NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage refers investigation into Douglass Maggie’s death in hot car to police

An investigation into the death of a 46-year-old man who died in a hot car in the Northern Territory has been referred to police and prosecutors.

NT Police vehicle.

An investigation into the death of a 46-year-old man who died in a hot car in the Northern Territory has been referred to police and prosecutors.

Coroner Elisabeth Armitage recommended further investigation was needed following the death of West Australian man Douglass Maggie, whose body was left on a grassy verge on Parap Rd.

Ms Armitage found Mr Maggie, who also suffered from epilepsy, likely died due to hyperthermia after falling asleep in a hot car on Halloween in 2022.

She said Mr Maggie was staying at Gray with family that morning, and was described as “happy and drunk”.

That morning he was picked up by a Prado where a group travelled around Darwin visiting family and continuing to drink.

At about 1.10pm the Prado pulled in to the car park opposite the Parap Road Store – with CCTV capturing an “unsteady” Mr Maggie.

Mr Maggie was denied service at the shop due to intoxication – and tripped and fell on the footpath after leaving the store before getting back into the vehicle.

About 20 minutes later, a friend returned to the Prado and said the windows were down and Mr Maggie was “snoring” inside.

Coroner Elisabeth Armitage outside Darwin Local Court. Picture: Zizi Averill

“He gave him a drink of water and noticed he was sweating,” the coroner’s report said.

The temperature outside reached 34C that afternoon – with Ms Armitage noting temperatures inside the car could have reached as high as 63C within an hour in the sun.

CCTV also captured the car’s hazard lights flashing on three occasions in 50 minutes to 2.52pm.

A “number of people” approached the vehicle, knocked on the window and appeared to “gesture to someone inside” during that time, Ms Armitage said.

More than three and a half hours later, the car was unlocked and the group found Mr Maggie in the front passenger seat.

Police statements said there were “conflicting and contradictory” reports if the 46-year-old was awake, asleep or unresponsive – but a woman later told Ms Armitage she had thought Mr Maggie had been “full drunk” because they could not “wake him up”.

The group left him on the grass, with Ms Armitage unable to establish if at that point Mr Maggie was sleeping, comatose or already dead.

At 8.57pm the group returned and found Mr Maggie still on the nature strip before calling triple-0.

Mr Maggie recorded an internal body temperature of 38.9C – two degrees above the normal range – and a blood-alcohol content of 0.16 which a pathologist noted that, combined with the hot temperature in the car “could have contributed/predisposed to death”.

Ms Armitage said the combination of his intoxication, history of epilepsy and hypertension, may have worsened the impact of heat stress.

The coroner said while his death was likely from hyperthermia, she could not rule out an “offence may have been committed”.

The report was referred to police and the Director of Public Prosecutions on May 30.