Nigel Bom, Thefts, The Confession, and Boot-Ride: The Unexplained Death of a New Brighton Local
Episode 10 begins to tie together the stories of the four suspects and explores a potential motive for one of them to take revenge on Nigel.
On 30 March 2021, one life paused after another had come to an abrupt end. Specific times, moments and dates would etch their way into Krystal’s memory.
“I remember being at work which had no reception and when I finished and walked out to my car I had plenty of missed calls start popping up from my mum starting at around 9.45 which was to let me know that OCHT was on their way for a welfare check. Another came through timed at 12.20pm which was the missed call informing me that Nigel was deceased.”
He had gone.
“Seconds later I received a message that will be forever in my head. The message to tell me Nigel’s dead. As she could not get in touch with me, she needed me to know before the extended family found out. In that moment my world crashed down. I called her instantly where she informed me she had just left his house and was on her way home to wait for the police. A short while later she had the police at her house to formally let her know that Nigel had been found dead inside his home.”
Thunder erupted overhead.
“Around 2pm Nigel’s body was removed from his home and he was on his way to the Christchurch hospital mortuary where he had a[n] autopsy performed the following day. His death was ruled a medical event due to his history of epilepsy and the fact there was no forced entry and his family assumed that Nigel passed away from a seizure.”
It had been marked as a medical event.
But as time moved forward, the cause of Nigel’s death become clouded with doubt by suspicious things that Krystal and her sister found or observed in their brother’s flat, by rumours of a deranged, bragging murderer, and by suspicious even unfathomable behaviour on the part of three other people known to Nigel.
Fred Price Courts, New Brighton.
Cindy and Lachlan knew Nigel. Cindy had been in an on-and-off-again relationship with Krystal’s brother. Her alibi was wafer thin and locals had placed her at the complex around the time Nigel had died.
Lachlan had rung the alarm bells on the day that Police and the Otautahi Community Housing Trust had discovered his body, boldly visiting mother Debbie’s home to tell her the worst. Rumour had it that Lachlan was abusing Nigel’s trust, injecting drugs into Nigel and had stolen from Debbie.
In the months leading up to the discovery, Nigel had told Debbie he wanted to move flats. Somebody had been making him “do things”. Was Nigel making veiled references to Lachlan or Lachlan and Cindy?
But Lachlan and Cindy were not the only ones in the picture for Nigel’s death. Nigel’s neighbour’s Lindsay and Rob had been behaving suspiciously. Lindsay and Rob had had dinner with Nigel on the last night he was seen alive. His taxi had been booked in Rob’s name, but Lindsay denied that.
Lindsay had also given varying stories explaining their absence from Nigel’s funeral. And she had avoided Krystal when she came to Fred Price Courts.
Krystal suspected all four people had been involved in her brother’s death. But it was Lachlan who had drawn the most attention, after hearing Lachlan was bragging about being the killer.
“I’ve killed someone. I can do it again,” recalled Nigel’s sister Krystal.
But what motive could one or more of them have to kill Nigel?
A Motive to Kill Nigel?
About one month before Nigel’s death, he had been through an ordeal involving three of the suspects and the prospect of a boot-ride.
Rob had driven Nigel back to his mother Debbie’s home and left the car in the front yard. Rob told Debbie he would return. Later that day a group turned up, asking questions about Rob’s vehicle. Nigel claimed the car was his. But it wasn’t. It was a stolen vehicle. And it appears they thought Nigel was the culprit.
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