Police seeking three Australians after ‘suspicious’ death of Byron Haddow in Bali
News.com.au can exclusively reveal three Aussies who were partying with Byron Haddow before he died left Indonesia before cops could interview them.
Indonesian police wish to speak to three Australians who partied with a young tradie hours before he was found dead in a Balinese pool.
News.com.au exclusively revealed last week that 23-year-old Byron Haddow died in a luxury villa in Bali in May in circumstances that have been described as “suspicious” by a coroner in Indonesia.
Byron’s heart was removed during a clinical autopsy conducted at Professor Ngoerah General Hospital – a procedure known as ‘organ retention’ that was carried out in accordance with Indonesian medical practices and law.
However, his parents weren’t told and only discovered the organ was missing after a second autopsy was carried out by the Queensland Coroner’s Court.
A heart supplied by the hospital was later repatriated to Australia – at the family’s expense – and is now undergoing DNA testing.
Now, news.com.au can reveal that three Australians who were partying with Byron the night before he died left Indonesia before authorities had a chance to interview them – creating a critical gap in the investigation. There is no suggestion the trio were responsible for the man’s death.
In a police report, seen by news.com.au in Bali, officers said there were three witnesses sought by police.
Bali police claim four days passed before they were notified of the death, during which time the scene was contaminated.
“That villa would have been full of evidence, but a police report was never filed and the villa was completely stripped and cleaned,” Chantal Haddow, Byron’s mother, told news.com.au.
“Too much time has now passed and as far as the police investigation goes, it’s been a joke. CCTV footage from the villa could have provided vital information but it wasn’t properly reviewed and by now, it could have been wiped.
“This is the story I want to get out there,” she says.
“The way the death of an Australian citizen in the prime of his life was just swept under the carpet in Bali like it’s nothing or to protect tourism, the way they made it look like my son was just another stupid tourist who partied too hard.
“But it’s obvious to me that someone attacked him. He had a blow to his head, so he had probably been knocked out. The culprit then put him in the pool to try to make it look like he had drowned.”
Ms Haddow has holidayed in Bali all her life but now vows never to return.
Wall of silence
Haddow, a FIFO mine worker from Noosa, flew to Bali for what was supposed to be a fun-filled 10-day holiday with an acquaintance from Melbourne.
On the night of May 25, Haddow and the man went out drinking in Bali and met two Australian women from Melbourne.
The autopsy in Bali revealed Haddow had consumed a large amount of alcohol before he died, in addition to duloxetine, an antidepressant.
Haddow did not have a prescription for the drug that was likely obtained from a pharmacy in Bali, some of which illegally sell drugs like ketamine and duloxetine over-the-counter sans prescriptions.
Later in the evening, all four Australians retired to Bamila Villa, a two-bedroom house that Haddow and the other man had rented for their stay.
In the morning, Byron was found floating unresponsively in the pool with a bloody nose and more than a dozen cuts and bruises on his body, face and head.
And while the coroner in Bali concluded that the combined effect of “ethanol” (alcohol) and duloxetine could have prevented Haddow from escaping from the pool, the cuts and bruises, apparently committed by impacts with “blunt objects,” have also led the coroner to suspect Haddow’s death might not have been an accident.
“I wasn’t able to conclude whether it was an accident, suicide or homicide,” the coroner told news.com.au.
New.com.au does not suggest these three Australians were in any way involved in Haddow’s death or committed any crimes in Indonesia. We reached out to them and they declined to comment.
The managers of Bamila Villa told news.com.au, “We are unable to provide any comments or confirmation about past individual incidents, as this is outside of our scope to disclose.”
One of the Melbourne women could not be reached for comment.
The other woman refused comment while at the same time demanding to know how we got her name.
The male acquaintance offered a similar reply, asking, “I am interested to know how you got my address?”
We subsequently received a message from a lawyer for the man who said her client would not be making any public statement and threatened to sue anyone who made “false assertions based on incomplete or simply wrong information”.
The Australian Federal Police, which is investigating Haddow’s death, has interviewed the trio and also refused to comment and forwarded inquiries to the Coroners Court of Queensland. “The CCQ confirms the death of Mr Byron [Haddow] has been referred to CCQ by the Attorney-General in Queensland. As this matter is currently an open coronial investigation, no further information can be provided at this time,” the court said.
Balinese police said they had made multiple attempts to interview the male acquaintance in person in Indonesia. In an email sent to Balinese police inspector Degi, who like many Indonesians only goes by one name, the man wrote, “While I understand and respect the procedures of the Balinese Police, I am not in a position to return at this time, as I am still grieving the loss of my friend”.
The man then requested police in Bali contact the Australian consulate in Bali “to seek their assistance in facilitating the provision of my statement from Australia”, adding that “to help expedite the process, I will begin preparing a draft statement”.
That statement has not yet been received, and the Australian Consulate has not provided any statements or information.
The investigation appeared to have little impetus until news.com.au broke the story about Haddow’s missing heart, which has been republished by dozens of other news outlets in Australia and around the world.
But after the story went viral on social media in Indonesia and attracted the attention of politicians, police in Bali began taking action, releasing a statement on Wednesday that publicly identified the three Australians as being witnesses they would like to question.
“Investigators will then co-ordinate with the Australian Consulate regarding the presence of three Australian citizens,” the statement said, which is understood to mean that they want Australia to bring the trio to Indonesia for questioning.
Connecting the dots
News.com.au has gained some insight into what happened after Haddow’s body was found from a former colleague and friend of Haddow’s who introduced him to the male acquaintance.
“I was working the night shift and had received a few calls from (the acquaintance) that morning, but hadn’t answered because I was asleep,” the man, who asked not to be named, told news.com.au. “I rang back when I woke up and all he said was ‘Byron’s gone’.”
“I said, ‘What do you mean he’s gone?’. Then (he) said he woke up from his sleep and couldn’t find Byron anywhere, went searching around the villa, then went out to the pool and found Byron lying at the bottom of the pool, all yellow-looking and bleeding from the nose. He said he then jumped in to retrieve Byron and got the two girls that were there to hold Byron up on the side of the pool while he ran to the local medic or shop to get some help,” he said.
He added that the man sounded shocked and that his mother was flying to Bali to support him.
According to various sources, the man ran to a medical centre and told them of what had happened.
Shortly later, a medical team and ambulance arrived at the villa and attempted, unsuccessfully, to resuscitate Byron.
They then transferred the body to BIMC private hospital, where a death certificate was issued, noting the cause of death as drowning.
By the following day, all three witnesses and the man’s mother had left Indonesia. Police claim they were not notified of the death until May 30 – four days after Haddow died. Another four days passed before the autopsy was conducted.
“The autopsy results, coupled with the fact that despite the victim’s condition, the witnesses at the scene did not immediately report the incident, reinforce the suspicion of an unnatural death,” said Ni Luh Arie Ratna Sukasari, director of Malekat Hukum law firm, the Haddows’ legal representatives in Bali, in a statement to the press.
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“Moreover, police allowed the three Australian nationals present in the villa to leave Bali without interrogation and without providing any account of the events leading to Byron’s death. The police have stated they require assistance from the Australian Consulate to secure statements from these three witnesses. However, it is deeply concerning that, to date, the Consulate has not provided any response.
She added: “We affirm that what happened to Byron Haddow is a grave matter of law, ethics, and humanity. Our client, the Haddows, will continue to pursue justice until the truth is fully uncovered.”
Dave Smith is an alibi used to protect the author’s real identity over fears of reprisals.
