Up until that point and for all intents and purposes, Wetzler, his wife Sandy, and their children were a very “typical, suburban family”. Wetzler and his wife had made a comfortable life for themselves within the Newcastle community they had lived in for years.

Thanks to some “single-minded thinking” from Victorian police officers, Wetzler spent weeks in custody while his lawyer, Manny Conditsis of Conditsis Lawyers, successfully campaigned to have the charge of murder dropped on the basis it was weak and “doomed to fail”.

In an interview with Lawyers Weekly, Conditsis said justice prevailed, but it was “regrettable that Victorian police were so gung-ho and somewhat cowboy-ish that they were so desperate to charge Wetzler because, in their opinion, there was no other reasonable scenario”.

“Because they were of the view he must have done it, that would be good enough to charge, [and that is] deeply regrettable and not how competent police should behave or act. In that single-minded thinking, they completely overlooked or didn’t give fair regard to the possibility … that she was killed by a person or persons unknown.”

There were a number of hurdles Wetzler and Conditsis faced, including with police’s first request to interview Wetzler in early 2023. Police had already interviewed him for eight hours back in 1984, a separate RAAF investigation occurred, and Wetzler had also given evidence at a coronial inquiry about 16 years later.

Wetzler denied being responsible for Campbell’s disappearance, but Conditsis said his memory on peripheral issues was not good.

Conditsis told Wetzler before they made a decision as to whether to allow police the further interview, he would ask for the transcripts from the 1984 interview and the coronial inquest to “refresh” his memory.

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“A lot of criminal lawyers will automatically tell the accused or suspected client they should not participate in an interview with police, but that is not my view. It really depends on a lot of things: what you know about the background and the history, and the extent to which your client is articulate or not articulate,” Conditsis explained.

“It depends on many factors [and] in my experience, a good police interview can be very powerful in front of the jury.”

Police refused, so Wetzler did not go through with the interview.

In another misstep, police showed up to arrest Wetzler at his home months later, despite he and Conditsis telling police they would willingly come to the station if and when they wanted to press charges.

“Of course, that was too sensible,” Conditsis said.

Conditsis made the first submissions that each of the police’s allegations were doomed to fail during their attempt to have Wetzler extradited from his Newcastle home to Victoria. As police relied on the wrong state’s bail act, Conditsis eventually won that court fight.

After Wetzler travelled to Victoria to face the charges, Conditsis turned his attention to securing his client’s bail. It took some weeks, given the amount of paperwork that had to be done, and Wetzler spent time in police custody while the matter played out.

“One of the things the judge asked me to do at the hearing was to put on my prosecutor hat and [asked] how I would prosecute him based on the [police] factsheet. I said to the judge that was a difficult task because I’d rather be defending him than prosecuting him,” he said.

Conditsis said he told the court that the “best they’ve got” was Campbell’s disappearance, and their theory Wetzler had murdered her to resume or continue a relationship with another woman was weak.

“That’s as strong as the theory gets,” Conditsis said.

While the woman first denied having a one-off sexual encounter with Wetzler back in 1984, she admitted to it in 2023. She also explained she got in touch with Wetzler after Campbell’s disappearance because she had been invited to their engagement party, but by then the sexual encounter had been years old and neither wanted to do it again.

“Police said going to the engagement party means this, and therefore that must mean you killed her. There was all this speculation and conjecture, so I ended up saying to the judge that was the best they’ve got, but it still doesn’t go beyond doomed to failure,” Conditsis said.

Conditsis was successful in having the director of public prosecutions pay Wetzler almost $97,000 for his legal costs, and has now turned to preparing an application for malicious prosecution.

Not only had Wetzler spent time in custody, but the saga led to his 18-year career at the Australian Taxation Office ending. Conditsis confirmed to Lawyers Weekly that they would not be filing an appeal.

Wetzler’s desire to place the fate of his trial and the ATO matter into just Conditsis hands spoke volumes about the trust the two had built, with Conditsis explaining his client “wouldn’t make the final decision whether to appeal [the Fair Work matter] without talking to me”.

