker 2: risk in.
Speaker 1: A way it does human nature. It can be amazing,
Speaker 1: but it can also be extremely cruel. Now, at the time,
Speaker 1: Aaron was renting a room from a woman named Adrian
Speaker 1: Reid in Wakiki. They'd met through church earlier that year,
Speaker 1: and she had taken him in as a border That morning,
Speaker 1: the two sent down for breakfast together. They both ate
Speaker 1: and chatted casually and got ready for their day. But
Speaker 1: that's when Aaron's phone rang. It was a call from
Speaker 1: a woman named Trudy Lenin and someone Aaron knew through
Speaker 1: vocational studies and through her son as well. He was
Speaker 1: kind of friends with them. They shared a love of
Speaker 1: video games and gamed a little bit. Now, Trudy asked
Speaker 1: Aarin if he could come over and help install some
Speaker 1: software on her computer, then afterwards they could play video games.
Speaker 1: Right Adrian overheard this part of the conversation. There were
Speaker 1: no red flags at all. It was casual, and when
Speaker 1: Aaron hung up, she agreed to drive him to Rockingham Center,
Speaker 1: where Trudy said that she was going to pick him
Speaker 1: up just before ten o'clock that morning, Adrian dropped Aaron
Speaker 1: off at the shop and watched him walk away, carrying
Speaker 1: his iPad with him. Now this, unfortunately, was the last
Speaker 1: time she would ever see him. Security cameras later showed
Speaker 1: Aaron waiting in the car parking lot, standing calmly, exactly
Speaker 1: where he said he'd be. Rockingham Center was already busy
Speaker 1: by that time. Cars were moving in and out of
Speaker 1: the car park, people crossed between shops, and nothing about
Speaker 1: the scene suggested that it would later become a very
Speaker 1: crucial piece of a murder investigation. Aaron waited here just
Speaker 1: like he said he would. He stood near the parking
Speaker 1: law holding his iPad, very calm and very patient. There
Speaker 1: was no signs of anxiety because to him this was
Speaker 1: just another chance to help with a computer problem, maybe
Speaker 1: spend some time gaming afterwards with people that he knew.
Speaker 1: Security cameras captured the moment that would later be replayed
Speaker 1: again and again. A car pulled up. Two people were inside,
Speaker 1: Trudy Lennon and her roommate Gemma Lily. Aaron approached the
Speaker 1: vehicle and opened the door and simply got in the car,
Speaker 1: then pulled away from the shopping center. And merged back
Speaker 1: into traffic. No one noticed that this happened in the intersection,
Speaker 1: It blended into the crowd of people in the cars.
Speaker 1: There was no reason that this should stand out, because
Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, this was normal.
Speaker 2: And what was supposed to happen exactly.
Speaker 1: People were getting in cars, people were driving away. All
Speaker 1: of this was normal. Investigators would soon review that security
Speaker 1: footage in their investigation, and soon they understood that this
Speaker 1: was the last moment that Erin was ever seen alive
Speaker 1: in public. For now though, it was simply a quiet
Speaker 1: exchange in the busy parking lot. But to understand what
Speaker 1: happened to Erin, you first have to understand the two
Speaker 1: women that were in that car and the private world
Speaker 1: that they had built together behind the front door of
Speaker 1: a small unit in Aralia. Gemma Lily had arrived in
Speaker 1: Australia years earlier, carrying with her a past than never
Speaker 1: quite stayed behind her. See, she was originally from England
Speaker 1: and had moved to Perth as a teenager, eager for
Speaker 1: a fresh start. On the surface, she blended in rather easily.
Speaker 1: She worked night shifts at a supermarket, spent time at
Speaker 1: a tattoo parlor, rode a motorcycle and lived quietly in
Speaker 1: the southern suburbs. But beneath that ordinary exterior was a
Speaker 1: long standing fixation on violence. From a young age, Gemma
Speaker 1: had been drawn to horror films, serial killers, and stories
Speaker 1: built around suffering and control. She wrote obsessively, creating a
Speaker 1: fictional character named Sos, a character who wasn't just a villain,
Speaker 1: but also a kind of an alter ego for her,
Speaker 1: a powerful, feared, and admired one. Now, over time, Sos
Speaker 1: became more more than a character on a page and
Speaker 1: became something that she talked about, referenced, and even embodied. Now.
Speaker 1: Trudy Lenin came into Jemma's life in twenty sixteen. She
Speaker 1: was older, a mother of three, and studying at Vocational College,
Speaker 1: which is where she met Erin. Trudy had spent years
Speaker 1: on the edge of stability, struggling financially, navigating failed relationships,
Speaker 1: and seeking connection wherever she could find it. She was
Speaker 1: also deeply involved in BDSM communities, where she took into
Speaker 1: a submissive role under the name Corvina. Now, if you
Speaker 1: don't know, BDSM stands for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission,
Speaker 1: and sadism and masochism. Now, this is consensual sexual practices
Speaker 1: which involved things like roleplay, dynamics centered around power, exchange,
Speaker 1: control restraints, that sort of thing. It's very intense sensations.
Speaker 1: It's typically summed up under simple sayings like whips and chains.
Speaker 1: Let's put it that way. Now, these two women connected
Speaker 1: quickly and what began as a casual friendship turned rather
Speaker 1: intense in a matter of weeks. They shared interests, secrets,
Speaker 1: and eventually fantasies that moved far beyond anything healthy or abstract.
Speaker 1: Their dynamics settled into something clearly defined. Gemma was a
Speaker 1: dominant figure and Trudy was eager to follow as a
Speaker 1: bit more submissive. They even adopt their chosen names in
Speaker 1: real life, Sos and Corvina, reinforcing the roles that they
Speaker 1: had created for one another. Now, despite this dynamic, though,
Speaker 1: it's very important for the story that there is no
Speaker 1: there's no evidence to suggest that there was a sexual
Speaker 1: relationship between the two.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I was going to ask.
