The death of Joe Cinque occurred in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory on 26 October 1997. Cinque's coffee was laced with rohypnol, a sedative, at a dinner party, after which he was injected with a lethal dose of heroin by his girlfriend Anu Singh, who was a law student at the Australian National University at the time. Singh was convicted in 1999 of manslaughter. She was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, but was released early in 2001. Since her release, she has undertaken criminology research. The crime was portrayed in Helen Garner's non-fiction book Joe Cinque's Consolation (2004), which was later adapted into a film of the same name. Singh-Cinque relationship Joe Cinque and Anu Singh met in Newcastle, New South Wales in 1995. The following year, the couple were living together in Canberra while she was a law student at the Australian National University. During the 1998 trial, one of Singh's friends testified that she had been highly obsessed with her self-image, particularly her body, since 1991 and had briefly taken ipecac after Cinque mentioned it, something she was later angry with him for. Singh was also reportedly obsessed with fad diets and would spend hours working out at the gym—she had told friends "she'd rather be dead than fat". In May 1997, Singh told a friend that she wanted to kill several people, including Cinque, her ex-boyfriend Simon Walsh and her doctors. Death Singh's close friend Madhavi Rao invited acquaintances to two dinner parties in October 1997 and told them that a crime would be committed. Witness Sanjeeva Tennekoon reported that the first dinner party on 24 October was normal and that Singh and Cinque appeared loving. However, another witness told the court that Rao had told her afterwards that Singh had tried to kill Cinque that evening but did not deliver a sufficient dose, and that the witness had threatened to go to the police. The day after the first dinner party, Singh and Rao went to a friend, Len Mancini, and told him they had given Cinque drugs the previous evening. Cinque died on 26 October 1997, the morning after the second dinner party. Toxicology reports showed high levels of heroin and rohypnol in his body. Witness Ross Manley claimed that Singh bought more heroin from Manley's friend on the morning of 26 October. Singh called an ambulance for Cinque at 12:10pm on 26 October, and the