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Once every four years, a leap day adds an extra day to the calendar, falling on February 29 in order to synchronize with Earth’s orbit around the sun which takes slightly over 365 days (365.2422 days). With no leap year, the calendar would drift out of sync with the seasons which would cause events like equinoxes & solstices to occur on different dates each year.
Equinoxes & solstices mark the beginning of seasons marked by Earth’s position in relation to the sun. Equinoxes happen twice a year when day & night are nearly equal in length, marking the beginning of spring & autumn (about September 22 & March 20). Solstices also happen twice a year & mark the longest & shortest hours of daylight, signaling the start of summer & winter (about June 21 & December 22).
On leap day of 2020, February 29, 26-year-old Jari Wise died alone on the side of the road at 1:12 am after he was struck by a car driven by his girlfriend, 34-year-old Melissa Oats. The crash happened on Wilmot Road in Huonville, a town in the southeast of Tasmania, Australia, an island state of Australia that sits 150 miles (240 km) to the south of the mainland. Rather than stopping her car, Melissa went to her friend’s house & left Jari to die alone on the road.
Although it was determined that Melissa was both drunk & speeding at the time, she was never charged with manslaughter or found to be legally responsible for Jari’s death. Melissa claimed that Jari jumped out in front of her car when he was struck, something that couldn’t be proven as there was no CCTV showing the exact moment of his death. She did spend eight months in jail after she was convicted of dangerous driving, drunk driving & failing to stop & assist after an accident. She also lost her license for three years & had to pay a $2,000 fine.
Since her son’s death, Jari’s mother, Faith Tkalac, has felt that the justice system failed her son & effectively sided with Melissa’s version of events since there were no witnesses at the time of impact. She was firm on the fact that under no circumstances would her son have jumped in front of the car since he was not suicidal. She launched a public campaign for an inquest. A Supreme Court Judge initially ruled it unnecessary before former attorney general Elise Archer intervened & overruled the decision in May 2023. A hearing was held on February 6 & 7 of 2024, nearly four years after Jari’s death.
Approximately 900 deaths are reported to coroners in the state of Tasmania annually & it is their decision about whether or not to hold an inquest.
Before his death in 2020, Jari Wise & Melissa Oates had been in a relationship for about four years & had a young daughter together who was born in June 2019 & would have been about 8 months old at the time. They’d known each other throughout their lives, but their relationship was initially only a friendship.
Sadly, their relationship was highly volatile & at the time of his death, both Jari & Melissa were the subject of police family violence orders made on January 17, 2020, which forbade them from having contact with each other. However, despite these orders, they were still living together. Melissa later claimed that the wonderful times in their relationship outweighed the harder times.
Reports indicate that Melissa was not a regular drinker, although she had exceeded the legal driving limit of 0.05% in 2016, while it was not normal for her to participate in a night of heavy drinking.
One month before his death, Jari had to protect himself with a frying pan when Melissa came at him with a knife. She admitted that she snipped a hole in his jeans while he was wearing them, but claimed she had no intention of harming him. On another occasion, she set one of his shoes on fire. There was a separate incident where a witness provided a statement that Melissa previously chased after Jari in her car while he was walking as she shouted disparaging names at him, calling him a black c**t, although she denies this ever happened.
At about 7 pm on Friday evening, February 28, 2020, Jari, Melissa & her two children went to their friend, Jessica Hosking’s house, on Tutton Avenue in Huonville. While they were there, they were each drinking mostly beer, although Melissa was also drinking pre-mixed vodka.
The couple had two arguments that night at their friend’s house, one involved Jari throwing a chair at Melissa’s car & another when he smashed a bottle of beer on her car as he left the get together on foot. From Jessica’s, several people saw him when he went to another friend’s nearby house, Brodie Scott, before 1 am, now in the early hours of Saturday morning.
When he left Brodie’s house, Jari said he was going to walk home & several people saw him walking along Wilmot Road. That night he wore dark blue pants, a dark blue hoodie & when he was walking, the hood covered his head over a black cap.
It’s unclear where Melissa’s children were, but by this point it was just about 1:10 am when she drove her car by herself to a nearby service station to get food (specifically sausage in batter). She indicated that she hoped to pick Jari up along the way since she believed he was walking back to their house, but she didn’t see him. CCTV footage showed her entering the Caltex Service Station just before 1 am. When she was asked by the attendant if she’d been drinking, she lied & denied that she had, although the footage shows that she was giggling, slurring her words & unsteady on her feet.
