This Melbourne Model Strangely Died After A Quiet Morning Home With Her Dog: A Year Later Her Case Was Referred To The Homicide Unit
Melbourne, Australia. Baillee Schneider was an absolutely stunning 25-year-old model living in Melbourne.
She could really light up a room and her friends adored her.
She was working as a model and dental assistant while attending college to be a clinical aesthetician.
Baillee was beautiful, but underneath her flawless exterior, she was struggling internally and hiding what she was really up to from her parents.
Back in July of 2018, Baillee mysteriously died after a quiet morning at home with her dog. Around a year later, the coroner said she didn’t take her own life.
Instagram; Baillee poses in the photo above
Nine months before Baillee died, she started dating 51-year-old socialite Antony Hampel after his marriage ended.
Even though there was a 26-year difference in their ages, it wasn’t unusual, given that Baillee frequently dated older men.
Antony previously had a 24-year-old girlfriend Phoebe Handsjuk who passed away in 2010 after drinking excessively and taking sleeping pills, then falling 12 stories down the garbage chute of the apartment they shared together (Antony did not have a role in her death; it was ruled a suicide).
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Phoebe struggled with substance abuse, which Antony had been trying to help her with, and it turns out Baillee shared these similarities with her.
Instagram; Baillee is pictured above in a silky dress
In the months prior to her tragic death, Baillee started having some problems.
Although she tried to keep it a secret from her mom and dad, they were aware of some of what she was getting into.
Baillee became more tight-lipped, more withdrawn. She distanced herself from her parents in an effort to hide her life from them. She drank a lot. She struggled with her self-esteem.
She started getting involved in the night club scene and was exposed to some bad influences.
Instagram; Baillee is pictured above wearing red lipstick
Baillee confided in her mom Sabine, telling her how Antony was trying to help her turn her life around.
At this point, she had stopped going to college but she took up studying again.
Antony was trying to help her work on her self-esteem and get her to stop drinking so much.
He would later tell Sabine in a phone call how hard he had been working to help Baillee really get her wild life back in order.
Just before Baillee died, a series of very strange and unsettling things happened to her.
Instagram; Baillee snaps a selfie in the photo above
It was late at night, and all of a sudden a strange man came to the home of Baillee’s parents. Baillee’s brother and his friends saw the whole thing since they were home partying that night.
This man didn’t use the front door though; he walked right up to the back of their home.
Instagram; Baillee is pictured above smiling
This man was looking for Baillee.
Nobody at the house recognized the strange man, but Baillee left with him, and she left voluntarily according to everyone who witnessed it.
She got into a car the man had parked in front of her home, and then she sent Antony a chilling text.
Instagram; Baillee poses for the camera, above
The morning following Baillee leaving with the strange man, she sent Antony a text message and he could tell she was really upset about something.
Antony then called up Baillee’s sister Lilli to tell her he was worried about Baillee.
Shortly after that, Lilli was able to speak to Baillee on the phone, and she told her something very upsetting.
Instagram; Baillee smiles in the above photo
Baillee told Lilli that a man sexually assaulted her quite early in the morning at a hotel close to Albert Park.
Details aren’t clear at all about the incident and what happened, or if the man she left the family home with was the one that attacked her, but Lilli did get Baillee to report everything to the police.
Baillee also told her family she didn’t want Antony to know about the incident which is understandable.
After a detective was assigned to Baillee’s case, she decided to withdraw what she said…
…And she also insisted she didn’t want to press any charges against the man.
Instagram; Baillee is pictured above wearing a black t-shirt
The night before Baillee died, she went out with Antony and the two got into some kind of argument.
She had been upset about it, but by the time her parents last saw her the following morning, she seemed to be much less bothered by what had happened the night before.
It was June 23rd, 2018, a Saturday.
Bailee’s parents told her they were running out for an hour or so to do some shopping, but they would never see her alive again.
Instagram; Baillee is pictured above snapping a selfie
Baillee had been talking on the phone and sitting on the couch, curled up with the family’s dog named Edna as her parents left.
When they arrived back home, they found Baillee laying on the floor of the kitchen, her head propped up against the corner cabinets.
She had a gold cord from her bedroom around her neck and she was unconscious.
Instagram; Baillee is pictured above wearing a white shirt
Sadly, Baillee never regained her consciousness.
Her parents could see she had a glass of wine and a cigarette while they had been gone. She had used her portable Bluetooth speaker, too.
Initially, Baillee’s death was ruled a suicide. The coroner had found drugs in her system, along with alcohol.
But Baillee’s parents insisted that she did not take her own life, even though she had been struggling with a lot lately.
Instagram; Baillee is pictured above posing and wearing a baseball cap
They knew her behavior was erratic, they knew she was drinking a lot and partying hard, but they didn’t think those were any indications she would want to stop living.
She never left behind a suicide note, and she kept a diary but didn’t write anything to indicate she would harm herself in there.
She was also just under 5 foot 9, and there was nowhere in the kitchen where she could have hung herself that was high enough.
Her dad Cameron took to Facebook to say:
“We have been given no answers as to how she ended up dead on the kitchen floor with a cord tied tightly around her neck with no hanging point to find.”
Then, 18 months after Baillee’s death, her case was referred to the homicide unit. So, if Baillee didn’t take her own life, who did?
On April 23rd, 2020, a report was released on Baillee’s death, and Deputy Coroner Caitlin English explained Baillee’s cause of death was compression of the neck.
“I am satisfied that Ms. Schneider, whilst affected by alcohol, prescription medication and cocaine, and upset by relationship difficulties, made an impulsive decision to end her own life,” Deputy Coroner Caitlin English wrote in the report.
Instagram; Baillee wears sunglasses and a bathing suit in the photo above
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