Rel­a­tives of 57-year-old Shelawait­hie “Meera” Be­dasse, whose body was found hang­ing from a tree at Clifton Hill Beach on Re­pub­lic Day, say an au­top­sy has been con­duct­ed and foul play has not been ruled out.

Po­lice ini­tial­ly ruled that the woman’s death was due to self-harm.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, a rel­a­tive said that tox­i­col­o­gy tests still need to be done to de­ter­mine the ex­act cause of her death.

Her dis­traught son, Rus­sell Be­dasse, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer, has pub­licly crit­i­cised se­nior of­fi­cers since her dis­ap­pear­ance on Sep­tem­ber 23 and sub­se­quent death, ac­cus­ing them of fail­ing to search for his moth­er af­ter he re­port­ed her miss­ing.

South West­ern Di­vi­sion Com­man­der Snr Supt Thomp­son said that while sui­cide was the ini­tial find­ing, po­lice will pur­sue every an­gle un­til the case is con­clud­ed.

“We in­ves­ti­gate any death, whether un­nat­ur­al or ac­ci­den­tal, un­til its con­clu­sion. Whether it ap­pears to be this or that, we must in­ves­ti­gate ful­ly, and then it will be de­ter­mined and clas­si­fied. This is stan­dard prac­tice,” Thomp­son said. He em­pha­sised that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are guid­ed by sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence and that the fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to re­ceive po­lice sup­port.

De­spite the po­lice treat­ing the mat­ter as an open in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the fam­i­ly has re­ject­ed the view that Shelawait­hie end­ed her own life. Her son, Rus­sell, be­lieves her death was staged to look self-in­flict­ed and has called for a deep­er probe.

He point­ed to sev­er­al in­con­sis­ten­cies: his moth­er’s long­stand­ing fear of beach­es fol­low­ing a near-drown­ing, a skin con­di­tion ag­gra­vat­ed by sea spray, CCTV footage show­ing her en­ter­ing a car “with fear,” and the height and tight­ness of the rope, which he ar­gued do not sug­gest sui­cide.

He al­so crit­i­cised of­fi­cers for fail­ing to act when he re­port­ed her miss­ing, claim­ing there was no im­me­di­ate mo­bil­i­sa­tion or search ef­fort, de­spite pro­vid­ing de­tails of her last known lo­ca­tion and the ve­hi­cle she en­tered. Frus­trat­ed, he re­signed from the Po­lice Ser­vice over the week­end, say­ing he could not work in what he de­scribed as a bro­ken sys­tem.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to meet with Rus­sell, who turned in his badge, say­ing he could no longer be part of a Po­lice Ser­vice that failed his fam­i­ly. Alexan­der as­sured that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing and noth­ing is be­ing hid­den.

“I would ask mem­bers of the po­lice to reach out to him, have some di­a­logue, and see how we can move for­ward. If I get a chance to speak to him, I will in­vite him to meet with me so we can bring this to a rea­son­able res­o­lu­tion,” Alexan­der said.

Shelawait­hie left work ear­ly on Sep­tem­ber 23, telling col­leagues she felt un­well. Around 8.30 am, she was last seen en­ter­ing a sil­ver Nis­san Y12 sta­tion wag­on near the Cap-de-Ville taxi stand. Rel­a­tives said this was not her usu­al route home, and con­cern grew when she did not re­turn and her calls went unan­swered.

Rus­sell filed a miss­ing per­son re­port and be­gan search­ing the area. On Re­pub­lic Day, Sep­tem­ber 24, rel­a­tives dis­cov­ered her body hang­ing from a tree near Seav­iew Cres­cent, just off Clifton Hill Beach. Po­lice re­cov­ered a rope around her neck, an un­opened bot­tle la­belled “Herbinate,” and bro­ken tablet pack­ets at the scene.