Wayne Schneider’s beaten body was found buried in a shallow grave in Pattaya, Thailand.
Schneider, a high ranking bikie was considered one of the toughest in the underworld of bikie gangs and drug trafficking but he had little chance when 5 men attacked him in November 2015.
On Thursday, an analysis into his cause of death is set to return to the NSW Coroner’s office in Sydney.
Schneider was living in Thailand to evade the Australian police who in late 2012 had discovered two methamphetamine labs in the south-west of Sydney. He has been staying in the coastal town of Pattaya, 140km out of Bangkok – a town well-known for its crime gangs and sex tourism.
He had been living there with another Australian, Antonia Bagnato, who had also been living there having fled Australia in 2014 for following the murder of Bradley Dillon.
Bagnato and Schneider became neighbours and would often drink together. The two had become friends at a Sydney gym and were said to be involved in drug-related crime in Thailand.
However, in November 2015, Bagnato had turned on Schneider and brought masked associates with him as they forced Schneider into a Ute before tying him to a char and beating him to unconsciousness.
It is believed that the assailants left Schneider tied to a chair for hours before returning where he may have already been dead.
In the early hours of the next morning, Bagnato and his associates drove Schneider to a forest 30km away and buried him in a 1.8m deep grave.
It didn’t take the Thai police long to find the body as they followed the GPS signal of the Ute to the location where the grassy floor had clearly been disrupted by a vehicle. The Police followed the track before finding the turned earth and discovering the body.
Schneider had visible wounds to his head with a fractured eye socket and blood oozing from the side of his head. He is also said to have had a broken neck.
The police successfully tracked down the renter of the Ute, Mr Bagnato’s wife and immediately issues a warrant for Bagnato. He was found days later in a Cambodian motel in Phnom Penh.
Bagnato has since been successfully convicted of the Schneider murder and is on death row at the infmaous Bang Kwang Central Prison in Bangkok.
The cause of death has been re-opened by a NSW coroner following the discussions that Schneider may have died alone in the house having been left for a long time before the assailants returned to dispose of his body.
Mr Schneider’s body was returned to Sydney in 2015 where it was cremated.