Liam Payne: Grief as picture begins to emerge of singer’s final hours
The third floor room at the Casa Sur hotel where Liam Payne was staying is now sealed off with police tape.
Hotel guests walk up and down the corridor but a police officer is on guard to ensure nobody interferes with what is still the scene of an active investigation.
How and why did the One Direction star plummet to his death from the balcony of this room and was there any third-party involvement?
A 911 emergency call has already been leaked in which a hotel worker expresses concern for a guest who he believes to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
It is part of a stark picture emerging of the 31-year-old’s final hours.
Fans of Payne mourn his death in Argentina. Pic: AP
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Sky News has seen police images from inside the room which authorities say was completely trashed.
The pictures show a TV screen smashed, unknown white substances and aluminium foil strewn across surfaces.
Other guests at the hotel in the upmarket Palermo district of Buenos Aires include a party of at least 20 people from the United States, in town for a friend’s wedding.
For Doug Jones, it is his first time out of the US and he did not know what to expect.
He’s staying in the room opposite where Payne was. The day before the singer died, Doug says he saw hotel staff coming in and out of the room carrying furniture.
“I assumed they were doing renovations because they had tool kits and drills,” he said.
On the day that Payne died, Doug said he heard lots of commotion coming from the room.
“A lot of crashing and banging and shouting,” he said. It culminated around 5pm, Doug says, when he heard a “violent, manly scream”.
Forensics at the hotel.
Pic: Reuters
He came outside and on to the tree-lined street outside, with its smart restaurants, bars and high-end shops.
It was suddenly filled with police cars. It was then he realised something tragic had unfolded.
“I’d heard of One Direction but I wouldn’t recognise Liam Payne, but some of the women who are part of the wedding had seen him in the elevator,” he said. “Now there’s a police woman sitting outside my room watching his room. I’m not sure how long she’ll be there.”
Other guests say they had seen Payne engaged in a heated discussion with a woman in the hotel lobby just hours before he died.
Pictures from Payne’s hotel room in Buenos Aires. Pic: Buenos Aires Police
A 15-minute drive across town is the judicial morgue, where forensic experts assess that Payne had suffered 25 separate injuries in the fall, including massive internal and external bleeding. His injuries were incompatible with life, they said.
Baleria Linares, a 21-year-old college student who lives just a few streets from the Casa Sur hotel, has returned to join other fans who gathered to weep and sing One Direction songs. “We are together in our grief,” she said.
“Liam means so much to me,” she added between sobs, “he helped me through a hard time in my life. When I was happy I listened to them, when I was sad I listened to them. I love them with all my heart. But I know that he’s resting now.”
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‘They saved my life at some point’
Some fans clutch bouquets, others pin notes to a nearby tree which is decorated with images of Payne.
“You’ll be always in our hearts,” one reads.
Morena Farias Gomez is sobbing as her friend tries to comfort her. “It is devastating news,” she said, “I’ve been a fan of One Direction for 10 years. I think they saved my life at some point, they were my teenage years, I grew up with them.”
The grief is real, here, but even more acute thousands of miles away with Payne’s family in the UK as they wait to bring his body home.
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Henrietta Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Eliza Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
CCTV of the sisters. Pic: Police Scotland
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The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
A dirty needle thrown less than 100 metres from the new injection centre
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
Read more: ‘Dying would be better than my £1,000 a month heroin addiction’
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
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