‘Is she dead?’: A mum’s final moments before her body was found in the river

When Charlie-Rose Wagner walked through the door of her stepfather’s West End apartment, she knew something was wrong.

The previous night, the 22-year-old received calls from her mother, Crystal Beale, who was crying and distressed. It was the last time Charlie-Rose would speak to her before Crystal was found floating face-down in the Brisbane River.

“I could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong with mum. I said to him, ‘Is she dead?’

“He said yes. He was crying, and we all cried together. I could see Jesse was really upset about not finding her.”

Jesse Beale had been at dinner the night before, February 21, with Crystal, his former partner. Hours later, the body of the 49-year-old mother of two was found.

The final conversations between the family, and detailed allegations against her accused killer, were revealed in Supreme Court documents released for the first time on Friday.

Jesse told police he had made a booking at a Sunnybank restaurant on the night of Crystal’s disappearance as a way to smooth over arguments with her from earlier that day.

He claimed he could feel Crystal getting angrier during the dinner. He said she didn’t want to be there, so she abruptly walked out.

They made their way to the Sunnybank Tavern where, Jesse claimed, Crystal asked if she could be transferred $50 so it could be withdrawn from an ATM because she didn’t have her bank card. She had told Jesse she wanted to play the pokies – an unusual decision given she’d previously said she hated poker machines.

While waiting for dinner, Crystal went to play the pokies. Jesse told police that when she returned she was crying, saying she had not won anything.

Crystal became angrier as the night progressed, Jesse claimed. She wouldn’t come out of the restaurant when they tried to leave, despite three attempts from Jesse.

He said she was vicious and spoke to him through gritted teeth.

During the trip back to his West End apartment, Crystal jumped out of Jesse’s Ranger ute on Ipswich Road in Annerley, Jesse told police.

CCTV images submitted as part of the prosecution’s case show her on the road.

“Crystal was bawling her eyes out. She walked back to the car with me and I sat her down in the front passenger seat with the door open and her legs out,” he told police.

“I put her in the car and starting driving. She started getting angry again but I can’t remember what she was saying. She was sobbing at the same time.”

A CCTV image of that moment shows the pair standing on the street.

Jesse said he consoled her, and told her he would take her home. He said he pleaded with her.

“Please Crystal, I’ll just take you home and put you to bed,” he allegedly said. “All we have to do now is get you home and go to bed.”

About 9.10pm, Charlie-Rose made a video call to her mother and saw the pair together.

“She was crying and distressed,” Charlie-Rose said. “She said, ‘I love you, goodbye.’”

It was her last conversation with her mother.

Charlie-Rose told police her mother had confided in her weeks before her death about photographs she had found of herself unconscious and being sexually assaulted by Jesse.

Crystal had shown her daughter some of the photos, which included her “passed out in bed and Jesse holding up her skirt or dress”, she told police.

There were also hundreds of photos of Crystal doing yoga in her underwear, court documents state, as well as photos of her without underwear, and her genitals exposed. Other explicit images involved Jesse, Charlie-Rose told police.

“Mum told me she took photos of all the pictures from [Jesse’s iPad] on her mobile phone and then deleted all the photos off Jesse’s iPad,” she told police.

Charlie-Rose said her mother confronted Jesse about the photos: why he had taken them, and why he still had them.

“She told me she was concerned Jesse was going to use them as revenge porn or blackmail against her,” Charlie-Rose told police.

According to court documents, Jesse told his stepdaughter the photos were consensual.

But police said Crystal had told other people the photos were taken while she was unconscious and without her consent.

During Jesse’s bail application, the prosecution told the court Crystal had confronted him about the photos while driving back to West End, and she had called him a rapist.

Jesse claimed he drove back to West End, where he said Crystal got angrier. When they were near his unit complex on Carlow Street, metres from the Brisbane River, Crystal got out of the car and walked ahead of him, he said.

She was allegedly killed that night.

