Ram Tiwary - 99 Months. The Case of the Sydney Double Murders

2014 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited

Cover design: Cover Kitchen

Published in 2014 by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300, Fax: (65) 6285 4871. E-mail:

The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no events be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Other Marshall Cavendish Offices: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.

Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited

National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Tiwary, Ram, 1979
99 months : the case of the Sydney double murders / Ram Tiwary. Singapore : Marshall
Cavendish Editions, 2014.

pages cm
ISBN : 978-981-4561-46-4 (paperback)
eISBN : 978 981 4634 75 5

1. Tiwary, Ram, 1979- Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Murder Australia Sydney (N.S.W) 3. Murder Investigation Australia Sydney (N.S.W) 4. Trials (Murder) Australia Sydney (N.S.W) I. Title.

HV6248
364.1523092 dc23 OCN886262174

Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd

For

Guruji.

My father and my mother, my elder brother and my younger, whose ordeal was worse than mine. My family for their words, said and unsaid.

My friends from all over who came to that place no one wants to visit.

And my Aussie friends because of whom, despite my best efforts, I still really like Australia: EM. Richard & Suzie. Sean & Elle. Zodin. Iggy. My muse, Bernadette.

And for the brilliance and/or the dogged determination of David Dalton, SC; Andrew Scali, Anthony Goodridge, Tim Game, SC; Andrew Miller; Ramesh.

Its an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesnt destroy us, if it doesnt burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.

Anne Rice
The Queen of the Damned

I LOST MY FREEDOM for 99 months.

Lost my freedom.

I sit here looking at those three simple words, and remember what they represented for me all those years. Looking around to find only fences, walls and locked doors on all four sides year after year, while memories of what lies beyond fade, does strange things to the human mind.

I quoted Anne Rice on the opening page on how suffering changes us not because I think I am a very deep person now, but because my experience has made me realise how carefree I was before and how life took me to the brink and left me so changed. My natural inclination had always been to take things at face value. That trust is gone now, and I feel that I have lost something precious.

I was arrested eight-and-a-half months after the murders, at the age of 25 years and 9 days. Being told that you might live the rest of your life within the confines of four walls is a lot for someone of that age to take, perhaps for anyone to take. The experience of witnessing the aftermath of the brutal murders of my friends, and being forced through dreams, and then legal necessity, to revisit the events over and over again for years, changed me in subtle, unforeseeable ways.

Spending year upon year in maximum security prison after being told that you will never leave also takes its toll. Certain everyday sounds still make me uncomfortable or send my pulse racing, even when I am sitting in a beautiful, comfortable home surrounded by friends and family. There are indelible mental and physical scars I bear from my time inside that I never speak of, even to them.

I was fortunate enough to have family and friends who supported and believed in me simply because they knew me. For the most part, they tried to never broach the subject when we spoke or met while I was in prison. It was only during our conversations after my release that we realised that there were so many popular misconceptions about so much of the evidence. It occurred to us then that if those closest to me who were following the case were unaware, others were very much more likely to be. The insistence from certain friends that I have to let people know! was one of the major factors in my decision to write about my experience.

Writing this was difficult. Our natural human tendency is to avoid revisiting traumatic, painful events, and I fought the urge to give up and walk away many times, every single day. At times, I did actually walk away, but I always came back. It has taken me over a year of research, painful recollection, exasperation and many moments of middle-of-the-night inspiration (some things never change I still do the bulk of my productive work in the wee hours of the morning) to write this book.

While writing one night, I looked out of my window and saw the moon. One of the bars of my window grille fell across her face, reminding me of all those years in jail when I could never see the entire moon because of the barred windows. Suddenly, a nauseating sense of deja vu gripped me and I couldnt get the grille open fast enough. I stuck my head out of the window and marvelled at the moon in her unobstructed glory. What an enigmatic feeling it is to do something you once believed you would never be able to.

At least I was home and by myself then. I dont know what will trigger such an embarrassing gut reaction next, and I dread failing to mask it in public. There have been other such instances, and I persevered through them in the hope that people will finally see beyond the speculative theories to the unmitigated facts, and hear from me for the first time.

Certain completely untrue myths persist about the people, events and the circumstances surrounding the murders. Some of these may have been intentionally perpetuated, in some cases by the New South Wales (NSW) police and the Office of the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), and I address them. While this book represents a vessel for me to put forward my hitherto untold story, I have included original documentation whenever available and used evidence as presented by the prosecution itself and eschewed conjecture in favour of unchallenged expert witness testimony. While a distillation of the facts and the evidence is necessary, it is not my ultimate objective.

More importantly for me, there are people out there who know what happened, but have thus far ignored repeated pleas to assist the police by giving statements, or even to identify themselves. I hope that this book will help to jog peoples memories, or prompt them to lighten their conscience.