When Romeo and I left the hospital morgue, we headed to the shopping plaza in Coolangatta and walked into the darkened and quiet courtyard. There was nobody around and the shops were all closed up. There was not a trace of evidence to show what had occurred there that afternoon, but I knew instinctively where Dean had fallen. I stood in that spot and looked up at the balcony and night sky above, feeling bewildered and numb.
It was close to 3 o’clock in the morning by the time we got to the hotel and checked in. I hardly slept at all before we had to go out again. I remember standing under the shower stream and bawling, the heaviness in my heart weighing on me.
No matter what happened, the one thing I did know was that Dean would not have suicided. The truth is I will never know for sure 100% what happened to my brother. I wasn’t there and we never found the people who had been travelling with him to talk to. Even if I was there and saw everything that happened, I could never be certain what was going on in his mind. I knew in my heart of hearts that my brother would not take his own life. Not now. Not where he was in his life. He loved life and he loved his sons. I believe the fact that he died on his son’s birthday is proof enough that it was an accident. He would never take his life on his son’s birthday.
It did not add up. He had hired a small car in Byron Bay and was on his way to visit his sons while they were staying with their grandmother during the school holidays. He had gifts for them in the car. Besides, who would attempt suicide by jumping roughly eight metres into a shopping plaza courtyard? Why would he seek the help of others if he was intent on suicide? It just didn’t make sense. I had to get to the bottom of the story. I had to find out exactly what happened to him. Whilst I couldn’t believe that he would commit suicide, I still could not be sure that I was not just in denial as his sister. Did I not want to hear the truth or was the truth out there, but no one else would look for it?
After leaving the police station the next morning having given a statement and collecting Dean’s belongings, Romeo and I went to the scene of the accident at the plaza to retrace my brother’s steps. We interviewed any witnesses we could find that had contact with him on that dreadful day. It was an extremely emotional experience, with Dean’s death still very raw. Talking to these strangers triggered my grief on numerous occasions. At times, I had to have a private moment to cry, then I had to pull myself together before entering another shop or office to talk to more people. Wanting to get to the bottom of what had happened to Dean was driving me to continue, despite my grief making me want to sit down and cry. It was good that I had Romeo there, on my own I probably would not have been able to cope with going through the process. Romeo felt just as strong-minded and motivated as me about getting to the truth.
We spoke to the hotel concierge who saw Dean emerge from the car park ramp. We spoke to shop keepers and the people who worked in the offices who had direct interactions with Dean. People were kind and sympathetic towards us. Two of the women who worked in an office on the floor where Dean jumped from, took us for a coffee. They were of the opinion that Dean may have been having a psychotic episode. At that moment, I didn’t know what to think. I knew that he smoked marijuana and it may have triggered something, but I’d never seen him have an episode before. At that stage, we didn’t have all the information and my emotional responses were driving me from one speculation to another about what had happened.
The man who had the last contact with Dean before he went over the railing would not talk to me. He remained behind closed doors in his office, too troubled to see me as a result of what had occurred. His wife spoke to me and told me what happened. She told me how Dean had tried to embrace her husband, but because they thought he was either crazy or on drugs they had pushed him away and locked him outside their office. She told us how sorry they were for what happened, but at the time they were afraid. She cried while Romeo and I stood there and listened to her story and I realised Dean’s death impacted a lot of people, not only his family and friends.
All these discussions did not tell me what I really needed to know; why was Dean acting that way? Romeo and I placed a wreath in the plaza’s courtyard garden near where Dean fell. I felt it was the right thing to do. I wanted people to know my brother was loved and he was someone special. He wasn’t just an “unknown male” as written on his hospital and police files. To those people in the shopping plaza he was a stranger who had come into their space acting weird, and had an accident. I wanted those people to know that Dean was someone who was cared about, a normal person.
