Addict Believed Woman Was Murdered, Court Told

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday July 11, 2008

Bellinda Kontominas

A FORMER ice addict who had been looking to buy drugs when he discovered the body of a woman on the floor of her flat, believed she had been murdered, a court has heard.

Joyce Germain, 59, was found dead in the bathroom of her Darlinghurst apartment in April 2006 in bizarre and suspicious circumstances. Police found her badly decomposing body several days after she is thought to have died. An inquest into her death yesterday heard that Chady Wazir, one of four persons of interest, had told a former boyfriend, Paul David, he felt bad because he had "found a dead body on one of my binges and I didn't report it".

During the relationship between June 2006 and October 2007, Mr Wazir told Mr David he "panicked" when he discovered the body on its back on the bathroom floor. "He told me that he went there to get drugs," Mr David told Glebe Coroner's Court. "He told me that he knew a dealer who lived there and that he's got drugs from there before."

He said he believed his boyfriend had mistaken Ms Germain's apartment for that of a dealer he had used before in the same building. Ms Germain was found covered in towels, pillows, a foot spa and with the cord of an iron wrapped loosely around her neck. A construction hat sat on her chest and a blue peg was attached to her genitals.

Mr David said his boyfriend had mentioned "something about an iron, lipstick and the bathroom being really messy".

He also told Mr David that he had left shavings from his eyebrow or hair on his head on or near Ms Germain's body.

When Mr David asked his boyfriend how he thought the woman had died, Mr Wazir replied: "It looked like she had been murdered." Mr Wazir, who used to go missing for days while on ice binges, said it was "hard to tell" what the body looked like as "there was a lot of mess", the inquest heard.

Having discovered the body, Mr Wazir shot up ice next to it. He left the syringe on a hot water system in the bathroom.

In his statement to police, Mr David had said Mr Wazir told him he had at times taken a construction hat with him on ice binges.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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