It’s been revealed that a quest to purchase cocaine in the early hours of July 16 turned fatal for 23-year-old Sydneysider Gary Tweddle, who went on to become lost in Leura bushland and later fall to his death near Sublime Point.
Mr Tweddle was attending a work conference when he ran out of the Fairmont Resort at Leura in the middle of the night.
Six weeks later, his body was found resting on a cliff ledge following the largest search operation in Blue Mountains history.
Mystery surrounded the night the Oracle sales representative disappeared, but the arrest of an alleged drug dealer partly explains what happened.
Police arrested Christopher Thomas Pambos of Earlwood two weeks after Mr Tweddle vanished.
Phone records indicate Mr Pambos arranged to drive from Sydney to the Blue Mountains to meet with the British-born Tweddle on the night he went missing.
Court documents reveal the 26-year-old had planned to sell him 2.5 grams of cocaine in five small resealable plastic bags.
He tried to meet up sometime between 10pm on July 15 and 2am on July 16 but the pair lost contact and never met.
Police arrested Mr Pambos after he allegedly supplied more than $30,000 of cocaine and $800 worth of MDMA (ecstasy) in Sydney on August 2.
He was charged with two counts of supplying a prohibited drug after he allegedly sold 128 grams of cocaine and 88 grams of the drug commonly known as ecstasy at Earlwood.
Police also charged him with dealing with the suspected proceeds of a crime after he was found with $5930.
Mr Tweddle’s body had yet to be found when Mr Pambos first appeared before Burwood Local Court on August 23.
Magistrate Christopher Longley granted him bail on the condition he surrender his passport and report daily to Marrickville Police station.
Fairfax Media approached Mr Pambos in Marrickville last week but he declined to comment.
Earlier in the night of Mr Tweddle’s death, he’d joined his work colleagues for dinner at Silk’s Brasserie in Leura.
Owner-manager Stewart Robinson said he remembered Mr Tweddle being polite but thought his behaviour was strange for someone who had not been seen to be drinking a lot, as he was looking “a little unsteady on his feet.”
Later a Katoomba-Leura Radio Cabs driver, who did not wish to be named, said he remembered driving Mr Tweddle and some of his colleagues from Silk’s to the Fairmont Resort and Mr Tweddle “was wasted, seriously wasted”.
Security camera footage captured Mr Tweddle running out of the Fairmont Resort late at night without his jacket or glasses.
Shortly after leaving the resort, a distressed Mr Tweddle rang colleagues and said he was lost.
A motorist told police they saw him standing in the middle of the road on the phone.
A short time later, his phone battery died.
His friends, family, police and more than 1000 volunteers searched for him for weeks before his body was spotted in a tree canopy by a helicopter crew doing a training exercise on September 2.
Mr Pambos has not yet entered a plea and is expected to face Burwood Local Court in October.
