Shortcut: The Suspicious Death of Jason Rigby in Fiji

**Meshel Laurie** (0:03)
This is Australian True Crime with Meshel Laurie. When Australian hotel manager Jason Rigby was found dead in his staff apartment at a luxury resort in Fiji, authorities initially ruled his death a suicide. But Jason's family have never accepted that explanation, and have spent the past two years fighting for answers. Today, Jason's sister-in-law Jessica Rigby joins us to tell his story, and to talk about her upcoming memoir, While the Baby Slept. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
A warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

**Jess Rigby** (0:47)
Basically, our family's understanding from what we've been told, the first account that we received was a call made by Chris's and Jason's mom, Robin, to his girlfriend at the time because we'd had notification from the Surface Paradise Police that they needed to have an in-person conversation. Obviously, his mom's brain went to the worst outcome, so called us, made sure that we were okay. Both the other brothers, Ben and Jason, were living overseas. Ben's in LA, Jason in Fiji, and we were able to get a hold of Ben. We never got a hold of Jason.
Robin started calling the girlfriend, Shivani, and she was the one who told the family the first time that he's gone. He went to the bathroom, I heard a thud, he's gone. That was the initial way that we found out the information, and that he died from self-inflicted stab wounds was what she had said. That was the storyline from the start. What we learned from then, Chris and Peter, their dad, flew to Fiji in the days after, and we were told that it was in the room. Shivani, the girlfriend, the first person she rang when she said that this had transpired was Ian Lovey who worked at the hotel. He's the executive chef at the hotel, he still works there in that role.
Shivani herself didn't work at the hotel, she was just Jason's partner and stayed the night.

**Meshel Laurie** (2:16)
Jason worked at the hotel?

**Jess Rigby** (2:17)
Yeah, Jason was the general manager at the Crowne Plaza, so he'd moved to Fiji for that role to open. It's a brand new hotel, he was there before opening from the ground up.
That's why he was living and working on-site in his role. Shivani didn't call emergency services, she called Ian. Ian also came to the room, didn't call emergency services and the first person he called was Arushi who worked at the hotel. She's the person in the 60-minute story, that is the only person that's spoken with the family or anything like that. She was the one who then called for the ambulance. We don't know how much time had passed, but what we do know is that based on what Arushi said, is that Jason in the morning, on the Saturday morning went to work, saw her in the lobby, they had a meeting at 8.30. He was last seen around 8:00 AM in the morning in his suit, dressed for work, and between 8 and 8.30, that's when this is transpired. He's gone back to his room for some reason. We don't know what that reason is, and the story was supposedly taken his life at that period of time.
Essentially, again, what we've learned is that there was a lot of time that passed, because Jason was actually found alive. That was the reports. He was dying, but breathing and foaming out the mouth is what we've been told and what was recorded in official documents.
That's what we really find hard to sit with. We don't know if anyone actually administered any first aid, if anyone tried to save his life in all of those phone calls that were made. Did anyone actually try to do any of those things? It's not in any of the reports that we've seen that any life-saving measures were taken. They just said that the ambulance took a really long time, and by that time, they tried to revive him and it was too late. We have found some more information when we've gone back right back to the start. We did that recently because when you're in that first few days of grief, you aren't really thinking about that because also you trust institutions, you trust that the hotel is doing the right thing, you trust that the Australian government will be there for you and all of that. So you're not looking at any of that because you're just surviving. But one piece of information that we saw in an email, a general manager that went out to the media and shared publicly that there was no criminal investigation and the police were pursuing that. He wasn't even in the country when Jason died. He was on holidays in Japan with his family and he was the first person to contact the consular in Fiji to notify them that Jason had passed from suicide. I just find that very interesting. Someone that's not even on the ground, that wasn't there, didn't see anything, that's all stacking up of information that he's been told, notifying and putting it on record for the first time with a government body. What happened to Jason? He died on the 14th. I think the statement came out on the 15th and Chris and Peter got to Fiji on the 16th.