ONE of Sydney's most controversial murder investigations reached a dramatic climax in London overnight when police arrested Gordon Wood for allegedly murdering his former lover, the model Caroline Byrne, by throwing her over The Gap.
Wood, 43, who was chauffeur to the late millionaire stockbroker Rene Rivkin at the time of the alleged murder in 1995, was arrested about 12.45am Sydney time by British police at his inner-city flat after a tip-off from the Herald. He put up no resistance.
Detective Inspector Paul Jacob, head of Task Force Irondale, which hunted Wood, will fly to London to begin extradition proceedings so Wood can face trial in Sydney. The extradition hearing could take several weeks. Wood, born in England, has dual Australian and British citizenship.
The arrest came three weeks after the Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, QC, agreed with police that there was enough evidence to charge Wood, who left Australia in 1998 under a cloud of suspicion.
The former economics graduate and gym instructor has managed a comfortable existence since, spending most of his time in the French Alps ski resort of Megeve and London, to which he returned about 12 months ago to work as a physical fitness consultant to a large company. The job pays about $150,000 a year and affords a lifestyle that involves frequent travel across Europe and the US.
The central allegation by police will be that Wood and a mysterious accomplice threw Byrne off The Gap at Watsons Bay about 11.30pm on June 7. On a moonless night, two fishermen heard a woman scream in distress.
Not long after, Wood ran out of the darkness. They told him about the scream. Wood said, "Oh, no, she's done it," and ran back into the night.
About 1am Wood returned with Byrne's father, Tony, and his son Peter, claiming Byrne's "spirit guided me" to a spot on the cliff face 150 metres from the fishermen. Wood shone a borrowed torch, its glow so weak the fishermen had not used it, on to the rocks 30 metres below, shouting that he could see a leg and a sandshoe. No one else saw anything.
Police have investigated at least three suspects but have been unable to identify the "second man", who remains free.
Wood has three times denied killing Byrne, twice in police interviews and again on a television current affairs show, saying she committed suicide. He did not say why she would do this.
But police got expert evidence from two of Australia's top physicists that it would have been impossible for even an Olympic athlete to have jumped and landed where Byrne did, more than 10 metres out from the cliff face, impaled head first in a cleft in the sea level rock shelf.
After two trials with policewomen and athletes of the same age and build as Byrne, the physicists told Irondale investigators it was "beyond doubt" that Byrne was thrown off the Gap. This evidence clinched the decision to charge Wood with murder.
The alleged motive is as yet unknown. However, witnesses say Byrne had indicated she was thinking of ending her relationship with Wood, who was said to be obsessively jealous.
It might also involve incriminating information Wood had conveyed to Byrne about a fire that destroyed Offset Alpine in 1993, resulting in a $53.2 million insurance payout to Rivkin and other shareholders.
Byrne's death came a day after Rivkin and Wood were interrogated by the Corporate Affairs Commission on their return from a business trip to Switzerland.
Both denied they knew who owned 38.5 per cent of Offset Alpine shares that were held in secret accounts in Swiss banks. Rivkin, at least, was lying because it has since been revealed the shares were owned by him and two business associates. Tony Byrne told police that Wood told him and his daughter in 1994 that the Offset Alpine fire was a "set up" and advised them to buy shares to make a windfall profit when the insurance payout hugely inflated their value.
Wood's mother bought shares and made a profit. Another witness told police Wood asked him for $500,000 to buy Offset Alpine shares, boasting he would turn it into $1 million in a short time.Police believe that Wood was afraid of any disclosures that might arise if Ms Byrne left him. This would have endangered his job with Rivkin, a mentor who had bought Wood and Byrne the Kings Cross flat in which they lived.Rivkin, 61, committed suicide last May, depressed by a broken marriage and the threat of criminal charges arising from the Offset Alpine investigation. He had served nine months' periodic detention in relation to another matter and lost his stockbroker's licence.
In 1998 Wood told an inquest into Byrne's death that he had last seen her "drowsy and still in bed" at lunchtime on the last day of her life.
When he came back at 4pm, she was gone. He said he fell asleep watching television, woke about 11pm and went looking for her. But three witnesses gave a different story.
Two restaurateurs told the inquest they saw Wood, Byrne and a second man in Robert Park at Watsons Bay and near The Gap at 1pm and again at 3pm. They identified the other man as Adam Leigh, Byrne's booking agent. Wood and Leigh denied being at the park with Byrne.Three months after the inquest returned an open finding into Byrne's death, a third witness gave police a graphic description of the last known sighting of Ms Byrne.At 8.30pm, an artist, John Doherty, heard a woman cry out. He went to the front window of his studio and looked down onto Military Road, opposite The Gap.
He saw a woman he identified as Byrne sitting on the kerb, holding her head in her hands, crying, moaning. Nearby he saw a man of similar appearance to Wood who was abusing her verbally and, further away, another man whom he could not clearly see.The three walked to a road that leads to a reserve next to The Gap. Later he heard voices of a woman and two men raised in loud argument from that direction. No other witnesses have testified to seeing Byrne alive after that.
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