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“I don’t know what the dog did, but the dog made him mad, and he got the dog in a headlock and started punching the dog … and she tried to stop it, and he turned from hitting the dog to hitting her,” former Colorado detective sergeant Dale King claims in the second episode of the Virginia podcast, released today.
With access to Virginia’s diaries, court documents, personal texts to her friends and family and exclusive interviews with those who were with her until the end, hosts Fyfe and Hildebrandt have pieced together what happened in the last months before Virginia died aged 41.
As part of their investigation, Fyfe and Hildebrandt spoke with King, who was a Fremont County police officer on duty the morning after a March night in 2015, when 911 received several hang-up calls – the kind dispatchers are trained to never ignore – from Virginia’s home in Penrose, Colorado.
After several knocks, Virginia’s Australian husband of 13 years, Robbie, answered.
The detectives noticed scratches across his face and neck and a cut on the bridge of his nose. A strong smell of alcohol lingered on his breath.
Robbie had been taken to jail, where he told an officer he had hit Virginia by accident. He was served with a restraining order, and temporarily banned from seeing his wife.
King went to check on Virginia the next morning – though, due to threats on Virginia’s life as a result of her public fight against Epstein and other high-profile figures, it wasn’t King’s first time at the property.
“I heard the story from [Robbie] so many times I could probably recite it in my sleep backwards … how he met [Virginia] and how he saved her … I think we heard that probably every time we went there,” says King.
“[Robbie] stopped me outside the sheriff’s office, and he’s trying to convince me that I have to let him get back home so he can protect [Virginia]. ‘What if something happens to her?’ Like you’re gonna go there to protect her? That’s funny. I mean, hell, you’re her biggest threat right now.”
According to the police report, Virginia told police she had a whitish-clear fluid mixed with blood leaking from her ear, which police thought could’ve been cerebral spinal fluid, a sign of severe head trauma. The officers seized a handgun, 34 bullets and Robbie’s six-centimetre knife. The incident, according to the report, unfolded while the children were in the house.
Robbie flew back to Australia shortly after the incident and Virginia’s family begged her not to follow him. But she did, and it’s where she took her own life in April last year.
New episodes of Virginia are released every Saturday across The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, WAToday, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen to the second episode – where hosts Fyfe and Hildebrandt reveal how they uncovered this hidden evidence of Robbie’s domestic abuse, and what happened next – in the player above, or click here.
Responding to domestic abuse allegations in this podcast, Robbie Giuffre has stated through his lawyers that, for legal reasons, he was limited in responding to what he termed “various unfounded allegations”. And that all he and the children wanted to do was “remember Virginia as a loving wife and mother”.
He stated “being in the public eye” had caused Virginia to have significant mental health issues and an over-reliance on prescription medication.
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.
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