Questions about Liam Payne's death continue: Where's his Rolex?
The mysteries continue in the case of the death of former One Direction member Liam Payne. While three persons have been arrested in relation to his (probably drug-related) demise at age 31, police are now looking for an expensive Rolex watch that disappeared from the site.
According to the newspaper La Nación, Argentine police are investigating the whereabouts of the watch. It was seen on the musician's wrist just a few hours before he fell from the third floor of the CasaSur hotel in Buenos Aires.
According to authorities, security footage shows Payne was wearing the Rolex until at least two to three hours before the incident. CCTV footage captured the watch between 2 pm and 3 pm on October 16, the day of Payne's death.
Photo: liampayne / Instagram
However, when his body was found in the hotel courtyard, the watch was no longer on his wrist. "We searched for it in the CasaSur hotel room where he was staying and we couldn’t find it," detectives told the newspaper.
Authorities suspect the watch may have been stolen. They have raided nine properties in connection with the case and have searched for the missing watch, but have so far failed to find it.
The searches included the homes of the three defendants in the case, who are suspected of abandoning a deceased person and supplying narcotics to Payne in the days before he died, the newspaper reported.
Police also searched the homes of two women who were with Payne on the evening of his death. Both have been questioned as witnesses, as they were the last people to see the artist alive.
According to authorities, Payne refused to pay them the price of $5,000 agreed upon for their visit to the hotel. This context generated speculation that the watch may have been stolen as a form of deposit or payment to the women.
The Rolex is worth much more than $5,000 though. It has been valued between $30,000 and $60,000.
Meanwhile, police return to the room in the Buenos Aires hotel where Payne stayed. They will do a new thorough search for the Rolex. The room has been kept closed for the past month by court order, so no one has been able to enter it and move any of its interior.
An investigator explained that the most urgent part of the case was to look for the watch in the homes of the people with whom the singer was in contact before he died. "Now another investigation will be carried out to determine if it was left somewhere in the room," he explained to La Nación.
According to TMZ, Payne's father, Geoff, was the one who asked about the Rolex when the singer's belongings were handed over to him. Geoff explained to authorities that the watch was of great sentimental value.