The Many Faces of Samantha Azzopardi: Australia’s Most Bizarre Con Woman

[00:00:00] The case featured in this episode has been researched using police records, court documents, witness statements, and the news. Listener discretion is advised. All parties mentioned are innocent until proven guilty, and all opinions are my own.

[00:00:34] Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young, and this is Serial Napper, the true crime podcast for naps. I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep, or perhaps to give you nightmares. Tonight's episode takes us to Dublin, Ireland, back in 2013. And trust me, this one's a doozy. Picture this, a young girl, clearly distressed. She's found loitering near the general post office on bustling O'Connell Street.

[00:01:01] She's alone, silent, and seemingly terrified. When two police officers in Ireland approach her, she doesn't or won't speak English. But somehow, she manages to get one thing across. She's just 14 years old.

[00:01:18] The only other clues? Some haunting doodles of an airplane, a bed, and a gun. Not exactly the kind of thing that you'd find in your average teen's sketchbook. Authorities begin to suspect that she might be the victim of sex trafficking. It's not long before Interpol and the missing persons bureau get involved, and the media latches on. Headlines scream. Who is GPO Girl?

[00:01:44] With no solid leads and a growing public obsession, the police make a bold move. They go public. Her photo, snapped on the sly, is released. And when the sun rises on the southern hemisphere, the real story finally comes to light. Because GPO Girl? Yeah, she wasn't a teenager. She wasn't trafficked. And she definitely wasn't who she claimed to be.

[00:02:10] She was Samantha Azopardi, 25-year-old Australian woman with a suitcase full of lies and a long history of reinvention. Her stint in Dublin was just one chapter in a globe-trotting tale of deceit, delusion, and downright bizarre behavior.

[00:02:28] So, dim the lights, put your phone down, and listen as I unravel the mystery of Samantha Azopardi, a.k.a. GPO Girl, and the many faces of a master manipulator. So let's jump right in. Alright, so let's rewind to October of 2013. It's a crisp autumn day in the heart of Dublin. Picture it. The usual city-center chaos buzzing around the General Post Office on O'Connell Street.

[00:02:55] Tourists snapping photos, buses honking, locals just trying to get on with their day. And then, amid it all, two police officers spot something, or rather, someone who doesn't quite belong. A young girl, alone, clearly distressed, and not saying a word. Just standing there. She's disheveled. No bag. No ID. No cash. Not even a jacket.

[00:03:23] Just her, on the street, like she appeared out of thin air. When the officers try to talk to her, she doesn't respond. But she does hold up her fingers. 1, 4, 14. That's it. That's all they get. A single number and a whole lot of mystery. So the officers do what anyone hoped they'd do. They bring her to the Temple Street Children's Hospital. And that's when things start to get even weirder.

[00:03:50] Now, detectives who first laid eyes on this girl noticed three key things. 1, she looked young. Maybe in her teens. Although it was difficult to determine exactly. 2, she had braces. Okay, obviously not weird in itself, but kind of rare for someone who's supposedly homeless, alone, and unidentified. Clearly, this is a girl who had been cared for by someone who had the means to pay for braces.

[00:04:17] And 3, she was doing everything that she could do to not be seen. Constantly covering her face with her hair like a shy teen in a horror movie. Big don't-look-at-me energy. Physically, she seemed okay. Thin, a little emaciated. But not in immediate danger. But communication? Zero. Nada. Not a word. The hospital staff weren't even sure if she could speak English or speak at all.

[00:04:46] Then came the drawings. A gun, a plane, a bed. Not exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from your average 14-year-old. Unless that 14-year-old is in serious trouble. Authorities start to panic. Was this girl trafficked? Abused? Did she escape something horrific? Why wasn't she talking? Was she too traumatized? Or just unable to understand them? Suddenly, it's not just a missing persons case.

[00:05:14] It's a potential international crisis. They brought in everyone. They brought in everyone. They brought in everyone. Psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, child welfare workers, the whole dream team. All trying to crack the case of the silent girl with the haunted eyes. And because this was way bigger than your average Jane Doe situation, a special task force was formed. Enter Operation Shepherd. 15 detectives. 15 detectives. 15 detectives.

[00:05:42] Dedicated full-time to figuring out just who the heck this girl was and how she ended up in the middle of Dublin with nothing but some ominous sketches and a potentially fake age. They combed through CCTV. They scoured the streets, knocked on doors, talked to hotel managers, bus drivers, cafe owners, anyone who might have seen something. They even dug into airport logs, hoping to figure out where she might have come from.

