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A Sydney man has recounted the moment he found his wife dead in their unit as police hunt for answers over what happened to the woman.

Erin Gilbert, 42, was found dead in a unit block in Merrylands on Sunday night after police were called over a concern for welfare report.

Nic Gilbert said he arrived at the Merrylands home on Sunday night and was pressing the doorbell, but no one was answering.

READ MORE: Family's year-long battle to get mould removed

"I go to the back window thinking she's asleep, she's just not woken up and I threw a rock at the window to try and get her attention," he said.

"I walked to the front, pulled a bin up and climbed over the balcony.

"I walked through the bedroom, Erin was on her back and it looked like she was choking on blood."

Gilbert said he grabbed his phone and called a friend who arrived at the house to find his 42-year-old wife "gurgling blood" before he called an ambulance.

READ MORE: Parents issue warning after schoolgirl's death

"I just said 'Erin's dead, help me, Erin's dead'," he said.

The 38-year-old said he tried to resuscitate her and perform CPR but she was already dead.

Gilbert has been assisting police with their inquiries. He was taken into custody to help with investigations and released without charge.

Police are still hunting for information about what happened to Gilbert's wife.

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But now he is mourning the loss of the woman he said "completed" him.

"I feel like I let her parents down. I feel like I should've been there," he said.

"She just completed me, everything about her I miss.

"She finished my sentences when I struggled with words."

Gilbert said he loved cooking for his wife and she would clean and they "worked well as a team".

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Detectives have established a taskforce to investigate the cause of Erin's death.

"We just need to get background on what may have happened and who may have been at the unit location with her," Superintendent Andrew Holland said yesterday.

"The injuries were very serious and severe, unfortunately we do not know the cause of death at this point."

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The use of artificial intelligence (AI) via everything from robots to new computer programmes like ChatGP is growing fast – and is set to replace millions of human workers as it develops. Here are the top ten jobs most under threat.

The phone number that appeared on the screen was unfamiliar.

Jennifer DeStefano almost let it go to voicemail, but her 15-year-old was out of town skiing.

Maybe there had been an accident.

READ MORE: Parents issue warning after Victorian schoolgirl's death

"I pick up the phone, and I hear my daughter's voice, and it says, 'Mum!' and she's sobbing," DeStefano recalled.

"I said, 'What happened?' And she said, 'Mum, I messed up,' and she's sobbing and crying."

In a split second, DeStefano's confusion turned to terror.

"Then I hear a man's voice say, 'Put your head back. Lie down,' and I'm like, 'Wait, what is going on?'" DeStefano said.

"This man gets on the phone, and he's like, 'Listen here. I've got your daughter. This is how it's going to go down. You call the police, you call anybody, I'm going to pop her so full of drugs. I'm going to have my way with her, and I'm going to drop her off in Mexico.'

"And at that moment, I just started shaking. In the background, she's going, 'Help me, Mum. Please help me. Help me,' and bawling."

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There was no doubt in DeStefano's mind. Her daughter was in trouble.

"It was never a question of who is this? It was completely her voice. It was her inflection. It was the way she would have cried," she said.

"I never doubted for one second it was her. That's the freaky part that really got me to my core."

But the 15-year-old never said any of it.

'You can no longer trust your ears'

The voice on the phone was just a clone created by artificial intelligence.

"You can no longer trust your ears," said Subbarao Kambhampati, a computer science professor at Arizona State University specializing in AI.

He says voice cloning technology is rapidly improving.

"In the beginning, it would require a larger amount of samples. Now there are ways in which you can do this with just three seconds of your voice. Three seconds. And with the three seconds, it can come close to how exactly you sound," Kambhampati told On Your Side.

"Most of the voice cloning actually captures the inflection as well as the emotion. The larger the sample, the better off you are in capturing those," he said.

"Obviously, if you spoke in your normal voice, I wouldn't necessarily be able to clone how you might sound when you're upset, but if I also had three seconds of your upset voice, then all bets are off."

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Deep learning technology currently has very little oversight, and according to Kambhampati, it is becoming easier to access and use.

"It's a new toy, and I think there could be good uses, but certainly, there can be pretty worrisome uses, too," he said.

Dan Mayo, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix office, says scammers who use voice cloning technology often find their prey on social media.

