Dianne Brimble was a 42 year-old Australian mother of three who died within 24 hours of boarding the P&O Cruises cruise ship Pacific Sky on September 23, 2002. Dianne Brimble died apparently of an overdose of the drug "gamma-hydroxybutyrate", otherwise known as "GHB" or "fantasy". Eight men, Mark Robin Wilhelm, Matthew Graham Slade, Dragan Losic, Petar Vladimir Pantic, Ryan Kym Kuchel, Letterio Silvestri, Luigi Vitale and Sakelaros "Charlie" Kambouris, have been named as persons of interest in the case. Her semi-naked body was found on the floor of cabin #D182, which belonged to four of the men whom she had met at the ship's disco the previous night.

Photographs recovered from the memory card in a camera owned by one of the men show Mrs Brimble having sex with Mark Wilhelm, and later lying on the floor of the cabin, having lost control of her bodily functions. The camera's memory card was formatted but technical experts managed to recover the pictures for police.

The men had allegedly made a nuisance of themselves around younger female passengers. Among numerous acts of alleged sexual harrassment were asking a 15 year old to do an erotic dance in their cabin for cash, barging in a cabin of 4 girls uninvited, asking if they were going to the disco where they 'could go down on them', asking one woman if he could perform oral sex on her among others.

According to police witness statements, one of the men who was staying in the room, Letterio "Leo" Silvestri, told another cruise passenger, Allison McKain, that "some shit went down last night", and that a woman had died, naked on the floor of their cabin. The case has prompted stricter security measures for Australian cruises with the introduction of security sniffer dogs and closed-circuit surveillance cameras throughout ships in the fleet.

Dianne Brimble's family revealed the anguish of Brimble's drug-induced death aboard the Pacific Sky cruise liner in interviews aired on Australian Story on ABC channel.

References

External Links

• A series of photographs relevant to the case
• news.com.au article
• Transcript of Australian Story Monday, 8 May, 2006, The Mourning After interviewing Dianne Brimble's family.
• Story and comments at International Cruise Victims Organization website.