Into the Darkness

by Robin Bowles

  Finally, there was the Stilnox, Galbally said. Ant had confirmed that he’d taken the Stilnox tablets to work on 1 December. He didn’t say whether he’d taken the Stilnox with him first thing in the morning or later, after he’d gone back to check on Phoebe.

  Galbally also offered a brief bit of video footage of Phoebe ‘in action’. He said, ‘It’s very short. It was taken in Bali and it shows Phoebe climbing down a tree and a Balinese man singing. I don’t know whether it has any relevance or significance, but I made it available in the event that anybody wants to access it and have a copy of it.’

  To demonstrate her climbing prowess, no doubt.

  So, I wrote, two things out of that. If the candles were still burning when Ant got home, did anyone do an estimate of how long they’d been burning? The burning period could indicate when Phoebe was still alive, as presumably, she lit them. Also, the Stilnox in her system was already around 36 hours old. I guessed we were about to hear about the absorption and excretion rates from our team of experts.

  They were Professor Olaf Drummer, Dr Morris Odell, and Associate Professor Narum Gunja, who was appearing by video link. The idea was that the three of them would operate as a panel, each answering questions in his area of expertise. I thought it was a pretty smart way to deal with expert evidence. I hadn’t encountered it before and gave the Coroner a big tick.

  All were affirmed. Odell went first. He told the court he was a forensic physician at the Clinical Division of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. A friendly-looking man with a head of hair many men his age would envy, he had a lot of letters after his name, including a toxicology diploma.

  Professor Olaf Drummer told the court he was head of Forensic Scientific Services in the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University. I’d encountered Professor Drummer a few times during my writing career. He looked a bit like one of those actors who play the Swedish detective Kurt Wallander, with a greying beard a bit like kiwifruit skin. He was softly and sparsely spoken, and gave the impression he’d take no nonsense. He’d had a long and distinguished career at the Institute of Forensic Medicine before becoming a professor at Monash. His areas of expertise were chemistry and pharmacology.

  Associate Professor Narum Gunja beamed at us from a high video screen. His round, smiling face, which was pretty much all we could see of him, didn’t look old enough to have reached Associate Professor status. He was an associate professor at the Westmead campus of Sydney Medical School, and his speciality was clinical toxicology.

  Ms Siemensma began by asking the expert witnesses to comment on whether it was possible to tell when Phoebe had taken the prescription drugs found in her system — Stilnox and the antidepressant Cymbalta.

  Dr Odell told the court that the three of them had discussed this, and they all felt that it was impossible to tell when she’d taken the medications.

  Ms Siemensma then asked whether the concentrations suggested an attempted overdose.

  Dr Odell replied that it didn’t seem she’d taken a ‘massively large amount’ of either of the medications.

  Professor Drummer broke in to say that he felt the concentration of Cymbalta was on the high side of what you’d expect with normal therapeutic usage, but he cautioned that the concentration of drugs found in a body after death could be very different from that when the person was alive, especially if there had been considerable loss of blood, as in Phoebe’s case.

  Associate Professor Gunja said that the amount of Stilnox in her system — 0.2 mg per litre of blood — suggested one of two things: ‘It’s either that she took a couple of tablets therapeutically on the day she died, or she took an overdose many hours before she died and it has slowly metabolised.’ He said it couldn’t have come from taking two Stilnox pills the day before.

  But if Ant had removed the drug from the apartment on the morning of 1 December, how could there still have been such a level in her system?

  The Coroner remarked that he understood the effects of Stilnox were quite short-lived.

  Associate Professor Gunja replied that the drug would only put you to sleep for three or four hours, but ‘it will have effects on your body even up to ten hours after you’ve taken it in terms of, you know, body balance and posture, ability to perform tasks’.

  Ms Siemensma introduced a video from the CCTV taken during the first fire alarm on 2 December, showing Phoebe walking back into the building. She asked the three doctors, ‘Are you able to comment whether or not Phoebe appears to be under the influence of substances at that time?’