"You've got to keep that stuff locked down. The problem is, if you have it public, you're allowing yourself to be scammed by people like this because they're going to be looking for public profiles that have as much information as possible on you, and when they get a hold of that, they're going to dig into you."

According to the Federal Trade Commission, scammers will often ask victims to wire money, send cryptocurrency or pay the ransom with gift cards.

Once the money or gift card numbers are transferred, getting them back is almost impossible.

"Just think of the movies. Slow it down. Slow the person down. Ask a bunch of questions," Mayo said.

"If they have someone of interest to you, you're going to know a lot of details about them that this scam artist isn't going to know. You start asking questions about who it is and different details of their background that are not publicly available, you're going to find out real quick that it's a scam artist."

There are other red flags.

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"If the phone number is coming from an area code that you're not familiar with, that should be one red flag," Mayo added.

"Second red flag; international numbers. Sometimes they will call from those as well. The third red flag; they will not allow you to get off the phone and talk to your significant other. That's a problem."

The person who had supposedly kidnapped DeStefano's daughter demanded money. He started at a million dollars. "I'm like, 'I don't have a million dollars. Just don't hurt my daughter!' she begged. "Then he wanted $50,00 (A$75,021)"

DeStefano kept him talking.

She was at her other daughter's dance studio, surrounded by worried mums who wanted to help.

One called 911.

Another called DeStefano's husband.

Within just four minutes, they confirmed her daughter was safe.

"She was upstairs in her room going, 'What? What's going on?'" DeStefano said.

"Then I get angry, obviously, with these guys. This is not something you play around with."

It's unknown how many people have received similar scam calls about a family emergency or fake kidnapping using a voice clone.

"It happens on a daily basis, some of which are reported, some of which are not. I think a lot of people are kind of decompressing when they realise that it was a fake scam and probably just happy that it didn't happen to them. However, there are some people who give in to these, and they end up sending the money to these individuals," Mayo said.

"Trust me, the FBI is looking into these people, and we find them."

DeStefano hung up the phone.

That's when the wave of relief washed over her.

"I literally just sat down and broke down crying," she said.

They were tears for all of the what-ifs. It all just seemed so real.

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A "weird dripping noise" has turned into a year-long nightmare for a Melbourne family whose rental property has been overrun by black mould.

It was only a week after Joe and Amber Powell moved into their two-bedroom unit in Footscray with their two young kids that they noticed a leak in their bathroom "eating away at the drywall".

It has since become a full-blown infestation, getting so bad they need to hand-clean each week and have been unable to sleep in the main bedroom.

READ MORE: Mould and rental rights: What to do when you find mould in your home

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Australia's two biggest supermarkets have today launched new strategies to win over customers feeling the pinch during the cost of living crisis.

The competing campaigns come as Australians continue to pay more for groceries amid stubbornly high inflation.

Coles has announced it will drop and lock in the price on hundreds of its most popular products for the next 12 weeks.

Some of the most affordable cuts of beef – such as mince, diced beef and casserole chuck – are included among the 376 products to get the price chop at Coles. The price of 1kg of 3-star beef mince will be reduced from $13 to $12.

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Other big name brands are also part of the promotion, including Arnott's biscuits and Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Coles Group CEO Steven Cain said Coles wanted to help make budgets go further with many customers facing the further pain of rising mortgage payments and energy costs.

"Dropped and locked 3 is our biggest value investment so far and is focused on breakfast, lunch and dinner. In particular, we know customers are looking for cheaper cuts of meat which is why we have focused on beef mince which is our number one beef line," Cain said. 

Meanwhile at Woolworths, the supermarket chain is hoping to keep its customers loyal with a boost to its Everyday Rewards program.

Woolworths is offering ten times the points for rewards customers on a range of staple household items, including popular brands such as Huggies, Old El Paso, and Bega. 

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The offer – until May 9 – can be redeemed multiple times and will help members collect points faster to earn $10 off their next shop. 

"Value and quality are now more important to Australian families than ever before," Woolworths Managing Director Natalie Davis said.

Research has shown Australians are paying more for groceries compared to the same time last year.

The average Australian household spent $185 a week on groceries in February, up $37 a week compared to February 2022, according to Finder's Cost of Living Report 2023. 

Another Finder survey, released last month, showed some Australians are cutting back on buying meat, seafood and alcohol as they struggle with rising costs.

Almost three in four people have changed their eating habits in the past 12 months due to rising costs, according to the study.

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