[00:06:10] All while all of this was happening, the media got wind of the mystery. The UK press, of course, went full tabloid frenzy. And in Ireland, she was suddenly everywhere, the front page of every newspaper. They called her GPO girl. Her story dominated headlines. Everyone wanted to know, who is this child? And where did she come from? And why won't she speak? The entire country was holding its breath, hoping for a happy ending.

[00:06:40] But as you've probably guessed, this wasn't going to be one of those stories. Now, up until this point, the case of GPO girl was shrouded in silence and mystery. Authorities had done everything that they could to identify her, short of throwing up a literal bat signal. And yet, nothing. She wouldn't talk. She wouldn't write. Wouldn't cooperate. And definitely wouldn't pose for a nice, clear headshot for the missing persons bulletin.

[00:07:08] What was she hiding? With pressure mounting and public interest reaching fever pitch, Detective David Gallagher, who was leading the case, made a tough call, sharing a photo of someone believed to be a vulnerable child in protective care. It's not something that's done lightly. It's usually a last resort. But this wasn't your usual case. They needed answers. And the clock was ticking.

[00:07:35] So, finally, using a covert shot snapped as the girl moved quietly from one hospital room to another, they released a grainy image to the media. There she was. Side profile. Hair scraped into a messy topknot. Finger in her mouth. Looking like a lost little girl caught in the moment. That image? It was everywhere. On every screen. In every paper. Leading every single news bulletin.

[00:08:04] As crime reporter Ali Bracken from the Sunday Independent put it, quote, You'd have to be living under a rock to not be aware of it. And you'd still be aware of it. Because everyone loves a mystery. And this one had layers. But while Ireland was still collectively scratching its head, something big happened. The Southern Hemisphere woke up. And suddenly, the phone started ringing off the hook.

[00:08:30] Police stations across Australia were all saying the same name. Samantha Azzopardi. It took less than 10 hours after the release of this photo for the young woman to be identified. Turns out, GPO Girl wasn't some nameless, voiceless teenager. She was a 25-year-old Australian woman with a rap sheet, a flair for the dramatic,

[00:08:55] and a bizarre history of cons, impersonations, and flat-out lies. Oh, and get this. She'd been staying with extended family while in Ireland. Yep. All of this. And she had people, like actual humans, who might have been able to say, Hey, uh, yeah, that's Samantha. She's not 14. She's just kind of like that. In fact, she had been staying with her former stepfather, a man who had dated her mother when he lived in Australia.

[00:09:24] The police had spent over a month, poured a quarter of a million euros into this operation, deployed a task force, and alerted Interpol, only to discover that they'd been duped by a grown woman playing pretend. And Ireland was just the beginning. Because Samantha Azzopardi's deception, it ran much deeper than one quiet street in Dublin. This little stunt was just the tip of a very strange, very expensive,

[00:09:54] and very twisted iceberg. Before she was GPO girl, before she became a headline, Samantha Azzopardi was just a tourist. A very unassuming one, with a suitcase full of secrets, and more aliases than a Bond villain. Now, when she was finally unmasked, and her real identity exposed, the case made its way to the high court, where it was revealed that Samantha was considered very vulnerable,

[00:10:22] with initial reports pointing to a history of psychiatric issues, which, honestly, helps explain some of what we've heard so far. But certainly not all of it. According to Detective Gallagher, in an interview with the BBC, he said,

[00:11:03] Meanwhile, Meanwhile, back in Australia, the media was digging deep. It turned out that Samantha was already known to authorities. Reports said that she had used a variety of aliases over the years. We're talking a whole Rolodex of fake names. But the Australian police, they remained tight-lipped, no comment, which, let's be clear, only made the story even juicier. As for Samantha's family,

[00:11:31] they were said to be preparing to fly to Ireland, likely in a mix of shock, concern, and very awkward conversations with immigration officials. Eventually, Ireland decided that it was time for Samantha and her family to go home. A one-way flight back to Australia was arranged, paid for, of course, by the fine, unsuspecting taxpayers of Ireland. You're welcome, Samantha. The grand total for Operation Shepherd,

[00:12:00] roughly 2,000 hours of police time, and a cool 250,000 euro. All for one woman, one lie, and one truly bizarre performance that fooled an entire country, if only for a little while. Before she was GPO girl, before she was deported on the Irish taxpayers' dime, and before she racked up a rap sheet, Samantha Esopardi was just a kid from Camelton. That's in southwestern Sydney,