Over the next couple of weeks I spoke to everyone in Byron Bay who had spent time with my brother. The taxi driver who picked him up from our campsite, the beach house manager where Dean stayed after he left our campsite, new friends we had made in Byron Bay and musicians Dean spent time with from the festival.
I believe some crucial information came from Jamie, the beach house manager in Byron Bay where Dean had stayed the night before his death. On that night Dean received a blow to the head from a man that took offence to something Dean did. Dean was acting drunk and danced on the table in the outdoor barbeque area. I’d never known Dean to be in a fight, not ever in his life, except for maybe a school yard kafuffle when he was a teenager, so getting hit was an unusual occurrence for him. A short while later Dean had a fit, frothing at the mouth, and then passed out on the lounge room floor. Jamie called it a white out. The manager called for an ambulance but while he was on the phone, Dean recovered consciousness, stood to his feet, said he was okay and went to bed. The ambulance was cancelled.
The manager said that the following morning, Dean was sorry for his behaviour and felt embarrassed. Before Dean left, the manager said to Dean “let me call Anna” but Dean turned his phone off and wouldn’t listen to Jamie. Dean was tearful and left the beach house. I was already back in Sydney at this stage. I wish the manager had called me.
Deidre, our friend from the beach house told me that Dean said he felt free and liberated. They’d been to the art gallery and pub for dinner and he seemed normal. Dean had met several musicians from the festival and been invited to various get-togethers during the last days and after the festival. He’d made some plans with musicians and it sounded like he was having a ball. One of the musicians, whose house Dean had been at with a group of other musicians one night, told me that Dean was calm and relaxed, not intoxicated, and one of the most interesting people he’d met.
One piece at a time I began putting together the events and circumstances that lead to the final outcome. I made notes from all the witnesses we interviewed at Coolangatta and the conversations with people in Byron Bay and others back in Sydney who had spent time with Dean at Byron Bay. I had the autopsy explained by the scientific forensic professionals, who were generous with their time. I spoke to medical professionals to get an explanation of what the autopsy showed and to try and work out credible explanations of his symptoms and actions before his death. We acquired Dean’s medical and police records. All this took many months and the waiting for documents, and some clear explanation, dragged on.
All of this investigation showed that something was happening to Dean before he went over that railing. Dean’s symptoms and behaviour, including his inability to speak coherently, his state of mind, bumping into walls and the manner in which he jumped over the railing, indicate something was wrong. The walking backwards and forwards and walking into objects, such as the low wall of the car park ramp and the concrete column, show this confusion. All of his actions in the shopping plaza support that something was wrong with his condition. He could not talk coherently, but some words were understandable.
At the time of Dean’s death, some relatives, friends and acquaintances formulated theories and drew their own conclusion. They talked about him having a psychotic episode, being a drug user, and that he committed suicide. One of the medical professionals I spoke to was the senior forensic toxicologist who analysed the specimens from Dean’s autopsy. He told me that according to the thorough and complete tests that they undertook, my brother was not on drugs. I was told that based on the test results he had not smoked marijuana on that day. THC, the active chemical in marijuana, is quickly metabolised. His reading was very low, meaning he’d consumed marijuana in the recent past but not that day. This conversation was a relief to me and my family, as it ruled out one possible cause: drugs. The only drugs present were the pain killers administered by the hospital after he was admitted. However, while I searched for answers and I waited for this report, even I pondered that he may have been on some mind altering drug because I just couldn’t understand why he jumped over the railing. And we still had no idea who the people with him were and what they may have been encouraging him to do.
What happened to Dean the night before he died is possibly very significant information as to what I believe did happen. The blow to his head at the beach house may have caused an aneurysm, causing bleeding on his brain. The way he was acting at the shopping plaza illustrates typical symptoms and would account for the subsequent events that followed on that dreadful day. Indeed a Frenchman, a backpacking traveller, punched my brother in the head and that action may have contributed to his death. I felt disgusted with this unknown person, who because of his anger at how my brother was behaving may well have taken my brother away from me.
