Was cheerleader’s Gold Coast balcony death really suicide?

THE family of a 21-year-old cheerleader who fell to her death from her boyfriend’s balcony is facing the possibility they will never know what happened that night.
Breeana Robinson died after plunging to the ground from the 11th-floor Gold Coast apartment belonging to her partner Dan Shearin, 42.
With the coroner’s report into her January 2013 death due in weeks, her aunt Janine Mackney says the family is desperately hoping this won’t be the end of the road in their battle for the truth.
“We’re hoping it’s not ruled suicide, that will devastate us all,” she told news.com.au. “I don’t know how we’ll fight on.
“We don’t have the legal capacity. It’s all foreign to us.”
Breeana, who suffered from a vision problem that meant she was legally blind, had moved in with Shearin just over a month before her death.
In October last year, he was given a six-month prison sentence, of which he was to serve two months in jail, for using a carriage service to menace and harass his girlfriend. But the former cruise ship entertainer only ever spent 11 days behind bars, and last month his jail sentence was overturned on appeal on the basis that the original sentence was “manifestly excessive”, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.
In the lead-up to her tragic fall, the Titans cheerleader had been on the receiving end of a barrage of abusive texts from her boyfriend. Shearin’s expletive-laden 1439 messages in the month before Breeana died included texts calling her a “complete f***ing moron” and telling her “I don’t want a stupid, dumb c*** in my life”.
Shearin, who met Bree through Facebook, also posted comments on social media calling an ex-girlfriend a “jealous b****” and mocking the mother of his child for putting on weight. But the judge said he couldn’t be punished for a “bad personality” and the defence lawyers in his appeal case argued that the texts had been “unfairly linked to her death”.
A fourth-floor neighbour who discovered Breeana’s body, Gina Hadid, told A Current Affair in November thatshe was certain she had heard Breeana scream “no” or “oh no” as she fell.
Mrs Hadid’s husband Buddy and a security guard were the first to reach Breeana, with Mr Hadid calling an ambulance and taking it in turns with the guard to administer CPR.
Mr Hadid said he had seen Shearin within a minute of emerging from the building. “We were trying to work out who she was and he just turned around and said ‘oh that’s my girlfriend’,” said Mr Hadid.
Ms Mackney, who has dedicated herself to trying to uncover exactly what happened to Breeana, said through tears that despite how hard it was going over and over her niece’s death, she couldn’t give up while there was still a chance that she could find answers.
“It’s been two-and-a-half years of our lives,” she said. “The stress has been enormous.
“My sister [Breeana’s mother Elaine] hasn’t been to one court appearance, she just can’t. I think about Breeana daily but I have to put it to the back of my mind or I’d go crazy.”
She described her niece as a “sweet, naive girl” who had struggled with her vision problems, but had grown in confidence enormously after starting work as a teacher at the dance school her mother set up. “Elaine did anything and everything for her,” added Ms Mackney, who also worked with Bree at The Arts Centre Gold Coast.
On the night of her death, Breeana had been to cheerleading practice with her cousin Bianca, who had driven her home to the apartment.
“They were excited about getting a new uniform,” said Ms Mackney. “It was a midriff top so we were doing a fitness thing at work, and our team was winning, she was excited.
“Things don't add up; 150 million per cent she did not suicide.”
Ms Mackney is reluctant to blame the police. “They say their hands are tied,” she said.
“My biggest thing is getting justice. It’s never going to change the fact we don’t have her, and that she suffered.
“I’m sick of hearing people say it was suicide. In our heart of hearts, there’s no way she did that. She wouldn’t want to leave us.”