The inquest for a man who died after taking a cocktail of alternative “medicines” at a spiritual retreat in northern New South Wales has been adjourned after new witnesses emerged.
Jarrad Antonovich died after drinking ayahuasca and partaking in a “kambo” ritual at a six-day spiritual festival held on a property near Kyogle in October 2021.
An inquest into his death began in May 2023 but was adjourned last year after police obtained a list of those who attended the Dreaming Arts festival, enabling them to speak to more witnesses to Antonovich’s prolonged, public and agonising death.
Upon resuming last week, the court heard from two witnesses who said ceremony participants were urged not to talk about Antonovich’s death by the festival’s spiritual leader, Soulore “Lore” Solaris, and members of his inner-circle – known as “guardians”.
Solaris’s barrister, Alex Radojev, denied those accounts.
Solaris was set to take the stand this week, as well as the man who led the kambo ritual – Cameron Kite.
But counsel assisting the crown Peggy Dwyer SC indicated to coroner Teresa O’Sullivan in court at Lismore on Tuesday morning that police had been contacted by a number of people offering further information after last week’s hearings.
“At the commencement of the inquest the counsel assisting team did not have complete information in relation to who attended the retreat where Jarrad passed away and, particularly, who at the retreat knew what was happening to Jarrad at what times, and why certain decisions about his care were being made – or not made,” she said.
“That has made it difficult but, as a result of the investigation and evidence gathered, the picture is now becoming clearer.”
Dwyer said it had been a “difficult and long week” for the Antonovich family and acknowledged the strain it had placed on witnesses as well. Though further prolonging the process was “regrettable”, Dwyer said the new information made it necessary to do so.
“An inquest is not conducted to condemn a lifestyle or life choices,” Dwyer said.
“But it is an important part of the coroner’s function to prevent death, if at all possible.”
Both ayahuasca – a plant-based psychedelic – and kambo – the toxic secretions of an Amazonian frog – are traditionally used as medicines by Indigenous peoples of South America and were illegal at the time of Antonovich’s death.
In recent years they have acquired a community of practitioners and enthusiastic adherents around Australia, with much of it centred around the northern rivers region of NSW – long a mecca for those seeking alternative lifestyles.
That community was placed under the spotlight last May when two inquests were held back-to-back – Antonovich’s and that of Natasha Lechner, who died at the age of 39 in a kambo ceremony in Mullumbimby in 2018. The findings into Lechner’s death are scheduled to be handed down on Friday.
The Antonovich inquest has previously heard medical evidence that he died of a perforated oesophagus and will seek to decide if the fatal tear was caused by the excessive vomiting associated with purging often induced by ayahuasca and kambo.
It has also heard Antonovich’s chance of survival would have been greatly improved had medical attention been sought after his face and neck swelled, his breathing became laboured and his pain great. Several witnesses have said Antonovich did not want to go to hospital – but that others around him also discouraged it.
A witness, Bella Gardner, last year told the inquest that a guardian, Pedro Cruz-Rodriguez, had told her to “be quiet” when she raised her concerns about Antonovich’s death a month after the fatal retreat.
The Brazilian man denied using those words when he appeared before the coroner last week.
Solaris and Kite have both had legal representatives at the inquest, as has the directors of Arcoora, the venue which hosted the spiritual retreat, and another kambo practitioner, Laara Cooper.
Antonovich was 46 when he died, lived in Lismore and was working on a novel about spirituality and healing. His father has told the court his son was left “vulnerable” after suffering an acquired brain injury from a car crash years earlier.
The inquest will resume in May.