Speaker 1: There was definitely a massive power dynamic between the two,
Speaker 1: but it was more platonic where they took on these roles.
Speaker 1: But as far as we're aware. Yeah, the sexual nature
Speaker 1: of it was non existent.
Speaker 2: Okay, I guess you could kind of still take on
Speaker 2: those roles to a degree as and it be a friendship. Hey,
Speaker 2: I never really thought about that, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Definitely, but they were. It was necessarily like a friendship
Speaker 1: per se. It was I guess like the next step
Speaker 1: would have been into the sexual world. I guess it's
Speaker 1: really hard to describe. From my understanding, each character that
Speaker 1: they played was not playing a character. They took that
Speaker 1: into their life. So they're becoming this, I'm in charge,
Speaker 1: I'm the dominance. You do as I say in their
Speaker 1: day to day. Yes, so when people role play in
Speaker 1: the sexuality part of it, they're kind of living that
Speaker 1: role play without getting into the sexual part, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, interesting now.
Speaker 1: In May of twenty sixteen, Truty moved into Jemma's home
Speaker 1: at twenty two Broughton Way in Aurelia, bringing her children
Speaker 1: with her. Jemma liked to call the house Elm Street,
Speaker 1: which was a deliberate nod to her favorite horror franchise,
Speaker 1: Nightmare on Elm Street starring the nightmare killer Freddy Krueger.
Speaker 1: Inside the home, the walls were lined with horror imagery, posters,
Speaker 1: and art work drawn from slasher film, serial killer fiction,
Speaker 1: and violent fantasies.
Speaker 2: What might have.
Speaker 1: Looked like themed decor to an outsider gradually became something
Speaker 1: a lot more specific. Like, for example, I know people
Speaker 1: who are I guess you could say maybe gothic horror fanatics,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and they have their house painted black.
Speaker 1: They've got like horror posters and pictures on the wall
Speaker 1: and pop funk funko vinyl figures, all those sort of things.
Speaker 1: But they're nice people. These individuals, well, they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: nice people. They're taking it that step further where for example,
Speaker 1: we're listening and talking about true crime right now, right,
Speaker 1: we're in this genre, we're in this niche. But then
Speaker 1: there's people who take it that step farther and they
Speaker 1: obsess over the perpetrators, the serial killers. There's that line
Speaker 1: in the sand that they're stepping over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where it becomes an obsession and live your life
Speaker 2: around that, I guess, And it's only gonna spiral for sure.
Speaker 1: And there's that matter of how you perceive the work
Speaker 1: of art, perceive the story, perceive the movie. Are you
Speaker 1: watching it for hey, for us, we like to tell
Speaker 1: victim stories, right or are you more interested in the details,
Speaker 1: the graphic details of the perpetrator, what they did, how
Speaker 1: they did it? Are you obsessed with that? Those are
Speaker 1: some of the questions and the differences between normal indulging
Speaker 1: in something and going a little too deep. So what
Speaker 1: might have looked like all this themed decor was much
Speaker 1: more specific, and the house stopped feeling like a shared
Speaker 1: living space and began to feel while felt sealed off
Speaker 1: from the outside world. Conversations started to happen inside the walls,
Speaker 1: and they stayed there. Ideas were reinforced with each other,
Speaker 1: and the longer they lived together, the more the space well.
Speaker 1: It started to reflect their shared fixation to the outside world.
Speaker 1: It was just that other suburban unit along the row
Speaker 1: of houses, but the women inside with them. It became
Speaker 1: a place where their fantasies and reality started to blur,
Speaker 1: where violent thoughts were encouraged instead of challenged, and where
Speaker 1: boundaries were quietly disappearing. By late May, whatever line once
Speaker 1: separated fantasy from reality had quietly vanished online through text
Speaker 1: messages and such, Gemma and Trudy began speaking less like
Speaker 1: people imagining violence and talking about crime, that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and more like people who were actually preparing for it. Instead,
Speaker 1: their conversations shifted in in tone, and they talked about
Speaker 1: killing not as a distant idea, but as something inevitable,
Speaker 1: something that needed to happen, like a morbid snowball building
Speaker 1: mass until it was undeniable. In one exchange, they told
Speaker 1: one another that they were ready, quote unquote. It wasn't
Speaker 1: framed as a joke or some sort of early conversation
Speaker 1: that may have been taken a different way. This was
Speaker 1: instead a real statement of resolve. They were ready.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Okay, I'm starting to get real uncomfortable here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because initially the phone call that you described didn't seem alarming,
Speaker 2: So I'm like, okay, I was sort of thinking that
Speaker 2: someone abducted him at the mall or something. But uh, awesome, Okay,
Speaker 2: so we're really in for it here.
Speaker 1: No, this was premeditated, This was prepared.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: So with everyone outside this little bubble of theirs, you know,
Speaker 1: the outside world, with their private messages, nothing looked out
Speaker 1: of place. These two women still went to work, they
Speaker 1: still handled daily responsibilities. There was kids living in the house.
Speaker 1: Everything you know, but when they were alone, their words
Speaker 1: were dark and very specific. They discussed suffering control and
Speaker 1: what they referred to as Sos's first kill quote unquote.
Speaker 1: They were treating it like it was something like a
Speaker 1: milestone rather than a crime. They were so disattached from reality.
Speaker 1: The preparation didn't stop at words, though. Between mid May
Speaker 1: and the days leading up to June thirteenth, the pair
Speaker 1: made several trips to hardware stores across Perth. On separate occasions.
Speaker 1: They purchased items that, on their own were very legal
Speaker 1: and didn't draw attention, things like a circular saw, actone
Speaker 1: bleach cement and a large plastic barrel. They also bought
Speaker 1: an extraordinary amount of a hydrochloric acid, spreading the purchase
Speaker 1: across multiple stores, and altogether they purchased around one hundred
Speaker 1: liters of it.
Speaker 2: Oh man, you know what. You did not warn me that.
