A woman believed to have died in a car crash in Western Australia last December had actually faked her own death to claim more than $700,000 in life insurance.
Karen Salkilld, 42, was caught by one 9News reporter casually going about her business in Perth – shopping, running her F45 studio and returning home – after committing insurance fraud.
Salkilld was ambushed as she left the North Lake shopping center parking lot and snapped when asked, “Why did you fake your own death?”
She clutched her hands to her chest and hit back, “What the heck! Who are you? I’m not talking to you.’
The journalist followed her as she prepared to cross the road and asked, “How did you think you could get away with it?” You are accused of serious fraud crimes.”
Salkilld’s elaborate fraud scheme involved posing as her female partner to claim a huge life insurance payout after faking her own death.
Karen Salkilld (above), who is believed to have died in a car crash in Broome, Western Australia, last December, had actually faked her own death to claim more than $700,000 in life insurance
The F45 fitness instructor, 42, became angry when challenged about her extensive fraud, which included posing as her own partner to claim a life insurance payout
According to Nine, Salkilld initiated the fraud on February 7 by submitting a life insurance claim to a company while posing as her partner.
According to the claim, Karen Salkilld had died in a car crash in Broome two months earlier.
Salkilld enclosed a forged death certificate, a letter from the WA Coroner and a report of the inquest into the alleged death.
A week later, the insurance company paid out $718,923 to a bank account opened by Salkilld in the name of her partner, who is not involved in Salkilld’s fraud.
When reporter Michael Stamp asked Salkilld why she faked her own death, she snapped back: “Jesus Christ, go find someone else.”
Fraudster Karen Salkilld is an assistant football coach for the East Fremantle Sharks club
Salkilld is pictured at left in Broome, where she claims she died in a car crash last December; and straight into her F45 fitness studio, where she casually went about her business this week after pleading guilty to $700,000 fraud
Over the next few days, Salkilld made several payments from the account, but due to its nature, the bank flagged the payments and froze the account.
In an attempt to clear the bill, Salkilld went to the Palmyra police station with several forms of identification, including a Medicare card and a driver’s license certified by a police officer.
These copies of the IDs were heavily altered before being submitted to the bank but failed the verification process, Nine reports.
Police arrested Salkilld in March. At her first appearance in court, she pleaded guilty to crimes including obtaining advantage by fraud and intent to defraud by knowingly using a false file.
Salkilld is an assistant football coach for the East Fremantle Sharks club and operates the F45 fitness studio in Applecross, Perth.
Her social media pages feature photos of her with her two children in Broome.
She will be sentenced in the Western Australia District Court in July and faces up to seven years in prison.
When 9News followed her to her home in Perth, she turned to the reporter and said: “Are you trying to make everything worse? Or are you trying to put F45 under the flag again or something?’
After entering her property, she shouted through the gate, “Jesus Christ, go find someone else.”