'I¡¯ve Got Three Bodies': Inside The Horrific Singh Spa Bath Murders In Australia
It was April 2003 when Shirley and Vijay Singh bid their children goodbye in Australia while they flew to Fiji for business. Little did they know, it would be the last time they'd see their children.?
Neelma, 24, Kunal, 18, and Sidhi, 12, all three siblings, were brutally murdered a week later at their Brisbane home.?Police were looking at a triple homicide in a quiet Brisbane suburb. What unfolded would become the longest murder trial in Queensland history.
The couple's oldest daughter, Sonia Pathik, then 26, survived the slaughter, as she was married and living out of home. However, she also died?of brain aneurysm in 2020 at the age of 43 and had her life support turned off at a Melbourne hospital.
What happened on the day of murder?
The three siblings were found dead in the spa bath of their parents¡¯ ensuite.Police allege the siblings were killed late on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2003, or in the early hours of Easter Monday, in what remains one of Australia's most notorious crimes.??
When and where did it happen?
The murders took place at Singhs' Bridgeman Downs home in Brisbane, Australia. It is believed the killings took place between 11:30 pm on the 20th of April and 7:00 am the following morning.
Who did it?
Neelma's ex-boyfriend, 41-year-old Massimo 'Max' Sica, is accused of strangling Neelma and then murdering her two younger siblings with either a garden fork or a heavy long-handled spatula in their Bridgeman Downs home in Brisbane's north to prevent them from telling police.
It is alleged Sica used bleach to clean up after himself and called police two days later, pretending to have chanced upon the horrific crime scene.
Entering the ensuite bathroom of the main bedroom, Sica, then 33, said he saw blankets piled into the spa bath and water on the floor."I lifted the blanket and saw a hand," he told police in a statement.
"Pulling the blankets back, I saw the hand belonged to Sidhi. Later, Nim's hand touched mine."It was cold and wrinkly."Collapsing to the ground, he dialled triple-0."I've got three bodies in a spa", he sobbed.
It took police five-and-a-half years to gather enough evidence to take Sica to trial and almost a decade for him to be sentenced.
But why did he murder them, and how?
Neelma and Sica met as neighbours before she moved to Dubai to become an Emirates air hostess in early 2002.While she was in Dubai, Neelma was using a laptop Sica had set up with spyware so he could monitor her and was often subject to loyalty 'tests' by him.
Neelma had decided to return to Brisbane in May 2002 after a female roommate in Dubai attacked her, but instead of going to her family, she moved in with Sica.However, she fled back to her family six weeks later after seeing a dark side to the future killer.
Sica was still legally married to another woman, was considerably older than Neelma at 33 years, had previously spent time in jail and told Neelma about his plans to kidnap a businessman to hold at ransom.
After Neelma broke up with him, Sica anonymously emailed naked photos of her to her friends and family. Finally, Sica told Neelma he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and had only a few weeks left to live.
Feeling sorry for him, Neelma invited him over to spend time with her while her parents were away in Fiji for a wedding on April 22, 2003.
'Something happened in Neelma's bedroom between the two of you,' Justice John Byrne told Sica during his 2012 sentencing.
'Enraged by jealousy, most likely, you strangled Neelma with both hands, using sustained pressure for about a minute, intending to kill her. To ensure that Kunal and Sidhi would not tell that you had murdered Neelma, you murdered them too,' the justice said.
'You put your victims into the spa bath in the master bedroom ensuite. Your savage attack on Kunal had rendered him unconscious. He drowned after you filled the bath with water and covered the three bodies with bedding. These are brutal, horrific crimes ¨C in the worst categories of murder. Sica was sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in jail,' he added.
Singh said her children were left so disfigured by the attack that she could hardly recognise them.
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