Speaker 2: I was like, my blood is already boiling. I'm fricking pissed. Okay,
Speaker 2: hold on sitting here. I did warn.
Speaker 1: You because if you listen to the intro of this episode,
Speaker 1: I said, quote. Investigation into his disappearance would cover one
Speaker 1: of Western Australia's most jaw droppingly cruel and disturbing crimes.
Speaker 1: End quote. So I did warn you.
Speaker 2: I guess, but I was not prepared for this. And
Speaker 2: I'm like fume and mad and I got to sit here,
Speaker 2: and I gotta sit here.
Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of how this works as you
Speaker 1: listen to the story.
Speaker 2: Oh man, okay, I mean, my heart's already breaking, I
Speaker 2: feel like, but yeah, I fair.
Speaker 1: Enough, that's that's a reasonable reaction. Hmm are you good
Speaker 1: to keep going?
Speaker 2: I am yep, okay.
Speaker 1: So inside the house on BroadOn Way, changes were taking
Speaker 1: place as rooms were altered, surfaces were covered, and spaces
Speaker 1: were cleared and prepared in ways that would make sense
Speaker 1: in hindsight. To Gemma and Trudy this phase it felt controlled,
Speaker 1: organized and very empowering. They believe they were careful, they
Speaker 1: believed they were smart, and most of all, they believed
Speaker 1: that no one was watching anything. They were just two
Speaker 1: women living together in suburban Perth, and they thought no
Speaker 1: one would catch on to what they had planned. Now.
Speaker 1: On June thirteenth, when the two women picked up Erin
Speaker 1: from the parking lot, the drive from rocking Ham Center
Speaker 1: to Aurelia didn't take very long, and when they pulled
Speaker 1: up outside the unit and brought in way. Nothing about
Speaker 1: the place looked unusual. There was a small sign on
Speaker 1: the gate that read Elm Street, which was a detail
Speaker 1: that meant nothing to Erin at the time. CCTV cameras
Speaker 1: installed outside the house. A later show of the three
Speaker 1: of them entering together. Just after ten o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: Aaron walked through the gate on his own, carrying his iPad,
Speaker 1: following Gemma and Trudy inside. Now in that house, everything again,
Speaker 1: just like everything else so far today seemed normal. Erin
Speaker 1: was given a cup of coffee and directed towards the
Speaker 1: computer that needed his attention. He sat down and began
Speaker 1: his work, focusing on the task in front of him. Now,
Speaker 1: for those few minutes, nothing was wrong, but the window
Speaker 1: between safety and violence was short lived. Police would later
Speaker 1: piece together the sequence using the homes outside, CCTV cameras,
Speaker 1: forensic evidence, and witness testimony, and what they found is
Speaker 1: that around ten thirty am, a camera outside the house
Speaker 1: captured Trudy leaving briefly, then re entering while holding a
Speaker 1: large knife in a sheath. Not long after that, the
Speaker 1: cameras on the home were switched off of course they were,
Speaker 1: and what happened next unfolded extremely quickly. Investigators later determined
Speaker 1: that Erin was attacked from behind while he sat at
Speaker 1: the computer, focused on the task that he'd been invited
Speaker 1: there to do. In the blink of an eye, a
Speaker 1: wire ligature was wrapped around his neck from behind in
Speaker 1: an attempt to restrain him, but Erin fought back and
Speaker 1: the wire snapped during the struggle, leaving clear signs of
Speaker 1: resistance on his hands. What followed was rapid and chaotic,
Speaker 1: held down and then stabbed viciously, sustaining fatal injuries to
Speaker 1: his neck and his chest. According to forensic evidence, the
Speaker 1: sequence unfolded in a matter of only minutes, and it
Speaker 1: began as an ordinary visit, but it ended quickly and fatally. Now,
Speaker 1: what came next wasn't panic in the way most people
Speaker 1: would expect. There was no frantic call for help or
Speaker 1: immediate attempt to flee, you know, or maybe a sudden
Speaker 1: rush of what the fuck did I just do? Flooding
Speaker 1: into someone's mind. But instead, what followed was a series
Speaker 1: of decisions that suggested Gemma and Trudy believe they still
Speaker 1: had complete control over what they had done. You see.
Speaker 1: In the days leading up to June thirteenth, the two
Speaker 1: women had discussed dissolving a body using one hundred liters
Speaker 1: of hydrochloric acid.
Speaker 2: I wonder where they got that idea from, right.
Speaker 1: They even went as far as testing it on chunks
Speaker 1: of meat, trying to see how long it would take
Speaker 1: to break down the flesh and bone that they dropped
Speaker 1: into it. They had a very large plastic barrel that
Speaker 1: sat ready and waiting for them to make this problem
Speaker 1: quote unquote problem disappear entirely. But after the killing, this
Speaker 1: plan was abandoned. Whatever it was, whatever, whether it was time, pressure, fear,
Speaker 1: or simply the reality of what they were facing. Investigators
Speaker 1: would later conclude that the acid was never used on
Speaker 1: Aaron's body. Instead, the women pivoted to something faster and
Speaker 1: far less effective. Aarin's lifeless body was dragged through the home,
Speaker 1: away from the main living area, out of sight. The
Speaker 1: goal was now not exactly disposal, not really anyways. It
Speaker 1: was now instead more about concealment. From there, the two
Speaker 1: dug a shallow grave in the backyard, only about thirty
Speaker 1: centimeters deep or about twelve inches in total. Basically, it
Speaker 1: was just enough to hide what lay beneath. Concrete was
Speaker 1: then mixed and poured over this shallow grave, and bright
Speaker 1: red tiles were laid on top. It was uneven and
Speaker 1: hastily done. The work was amateurish at best. It looked
Speaker 1: rushed and obvious to anyone who knew what they were
Speaker 1: looking for. But at the time, the women were confident
Speaker 1: it would be enough, and they thought that they were
Speaker 1: getting away with murder, just like they talked about.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: What made the cover up even more disturbing was who
Speaker 1: helped finish it. You see, I mentioned already that Trudy
Speaker 1: had children, and they returned home from school that day
Speaker 1: and one of her sons, who was actually friends with
Speaker 1: Aaron unknowingly assisted with laying tiles over the freshly poured concrete.
