If the life of Patrizia Rolls had followed a more sinister script, her naked body may well have washed up on a Gold Coast beach. If it had gone that way—the way Aaron Mickael Bruce Rolls and his lover Mirvat ‘Mel’ Sleiman had wanted it to go—then the Italian-born beauty’s death would have proved premature and ghastly with her husband holding her head under the tide as she thrashed helplessly against his intent. Aaron Rolls, a Gold Coast security-company man, had hatched the plot to kill his loving wife of more than seventeen years after having several extramarital affairs. His eventual mistress Sleiman, a one-time sex escort, had actually suggested that he murder Patrizia during a romantic skinny dip. Patrizia Rolls might well have died in the surf had it not been for a complete coincidence. Divine intervention. A lucky fluke in the form of a randomly tapped public phone box in the suburb of Arundel on the Gold Coast. Of all the street-side public telephones that Aaron Rolls chose to use to discuss the murder plot with his lover, he picked the one being bugged by Victoria Police as part of a high-priority investigation: an investigation that had nothing to do with the kill plan that it unwittingly uncovered. It was truly a one-in-a-million chance that alerted Victorian detectives to an imminent murder.

Lucky to be alive: Patrizia Rolls says it’s a miracle she is still breathing.

‘That particular phone box was the subject of a legal telephone intercept, so that calls made from that telephone box would be monitored and recorded by the police,’ Crown prosecutor Paul D’Arcy would say in the Victorian Supreme Court.

I might say, the warrant was obtained for an investigation completely separate from this case—had absolutely nothing to do with this case. Victoria Police was, in fact, monitoring the use of that telephone for their investigation purposes and that’s really what started this investigation off: what they hear on a particular telephone call on 16 January of 2008.

Patrizia was born in Sulmoma, Italy, and arrived in Australia aged eleven with her mother. She grew up in Blackwater in central Queensland. In 2008, at the time of the plot to murder her, she was majoring in marketing while completing a Bachelor of Business degree at Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus. She had previously worked at the Marriott Hotel in Surfers Paradise as the spa and health club manager. Patrizia was an intelligent and attractive woman who simply fell for the wrong kind of bloke. She had met Aaron Rolls in February 1990 at the age of seventeen while working at a pizza shop. He was drunk when he entered the store and the manager called police. It so happened that Patrizia and Rolls worked out at the same gym, and a friend of hers was dating Rolls’s brother. They recognised each other and he asked her out. The two started dating. Four months later Patrizia was living with Rolls at his Blackwater home. At that stage, he was working as a coalminer and security guard.

Born in 1968, Aaron Rolls was the eldest of three boys. He had led an itinerant childhood due to his father’s work commitments and left school at age fifteen. He had been married once before. In late 1991 he and Patrizia holidayed in Italy where, amid romantic surrounds, he asked her to marry him. They remained engaged for seven years, during which time Rolls was retrenched as a mining union delegate.

‘He had a lot of trouble finding work in other mines,’ Patrizia said in a police statement. ‘As a result, we had to leave Aaron’s mum’s house and we moved in with my mum, who was also still living in Blackwater. I kept working as a full-time dental assistant. Up until this stage, I was of the belief that we were in a happy relationship.’ In September 1998, Patrizia and Rolls finally married. With her mother in tow the newlyweds went to live in Italy where they resided with Patrizia’s grandfather. After six months Aaron returned to Australia to find work (where he would pick up a job as a mine contractor back in Blackwater). Patrizia remained overseas and scored work on a cruise ship in Panama, but returned to Queensland eight weeks after her husband had flown home.

‘When I returned I found Aaron cold towards me,’ she told police. ‘He had moved into my mum’s house and didn’t want me in there. I had to live with a friend for about two weeks.’

The day after Patrizia and Aaron got back together, a woman named Michelle appeared on the doorstep claiming to be in a relationship with Aaron.

‘I later confronted Aaron about who he wanted to be with and he responded by picking up a knife and trying to stab himself in the chest,’ Patrizia said in one of her statements. ‘I then called the police. Following that incident, Aaron came to my friend’s house begging me to take him back. We then moved back in together.’

By the end of 1999, their marriage seemed on track again. Over the next eighteen months Patrizia worked as a fitness instructor. Due to a mining dispute, Rolls was sacked as a mine contractor.

‘There were a number of court processes which resulted in Aaron being paid out $40,000,’ Patrizia told police.

In 2001, Rolls and Patrizia decided to make a move to start afresh on the Gold Coast: the glimmering stretch where dreams seem about to come true. Patrizia applied for and won the health and spa manager’s job at the Marriott. Rolls, a big enough bloke who had worked nightclub security, picked up full-time work with a security company.

The couple lived in a nice little unit. In 2006, Aaron Rolls moved to a new job with Bodyguards International and worked at Horizon Shores Marina.

‘It was around this time that our relationship soured again,’ Patrizia told police.

While checking his mobile phone one night in November she found several provocative messages. ‘I found a number of forwarded text messages with messages like “I want to lick you all over,”’ she told police. A corresponding number was listed under the name of ‘Don’.

‘Later I had to check the phone again and saw that he had received a picture message,’ Patrizia explained.