[00:12:29] for those of you who are unfamiliar with Australian geography. She was born there in 1988, and fittingly, the truth about Samantha's childhood is already a little slippery. Like most things about her, it's hard to pin down what's real, what's embellished, and what's been completely made up by Samantha herself. What we do know is that she reportedly grew up with one brother, and she attended Mount Anand High School. She had the kind of intelligence that made people take notice,

[00:12:59] the kind of student who teachers remember, not because she was disruptive, but because she was sharp. But intelligence wasn't the only thing Samantha became known for. Enter the lies. Even back then, her stories were next level, not your typical my dog ate my homework kind of stuff. We're talking about full-blown Hollywood-level fiction. In a 2016 interview, one of her former classmates, Juanita Levy,

[00:13:29] remembered a particularly standout moment. Samantha tried to convince the entire school that she was... Lindsay Lohan. Yes, that Lindsay Lohan. She even dyed her hair red to complete the illusion. Honestly, A plus for commitment. Another time, she called the police to report a dead cat. Tragic, right? Except, plot twist, there was no dead cat. Just Samantha spitting yet another elaborate, unnecessary yarn.

[00:13:58] Juanita put it this way, saying, quote, She was a really smart student. She always did her work and was conscientious. I guess she was a bit of an attention seeker. And it showed. She'd storm out of class without warning, leaving the teacher to chase after her. It wasn't anger. It was more like theater. Like she needed the room to stop, turn, and say, what's going on, Samantha? Oddly, despite all the time they spent together, Juanita never met

[00:14:27] anyone from Samantha's family. Not once. She said, it was strange because we would always hang out. She would always say, my dad is in America. Which, knowing what we know now, might have been true. Or a total fabrication. With Samantha, it really could go either way. What is certain, though, is that she wasn't long out of high school before she started popping up on the radar of Australian authorities. The Samantha Azzopardi era of weird wild scams

[00:14:57] was already brewing. And it wouldn't take long for her step up from Lindsay Lohan impressions to full-blown international fraud. If you're anything like me, by now you're probably wondering, how does someone end up in front of the GPO pretending to be a mute 14-year-old trafficking victim? Like, what even is the journey from red-headed Lindsay Lohan impersonator to international mystery woman? Well, buckle up, because Samantha's scam resume

[00:15:26] is as long as it is ridiculous. If you haven't already, and I highly recommend you do, check out the documentary Con Girl. It lays everything out. Every alias, every unbelievable twist, and most importantly, you get to hear directly from the people that she tricked. The ones who opened their homes, their schools, their lives, only to find out that they'd been duped by a woman who could switch identities like outfits. Because make no mistake,

[00:15:56] Samantha's antics didn't begin in Ireland. She had been conning, impersonating, and deceiving her way through life for years. Let's roll it back to one of her earliest scams on record. The year was 2010. Samantha was in her early 20s and already dabbling in identity fraud like it was a hobby. That's when she showed up in Rockhampton, Queensland and decided to really shoot for the stars. Literally. She claimed to be Dakota Johnson.

[00:16:26] Yes, the Dakota Johnson. As in Hollywood royalty, as in 50 Shades of Grey, daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. And this wasn't just some throwaway lie at a party. Nope. She went full method. Samantha used fraudulent documents to enroll herself in a high school in Brisbane as Dakota Johnson. Just imagine being a teacher calling out attendance for the day. Johnson? Dakota? Here. Meanwhile,

[00:16:55] the real Dakota Johnson is out there walking red carpets, probably unaware someone else is taking geometry tests in her name in suburban Australia. Eventually, the ruse unraveled as they tend to do and Samantha was fined. No big jail time, just a slap on the wrist. But it wouldn't be the last time she tried to sneak into a school, a home, or an entirely new identity. Not by a long shot. Flash forward to 2011. Samantha is about

[00:17:24] 23 years old, but that doesn't stop her from pulling off one of her most emotionally manipulative scams yet. This time, she heads west to sunny Perth, Western Australia, and she introduces herself not as a celebrity, but as a teenage gymnast named Emily with a Russian background. Because why not? Throw in some international flair. She even gave herself a tragic backstory to match. A devastating family accident where her parents

