When Australian nurse Yvonne Gilford was found butchered in her apartment in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1996, two of Gilford?nursing colleagues, Deborah Parry and Lucille McLauchlan were arrested by Saudi police and detained for questioning. Both women signed confessions and sentences of execution were ordered by a Saudi court. However, Parry and McLauchlan claimed they had been forced to sign confessions at the behest of the police, and loudly proclaimed their innocence to their lawyers and the Western media, who picked up the story. What followed was a period of protracted legal and political wrangling as lawyers for the two British nurses attempted to stave off the impending executions. And in a bizarre twist, Gilford?brother Frank, a quiet, retiring farmer in Queensland, was given the power to choose their fate as is custom in Saudi law. Lawyers for Parry and McLauchlan attempted to persuade Frank Gilford to grant mercy on the accused, but he refused, convinced they were guilty. Eventually, Frank Gilford, though still convinced of the two nurses?uilt, decided to accept so-called ?ood money?n return for a stay of execution.