The message referred him to a Vodafone website and provided a password … I checked the website and saw that it was a picture of a girl … a blonde girl. I confronted Aaron and he denied involvement with other people. He said that it must have been a joke or someone playing tricks. I became angry over the situation and tried to put it behind me.

In April 2007, the pair started their own company. It was called Aus Marine Security Pty Ltd. Aaron Rolls was the director and Patrizia Rolls the beneficiary. The company, which had up to twenty-five subcontractors, held a contract with Horizon Shores Marina to safeguard luxury boats worth millions. Away from work, old problems seemed to raise their ugly head once more. Patrizia told police: ‘In July 2007 I saw another text on his phone saying words like “It’s my birthday tomorrow. Hubby will be away in the afternoon.”

Once again, Aaron explained his way out of the jam. ‘He said that she’d been ringing because she was having problems with her relationship,’ Patrizia told police.

She would later say in the Supreme Court: ‘He said that he was not attracted to me physically. He was constantly putting me down, including the way that I looked.’

Aaron Rolls met Mirvat Sleiman through a businessman mate of his named Matt, who had known the sexy temptress for a couple of months.

‘I first met Mirvat at Sanctuary Cove Boat Show after I paid for an escort for one of my workers who had worked long hours at the show for me,’ Matt said in his police statement.

I initially contacted Mirvat through an advertisement under the name Electric Blue in the newspaper. This occurred on the last night of the boat show which was May 2007. Mirvat wasn’t the escort, however she chaperoned the escort and I started talking with her. I found Mirvat as very convincing and manipulative. She told me how hard a life she’d had. She said that she had a sixteen-year-old son to her husband in Lebanon, who she had never seen.

Sleiman was born in 1977 in Tripoli, Lebanon. Her family immigrated to Australia when she was seven. She left school after Year 9 and travelled back to Lebanon where her father had arranged for her to be married to an older man, who turned violent and abusive.

‘The marriage was not a good marriage to say the least,’ her barrister, Wayne Toohey, said in court.

Justice Stephen Kaye would note much later when sentencing Sleiman: ‘Not only was your husband abusive towards you, but you also were pressured by his large and religiously observant family.’

After giving birth at age sixteen, Sleiman returned to Australia with her young son in 1994.

‘On your return,’ Kaye said, ‘your own family disowned you and you had to make a living … Your lifestyle collapsed. You took to using party drugs such as ecstasy and Mogadon. In order to support yourself and your son, you began to work in the sex industry.’

According to Toohey: ‘She worked for various escort services and in various brothels.’

Her son went back to Lebanon and stayed there with his father. After a return to Lebanon, where she worked as a bartender and in nightclubs, Sleiman came back to Australia at age twenty-three and attempted to straighten out her life. She kicked the drugs and booze and took up taekwondo (in which she would gain a second Dan qualification). But she continued as a sex worker. After a client was acquitted of falsely imprisoning her and threatening her with a knife, she relocated to the Gold Coast—where she continued as an escort before starting her own escort business.

‘She had a number of girls working for her and with her while she was there and towards the end of 2005 the business was, I am instructed, fairly successful,’ Toohey told the Supreme Court. ‘She would have, in the good periods, anywhere from one to two to eighteen girls working for her and with her at a time. She would advertise in the Yellow Pages, various brochures, magazines and commercial radio.’

After their initial meeting in May 2007, Aaron Rolls’s mate Matt stayed in contact with Sleiman.

‘I arranged for a mechanic to fix her car,’ Matt said in his police statement. ‘I also lent her several thousand dollars for some advertisements for her business. She never paid me back.’

Matt told police why he introduced Rolls to Sleiman. The Supreme Court was told it was ‘love at first sight’ for the Lebanese beauty.

‘I introduced them on the grounds that Aaron could potentially do security for her and her escort workers,’ Matt stated.

Over the next few weeks, Aaron told me that he had been to see her at her address to further discuss business. It was also around this time I organised an opening party [at the marina] for my business. I arranged for Mirvat’s Electric Blue business to supply promotion girls for the event. The girls wore promotional outfits and served drinks and food throughout the night.

Shane Hay, general manager of the Meridian Marinas Horizon Shores company, remembered the night. He told police:

In early June 2007 we had a party in one of the business offices. I believe eighty people would have attended. Whilst at the party I noticed three girls that I hadn’t seen before. One of the girls [whom he would later identify as Sleiman] approached me and asked me for money for the two other girls to strip. I told her I was the general manager and it was very inappropriate for me to fund such activities. She told me that I should put money in and I told her to go away. I then rang [my wife] Karen and asked her to pick me up.

Sleiman grabbed the phone and spoke to Karen Hay. Karen told police: ‘When I said that she should go and harass one of the other men at the party she said something like, “It’s not like I want to suck his cock.”’

Shane Hay explained what happened next:

I told her to go and she became violent. She told me that she was Lebanese and that she would get her friends to come up to the marina and destroy the place. She told me that she had connections with people who arranged the Cronulla riots. She was excessively violent to the point where she threw punches at me. I stood back and told her she was acting like a bloke and that I would have to hit her if she continued. Aaron, who was working [security] that night, pulled up and I told him to remove the girl. I told him that either the police would be called to do it or he could handle the situation.

