The Sunday Times Magazine • 17one says. “They don’t work around here,” she added,
scanning the images. “They’re not in massage clothing,
so they’re not from one of the parlours we know.”
However, via a tourist industry source we hear that
the women had a connection to a massage business on
the main road near the heart of Samui’s once-thriving
(pre-pandemic) nightlife zone. The store, a simple
streetfront affair with garish strawberry-themed garden
furniture out front, is closed on our visit. Many such
establishments have shut since the pandemic began as
there is no passing tourist traffic, but still arrange visits
to hotels and villas via phone appointments. When our
translator calls the number listed on the storefront, the
conversation is brief. The manager says that she has
already told “everything” to the police.
One of the masseuses pictured in the CCTV was
identified by the Daily Mail as a 27-year-old with the
nickname Bovi. An unnamed “friend” was quoted as
saying that Bovi had described Warne as “a really lovely
man”. By this account, the star “seemed perfectly
healthy and gave us a good tip when we finished. He
seemed fine when we left his room. He said goodbye
and that was it — everything was normal.”
A pedicurist was also booked to see Warne after the
masseuses had left. According to an interview she gave
The Sun, she was due to treat Warne after she had seen
one of his friends who was also staying at the villa. “I had
a text saying that I would do his nails and a foot massage
when they had finished,” the woman, nicknamed Pen,
said. “I think Shane was sleeping in his room the whole
time because I didn’t see him while I was giving a nail
treatment to his friend. I was supposed to go to see
Shane after that but when the maid knocked on his
door there was no reply. There was no sound in the
room and they said he was sleeping, so I left. When I got
home I was told he had died, so I was really sad. I think
that he had been dead while I was in the villa.”
The presumption was that Warne was having a doze
after the flights the previous day. He had arranged to
join his friends at 5pm for drinks in the villa’s sunken
lounge area. When he had not emerged from his room
by 5.15pm, his friends were surprised. It was unlike
Warne to miss a rendezvous for drinks.
Neophitou rapped on Warne’s door, then pushed it
open when there was no answer. Warne was face down
on the bed. Neophitou told colleagues in Warne’s
management team in Australia that he rolled him over,
saying he was going to be late. To his horror, Warne wasunconscious. He shouted to the rest of the group and
began a frantic attempt to revive him, before the
paramedics arrived and took over, to no avail.A
s Australia reeled from the death of a national
sporting hero, the sensitivity of the tragedy
was immediately clear for the conservative
government. Warne’s family wanted his body
returned home as soon as possible and prime
minister Scott Morrison’s administration did
not want any missteps as an election looms.
Tourist deaths on Thai holiday islands, from
accidents, road crashes, heart attacks and
crime, are a staple for officials at western
embassies. But this was no normal consular case. So
the ambassador to Bangkok, Allan McKinnon — one
of his country’s most experienced civil servants who
established Australia’s Office of National Intelligence
— was scrambled to the island with senior colleagues
by the government in Canberra on the next flight.
The Samui police were also under media scrutiny
again. The force has been the target of criticism for the
handling of previous cases, notably the investigations
into the murders of British backpackers Hannah
Witheridge and David Miller on nearby Koh Tao in- As Thailand finally reopened for tourism, the last
thing the authorities wanted was an unsolved scandal.
But following an investigation and autopsy, the police
and doctors concluded that Warne had died of natural
causes — a suspected heart attack.
Photographs released by the Thai police of the
forensic team searching Warne’s room showed
blood stains on the carpet and towels — blood that
witnesses said had been coughed up during the
resuscitation efforts. Officers said they ruled out any
possibility of foul play after conversations with his
friends and relatives, a review of the CCTV footage and
questioning of the masseuses. The police department
considers the investigation closed and officers are
reluctant to discuss the case further.
“There was nothing strange in the room, no drugs,
nothing suspicious,” says Lieutenant Colonel Tanongsak
Aksornsorn through a translator. “His family said that
he suffered chest pains before he came to Thailand.
His friends told us that he was smoking. The doctors
conducted the autopsy; it was natural causes.”
What had they established about Warne’s last
known encounter, with the masseuses? “We spoke
to the women. It was all normal. We’ve heard the
negative rumours but this was just a normal massage,
not a special massage,” the officer says.
Hall mentioned the chest pains too in his tribute
to Warne. “None of us here are aware of Shane having
visited a doctor, though he had complained to a friend
of some chest pains and shortness of breath. He knew
he was a bit overweight and was getting back into
training harder. ”
Speculation also arose over whether there was a link
between Covid-19 and Warne’s death: Warne, who
was double-vaccinated, caught Covid twice. He had
described the first bout, last August, as “quite bad” and
said he had been briefly put on a “special” ventilator
— not because he was having trouble breathing, but
to trial it for minimising the potential effects of long
Covid. The second bout was “like a little flu”, Warne
told the Herald Sun. “Just a bit of a sniffle.”
Warne was often portrayed as a drinker and over the
years he nurtured the image. There’s no doubt he liked
GETTY IMAGES to party. But his manager, Erskine, gave a different
HE’D CAUGHT
COVID TWICE
AND WAS
BRIEFLY
PUT ON A
“SPECIAL”
VENTILATOR
AS PART OF
A TRIAL INTO
LONG COVID
From left: a youthful
Warne practising
with the Australia
team in 1993; in his
first Test match that
year at Old Trafford➤