COMMITTAL THURSDAY 23RD SEPT

Friend pens book about Singh murder accused Max Sica
Jasmin Lill From: The Courier-Mail September 23, 2010 11:51PM

THE man accused of slaying three siblings was the subject of a book being written by a friend, a court has been told.

Max Sica, 40, is in custody facing a committal hearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court charged with killing his former girlfriend Neelma Singh, 24, her brother Kunal, 18, and sister Sidhi, 12. Their bodies were found in a spa at their Bridgeman Downs home, on Brisbane's northside, in April 2003.

Sica's friend Andrea Louise Bowman said Sica had been approached to write a book after the killings but he thought she would do it better.

Bowman said she produced four or five pages to show to Sica but she described it as a ''mock book''.

''I was very interested in finding out what was going on with Max. There were way too many inconsistencies,'' she said.

Bowman said Sica was pleased with what she had written, which included a piece on people who had been wrongly imprisoned and later found to be innocent.

She said Sica agreed to get a copy of his criminal record to include in the book, and also posed for pictures.

''I said if he got arrested and taken away, I wouldn't have access to him to take a photo,'' Bowman said.

She said that as she entered his house for a photo shoot in 2006, Sica had checked her camera for listening devices.

While speaking to Sica, she said he spoke of holding Neelma's hand after finding her in the spa. ''He said, `I held Neelma's hand to say goodbye.' He said it was normal, it was soft,'' Bowman said.

But she said Sica later described Neelma's hand as ''curled over and stiff''.

During another conversation in Sica's bedroom, Bowman said Sica got ''glassy-eyed'' and his expression changed. ''He said, 'Do you ever think you're lucky I didn't kill you?'.'' she recounted.

She said Sica came close to her with a nail file and said: ''I could kill you right now.''

''He looked gleeful, like this was arousing,'' she said. She told the court she was starting to see ''both sides'' of her friend's personality.

''There's the soft, supportive, protective side, then there's the other side that's more venomous,'' she said. ''Max will either adore or despise you. If he despised you, you were going to be in trouble.''

After the pair met up at the Everton Park Hotel in 2007, Bowman said Sica told her: ''If I ever find out you're talking to the detectives, I'll take you for a little drive.''

Defence counsel Sam Di Carlo said Bowman had worked with police for four years under the guise of writing the book, and that her witness statement resembled a Mills and Boon.

The hearing continues.