Speaker 1: He had no idea what was buried beneath his feet.
Speaker 1: He had no idea that he was helping seal the
Speaker 1: grave of his friend and someone that he played games
Speaker 1: with only days earlier.
Speaker 2: Oh man, just like fuck these two really? Yeah, this
Speaker 2: is unbelievable. I know the fact that they act involved
Speaker 2: her children is insane to me. Yes, not only the
Speaker 2: fact that it's like you're involving children, but the fact
Speaker 2: that your child is friends with this individual just makes
Speaker 2: it that much worse. Yeah. Ugh, it's unfathomable actually what
Speaker 2: they've done here, Like holy shit, I.
Speaker 1: Can't imagine the reality of that setting into that child too,
Speaker 1: knowing what he had helped do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why don't just like ruin more people's lives exactly.
Speaker 1: So inside that house there were signs of the cleanup too.
Speaker 1: There was a section of carpet that was cut from
Speaker 1: the lounge room floor, and this is where Aaron had
Speaker 1: been attacked and killed. So they were covering up all
Speaker 1: the evidence of what had happened. Blood likely soaked and
Speaker 1: stained into that carpet and they were trying to hide it,
Speaker 1: so they cut out that section to remove it. Furniture
Speaker 1: was then moved to cover up this blank spot and
Speaker 1: other spots of potential blood. And you know, the efforts
Speaker 1: that they tried to put into this to erase what
Speaker 1: had happened. It was sloppy. It was incomplete. Like you
Speaker 1: have a chunk of carpet missing cut out and you
Speaker 1: just move a couch over it, for example, like really, like,
Speaker 1: no one's going to notice that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's not smart.
Speaker 1: Now, by the time the concrete had set and the
Speaker 1: tiles dried. Gemma and Trudy believed the worst was over.
Speaker 1: They believed they had solved their problems and that no
Speaker 1: one would ever think to look beneath that backyard patio.
Speaker 1: But boy were they wrong. Aaron Pajic was expected home
Speaker 1: that afternoon on June thirteenth, and by the evening, when
Speaker 1: he'd still you know, not showed up and no one
Speaker 1: heard a word from him, concern began to set in.
Speaker 1: Erin was not someone who disappeared without explanation. He kept
Speaker 1: very close track of his schedule and stayed in regular
Speaker 1: contact with the people around him, and he almost never
Speaker 1: turned off his phone. He liked routine, he liked stability,
Speaker 1: and this was not that. The following morning, after still
Speaker 1: hearing nothing from him, his landlady, Adrian reid Well, tried
Speaker 1: one last time to reach him, and the call went
Speaker 1: straight to voicemail, which alone is unusual. Aaron's phone was
Speaker 1: rarely out of reach and Well he was known for
Speaker 1: answering very quickly. As the hours passed and repeated attempts
Speaker 1: went unanswered, it was June fourteenth was still no sign
Speaker 1: of Erin that police were notified and a missing person's
Speaker 1: report was filed, so it was the next day.
Speaker 2: I just have to say, these two are complete idiots, like,
Speaker 2: and I'm super glad they are, but do they people
Speaker 2: knew that he was going over there, So I just
Speaker 2: I don't quite comprehend how they expected to get away
Speaker 2: with this and thought they did good quotes or why never?
Speaker 1: And I think, like, it's it's obvious that they targeted
Speaker 1: Erin for who he was.
Speaker 2: He is so sad.
Speaker 1: Definitely he's a vulnerable, trusting individual, so they targeted him
Speaker 1: for that. And I think this is my assumption here.
Speaker 1: I think they thought if he's dropped off in this
Speaker 1: mall parking lot and they pick him up from there,
Speaker 1: then there's no way that they'd be connected to them. However,
Speaker 1: security cameras and you have someone who knew, like someone
Speaker 1: who overheard the call, and then you know phone tracing.
Speaker 1: There's so much evidence that can follow you, whether you
Speaker 1: think you have an invisible trail or not. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And we just thought they were good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that they did this so
Speaker 2: poorly because they deserve to get caught. But it's just like, wow,
Speaker 2: like you're really dumb.
Speaker 1: Definitely, And honestly, the next thing I have written is
Speaker 1: investigators began retracing Aaron's final no movements, and they learned
Speaker 1: he had left the house early on Monday morning after
Speaker 1: receiving a phone call while eating breakfast. So right away
Speaker 1: they're tracking right to that rocking Hymn center. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: to help with this computer issue. It's immediately now that
Speaker 1: part of the story was checked out. Phone records even
Speaker 1: showed the last answered call on Aaron's phone had come
Speaker 1: from Trudy Lennin on the morning of June thirteenth, so
Speaker 1: it's not like they didn't just try and hide a
Speaker 1: phone number. Even it was very easily tracked. Oh that's
Speaker 1: the person who contacted him. Go to the parking lot
Speaker 1: in the CCTV footage, Oh, there she is. There's her car,
Speaker 1: there's her license plate. Where are they going to her
Speaker 1: house to help with the computer? Gotcha gone? Like it was,
Speaker 1: they tracked her so fast. So obviously that CCTV footage,
Speaker 1: like I said, filled in the next gap heading you know,
Speaker 1: over to that home. Cameras captured Aaron waiting in the
Speaker 1: car parking lot being picked up with Trudy and Gemma
Speaker 1: in the passenger seat. The footage showed nothing unusual, Aaron
Speaker 1: willingly going in the car and being driven away, So
Speaker 1: they simply followed that evidence to where it led, which
Speaker 1: was the house on Broughton Way in Aurelia. When officers
Speaker 1: first stopped in at this address, both the women there
Speaker 1: told the officers that Aaron had visited briefly, had worked
Speaker 1: on the computer, and then left on his own. Now
Speaker 1: the statement and timeline that they were given didn't sit
Speaker 1: right with investigators. Aaron's phone had gone silent after that morning,
Speaker 1: his belongings hadn't resurfaced, and every verified movement after rocking
Speaker 1: him center pointed back to the very same place that address.
