At 8:49am on a Tuesday morning in November 2022, 30-year-old Jessica Zrinski was captured on CCTV in the passenger seat of a blue Holden Commodore pulling into a service station in Mount Victoria. Trailing from her passenger door was a massive tree branch, and driving the car was Paul Jones, a man she had met outside a Western Sydney pub just hours earlier.

Those eight minutes and 40 seconds of footage would be the last time Jessica was ever seen alive. Soon after, Jones vanished off the grid for nearly three years, eventually located by police living in a camouflaged cave in dense bushland before being subpoenaed to give evidence at her coronial inquest.

In this episode of True Crime Conversations, NewsCorp investigative journalist Ashlea Hansen joins Gemma Bath to unpack the bizarre timeline, the extensive searches through the Blue Mountains bushland, and what Jessica’s family hopes to finally learn as the inquest resumes.

LINKS

If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

Contact Full Stop Australia on 1800 385 578, 7 days, 24 hours.

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CREDITS

Guest: Ashlea Hansen

Host & Executive Producer: Gemma Bath

Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman

Producer: Ella Maitland

Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy 

Video Editor: Julian Rosario

Audio Designer: Tegan Salder

Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.