[00:17:54] and twin sister were all tragically killed. If this is starting to sound like a lifetime movie to you, yeah, same. Emily is enrolled in school, she blends in seamlessly, and quickly befriends a real teenager named Hope. The two become close, and it doesn't take long before Samantha is spending nights at Hope's house, and then days, and then moving in. Hope's parents, they're absolute angels. They believe this poor orphaned

[00:18:24] girl with no one left in the world deserves a second chance, and a new family. So naturally, they offer to adopt her. Yeah, adopt her, as in legal guardianship, lifelong commitment, welcome to the family-level adoption. And it might have actually happened if it weren't for one small, nagging detail, her documents. There was just something not right about the paperwork, something just didn't sit right. A couple of inconsistencies,

[00:18:53] some questions without clear answers, enough to raise suspicion. So they start digging, and what they find is not a grief-stricken 15-year-old gymnast, but a 23-year-old woman with a rap sheet and a serious problem telling the truth. Just imagine being that family. You open your home, your heart, your fridge, and the person you thought was your daughter-to-be is actually a grown adult with a flair for fictional gymnastics and fake Russian roots.

[00:19:23] At that point, she's charged with falsely representing herself, with intention to defraud. Next up was her stunt in front of the general post office in 2013. You'd think after being unmasked in Ireland, revealed to the world as a 25-year-old con artist rather than a teenage victim of sex trafficking, Samantha Azopardi might have laid low for a while, maybe taken a breather, regrouped, journaled. Nope. Instead, she doubled down,

[00:19:53] and her stories got darker, more disturbing, less quirky grifter, more emotional arsonist. The year was 2014, Samantha was 26, and this time she popped up not in Australia, not in Europe, but all the way in Calgary, Canada, thousands of kilometers away from the chaos she'd stirred in Dublin. She walked into a local medical clinic and told the staff that her name was Aurora Hepburn, a name that sounds

[00:20:23] equal parts Disney princess and vintage movie star, and she said she was just 14 years old. And then she dropped the bombshell. She said that she had been abducted. She claimed she was a victim of sexual assault, subjected to years of violent abuse and torture. Medical staff, understandably horrified, rushed her to the hospital and called in Child Protective Services. Everyone, the doctors, the investigators, the social workers, they all treated her

[00:20:52] like a fragile survivor, because that's what she said she was. They spent hours trying to help Aurora, trying to make her feel safe, to uncover what had happened, to bring her perpetrators to justice. They were all in, emotionally, professionally, and in some cases, personally, because this wasn't just another case. This was someone's child, or so they believed. But, just like Dublin's GPO girl,

[00:21:22] this too was fiction. It was elaborate, cruel fiction. Eventually, Calgary police received a call from their counterparts across the Atlantic. The police officers who had worked her case back in Ireland. They'd seen this act before. They knew Aurora Hepburn wasn't real. She was Samantha Azopardi, again. And just like that, the house of cards collapsed. Samantha was charged with public mischief,

[00:21:51] which honestly feels like a far too polite way to describe what she did. A phrase that you might use for prank calling pizza places, not staging elaborate sexual assault hoaxes. She spent two months in prison in Canada, and then she was deported, again. And the cost of all of this? Roughly $150,000 USD. That's the price tag for one of Samantha's fantasies, in time, in resources, and in the

[00:22:20] emotional labor of the people who believed that they were saving a child. It was deception on a devastating level, no longer just weird or eccentric, but exploitative and deeply damaging. But still, Samantha, she wasn't finished. It's time for a quick break and a word from tonight's sponsors. Hang on, I'll be back before you know it. If life's been feeling a little too heavy lately, sleepless nights, stressful days,

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[00:24:19] For whatever you're dealing with today, mood.com, better days and nights are just a gummy away. Now back to our story. Freshly deported from Canada and presumably with a new stamp in her growing international fraud passport, you'd think Samantha as a party might finally take a break from the con life, a little me time, maybe some journaling that isn't falsified. Wrong again. Barely back on Australian soil, Samantha slipped

[00:24:49] straight into another identity, this time rebranding herself as Harper Hart, a 13-year-old girl with a tragic past, again. She used a fake birth certificate from San Francisco and somehow, and I truly don't know how, she managed to enroll in a Sydney school for disadvantaged youth called Good Shepherd. Let me just pause here to say, how on earth did

[00:25:19] involved? Witchcraft, a time machine, because whatever it is, it worked just enough to get her into school without raising immediate red flags. As Harper, she told a familiar tale. A victim of trafficking, sexual abuse, and bonus twist, she claimed she was in the U.S. Witness Protection Program, laying low from dangerous people who wanted to harm her. And just like before, the people around her believed it. A kind couple reportedly

