Ten Degrees of Reckoning (18 page)

The combined treatment of psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and antidepressant medication decreased Judy’s levels of anxiety and increased her sense of well-being. Over the years, she and I have talked about the ongoing research that has produced various successful treatment methods for PTSD. At a particularly distressing time in her life I returned with her to visit the prominent psychiatrist in San Francisco, hoping she might reconsider. He was impressed with her progress, but, in his compassionate manner, he explained how she could benefit from the most up-to-date, effective approaches and management of PTSD. Judy decided against it.

One of the enduring aspects of trauma is the tendency to relive the event. Strong people, like Judy, go over and over the experience in their minds, in an attempt to master it. And her early instincts to avoid any protocol that would lessen her effectiveness in seeking justice seemed appropriate. It also isn’t difficult to understand why Judy, even now, long past any verdict, would refuse a treatment that might blunt the harshness or diminish every sight and sound. Whatever happened to Mike and Ben and Annie happened to her. She refuses to relinquish those memories. She cannot bear to think that her family would be abandoned yet again.

Seventeen

Gathering the Evidence

THE INVESTIGATION REALLY STARTED ON THE DAY OF the collision, with the conscientious radio operators in the Bay of Islands. There were often as many as 250 international boats coming into the area in New Zealand’s spring, to avoid the cyclones in the Tropics. Land-based volunteers monitored the VHF marine frequencies to offer assistance and weather reports.

In Opua, the clearing port for international yachts, Dorothy Bateman helped her husband, George, run the Opua Marine Radio. On the day of the collision, Mrs. Bateman logged a particular exchange between a sailboat and a crew member of a Russian ship, which she reported to the investigators. She informed them of hearing the sailboat
Magic Carpet
repeatedly calling a ship in the vicinity on VHF radio. After fifteen minutes, someone on the ship finally responded. Chris Wagner, the sailboat’s owner, warned him that there were a number of boats in the area heading toward Opua. Mrs. Bateman’s log noted that a second crew member on the ship, whose accent she could not determine, yelled, “Your fucking yachts shouldn’t be out in this weather.”

Jon and Maureen Cullen, who assisted in initiating the search for the
Melinda Lee
from Kerikeri Radio, confirmed that they heard several yachts calling ships and getting no response.

“But,” Mr. Cullen later told an interviewer, “it was a scenario no different from any other night. We hear these small boats calling and calling and calling these ships and nobody responds on VHF.”

Most sailboats, in addition to a watch keeper in the cockpit, kept a continuous listening watch, with their VHF radios tuned to the channel monitored by ships. As the smaller vessels, they usually took the initiative, calling large ships to make them aware of their presence. But as Mr. Cullen noted, rarely did the ships respond.

The Russian ship had departed from Auckland for Australia. The crew was contacted on the radio and questioned about the ship’s location at the time of the collision. They denied any involvement. Australian authorities awaited their arrival in Melbourne, and so did the media. Many of the international newspaper articles named the ship and speculated about its involvement. The ship reported engine trouble off the coast of Australia and requested the assistance of a tug to enter the harbor, delaying their arrival. Finally the ship limped in, under the floodlights of television cameras.

The cursing of a crew member had reaped all this unwelcome attention, and then the “breaking news” footage ramped up the excitement, because easily visible on global television screens was a white paint smear across the bow of its black hull. The shipping agents who represented the owners offered “one thousand percent cooperation,” and the Australian maritime authorities boarded the ship. They interviewed the master, examined the hull and the logbook. Their records established that the Russian ship was 115 miles from the scene at the time of the collision.

Jon and Maureen Cullen contacted the New Zealand Maritime Safety Authority (MSA) investigation team and told them that yachties had gathered on the sailboat
Ruquca
in Opua to provide information for the search-and-rescue operation. The investigators interviewed the group and looked at their reconstruction of the sailboat’s position and the Hole in the Net entries. Chris Wagner from
Magic Carpet
reiterated the experience he and his wife had had with the Russian ship and added that they had encountered five ships en route to Opua. The investigators would have to check into the movements of all ships in the area to establish the identity of the vessel involved in the collision with the
Melinda Lee.
They would also need to determine a fairly accurate location of the collision.

On November 28, after Judy had been in the hospital just one full day, Mike Eno and Alex Livingston, two investigators from the New Zealand MSA, came to the hospital to interview Judy.

“Our condolences and our apologies. This is not very pleasant for you, but we’d like to find the ship,” she recalls them saying, immediately after introductions.

Judy was quite prepared for their questions, despite her injuries. She had, after all, screamed out all the details over and over for forty-two hours in that dinghy, in her determination to tell her family’s story. She was able to provide them with the
Melinda Lee
’s last position and heading, the distance from their next waypoint, the Waitangi Lead Light, and the approximate time of the collision. The investigators seemed knowledgeable and diligent, and Judy no longer felt alone in her quest for the truth.

Armed with Judy’s information and with the log entries from the Hole in the Net, the New Zealand MSA began its own reconstruction of the zone of collision. The more accurately they could pinpoint the longitude and latitude, the easier it would be to establish which other vessels were in the vicinity at the same time.

Still, the New Zealand MSA had an arduous task ahead. They would have to talk to the authorities at every major port in New Zealand and look at the data of every ship leaving the country. Then, using the departure times, the investigators would have to calculate how long it would have taken each vessel to reach the collision point, given their customary cruising speeds and the routes they might have taken on the way to their stated destinations. They would also have to monitor all radio traffic from shipping in the area, including those vessels heading toward New Zealand, and those passing through the international waters off the North Island. They would have to request records from each ship and, in some cases, ask them to examine their hulls for any damage. They would have to conduct an aerial and marine search to uncover debris and ascertain how the winds and currents might have affected the location of that debris. They would have to factor in the weather conditions, with assistance from the Meteorological Service of New Zealand, located in Wellington.