Rolls drove Sleiman from the marina. Justice Kaye noted: ‘At first, you [Rolls and Sleiman] formed a friendship which reasonably quickly developed into a sexual relationship. I accept that … you, Mirvat Sleiman, held deep and sincere feelings for Aaron Rolls.’

While being questioned by Wayne Toohey at trial, Aaron Rolls tried to explain his attraction to the foul-mouthed yet saucy Sleiman.

TOOHEY: She would get her temper up and … although you didn’t like to see her perhaps upset, from time to time it used to amuse you, didn’t it? That she was so fiery and she could swear so much.

AARON ROLLS: She had different personalities, yes.

TOOHEY: Was that one of the attractions that you had with Mel—that she was a fiery personality and perhaps the making up would be pretty good?

AARON ROLLS: Some of it, yes.

In evidence in the Supreme Court, Sleiman’s former neighbour, Roman Alexander, said Sleiman did not like the fact that Aaron Rolls was married.

‘All she said, if I can recall, is that there was no love in the marriage and Aaron didn’t love his wife—but because of the business he had to stay married,’ Alexander said. ‘She just said that the security business he had was in their names and it would have been big trouble to get divorced.’

According to Patrizia Rolls, Aaron started showing signs of depression.

‘When I asked him what was going on he said he was having nightmares and was basically stressed,’ she told police in one of her statements. ‘He said he had demons in his head and he couldn’t get them out.’ In another statement she added: ‘In September I remember asking him, “Aaron, are you in love with me?” He replied, “I don’t know.” We had an argument and he left the house overnight. I don’t know where he stayed.’

In court, Aaron Rolls admitted he was ‘confused to how I felt about both women’.

‘I was trying to repair my marriage at that time … I’d been having an affair [with Sleiman] at the same time.’

Patrizia went and saw a solicitor and moved in with her cousin in the suburb of Bundall. On an occasion while visiting her dog at home, she found another woman’s underwear in the laundry basket and a used condom in the bin. In her husband’s gym bag she uncovered twenty business cards. ‘The business cards had the name “Electric Blue Nights” on them,’ she said in one of her statements. ‘There was also a phone number, however no names. The cards offered ten per cent off escort services. I left the underwear, condom and cards spread out over the bed.’

Patrizia sought advice from a family lawyer in Bundall in the belief her marriage was over. ‘That night … Aaron came to see me and wanted to talk to me. I was too upset.’

Aaron Rolls contacted a relative and said he was planning on ‘going to see’ his dead father. He also said he had a gun. Patrizia finally agreed to meet him and discuss their relationship. Again, she asked him if he loved her. Again, he said he did not know.

‘I told him that I couldn’t be with someone that didn’t love me and it was best if we finish it,’ Patrizia said in one of her statements.

About a week later (possibly early October), I spoke to Aaron about sorting out our financial assets and separation options. I told him that I’d seen a solicitor and he should also. The following morning after that conversation, Aaron rang up crying. He told me that he did have affairs with women … I still had hope that we could fix the relationship and went to see him.

Patrizia arrived at her home to find her husband there with a mate of his named Cameron Pill.

He told me in front of Cameron that he had gone out the previous night to drink. He told Cameron and I that he had taken some drugs. He said that he had been to Shooters [nightclub]. He said that he nearly also hit someone really bad. He then said, ‘Have a look at this’ and opened his shirt. I saw a love heart with the name ‘Mirvat’ tattooed across his chest.

In court, Aaron Rolls would try to explain how and why he got the tattoo.

That night I went out and drank a lot and got plastered … The night was a blur … After I’d seen the lawyer and that, I guess I thought the marriage was over and I wished to be with Mel. Just drunken stupidness, and I ended up with the tattoo.

After revealing the ink work, according to Patrizia, Aaron admitted to several affairs.

‘He told me about a normal girl from the gym,’ she told detectives.

He said the text message lady, who was married. He also said that he’d met a girl named Mel who was his last fling. He said that she managed Electric Blue Nights and had a lot of problems and issues, which was too much for him to cope with. He said that he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore. He also told me that he had started taking drugs recently. I asked him what kind of drugs, because I was aware that he always used steroids. He told me that he would use anything he could get his hands on—he said cocaine, ice and others which I can’t remember. I asked him where he got them and he replied: ‘We’re on the Gold Coast. You can get them anywhere.’ I never confronted him about the underwear and the condom.

Patrizia said her husband blamed her for his infidelity—saying she worked long hours at the Marriott and was ‘never there for him’. She told the police, ‘He also commented on my weight, saying that he had issues with my weight.’

For her own reasons Patrizia decided to give him another chance. ‘He acknowledged that he needed some help and needed to see a psychologist,’ she said in one of her statements. ‘I moved back into the house the next day.’

Aaron Rolls told the court that he had convinced Sleiman to go back to Melbourne.

I believed while I was having any sort of contact— sexual contact—with her, I couldn’t give my marriage a chance … I had suggested she go there but if things didn’t work out in my marriage that I would still maybe take up with her.

In court, Patrizia tried to explain her benevolent and forgiving nature.

I believe that, even though he did all those cheating and wrong things, I’m Catholic and I believe that everyone can—should be given a second chance. I mean everyone makes mistakes … I became very confused and I didn’t want to leave him because I thought if he was so depressed should I leave my husband? At times he would go on the floor in foetal positions and start crying, and I fell for that. What am I supposed to do? I felt like, should I leave my husband when he’s in this state?