In an interview with Nine, Sandy Wetzler said: “Prior to this, I always thought the police were the good guys and now I don’t.”

Wetzler’s cold case the seventh murder trial for Conditsis

Conditsis’ role as a solicitor advocate has given him the opportunity to appear in seven murder trials, which is a unique position for a legal practitioner who does not practise at the bar. He has also appeared in a number of other jury trials for a range of offences.

In a similar fashion to Wetzler, Central Coast man James Church was charged with the 2012 murder of Leisl Smith six years later despite there being no forensic evidence, admissions or witnesses. Going into the trial, Church told Conditsis he felt he had “no chance”.

Over the next four months, this improved and Conditsis explained Church felt his odds had increased to “50-50” by the end.

Two days before the trial, Conditsis said Church told him he felt down. Given his optimism at the end of the trial and the intervening phone calls as they waited for the judge to deliberate, Conditsis told Church to “keep his head up” for a few more days.

Just before the verdict was to be delivered, Church’s partner called to tell Conditsis that Church had killed himself.

“It was very sad, and it had an effect on me. You’ve been living with the guy day in and day out for four months of the trial, more or less. You do your best to talk to someone in that situation, but you can only say so much … [and] I spoke to him on a couple of occasions during that interim period and he seemed OK,” Conditsis explained.

Because of Church’s death, the proceedings were immediately stayed and the judge did not have the power to deliver a verdict. While Conditsis says there are different suspicions as to what that judgment may have been, “no one knows” and can never know.

“It’s heartbreaking for [Church] and also for the victim’s family as well, because they don’t have the result. A lot of people focus on the victim and that’s understandable, but equally the accused person’s family doesn’t have a result and have the stigma,” Conditsis said.

Representing publicly branded “scumbags” – who often receive the title before a defence can even be made whether it’s true or not – has brought Conditsis backlash from media and the public alike. At one point, it became so dangerous that police had to get involved.

Before Man Haron Monis walked into the Lindt café in Martin Place on 15 December 2014 and held workers and customers at gunpoint, Conditsis helped him with two “significant matters”. The first concerned offensive letters to soldiers’ families, and the other Monis was accused of being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife.

Conditsis’ involvement with Monis ended after he got him bail in December 2013 and he refused to step back in, even after Monis was facing a suite of sexual offences in early 2014.

“I just didn’t have the energy to keep representing him. He was a very difficult character. Very, very charismatic, but very energy-sapping. He also wanted to do it on legal aid, and I certainly wasn’t going to represent him on legal aid,” Conditsis explained.

After the siege, media from all over the world approached Conditsis for interviews. In one, a journalist asked Conditsis if he felt he had “blood on his hands” because of the successful bail application in 2013.

“As a result of that [bail application] matter, and the news around that matter, I got a death threat,” Conditsis shared.

“Of all the matters I’ve done, and of all the murder trials I’ve been in, that was the only time I received a death threat. Not only was it a death threat, but it was a pretty serious death threat.”

Conditsis said he had felt “daggers” in his back in and out of courtrooms, even before he had a chance to give his defence, and questions about “how can you represent a person and this and that”.

Fortunately, an awakening came during the Dean Waters trial.

It was Conditsis’ first murder trial, and Waters, one of three brothers who were all famous boxers, came forward in 1996 to confess to the murder of his stepmother’s partner in 1998. He and his siblings endured a horrific upbringing, including physical beatings, and Waters was eventually acquitted after a psychiatric defence was run.

“It’s very easy to judge, [and] to sit opposite someone who’s just told you they’ve killed someone, and say, ‘How could you do such a thing?’

“When I started to listen to Waters’ story and have appreciation for what he had actually been through, I began to catch myself. I have no right to judge him because if I had been through what he had been through in that childhood, and same as his siblings, I would have done much worse,” Conditsis said of the experience.

Conditsis said whether it was the media or individuals criticising defence lawyers for representing the so-called “scumbags”, those people had judged and convicted a person based on “thinking they know the act, but actually knowing little to nothing about the background”.