text: 5 June 1995 The psychiatrist walked nervously back and forth in his office, his eyes darting to the clock on the wall every few seconds. 'Where the hell is Caroline?' he muttered under his breath. Caroline Byrd, the model, was late for her appointment. Gordon Wood, Caroline's boyfriend, was asleep at home when he woke up with a start. It was then that he realized Caroline had not come home last night. He had a feeling she might be at Watsons Bay, at a rock formation called The Gap, so he headed there. At first, he didn't see anything suspicious, but then he noticed Caroline's white car. He started shouting and calling her name. His presence at the scene was later confirmed by two fishermen who were at The Gap. Gordon drove back to Sydney to pick up Carolina's father Tony Byrne and her brother Peter Byrne and they all started searching for her. The darkness was so thick that it felt like a physical presence, weighing down on the men as they carefully made their way along the cliff edge. The woman had been missing for hours, and their hope of finding her alive was strong enough to keep them going. Then, suddenly, one of the men shouted: 'Hey, I can see her at the bottom! Look!' Interestingly, neither his fellow searchers nor the police torchlight had been able to spot her before. She had been seen in the afternoon at Watson Bay by three witnesses, Carl Martin and Lance Melbourne, who claimed to have seen her at different times. Three years later, another man, John Doherty, said he had also seen her in the area from his apartment window. She had been arguing with a man while another man was standing not far from them. The identity of these people has never been found. The primary suspect became her boyfriend, Gordon Wood. However, he was having lunch with two of his friends who confirmed his presence. After that, he got a call from a businessman Rene Rivkin who asked Gordon to drive politician Graham Richardson to an appointment and to do some errands for him after that. When Gordon was done with the job, he got home at about 7 in the evening. The problem was however that Gordon's alibi was discredited later, in 2001. 'No, I wasn't with Gordon Wood, I was having lunch with Peter Moore, rugby administrator.' - he said. Still, Gordon claimed that it was he who gave a lift to Peter from a meeting with Rene to the lunch but this claim was ignored by the public. Later on, the news of her death was presented as a suicide in the media. In spite of this, her father had second thoughts about the suicide theory. Something was speaking against it but he wasn't sure what. Caroline's death was connected to Rene Rivkin's financial activities, pointed out by her father: that both Gordon and Rene might have been involved in insurance fraud and Caroline might have known about the case. Perhaps his accusations were not baseless: Rene was convicted of insider trading in 2003 which mentally crushed him leading to his suicide in 2005. Sadly, Moore was not able to confirm Gordon's story in the following years because he also died in July 2000. While Gordon claimed she had committed suicide, her father pressed the police to continue the investigation and the case was even mentioned in the parliament. In 2004, professor Rod Cross conducted a scientific investigation about the physical aspects of the falling of the body. The conclusions provided new evidence which was enough to hold a trial and the police could charge Gordon with murder. The theory of suicide also had a big emphasis in this case: it became known during the trial, that Caroline's mother, Andrea Byrne had committed suicide after a breast operation that went wrong. It was theorised that Caroline could have inherited the same tendency to commit suicide too. However, Tony denied that his sister would have killed herself. Even if she wanted to, she would not have chosen to jump from a cliff. During the trial, Caroline's psychologist, Cindy Pan also talked about her client: 'The thing is, she was suffering from depression the weeks preceding her death. She could never determine the reason for her depression though.' - she said. Rod Cross physicist spent a lot of time examining the falling based on the location of the body. At first, he stated that she could have jumped on her own but his further examinations contradicted this supposition as the distance between her body and the cliff was further than it was initially stated. According to these further developments with the involvement of testing jumps with swimmers, there was not enough running distance on the top of the cliff to get so far from the cliff. As a result, it was more probably that someone threw her. During the second trial, the location of the body became more crucial. However, it could not be established where the body was located exactly but media reports implied that Caroline could not have jumped. Gordon was caught in London and was deported back to Australia in 2006 but was released on bail. The first trial took place in 2008 but the judge announced a mistrial because of the rumour that the jury was too biased towards Gordon being guilty. A few months later there was a second trial but that did not lead anywhere as the question remained: did she commit suicide or not? After several considerations, the jury found Gordon guilty and sentenced him to 13 years in prison. During the appeal hearing, Gordon's barrister Tim Game came up with a lot of counter-arguments surrounding the theory that Gordon was the murderer. Firstly, he objected Rod Cross' explanation according to which it was impossible for Caroline to run and jump because of the lack of space. It is true that the space on the top of the cliff was limited by a fence based on the examinations conducted by Rod in 2003 but Tim proved that the same fence was not there back in 1996 yet providing more space for the jump. Secondly, Tim also raised attention to the changing police views regarding the location of the body. The inconsistency of these opinions could not provide hard evidence for the real location. In February 2012, the court acquitted Gordon. The court did not think that the evidence was manipulated and did not rule out the possibility of suicide. As for the motive, that Caroline might have known illegal procedures concerning Rene's business and Gordon killed her, was not found consistent enough either. After setting free, Gordon left Australia and moved to the US and Britain. In 2014, he sued a radio station in Sydnes and the Daily Telegraph for defamation and the court ruled unrevealed amount to Gordon. In 2016, Gordon also sued the state of New South Wales for vicious prosecution, for making false and humiliating statements by the police and for the torture he got in prison both mentally and physically. His case was dismissed.