New theory about Sydney man Charlie Bradley's mysterious death in Bali

The family of a Sydney real estate agent who was found dead on a road in Bali have a new theory about what may have led to his mysterious death.

Charlie Bradley travelled to the popular tourist spot with a friend to attend a music festival, however after the 28-year-old left a venue to catch a taxi at around midnight, he was found unresponsive in front of a medical clinic in North Kuta on Sunday, local police told 9 News. The Sydney man was pronounced dead in hospital three hours later.

“There’s a three-hour gap between Charlie leaving the venue, which was only 15 minutes from where he was staying,” his emotional sister Beth Bradley told 10 News First. “Charlie’s body was reported and found only two mins away from the villa that he was staying in… three hours later.”

Police have interviewed some witnesses about Mr Bradley's mysterious death, however a tourist who helped carry him to a taxi that went to the hospital has not yet been found and identified. He reportedly had footage of Mr Bradley "rolling around on the ground and banging his head," according to 10 News First, with the family urging the man to step forward.

“Please help us find an answer. Someone out there knows more than we do,” Ms Bradley pleaded online.

New theory emerges about real estate agent's death

Ms Bradley is now wondering if methanol poisoning could be behind her brother's death, saying he "stuck to spirits", and confirmed with his friends that he did not have any drugs.

Methanol exposure can be deadly and is most often due to poisonings from distilling and fermenting errors, as well as beverage contamination.

"There's a lot of methanol poisoning in Bali. It seems that a lot of the bars pump their alcohol with ethanol themselves to save them money in terms of producing it," she told Daily Mail Australia. “Every time I’ve Googled people dying in Bali it seems to be a very similar situation, and it seems to be happening more as of late."

Methanol poisoning expert weighs into theory

But an Australian methanol poisoning expert does not believe Mr Bradley's timeline of events matches up with the theory. Colin Ahearn, a Perth man who has dedicated much of his time to raising awareness of methanol poisoning in Bali, said when he heard of the details surrounding Mr Bradley’s death he began to lean away from that theory.

“The timeline doesn’t really seem to gel too much,” Mr Ahearn said, focussing on the three-hour window between Mr Bradley leaving the club and his body being found.

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“Methanol is not really going to affect you that quickly. This is just speculation and not anything scientific whatsoever, but I’m thinking more of a spiking,” he said, believing it’s possible Mr Bradley could’ve unknowingly ingested an illicit drug.

“With methanol, traditionally someone will have alcohol in their system so it’ll take between six and eight hours for it to kick in. And occasionally people will be a bit delusional — their vision is going to go, their breathing gets a bit funny, a lot of gut pain.”

Mr Ahearn said Mr Bradley’s actions in the video – collapsing and repeatedly banging his head – generally weren’t consistent with methanol poisoning. “But I could be entirely wrong,” he added.

He said in the last month alone he’s had six or seven people contact him unwell with suspected methanol poisoning.

A GoFundMe has been set up for Mr Bradley which has raised $47,938 out of the $50,000 goal.

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