Australia was rocked when financial adviser Melissa Caddick seemingly vanished in November 2020 upon learning she was being investigated by Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). After her crimes were exposed and people learned that she had embezzled more than $30 million from over 60 clients, Caddick fled her $6.8 million home in Dover Heights, never to be heard from again.
Several months after her disappearance, a foot washed up on the shore of a south coast beach which was confirmed to be Melissa’s. Upon the discovery, police presumed her dead, but many were unsatisfied with the open-and-close nature of the case. It wasn’t long before rumours began to swirl, with the biggest theory presuming that Melissa had cut off her own foot, faked her death and left the country to start a new life elsewhere. While it seems far-fetched, the theory quickly gained traction, and we knew it wouldn’t be long before we saw the case, in some iteration or another, come to life on the small screen.
Enter Underbelly: Vanishing Act, the first fictional adaptation of the Caddick case. Despite national interest in her disappearance, the mini-series has been slammed since its debut, with many claiming that it raises more questions than answers, while simultaneously feeling insensitive not only to the victims of Caddick’s crime, but to her teenage son whom she left behind.
The series starts with a monologue from Melissa (played by Wentworth’s Kate Atkinson) as she urges viewers not to believe everything they’ve heard in the news cycle.
“Supposedly in November I‘d jumped off a cliff near my house in Sydney after I got busted and freaked out,’ she said.
“If you believe that story then you will believe anything. Then again I‘ve found most people will believe anything, that’s how I got rich in the first place.”
As the episodes progress, the show details Melissa’s crimes and eventual demise — the facts of which we know with some level of certainty. It then, however, decided to go one step further by acting out three major theories about what could have happened to Melissa in the wake of her disappearance.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald one of the show’s screenwriters said, “I was trying to explore the three main theories – that she had cut her foot off and done a runner and escaped; she’s involved with some dodgy people and they’ve killed her, and then the third theory was simply that she’d gone over the Gap.”
In one montage, Caddick can be seen getting ready to flee Sydney on a boat, before changing her mind, heading to a secret hideout and having a man cut off her foot while she bit down on a belt. Another version sees her sprinting off a cliff’s edge to plunge to her death, while the final montage saw her lounging on a yacht, drinking champagne.
Viewers felt uneasy watching these speculative theories play out, especially when Caddick’s case is still being investigated by ASIC and moving through the courts.
Despite the noticeable backlash, part one pulled in 719,000 viewers which was a considerable number, but people were quick to share their criticisms on Twitter after tuning in.
“I was so looking forward to a new #Underbelly series, struggling with this one – anyone else sticking in?” one user wrote.
“This Underbelly series is both painfully slow and also like its missing integral scenes regarding ASIC and how they came to be aware of his scam,” wrote another.
At a time where so many details of this crime are still unknown, it feels like the show has been made in poor taste, with little thought or consideration to the victims involved. With the case still being investigated, justice has not yet been served, so to see Caddick’s crimes come to life when the status of her own life is still in question, has understandably unsettled many.
It seems that Underbelly has missed the mark this time and should probably have left the Caddick case to the investigative documentary-makers before creating a fictional re-telling. This isn’t the time for story-telling, and the public’s response has all but confirmed that we’re not ready to reckon with Melissa’s crimes in this way, just yet.
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