Coroner to examine if 19-year-old drowned off Australian tourist island or was killed by wild dingoes
“I’m 18, and you can’t stop me!” Piper James told her father before she set off backpacking on the other side of the Pacific Ocean – but the young Canadian woman’s trip to Australia ended in tragedy and trauma.
Early on Monday, the now-19-year-old was found dead on a beach on the world heritage-listed sand island and tourist destination of K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island) off the Queensland coast, surrounded by a pack of dingoes near the Maheno shipwreck.
A postmortem into her death was to begin on Wednesday, with Queensland police saying a coroner would examine whether she drowned in dangerous waters off the island’s eastern beaches or was killed by the wild canids – as well as other “potential possibilities”.
Writing that he felt a “need and want to share some memories”, Todd James posted a series of pictures on social media of his daughter with friends and family enjoying the Canadian outdoors on inflatable rafts, snowboards, dirt bikes, buggies and fighting fires – she “loved and was proud” to have worked for the British Columbia wildfire services.