Speaker 1: So by June twentieth, police returned to the Aralia property,
Speaker 1: no longer treating it as just another address in a
Speaker 1: missing person's inquiry. This time they were prepared to look closer,
Speaker 1: not just of what the women were saying and what
Speaker 1: they were telling police, they wanted to see what the
Speaker 1: house itself would reveal. So by that point, Aaron had
Speaker 1: been missing for a full week and investigators were no
Speaker 1: longer working on an assumption, you know, that he'd wandered
Speaker 1: off or lost contact, something like that. Something was clearly wrong.
Speaker 1: The evidence had narrowed the timeline, narrowed the location, and
Speaker 1: narrow the list of people who had last seen him alive.
Speaker 1: So now entering inside this house under a search warrant,
Speaker 1: officers searched carefully, noting details that seemed insignificant days earlier.
Speaker 1: Then the attention shifted outside. The backyard was small and enclosed.
Speaker 1: It was bordered by fencing and was partially paved, but
Speaker 1: one section immediately stood out, a square of freshly laid
Speaker 1: concrete covered with bright red tiles that sat awkwardly against
Speaker 1: the other older pavement. The workmanship on it was extremely
Speaker 1: crude and uneven, noticeably different from the surrounding area, not
Speaker 1: only that it looked very new and rushed. At first,
Speaker 1: the women offered explanations, you know, just renovations and repairs,
Speaker 1: nothing unusual to see here sort of thing, But the
Speaker 1: timing clearly didn't sit right, and neither did the haste
Speaker 1: of the work. Police left the property that night, but
Speaker 1: they didn't walk away from it. They made sure that
Speaker 1: they had cordoned it off, and they returned hours later
Speaker 1: with a forensic team prepared to dig up that concrete
Speaker 1: to check underneath it. As the tiles were lifted and
Speaker 1: the concrete was broken apart, the smell reached them first
Speaker 1: beneath the slab, less than a foot below the surface,
Speaker 1: wrapped in plastic in a drop sheet, Aaron Pajech's body
Speaker 1: was slowly uncovered in that backyard. The discovery confirmed what
Speaker 1: investigators had begun to suspect but hoped not to find
Speaker 1: that Erin never left that house, that he'd been killed
Speaker 1: there and hidden beneath this concrete.
Speaker 2: Damn. That is just so sad, holy shit. And yeah,
Speaker 2: they would I think it would have been obvious when
Speaker 2: they saw that.
Speaker 1: It would have been extremely obvious. By the early hours
Speaker 1: of June twenty first, the house on Broughton Way stopped
Speaker 1: being a place of interest and became a full on
Speaker 1: murder scene. What investigators found inside confirmed that the killing
Speaker 1: was not spontaneous, that it was not accidental and not
Speaker 1: the result of a single moment gone wrong. Instead, they
Speaker 1: discovered that it was very clearly planned. Room by room.
Speaker 1: The picture sharpened. In the lounge area, police noticed a large,
Speaker 1: roughly cut missing square from the carpet. It was an
Speaker 1: odd detail on its own, but taken alongside what has
Speaker 1: already been uncovered. It pointed very clearly at an attempt
Speaker 1: to clean up beneath furniture and rugs. Forensic testing revealed
Speaker 1: bloodstains consistent with violent assault as well. This investigators concluded
Speaker 1: was likely where Erin had been attacked. Elsewhere in the house,
Speaker 1: though the findings were even more disturbing. One room had
Speaker 1: been deliberately sealed off from the rest and inside. When
Speaker 1: they entered, they found that the floor was freshly tiled,
Speaker 1: the walls were lined with blue tarps, and there were
Speaker 1: tools knives of various sizes, bone saws, scalpels, a machete, bleach,
Speaker 1: and a large plastic tub. A gurney stood against one wall.
Speaker 1: A towel and a mop were nearby. The setup was
Speaker 1: crudely clinical and chillingly obvious on its purpose. This was
Speaker 1: a murder room.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, you're not kidding, not.
Speaker 1: Kidding at all. They clearly had intentions to do more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was just their first. Holy friggin' shit. Yeah
Speaker 2: that is so. I couldn't imagine stumbling across a room
Speaker 2: like that. Holy heck.
Speaker 1: Handwritten lists were also recovered. They were neatly organized, alphabetized,
Speaker 1: and detailed different methods of torture. Investigators later testified that
Speaker 1: these were not vague ideas or fictional notes. They were
Speaker 1: very specific, they were practical, and they even matched items
Speaker 1: found throughout the house. They were clearly not just notes.
Speaker 1: They instead had future plans for future victims. And then
Speaker 1: there was the CCTV system. See, Gemma had installed motion
Speaker 1: activated cameras around the exterior of the property to protect
Speaker 1: her motorcycles. Those same cameras captured evidence that would become
Speaker 1: very central to this case and will be repeated many times.
Speaker 1: The footage showed Erin entering the house with both Gemma
Speaker 1: and Trudy on the morning of June thirteenth. Another clip,
Speaker 1: timestamped shortly afterwards, showed Truly leaving and re entering the
Speaker 1: house holding that large knife in a sheath. Then, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned already, not long after, the cameras were manually
Speaker 1: switched off. What the system did not record is just
Speaker 1: as important as what it did. There was no footage
Speaker 1: of Aaron ever leaving the property. Now digital evidence added
Speaker 1: another layer to the story too. Messages exchanged between the
Speaker 1: two women in the weeks before Aaron's death revealed a
Speaker 1: clear escalation from fantasy to intent. They spoke openly about
Speaker 1: being ready, about a first kill, about blood and control.
