The Case That Made Police Physically Sick | True Crime Documentary

“It was just after 10:30 this morning, police were called to Snapper Point following reports a body, a woman’s body, was found face down in a blowhole. Post-mortem revealed that the woman had, uh, suffered a number of wounds, uh, significantly, uh, some stab wounds. Um, our interpretation of the situation is that she suffered a, uh, a violent assault prior to her death. The description of the woman, who we at this point in time have not identified, is an Asian female aged between 20 and 35, medium build, shoulder-length hair. She has no distinguishing tattoos or scars on her body. Her body was naked when it was found in the water, and all jewel—jewelry had been removed. Anybody who knows this woman or knows anything about this crime is urged to contact police.”

25-year-old Mengmei Leng was an international student living in Campsie, New South Wales, and when she moved to Australia, she went by Michelle. Michelle was an only child, and after losing her father in 2008, she and her mom, May, were closer than ever. Her mom described her as someone with tremendous compassion, someone that felt everything for everyone else and always made such an effort to be that supportive friend, no matter how stressed or sad she might be herself. In 2011, Michelle made the brave move from Chengdu in China to Australia for her studies, and as nervous as her mom was, she was so proud of her daughter’s determination to push herself out of her comfort zone and grow. May had poured every penny into helping Michelle do this and was excited to see her daughter achieve everything she knew she could. Some of Michelle’s family already lived in Australia, so she moved in with her aunt, uncle, and cousin, who were residing in Campsie, a suburb in the state of New South Wales. As soon as she was on her feet and settled, she started sending every spare penny she had back home to her mom.

Michelle had now been living in Australia for 5 years. She had a great group of friends, loved where she lived, and was excelling in her studies. After completing a business degree at the University of Technology Sydney, she started studying at the Sydney Institute of Interpreting and Translation.

That warm Thursday afternoon, Michelle caught up with a couple of friends, and they waved her off as she got on the bus outside of the University of Technology. She told them she was going out shopping and went to Pitt Street Mall. She stayed there for a while browsing by herself and picking up a few things. Michelle then boarded a train to St James’s station just before 4:00 p.m. and got off at 4:30 p.m. in Campsie Station to head back to her apartment.

Michelle was chatting to her friends up until the late afternoon, but then suddenly there was nothing—no answer on her phone, no posts on her always active social media, and no sign of her on campus the next morning. Although her very sudden disappearance was a red flag for friends and fellow students, several days passed with no one reporting her missing. 4 days after she was last seen shopping, her aunt returned home from a weekend away and was alarmed to learn that her niece had just vanished. She went right to the police station with her husband, Derek, to file a report. According to her friends, nothing Michelle said or did had stood out that day; she was her usual self. The CCTV showed Michelle wearing jeans, a long-sleeved gray top, and carrying a red bag on her shoulder. She wasn’t being followed by anyone in the shops and didn’t seem outwardly distressed or upset.

“Michelle was seen in security video shopping at Myer in the Pitt Street Mall last Thursday at 3:00 p.m. She bought a juice before getting on a train at St James Station at 4:30 p.m. and getting off at Campsie. Close friends told police they hadn’t had contact with her since late on Thursday night.”

And as people on social media were circulating her image and getting more concerned, the news stations over 60 miles away had just picked up another troubling story. The Snapper Point blowhole on the New South Wales Central Coast is a picturesque but quite dangerous area with lots of slippery rocks and jagged edges, somewhere someone could easily fall in, hurt themselves, and even drown. One tourist walking around spotted someone floating in the water. After looking closer, they realized they were not swimming—they were face down and looked dead.

At 10:30 a.m., a paramedic was lowered into the water via helicopter to retrieve whoever it was. They were deceased, but it was instantly obvious that this was no tragic accidental death. It was a young woman; she was completely naked and covered in stab wounds. She had been stabbed almost 40 times with the fatal wound being to her throat. She had clearly tried hard to fight her killer off, but she had suffered an incredibly violent and frightening death. Police said it was most likely that she was left at the blowhole as opposed to being washed up onto the rocks from somewhere else. The detective chief inspector said on that day:

“There were particularly heavy seas when the woman’s body came out of the water. There were no what appeared to be any significant injuries from the rocks, so we’re working on the assumption that the most likely possibility was she went in the water at the blowhole.”

