Sam Brown’s death: Still searching for answers to what happened on Gold Coast Highway 10 years ago
Witnesses reported hearing a screech, a thud, then ‘strange noises’. But nobody saw what happened promising sports star Sam Brown. A decade on, these are the unanswered questions about why he died.
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Something happened about 2am on November 25 a decade ago which ended with a promising young sportsman being left on the side of one of the Gold Coast’s busiest roads shoeless and with fatal head injuries.
Ten years on, authorities still do not know how Burleigh Bombers player Samuel Brown ended up there.
The 20-year-old was discovered shoeless, with severe head injuries and unconscious on the side of the Gold Coast Highway at Mermaid Beach about 2.30am on November 25, 2012.
He died later in hospital.
How he got those head injuries still remains a mystery – some experts claim he was hit by a car, others say the evidence for a hit and run is not there.
The Coroner’s Court of Queensland is still uncovering clues after a coronial inquest, which started in 2018 before being put on hold to search for more evidence.
A spokesman for the coroner’s court told the Bulletin: “A further expert report from Neurosurgeon, Dr Eric Guazzo has been obtained as to the mechanism of Samuel’s death, which is presently being considered by the Forensic Crash Unit investigator, who responded to the incident initially.
“As to whether further hearings will be convened, this will be dependent on the content of the reports and expert advice received, and in consultation with Samuel’s family, which will take place in due course.”
Queensland Police declined to comment on the case as it was before the Coroner’s Court.
The Bulletin has pieced together what is known about the hours leading up to Samuel being found.
On November 24, 2012 Samuel, who more commonly went by Sam, went to the birthday party of a mate in Broadbeach.
For Sam it wasn’t just the birthday to celebrate but he was also marking getting off crutches following a knee injury and being given a traineeship with AFL Queensland.
His mum Leanne Brown told the Bulletin in September 2015 that “everything was going right” for Sam.
“I think he was on a bit of a high celebrating, as he’d been housebound for quite a while on crutches,” she said at the time.
“He was the sort of guy that never had a bad word to say about anyone – he just loved people and everyone loved him.”
Later in the night, Sam and another mate, Robert Cosgrove, decided to walk into Broadbeach to go to the nightclubs.
Sam borrowed a friend’s shoes but they were too small and he lost them along the way.
His mobile phone battery had also died.
For years, Mr Cosgrove maintained he had “lost” Sam.
Five years after Sam’s death, Mr Cosgrove admitted he left his mate behind.
He told the Southport Coroner’s Court in March 2018 he had left Sam so he could go and meet a girl named “Kitty”.
Mr Cosgrove had met the girl online with a dating profile where he used Sam’s brother’s name.
“I was ashamed I just walked away from my mate,” Mr Cosgrove told the inquest.
Following the discovery of Sam, police were convinced his injuries were caused by a hit-and-run driver.
That day they began a search looking for the potential driver.
“It’s assumed he was hit by a vehicle, but the type of vehicle or when it happened is unknown,” a police spokeswoman said on November 27, 2012.
Two witnesses – Peter Melville and Julie Hanson – would tell police, and later give evidence in court that, they were across the road from where Sam was found.
Mr Melville reported hearing the screech of a car followed by a thud.
Ms Hanson described hearing “the oddest noise” which she struggled to describe.
Sam, a former Varsity College student and popular junior coach at the Bombers, was incredibly well liked with more than 700 people attending his funeral at the Dream Centre Christian Church in Carrara.
Family friend Wayne Hickson told the mourners about how Sam was affectionate and loving, had a special bond with his mother and idolised his brother Nick.
Mr Hickson said at the time Sam had a “warped sense of humour” and “never, ever took himself too seriously”.
It would be three years before police would get a breakthrough about what happened to Sam
In mid-2015 police received a tip-off through CrimeStoppers which led to the arrest of taxi driver Julian Hartley, who was 41 at the time.
He was charged with failing to stop at a road incident.
A year later – in March 2016 – those charges would be sensationally dropped in the midst of a hearing in the Southport Magistrates Court due to an “insufficiency” of oral evidence and “lack of forensic evidence”.
Efforts to solve what happened continued in March 2018 when the coronial inquest began in earnest in the Southport Coroner’s Court.
The hearing was told:
* Mr Cosgrove had left Sam shoeless and with a dead mobile phone battery to go and meet a woman;
* Forensic crash investigator Senior Constable Steve Cornish said Mr Cosgrove gave at least four versions of events;
* Sen Const Cornish had concluded Sam was not struck by a car because he had no injuries on his feet, there was no debris on the road and he suffered no road rash;
* Sen Const Cornish found none of the main factors which were usual in pedestrian accidents were present at the scene;
* Advanced care paramedic Jason Harris believed Sam’s injuries to be “too neat” to be from a car;
* Gold Coast University Hospital senior intensive care specialist Dr Gregory Comadira said Sam’s skull had been shattered and his brain shaken;
* Dr Comadira said the injury pattern was inconsistent with a fall from height and not consistent with being struck by a car.
After three days, the inquest took a break for two months for more specialists to be called.
At the end of the third day, Sam’s father Tim Brown made an impassioned plea to the public.
“If anyone knows anything of that night just come forward … no matter how trivial it is,” he said.
“Someone knows something and they are not telling us.
“We just want to get to the end of it.
“Finally maybe we are getting to the end of it.”
When the inquest reconvened in May 2018, the coroner’s court was told:
* Detective Sergeant Danny Vovodick was adamant Sam had been struck by a car;
* Pathologist Dianne Little, who conducted the autopsy, said it was likely Sam’s injuries were caused when he was hit by a car;
* Dr Little could not completely rule out assault but the depth of a cut under Sam’s chin was not consistent with assault;
Consultant physician and forensic expert Dr John Olsen disagreed. He ruled out that Sam was clipped by a car. He said an assault was “likely”.
Coroner Jame McDougall adjourned the inquest to “get to the bottom” of the evidence.
In December last year, the court was still waiting for another expert report and Coroner McDougall had retired.
The matter was passed onto another coroner who has been looking through the transcripts and the evidence.
Now the court has that report and is waiting for the forensic crash investigator to consider it.
That does not help Sam’s loved ones who are a decade on are still trying to work out what happened to their son, brother and friend.
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