Sue Neill-Fraser has spoken publicly for the first time since leaving jail in 2022, telling 60 Minutes she still maintains her innocence in the death of Bob Chappell. The 72-year-old, who was convicted after a high-profile murder trial, said she is four years into parole and fears for her safety while trying to clear her name.
Australia Day 2009 on The Four Winds
On Australia Day 2009, Neill-Fraser and Chappell were on the 53-foot yacht they had bought months earlier, The Four Winds, moored at Hobart's Sandy Bay. She said Chappell was fiddling with the electrical wiring when she decided to head back to land, and that his plan was to spend the night onboard.
She said the last words they exchanged in the boat's saloon were idle chit-chat between long-term partners. That account now sits against the murder conviction she is challenging in public for the first time since her release from jail.
Sue Neill-Fraser on her conviction
Neill-Fraser told 60 Minutes, “There are huge vested interests in keeping this quiet,” and said she is “not depressed.” She also said, “I’ve never physically harmed anybody, ever,” and described living with what she called a wrongful conviction as “like having an infected thorn in your mind.”
She added, “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I could be convicted in Australia if I hadn’t done anything.” Her interview is the clearest public challenge yet to the conviction she says followed her from the disappearance of Bob Chappell in Tasmania.
Bob Chappell in Hobart
Neill-Fraser said she fears for her safety as she tries to clear her name, and warned that if she died in suspicious circumstances, no one should assume self-harm. The interview does not resolve what evidence led to her conviction, but it places her own version of the final hours on the record in a way she had not done publicly before.
For readers following the case, the main shift is simple: Neill-Fraser is no longer silent. She is now directly disputing the conviction, describing her fear, and asking the public to weigh her account against the murder finding that sent her to jail for 13 years.