Our own blood is toxic to the brain, causing synapses to misfire which effects proper functioning. If the punch from the backpacker triggered an aneurysm in Dean’s head to burst, this would account for his collapse and the fit he suffered later that evening. If it was bleeding as he was driving through Coolangatta, the way he was behaving aligns with the symptoms of that bleeding and brain injury. I recall a news report in 2010, where a teenage boy died the day after he was punched in the head. The boy went home, posted on Facebook, went to sleep and never woke up.
Later when I was having counselling it was explained to me as follows. Imagine a brick wall with one loose brick. The wall will remain standing strong, however, should that one brick be knocked out, it could bring down the wall. So that punch to my brother’s head set in motion all the bricks to come tumbling down. Without that punch, he may not have had the bleeding in his brain and he may still be here today. With his brain sending him the wrong messages, disorientated and confused from the responses of people from whom he sought help, Dean was looking for where next he could get help. His brain was telling him to just jump over a small barrier. It was not telling him he was 8 metres above the ground. Upon entering the plaza from the street, there were stairs leading down to the lower level and there were stairs leading up to the balcony where Dean stood in his final moments. Having stood in the same spot as my brother, the split level design of the plaza gave the illusion that could have been interpreted as ground level being closer than it actually was and thereby only a small leap away. I could see how he could have thought that in the moment.
Seven months after my brother’s death I received a letter which helped me put an important part of the matter to rest in my heart and mind. I sobbed when I received the letter from the State Coroner. It expressed empathy and understanding on a level I hadn’t received from any other professional source during the investigations. In the letter the Coroner wrote: “You stated in one of your letters that you and Dean were much closer than other siblings and I can appreciate that from the effort and commitment you have shown seeking to have the investigation widened. It appears from what I read that you were close in life and remain that way even now.” The final sentence was the key element of the letter for me: “I am satisfied that there is no evidence to suggest your brother intended to take his life.” Even though I knew this truth, I felt it was important to have it in writing, because I would have a letter to show Dean’s children one day. I wanted something concrete to show his boys that their father’s death was an accident. I knew that when the boys were older they would have questions and they would want to know about their father and they might come to me looking for those answers.
It was close to 3 o’clock in the morning by the time we got to the hotel and checked in. I hardly slept at all before we had to go out again. I remember standing under the shower stream and bawling, the heaviness in my heart weighing on me.
No matter what happened, the one thing I did know was that Dean would not have suicided. The truth is I will never know for sure 100% what happened to my brother. I wasn’t there and we never found the people who had been travelling with him to talk to. Even if I was there and saw everything that happened, I could never be certain what was going on in his mind. I knew in my heart of hearts that my brother would not take his own life. Not now. Not where he was in his life. He loved life and he loved his sons. I believe the fact that he died on his son’s birthday is proof enough that it was an accident. He would never take his life on his son’s birthday.
It did not add up. He had hired a small car in Byron Bay and was on his way to visit his sons while they were staying with their grandmother during the school holidays. He had gifts for them in the car. Besides, who would attempt suicide by jumping roughly eight metres into a shopping plaza courtyard? Why would he seek the help of others if he was intent on suicide? It just didn’t make sense. I had to get to the bottom of the story. I had to find out exactly what happened to him. Whilst I couldn’t believe that he would commit suicide, I still could not be sure that I was not just in denial as his sister. Did I not want to hear the truth or was the truth out there, but no one else would look for it?
After leaving the police station the next morning having given a statement and collecting Dean’s belongings, Romeo and I went to the scene of the accident at the plaza to retrace my brother’s steps. We interviewed any witnesses we could find that had contact with him on that dreadful day. It was an extremely emotional experience, with Dean’s death still very raw. Talking to these strangers triggered my grief on numerous occasions. At times, I had to have a private moment to cry, then I had to pull myself together before entering another shop or office to talk to more people. Wanting to get to the bottom of what had happened to Dean was driving me to continue, despite my grief making me want to sit down and cry. It was good that I had Romeo there, on my own I probably would not have been able to cope with going through the process. Romeo felt just as strong-minded and motivated as me about getting to the truth.
