Herald Sun [Melbourne]
October 2, 2003

INSIGHT

Murder in Bali

Part 2: The Fatal Night

By Keith Moor

SEISMIC equipment in Bali recorded movement at 31 seconds after 11.08pm
on
October 12, 2002.

The earth had undoubtedly quaked. Geophysics department head Jumadi Suwito
checked his super-sensitive equipment and found the tremor lasted five
seconds.

It also showed the vibrations were felt over a 20km radius and registered
0.2 on the Richter scale.

But it wasn't nature wreaking havoc that night. It was suicide bomber Jimi
exploding a massive device outside the Sari Club in Bali's entertainment
strip.

The budding martyr's bomb -- coupled with the much smaller Paddy's Pub
device -- killed 202 people from 21 countries, including 88 Australians, 38
Indonesians, 22 Britons and seven Americans.

It also injured 168 people and caused 5.9 billion rupiahs damage to 422
buildings in and around Kuta.

Among the first to die were a honeymooning Japanese couple and their
Balinese taxi driver.

Their taxi was forced to stop immediately behind the vehicle bomb as it
pulled up outside the Sari Club, blocking Legian St.

The taxi was lifted off the ground by the force of the explosion and blown
backwards over the tops of several other vehicles, before crashing down in a
mangled heap.

Chelsea gaming attendant Shelley Campbell, 26, flew to Bali from Melbourne
with work friends Amber O'Donnell, 27 and Belinda Allen, 23.

As a Bali regular, it was Shelley's job to show first-timers Amber and
Belinda the sights.

One of those sights was the Sari Club, a mecca for young people after a
drink, a dance and a good time.

Shelley and Belinda arrived at the Sari Club about 11pm, but decided to
walk
across the road to Paddy's Pub a few minutes later.

They had been told by a friend that AFL footballers Mick Martyn and Jason
McCartney were in Paddy's and Shelley knew McCartney.

A S they were making their way out of the Sari Club, Belinda said she
needed to go to the toilet.

"I was waiting outside the toilet cubicles for Belinda when the bomb went
off in Paddy's," Shelley said.

"There was another girl beside me and we both got a shock because the area
we were in was enclosed in concrete and it vibrated and echoed.

"It shook like an earthquake. The girl said to me: 'what the f--- was
that?'
and I said it must have been an earthquake. Then the second blast came
through.
It was like a gush of wind. It just blew the whole wall out next to me.

"The lights had gone out so I couldn't see anything. Then the flames
started
and brought some light.

"There was another girl in the cubicle that came out and grabbed me and I
was screaming for help.

"Then I saw Belinda's shoes because she had white sandals on.

"The toilet door had blown in on top of her and her legs were sticking out
from under the door.

"I shook her leg and I was screaming out to her. I tried to lift the door
off her, but it was too heavy and seemed to be jammed on top of her. She
didn't
respond when I was screaming her name and shaking her leg.

"I saw some guys climbing on to a wall. I screamed to them to help Belinda
and they ran partly towards her and said, 'You have to get out'.

"It was too dangerous to stop there. There were flames coming at us from
all
around . . . so I had to leave Belinda."

Gold Coast production assistant Deborah Carey, 36, was in the cubicle next
to the one Belinda died in.

"I had only just closed the door of the toilet when the first one went off
at Paddy's," Deborah said.

"The lights went, there were a few squeals then it sort of calmed again. I
had my hand on the door when the big one went off.

"There was this almighty boom then I felt this rush of air under the
cubicle. The door was then blown in on top of me, along with half the wall,
and
I was thrown back on to the toilet.

"The cubicle I was in was right against the side of the wall of the club.
The one Shelley's girlfriend was in was blown apart.

"I guess the structure of the solid wall beside me saved the one I was in.

"I got the door off me and the first person I saw was Shelley standing
hysterically wanting me to help her friend. I looked down and I presumed she
was
already gone.

"A young guy came from nowhere and he grabbed both of us and pushed us
into
a line that was starting to form to go up and over a wall.

"It was too high for us to climb, but there were these two guys up on the
wall dragging people up.

"They were up there literally saving lives. There is no way we, and the 30
or 40 others they helped, would have got out of there alive without them.

"Shelley was in front of me. The two guys were leaning down and grabbing
you
by one arm each and whoever was behind was pushing at the same time.

"They pulled us up on to the top. By the way the guys were working you
would
have thought they were on a solid platform, but I nearly went straight over
the
side because where they were standing was like one brick width.

"What these guys were doing was incredible because the flames were right
behind us.

"The heat was so intense I was terrified my hair was going to catch on
fire.
on to a roof that had been blown apart.

"It was like a triangle shape of the roof with just the beams, as all the
tiles had been blown off. We had to go up and over that."