I just could not walk away from him because I didn’t think it was right—especially after being with someone for eighteen years. He was like my friend.

But nothing seemed to change. Aaron Rolls apparently only attended one session with a psychologist.

‘He still refused to have sex with me,’ Patrizia stated.

He was down in the dumps and not happy. He was always tired. He was still working a lot of night shifts. Small things were getting blown out of proportion. Around mid October we had another fight over him not wanting to make another appointment with the psychologist. He said that I wasn’t giving him enough time to make an appointment and he didn’t have enough time. I argued that he always had time to go to the gym.

Aaron Rolls’s cousin Debbie-Lee Wall remembered the up-and-down relationship. ‘They were good as a couple,’ she told detectives.

They were both into fitness and health. They always wanted to succeed and better themselves … Just before the Indy weekend in October 2007, Trisha had come over and she was very upset and crying. She told me that Aaron told her that she was fat and that he did not find her attractive. Trisha also told me that he was not at all affectionate towards her anymore and that he did not want to have sex with her. Trisha was very upset.

Wall spoke to her cousin over the phone on one occasion. That’s when he mentioned he had a gun.

He told me that he could not fight with Patrizia anymore. He told me that he could have any woman on the Gold Coast he wanted and he told me that they hand him business cards all the time … The whole conversation scared me. He sounded angry and upset.

At that time Mel Sleiman was suffering emotional and psychological problems in Melbourne. Justice Kaye delivered up the narrative in his sentencing remarks.

You [Aaron Rolls] telephoned her and told her that your relationship with her was over. As a result you, Sleiman, became particularly distressed and made an attempt on your own life … I interpolate that in the meantime, in November, the relationship between you, Aaron Rolls, and your wife Patrizia remained fraught.

It was during November 2007 when Aaron Rolls told Patrizia that he was going on an overnight fishing trip (he stayed at a hotel instead). Not a renowned drinker, and still full of suspicion, Patrizia drowned herself in rum and swallowed a bucketload of Panadeine Forte. She woke up in the Gold Coast Hospital. Rolls never went to visit her while she spent three days recovering. It was then, Patrizia said, that she decided to split up with him for good. To finally go her separate way. After her release from hospital she moved back in with her cousin in Bundall. Later, with Debbie-Lee Wall at her side, she went to talk to Rolls.

‘Aaron turned into a different person,’ Wall told detectives.

He snapped and threw a three-seater couch up into the air. He was pacing angrily around the room back and forth. At that stage Trish went into the kitchen and Aaron walked back past me, turned around, pointed at Trish with his right hand, walked past me and punched the wall with his left hand. Aaron then turned around. I was scared at that stage. He had hatred for Trish. Aaron banged his head down on the kitchen counter and said, ‘Right, that’s it, it’s over and you’re not going to see one bit of your mother’s money.’ I immediately grabbed Trish and we got out of the house.

In mid November, Aaron’s mother called Patrizia and said her son was sick. She asked Patrizia if she could visit him.

‘He was lying in bed with his hands shaking and a tea towel on his head,’ Patrizia said in court.

In one of her statements she said:

He told me that he was confused but although he had feelings for this girl Mel, his feelings for me were stronger. He said that Mel had a lot of issues and bad friends and that our marriage was more important. I told him that I would stay in the house as a friend for the moment and that we should see how things went.

Arrangements were made for appointments with a psychologist. According to Justice Kaye: ‘After a short time, you, Rolls, continued to be in telephone contact with Mirvat Sleiman. The two of you resumed your relationship—at least on the telephone.’

Poor Patrizia had no idea.

‘Although there was still no sexual contact [between Aaron and I] he seemed to be a lot happier and more content,’ she told police. ‘There was an argument on or about 1 January 2008 when I was upset over not even getting a New Year’s kiss.’

A couple of weeks later, Patrizia reminded her husband that she had ‘needs’. ‘I wanted to resolve any of his unresolved issues so we could move forward and perhaps renew our sexual relationship, or even affection,’ Patrizia said. ‘He didn’t want to talk about it.’

According to Patrizia, Aaron later pulled her near him on the couch. Things were about to get rough. ‘He then pulled my head by a handful of hair and pulled my head into his groin,’ she told police.

He said, ‘Is this what you want?’ I said, ‘No. It’s not.’ He then let go and he walked into the kitchen. I started crying and he walked back towards me. He then grabbed me by the throat and said, ‘Why did you have to do this to me? Why can’t you just let it be— the way it was going?’ He squeezed hard around my throat … He also hit me with an open hand on the forehead. Since that incident I thought maybe I was going overboard and I shouldn’t push it.

In early January, Aaron asked Patrizia if she wanted to go hiking. ‘The comment came from nowhere,’ Patrizia told police.

‘I found the conversation odd,’ she said. ‘Firstly, we hadn’t been hiking and he was complaining about how busy he was with work. I also found it odd because it had been constantly raining.’ In another statement she added: ‘The Gold Coast was having the worst weather I think I’ve ever seen.’

While giving evidence during his own trial, Aaron Rolls said, ‘I wasn’t planning to kill Patrizia at all. I had plans to go on a hiking trip for her birthday.’

