A B.C. teen who was found dead on an Australian beach earlier this week was not killed by a pack of dingoes.
A spokesperson with the Coroner’s Court of Queensland said in a statement on Friday that “The autopsy has found physical evidence consistent with drowning and injures consistent with dingo bites. Pre-mortem dingo bite marks are not likely to have caused immediate death. There are extensive post-mortem dingo bite marks.”
This is the preliminary assessment and the coroner said they are now waiting for pathology results to further assist in determining James’ death. That process is expected to take several weeks.
The coroner also said that there is no evidence that any other person was involved in her death.
James, from Campbell River, had ventured out on Monday for an early-morning swim on a beach on K’Gari, an island off Australia’s east coast.
Not long after, two men driving an SUV along the beach found her body surrounded by a pack of dingoes.
A GoFundMe has been launched to help the family bring James’ body back to B.C.
James’ mother told Global News this week that her daughter always dreamed of travelling.
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“Piper graduated last year and it’s always been her dream to travel,” Angela James told Global News.
“Since she was little, she’s been planning these huge extravagant dreams of travelling. So she and her girlfriend decided to save up for a year for this trip. So she was travelling with her best friend and they left at the end of October and they were supposed to tour all of Australia and their tickets weren’t due to come back the end of March.”
Angela said she last spoke to her daughter on Saturday morning and Piper said she was having the time of her life.
K’gari is known for its population of wild dingoes. The Queensland government warns visitors to be “dingo safe.” Ranger patrols have increased since the attack.
There has been a series of dingo attacks on K’Gari, also known as Fraser Island. They include the fatal mauling of a nine-year-old in 2001 and an incident in 2023 when a jogger on the beach was chased into the surf and attacked.
Australia’s most notorious dingo attack was the death of two-month-old Azaria Chamberlain in central Australia in 1980, which inspired the 1988 film “:A Cry in the Dark” featuring Meryl Streep as the infant’s mother who was wrongfully convicted of murder.
-with files from The Canadian Press
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