Just about this same time, Jari texted his friend, Daniel Hyde, asking him for cigarette papers. Review of phone records also indicates a number of calls & text messages between Jari & Melissa after 1 am. This suggests that they would have likely discussed where Jari was at the time. Moments before the crash, he sent her a text message that read, Please go back, while Melissa insists she never saw it. The last call came through at 1:10 am which Melissa missed in which Jari asked her to pick him up.
When she left the station, Melissa was alone in her Toyota Estima minivan as she drove up Wilmot Road, turned at Ranelagh & drove back along Wilmot Road toward the center of town. She indicated that while she was driving, she was looking for Jari, but there was no sign of him. Despite the posted speed limit of 50km/h (31 mph), she was driving at about 110km/h (68 mph).
When Melissa was driving just outside the Huonville High School at 1:12 am, she suddenly heard a bang when she hit something hard with her car. She said she didn’t know what it was, but she wondered if it was an animal or maybe she passed Jari & he threw something at her car. She admitted that she panicked, but rather than stopping to investigate, she drove the 1.6 km (1 mile) back to Jessica’s house.
Several witnesses heard the sound of the collision & thought it sounded like a car hitting another car, followed by a revving sound as she drove away. When they saw Melissa’s car it had significant damage to the front end as it was driving away from the location where Jari had been hit. The windshield was shattered while a deep dent was visible on the hood near the left-hand wheel
When Jessica’s neighbor provided investigators with a statutory declaration, a formal written statement of facts that a person signs, declaring it to be true, when she arrived back at Jessica’s, Melissa jumped out & said, ‘look at the car, look at what he’s f**king done to my car. When Jessica came outside, Melissa said, I hit the c***.
Another neighbor also made a statutory declaration, I saw Melissa standing near her car. I heard Melissa say, ‘look what he’s done to my car. He’s f**ked my car.’ Jess said, ‘What have you done?’ Melissa said, ‘I hit him.’
Despite these witness accounts, Melissa claims that at this point, she had no idea she’d hit Jari. Some sources indicate there was evidence that her car was heard revving up before impact & there were questions as to why she was driving so fast had she been looking for Jari.
Melissa & Jessica went to the scene where she struck Jari & the first 000 emergency call came through at 1:23 am. Officers Senior Constable Caswell & Senior Constable Pascoe arrived four minutes later. As they pulled up, they found Melissa hugging Jari, who was lying on the ground in the parking lot of the high school. It was clear that she was extremely intoxicated & emotional & she was arrested at the scene. Body cam footage depicted her saying, Oh f**k, my baby’s dead, my man’s dead. Why did he have to run out in front of me, why did he run in front of me.
An investigation began at the scene that involved officers from the Criminal Investigation Branch, Forensic Services & Crash Investigation Services. Jari’s body was examined & photographed while the scene was marked & then re-examined once it was light outside.
After Jari was tragically pronounced dead at the scene, his body was taken by mortuary ambulance to the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) where an autopsy was performed by forensic pathologist, Dr. Donald Ritchey.
Dr. Ritchey determined that Jari’s injuries were severe & traumatic to his head & neck which included multiple abraded contusions & lacerations to the chin as well as fractures of his jaw or mandible. His skull was extensively fractured at the base of his skull that resulted in an injury to the upper brainstem that would have resulted in a nearly instant death. There were also fractures of his spine & he suffered blunt traumatic injuries to the chest, abdomen, right arm & lower left leg.
Investigators determined that at the time he was struck by Melissa’s car, Jari had been facing north, standing in the center of the southbound lane of Wilmot Street, facing in her direction. His head struck the windshield, causing it to shatter on impact. The toxicology exam proved he was intoxicated at the time of his death with a blood alcohol level of 0.22%. In Australia, drivers must have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of below 0.05%, meaning his BAC was 4.4 times over the legal limit. THC was also present in his system.
However, another pathologist, Tony Thomas, felt that Jari’s injuries paired with the damage to Melissa’s car didn’t match her story that he’d jumped in front of her car or that he had been walking in the middle of the street. Since the damage to her car was to the left driver’s side as well as the fact that the injuries were to the right side of his body suggested that Jari had been walking on the side of the road.
