On the morning of March 24th, 2015 a totally unsuspecting gardener showed up to work at the recently completed beach mansion of Phillip and Donna Vasyli in Old Fort Bay in the Bahamas. Phillip and Donna had been staying in the guest house while a few final things were finished off in the main house. The gardner unlocked their back door and immediately saw his employer, 59-year-old Phil Vasyli laying in a pool of blood on the floor of the kitchen. Phil was dead and had been for hours.
Old Fort Bay had never had a murder before. This was a VERY affluent area with 24 hour security and frequent patrolling by police. Everyone that was in the house (maids and gardeners and such) were taken to the police station and questioned. Donna Vasyli was also questioned and subsequently arrested. 5 days later, she was charged with her husband’s murder.
For part one click here!
The Murder of phil vasyli
We pick up in our story with Phil having just been forced to go to rehab by his wife Donna. She also demanded that Phil leave Sunnie and end their relationship.
Phil’s stay at Passages was meant to address his addictions to alcohol and cocaine, which apparently he loved according to some friends from rehab. He was also going to work on his “anger problem.” Donna dropped the charges against Phil and attended the family session at Passages. During their session with a therapist, Phil told Donna he wanted a divorce. Donna flipped her shit and was screaming in the traffic circle outside of Passages. The therapist was convinced she’d kill Phil.
When Phil eventually left Passages, he didn’t go back to Donna. Instead, he moved to Miami and in with a woman he’d met in Passages. Lisa Lugo had been there to deal with her alcoholism when she and Phil met. Lisa and Phil even ended up getting wedding bands, and she said that he pitched his other wedding band in the ocean.
Donna found out about Lisa and switched her voicemail harassment to Lisa’s phone number and reassigned her private investigator to start following Lisa. Lisa changed her phone number 3 times, but Donna always found it. Phil was going through with the divorce and trying to cut all ties to Donna. Donna’s settlement demands were…unusual…
She wanted Phil to get a vasectomy so that their children would be his only children and the only heirs to his fortune. Despite this new, pretty serious seeming relationship and contemptuous divorce, Phil stayed friends with Sunnie. He had her pretend that she was in a relationship on social media or that she was on the market on Tinder by posting photos from another relationship she’d had in between pre-rehab Phil and post-rehab Phil and creating a fake Tinder. This way if Donna had her PI digging into Sunnie, it would look like she was moving on.
Phil and Sunnie started their relationship back up in San Francisco, and he invited her on business trips and even agreed to start a family with her. On March 6th, 2015, Phil went back to the Bahamas to visit his new grandbaby (Lauren’s), finish and sell the dream mansion, and finalize his divorce. During his time away from her, Sunnie discovered she was pregnant with Phil’s baby. She called him a couple of times, but got his voicemail. He called her back, but she missed the call. She would never get to tell him about the baby.
The night before he died, Phil Skyped with Lisa. He had been around his new grand baby and suggested to Lisa that they have a baby.
On March 23rd, 2015, Phil and Donna had friends over to show off their newly finished home. Their friends Miles and Judy Prichard came over and Donna was already complaining about how drunk Phil was and that he was napping. Around 3:15pm, Donna’s nephew Mitchell Matthew arrived and not long after that Phil woke up. They all hung out and partied until about 7pm when Mitchell and the Prichards left along with the maid. Then at 7:40 pm, all of the surveillance cameras went out. Not malfunctioned or anything. Turned off from the 3rd floor office.
Before they went out the CCTV footage recorded everyone leaving the driveway, except Donna who said that she walked to her daughter’s house a few blocks away and saw her nephew again at around 9 pm.
The next morning, the gardener found Phil.
Investigation and Trial
Phil was sitting at the table on the patio outside the guest house where he and Donna had been staying until the main house was finished. He was stabbed with a large kitchen knife in the left clavicle. The blade cut his subclavian artery, but because it was behind the clavicle, there wasn’t arterial spray. Instead, the blood was pooling inside his chest.
Phil pulled the knife out, splattering blood on the ceiling of the patio, and then used both of his hands to apply pressure to the wound. He got up from his seat and made his way into the kitchen where blood smearing and footprints show that he was leaning on the counters on his elbows and kind of pulling himself across the kitchen. Then he collapsed and bled out on the kitchen floor. He would have most likely been conscious for 2-3 minutes after he was stabbed.
