The Unexplained Death of a New Brighton Local: A Suspect Arrives
Four suspects emerge during Krystal's journey. This episode explores the second, a fellow tenant and someone known to the Bom family for his strange behaviour. But is it a lead or just a red herring?
On the 6th of April 2021 the Bom family and friends gathered at Debbie Bom’s home following Nigel’s funeral. To the family’s knowledge, her son had died from a seizure and nothing more.
Nigel in his boyhood.
It made sense that this is how Nigel’s life had ended so tragically in his New Brighton flat. Since he was a boy of only 12-years of age, Nigel had experienced tonic-clonic or grand mal seizures.
It was “one of the worst seizures you can have,” said his sister Krystal Martin.
“That’s the type of seizure he went through; he would bang his head, his whole body would go, smash, depending where he was.”
“If he was on the floor, he would more so anything in his surroundings during a seizure he would smash into”.
To stop the clonic-tonic seizures in their tracks, Nigel took medication.
“During past 1 and a half years: very good at taking medication; he would have people checking on him that he’d taken his medication for Debbie’s piece of mind.”
“He would take them as soon as he woke up. He would always take them at 9 o’clock.”
Nigel’s sustained head injuries many times, explained Krystal. As a result of the injuries, he had told Debbie he would “take them every morning when he woke up and at 9 o’clock every night.”
Fred Price Courts
The story that Nigel’s death had been a medical event made sense to her family until new information came floating into their midst, making this conclusion seem as fragile as New Brighton sand.
In January 2021, a few months before his body was found, Nigel had confessed to Debbie that somebody was making him “do things”.
“What do you mean you’re being made to do things?” she asked.
Nigel showed her his arm.
He wouldn’t tell her just who was making him harm himself.
Nigel Bom
In February, about one month before he died, Nigel visited her. He told Debbie he wanted to leave Fred Price Courts and asked her to find him somewhere else to live. He gave her no explanation why. Or who was causing him trouble.
On Nigel’s instructions, she had also asked the Otautahi Community Housing Trust, his landlord, to change the locks on his flat. One (or both) of the keys were lost and never found.
But it was rumours of foul play that had surfaced the day after the funeral that had upended the family’s understanding of how he had died.
Krystal considered four people as suspects in his death. Nigel’s friend Cindy had an alibi that didn’t stack up and it seemed possible that she had had contact with Nigel in his home after his mother Debbie had last seen her son alive.
Lindsay and Rob were also under the spotlight. On the night of his disappearance, Nigel had had dinner as usual with Lindsay and her then partner Rob in a nearby flat.
The fourth was Lachlan, a fellow tenant and man known to both Nigel and Cindy. Leading up to the discovery of Nigel’s body, Lachlan’s behaviour had caught Debbie’s attention.
She was suspicious of Lachlan. People known to Nigel were saying Lachlan had been “mistreating” her son. She gave these claims some weight because, says Krystal, “it was a few different people” and “for a majority of those two years he [Nigel] spoke to Lachlan.”
Krystal says “Lachlan made out he was quite good for Nigel” but there was a dark side to his relationship with her brother.
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