Evidence at the scene proved that Melissa hadn’t tried to brake or swerve prior to or immediately after the collision & at the time, she was driving 110 km/h (68 mph) based on CCTV.
A reenactment of the scene was conducted with a similar vehicle with a police officer who was dressed in dark clothing that involved vehicle speeds between 60-100 km/hr. It was determined that even at a speed of 60 km/h, 50 km/h less than the 110 km/h Melissa was driving at the time, it was difficult to see a pedestrian in dark clothing paired with the poor lighting. Even a sober driver who was traveling within the speed limit would have had poor reaction time to avoid a collision with a pedestrian positioned where Jari had been hit.
On the night of Jari’s death, Melissa refused to answer questions in a formal police interview. She did admit that she had been speeding & said that she turned the car around near Ranelagh so she could drive along the highway towards Lucaston since two weeks previously, Jari walked home that way.
She couldn’t explain why she hadn’t stopped after she heard a bang & felt something hard hit her car & she denied seeing Jari before she hit him. She said she was angry with him before she stopped for food, but by that time, she’d calmed down & was no longer mad.
Melissa said that when she spoke with Jari on the phone after she left the Caltex Service Station, she didn’t think she asked him where he was or if he told her where he was. Right away, this was strange to investigators since she was actively driving around, looking for him; it would have only made sense that she asked specifically where he was, although she was very intoxicated.
There was not sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that Melissa saw Jari before she turned her car around near Ranelagh.
Melissa’s cousin, Amber Lovell, claimed that Jari had a tendency of jumping in the path of moving vehicles, something that investigators didn’t believe. During her interview Amber was described as argumentative, rude & erratic while her statements were contradictory & likely tainted by her close relationship to Melissa.
A witness who was at Jessica’s house that night, Katie Shead, said in a statutory declaration that about four years earlier Jari jumped out in front of Melissa while she was driving during an argument. Although she swerved, she did clip him with the mirror & there was a bruise on his leg after. However, during the inquest her statements were contradictory & this time she said he had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit. When questioned about the inconsistencies, she said that she was tired & hadn’t read the statement properly.
The inquest concluded that there was nothing about the weather, road conditions or mechanical issues with Melissa’s car that contributed to her hitting Jari. She was driving at an excessive speed of 60 km/h over the posted speed limit with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.152%, 3 times the legal limit. She also didn’t have her glasses on at the time despite the fact that her license indicates that she wears visual aids.
The inquest also determined that there was no evidence to suggest that Jari jumped into the path of her car or that Melissa deliberately ran him over despite that she made the statement that she had hit the c**t. The idea that she didn’t realize she struck Jari with her car was rejected. These were also conclusions that were reached in the original investigation & the inquest didn’t change any of these conclusions.
After her son’s death, Jari’s mother, Faith, wanted changes made in the Coroners Act 1995 so that coroners must hold inquests into every death where a coroner suspects that family violence contributed to a death. Jari’s Law passed the Tasmanian Parliament in November 2024.
As the inquest concluded, Faith Tkalac walked away with mixed feelings. She was content with the coroner’s determination that Jari had not jumped out in front of Melissa’s car, but she wanted to seek legal advice before considering potential future actions.
References:
- Wikipedia: Leap year
- Wikipedia: Tasmania
- ADF: Blood alcohol levels
- Premier of Tasmania: Jari’s Law passes Tasmanian Parliament
- Jari Elliot Ernest Wise Inquest
- ABC News: Jari Wise’s partner Melissa Oates tells inquest she had no idea she had hit him with car
- ABC News: Long-awaited inquest into death of Jari Wise finally underway, as witness arrested, another warned
- The Supreme Court of Tasmania: Oates, M
- NIT: “No evidence” drunk, speeding partner of Indigenous man mowed him down deliberately, inquest finds
- 60 Minutes Australia: ‘There’s so many inconsistencies’: Calls for inquest into fatal hit-run crash
- YouTube: 60 Minutes: New domestic violence law following brutal drink-driving death
- ABC News: How did Jari Wise die? Here’s the case behind the inquest that has been called by the attorney general
