A woman who faked her own death for a $700,000 life insurance payout has been seen withdrawing a wad of cash while shopping in Perth as she awaits sentencing for fraud offences.
F45 instructor Karen Salkilld, 42, risks up to seven years in prison for impersonating her own partner and using the woman’s Medicare card and driver’s licence to fraudulently obtain the death payout.
Wearing a salmon pink P.E Nation sweatshirt and black leggings, Salkilld frowned and clenched her fists as she withdrew a wad of $50 notes from an ATM in Perth’s southern suburbs on Thursday.
She is due to face court next week over the elaborate insurance rip-off in which she pretended she had died in a car crash in the Western Australian resort town of Broome.
Salkilld used a falsified death certificate, WA Coroner’s Court letter and a purported record of investigation into her ‘death’ last December.
The mother-of-two, who comes from Cable Beach in Broome, lives in southern Perth with her two children and her partner, who is not implicated in Salkilld’s fraud.
The supposedly dead fitness trainer was caught on camera last month casually going about her business in Perth’s southern suburbs.
She was seen at a shopping centre and outside her home, and also filmed vacuuming and welcoming clients at her F45 franchise in Applecross.
Karen Salkilld was seen out shopping in Perth’s southern suburbs on Thursday as she awaits sentencing for faking her own death for a $700,000 life insurance payout
Salkilld frowned and clenched her fists as she withdrew a wad of $50 notes from an ATM
The mother-of-two faces up to seven years’ jail for her shameless scam
Ambushed by a 9News reporter coming out of the North Lake shopping centre car park, Salkilld snapped when she was asked: ‘Why did you fake your own death?’
Clutching her hands to her chest, she hit back: ‘What the hell! Who are you guys? I’m not talking to you guys.’
Journalist Michael Stamp followed her as she prepared to cross the road and asked: ‘How did you think you could get away with it? You’re charged with serious fraud offences.
Salkilld initiated the fraud on February 7 this year by posing as her partner to lodge a life insurance claim.
The claim stated Karen Salkilld had died in a car crash in Broome two months earlier, and included falsified documents to support this: a death certificate, a WA Coroner’s Court letter and a record of a death investigation.
Salkilld (above) who supposedly died in a car crash in Broome, WA, last December had actually faked her own death to claim more than $700,000 in life insurance
The F45 fitness instructor became angry when challenged on camera about her elaborate fraud, which included impersonating her own partner to claim a life insurance payout
A week later, the insurance company paid out $718,923 into a bank account opened by Salkilld in the name of her partner.
Over the next few days, Salkilld made several large withdrawals from the account, but due to the size of them, the bank flagged the payments and froze the account.
In an effort to unlock it, Salkilld went to her local police station at Palmyra with various forms of ID, including a Medicare card and a driver’s licence, and they were certified by a police officer.
These copies of the IDs were heavily altered before being submitted to the bank, but they did not pass the verification process, Nine reported.
When 9News reporter Michael Stamp asked Salkilld why she faked her own death, she snapped back, ‘Jesus Christ, go and find someone else’
Fraudster Karen Salkilld is an assistant football coach for the East Fremantle Sharks club
Salkilld is pictured left in Broome, which is where she claimed she died in a car accident last December; and right at her F45 fitness studio, where she casually went about her business this week after pleading guilty to a $700,000 fraud
Police arrested Salkilld in March. At her first court appearance, she pleaded guilty to offences including gaining benefit by fraud and intent to defraud by knowingly using a false record.
Salkilld is a former player and an assistant football coach for the East Fremantle Sharks AFL club.
Her social media pages include photographs of her with her two children in Broome.
When 9News followed her to her Perth home, she turned on the reporter and said: ‘Are you trying to make everything worse? Or are you trying to put F45 under the banner again or what?’
After entering her property, she yelled through the fence: ‘Jesus Christ, go and find someone else.’
A sentencing hearing in the WA District Court on July 26 will determine the date on which Salkilld will learn her fate.