The parents of two Australian teenagers who died of alcohol poisoning in Laos are furious at a lack of action over their daughters’ deaths, revealing that investigators refuse to even meet with them.
Best friends Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones, both aged 19, died in November after drinking alcohol that was laced with methanol at a resort in Vang Vieng.
Their fathers, Shaun Bowles and Mark Jones, are also long-time friends who had travelled a similar route together in south-east Asia 25 years earlier.
The Laotian government expressed ‘sincere sympathy and deepest condolences to the families of the deceased’ after the teenagers died, but Mr Bowles said there has been no direct contact with the grieving families.
‘For them not to reach out, that’s just not good enough,’ he told 60 Minutes in an episode set to air on Sunday night.
‘People have died and someone’s responsible. So we absolutely want to know how and who is responsible for it.’
The two friends and their wives Samantha Morton and Michelle Jones, have been desperately waiting for the results of an investigation promised by the Laotian government.
But the Melbourne families, along with the parents of other young people who died in the same alcohol poisoning tragedy, are distraught at the lack of contact from Laotian authorities.
The young women had been staying at Nana Backpacker’s Hostel, where they drank free whisky and vodka shots, not knowing the drinks were tainted with methanol.
‘I cannot have my daughter’s passing not mean anything,’ Mr Jones said.
‘Surely, the Laos government needs to make a strong stance against this to protect what is one of their biggest industries, to ensure that travellers from Australia, from anywhere, that are going to their country are protected from this.’
Though the Laotian government has not made direct contact with the families, it did send a letter to Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying it was holding a ‘thorough investigation’ into the incident ‘to bring the perpetrators to justice’.
It also passed on its condolences to Holly and Bianca’s parents through the AFP.
Bianca Jones’ father Mark said the families feared the investigation in Laos was not being taken seriously.
‘We’ve heard nothing. So I can’t be confident about anything. Yeah, confident would be a gross overstatement. Hoping,’ he said.
‘We want some form of closure. We want to understand that people who have done wrong by our daughter and Holly and the other people are going to be brought to justice.’
Holly’s dad Shaun Bowles said he wants to see some action.
‘We’ll get to that one day. But the longer it goes on, the quicker my hope diminishes of something happening, that’s for sure.’
The Melbourne families’ frustrations at the lack of direct contact is also being felt in other countries.
English woman Simone White, 28, Danish friends Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Freja Sorensen, 21, and American James Hutson, 57, also died in the same incident.
‘There’s literally been no communication at all for us to know what’s happening over in Laos. It’s been just terrible,’ Ms White’s mother Sue White said.
Ms White’s close friend, Bethany Clarke, said they both drank alcohol they didn’t know had been laced with methanol – something done to make the alcohol last longer and therefore cheaper to serve – but can have fatal consequences.
Ms Clarke said she had the same number of vodkas as her friend and knows how close she came to death.
The full story is on 60 Minutes on Sunday night at 8.40pm on Channel Nine.