SHELLEY spent the next few days fruitlessly going to hospitals and
mortuaries looking for Belinda and Amber, who both died in the blast.

She said she is still haunted by the thought of what might have happened
if
she and Belinda had walked straight out to see Martyn and McCartney as
planned,
instead of stopping to go to the Sari Club toilet.

"Maybe we would have been in the street for the worst of it," Shelley
said.

"Maybe we would have both been killed, maybe Belinda would have survived.
Who knows."

It had been a tough AFL season for Mick Martyn and Jason McCartney and
they
were looking forward to their Bali holiday.

They arrived on the afternoon of the bombing, had a swim, went out for a
meal with friends and had only been in Paddy's Pub for 15 minutes or so when
Iqbal the suicide bomber blew himself up next to them.

"I got knocked to the ground and my worst fears were realised when I got
up
and tried to open my eyes," McCartney said.

"Nothing happened. I thought I was blind and I was petrified."

Martyn remembers being blown to the ground.

"Everyone was in disarray, there was hysteria -- pretty much what you
would
expect from a World War II explosion," he said.

Martyn said he got to his feet and saw a fireball hurtling towards him
just
before it hit him in the upper body, burning his head, face, chest and arm.

He said he heard McCartney shouting, 'I can't see, I think I'm blind' and
that he was on fire.

"His eyelashes had been welded together," Martyn said.

"The fireball hit us full on in the face. I got 15 per cent burns and Jas
got 50 per cent.

"He was on fire and then he managed to get his top off. It was his clothes
being on fire that caused most of his burns."

Martyn said he and McCartney became separated in the pandemonium and that
he
scrambled towards what he thought was a light.

"We met up outside Paddy's, both of us together just looking around," he
said.

"It was pretty much like a war zone. It was a trail of destruction."

MARTYN said he heard McCartney say he thought he was going to die and that
he wanted to be saved.

"I was able to get him down the road a bit away from all the stuff that
was
going on," Martyn said.

"Then I got him on to the back of a bike and told this bloke to get him to
where we were staying, the Hard Rock Hotel.

"I was able to get on the back of another bike and follow him there.

"I knew they had doctors at the Hard Rock so I knew to get back there
because I could see Jas was badly burned.

"They basically looked at us, Jas and I and another person, and said Jas
in
particular had to get to hospital straight away."

They were loaded into a van and taken to Denpasar Hospital, where they
received treatment.

The severely burnt McCartney was flown out by the Australian Army on
Monday
morning and taken to intensive care at Melbourne's Alfred hospital for two
weeks, much of it in a coma.

Martyn was well enough to make his own way back to Australia, but had an
emotional moment as he was leaving his hotel.

"I was walking out of where we were staying, carrying Jason's bags," he
said.

"Angela Golotta, one of the first victims to be identified as dead, well,
her parents were standing there.

"Did you lose your friend?' asked her dad.

"When I told him no, he said 'you are very lucky because we've just lost
our
daughter'.

"Angela's mother seemed like she was in a daze, trying to cry out for
someone to hold, so I walked over to her and held her.

"She wouldn't let go. She held and held and held me."

Cheesecake shop owner John Golotta took his wife Tracey and family to Bali
as a break from the rigours of running the family business in Modbury, South
Australia.

His 19-year-old daughter, Angela, who worked as a cake decorator in the
shop, came along, as did his son Michael and girlfriend Jasmin Bos.

Angela was looking forward to her first Saturday night out in Bali, taking
time to choose just the right clothes and jewellery.

"Angela was wearing a blue Billabong denim mini skirt, a light blue
sleeved
mambo top, white bead necklace, white bracelet and an anklet," Mrs Golotta
said.

She said the family went out as a group to the Sari Club about 8pm.

"Not long after our arrival at the club we were approached by some members
of the Sturt Football Club and we got talking about football and South
Australia
and where we were from," Mrs Golotta said.

"Josh Deegan was one of the footballers that we were talking to and he
sat
next to Angela."

The Golottas decided to leave to go back to their hotel about 9.30pm.

Angela was getting on so well with Josh Deegan, who also ended up dying in
the blast, that she decided to stay.

"A pack of wild horses wouldn't have got Angela out of the Sari Club --
all
the attention she was getting," Mr Golotta said.

The Golottas were woken by a loud explosion later that night. Tracey went
to
a window and saw smoke billowing from the Kuta area.

"I then shouted at John to take Michael and to go and get Angela, to bring
her back home," she said.

MICHAEL Golotta said he and his father ran to the Sari Club.

"There was a lot of burnt people lying on the ground," he said.

"We ran into where we were sitting with Angela and there were just bodies
lying around amidst corrugated iron.

"There were also people with missing limbs and a guy with his insides
hanging out.