Speaker 1: The language was very direct, mutual, and time specific. These
Speaker 1: weren't abstract ideas, jokes or writing exercises. They were real.
Speaker 1: With the forensic evidence mounting, police separated both the women,
Speaker 1: Gemma and Trudy, and began formal interviews with both of them.
Speaker 1: Up to that point, both women had maintained a version
Speaker 1: of events that painted Aaron's visit as very brief and
Speaker 1: rather uneventful. Now face with what had been uncovered in
Speaker 1: the house and the backyard, those stories soon began to change.
Speaker 1: Gemma was adamant that she had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: aaron death. She told investigators that after Aarin arrived and
Speaker 1: began working on the computer, she went into another room
Speaker 1: and fell asleep conveniently.
Speaker 2: Enough, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: Then she woke up and she claimed Aarin was gone.
Speaker 1: She said she assumed he had just simply left on
Speaker 1: his own. According to her account, she knew nothing, absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing about his fate until police arrived days later.
Speaker 2: Okay, but just to clarify, she's she was considered the
Speaker 2: more dominant one, right, Yes, that's correct. Okay, But I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess the police wouldn't know that, per se, But
Speaker 2: I don't know. I find that very interesting that she's
Speaker 2: just so willing to completely put the blame on her
Speaker 2: friend or whatever the frick that person is to.
Speaker 1: Her, Well, what did people generally do when they're pitted
Speaker 1: in that situation? I didn't do it. It was them.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: It was them.
Speaker 2: I'd go against each other, but they had like a
Speaker 2: fairly close relationship. I get. I don't know nothing about
Speaker 2: this is probably going to make sense to me.
Speaker 1: So when you're dealing with individuals like this who were
Speaker 1: willing to commit a crime like that, I guarantee you
Speaker 1: their morals are zero.
Speaker 2: Tuche. Okay, that makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: Then.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Trudy, on the other hand, admitted that she had invited
Speaker 1: erin to the house and acknowledged that he in fact
Speaker 1: trusted her. She also conceded that she had been present
Speaker 1: during the attack, describing an attempt by Jemma to restrain
Speaker 1: Arin with a garrot, which is an assassin's tool which
Speaker 1: consists of like wire and handles on each end, so
Speaker 1: it's that wire ligature. However, this grot broke and a
Speaker 1: violent struggle ensued. Trudy claimed that she did not deliver
Speaker 1: the fatal blows, but she did admit to helping clean
Speaker 1: up and conceal the body afterwards. The problem for both women, though,
Speaker 1: was that their statements conflicted one another, and also the
Speaker 1: evidence conflicted their statements too.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: Police already knew the cameras had recorded Trudy returning in
Speaker 1: the house with a knife short before the killing. They
Speaker 1: knew the cameras were turned off soon after, They knew
Speaker 1: the section of the carpet had been removed from the
Speaker 1: lounge area, and they knew the messages between the two
Speaker 1: women spoke plainly about killing long before Aaron even walked
Speaker 1: through the gate or the front door. It was clearly
Speaker 1: a planned and coordinated attack. They were lying through their teeth.
Speaker 1: But that's not where the evidence stops, because there's also
Speaker 1: a coworker. See. Five days after Erin disappeared, before his
Speaker 1: body was found, Jemma spoke to a male colleague at
Speaker 1: the supermarket where she worked. According to his later testimony,
Speaker 1: she told him that she had quote finally done it
Speaker 1: end quote. She described coming up behind a victim with
Speaker 1: a garat explained that it hadn't gone as planned and
Speaker 1: that she had needed help finishing the job.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The coworker, of course, was horrified by this, and he
Speaker 1: reported the conversation to police, which ultimately helped massively in
Speaker 1: the investment.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, he did report this, he did so.
Speaker 1: Now confronted with this, Gemma backtracked. She began suggesting that
Speaker 1: she had been making it all up and that that
Speaker 1: wasn't real what she told her coworker, just boasting about
Speaker 1: fake stories or perhaps some of her writings. Maybe, But
Speaker 1: investigators noted that the details that she shared in this
Speaker 1: conversation matched facts that were not even public yet, such
Speaker 1: as the breaking. As the interviews continued, the pattern in
Speaker 1: it all became extremely clear. Each woman attempted to minimize
Speaker 1: their own role while placing the responsibility on the other.
Speaker 1: Neither could explain the planning, the shopping trips, the prepared room,
Speaker 1: or the messages discussed as a quote first kill, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, neither could account for why Aaron never left
Speaker 1: the house alive. When the trial began in October of
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen at the Supreme Court of Western Australia, the
Speaker 1: case against Gemma, Lily and Trudy Lenin was already heavy
Speaker 1: with detail. Over the course of five weeks, jurors were
Speaker 1: asked to follow a precise timeline, one that showed not
Speaker 1: just what happened to Erin, but also specifically how it
Speaker 1: had been set in motion. The prosecution's case in this
Speaker 1: trial walked the jury through the relationship between the two
Speaker 1: women and the escalation of their online conversations, and then
Speaker 1: the purchases made in the weeks before June thirteen. Hardware stores, receipts,
Speaker 1: chemical purchases, CCTV footage were all introduced piece by piece,
Speaker 1: each one reinforcing the idea that the killing was planned
Speaker 1: and not impulsive whatsoever. The most confronting moment came when
Speaker 1: the jury was shown the CCTV footage outside the house,
Speaker 1: showing Erin entering, then less than a half an hour later,
Speaker 1: Trudy leaving and re entering the house carrying the large knife.
Speaker 1: Then the sudden absence of any further footage as the
Speaker 1: cameras were specifically turned off from inside. Text messages were
Speaker 1: read aloud in court, as well, messages about being ready,
Speaker 1: messages of blood and a first kill. Messages sent after
Speaker 1: the murder, even that spoke of empowerment and exhilaration rather
Speaker 1: than shock and regret. The defense attempted to pull the
Speaker 1: women apart from each other and defend themselves as individuals.
