Content warning: This story contains the name and image of an Aboriginal man who has died. He has been identified with the permission of his family.
Many questions remained unanswered, with the family of deceased Indigenous man Nathan Booth still hopeful of a second phase to the coronial process following an emotional end to three days of hearings on Friday.
Speaking on behalf of the family, Deeanne Booth said she understood there would be a further hearing, this time focusing on the police investigation which followed Mr Booth's mysterious disappearance and death in 2019.
The Canberra man's decomposed body was discovered wedged between rocks in the Murrumbidgee River, south of Pine Island, some five months after he was last seen on June 27, 2019.
As yet, there has been no clarity from the coroner around when the next hearings may be scheduled.
ACT coroner Ken Archer has already apologised to the family that this process had taken so long.
Ms Booth, who has led the family's campaign for a full investigation, said the family was "not done yet".
"There is so much that still has not come out, and it has to come out," she said.
"It doesn't end here."
The final and third day of hearings into Mr Booth's disappearance and death in 2019 heard evidence from forensic toxicologist Professor Olaf Drummer, police search and rescue officer Senior Constable Peter Ibbott, federal police geospatial expert James Harris and the ACT's chief forensic pathologist Professor Johan Duflou.
Prof Duflou told the inquest the cause of Mr Booth's death could not be determined.
He proposed there could have been several factors which contributed to his death, such as hypothermia or drug overdose, but could not single out one ahead of another.
"It's really difficult to give a straightforward answer," he said
A post-mortem exam and X-rays found just one bone fracture to Mr Booth: a snapped left fibula above the ankle which the pathologist said "showed no sign of a healing process", indicating this injury occurred on or about the time of death.
The final time in which Mr Booth had been seen alive was in June 2019, on one of his regular visits to the Canberra Hospital methadone clinic.
He was taking around 120 milligrams of methadone daily as a means of beating a previous heroin addiction but was known to have developed a very high tolerance to the prescribed opioid. Toxicology examination appeared to confirm this was the case.
Both methadone and methamphetamine were found in samples of Mr Booth's liver.
Prof Drummer proposed Mr Booth may have been taking methamphetamine as a means of combating the sedative effects of the methadone.
The Booth family have urged investigations to continue in the hope the coroner will deliver an open finding.