According to Justice Kaye, Rolls and Sleiman had previously spoken about Aaron’s ideas to kill Patrizia before their damning murder plot conversation on 16 January 2008.

‘In my view,’ Kaye said in his eventual sentencing remarks, ‘the evidence makes it clear … that in the period shortly before the conversation of 16 January the two of you had already discussed the idea of you, Rolls, ridding yourself of your wife by murdering her.’

The call that brought Aaron Rolls and his lover unstuck was made at 8.45 pm on 16 January, Rolls using a Gold Coast public telephone box to call Sleiman on her mobile phone in Melbourne. Here’s what Victorian detectives heard through the phone line they had tapped as part of a top-secret investigation totally unrelated to the Gold Coast kill plot.

SLEIMAN: Yeah baby.

ROLLS: Hey bud, how are you?

SLEIMAN: Good. How are you?

ROLLS: Good.

SLEIMAN: That’s good.

ROLLS: What’s gunna happen is …

SLEIMAN: Yup?

ROLLS: I either gotta go for a beach walk …

SLEIMAN: Mmm …

ROLLS: Right?

SLEIMAN: Mmm …

ROLLS: She’s gunna have an accident there …

SLEIMAN: Mmm …

ROLLS: I’ve gotta make sure that it’s done properly.

SLEIMAN: Yep.

ROLLS: Then I’ve gotta leave the car there. Then I gotta go home, so I’m gunna have to walk all the way from Surfers to home.

SLEIMAN: Leave the car there?

ROLLS: Her car.

SLEIMAN: Okay.

ROLLS: So that she’s …

SLEIMAN: Oh yeah …

ROLLS: Right?

SLEIMAN: Yep. Yep.

ROLLS: Then I’ve gotta get home. I can’t take taxis. Buses. Anything that I can be recognised on or maybe put on camera.

SLEIMAN: Mmm.

ROLLS: Then go home. Then I’ll have to report that she’s gone missin’.

SLEIMAN: Ah huh.

ROLLS: All right?

SLEIMAN: Ah huh.

ROLLS: The other one is … is that I go for this hike thing up in the mountains and there’s an accident.

SLEIMAN: What, like falling over?

ROLLS: Ah huh.

SLEIMAN: Okay.

ROLLS: But it’s gotta look like … the beach one’s the only real safe one …

SLEIMAN: Yeah, but …

ROLLS: Because …

SLEIMAN: Yeah, but how you gunna get her in there?

ROLLS: She wants to go for a walk on the beach.

SLEIMAN: Yeah.

ROLLS: So she’s gunna go to the beach with me.

SLEIMAN: Mmm …

ROLLS: I just gotta make sure it’s the right time, and that, to do it …

SLEIMAN: Mmm …

ROLLS: But it’s the best way …

SLEIMAN: Yeah …

ROLLS: ’Cos there’s not prints.

SLEIMAN: Yeah, that’s why …

ROLLS: No foot … there’s no anything. It’s in the water—accidental drowning.

SLEIMAN: Mmm …

ROLLS: All right?

SLEIMAN: Yeah. Yeah. Yep, yep. Yep, yep.

ROLLS: So … I gotta leave it ’til after Tuesday, right? Because of … ’cos the weekend. Just can’t do it on the weekend.

SLEIMAN: Ah huh.

ROLLS: ’Cos of what I’m doin’ … with work.

SLEIMAN: Ah huh.

ROLLS: And then I got the other thing on, on Tuesday. But straight after that I’m gunna … play it. So I’m gunna try doin’ it by the end of the week.

SLEIMAN: But how the hell are ya gunna get back home, with like …

ROLLS: I’m gunna walk.

SLEIMAN: All the way?

ROLLS: Yes.

SLEIMAN: Fuck, it’s a long way.

ROLLS: I did it the other day to time it and to do it.

SLEIMAN: Did ya?

ROLLS: Yeah. Took me an hour and something.

SLEIMAN: Okay.

ROLLS: So that way the car’s left there. The whole lot. Toss the phone …

SLEIMAN: Okay.

ROLLS: Toss the keys.

SLEIMAN: Her car?

ROLLS: Yeah.

SLEIMAN: Ah huh.

ROLLS: Then report her missin’ and everything like that.

SLEIMAN: But then you gunna be wet, aren’t you?

ROLLS: I’m gunna go home. I got it all worked out, what to do. The clothes and boots and stuff like that. They’re … gunna be dumped and I’ll have other stuff waiting.

A little later the pair expressed concern about talking of such grave plans on a landline. Their concerns had proved a tad too late. Rolls said: ‘I don’t like … sayin’ too much on these, because … you never know if somebody’s listenin’.’ But despite their concerns the killer of a conversation continued.

SLEIMAN: Yeah, the beach one seems to be … kind of more …

ROLLS: It’s the best one … okay?

SLEIMAN: Yeah, cool.

And later still:

ROLLS: And then what’ll happen is that I, you know, the grievin’ and all that sort of shit.

SLEIMAN: Mmm …

ROLLS: And go through all the process with the law and stuff like that.

SLEIMAN: Ah huh.

ROLLS: And then we’ll be right.

SLEIMAN: Yeah, yeah, you just gotta … like a nice, um, romantic walk or some shit.