  Dr Odell said he couldn’t see any indication that she was intoxicated. ‘She appears to be behaving quite normally for what she’s doing,’ he said. ‘You know, she’s not falling about. She’s not really bouncing off the walls. She’s not collapsing. She doesn’t seem to be walking too slowly or anything like that. She’s able to rummage around in her bag. It doesn’t look like she’s able to find what she’s looking for initially, but she’s not doing it in a disorganised way.’

  Associate Professor Gunja agreed. He said Phoebe wasn’t acting like someone during the peak phase of Stilnox influence, though it was possible that she was on the tail end of the effects.

  Ms Siemensma then moved on to the question of bizarre behaviours that have been associated with Stilnox, where people who are apparently asleep have gone for a walk or even driven a car. She asked, ‘Are the reported adverse incidents activities that a person would ordinarily do, or can they also include behaviour that is out of the ordinary?’

  Associate Professor Gunja remarked that with very few exceptions, these ‘parasomnia’ events, as they were called, involved routine tasks. He added, ‘There have been reports of sleep-cleaning as well, where people woke up in the middle of the night, cleaned up the house, and then in the morning … thought the cleaner had come in the middle of the night.’ He also said that these kinds of events could come out of the blue. Someone who’d been taking Stilnox without side effects for years could suddenly experience a parasomnia event.

  Dr Odell remarked that this kind of behaviour ‘brings dreams to life, if you like, so people don’t just experience dreams in their mind but actually go out and act on them’.

  Professor Drummer added that the likelihood of these events could also be affected by a person’s consumption of other drugs.

  The Coroner asked whether alcohol had that effect.

  Professor Drummer replied that he wasn’t sure, though obviously alcohol had other adverse effects, for example on cognitive functions, psychomotor functions, and sleepiness. He said the reason there were warnings on Stilnox packets about the danger of combining the drug with alcohol was that it could ‘extend sedation into a deeper state’.

  Associate Professor Gunja agreed. He said, ‘Alcohol and zolpidem [Stilnox] together potentiate each other’s effects on sedation, ability to think clearly, and body balance and posture.’

  Ms Siemensma observed that Phoebe had previously reported having suicidal thoughts. How would the cocktail of drugs in her system affect that?

  Professor Drummer was first to reply. ‘If a person is in a suicidal state,’ he said, ‘whatever their thought processes are, they’re likely to be somewhat scrambled or affected by the presence of drugs, unfortunately … These drugs cause disinhibition — people’s ability to control their emotions and behaviours is reduced by the presence of alcohol with those concentrations, and indeed additional presence of zolpidem [Stilnox]. So that does affect one’s state of mind and ability to make rational considered decisions about those actions during that period of intoxication.’ He said that someone with the alcohol and Stilnox levels in Phoebe’s system could well be asleep, or they might be conscious and doing things, though not as well as they normally would.

  That comment seems to have prompted Ms Siemensma to ask, ‘Can you comment on whether it was physically possible for Phoebe to enter the chute unassist
ed?’

  Associate Professor Gunja and Dr Odell both tried to reply at the same time. In the end, Gunja had first go. He said, ‘All I can say is that, however difficult it may be for someone to get in unassisted without the drugs, having the drugs on board would make that even more difficult.’

  Dr Odell agreed, but with a caveat. He pointed out that when a person was drinking, their motor control was the last thing affected. ‘People who drink alcohol have their finer activities, like thinking and decision-making and so on, affected earlier than their control of their muscles … So if a person has consumed alcohol to the point where they’ve — you know, where they’ve got problems with their thinking and decision-making, it might not necessarily have effects on their motor function, depending on their individual tolerance.’

  Ms Siemensma asked if it was possible that Phoebe had climbed down the chute in a controlled way with that cocktail of drugs in her system.

  Associate Professor Gunja said it wouldn’t be easy, and the drugs would make it harder.