Speaker 1: Jemma's lawyer leaned heavily on her claim that she was
Speaker 1: asleep during the attack, arguing there was no direct evidence
Speaker 1: placing the knife in her hand at all. Trudy's defense
Speaker 1: acknowledged her role in luring Erin into the home and
Speaker 1: helping hide the body, but they argued that she had
Speaker 1: not intended for him to be killed and that she
Speaker 1: had been dominated by Jemma. The jury also heard testimony
Speaker 1: from Gemma's coworkers, including the man who said she confessed
Speaker 1: days before Aaron's body was even discovered. They saw photographs
Speaker 1: of the crime scene, the cut carpet, the prepared room,
Speaker 1: the shallow grave, and they were shown how the women's
Speaker 1: stories shifted as evidence closed in around them. After closing arguments,
Speaker 1: the jury retired to deliberate. In total, it took the
Speaker 1: jury less than three hours to return with their verdict
Speaker 1: on both of the women. Both Gemma Lily and Trudy
Speaker 1: Lenin were found guilty of murder. When the verdict was
Speaker 1: read aloud and the words echoed across the court room,
Speaker 1: there was no visible reaction from either defendant. On February
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, twenty eighteen, nearly four months after the verdicts
Speaker 1: were delivered, Gemma and Trudy returned to the court for sentencing.
Speaker 1: By then, the facts of the case were no longer
Speaker 1: in dispute. What remained was simply the court's assessment of motive,
Speaker 1: responsibility and the weight of what they'd done. Justice Stephen
Speaker 1: Hall did not soften his words. He described the murder
Speaker 1: of Aaron Pagech as morally repugnant, making it clear that
Speaker 1: this was not a crime driven by anger, desperation, or
Speaker 1: even fear. It was, in his words, a killing carried
Speaker 1: out for pleasure, the result of a deliberate pursuit of
Speaker 1: gratification at another person's expense. The judge acknowled that it
Speaker 1: was not possible to determine which one with certainty inflicted
Speaker 1: the fatal wounds, but that uncertainty did not matter. The
Speaker 1: evidence showed that both had intended for Aaron to die
Speaker 1: that day, and that both had played essential roles in
Speaker 1: luring him, in attacking him, and concealing his body. So
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the court, responsibility was shared equally.
Speaker 1: Justice Hall pointed directly to the messages exchanged between Gemma
Speaker 1: and Trudy before and after the murder. They showed anticipation
Speaker 1: beforehand and complete lack of remorse afterwards. There was no indication,
Speaker 1: he said, that either woman regretted what they had done
Speaker 1: or felt any empathy for Aaron or his family. Instead,
Speaker 1: they derived satisfaction from the suffering they caused. As a result,
Speaker 1: each woman was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum
Speaker 1: of twenty eight years before being eligible for parole, which
Speaker 1: was one of the longest sentences handed down in Western
Speaker 1: Australia at the time. In the public gallery, Aaron's family
Speaker 1: listened in silence. His stepmother, Veronica Desmond, spoke to the
Speaker 1: media outside the court after the hearing. She said the
Speaker 1: sentence would never bring Erin back, but she hoped the
Speaker 1: women lived long enough to fully understand what they had taken.
Speaker 1: Erin's parents echoed the same sentiment, relief that justice had
Speaker 1: been done, paired with grief that would never ease. For Jemma,
Speaker 1: sentencing was not the end. She maintained her innocence and
Speaker 1: later launched an appeal, insisting that she'd been wrongfully convicted,
Speaker 1: but that appeal would ultimately fail. For Trudy, prison would
Speaker 1: bring consequences of its own. In the months that followed,
Speaker 1: the fallout from Erin Pagch's murder continued to ripple outwards
Speaker 1: through the prison system, even through the public, and through
Speaker 1: the lives of people that were left behind. On New
Speaker 1: Year's Day of twenty eighteen, the weeks after the guilty verdict,
Speaker 1: Trudy Lenin was attacked inside Bandyip Women's Prison while waiting
Speaker 1: in line for medication. Another inmate approached her from behind
Speaker 1: and poured a container of boiling water over her shoulders
Speaker 1: and upper body. Trudy suffered serious burns to more than
Speaker 1: twenty percent of her body and spent weeks in hospital,
Speaker 1: including time and intensive care. Another inmate standing nearby was
Speaker 1: also injured as a result. This inmate later told the
Speaker 1: court she was disgusted by Trudy's crime and had been
Speaker 1: triggered after seeing her laughing with other inmates. The judge
Speaker 1: rejected any suggestion that the attack was justified, stating plainly
Speaker 1: that vigilante punishment had no place in the justice system,
Speaker 1: and they were sentenced to five more years in prison
Speaker 1: for the attack. Now this attack reignited public anger over
Speaker 1: the case. Some expressed sympathy for Trudy's injuries, while others
Speaker 1: openly celebrated them. The reaction highlighted the raw emotion that
Speaker 1: still surrounded Erin's death and the discomfort many felt with
Speaker 1: how neatly justice can end on paper while pain continues
Speaker 1: in reality. Meanwhile, reports later emerged that Gemma had formed
Speaker 1: a romantic relationship with another convicted murderer while in custody.
Speaker 1: Prison authorities eventually moved both women to separate facilities, citing
Speaker 1: safety concerns and management issues. For Aaron's family, none of
Speaker 1: it mattered in the way headlines suggested it might. Appeals,
Speaker 1: prison attacks, and romance and media attention did nothing to
Speaker 1: change the central truth of this case, and that is
Speaker 1: that Erin was gone. He was ripped away from this
Speaker 1: world in a violent and nonsensical act. No development after
Speaker 1: the verdict altered the fact or softened its impact. What
Speaker 1: remained was Erin Pajeech himself, a young man too often
Speaker 1: reduced to a footnote in the story of his own death.