There were no witnesses to the murder, but after questioning all the people in the house, the police assumption was that Donna killed Phil after their friends left, because she was mad about the way he behaved while they were there. Donna was the last known person to see Phil alive and the house and community had 24-hour surveillance and regular patrolling from police.
The surveillance system in their home was turned off so whoever did it had to have known their way around this brand new home and know that the security system was in the 3rd floor office.
Donna was steadfast in her innocence.
On September 7, 2015, Donna’s murder trial began. She was noted to be very calm through the whole process and she had the support of many friends and family throughout. Her children have always been on her side.
During the trial, Donna’s defense team proposed an “intruder theory” in which the intruder came from the ocean on a jet ski….
However, the holes were poke in this theory pretty easily:
- Jet skis are loud.
- This “intruder” would have had to walk through sand and no sand was found in the house.
- This “intruder” came without a weapon and would have had to come up and somehow get past Phil who was outside and a fucking black belt, into the kitchen to get the knife, and then stab him.
- What’s the motive? Nothing in this sprawling mansion was stolen or even disturbed other than Phil.
With the intruder theory, it was pointed out that there were 2 different size footprints in blood at the scene. However, apparently Phil had 2 different sized feet with one being about ½ a size to a full size smaller than the other. Phil was obviously caught off guard, because the man was a black belt, champion in martial arts. There wasn’t a struggle before he was stabbed. There wasn’t a struggle with someone else after he was stabbed, just his struggle to get through the house.
The jury didn’t hear any of Donna’s psychotic voicemails to Sunnie or about her previous stabbing of Phil. They did hear about Phil’s alcoholism and drug use. They heard about his alleged abuse. Of course, Phil had people that hated him for the success he had achieved. One guy in the documentary referred to it as “Pauper’s Syndrome” where his enemies were basically jealous. It was suggested that maybe one of his business rivals was behind this.
There was also a blue cup at their table that had unknown male DNA on it. It wasn’t Mitchell’s DNA. However, it was never compared to Miles Prichard who had been there that night for a regular night with friends. The DNA was never tested against any other men.
Another slightly ridiculous theory was that Phil committed suicide…by stabbing himself in the clavicle(?), but the angle the knife went in would have made it very unlikely that he did that to himself. Donna’s DNA was not on the knife, but unless the person holding the knife cuts themself, it’s not unusual that there not be any DNA from the stabber.
The trial lasted 3 weeks and the jury deliberated for 4 hours before they came back with a guilty verdict.
On November 11th, 2015, Donna was sentenced to 20 years in prison. When the verdict was read, Donna fainted. She and her team felt like she was convicted without any evidence. She spent 5 months in jail while her team applied for an appeal. In July of 2017, the court ruled that Donna’s verdict was “unsafe” (basically, our “unconstitutional”) and they ordered a retrial.
Donna was released on bail with an ankle monitor and ordered to report to the police once a week and not to leave the Bahamas. She was whisked away to face the hardship of house arrest in her daughter’s mansion in the Bahamas. Donna’s defense team appealed to the Privy Council in London because the Bahamas’ highest court is in London.
If Donna wins the appeal to the Privy Council, she can never be retried for Phil’s murder.
On March 2, 2020, The Privy Council decided to send the case back to the Bahamas Court of Appeals for them to reconsider their decision about a retrial. Basically, they are starting over again.
After Phil died, Sunnie miscarried and turned 30 (within days of the murder). She said in an interview that even knowing what she knows, she’d do it all again because she loves Phil. Lisa also says she still loves Phil and that she always will. She said that her current husband and kids know that.
Phil’s business was bought out by Celeres for half a billion Australian dollars. Part of this went into a family trust, but it’s unknown how much of it. Donna is a trustee.
As of right now, there is no decision and no closure.
sources for this episode
Mistress of murdered millionaire shares racist and deranged voicemails | dailymail.co.uk
Murders, Lies and Alibis: Mistress shares messages from dead lover’s wife | news.com.au
Last chance appeal for Donna Vasyli over murder of orthotics tycoon husband Phil | 7news.com.au
Jurors in Vasyli case get closer look at crime scene | thenassaugguardian.com
Millionaire stabbed to death in Bahamas home but was all as it seemed? | mirror.co.uk
