COMMITTAL FRIDAY 24TH SEPT

Court told Max Sica `confided in writer'
Lisa Martin From: AAP September 24, 2010 4:49PM

A MAN accused of slaying three siblings told a woman writing a book about him that she would become famous if she got his confession, a court has heard.

Neelma Singh, 24, and her siblings Kunal, 18, and Sidhi, 12, were found dead in the spa at their family's Brisbane home on April 22, 2003.

Max Sica, who was Neelma's boyfriend in the months before her death, is facing three charges of murder.

A committal hearing in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday heard Sica had been approached to write a book, but he thought his friend Andrea Louise Bowman could do a better job.

Ms Bowman kept diary notes about conversations she had with Sica in 2007.

She said Sica would sometimes become "paranoid", ask her if she was a police officer and wonder aloud if she was scared in his company.

"He asked if I had video surveillance in my sunglasses," she told the committal hearing.


"(During another conversation) he told me 'If you got my confession you would be famous . . . and get paid'."

The court heard Ms Bowman told Sica she had a dream about the killings.

"There were gurgling sounds . . . I just wanted the sound to stop," she said.

"(Sica) said: 'Maybe that's why I ran the spa."'

She said Sica told her Neelma had a bad temper and slept with a machete under her bed.

Ms Bowman told the court she recalled asking Sica whether he killed the children to get back at their mother Shirley Singh, who the court had earlier in the week heard was having an affair with a younger man.

"He said: 'Yes, I blame her, she should never have taken him back'," she said.

Ms Bowman said she had asked Sica if he panicked after killing the Singh siblings.

"He said: 'Of course you panic, you just killed those bitches, you have to get out of there'," she said.

She told the court she remembered telling Sica about a comment his mother had made: "What kind of monster kills them and puts them in a bath to make them into soup?"

"He asked: 'Did she say that?' I said: 'Yes, she said that to me on the phone'... (and) he hung his head," she said.

Defence counsel Sam Di Carlo told the court Ms Bowman had worked with police for four years under the guise of writing a book and her witness statement resembled a Mills and Boon fiction novel.

The committal hearing continues.