Speaker 1: Erin was eighteen years old when he was killed. He
Speaker 1: was gentle, trusting, and openly kind in a way that
Speaker 1: made him vulnerable to a world that does not always
Speaker 1: treat vulnerability with care. He lived with autism spectrum disorder,
Speaker 1: something that shaped how he saw people and how he
Speaker 1: moved through this world, but it didn't shape him. Those
Speaker 1: who knew him described him as childlike, not in a
Speaker 1: dismissive way, mind you, but in the sense that he
Speaker 1: believed in others easily. He assumed good intentions. He didn't
Speaker 1: look for danger, because danger had never been a part
Speaker 1: of how he understood friendship and relationships. He loved computers,
Speaker 1: he loved video games. He could focus for hours on
Speaker 1: technical problems when most people found these things boring or confusing.
Speaker 1: In those spaces, he was confident and capable. He had
Speaker 1: a quiet intelligence that didn't demand attention, but was always there.
Speaker 1: Teachers remembered him as someone who needed protecting, someone they
Speaker 1: instinctively looked out for. Remembered him as loyal and enthusiastic,
Speaker 1: someone who just wanted to belong. On the morning he disappeared,
Speaker 1: Aaron thought he was doing something ordinary, helping install software,
Speaker 1: spending time with people that he trusted. There was no
Speaker 1: dramatic decision, no moment of hesitation, no warning that the
Speaker 1: path that he was stepping onto would be his last.
Speaker 1: That is what makes this case so unsettling, not just
Speaker 1: how it ended, but how quietly it began. After his death,
Speaker 1: hundreds attended vigils and memorials in his name, people who
Speaker 1: had known him briefly, people who had known him well,
Speaker 1: people who'd never known him at all, but were shaken
Speaker 1: by what had happened to him. His stepmother later said
Speaker 1: something that stayed with many who heard it, that Erin
Speaker 1: seemed to have had more friends and death than he
Speaker 1: ever did in life. It wasn't meant bitterly. It was
Speaker 1: a fact he struggled socially, as many people who on
Speaker 1: the spec do. In the end, he had so many
Speaker 1: people by his side willing to be there for him,
Speaker 1: being a friend. What she said she said with a
Speaker 1: heavy heart and sadness, But it was also said with
Speaker 1: love and gratitude for those who came to pay their
Speaker 1: respects for Erin. Aaron Page did not seek that attention,
Speaker 1: nor any for that matter. He did not chase notoriety.
Speaker 1: He did not want to be remembered for anything extraordinary.
Speaker 1: He simply wanted what we all want, connection, friendship, and
Speaker 1: a place to feel safe. The story of his murder
Speaker 1: is so hard for many to accept because Erin was
Speaker 1: not killed due to who he was. No, he was
Speaker 1: killed because someone wanted to feel power to them. He
Speaker 1: was a checkmark on a page filled with a list
Speaker 1: of cruel acts. And that's why his name matters. Because
Speaker 1: when everything else has stripped away, the planning, the evidence,
Speaker 1: the trial and sentences, the story does not belong to
Speaker 1: the people who took his life and what they aspired
Speaker 1: to be. It belongs to Aaron. And that's a story
Speaker 1: of Aaron Lee Page sweetman, who that's.
Speaker 2: It gives me a lump in my throat that it's
Speaker 2: just I could just sob it's so sad.
Speaker 1: I honestly I had a little trouble reading the end
Speaker 1: of that one.
Speaker 2: Oh well, and the fact that I don't know, like
Speaker 2: you hope that he got to see that in some way,
Speaker 2: how much how many people loved him, you know, and
Speaker 2: and how he had more friends I guess after death,
Speaker 2: which is sort of sad, but also like.
Speaker 1: It's a bittersweet moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. And I just have
Speaker 2: to say, like it's unbelievable to me that how they
Speaker 2: who they picked for their victim. Yes, I mean, there's
Speaker 2: so much cruelness in this, in this case and stuff,
Speaker 2: But what blows me out of the water is who
Speaker 2: they picked, because that is just beyond fucked in my mind.
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, they picked him not for who
Speaker 1: he was. They picked him because they were looking for
Speaker 1: a check mark on a page. But they did pick
Speaker 1: him because he was vulnerable, because he was kind, because
Speaker 1: he was trusting.
Speaker 2: Well. And the fact though that she she would have
Speaker 2: had a child like probably the similar age yep, and
Speaker 2: they were friends, Like, are you kidding me? I don't know.
Speaker 2: That is just beyond maddening to me.
Speaker 1: And then she enlisted her child's hell to help.
Speaker 2: Bury Holy shit. Yeah yeah, monsters, I tell you, I know.
Speaker 2: And Aaron just like seemed such like such a beautiful soul.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's this is just it's too much.
Speaker 2: It's really sad, it really is.
Speaker 1: But that's his story and I'm glad we got to
Speaker 1: tell it though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you did a very good job telling it. Thank you,
Speaker 2: well done.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Well, thank you guys for being here.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you. Hopefully you enjoyed this story. Hopefully you
Speaker 1: enjoyed hearing Aaron's story, because that's what it is, Aaron's story,
Speaker 1: not these pieces of douche canoe shit of women that.
Speaker 2: They are disgusting women.
Speaker 1: Book them. Thank you for being here. We appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to check out the description for more information
Speaker 1: on our show. We got websites, socials, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: If you can leave us a review, that helps immensely.
Speaker 1: We are an independent podcast, we are owned, produced research
Speaker 1: to host all of it with just us. Not just us,
Speaker 1: but just us. You know what I mean, it's us.
Speaker 2: You corrected yourself before I had a chance to chime
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 1: You hate it when I say just but I think
Speaker 1: it's a good way of framing the situation. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: not just us, but it's just us.
Speaker 2: You know, no, No, you framed it. I think maybe
Speaker 2: the way that you said it made it seem better
Speaker 2: this time, OK, Cadence in your voice or whatever.
Speaker 1: Just us like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, us, not just us, it's just us. Well, we
Speaker 2: appreciate you being here. Thank you so much, and until
Speaker 2: next episode, stay wicked.