Peru Six cleared of involvement of doorman’s death after bizarre, four-year battle

AS AUSTRALIA was preoccupied by news of the Budgie Nine, six Aussie backpackers facing murder charges in Lima quietly learnt their fate.

The Peru Six — Sam Smith, Andrew Pilat, Harrison Geier, Tom Hanlon, Jessica Vo and Hugh Hanlon — have been cleared of any involvement in the death of a doorman at their Lima, Peru hotel in 2012.

THEY were like any Australian backpackers in South America until they found themselves in the wrong place at the worst possible time.

The shocking death of a doorman at a Peru hotel set off a series of extraordinary events for the so-called Peru Six — a group of Aussie travellers who became accused of the man’s murder and would spend the next four years fighting for their innocence in a bizarre and increasingly twisted case.

But over the weekend, as Australia remained preoccupied with news of the so-called Budgie Nine’s antics in Malaysia, the even more unfortunate Peru Six finally learnt of their fate.

WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME

Brothers Hugh and Tom Hanlon and friends Jessica Vo, Sam Smith, Harrison Geier and Andrew Pilat were holidaying in Peru in January 2012 when the body of their doorman was found on the footpath outside their Lima hotel.

The doorman, Lino Rodriguez Vilchez, 45, had fallen 15 storeys to his death. Police initially questioned the Australians but released them, deeming the man’s death to be a suicide.

The Aussies carried on with their holidays and eventually returned home.

But in a bizarre twist six months later, Peruvian police were pressured to reopen the case as a possible murder investigation — and all eyes were on the six Australians who had been staying at the hotel at the time.

Renewed interest in the case came about when Rodriguez’s family claimed his ghost had appeared to them in dreams, telling them he had, in fact, been murdered.

The Australians were accused of throwing the doorman to his death.

Lino Rodriguez Vilchez died after falling from the 15th floor of a hotel block in Lima.

“I am convinced my brother was murdered,” the victim’s brother, Wimber Rodriguez Vilchez, told the ABC in 2013, after the Australians were ordered to return to Peru to face court.

“The only thing I want is for the population of Australia to know the truth. My brother was murdered. That is clear.”

Lino described the dream in which his brother apparently appeared to him, saying: “I went running to him, to embrace him, ‘Lino my brother’, and he said, ‘Let me go, let me go, don’t hold me, they killed me. I didn’t want to die’.”

He said Rodriguez’s ghost had also visited their sister.

“Lino said he had been arguing with somebody. His hands were (moving out) and there was a tall man and a short man and a girl,” Wimber said.

“After she said, ‘my little brother, tell me, tell where did this happen?’, and my brother said, ‘nine plus six. Add it up, nine plus six’.

“And so we said, ‘hey, it’s in the 15th, in the 15th floor, they have killed Lino, let’s go to the police and see how the investigation is going’.”

Rodriguez’s family accused the Australians of dragging the doorman into their room, bashing him and throwing him from the balcony of room 1501, after an argument about noise coming from their hotel room.

“They were making an excessive amount of noise in apartment 1501 where the six Australians were staying,” Wimber said.

“My brother went upstairs to get them to turn down the noise and there was a misunderstanding, as he only spoke Spanish and they only spoke English.

“They hit my brother and threw him over from the 15th floor.”

The local media branded the Australians “killers”. From the relative comfort of home in Australia, they hired a Peru-based legal team to defend them.

The Peru Six, the primary suspects in Rodriguez’s death, have always maintained their innocence. Picture: AAP/Facebook

STUCK IN LEGAL LIMBO

The Peru Six, as they came to be known, maintained they had little contact with Rodriguez and absolutely no involvement in his death.

The travellers were unpacking groceries in their hotel room when brothers Hugh and Tom “heard something” and rushed to the window, where they saw that the doorman had fallen to his death on the footpath below.

“[We] just heard a thud, enough to look out the window and see a body on the ground, which was pretty horrific,” Hugh Hanlon told the ABC in 2013.

Jessica Vo, who was holidaying in South America to celebrate her recovery from ovarian cancer, told the ABC the initial questioning by police was difficult.

“There was a big language barrier there which made it quite difficult, but basically we told them all we know, which was nothing — there wasn’t anything we could say,” she said.

“The following day we had a visit from the last police officer. [We were] supposed to be providing our official statements.

“At that time we felt a little bit uneasy. He was questioning if we knew anything more, which obviously we didn’t, and that’s when alarm bells started ringing.”

After Rodriguez’s family successfully campaigned for police to reopen the investigation into his death, evidence against the Australians was slim. It included a $10 Australian banknote that was found in the dead man’s pocket — but which later went missing — and a footprint on a small window of the group’s hotel room.

The group engaged a United Nations forensic expert who said in a report it “wasn’t physically possible’’ for them to be involved in Rodriguez’s death.

Still, the group was aware the Peruvian public was turning against them.

“I started getting Facebook messages rolling in, lots of them in Spanish,” Harrison Geier told the ABC.

The Aussies were branded killers by Peru’s media.

“Afterwards I got a link to Peruvian television segment ... [I] didn’t need to speak Spanish in order to know what it was about.”

In June 2013, after having returned home to Australia, the Peru Six were named by a Lima judge as the prime suspects in the case and threatened with an Interpol arrest warrant and extradition to Peru.

They hired a Peru-based legal team and during a protracted, four-year legal battle, they were eventually granted permission to give evidence from Australia.

‘WE FEEL OVERWHELMING RELIEF’

On Saturday, some four years and nine months after Rodriguez’s death, the Peru Six confirmed the case against them would not proceed.

They said a Lima court and senior prosecutor ruled they had nothing to do with the death of Lino Rodriguez Vilchez, and they were advised Rodriguez’s family had not appealed the ruling.

The nightmare, it appeared, was finally over for the Peru Six.

“The past four and half years have caused immense uncertainty, frustration as well as emotional and financial strain,” the group said in a message on Facebook on Saturday.

“The immeasurable stress and has left a dreadful toll on all of us. Today, we feel overwhelming relief as we close this chapter of our lives and finally move on.”

They continued: “Closer to home, all is well in our personal lives. Each of us have completed our studies and are all working in our chosen fields.

“We are looking forward to travelling freely and most importantly, to continue what will always be a lifelong friendship with each other.”

Jessica Vo, who is now based in London, said the group felt “immense relief” at the close of a living nightmare.

“It has been a torturous four years, not knowing what was in store, not being able to plan our futures,” she told the Daily Telegraph.

“We have been living life in limbo.”

If you or someone you love is in crisis or needs support right now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467.