ROLLS: Mmm …

SLEIMAN: Skinny dipping.

ROLLS: Yeah … that’s the easiest and best way.

SLEIMAN: Yeah …

ROLLS: Just like, I physically gotta do it.

SLEIMAN: Mmm. Yep.

ROLLS: Which is the hard bit.

SLEIMAN: Mmm.

ROLLS: But it’ll be right, okay?

SLEIMAN: Yeah. You gunna be all right doin’ it?

ROLLS: Well I got no fuckin’ choice, have I?

SLEIMAN: All right … Okay honey.

ROLLS: Now, are you cool with that?

SLEIMAN: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know … absolutely.

ROLLS: All right then.

The mistress: Mirvat ‘Mel’ Sleiman suggested a fatal Gold Coast skinny dip.

Talk later turned to the Gold Coast’s unseasonal weather and how that could determine the timing of the murder. It had been a wet, tropical summer. Rolls’s work roster—and the inconvenience the death of his wife might cause his schedule—also proved a pressing issue.

SLEIMAN: Mmm, yeah, but if the weather goes fuckin’ good any day, like before that, then just fuckin’ do it.

ROLLS: Yeah, but I can’t ’cos then I gotta have time off from work to grieve and do all the stuff with it.

SLEIMAN: Mmm.

ROLLS: Everybody’s gunna think, ‘Oh, he’s not even takin’ time off work.’

Talk turned to plans to relocate after the grave soil had settled.

ROLLS: Then once, er, all the … dies down and that, then I’ll just pack up, er, you know—the week after, or whatever, and then say, ‘Oh, I gotta get out of here and bolt.’ I’ll go to Sydney … you can come up there.

SLEIMAN: Ah huh.

ROLLS: All right? And then a coupla weeks after that then you can just leave down there and come up.

SLEIMAN: Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

ROLLS: You know and if anyone starts a query, I’ll just say you come up to help me and everything.

SLEIMAN: Yeah.

ROLLS: Okay?

SLEIMAN: Mmm.

ROLLS: You cool with that?

SLEIMAN: Yeah, of course I am.

ROLLS: Yep.

SLEIMAN: Of course I am.

And later:

SLEIMAN: I just want it to get over and done with fuckin’ … just be able to relax and just say, ‘Yep, cool.’ Ya know?

ROLLS: Yep, well it will … I’ve been waitin’ to get it over and done with too, but I gotta … be careful, so …

SLEIMAN: Mm, mm …

ROLLS: That’s what I said to ya. I’m not gunna rush …

SLEIMAN: Yep, yep. Of course.

ROLLS: ’Cos I’m gunna get looked at straight away.

There was further discussion about covering up the crime.

SLEIMAN: It’ll be good if, um, there’ll be alcohol in her system.

ROLLS: Yeah, well I’m workin’ on that … Thinkin’ about how to do that.

SLEIMAN: Because that way is better.

ROLLS: Yeah, well … that’s what I’m … I’m thinkin’ of that. All right, I got two dollars left [on phone credit], so this might cut out bub.

SLEIMAN: Okay. Do you want me to call you on your phone? The other phone?

ROLLS: Er, how much credit have you got?

SLEIMAN: I’ve got credit babe.

ROLLS: You sure?

SLEIMAN: Yep, I’ve got credit …

ROLLS: All right.

SLEIMAN: All right, cool. We’ll just change our conversation then.

ROLLS: Okay then. Bye. Bye.

Talk about being shit out of luck. By that stage it was too late for Rolls and Sleiman to change anything. Thanks to an absolute fluke, police knew exactly what they were planning. While giving evidence during his own trial, Rolls denied the existence of a kill plot.

‘I never had any intention of hurting Patrizia,’ he claimed.

I never agreed with Mel to kill my wife. I just simply talked to her. I was telling her a story … I was telling Mel a story to keep her off my back … It was just talk.

Justice Kaye had his own thoughts about the call:

What is particularly chilling about that conversation is the matter-of-fact-manner in which the two of you calmly discussed the details of the plan formulated by you, Rolls, to dispose of your wife by murdering her. I listened carefully to the recording of that conversation, as no doubt did the jury. Not once could I detect any hesitation, or note of regret, by either of you as to the evil plan that you were then discussing. Not once was there evident, to the slightest degree, any recognition or feeling by either of you of the enormity of what the two of you were undertaking. In your case Rolls, it is particularly disturbing that there was not the faintest indication that you, then, were feeling any regret or pang of conscience about betraying your wife: by planning to cold bloodedly murder the woman who had been loyal to you for almost two decades.

On the morning of 19 January while talking with his wife, Aaron Rolls brought up the topic of the beach. It came out of the blue. To Patrizia it sounded odd. Out of context.

‘Have you gone to have a look at the beach?’ he asked her. ‘I wonder what the beach looks like. It’s been on the news that it’s eroded.’

Patrizia said she had not.

‘The conversation was left at that,’ she told police. ‘I found it very unusual as we’d never discussed the beach.’

That afternoon, the couple visited a Bunnings store. On the way home, Rolls suggested they drive through Surfers Paradise. According to Patrizia he said: ‘We’ll go for a drive to the beach and we’ll see what the sand is like.’

They drove past Southport Surf Lifesaving Club, but didn’t stop.

