New footage of Byron Haddow’s final hours before Bali death
Exclusive footage obtained by news.com.au reveals the final explicit hours before Australian FIFO worker Byron Haddow was found dead in a Bali villa pool.
New footage from the Bali villa where an Australian FIFO worker was found dead shows the man partying the morning his body was discovered.
News.com.au revealed last month Byron Haddow, 23, had died in Bali under circumstances described by a coroner as “suspicious” before his body was returned to Australia without his heart.
The Noosa mining worker, who worked as a loader operator in the NT, was found floating unconscious in a shallow pool in a luxury villa on May 26. He had his heart removed during a forensic autopsy at a public hospital in Bali – a procedure known as “organ retention” that was carried out in total compliance with Indonesian medical practices and law.
However, Mr Haddow’s parents in Australia weren’t told and only discovered that his heart was missing after a second autopsy was carried out by the Queensland Coroner’s Court. Adding insult to injury, the Haddows had to fork out an additional $700 to have their son’s heart returned home.
But in a new development, news.com.au has exclusively obtained a video taken on Mr Haddow’s phone just hours before he died, showing him partying with three unnamed Australians: an acquaintance from Melbourne he travelled to Bali with, and two women, also from Melbourne, whom they met that night at a bar. The three Australians left Indonesia without reporting the death to the police, creating a critical gap in the investigation.
There is no suggestion the trio was in any way responsible for Mr Haddow’s death. But in a newly released police report seen by news.com.au in Bali, officers said, as is standard practice in this kind of investigation, the three Australians are wanted for questioning, and have reached out to the Australian General Consulate in Bali for assistance with the matter. “Investigators will then co-ordinate with the Australian Consulate regarding the presence of three Australian citizens,” police in Bali said in a statement.
Speaking publicly for the first time, Robbie Haddow, Byron’s stepfather, who also works in the mines, told news.com.au the video appears to contradict what he was originally told had happened in the hours leading up to Byron’s death.
The video was purportedly taken between the hours of 4.30am and 7am on May 26. Less than four hours later, at 10.05am, Byron was found floating in an unconscious state in the villa’s pool.
Mr Haddow said he had been told Byron’s housemate went to bed after returning from clubbing however the video appears to show the two men and two women partying at their villa well into the early hours of the morning.
Another piece of evidence has also come to light: a bank statement that shows Byron transferred $500 and $550 on the morning he died. The last transaction took place at 8.14am, less than two hours before he was found in the pool.
Then there’s the matter of missing cash. Byron took at least $3000 in cash to Bali but not a cent of it was returned to Australia with his phone and other personal belongings.
Coupled with the results of the autopsy in Bali that discovered dozens of cuts and bruises on Byron’s body, face and head – apparently caused by impacts with “blunt objects” – the new evidence has led Robbie Harrow to believe that his stepson was murdered.
“You don’t get a bloody nose and all those bruises from drowning in a pool. You get them in a scuffle,” he said. “(My wife) Chantal and I never believed he drowned. He grew up on the water; he came out fishing with me all the time. He was a strong swimmer, fit and healthy.”
“None of what they say about him drowning in a plunge pool adds up,” Chantal added. “I strongly believe he was set up, drugged, robbed, and it all went bad. That’s my opinion.”
The couple do not believe the Australians are responsible for their son’s death but believe they might know more about his final hours.
On Monday, a little more than a week before news.com.au broke the story, the Australian Federal Police finally sat down with the Haddows and took their statement. Officers confirmed they had interviewed the three Australians but said they could not reveal any more information at present.
The Coroners Court of Queensland, which is conducting the second autopsy in Brisbane and DNA analysis of the heart sent back from Bali, is also still keeping things tightly under wraps. “As this matter is currently an open coronial investigation, no further information can be provided,” the court said.
But for the Haddows, whose tragedy has now become the subject of global headlines and nightly TV, too much time has passed, more than four months since their son died, and they’re demanding real answers.
“We just want to know what happened,” Chantal told news.com.au. “We deserve to know if he was murdered and, if he was, he deserves justice.”
*Dave Smith is an alias used to protect the writer from reprisals.