  Professor Drummer pointed out that the environment would be extremely unforgiving. If you misapplied pressure on the side of the chute, you’d fall straight down.

  Alone among the medicos, Dr Odell had actually seen the rubbish chute. He hadn’t contributed to the discussion for a few minutes because he’d been preoccupied, as he explained. ‘I’ve just been having a look at Dr Lynch’s autopsy report where he describes the external inspection of the upper limbs, and he doesn’t talk about dirt stains or anything like that. My recollection of that chute was it was a pretty dirty environment, and if you’d been pressing up against the wall to try and control your movements, you’d end up with very dirty hands.’

  Mr Moglia stood up to ask his questions. The crucial one came at the end: ‘Do I take it that there is no basis on the material that you’ve seen that would allow you to conclude one way or the other whether or not Phoebe put herself into the chute?’

  Dr Odell said, ‘I don’t think I can take that any further.’

  Professor Drummer said, ‘I agree.’

  Associate Professor Gunja said, ‘I mean, if the levels were sky high, off the roof, and I’ve never seen any human being be awake at this level — yes, which is a point of impossibility. But at these levels, we can’t say that.’

  So, at the end of the day, Los Trios Medicos agreed that Phoebe’s level of intoxication would have made any efforts to enter the chute unaided more difficult, but couldn’t comment further on whether she’d put herself in the chute, or had been placed in the chute.

  That’s the trouble with experts. They’ll rarely commit in case another expert comes along and disagrees with them. Getting three experts to agree at all was quite an achievement, and although their opinion wasn’t what anyone might have wished for, the door to an open finding was still ajar.

  *

  I’d taken to walking round the city at lunchtime, as sitting and scribbling for hours makes me feel like doing something active. I’d also discovered a great little op-shop a block from the court (pretty rare in the city!). I could lose myself in there any day.

  But soon it was back to the reality of the inquest, where Dr Matthew Lynch was sworn in. More medical evidence.

  While he was on the stand, Natalie left the room at Moglia’s request. The lawyer explained that what Dr Lynch had to say might be upsetting for her, and he wanted to be able to concentrate all his attention on the pathologist’s evidence.

  Dr Lynch took us through every stage of his autopsy. When the mortuary receives a body, it has a CAT scan first thing. This detects internal injuries as well as obvious external ones so that the pathologist knows where to be especially careful as he is dissecting. Items in pockets are also detected, along with any jewellery, so that if some grieving relative accuses the mortuary staff of nicking Grandpa’s pocket watch, it can be clearly demonstrated that Grandpa’s watch wasn’t in his pocket when he was delivered.

  Dr Lynch’s evidence pretty well covered his autopsy report, until His Honour asked a couple of questions that made me sit up.

  ‘Dr Lynch, your report says that the cause of death was multiple injuries and blood loss. Could you please comment on this hypothesis? If Phoebe went into the hatch, say, at about 6 p.m. or shortly after, from your experience is it possible that she may have bled out by, say, 7.15 when the ambulance paramedics arrive?’

  ‘Yeah, that would be possible.’

  ‘Depending on whether the person is moving or still?’

  ‘The critical factor in Phoebe’s situation is the damage to the right lower leg, which has basically severed all arteries and veins. So the issue is blood loss. If the blood loss is stemmed, then that’s a survivable injury.’

  My pen froze on the page. I didn’t know that. Not only did she survive the fall, but her injuries were survivable. She might have lost a foot, but she could have lived if treated in time.

  Dr Lynch was saying that if a person dies of blood loss, what kills them is hypovolemic shock: there’s not enough blood in the circulatory system to service the vital organs, which go into shock and shut down.

  The Coroner asked how long it would take for someone with Phoebe’s injuries to die of blood loss.

  Dr Lynch replied cautiously, ‘At one extreme, completely effective control of blood loss turns this into a survivable injury. At the other extreme, if the injury was just left untended —’

  His Honour interjected, ‘Assume the latter.’