"We were yelling for Angela and got no response. We looked around for
Angela
for a while and tried to move a few things.

"Dad was still shouting for Angela. He fell to the ground crying. I saw a
lady with burnt hair and a blackened face with her arm up. Dad and I went to
help her but the area was too hot."

Michael and his father went back to the Hard Rock Hotel in the hope Angela
had returned there.

When they found she hadn't, Mr and Mrs Golotta arranged for two hotel
guards
to drive them to hospitals.

They got back just before sunrise on Sunday and told Michael and Jasmin
they
hadn't found a trace of Angela.

Michael visited the morgue on the Sunday morning.

"I did not want to see all the bodies so I took a couple of photos of
Angela
with me," he said.

"I caught a cab and the driver came in with me at the hospital and was
asking directions on my behalf.

"We got to the morgue and there was a crowd of people around a small door.
There was a couple of older Balinese guys who laughed at me.

"I got in there and the smell was really bad. There were just burnt bodies
laid out on the floor and stacked up.

"There were at least 30 unrecognisable bodies. Some had no heads, half
skulls, were missing body parts.

"I was looking for anything that looked like Angela. I saw one body that
was
unrecognisable and I saw just the thigh area with pink underwear.

"I thought this may have been Angela as prior to our going out the night
before I had seen Angela wearing similar underwear. I was hoping it was not
Angela.

"I looked a short time longer and had to leave because the smell was so
bad.
I asked to be taken back to the Hard Rock Hotel.

"I told Dad there was one body with pink underwear that I thought could
have
been Angela, but otherwise I did not know."

The Golottas went to the morgue.

"We saw a badly burnt body that had some familiarities, including the
underwear, but I could not say for certain it was Angela," Mrs Golotta said.
"I
saw a necklace on the body that I cleaned up as it was charred."

Michael's girlfriend Jasmin checked the necklace and identified it as
belonging to Angela.

"We found a button on the body and we knew it was Billabong so we got the
guy to clean the button and this confirmed the body was Angela," Michael said.

The Golottas arranged for their daughter's remains to be placed in a body
bag. It was labelled 152.

A stroke of luck kept Jason French, 27, from being in the Sari Club at the
time of the blast.

He and American friend Dirk Fowler were due there to keep a date with two
English girls.

Jason e-mailed his mother in Western Australia about 10.30pm from an
Internet cafe near the Sari Club.

His mother, Norma, happened to be sitting at her computer and immediately
e-mailed back asking Jason to ring her as she needed to talk about his flights
and a few other things.

EVER the dutiful son, Jason dialled and ended up chatting to his mum
until
a few minutes after the time of his 11pm date with the two backpackers -- that
phone call to his mum probably saved his life.

He and Dirk were walking quickly towards the Sari Club to meet the girls
when the bomb exploded at 11.08pm.

They were only about 100m away, close enough for the blast to knock them
over.

"There was absolute carnage in Legian St. There were fires everywhere.
There
were burnt and twisted cars, buildings were blown up on both sides of the
road,"
Jason said.

"I saw cars with people inside them just burning up. They were burning to
death inside the cars. There were body parts strewn everywhere. I probably saw
at least 70 to 80 dead bodies."

Jason and Dirk ran into the Sari Club to rescue people.

"The first guy we found was missing a leg and he was buried under the
debris. He was still on fire and just screaming for help," Jason said.

"We dug him out and carried him outside and put him in the road where it
was
safe, then went back in. We kept going back in and within five minutes had
carried four people out.

"The fifth person we carried out we thought she was alive but once we got
her out into a bit more light we noticed her guts were all hanging out.

"You couldn't get to the back half of the Sari Club because there was a
wall
of fire between it and us.

"I could hear people at the back screaming for help. They were screaming,
screaming, but we couldn't reach them.

"So we had to listen to them die.

"There were at least a dozen of them screaming for help for several
minutes.
That was absolutely the worst thing that still haunts me today.

"I can still hear those people yelling, 'Help, help', then I heard this
blood-curdling 'Aaagh' as one of them obviously burnt up.

"The screaming stopped after five to 10 minutes. Several of us standing
outside just cried."

A week after getting back to his Kalgoorlie home, Jason discovered the two
English girls he was due to meet had died.

Bendigo Bank receptionist Natalie Goold left Melbourne with Katies
clothing
store assistant manager Nicole McLean at 6.30am and arrived in Bali on the
afternoon of the bombing.

After a quick meal and a freshen up, the 24-year-olds, who had been
friends
since high school, headed out.

Their first stop was Paddy's Pub.

Natalie was by the bar when the bomb went off and Nicole was a few metres
away on the dance floor.

"I thought it was kids with firecrackers," Nicole said.