[00:25:49] found her wandering the streets of Auburn in Sydney's western suburbs and they took her in, genuinely believing that she was a vulnerable child in desperate need of help. And they did, they helped her. They helped her enroll at Good Shepherd, a school that's designed to support at risk and underprivileged kids. Everyone rallied around Harper Hart, offering stability, support, and unknowing enrollment paperwork for someone who was absolutely not who

[00:26:18] she said she was. But as always, the cracks began to show. Her stories, as dark in detail as ever, they just weren't adding up. Family and community services began digging into her abuse claims, and suspicions started to simmer. Then came the moment that unraveled it all. Detectives lifted fingerprints from one of Harper's school assignments. Yeah, you heard that, her homework gave her away. Turns out, the mysterious

[00:26:47] 13-year-old was actually Samantha Azopardi, 28 years old, and running the same devastating con all over again. She was charged with obtaining financial advantage by deception and sentenced to a year in jail. Outside the court, Samantha's mother spoke with the media, and she summed it all up with one single word, heartbreaking. She tried to paint her daughter as a sweet and adventurous girl, at least when she was young, but most people just

[00:27:17] weren't buying it. And that's the thing, this wasn't just a crime spree, it was an emotional wrecking ball. Every lie Samantha told pulled good people in, teachers, parents, school staff, social workers, all who wanted to believe that they were the deception, the school staff just knew that something wasn't right. You can only dodge gym class and

[00:27:46] puberty for so long. Now, it's June 2018. Former Perth Wildcats basketballer Thomas Jervis and his wife Jazzy, they're doing something pretty normal for young parents. They're searching for an au pair to help care for their toddler. They get a private message on Facebook from a man claiming to have the perfect candidate. A sweet, mature 17-year-old named Harper Hernandez. Spoiler alert, Harper doesn't exist, but you probably already knew

[00:28:16] that. They hire Harper and they welcome her into their Brisbane home, giving her parental control over their daughter, a weekly pay of $250, and free room and board. You know, standard au pair stuff. Except Harper is actually Samantha, 30 years old and deep into her next act of deception. In December, the family relocates to Melbourne. And Harper, she tags along, continuing to work for them for another six months.

[00:28:46] That's a year of intimate family life, daily routines, bedtime stories, family dinners, with a woman who was entirely fake. But in June of 2019, the curtain starts to lift. Jazzy begins to feel that something's off. She fires Harper and ends her employment. Then, days later, Jazzy's driver license goes missing along with an iPad. Cue the red flags. She starts connecting with other

[00:29:16] mothers online who may have interacted with Harper or had her watch their children, posting photos of Harper on social media sites. And she gets flooded with replies. Everyone recognized her. Harper is Samantha as a party. When Jazzy later learned the true identity of the woman who used to rock her baby to sleep, she was horrified. In a statement later submitted to court, Jazzy said, My daughter hadn't yet turned two when Samantha first came into our lives.

[00:29:45] I couldn't understand how I'd let this happen. I wonder every day if my daughter will come to me when she's 6, 12, 22, or 40 and tell me things that happened I don't know about. Just a few months later, Samantha switched things up. And she's seen parading around as someone named Coco Palmer claiming to be a talent scout. She is seen staying in a Melbourne hotel claiming to be looking for the next young star. Coco Palmer is one of Samantha

[00:30:15] as a party's most chilling transformations. The one that haunts people more than the schoolgirl uniforms, the fake identities, or even the fabricated abuse stories. Coco was allegedly a talent scout from New York's elite model management. Sounds glamorous, right? But this version of Samantha wasn't just another cosplay in her endless carousel of make-believe lives. Coco Palmer was something else entirely, something darker. Coco appeared

[00:30:44] confident, charming, slick. She spoke with authority. She made promises that sparkled. International modeling contracts, TV appearances, a glamorous future just around the corner. It was as Coco that she met a young teenage girl named Georgia, who Coco promised to make famous. Coco seemed like a dream come true. She dangled every fantasy a young, starry-eyed, hopeful could ever imagine.