The New Zealand MSA investigators eliminated fifty-nine ships before naming the South Korean-registered, 548-foot, 27,000-ton log carrier
Pan Grace
as their most likely suspect. Their calculations placed the
Pan Grace
within two nautical miles of the
Melinda Lee
’s calculated position. No other vessels were in the area at the time. Tony Martin, acting director of the New Zealand MSA, would not confirm the
Pan Grace
’s involvement, but did say it was the only ship whose crew did not respond to attempts by the MSA to contact them. The radio had been turned off.

Statements from the master of the
Pan Grace
and any crew members who were on duty—along with statements from Judy, as the only surviving witness of the
Melinda Lee
—would be necessary to establish the sequence of events. No one was interested in assigning blame until it was clear what had happened. What troubled everyone was that the
Pan Grace
had left the scene. In the words of one of the investigators in New Zealand, “They could have, at the least, reported the incident so that we might have come to aid.”

Jurisdiction on the high seas is complex. There is an enormous body of laws and regulations governing both maritime safety and environmental protection. Any incident occurring within a country’s territorial zone, which extends twelve nautical miles offshore, would give the country rights to at least some jurisdiction over vessels of a foreign registry.

This collision occurred some twenty-eight miles offshore. Despite the fact that New Zealand had no legal mandate and limited resources for a large-scale operation, the authorities worked assiduously to investigate all aspects of the event. Some attributed their efforts to the moral obligation to a woman who had washed up on their shores. Others attributed it to normal procedures in an inherently principled nation.

Earlier that same year, in March, a French yacht was struck by a cargo ship off the west coast of New Zealand. Although the sailors set off flares to alert the ship of their plight, it did not stop to assist the family of four aboard the yacht. Fortunately, no one was injured, and they managed to get into the nearest port, despite being dismasted and bearing a huge hole in their deck. Nine months later they were still managing the damage and repairs, but the Guiton family took the time to send Judy a letter.

“We are thinking of you every day and hope that you are recovering. We feel very close to you because of the similar event, and we have been going through all the investigation procedures, which you must be going through now. If you want to discuss anything with us or just have a talk, we would be very happy to help you.”

In their case, the New Zealand MSA tracked the ship responsible for the hit-and-run to Myanmar, also known as Burma. There were problems contacting the Myanmar maritime safety authorities, and no one associated with Myanmar’s ship registry would follow up. Neither the French family nor the New Zealand MSA had any recourse. Despite this, the New Zealand MSA was not discouraged when they took on the investigation of the
Melinda Lee
collision, and their dedication was undeniable.

In a press briefing, Tony Martin, acting director of the New Zealand MSA, noted that the
Pan Grace
could not be compelled to disclose its records. If the ship refused to respond, there would be no recourse. It might, he said, be possible to appeal to colleagues in the South Korea maritime authority for their cooperation.

Early in December, the New Zealand MSA requested limited authority to act on behalf of the United States. New Zealand law does not empower their MSA to investigate accidents that occur outside territorial waters between one or more non-New Zealand ships. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it is the exclusive jurisdiction of the flag state (the country where the ship is registered) to investigate a marine casualty or incident of navigation that causes loss of life or serious injury to nationals of another flag state.

This upset John Sleavin, Mike’s brother. He and his mother spoke with several maritime attorneys who confirmed the complexities that occur in dealing with a foreign-flagged vessel outside territorial waters. John recalls one maritime attorney asking them, “If a ship built in Canada, owned by a New York firm, registered in Panama, with a multinational crew, caused death and destruction at sea, where do you think an investigation and trial might be held?”

“In the country of the victims?” John guessed.

“Unlikely,” the attorney said.

“In the United States?” John tried again. “The owners in New York should have some responsibility for who gets hired, and if their crew is inexperienced and causes mayhem.”

“Only if the New York owners registered the ship in the United States. Owners elect where to register their ships. So, in this hypothetical case, Panama would have to conduct the investigation,” the attorney said.

“The country where the ship is registered is known as the flag state,” he continued, “and it is entirely lawful to register a ship outside the country of ownership. So most ships fly a flag of a country other than the country of ownership. They’re known as flags of convenience. The two most common are Panama and Liberia. The law of registration governs the internal affairs. Some flag states have very conscientious practices and are willing to enforce strict international standards, but the ones who ignore their responsibilities create problems: safety, environmental, and labor issues, to name a few. Economic incentives, such as low taxes and the ability to hire cheap multinational crew, are often the reason owners choose flags of convenience.”

“But we’re not talking flag of convenience here,” John said. “The
Pan Grace
is owned and registered in South Korea, and it’s my understanding that it was manned entirely by a South Korean crew.”

“South Korea is one of the only countries that has more home flags than foreign ones,” the attorney said. “That’s a good thing. It means that the ship, its master and crew will be easy to find and interview. They won’t be scattered all over the globe.”

“But does that mean my sister-in-law would have to go to trial in South Korea?”

“Entirely possible,” the attorney replied.

“But what if the South Korean government has its own agenda and decides it wants to protect its shipping companies?” John asked.

“Then they won’t prosecute. It could even be contended that any civil suit brought by your family should be argued in South Korean courts,” the attorney said.

“Right now all I’m concerned about is Judy’s welfare, and gathering evidence,” John said. “The New Zealand MSA said there would be no recourse if the
Pan Grace
refused to disclose their records.”

“As I said, it’s complex, but basically that is true. They can cooperate with New Zealand and the United States, or not. It’s in their court, so to speak, and they can shut down or open up,” the attorney said.