EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Before the dead and the vanished, we start with the living. Who were Vivienne Cameron and Beth Barnard before history cast them together as murderer and victim?

Vivienne Cameron was a 35-year-old woman trying to fit into life on Phillip Island. Having married into a prominent family, she did her best to make her way in the small close-knit community that didn’t always welcome outsiders. Her marriage to farmer Fergus Cameron had been happy in the beginning, but with arrival on the Island of the young attractive Beth Barnard, 23, it wasn’t long before Vivienne noticed a distance between her and her husband. And it wasn’t long before locals – and eventually Vivienne – noticed telltale signs of an affair between Fergus and Beth.

Some say Vivienne planned to leave her unfaithful husband while other friends paint a sadder picture of a woman desperate to save her marriage. Vivienne lost weight, coloured her hair, and went to marriage guidance. Her own father had left the family when she was 8 years old. It was the last thing she wanted her own two young sons to experience.

The People