[00:31:14] But here's where the nightmare begins. Underneath the glitz of this manufactured persona was manipulation of the most insidious kind. Samantha, as Coco, projected what some speculate were her own unresolved traumas onto Georgia. In a bizarre and disturbing twist, Coco encouraged Georgia to role-play, to fabricate a backstory of abuse, and then to report it to child services. She would quite literally instruct the young,

[00:31:44] impressionable Georgia to walk into these places and pretend to be an abuse victim, which, of course, is how Samantha got caught once the truth of it all was revealed. Georgia was being puppeteered. Her mother, Mel, would later say that her daughter had been used as a quote, puppet for Samantha's own twisted pleasure. The deception wasn't about money. It wasn't about escaping her own reality. It seemed to be about control, about power, and maybe, just maybe,

[00:32:13] about reliving or rewriting something from Samantha's own past. And the most disturbing part, there was no remorse. Coco Palmer spun her web without a flicker of guilt. To Georgia and her mother, she said everything that they wanted to hear. She spoke the language of dreams, and they believed her. Her stories worked because they were what people wanted to believe. Vulnerable people, well-meaning people, people desperate to help or to be helped or to be seen.

[00:32:43] But believe it or not, the weirdest parts of Samantha's con scheme hadn't even happened yet. While nannying in early 2019, Samantha, now operating as Marley, a self-declared talent scout, meets another family. She promises to mentor their daughter, an aspiring actress, for a secret role in a reboot of Punk'd. Classic. She convinces the parents to send their daughter to Sydney with her for an audition. Once there,

[00:33:13] the daughter notices something odd. Staff at their accommodation keep calling Marley Samantha. Weird. Marley, or you know Samantha, then takes the girl to a Centrelink office, which provides government services to residents of Australia. She gives her a note and she is instructed to deliver to a woman inside, claiming that she's been seeing ghosts from the woman's past. No, really, that's what the note said. The family quickly cut ties,

[00:33:43] as anyone should when your mentor starts dabbling in the paranormal and federal offices. But Samantha was still not done. By spring of 2019, another family, a French couple, Michael and Camille, they hire an au pair named Saka. Saka moves in and seems totally normal, until she asks to take the kids aged one and four on a picnic. Instead of going to the park for a picnic, Saka drives the children over 100

[00:34:12] kilometers away to Bendingo. Once there, she changes into a school uniform, a blue checkered dress with a felt hat and all, and she walks into a headspace mental health center, claiming to be a 14-year-old girl named Emily who was pregnant and assaulted by her uncle. She still has this baby strapped to her and she claims the infant is as a result of this sexual assault. A staff member working at Headspace actually recognizes

[00:34:42] her from all of the media attention and they alert police. Samantha flees with the toddler still strapped to her chest in a baby harness. When police catch up with her, she's still dressed as a schoolgirl and she refuses to identify herself or the kids. When the fingerprints came in, Samantha Azopardi, 31 years old, was once again exposed. She was immediately arrested and charged. By the time Samantha stood before a judge in May of 2021,

[00:35:12] her list of charges sounded more like the plot of a psychological thriller than a court case. Child stealing, theft, deception, and yet, there she was, calm, quiet, and pleading guilty. She was sentenced to two years in prison with a minimum of one year, but because she had already spent 570 days behind bars waiting for her trial, she was immediately eligible for parole on the condition that she got proper psychological help.

[00:35:41] And honestly, at this point, that part didn't come as much of a surprise, because as the court proceedings went on, things got kind of complicated. As it turns out, Samantha had undergone several mental health assessments. She'd been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, but that wasn't the only thing that stood out. She was also found to have a rare condition called pseudologia fantastica. It's a mouthful, but basically it means compulsive pathological lying,

[00:36:11] the kind that isn't necessarily about scamming someone out of money, but more about feeding some internal need. According to forensic psychologists, it's a condition that's motivated from within, meaning the lies themselves, they become kind of a coping mechanism, a way to survive. And here's where things start to make a little more sense, not in a justifying kind of way, but in an oh, okay kind of way. Older reports painted a pretty grim picture.

