Latest / The Front / A lonely death in paradise: Suzanne Rees and the Lizard Island tragedy

Transcript

A lonely death in paradise: Suzanne Rees and the Lizard Island tragedy · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Friday, October thirty one, twenty twenty five. The Australian's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: investigative podcast Shandy Story returns today with the first of
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: several bombshell new episodes, revealing that even after a Commission
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of Inquiry into Australia's worst forensics disaster, the Queensland government
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: was warned its troubled DNA lab was even worse than anyone.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: New subscribers to The Australian here episodes first at Shandy
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: dot com dot Au and The Australian's app. Donald Trump
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: has hailed an amazing meeting with Hijinping, saying he'll cut
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: his tariff on China by ten percent. In return, says Trump,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Beijing will ease its controls on rare earth by a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of American soybeans and work very hard to
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: crack down on fentanyl ingredients. Trump says she is a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: great leader from a great country. How on Earth was
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: an adventurous eighty year old lady left behind by her
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: luxury cruise ship three decades after the horrific snorkeling deaths
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of Tom and Eileen Lonegan. Tragedy strikes the Great Barrier
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Reef again. That's today's story. Michael McKenna is the Australian's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Queensland editor and he's been covering a story along with
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: our colleague Sarah Elks that has really touched a whole
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: lot of people. Michael, this is about Suzanne Reese, who
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: was Suzanne Reese.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Suzanne was a mother from New South Wales.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: She was an eighty year old woman who it seems
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: was on the trip of a lifetime aboard the Coral Adventure,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: which usually had about one hundred and twenty passengers exclusive.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: It cost about eighty thousand dollars and the voyage it
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: was a sixty day voyage around Australia and really went
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: to a lot of the remote parts of Australia. It
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: had experts on board, marine biologists, naturalists and the like
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: to really present the knowledge and the exploration of some
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: of the most remote parts of Australia. They left hands
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: and steamed northwards up the coast of Cape York and
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: dropped anchor off Lizard Island, which is about ninety kilometers
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: past Cooktown. It's some of the most beautiful coastline in
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Australia and Lizard Island is a protected island. It's a
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: traditional Aboriginal country, but it's also got one of the
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: most exclusive resorts in Australia, which has been frequented by
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: movie stars from all over the world. So this was
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: the first stop of this sixty day cruise and that's
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: where it seems things went wrong.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: We've published in The Australian the most beautiful picture of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Suzanne Rees. She was eighty years old, but she reminds
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: me a little bit of my late mum, Wiry rangy
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: kind of lady, very dapper and looks like great fun.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: She was obviously pretty fit and adventurous to go on
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a holiday like this by herself.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: That's right, and I think that's what we've had a
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: statement from her daughter, Katherine Reevees through a spokesperson, who
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: described her as very healthy, active who enjoyed gardening and
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: she was a key member of a bushwalking group. What
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: we understand is that the ship anchored just off the
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: island and there was a group that were taken by
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: tender to the island. Some went to the beach, some
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: went snorkeling, and then others went for this climb up
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: the hill.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty arduous climb, isn't it. They call it
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Cook's Look because it's where then Lieutenant James Cook climbed
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy to get a layer of the reef,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: really to work out how he was going to navigate
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the endeavor through the Great Barrier reef. I had a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: look on the Lizard Island website about this track and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: it warns that it's arduous, it's a hard climb. It's
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: only for people who are fit. So at some point
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: on Saturday morning, a group of people from the ship
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: has gone on this walk, and Suzanne Reese has decided
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to join. But you've reported Michael along with Sarah that
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: on that walk she realized that she couldn't make it
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: to the top.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: It's a four kilometer trail up to the point. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: in fact, some of our readers have made comments in
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: the stories describing how tough the walk is and some
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: parts quite narrow. Authorities, quite they're not saying a lot,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: and the company isn't saying pretty much anything about what
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: happened on the island.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: But what we have been told.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Is that Suzanne was as part of this group. We
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: don't know how many of the staff members were leading
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: this group, or in fact, if any, we can't get
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: an answer on that.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: But they climbed up the hill.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: It was about thirty degrees there wasn't much cloud in
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: the sky. She apparently said that she wasn't feeling very
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: well and then turned around. Now, her daughter in the statement,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: said that she has learned through authorities that her mother
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: had been ill. She was asked to head down, and
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: she went down, underscorted that's when she disappeared. I've been
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: told that when she was eventually found, that her body
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: was found about fifty meters off the trail. So the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: people that are telling me this aren't sure as to
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: whether she's fallen or what's happened.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So at about sunset on Saturday, the rest of the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: hiking group returns to the Coral Adventurer, which pulls the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: anchor up and leaves Lizard Island. But at that point
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: they didn't know that Suzanne Reese was missing, did they.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: No, that's right what we're being told, and it hasn't
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: been disputed by the company or the authorities. But what
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: we've been told and quite reliably is that the parties
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: from the beach, from the snorkling group and from the
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: hikers went back to the tender, then the boat went
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: back to the main ship. The boat then left around
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: sunset or just before sunset, and it was only at dinner,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: which we believe was around six o'clock that they discovered
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: that she was missing. And we don't even think that
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: it was the company. It was one of the passengers
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: who has raised questions about where Suzanne was at that stage.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: We're being told that the ship then followed protocol and
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: they did a number of sweeps of the entire ship
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: looking for her. They couldn't find her, and then it
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: was decided around ten pm to turn the ship around
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: and the alarm with authorities.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: So what we believe is that there's at least.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Four to five hours between when she was on the
