The late teens and early twenties are a tumultuous time. The world seems so full of opportunity and hope. People travel, change jobs, make new friends, steal identities and commit fraud… don't they?
Welcome to the world of Samantha Azzopardi, the subject of RTE Documentary On One’s latest hit podcast Finding Samantha.
For newcomers, here is a quick recap: Our protagonist, Samantha Azzopardi, has spent six years battling Australian law enforcement over false bank accounts, faux identities and adoption fraud. She also managed to turn up outside the GPO in Ireland and mislead the authorities into believing she was a missing child. She accomplished all this by the ripe old age of 25.
But this is tame compared to what is coming next. Instead of impersonating children Samantha is about to start caring for them. There is also the small matter of whether she’s working alone. And is journalist Sharon Davis getting a little too close to our elusive protagonist?
Thus far, the series has rocketed up the podcast charts and reached over 400,000 listeners in over 100 countries. However, considering the success of previous Doc On One podcasts like The Nobody Zone, that really isn’t a surprise.
Read on for the lowdown on episode four: Catch Me If You Can. But be warned, you may never want to trust another human being again… seriously.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Along came Emily
Samantha usually doesn’t make her victim's active participants in her life of crime, but that changed in 2014 when she met Californian teenager Emily Bamberger. Of course, Emily didn’t befriend Samantha, but a Swedish woman called Annika Dekker. Unfortunately, Annika was a child kidnapping victim who was on the run and under the protection of Interpol agents, you know average stuff. Although sceptical at first, when Emily received an email from @interpol.com she became fully immersed in Annika's (AKA Samantha’s) world. She spent four months "on the run" across Australia using a fake ID and living with "a psychopath". To find out what happened to Emily, hit play ASAP, but let’s just say it involves a hospital, a prison and a safe house….
"She escaped and met me with her catheter still in her f**king arm. We boarded the plane back to Sydney the night she escaped." - Emily Bamberger
Homecoming
Born in 1988, Samantha’s parents separated when she was two years old. She spent her high school years in Campbelltown and has returned throughout her life. According to court records, Samantha moved frequently as a child attending roughly 13 different schools. She said she "slipped through the cracks" in school and had a learning disability. It’s worth noting the records also described her as " an unreliable historian". The Doc On One team wanted to find out more about Samantha’s past.
After all, how did she turn out this way?
Programme maker Sharon Davis hit the road and drove to Campbelltown, less than an hour outside Sydney, to do some good old-fashioned sleuthing. While Samantha’s former school has since been gentrified, according to a local, things used to be very different. "Best way to describe it. Broken ice pipes on the side of the road needles here, there, everywhere. Children running up and down the streets, smashing windows, smashing cars." But Sharon didn’t stop there; she managed to find people who knew Samantha during her youth. Unsurprisingly they had a lot to say.
"I have been told I was a fast developer and walked early, quicker than the boys in my family. Girls are always quicker than boys though, aren’t they." - Samantha Azzopardi
Guess who's back?
If law enforcement escorts you out of a country, you don't return... right? Wrong. You wait a year and take a job as an au pair. That’s right, Samantha returned to Ireland under the name Indie O’Shea and infiltrated the home of an unsuspecting family from Leitrim. Why you’d willingly choose Leitrim over Australia is the real mystery here. Eventually, the Dad discovered a large wad of cash in her wardrobe and a boarding pass that indicated she was related to Dutch royalty.
But that's not the craziest part.
She was allegedly wiring money to Russia.
Why was she doing this? Who knows, but nobody has ever figured out how she funds her globetrotting life of crime. It wasn’t until she abruptly left the family that they got a call from Australia that revealed a criminal had been watching their children.
Quote: "Having been flown home from Ireland in 2013 you’d think that was the last place she’d return to. But that's exactly what Samantha did". - Sharon Davis.
The road to Calgary
At this point in our tale, Samantha has fled to Calgary, Canada. On September 16th 2014, she walked into the Alexandria Community Health Center complaining of nausea and vomiting. This time she called herself Aurora Hepburn.
Her story sounded eerily familiar: "She said that she’d been extremely neglected in her upbringing, and that she'd been trafficked..." But this time Samantha (AKA Aurora) claimed to have a sister called Daisy. Soon local police discovered a missing person report had been filed in a nearby city. It was made by a woman called Daisy who was looking for her sister.
What happened next is both predictable and totally unbelievable, but this is not the time for spoilers, so just hit play already.
"I want someone to find her and get her help or keep her locked away so she can’t hurt anybody anymore. I lived with a psychopath for four months." - Emily Bamberger
Judge’s orders
While I won’t divulge what goes down in Canada, I can tell you that Samantha eventually lands back in Oz and this time, the authorities are ready for her. In 2015 she was charged with fraudulently obtaining a passport under the alias Georgia McAullife. That’s the document she used to get into Ireland the first time. The court case that followed revealed a lot of previously unknown information about her tumultuous childhood. The court heard she was "severely disturbed" and had a "very disadvantaged" upbringing. They also said her prospects for rehabilitation were uncertain. Samantha pleaded guilty and was convicted but given a good behaviour bond and warned of the consequences of reoffending.
"It’s in this court case that we begin to learn about the early aspects of her life, and about potential mental health issues." - Sharon Davis
Samantha’s game
Last year Sharon found a Facebook page called Sam Azzopardi, but the profile photo didn’t look remotely like our trickster. Still, Sharon tried to make contact, but nothing happened. Seven months later, she received a reply.
This new "Sam" wanted Sharon to call her, but whenever Sharon tried, the call went unanswered. Until she received what might be the world's most unnerving voice-generated audio message, which is best heard and not described; believe me. "Sam" claimed that her personal records had become entangled with the real Samantha’s. And she said she had evidence that Samantha had been wrongfully arrested and accused.
But that’s not the craziest part.
She asked Sharon to meet her in person.
"This makes me a little nervous… who will be there? The real Samantha or someone else? Or anyone at all? I just don’t know what to expect…"
"If this is Samantha Azzopardi playing a game where she is pretending there is another person called Sam Azzopardi. How is a face-to-face meeting going to happen?" - Nicoline Greer
New episodes of Finding Samantha are available weekly - catch up here, or via your preferred podcast source.