‘It’s not too bad, you can still walk on it,’ Rolls is said to have suggested of the beach. ‘I thought it would be worse.’ According to Patrizia: ‘I couldn’t understand his interest in the beach but didn’t say anything.’

While cross-examining Patrizia in court, Aaron Rolls’s defence counsel Sean Cash suggested his client’s fascination with the beach was genuine.

CASH: What he was inviting you to have a look at was really something quite extraordinary that was apparently unfolding at the time; extraordinary erosion on the beach. Is that right?

PATRIZIA ROLLS: I couldn’t really notice that much erosion that was extraordinary. It was just normal erosion … Apparently the erosion was really bad in Burleigh but not Surfers.

In court, Aaron Rolls said in his defence: ‘At that time there had been a cyclone and a lot of erosion—debris through the marinas and things like that—and I just wanted to have a look at Main Beach.’

After driving past the beach, but not parking and taking a walk, the couple went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant with friends.

‘We went to Cantina Napoli and had a really nice night,’ Patrizia recalled in her statement.

Aaron Rolls faked his way through the dinner, putting on a show for those present. He talked about future business ventures and possible trips to Italy and Egypt. Justice Kaye would say:

Such was the extent of your evil plan that you were even able to deceive two of your closest and most loyal friends of your feelings towards your wife, when the four of you met for dinner. Clearly you successfully deceived your trusting wife as to your murderous intentions towards her.

At home that night, Rolls showed affection. ‘Aaron put his head on my chest and his arm around me and slept there like that until the morning,’ Patrizia recalled in one of her statements.

We wouldn’t have slept touching one another for fifteen years. Aaron got out of bed before me that morning because he had to go to work and I opened my eyes at one point and saw Aaron standing in the doorway staring at me. He stared at me for a long time until I asked what he was doing. He said that he was just watching me and didn’t realise that my eyes were open. I thought it was a bit strange at the time but in hindsight found it really disturbing.

Detectives, meanwhile, had managed to identify the players involved in the kill plot. They located Patrizia and removed her from harm’s way. Aaron Rolls noticed her missing. Feigning concern, he made some calls to friends asking if anyone knew where his wife might have been. He twice called Sleiman. One conversation went in part:

ROLLS: Yeah, so any luck she’s driven away and more likely done it for herself.

SLEIMAN: That’ll be great.

ROLLS: Ha.

SLEIMAN: Be perfect.

ROLLS: That’d be too easy, that.

Kaye said of this call: ‘In the first call, at about 8am, you Rolls and you Sleiman speculated that Patrizia might have saved you the effort of drowning her by killing herself. You both, somehow, found that that prospect caused you great mirth.’

Patrizia made statements to her saviour detectives. ‘Our assets are around one million dollars,’ she told them on 20 January at the Gold Coast CIB. ‘However, we have liabilities such as mortgages et cetera of around $600,000. There is also about $100,000 in our savings accounts. Life insurance policies were taken out under my name and Aaron’s name.’

Rolls and Sleiman were arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder.

Out of luck: Aaron Rolls is taken into police custody on the Gold Coast.

In his closing address to the jury during the duo’s joint trial, Aaron Rolls’s barrister, Sean Cash, said:

What a decent person she [Patrizia] is. And what a rotten scoundrel he [Rolls] was to her. And he ought to be ashamed of it, ladies and gentlemen. But he’s not on trial for being a scoundrel. He’s not on trial for infidelity. If he was, you would convict him straight away … The central, most pivotal question is this: you have to ask yourself—can you conclude without reasonable doubt that on or about 16 January 2008 Mr Rolls genuinely intended to follow through to kill his own wife?

The extraordinary pressure that was being exerted he felt in this case was a set of circumstances where he saw two females, quite extraordinarily, trying to kill themselves over him. He must have hidden talents. Goodness knows what they are. But two women in the space of about two months tried to kill themselves in circumstances associated with him … That’s the reason why he made the stupid decision to say what he said in the telephone conversation on 16 January 2008.

At the start of his closing, Wayne Toohey, for Sleiman, told the jury a fascinating analogy.

Mr Foreman, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. It is 1942 in a small house in North Carlton. Young Jack is fifteen years of age, soon to be sixteen. And he’s full of dash. Full of the desire to save the world. He’s one of fourteen children. His mother and father love him. And all of the children dearly. His older brother Jim, the eldest in the family—ten years older than Jack— has gone off to war. Jim is going to save the world too. When Jim went off to war his mother and father are distraught. They hate war. They hate the idea of any of their children going to war. Young Jack is still at school. And for week after week and month after month he drives them mad. He drives his parents mad: ‘I’m going to war. I’m joining up. I’m going to go and help Jim. I’m not going to let the Japanese take Australia.’ His mother and father are horrified. ‘No way Jack, are you going to war son. Bad enough your brother has gone. We hate war and we are not letting you go so get it out of your mind.’

