New details have emerged of how a fitness trainer brazenly stole her lover’s identity and faked her own death as part of a scandalous $700,000 life insurance scam.
Karen Salkilld, 43, a mother of two from Perth, posed as her partner in February to tell her life insurance company that he had died in a car crash two months earlier.
Salkilld filed a claim with a false death certificate, a forged letter from the Western Australian Coroner’s Court and a mock inquest record into the death she says occurred in her original hometown of Broome in north-west Western Australia.
But it has now been revealed the scam backfired after she clumsily placed her own photograph on her partner Kelly Winter’s ID documents as part of the scam.
The shocking detail was revealed after Salkilld said just six words when he appeared in court on fraud charges and desperately tried to speed up the legal process.
At the brief hearing in Fremantle Magistrates Court in March this year, Magistrate Nicholas Lemmon highlighted the “unusual” amounts involved in the fraud.
And he revealed that when police asked ‘Kelly Winter’ to report to the Palmyra police station, Salkilld used the forged documents to prove her identity.
Mr Lemmon told Salkilld that on February 10 this year she “knowingly produced, in an attempt to defraud… namely, a passport, a Western Australian driver’s licence and a Medicare card”.
Karen Salkilld has been in Perth while awaiting sentencing for faking her own death by posing as her partner by “displaying his image” on a passport and a driving licence in her partner’s name.
Salkilld used documents belonging to his partner Kelly Winter, who is not involved in the scam, to impersonate her after faking his own death to defraud $718,923
His Honour asked Salkilld whether the items were “in the name of Kelly Winter and at the same time bore her image”.
Salkilld agreed.
The scam was initially successful and a week after the false claim, the insurance company paid $718,923 into a bank account opened by Salkilld in the name of his partner.
But the fraud was uncovered when Salkilld began making large withdrawals from the account. The bank detected the payments and froze the account before police intervened.
Despite facing serious fraud charges, the so-called “dead woman walking” has regularly been spotted going about her business in a carefree manner.
Sallkild has been seen shopping, running her F45 studio and returning to her $1 million rental home in Perth that she shares with her partner and young daughters.
Salkilld is also an assistant football coach for the East Fremantle Sharks club and has worked at one of two F45 fitness studios in Perth, in Applecross and Dianella.
Her partner, who lives with her in Myraee, south of Perth, is not involved in the scam.
Salkilld faces up to seven years in prison when he appears in U.S. District Court for sentencing, with another hearing scheduled for Aug. 23.
He pleaded guilty to a number of offences, including obtaining benefits by fraud and attempting to defraud by deliberately using a false registration.
However, at his two-minute plea hearing in March, described by his lawyer as a “fast-track plea,” Salkilld has already indicated he will use a psychological evaluation to ask for leniency before his sentencing.
Despite the blatant attempt at fraud, Salkilld has strenuously opposed drawing attention to his extraordinary deception.
Ambushed by television cameras as she left the North Lake Mall parking lot in June, Salkilld became angry when asked: “Why did you fake your own death?”
She clutched her chest with her hands and replied, “What the hell! Who are you? I’m not talking to you.”
Salkilld expedited his court hearing on fraud charges but faces up to seven years in prison
The F45 and women’s football coach will learn her final sentencing date on Friday when the WA District Court meets to determine her case.
If Salkilld were to receive a prison sentence, she would likely be sent to Bandyup women’s prison in north-east Perth, which houses inmates with complex needs.
Current Affair reporter Michael Stamp followed her across the street and asked: “How did you think you could get away with this?”
‘He is accused of serious fraud crimes.’
They chased her home and from inside the fence she shouted, “Jesus Christ, go and find someone else.”
When Daily Mail Australia spotted Salkilld shopping in Perth, she appeared angry as she withdrew a wad of $50 bills.
Dressed in a salmon pink PE Nation sweatshirt and black leggings, Salkilld frowned and clenched her fists as she withdrew money from an ATM in Perth’s southern suburbs.
If she receives a prison sentence, she is likely to go to Bandyup Women’s Prison in north-east Perth, which houses inmates with complex needs.