Christchurch man Nigel Bom, 37, died in March 2021.
A belief held by the family of Nigel Bom that someone else may have been involved in his death has been shut down by a coroner.
Bom, of Christchurch, was found dead in his bed at a New Brighton housing complex in March 2021.
According to findings released today by Coroner Rachael Schmidt-McCleave, Bom’s family had called for an inquest, raising concerns that a third party may have been involved, and that Bom may have been administered a fatal dose of Morphine.
At the inquest, the coroner considered evidence to assist her in determining his cause of death and the circumstances involved.
She concluded that Bom, 37, had likely suffered a heart arrhythmia as a result of methamphetamine toxicity.
He was found to have died sometime between March 24 and 25, 2021, but his body was not discovered until around five days later.
A forensic pathologist told the coroner that testing indicated it was probable that Bom’s death was caused by methamphetamine toxicity in a person with epilepsy. She also advised that he may have died of a seizure.
The doctor referred to toxicological results, as well as Bom’s medical history and the fact that he was found face down in his bed. She said there were no signs of injury.
She advised that the methamphetamine detected in his system would be capable of causing death and was also known to lower the seizure threshold in people with epilepsy.
Testing also detected amphetamine, alcohol, anti-seizure medication and cannabis.
In her findings, Coroner Schmidt-McCleave said Bom’s family questioned whether he could have been given morphine.
But the forensic pathologist and a toxicologist said there was no trace of it in his system.
The coroner found that he had not ingested or been given morphine before he died.
“For him to have done so would have required him to have injected it, or had it injected, and then died within the hour it would have taken for the morphine to be absorbed into his liver and shown up on toxicology analysis,” she said.
“The scene of Nigel’s death was not consistent with him having died immediately after injection by a third party.”
Bom had suffered from epilepsy for most of his life. His family attributed the onset of it to an incident which occurred when he was 9.
He was on regular medication to treat the disorder but suffered seizures every two to four weeks and may have had additional seizures during his sleep.
Friends and family described his seizures as severe and usually quite violent.
He was sometimes non-compliant with his medications which led to occasional hospitalisations.
There was evidence from Bom’s family and medical records showing that his health may have been deteriorating, and that he had lost considerable weight in the weeks and months before he died.
On March 30, 2021, the tenancy manager of Bom’s unit visited him to conduct a welfare check, after contractors and residents had raised concerns.
She soon called the police, who entered the property and found Bom dead in his bed.
A scene examination showed no forced entry and that all the curtains in his unit were closed and the front and back doors were locked.
There was no indication of disturbance and no signs of injury, or a struggle having taken place.
Coroner Schmidt-McCleave said police documentation and recording of the medications found at Bom’s unit were incomplete and inconsistent.
Police acknowledged the failure during oral evidence at the inquest, confirming there should be no inconsistency between the police report, photographs taken, and the property record sheet.
They accepted their reporting was “very poor”.
The coroner said she had difficulty determining when Bom died, his actions before he died, or who the last people to see him alive were, because police had failed to obtain statements from his neighbours on the day he was found.
Police conceded that statements from neighbours “ought properly to have been taken, if not at the time, then certainly in a return visit by police”.
“A much stronger timeline should have been established,” police accepted, according to the findings.
A neighbour told the inquest that he last saw Bom four or five days before he was found and had become worried when Bom didn’t turn up for dinner as arranged.
Coroner Schmidt-McCleave was satisfied that family members of Bom were the last to see him alive on March 24.
She found that on the balance of probabilities, Bom had gone back to his unit, consumed alcohol and methamphetamine, and gone to sleep, where he likely suffered a fatal heart arrythmia as a result of methamphetamine toxicity.
Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.