On and on goes young Jack to the point where he’s becoming almost a nuisance; a pest to his family and then one night young Jack comes home and he’s in a uniform. He’s in an army uniform. He’s joined up. His mother is horrified. His father is beside himself with rage. ‘What have you done?’ ‘Oh Mum, Dad, I’ve joined up.’ ‘We never signed anything. We have told you you are not going to war.’ ‘Don’t worry about it. I got some papers here and I got some papers there. I’m in. You can’t do anything about it. I’m in.’ They are horrified. ‘And furthermore, Mum and Dad, I’m leaving for camp tomorrow morning.’ During the course of the night his father takes him aside and says to him, ‘You’ve let your mum down. She didn’t want you to go. I didn’t want you to go. Under no circumstances did we want you to go, but look what you’ve done. When you get over there son, be careful. When you get over there if you are shipped out of Australia—you go to fight the Japanese up in Borneo, up in the Pacific—be careful. There is jungle warfare going on up there. We read about it in the papers Jack. You watch yourself. And if you see any of those Japanese, make sure you shoot them Jack, before they shoot you. Make sure you wear your tin helmet Jack. Make sure you’ve got ammunition in your rifle Jack. Make sure you come back to us Jack.’ And off he goes to save the world. Fortunately he comes back years later after he goes to Borneo: sees fighting.

That mother and father of young Jack in that house in North Carlton never agreed for him to go to war. They were not part of young Jack’s desire—plan—to go to war. But young Jack’s father told him once it was a fait accompli and young Jack wasn’t going to be talked out of it and in fact was not talked out of it— comes home in a uniform—his father gave him some advice. The father was never part of any agreement for Jack to go to war. Never. And yet, when the young man came home in a uniform, his father gave him plenty of advice; part of which was ‘Make sure you shoot the Japanese before they shoot you son. Don’t ask questions.’ Here we have a scenario where someone comes up with a plan. And what happens, that person—Mr Rolls—wants it to be clear to Ms Sleiman that he’s hellbent on this plan. She has never agreed to it at all. She’s never agreed to enter it at all. But he’s hellbent on it, and after a while she offers a couple of suggestions. Exactly the same scenario, but it does not make her part of the agreement. She never agreed for Aaron Rolls to do anything to his wife, just as young Jack’s mother and father never agreed for him to go to war or to join up even though the father gave him some advice.

She [Sleiman] may have done a number of things that you don’t like, not the least of which is having an affair with a married man … She might have said things [about Patrizia Rolls] like ‘fucking moll’ or ‘fucking slut’—awful things to say about another human being; particularly someone who is as well presented and as fine a person as Patrizia Rolls. But that doesn’t make her guilty of a crime.

In May 2009, the jury found Aaron Rolls and Mirvat ‘Mel’ Sleiman guilty of conspiracy to murder. Justice Kaye sentenced Rolls, aged forty-one, to eleven years’ jail with an eight-year minimum. Sleiman, aged thirty-one, copped nine years with a minimum of six.

‘The method by which the two of you intended to dispose of Patrizia Rolls is spine chilling and horrifying,’ Kaye said when sentencing the pair.

Your role, Aaron Rolls, could only be described as utterly despicable … A husband’s duty is to love, protect and care for his wife. Your treacherous plan involved the very opposite of that. Your wife, Patrizia, gave you no cause for your vile plan. She was at all times a good, loving and loyal wife to you.

Rolls had no previous convictions.

‘I accept that, apart from your involvement in this crime, you are a man of otherwise good character who had, hitherto, earned a high reputation among those who knew you both professionally and personally.’

Sleiman had no prior convictions either.

‘You, Mirvat Sleiman, were not only an intentional but indeed a willing participant in the murderous plan,’ Kaye told her.

You had difficulty coping with the prospect of losing Rolls and that heightened your anxiety to take steps to secure your future with him … I accept [Mr Toohey’s] submission that it was Rolls, and not you, who instigated the idea of murdering Patrizia Rolls.

Kaye told them both:

The callousness of the two of you, as evidenced by the phone call of 16 January and two conversations you had on 21 January, reflects just how heartless you each were in your sinister plan.

The fact that Patrizia Rolls was saved from the evil plan which the two of you had hatched was to some extent a matter of good fortune. Her rescue was also due to the effort, skill and commitment of the Victorian and Queensland [police] investigators in this case. They are to be commended … The object of the conspiracy was thwarted by the timely intervention of the police.

Aaron Rolls and Mel Sleiman sought leave to appeal against their convictions and sentences. Three Court of Appeal judges refused.

‘Some conspiracies to commit murder are particularly heinous: mafia conspiracies to murder the mafia’s honest pursuers are an example,’ Justice David Harper stated in the judgment.

Others encompass a much lower order of criminality: a plan to kill an evil oppressor would be such. This conspiracy falls between the two. It clearly lacks the gravity of the worst cases; yet I agree with the sentencing judge’s description of it as ‘vile’ and ‘evil’. It was motivated by pure selfishness. And even though she herself owed Patrizia Rolls little more than the respect which every human owes to every other, Sleiman must have appreciated that its proposed victim deserved from her husband affectionate protection rather than the extreme opposite. This consideration links her level of criminality with this, though hers remains at a lower level.

Outside court after the appeal was refused, Patrizia Rolls thanked the Victorian detectives—Nathan Favre, Stuart Bailey and Philip Gynther—who had reacted to the 16 January phone call and made the mercy dash to Queensland to save her, with the help of Gold Coast detectives.

‘I really feel like justice has prevailed. I’m blessed to be alive,’ a buoyant Patrizia said.