We spoke to the hotel concierge who saw Dean emerge from the car park ramp. We spoke to shop keepers and the people who worked in the offices who had direct interactions with Dean. People were kind and sympathetic towards us. Two of the women who worked in an office on the floor where Dean jumped from, took us for a coffee. They were of the opinion that Dean may have been having a psychotic episode. At that moment, I didn’t know what to think. I knew that he smoked marijuana and it may have triggered something, but I’d never seen him have an episode before. At that stage, we didn’t have all the information and my emotional responses were driving me from one speculation to another about what had happened.
The man who had the last contact with Dean before he went over the railing would not talk to me. He remained behind closed doors in his office, too troubled to see me as a result of what had occurred. His wife spoke to me and told me what happened. She told me how Dean had tried to embrace her husband, but because they thought he was either crazy or on drugs they had pushed him away and locked him outside their office. She told us how sorry they were for what happened, but at the time they were afraid. She cried while Romeo and I stood there and listened to her story and I realised Dean’s death impacted a lot of people, not only his family and friends.
All these discussions did not tell me what I really needed to know; why was Dean acting that way? Romeo and I placed a wreath in the plaza’s courtyard garden near where Dean fell. I felt it was the right thing to do. I wanted people to know my brother was loved and he was someone special. He wasn’t just an “unknown male” as written on his hospital and police files. To those people in the shopping plaza he was a stranger who had come into their space acting weird, and had an accident. I wanted those people to know that Dean was someone who was cared about, a normal person.
Over the next couple of weeks I spoke to everyone in Byron Bay who had spent time with my brother. The taxi driver who picked him up from our campsite, the beach house manager where Dean stayed after he left our campsite, new friends we had made in Byron Bay and musicians Dean spent time with from the festival.
I believe some crucial information came from Jamie, the beach house manager in Byron Bay where Dean had stayed the night before his death. On that night Dean received a blow to the head from a man that took offence to something Dean did. Dean was acting drunk and danced on the table in the outdoor barbeque area. I’d never known Dean to be in a fight, not ever in his life, except for maybe a school yard kafuffle when he was a teenager, so getting hit was an unusual occurrence for him. A short while later Dean had a fit, frothing at the mouth, and then passed out on the lounge room floor. Jamie called it a white out. The manager called for an ambulance but while he was on the phone, Dean recovered consciousness, stood to his feet, said he was okay and went to bed. The ambulance was cancelled.
The manager said that the following morning, Dean was sorry for his behaviour and felt embarrassed. Before Dean left, the manager said to Dean “let me call Anna” but Dean turned his phone off and wouldn’t listen to Jamie. Dean was tearful and left the beach house. I was already back in Sydney at this stage. I wish the manager had called me.
Deidre, our friend from the beach house told me that Dean said he felt free and liberated. They’d been to the art gallery and pub for dinner and he seemed normal. Dean had met several musicians from the festival and been invited to various get-togethers during the last days and after the festival. He’d made some plans with musicians and it sounded like he was having a ball. One of the musicians, whose house Dean had been at with a group of other musicians one night, told me that Dean was calm and relaxed, not intoxicated, and one of the most interesting people he’d met.
One piece at a time I began putting together the events and circumstances that lead to the final outcome. I made notes from all the witnesses we interviewed at Coolangatta and the conversations with people in Byron Bay and others back in Sydney who had spent time with Dean at Byron Bay. I had the autopsy explained by the scientific forensic professionals, who were generous with their time. I spoke to medical professionals to get an explanation of what the autopsy showed and to try and work out credible explanations of his symptoms and actions before his death. We acquired Dean’s medical and police records. All this took many months and the waiting for documents, and some clear explanation, dragged on.
