Two independent boating experts have begun work to hopefully find out how a 14-foot aluminum boat used by two Mohawk fishermen sank nine years ago in Ontario’s Bay of Quinte.
This new investigation was triggered by the APTN Investigates documentary series Secrets of the Bay, which showed the boat couldn’t have gone down the way police have always claimed.
“You helped us think about some questions with the family about how the boat sank in 2015,” said Dr. Dirk Huyer, chief coroner of Ontario, when he accompanied the experts to Tyendinaga, a First Nations community about 200 km east of Toronto on July 3. “With those questions, I wanted to see if we could try to get a better understanding of what happened with the boat.
“So I’ve asked two experts – one a forensic engineer and one a naval architect – to work together and help to give some ideas of how the boat could have sank, how the boat got to the bottom of the water.”
Huyer has hired Jami Buckley, a naval architect with BYD Naval Architects, which has offices in Stoney Creek, Ont., and the United Kingdom, and Eugene Liscio, a forensic engineer and owner of ai2-3D, a company that specializes in 3-D scanning to assist forensic investigations.
Buckley and Liscio spent several hours taking various measurements of the boat.
“Then Eugene and Jami put [the measurements] into software and they can do all kinds of testing on the computer and that will start our process,” Huyer explained. “This isn’t the end.
“This is a process, figuring things out step-by-step. And that will inform what we do next as to whether we come back and whether we go into the water.”
The results of the investigation could ultimately force Huyer to change the official death records of Tyler Maracle, 21, and Matthew Fairman, 26, that states they drowned by accident on the early morning of April 26, 2015.
APTN Investigates began documenting the case in May, 2023 after the families of both men questioned whether the drownings were accidental.
Both the Tyendinaga Police Service and Ontario Provincial Police claimed the Mohawk men were stealing fish from gill nets placed across the bottom of the bay, took too many and sunk their boat.
The fishermen subsequently drowned.
It was only a theory that police never tested.
But APTN Investigates did.
First, we had to dig the boat back up last fall. It was buried days after being recovered from the bay in 2015. The family said community members convinced them it needed to be buried for cultural reasons.
This spring, we took the boat on the water for the first time since it was pulled from the bay.
First, we put 500 kg (1,100 lbs) in the boat and tried to sink it.
We pushed down on the sides.
We rocked it back and forth.
We put all the weight in the front.
Then we put on a similar eight-horse motor the fishermen had and took it back out on the bay.
We turned it sharply.
We started and stopped abruptly.
Then we added more weight. Up to 680 kg (1,500 lbs).
We drove into in our own wake.
The boat didn’t sink on its own.
Not until three men pushed on the side of the boat, forcing water into it, with 500 kg inside did the boat swamp and sink like police claim.
The boat has a maximum weight capacity of 362 kg (800 lbs). The fishermen and all their supplies weighed 226 kg (500 lbs).
Police estimated they had about 276 kg (600 lbs) of stolen fish in the boat. But that was another guess because they never weighed the fish.
The families are relieved that police are no longer involved in determining how the boat sank.
Tammy Maracle, Tyler’s mom, said police wouldn’t listen to her concerns.
“It’s just awful. Many sleepless nights. The grieving,” she said. “Nobody wants to help, and I just said I was never going to stop and here we are today.”
The families believe there is only going to be one outcome from the tests.
“I think they’re going to find something happened out there that night and Tyler didn’t sink his boat on his own,” said Tammy.
“Someone did it.”
Huyer said results of the computer tests could take several weeks.
Despite neither of the fishermen showing signs of trauma, Huyer said that alone doesn’t rule out foul play.
Especially now that the experts are looking at damage on the boat that APTN discovered. This is after police told the families there was none.
There’s a large crack on what’s known as the transom where the outboard motor hooks on. Video evidence shows the boat was damaged before it was pulled from the bottom of the bay by police.
It may explain how the fishermen ended up in the water.
Work on the next episode of Secrets of the Bay is underway.
