Dear listeners, if you can believe it, we’ve reached the penultimate episode of Finding Samantha. Time flies when you’re on the edge of your seat and perpetually confused.
There are still so many unanswered questions. What did Samantha do next? Does Sharon ever get that face-to-face interview? Crucially, why does Samantha do these things?
Well, things are about to go from bad to worse, as Samantha is charged with “child stealing”. That’s right, Samantha is about to put innocent children at the centre of her game.
There is also another mystery woman and possible drug smuggling, so prepare yourselves. If you thought things couldn’t get even more twisted – you were gravely mistaken.
But, there is a fundamental difference to this week’s episode: Samantha’s victims will be the guiding voice behind our narrative. It’s their chance to finally reclaim their story from behind the shadow of Samantha Azzopardi.
Ready, set, and read; for the breakdown of episode 6, Child’s Play, or you know just hit play!
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The Jervis Family
Last week we heard that Samantha served a prison sentence until late 2017. If this is new information, kindly leave this article and catch up on episode 5. Sadly, prison did not have the desired effect, and the now 30-year-old Samantha was about to escalate her crimes.
Jazze Jervis and her husband were looking for an au pair for their daughter Clementine when she received a recommendation from a group chat. That’s how she met 17-year-old Harper Hernandez. At this point, I don’t think I need to tell you Harper’s real name. The family adored her, and on the surface, things seemed perfect.
In reality, Samantha had put an ad online looking for an au pair.
Why, you ask? She was about to subcontract Jervis’s 18-month-old daughter to another career on a “trial basis”. But that’s not all; while working for the family Samantha was going to launch a new career, as a talent scout. I imagine you know where this is going….
“She met our family. She met our friends. She was at basketball games with 15,000 people. And nobody suspected she was 31. You know, she looked really, really young.” – Jazze Jervis
Emma
Emma is a pseudonym to protect Samantha’s next victim. She was 12 years old when they met back in 2019. Samantha put out an advertisement looking for a voice actor for a new movie. This time Samantha was a talent scout called Marley. She’d meet with Emma and give her tasks or “auditions”. “We went to the Children’s Hospital, she made me pretend that I had been going through, like really bad mental health problems. And that I needed to see a social worker”.
Samantha forced Emma to conceal the nature of these appointments from her parents. She claimed it was part of her training to secure a role in an animated movie. Emma’s parents trusted “Marley” (Samantha) to such an extent that they gave her copies of their child’s identification.
Things took a turn in April 2019 when Samantha got permission to take Emma on a trip to Sydney. You will need to hit play to learn what happens next. Emma and her family are still traumatized by Samantha’s actions. While upsetting, this episode gives their narrative the airtime it deserves.
“We stayed at this ranch the first night. And they called her Samantha. I questioned her about it. I asked, why did they call you Samantha ?” – Emma
Georgia
We’re two stories in, and multiple lives have already been turned upside down for no good reason. But Samantha’s manipulation rampage wasn’t slowing down, not even close.
After her relationship with Emma’s family breaks down (not so surprising spoiler) she reappears in Sydney. Once again, she is a talent scout, but this time her name is Coco Palmer. She reached out to aspiring model Georgia Bevege on Instagram. Soon, she had the 13-year-old’s family under her spell.
Similarly to Emma, Samantha would make Georgia do bizarre tasks under the guise that they were “auditions”. But she also got the teenager to physically clean international currency… On a trip to Melbourne in 2019, Georgia’s family recorded a confrontation with Samantha (Coco), snippets of which can be heard in this episode.
You know, they even think that research was done on their family before Samantha approached them because she seemed to have so many similarities to the mother” – Journalist Simone Fox Koob
Sakah
Samantha kept up the pace. In September 2019, she met another young family who agreed to take her on as an au pair. This time she used the alias Sakah.
The family had just moved to Melbourne from France with their two children. One day Sakah (Samantha) told the family she wanted to take the kids on a hike. Instead, she took them to the city of Bendigo in Victoria. She was about to entangle these children in yet another scam.
The children were 4 years old and 10 months old at the time.
“These children would now become props in this other scam she had been setting up for the previous four months.” – Nicoline Greer
Victim impact
After her stunt in Bendigo, Samantha was arrested for “child stealing”. As her case progressed through the courts, other victims’ experiences were added.
The offences began to stack up until she faced 54 separate charges.
This week’s episode highlights the long-lasting trauma con artists have on their victims. “Jazze said that she was riddled with anxiety, and she found it difficult to go outside and to meet new people,” says Finding Samantha producer Sharon Davis . Working in her corporate job became more difficult, she said, and she ended up leaving it to spend more time at home,” .
The court offered Samantha the chance to take a community corrections order, which would have meant psychological counselling and assistance. She told her lawyer to refuse. Instead, she received a 2-year prison sentence.
“I think they were definitely in shock about how they had been able to believe her story. And I think the trust they’d had around their children had been broken in a, in a really severe way” – Journalist Simone Fox Koob
The next mystery woman…
We’ve seen Samantha toy with the Doc On One team in previous episodes, and this week, she kicks it into high gear. We know she uses other people to assist her with her deceptions, including young girls and women. Not long after Sharon met one such woman at the Woy Woy fish market (see episode 5), another mystery woman appeared in her inbox. Her name was Jennifer Shaw, and she claimed to have information about one of Samantha’s victims that would undermine her credibility and vindicate Samantha.
At this point, the team are sick of being played, so they suggest a Zoom meeting with this new character.
She agreed. What’s more, she showed up.
This is where the topic of blackmail and smuggling enters the picture, so hold on tight and hit play on episode six of Finding Samantha.
“Is it possible that this woman is another of Samantha’s recruits and is it possible that believes she is auditioning for a movie role like Emma and Georgia before her?” – Nicoline Greer
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