“It was just after 10:30 this morning, police were called to Snapper Point following reports a body, a woman’s body, was found face down in a blowhole. Post-mortem revealed that the woman had, uh, suffered a number of wounds, uh, significantly, uh, some stab wounds. Um, our interpretation of the situation is that, uh, she suffered a, uh, a violent assault prior to her death. The description of the woman, who at this point in time have not identified, is an Asian female aged between 20 and 35, medium build, shoulder-length hair. She has no distinguishing tattoos or scars on her body. Her body was naked when it was found in the water, and all jewel—jewelry had been removed. Anybody who knows this woman or knows anything about this crime is urged to contact police.”

The New South Wales homicide squad released a computer-generated image of who they had found, a young Asian woman with shoulder-length dark hair, and they dubbed her the Snapper Point blowhole Jane Doe. Once this started making the news further afield, people talking online began to connect the dots between the missing Michelle and the woman in the water, and DNA confirmed that it was the 25-year-old student. Things moved quickly, and just a day later, police had placed someone under arrest. Everyone in Michelle’s family and in her close circle had been spoken to at length, her apartment had been turned upside down, and technological evidence had also been checked thoroughly. And through tracking a car that had been captured on camera heading into the national park 4 hours before Michelle’s body was found in the water, they had named their suspect: her uncle, Derek Barrett, the same uncle she was living with and the person that had helped report her missing. 27-year-old Derek had married Michelle’s aunt a few years before, and very little is known about his background and history other than that he previously worked in IT and had been out of work for a while.

Her at the kitchen table holding what police described as a heavy-duty, weatherproof USB. The woman said she thought it was a toy and could not explain how she got it. When her daughter plugged the USB into the computer, she saw things so disturbing that she called police right away. The USB contained nine video files—over an hour in total—and 13 pictures. It was Derek and Michelle. He had filmed himself raping and torturing Michelle as he held her captive in her room. One video showed Michelle’s hands so tightly bound that they were swollen and turning purple. At one point, Derek cut the tape off with a large hunting knife, re-tied her hands, and said:

“Now, where were we?”

He then continued his vicious assault. Derek had also filmed Michelle and his stepdaughter over a period of time before the murder, doing things like showering and sleeping, and in some of the videos, he was touching himself as he watched them sleep. The police were able to match some photos to ones Derek had deleted from his phone just days before his arrest as he tried to cover his crimes. The woman that had the USB had no discernable connection to Derek but did live a few miles from the house Derek used to live in. But this part of the case is really still a mystery for now.

As a result of everything found on the USB, 17 new charges were laid against him. These included multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault and indecent assault. Police noted that Michelle’s aunt spent a lot of time in Wollongong for work, so was not around when so much of this with her husband was going on; she had no idea and was riddled with guilt. When Michelle’s mom got the call about the USB, she said she almost passed out. She tearfully said:

“When the police told me the video clips showed how my daughter was degradingly raped, agonizingly tortured, a wave of faint immediately washed over me. My healthy mother was in such grief that she too passed away not long after receiving the news.”

How can any mother possibly accept such news? Derek Barrett pleaded guilty to the 17 offenses, but to the disappointment of the family, he did not receive a new, separate sentence. Sadly, he couldn’t.

“A man who admitted killing his own niece has been sentenced for a second time after a USB stick was unearthed years after he was jailed.”

The judge went as far as saying if the full extent of his perverted crime was known in 2017, he would have been jailed for life, but that simply wasn’t possible now. The law doesn’t allow one to revisit a sentence that was imposed in 2017 because the evidence was not found before the initial murder trial. The judge considered it a new aggravating fact. She sentenced him to an additional 20 years in prison; however, this will be served concurrently with his murder sentence, meaning his 46-year overall sentence remains the same. 2 years was added to his minimum non-parole period, and he will now be eligible for parole in 2052 instead of 2050.

It really is one of the most twisted and depraved cases we’ve looked at. Michelle Leng was a hardworking, hopeful person thousands of miles away from home, trying to better herself and give her and her mom a comfortable life one day. She was working in a place she thought was safe, living with people she trusted. For Michelle’s mom, who first lost her husband and then her daughter at the hands of someone she called family, it has been the darkest of times. She said:

“We even today still cannot accept the fact that she has left us, and we are still in great suffering. The time will never turn back to when Mengmei and I were living happily together.”