Anthea Bradshaw's family were told she was killed by a burglar. Then they read the coroner's report.

Anthea Bradshaw's wedding day was the best her brother has ever attended.

The 26-year-old Adelaide school teacher married her high-school sweetheart Jeff Hall, and the family couldn't have been more thrilled. The day was full of happiness, laughter and love as the young couple planned the next chapter of their lives. 

96 days later, Anthea was dead. Her loved ones filed back into the same church they'd watched her say her vows in three months prior, to say their goodbyes. 

Listen to Anthea's story on True Crime Conversations. Post continues after podcast. 

Anthea was murdered in Brunei, a small oil-rich nation on the island of Borneo in South East Asia. Her husband had moved there after the wedding for a radiography job, but Anthea was still wrapping up work in Australia and was only supposed to be visiting for 10 days initially. 

But on July 21, 1994, a day before she was supposed to get on a flight home, Hall says he returned to his apartment to find Anthea in a pool of blood. She'd been strangled and then stabbed four times in a crime so gruesome her family is still grappling with it 30 years later. 

Speaking to Mamamia's True Crime Conversations, Nine Journalist Ben Avery, who has been re-investigating the case in 2024, said, "I've got to know the family quite well and it's very clear to me that they're consumed by this case and that they won't rest until it is solved."

"It's absolutely ruined their lives...[and] I think what's really destroyed them is this ongoing fight for justice," he added. 

The Bradshaws were led to believe Anthea died in a burglary gone wrong, but four years later Anthea's parents received a copy of the coroner's report (only after contacting Foreign Affairs in Canberra), and came across a detail that shocked them. In his conclusion, the coroner had written: "The only apparent suspect in this case appears to be the deceased's husband, one Jeffrey John Hall." 

Jeff Hall and Anthea Bradshaw. Image: Nine.

After they queried this, they discovered Hall had actually been arrested at the time of the murder, but had been released because of a lack of evidence. 

Hall has lived in Japan since 2003 and has always maintained he had nothing to do with Anthea's murder. In the early 2000s, he came out as gay, which the Bradshaws were shocked to find out about through friends. 

As Avery explained, "Why is his sexuality relevant? It's potentially not relevant... [But] did Jeff know he was gay when he married Anthea? And if he did, why did he marry Anthea? It speaks to the dynamics of the relationship, [and] I think it's an important thing to mention."

Delving into their life together, Avery discovered through conversations with Anthea's friends that "it was not a perfect relationship".

"There was one letter in particular that Anthea had sent to one of her friends that spoke about them having some doozy of arguments that involved furniture throwing and minor injuries."

The Bradshaws went to South Australian police after receiving the coroner's report, but were told nothing could be done as Brunei was out of their jurisdiction. But, in 2004, Brunei extended an invitation for homicide Detective Senior Sergeant Brenton Rowney to travel over there and review the case. 

"One of the first things that jumped out to him was that the Brunei police were not very experienced dealing with murders," said Avery, explaining that the small island nation only averages about three a year according to recent data. 

Detective Rowney has told Avery that after reviewing the case, "he was firmly of the opinion that Jeff Hall had questions to answer about the murder". Former Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras KC revealed in 2013 that he too believed there was enough evidence to prosecute. But Brunei didn't agree.

Determined to keep fighting, the Bradshaws went another route. They teamed up with Independent Senator Nick Xenophon and Liberal Minister Christopher Pyne in 2015 to change Australian law and give our country the jurisdiction to prosecute. 

They successfully altered the Harming Australians Bill to be retrospective. It had initially been brought in to cover the Bali bombing terrorists in 2002, but never used. The change they advocated for was a huge win for Australian families seeking justice from crimes committed against a loved one anywhere in the world. It gave Australian authorities jurisdiction over retrospective overseas deaths. 

But it wasn't enough for Anthea, because the Australian Federal Police decided not to pursue the case. 

Watch news coverage after the bill was successfully changed. Post continues after video.

"It ripped [her family's] heart's out," said Avery. 

"It was a bit of a shock," he added. "They thought that there would at least be an investigation."

It's why they agreed to let Avery and Nine pursue the podcast investigation The Anthea Bradshaw Mystery. They're hoping people power might help persuade the AFP to carry out a full investigation after all. 

"I'm not aware of a single police officer in the world having ever done a press conference about Anthea's murder, not one," Ben told True Crime Conversations. 

"I would have thought that at some point, you front the cameras and you say it's not acceptable that an innocent South Australian school teacher was killed in the prime of her life in a foreign country....Put out a reward like you do with every other unsolved murder in Australia. That hasn't happened either...There's no reward."

He added, "Let's not just allow an Australian woman to be murdered overseas and do nothing about it."

Feature image: Channel Nine.