The Nigel Bom Stories: Turning Point
In Episode 3: New Brighton man Nigel Bom is found dead in his home. Police don't believe it is suspicious. But at the reception after his funeral, this story is turned on its head.
The taxi driver was the last person to see New Brighton local Nigel Bom alive, after dropping him off near his home on Palmers Road. What happened after this last sighting and what Nigel’s movements were remains a mystery. What is not a secret is that some six days after that sighting, Nigel was found dead in his flat in Fred Price Courts.
Episode 2 of the Nigel Bom Stories, Click Here
Pictured (left): Nigel Bom
The emergency response at Fred Price Courts on 30 March 2021 was no surprise to a local, who we will call Tom Y.
“It seemed like it was nothing out of the ordinary for the complex. There’s always ambulances, and fire engines and Police going there, coming, going.”
“Something’s always happening there.”
"I just walked over to _____to ask him what’s going on. There was an ambulance there and a few police cars.
Tom Y learned of Nigel Bom’s death.
“I thought it was sad for them [the family]”.
“I didn’t know him.”
“_____said somebody’s had a drug overdose.”
Tom Y didn’t know Nigel to be a junkie.
He would later play a key role in the Police investigation.
The Police were not treating his death as suspicious and the flat as a crime scene.
“Following the funeral there was a reception at my mums house where all were welcome.”
“This is when things started to turn.”
“We didn[’]t find out till April 7th but we had been informed by people that attended the reception that they were told by other people attending that Nigel didn[’]t really die [o]f a seizure and that he was murdered.”
Krystal Martin
On 1 April, they released Nigel Bom’s body to the family.
“Nigels body was returned to Debbies house where he would lay until the day of his funeral when he would have his final farewell”, recalled his sister Krystal.
Pictured: Nigel Bom
Krystal was stranded in Australia.
“We were in the middle of covid…so I spent days begging the government to let me back home so I could see my brother before his farewell only to be declined every response I got.”
“I tried to accept the fact that I was stuck in Australian while we were trying to organise a funeral for Nigel and ticking off all the boxes to give him the best goodbye possible.”
“I did manage to organise live viewings of the funeral so that myself and my oldest brother Nicholas could still be there in the best way we could. To know I had to say goodbye through a TV screen was and still is the hardest thing I have had to accept in my lifetime.”
On 6 April, the family held Nigel Bom’s funeral.
“it was time to say our goodbyes. I was on video call to mum when nigels body was collected and driven to Canterbury memorial Gardens in Linwood where Nigels family and friends were waiting to give him his farewell. I then switched over to the live viewing in the funeral home to continue watching his service along side my brother and our little families.”
“The funeral was perfect and we knew it was how Nigel would have wanted to have his farewell and it made us feel like we had made him happy. Following the funeral there was a reception at my mums house where all were welcome.”
“This is when things started to turn.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The New Zealand Reporter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.