Eden Westbrook’s parents found dead in a Tasmanian park push for new investigation

The devastated parents of a teenage girl found dead in a small coastal town in Tasmania are convinced she did not take her own life and are still struggling to find answers eight years later.

Eden Westbrook, 15, was found at Fisherman’s Memorial Park in St Helens, in the northeast of the state, two hours from Launceston, in the early morning of February 18, 2015.

Despite the fact that the police arrived quickly and clumsily tried to shield the scene from public view, Ms Westbrook’s body was seen by several people, including a busload of schoolchildren, due to its position in a tree.

Word spread through the town of some 2,200 people and reached Eden’s parents, Jason and Amanda Westbrook, who rushed to the park to be confronted by their little girl on public display, police not wanting to disturb the scene.

Eden had stormed off after an argument over her cell phone the night before and they had spent much of the night walking the streets looking for her.

Eden’s parents, Jason and Amanda Westbrook, coped with the haunting scene in Fisherman’s Memorial Park for their 15-year-old daughter.

Coroner Olivia McTaggart ruled in September 2016 that Eden had committed suicide.

An inquest with the coroner was not conducted based solely on the information from the police investigation.

Her parents strongly believe she did not take her own life and are critical of the investigation, saying police had overlooked vital information.

They also claim that more information has emerged in the years since that casts further doubt on the circumstances of their daughter’s death.

tasmanian newspaper the Mercury has been constantly following the case, and earlier this year published sensational claims that an anonymous man had visited the Westbrooks’ home and told them he knew what happened to Eden.

The couple were in their garden after moving from New South Wales to St Helen’s a few years earlier to run a landscaping business, when the man drove up to their driveway.

He told them that he had been drinking with a friend and they had started talking about the subject of Eden.

The man told them that the teenager did not take her own life, but that she had been at a party, had been given an overdose, and the way they found her body had been staged.

Westbrook called his friend, Sydney lawyer Peter Lavac, who flew out to meet them and recorded the man’s statements on audio.

Eden Westbrook died in February 2015. Her death was ruled a suicide, but her father, Jason, believes it may have been foul play.

Eden’s parents are pushing for new research that they hope will help put her memory to rest and heal a wound that still lingers below the surface of the remote Tasmanian community.

In the recording heard by the newspaper, the man, well known in the fishing community, said he had been with someone a few weeks earlier in Launceston.

“(My friend) heard there was more to the story and there were supposedly two people involved in getting her up that tree…a man and a woman.”

They had used a rope from one of the ships…at the dock.

“(Someone who knew) that the man who had supposedly put Eden in the tree had passed this information on to the person he was talking to.”

The visitor provided the names of a much younger man and woman, who are known in the town but have never been named in the media.

He explained that the man had allegedly confessed his involvement to his then-girlfriend, who in turn told her mother who had told the visitor’s friend.

The Westbrooks said the youngest girl the visitor identified was known to act increasingly strangely in the years after Eden’s death and had on occasion reached out to her family members to tell them she was “sorry.” “.

Mr Lavac spoke to a Tasmanian police inspector and offered to allow the police to interview the visitor; however, when he refused to allow a lawyer to be present, he rescinded the offer, he reports. the aussie.

Westbrook told the newspaper this week that he believes part of the reason he has struggled in his push for further investigation of Eden’s case is because he is seen as an outsider.

A monument in the beach park where Eden was found in St Helens, Tasmania

The Year 10 student was well regarded by both her peers and her teachers.

The couple, who have seven children and are originally from the Sunshine Coast, moved to the city in the early 2000s, but are still not considered locals, according to Westbrook.

“We have just had a character attack as mainlanders who have come to Tasmania and are troublemakers,” he told the publication.

“So we’ve been discredited with any attempt we’ve made to get to the truth.”

In his findings, the coroner said that Eden was a caring person who was doing well in Year 10 and was held in high regard by both her students and teachers.

But he noted that his school’s Internet search history showed, perhaps unheard of for a teenager, searches on topics like unprotected sex, depression and drugs.

He considered that Eden had been depressed, had previously tried to harm herself, and had written a note six months earlier stating an “intention to end her life”.

Mr. Westbrook strongly denies that this was the case, saying that “at no time did Eden attempt to take her own life.”

Although no large gap was found between the teen’s departure from her parents’ home and arrival at the park, the coroner said she was “satisfied that there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding Eden’s death or there’s someone else involved.”

The Westbrooks are pushing for a new open and transparent investigation that would examine new information and interview new witnesses.

They hope this will not only provide them with answers, but will help put Eden’s memory to rest and heal a wound that still lingers beneath the surface of the remote Tasmanian community.