  ‘I would have thought a matter of minutes that sufficient blood loss could occur.’

  The Coroner wanted to know how many minutes. I was surprised at this. He’d been a coroner since 2007, and you’d think he’d know that experts never commit!

  Lynch was no exception. In the end, he said, ‘In five to ten minutes that person will bleed out if not treated appropriately.’

  Having satisfied His Honour as far as possible, Lynch now faced questions from Ms Siemensma. She asked about the bruises on Phoebe’s thighs.

  Dr Lynch said that they’d looked at several things that might have produced those bruises — the machinery she’d hit as she exited the chute, or maybe the edge of the carousel causing bruises as the bin capsized.

  It was approaching knock-off time. His Honour asked Dr Lynch to return tomorrow, and Galbally had some submissions to put.

  He had several concerns about possible media reporting after his client’s appearance in court next day. ‘I haven’t invited the media,’ he assured the Coroner, but he was expecting them to be there. He therefore wanted certain information excluded from Ant’s statements when they were read out in court.

  His Honour allowed a couple of sentences to be excluded, but not as much as Galbally was seeking. He said some of the material wasn’t probative. ‘I can indicate that’s the way I’m likely to deal with it when I come to consider a verdict. But having said that I don’t, for that reason, see that I should exclude it. This is a record of things that have occurred between interested parties. A lot of it is irrelevant to matters that I must consider under the Act, and this seems to fall into that category.’

  So, Ant Hampel tomorrow. The star witness.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE BEST FRIEND

  As I suspected, a lot of Dr Lynch’s evidence the next morning was based around the bruises on Phoebe’s arms and wrists. Were they inflicted before or after death, could they have occurred before she entered the chute, how old were they, at what rate would they change colour, and could any be classified as defence injuries? Mr Moglia made the point that Dr Lynch had been told of the police hypothesis that Phoebe had put herself in the chute, and it appeared in his report, but at the end, left to his own devices, he’d allowed for the possibility that someone might have done it when she was unconscious. And since he’d written his report, he’d had another look at the photos of bruising on Phoebe’s upper arms and conceded th
at those bruises were consistent with the possibility of somebody else grabbing her there before she went into the chute.

  ‘Yes,’ Lynch agreed. The bruises were consistent with that, but there might be other explanations.

  ‘And they might or might not be examples of defensive type injuries? You couldn’t exclude them?’

  ‘Correct. I can’t say how they were sustained.’ Dr Lynch said he’d now qualify his previous statement that Phoebe had no defensive injuries.

  Moglia took him through Phoebe’s injuries one by one, asking him to comment on whether they might have been caused before the fall. He also asked about Phoebe’s level of consciousness before entering the chute. Not surprisingly, Dr Lynch couldn’t give specific answers.

  He was also asked if any of Phoebe’s injuries could have come from bracing herself as she fell. He couldn’t really say without other information about Phoebe’s agility and her level of consciousness — many factors were at play, and he wasn’t keen to venture a guess.

  The Coroner agreed. ‘This is a very, very rare and unusual event and I wouldn’t expect any pathologist to have any particular experience of how a body might react in these circumstances and what injuries might be caused in these circumstances. Perhaps you could move on.’

  Move on he did, with a long series of questions about the injuries Phoebe sustained in the compactor. The questions and answers were so clinical that you could almost forget we were hearing about such a horrible death.

  Finally, Moglia sat down and Galbally stood up. He asked if those bruises on Phoebe’s wrists and shoulders could have been caused in her wrestling with Ben Gold two days before her death?

  ‘They could be injuries sustained that peri-mortem period, going back a couple of days,’ Lynch agreed.

  He also agreed when Galbally asked him if a lot of the bruises shown in the photos could have occurred during the fall, including the passage down the chute, the exit from the chute through complicated apparatus, and then crawling around the floor afterwards.