The location of the tape showing the tragic death of Steve Irwin remains a mystery 16 years after a stingray killed the beloved Australian conservationist.
Irwin was barbed by a ray on September 4, 2006, on the Batt Reef near Port Douglas while filming for a new television show.
Camera crews worked desperately to try to save the environment icon before getting him to shore, where paramedics performed CPR – but he died before reaching the hospital.
The entire incident was caught on camera for the Ocean’s Deadliest program – with tapes handed over to authorities to help their investigation.
The anniversary of Irwin’s death was on Monday, but the footage has still never been made public, largely thanks to the wishes of his close friends and family.
‘When that is finally released [after being investigated], it will never see the light of day. Ever. Ever,’ Irwin’s best mate and director John Stainton told Larry King in 2006.
‘I actually saw it, but I don’t want to see it again.’
The tape showing the tragic death of Steve Irwin remains a mystery 16 years after beloved Australian conservationist was killed by a stingray
Irwin became one of the world’s most beloved and recognisable conversationists thanks to his larger than life personality
Irwin was diving for his new show on the day of his death, with crews initially attempting to track a deadly tiger shark off the reef.
After failing to find one, Irwin instead locked in on a large, eight-foot stingray for a separate project they were working on, believed to be his daughter’s Bindi the Jungle Girl show.
Irwin swam above the usually docile and harmless stingray, before it projected one of its barbs into his chest – potentially mistaking him for a shark.
Rays use the barbs, which are three venomous spinal blades in its tail, as a defence mechanism when threatened or stepped on.
The stingray pierced Irwin’s chest as he swam over it and struck his heart, with crews rushing the icon to their boat.
‘It went through his chest like a hot knife through butter,’ Irwin’s cameraman Justin Lyons said, who filmed the tragic incident.
Irwin told his team the ray ‘punctured me lung’ after being hit, not realising it had instead struck his heart.
‘It probably thought Steve’s shadow was a tiger shark, who feeds on them pretty regularly, so it started to attack him,’ Lyons said.
‘As we’re motoring back, I’m screaming at one of the other crew in the boat to put their hand over the wound, and we’re saying to him things like, “Think of your kids, Steve, hang on, hang on, hang on”.
‘He just sort of calmly looked up at me and said, “I’m dying.” And that was the last thing he said.’
Irwin’s best mate and director John Stainton said the footage of his death would ‘never see the light of day’ and admitted he wished he’d never watched it
The 44-year-old conservationist had ordered all his teams to film everything that happened regardless of the dire situation, with the horrific footage immediately handed over to authorities who were investigating his death.
Biographer Timmy Donovan said Irwin always told people ‘he would be sad if no one got [his death] on tape’.
Australia mourned the loss of one of its favourite sons with his funeral broadcast internationally from his beloved Australia Zoo in Queensland in the days following.
Irwin’s close friend Stainton, who worked alongside the icon with Discovery Communications, said he would ensure the video was never made public in an emotional interview with CNN host Larry King.
‘I would never want that tape shown,’ the director said in the wake of his death.
Stainton accompanied Irwin’s body on a seaplane back from Cairns following his death before watching as his wife Terri and children Bindi and Robert arrived to see his casket for the first time.
‘I travelled on the plane with him for six hours, just him and I. For five hours, I couldn’t stop crying. It was devastating,’ he said in 2006.
The footage was handed over to authorities who returned it after their investigation was complete. All copies were destroyed except for one which was given to wife Terri (centre)
‘The fact that we finally got him home and the family saw the casket last night, it was like a full stop.
‘Until you actually see that you can’t imagine it. You think it’s a dream and it’s not happening. But it is and it has and it’s done.’
As for the footage, all copies of Irwin’s death were destroyed immediately after the investigation was complete, except for one.
It has been reported Terri was handed the final copy of her husband’s last moments.
Terri told You magazine in 2018: ‘After Steve died, 100 million viewers watched video of his death that was released on YouTube.’
‘That film was a complete fabrication exploiting people’s sadness. I have never watched the real footage. Why would I? I know how my husband died and I was relieved that the children weren’t on the boat as they usually would be; it would have been horrendous if they had witnessed it.’
According to Terri, there is still a copy sitting in a dusty police vault somewhere.
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