How fraudster Melissa Caddick’s foot became detached from her body and multiple declarations to friends and family about where she might “end it” will be examined at her inquest.

Jason Downing SC, counsel assisting Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan, said in his opening address that Ms Caddick was suspected to be dead.

But a forensic pathologist is expected to say they were unable to determine whether her foot was separated due to blunt force, sharp force or decomposition before it washed ashore on the NSW south coast.

Ms Caddick’s parents Barbara and Ted Grimley and brother Adam Grimley along with her husband Anthony Koletti arrived on Monday morning at the NSW coroners court in Lidcombe.

The two-week inquest will examine events leading up to her mysterious disappearance and her foot being discovered in a running shoe on Bournda Beach.

“If adequate medical intervention were available, amputation of the foot at the level of the ankle would not in itself be considered a lethal injury,” an autopsy report concluded.

The Australian Federal Police and Australian Securities and Investments Commission raided her Dover Heights home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on November 11, 2020.

That was the last verified sighting of Ms Caddick.

Some 28 hours after Mr Koletti says his wife left the house to go for a walk or jog he reported her missing to police.

Attending officers said he provided several different versions “which were confusing and didn’t make sense”.

One police officer found Mr Koletti on November 13 in a “composed, relaxed and seemingly uncaring persona … unlike any other person I had taken a missing person report from previously”.

At the time this constable believed Mr Koletti was “somehow involved in Ms Caddick’s disappearance”.

Ms Caddick’s mother says her daughter was not offered food or drink during the full duration of the search warrant and holds ASIC responsible for her suspected death, the inquest was told.

Mr Koletti has recently raised such concerns expressed “perhaps most prominently in (his) musical endeavours, through songs released under the name Paws Off,” Mr Downing said.

But this has been disputed as Ms Caddick at the time was not under arrest, allowed to walk freely and leave if she wished, not observed to be showing any signs of mental ill-health, and did make herself a protein shake in the morning.

In late 2012 Ms Caddick’s marriage to Tony Caddick dissolved following her affair with Mr Koletti who was her hairdresser.

She purportedly referred to a Sydney suicide spot when telling her brother Adam about this time: “If it all gets too much for me you’ll find me at The Gap”.

Another friend said Ms Caddick made her write down a four-letter code she was instructed to give Adam if she went missing.

By late 2020 her friends say Ms Caddick was under extreme financial pressure and on one occasion walked to the Dover Heights cliffs.

“If I’m going to end it, it’s going to be here,” her friend recalls Ms Caddick telling her.

Her victims, mostly family and friends, lost $20-$30 million through her Ponzi scheme used to fund her lavish lifestyle and excessive spending on expensive jewellery, designer clothing, overseas getaways and multi-million dollar homes.

Her clients believed she would invest their life savings on their behalf and she created fake documents to suggest she had done so.

Whether Ms Caddick knew about the ASIC investigation will also be scrutinised, as she booked shredding services in September 2020, three months before she vanished.

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– AAP