"Something hit my arm and sent me flying to the ground. It could have been
anything, a glass, a bottle, a stool, all sorts of things were flying around.

"I lost my right arm. My right thigh was blown out and my lower back was
blown out to the size of an AFL football. All that was shrapnel injuries.

"I picked up my arm. It was still attached, but only by the skin.

"So I picked that up and tried to stand up, but my leg was too damaged.

"I just had to lie there until someone came and got me. That somebody was
Natalie."

NATALIE said she was knocked unconscious by the blast.

"When I came too I managed to get out through a side door," she said.

"I soon realised Nicole wasn't outside. I was just screaming for her.

"I ran down an alleyway that runs down the side of Paddy's just screaming
her name.

"Somehow she heard me and yelled back at me.

"I was by a window looking in towards the dance floor when she heard me.

"I climbed back into Paddy's through that window, which had been smashed,
and made my way over to Nicole. When I first saw her, her right arm was still
sort of attached but it was only by the skin underneath. It was sort of just
hanging there.

"First of all I said, 'Come on, get up,' and then I saw her leg was pretty
damaged as well.

"I tried to lift her but couldn't, so I yelled out for someone to help us.

"A guy, I have no idea who, came in and helped me carry her out.

"We got her into the back of a Balinese guy's ute."

Nicole said she remembered almost passing out in the back of the ute as it
drove her towards the hospital, and that Natalie was trying desperately to
keep
her awake.

"I said to her to let me go -- that I was tired, so tired," she said.

"But Natalie just kept on slapping me on the face saying, 'Don't you leave
me, talk to me, talk to me'."

Nicole survived the trip to hospital and was later put on the first plane
out of Bali, but Australian Army medics decided she was unlikely to survive
the
trip without an operation so took her off that flight.

"They operated on me on the tarmac at the airport in Bali," Nicole said.

"They took an artery out of my crutch or inner thigh and put it in my arm
to
keep the blood moving."

Nicole was flown to Darwin, where doctors put a pin in her arm to try to
save it.

She was then taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital, where she remained for
seven
weeks.

"I was OK for the first week," Nicole said.

"Then the septicemia kicked into my blood stream and my fever went up into
the high 40s. I was taken to the intensive care unit."

Doctors told her they couldn't see where the infection was coming from,
but
presumed it was her arm and that they were going to have to amputate it.

"I said, 'Look, do what you have to do'. It was a matter of life and
death,
just do it," Natalie said.

Surgeons amputated her arm piece by piece during a seven-hour operation
until they reached a point where the circulation was good.

"I was left with only a quarter of my right arm," Nicole said.

She is still having plastic surgery for her back and leg injuries and
expects to be fitted with a false arm soon.

Australian Federal Police agent Nicolle Haigh, 30, very nearly lost an arm
as a result of injuries received in the bombing.

She was in Bali having a break from a temporary deployment in East Timor
and
went to the Sari Club with a group of people.

"One moment I was talking to friends and the next was like being in a war
zone," Federal agent Haigh said.

"I could see people going over the side wall that would eventually be my
escape to freedom."

Federal agent Haigh was helped over the wall, down the other side and then
followed people through walkways and out into the street.

A group of men told her to come with them to hospital.

"I remember thinking that my right foot was really wet and slippery in my
shoe," she said.

"Later I found out this was because of the burns to my right leg."

She was helped on to the back of a moped and taken to a clinic.

"There were only a small number of examination beds, so people were being
put on the floor," federal agent Haigh said.

"I saw people angry and unbelieving about what had happened.

"I will never forget the cries of one of the men on the floor near me,
tormented by the loss of his wife and two teenage daughters.

"But I will also remember strangers who came over to ask how I was doing
and
if they could get me anything.

"I don't know how long I stayed there, but I heard someone calling out for
Australians, trying to get us all in one place."

She was then taken in the back of a ute to Denpasar Hospital.

"I remember lying in the back of the ute as it sped through the streets of
Bali, holding my hands in the air as they hurt too much to have them resting
on
anything, but the wind was just as bad," agent Haigh said.

"It was chaos in the hospital emergency room. There were injured all over
the place and people with varying degrees of medical education treating them.

"On the Sunday afternoon I saw fellow AFP agent Frank Morgan walk through
the ward doors.

"I could only follow him with my eyes, which he later told me was the only
way he could tell it was me.

"I had never been so glad to see anyone in my life.

"My right arm had been swelling up all afternoon and it was decided my arm
needed to be cut open from shoulder to wrist, with small incisions on my hand.

"I owe my courage to Frank Morgan. I don't know if I could have gone
through
it without him.

"I will never forget him pinning me to the bed and making me look him in
the
eyes as the doctor sliced through my arm and hand with a razor blade and
nothing
for the pain.

-end 2 of 5-