Court documents paint a picture of Crystal’s years-long struggle with alcohol and drugs. After her own mother had killed herself, Crystal went into foster care, and said she was sexually and physically abused.

Charlie-Rose told police that as a teenager, she was aware her mother was using heavy drugs, and in the last four years, she had seen her mother use methamphetamine every few months, causing her to lose weight and be “scattered”.

She recalled her mother and Jesse, who had been in her life since she was young, having “pretty hectic fights” but she had “never seen Jesse lay a hand on mum”.

The pair separated in 2020, and last year, Crystal had worked selling seafood at the West End markets.

The prosecution said that on the night Crystal was allegedly killed, Jesse had claimed he parked at Ryan Street, and had given her 10 seconds before getting out of the car and assuming she’d walked back to the unit.

But CCTV contradicted his account, the prosecution said. Footage showed him driving around the neighbourhood and parking at various locations over half an hour.

Footage showed his Ranger stopped for 11 minutes in Ryan Street from 9.24pm.

At no point did the CCTV show anyone exiting the car, according to court documents. The vehicle then left Carlow Street before returning to that street.

According to the documents, Jesse visited Hill End Terrace several times during the night, and a person, alleged to be him, exited the vehicle and headed towards the dog park area at 9.51pm.

By 9.59pm, the phone disconnected from the vehicle and connected to the home Wi-Fi until 5.07am, showing Jesse left his phone at the unit, the prosecution submitted.

Jesse claimed that after Crystal left the ute, and he realised she was not at the apartment, he began to look for her.

“I drove down the main road by the river that the West End Ferry Terminal is on and looked from there down to a large tree that we call the Avatar tree. It’s the only big tree covered by fairy lights,” he told police.

“I parked up near the tree and walked back along the river to the [ferry terminal] and then back to my car.”

He later claimed he drove home to see if Crystal had returned, and then continued to search the streets for her.

Jesse said he used a torch to search and was shining light into the bases of trees in the park.

“Crystal used to like leaning against the big bases of the trees, looking out to watch the sunset when we’d take Sunday, the dog, out for walks.”

The prosecution said CCTV supported the version that Jesse had gone back to a park and river area at Hill End Terrace, and returned to Carlow Street several times that evening.

He was carrying something that has not been located by police, court documents state. The item might have been used in the disposal of her body, according to prosecution documents.

Between 10.54pm and 11.46pm, Jesse walked from Carlow Street to his car on Drury Street, and drove back to Carlow Street, the prosecution alleged.

Data from his phone shows that while he was at Carlow Street, he searched tide forecasts on the Bureau of Meteorology website.

Shortly after midnight, Jesse travelled to Hill End Terrace and parked. According to the prosecution, the driver left the vehicle and appeared to walk to the passenger side.

Later, a torch could be seen near the boat ramp at the river. A person returned to the parked vehicle, drove it to the intersection of Hill End Terrace and Montague Road, and parked there.

Jesse was allegedly seen later walking along the water at the park at Orleigh Street with the torch, before driving the car back to Carlow Street, where it remained until the next day.

The following afternoon, Jesse accessed Nine News, Seven News and 10 News Brisbane, according to prosecution documents. The next day, he searched “VPN meaning” and then “does a VPN high browsing history”.

According to court documents, five minutes after that search he received an email with a sign-up code for a VPN from VPN Super. Seven minutes later, he searched: “CCTV cameras near me.”

An autopsy report found Crystal’s death was a “complex case”, with her body found floating in the Brisbane River fewer than nine hours after her last verified sighting.

She had suffered severe internal neck injuries that could have caused death. Toxicology reports showed a combination of sedatives, including alcohol, and stimulant drugs in her system.

The report said while there signs of drowning, an autopsy diagnosis of drowning could not be made in instances where there were competing causes of death.

“It is possible in this case that death could have resulted from the combined effects of neck compression, drowning, drugs and alcohol. Hence, the cause of death is not determined,” it said.

Jesse was denied bail in October, with his case remaining before the courts.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.