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: island and when it was discovered that she was missing.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Do you think, Michael, from what you've gleaned from your reporting,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that Susanne Reese might have died while the ship was
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: still at Lizard Island before they left without her, or
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: do we think that she lingered there for a long
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: time after the walk would have concluded well, I mean, this.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Is one of the terrible questions that needs to be answered,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and just an awful thing to think about, that this mother,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: this adventurer, in some way was on the island, off
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: the trail, either injured, we don't know. I've asked the question,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: We've all asked Sarah and I have been asking questions
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: of authorities of the company, and there's been a silence
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: about it to what happened, whether she could have been saved,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: whether she had been suffering from heat stroke, whether she
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: had fallen and seriously injured herself. We don't know, but
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: we do know, and it's what her daughter said, is
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: that her mother died alone.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It really reminds me of the really sad story of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the death back in twenty twenty four of doctor Michael Moseley,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the British science journalist who was on a Greek island,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a fit, active sixty seven year old who went for
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a walk in the heat by himself and died. Was
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: later found very close to a village where he could
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: have reached help, but a coronial finding indicated there was
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: an undetermined cause of death, that he must have died
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: in some way of natural causes, but wasn't clear about
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: exactly how. It's just a reminder, isn't it, Michael, of
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: how vulnerable people are. Even though you might think as
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: an older person you're very fit and active. You know,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: death can be lingering not far away.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: That's right, and especially in this area. I was up
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: in Kpe, York in July. The Aboriginal people are called
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: the White Sands people. There's lots of big white dunes,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: and the sun even in the winter was belting. It's
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: really hot, so if you can imagine, it was at
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: least thirty degrees. We're told that there was no cloud
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: in the sky and there was no wind, so it's
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: sort of an unrelenting heat that she would have been
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: walking down. She already feels ill. She's walking down the
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: trail by herself, which is this great question of why
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: she was allowed to walk down unescorted, without any help,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: walking down this hill, what she's unfamiliar with, and then
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: either she's collapsed, tripped, or something's happened because the party,
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: my understanding, they follow the trail back the same way.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: They didn't see her.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: This is remote country and there are perils in many places.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Coming up after a horrifying tourist tragedy in nineteen ninety eight.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: This was supposed to never happen again. So what's gone wrong?
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Once upon a time, probably when you and I were kids, Michael,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: people who were eighty didn't go on adventurous holidays. You know,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: if they were still alive, they were sitting in an
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: armchair kind of doing their crochet. Nowadays, people are living
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: well into their ninth decade, very fit and healthy, very active.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: They want to be out in the world doing things.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And it raises this really interesting question about duty of care,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: doesn't it. You know, she has the right to go
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: and be an independent adventurer, but she's also in the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: care of a company that should be looking after Yeah, well.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: That's right, and they're paying a fair price. This is
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: an eighty thousand dollars a ticket circumnavigation of Australia for
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: sixty days, and so when you're going on this sort
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: of expedition, you would expect that the safety protocols are
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: well in place.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: It sort of bewilders me that she was.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Allowed to turn around and walk back down this trail unescorted,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: But also it raises the questions about the protocols that
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: should have been followed, and obviously something's gone wrong with
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: these protocols in regards of taking head counts for the
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: return to ship. So we do know this is that
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: there is much stricter protocols in regards to the people
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: that are snorkling, so they have to sign a form
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: before they go into the water and then they have
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: to sign the form when they come out of the
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: water they're on the tender and they're heading back to
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: the boat. We do know that there was a head
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: count that was taken all those on the land and
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: the beach and that should have followed, but quite obviously
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: that failed in some way. And again a lot of
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: our readers are raising questions in the comments because these
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: are season travelers. A lot of our readers I've discovered
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: who have taken a lot of these expeditions and they're
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: raising the same questions because in some instances overseas and
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: in other parts of Australia, people have got their own
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: ID cards and that it's just a matter of swiping
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: or showing the cars as they lead the ship.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: They're really tight and they're really rigid. Protocols that have followed.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: The rules and protocols were tightened for tourist boats across
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: the Great Bayer Reef and I think across Australia after
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: the tragedy of the Lonigans in nineteen ninety eight. They
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: were an American couple, Tom and Eileen Lonigan, and they
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: boarded a scuba dive boat that went off the reef
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: near Paut Douglas. The dive boat, the Outer Edge, took
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: twenty six people in a three day diet trip, but
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: the boat returned with only twenty four passengers. It took
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: another two days before the company called the police after
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: a botched head count. A coroner later ruled that the
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Lonagans had drowned or had been eaten by sharks after
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: being left at sea. Their bodies were never found, and
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: the boat's skipper was eventually found not guilty of manslaughter.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Now the case of Suzann Reese is with Queensland Police
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and the coroner.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: This is obviously a major file because his poor woman
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: has been left to well, has been left for four
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: to five hours on this island.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It's terrible.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Michael McKenna is The Australian's Queensland Editor. Come back to
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot u for all our updates
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: on this story. Do you remember the Pisce Christ art controversy?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: What about Bill Henson's nude pictures of young people? Australians
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: have a habit of getting very steamed up about contemporary art,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and in Saturday's episode of The Front, our chief culture
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: correspondent Tim Douglas joins me to work out exactly what's
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: our problem with provocation And of course you can check
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: out all the best entertainment and arts journalism right now
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au