[00:36:41] In one from 2015, it was revealed that Samantha had been abused by two different men as a child. And there were notes from a 2006 session where her own mother admitted to physically abusing her. It's the kind of trauma that can shatter someone's sense of reality. And it maybe explains why she spent so much of her life trying to escape her own identity. Still, as prosecutor Christy Churchill pointed out, quote, this is somebody who went into the homes

[00:37:11] of families with young children and deceived them and lied to them. She is able to make choices. She knows right from wrong. She can exercise judgment, and she proceeds nonetheless. And that's what's so unsettling. Through everything, the lies, the disguises, the broken trust, Samantha never seemed to be after money or fame. She wasn't chasing luxury or status. Instead, it felt like the con itself was the reward. Like,

[00:37:41] becoming someone else, over and over, was the only way that she knew how to exist. Now, you might think that's where our story ends. Samantha finished her sentence, was released on parole, and went on to live a better life with mental health support, but, unfortunately, that is not the case. By mid-2023, you'd think Samantha as a party might have finally run out of steam or, at the very least, aliases. But, nope, she was back with another wild story

[00:38:11] and a new name. Hattie Lee. This time, she claimed to be a 17-year-old pregnant girl from Belgium who had been trafficked for sex. It's the kind of thing that would stop anyone in their tracks, and that's exactly what it did. Samantha took this persona straight to Melbourne's specialist family violence care providers, presenting herself as terrified, traumatized, and in desperate need of help. And just like in her past schemes, she was heartbreakingly believable.

[00:38:40] The care providers did what they're trained to do. They stepped up. They gave her shelter, clothing, medical treatment, emotional support, the works. Over $20,000 in resources meant for real victims went into helping Samantha live out this fantasy. But it didn't stop there. In a twist that feels kind of like it's out of a Netflix thriller, she also roped in a Danish backpacker, someone just traveling through Australia, completely unaware of what she

[00:39:09] was walking into. Samantha convinced her that she was part of a film project, and she asked her to play the role of her sister. The two traveled across states together, moving through crisis accommodations, all under the guise of this disturbing performance. It's not hard to imagine how confused and betrayed that poor backpacker must have felt once the truth finally came out. The emotional impact of Samantha's latest deception was intense. Staff members who had

[00:39:39] dedicated their lives to helping vulnerable people were left questioning everything. One worker said that they were so shaken up by the ordeal, they had to step away just to try to process it all. They said quote, this stress of it all has left me at one point deflated, needing to take a break just to comprehend everything and try and understand why someone would want to make up such a horrific story to exploit my compassion. In October 2023, it all

[00:40:09] finally came crashing down. Samantha was arrested again and pleaded guilty to charges, including obtaining financial advantage by deception and operating a bank account under false pretenses. She was sentenced to two years in prison, meaning it looks like she might be getting out in October of this year. So where does all of this leave us? Samantha Azopardi isn't your average con artist. She's not out there swindling people for millions or

[00:40:39] running big time scams for financial gain. What she does is so much stranger and honestly so much darker. She inserts herself into people's lives by pretending to be someone vulnerable, someone in danger, someone who needs saving. And people, good, kind people, they rush in to help because that's what we do, right? We help people who need it. But time and time again, it turns out it was all a lie.

[00:41:09] Looking back at the long list of identities from Dakota Johnson to Coco Palmer to Hattie Lee, there's a weird pattern. Samantha doesn't just want attention. She wants to be someone else entirely, over and over again, and it's not just some surface level act. She fully commits. She lives it, breathes it, becomes it. That's what makes her so convincing, and honestly, so dangerous. And yeah, it's tempting

[00:41:38] to write her off as just a compulsive liar, but it's more complicated than that. Her history of childhood trauma, her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, and pseudologia fantastica, it paints a picture of someone who's been through a lot, and who never really learned how to deal with it in any kind of healthy way. Instead, she built this world of make-believe that eventually spilled out and pulled everyone around her into it. What's so

[00:42:07] heartbreaking is that the people she tricks are often the ones trying to make a real difference. Families who open their homes, support workers doing emotional labor every day, young girls with big dreams. She didn't just take advantage of their kindness, she turned it into a weapon, and at the end of the day, we're left with more questions than answers. Will Samantha ever truly stop? Can she actually change? And how do we as a society protect vulnerable

[00:42:36] people without becoming too cynical to help when it's really needed? One thing is clear, Samantha Azopardi's story isn't over, but maybe, just maybe, this time, she's run out of masks to wear. That's it for me tonight. If you want to reach out, you can find me on Facebook at Serial Napper. You can find my audio on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I post all of my episodes in video format over on YouTube, so go check it out.

[00:43:06] And if you're watching on YouTube, I'd love if you could give me a thumbs up and subscribe. Every little bit helps. I'm also on Patreon. If you'd like to get your Serial Napper episodes early and ad-free, hop on over and check out all the details at patreon.com slash Until next time, sweet dreams, stay kind, especially in the comments. Bye.