All of this investigation showed that something was happening to Dean before he went over that railing. Dean’s symptoms and behaviour, including his inability to speak coherently, his state of mind, bumping into walls and the manner in which he jumped over the railing, indicate something was wrong. The walking backwards and forwards and walking into objects, such as the low wall of the car park ramp and the concrete column, show this confusion. All of his actions in the shopping plaza support that something was wrong with his condition. He could not talk coherently, but some words were understandable.
At the time of Dean’s death, some relatives, friends and acquaintances formulated theories and drew their own conclusion. They talked about him having a psychotic episode, being a drug user, and that he committed suicide. One of the medical professionals I spoke to was the senior forensic toxicologist who analysed the specimens from Dean’s autopsy. He told me that according to the thorough and complete tests that they undertook, my brother was not on drugs. I was told that based on the test results he had not smoked marijuana on that day. THC, the active chemical in marijuana, is quickly metabolised. His reading was very low, meaning he’d consumed marijuana in the recent past but not that day. This conversation was a relief to me and my family, as it ruled out one possible cause: drugs. The only drugs present were the pain killers administered by the hospital after he was admitted. However, while I searched for answers and I waited for this report, even I pondered that he may have been on some mind altering drug because I just couldn’t understand why he jumped over the railing. And we still had no idea who the people with him were and what they may have been encouraging him to do.
What happened to Dean the night before he died is possibly very significant information as to what I believe did happen. The blow to his head at the beach house may have caused an aneurysm, causing bleeding on his brain. The way he was acting at the shopping plaza illustrates typical symptoms and would account for the subsequent events that followed on that dreadful day. Indeed a Frenchman, a backpacking traveller, punched my brother in the head and that action may have contributed to his death. I felt disgusted with this unknown person, who because of his anger at how my brother was behaving may well have taken my brother away from me.
Our own blood is toxic to the brain, causing synapses to misfire which effects proper functioning. If the punch from the backpacker triggered an aneurysm in Dean’s head to burst, this would account for his collapse and the fit he suffered later that evening. If it was bleeding as he was driving through Coolangatta, the way he was behaving aligns with the symptoms of that bleeding and brain injury. I recall a news report in 2010, where a teenage boy died the day after he was punched in the head. The boy went home, posted on Facebook, went to sleep and never woke up.
Later when I was having counselling it was explained to me as follows. Imagine a brick wall with one loose brick. The wall will remain standing strong, however, should that one brick be knocked out, it could bring down the wall. So that punch to my brother’s head set in motion all the bricks to come tumbling down. Without that punch, he may not have had the bleeding in his brain and he may still be here today. With his brain sending him the wrong messages, disorientated and confused from the responses of people from whom he sought help, Dean was looking for where next he could get help. His brain was telling him to just jump over a small barrier. It was not telling him he was 8 metres above the ground. Upon entering the plaza from the street, there were stairs leading down to the lower level and there were stairs leading up to the balcony where Dean stood in his final moments. Having stood in the same spot as my brother, the split level design of the plaza gave the illusion that could have been interpreted as ground level being closer than it actually was and thereby only a small leap away. I could see how he could have thought that in the moment.
Seven months after my brother’s death I received a letter which helped me put an important part of the matter to rest in my heart and mind. I sobbed when I received the letter from the State Coroner. It expressed empathy and understanding on a level I hadn’t received from any other professional source during the investigations. In the letter the Coroner wrote: “You stated in one of your letters that you and Dean were much closer than other siblings and I can appreciate that from the effort and commitment you have shown seeking to have the investigation widened. It appears from what I read that you were close in life and remain that way even now.” The final sentence was the key element of the letter for me: “I am satisfied that there is no evidence to suggest your brother intended to take his life.” Even though I knew this truth, I felt it was important to have it in writing, because I would have a letter to show Dean’s children one day. I wanted something concrete to show his boys that their father’s death was an accident. I knew that when the boys were older they would have questions and they would want to know about their father and they might come to me looking for those answers.
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