For two years, Dianne had saved to take a cruise around the South Pacific. Although she was the mother of three, she was only able to save enough to take her youngest daughter, Tahlia, with her on the trip of a lifetime….
On September 23rd, 2002, the P&O Pacific Sky departed Sydney,
Australia. Dianne and Tahlia boarded the ship, along with Dianne’s sister, Alma
Wood, and Alma’s daughter, Kari Ann. All four had planned to share a cabin for the 10-day/9-night cruise.
As they embarked on their cruise, Dianne and her accompanying family members enjoyed a “sail-away” party, which gave them a chance to relax, have a couple of cocktails, and watch the sun go down. Following the party, they decided to have dinner and talk about their plans for the following day. After dinner, Alma, Kari Ann, and Tahlia decided to head back to the cabin and call it an early night. Dianne accompanied them back to the cabin to kiss Tahlia “goodnight”, and later left for the nightclub.
The following morning, Alma realized that Dianne had not returned to their cabin. At breakfast-time, Alma had her paged but was later called to the ship’s Medical Centre, where she was told that Dianne had passed away. Her naked body had been found on the floor of a cabin, occupied by four unknown men.
As the cruise continued on to Noumea, Dianne’s daughter, sister, and niece, were forced to endure an additional two days on the ship, before they could disembark and fly back home to Australia. At the same time, remaining family members in Australia had been provided with no other details, other than the fact that Dianne had died.
It wasn’t until detectives boarded the ship in Noumea and continued on the cruise that her family members become suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Dianne’s demise.
After a number of weeks, the family finally learned that Dianne had consumed a large amount of GHB or GBH (Great Bodily Harm – A date-rape drug also known as Liquid Fantasy), which contributed to her death. This “so-called” fact, combined with a litany of delays and excuses, made it extremely difficult for the family to comprehend exactly what had taken place.
A Coroner’s inquestonly began in Sydney, Australia, in March 2006. The investigation into Dianne’s cause of death is still underway, which has currently uncovered a number of dreadful circumstances surrounding her death. There is no doubt that something happened to Dianne over which she had no control. The cruise operator has a number of questions that still need to be answered. Hopefully, those answers will be presented when the inquest resumes on June 13th, 2006.
The family’s reasons for posting this story are to…
Highlight the circumstances, surrounding Dianne’s assault and death.
Stop this same tragedy from happening to other cruise passengers.
Contribute to changing current cruise line security procedures.
Ensure that any individuals responsible, who may have had an involvement or the ability to have prevented Dianne’s death, be held.
