The first autopsies of the victims from the luxury yacht sinking off Sicily have been conducted.
Seven people died when the superyacht Bayesian—carrying 22 people, including 12 passengers and 10 crew members—sank during a sudden, violent storm on August 19.
The deceased were identified as British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah Lynch; Christopher Morvillo and his wife, Neda; Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and yacht chef Recaldo Thomas.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived along with 14 others.
On Monday, September 2, the Italian news agency ANSA announced that autopsies for Christopher and Neda Morvillo confirmed drowning as the cause of death. The autopsies were conducted by coroners appointed by Palermo prosecutors.
Initial results from the examinations, performed by Professor Antonella Argo of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Palermo Policlinico, showed no signs of trauma.
The autopsies for Jonathan and Judy Bloomer are scheduled for Wednesday, while the autopsies for the remaining three victims—Mike, his daughter Hannah, and chef Thomas—are still pending. Lynch had organized the yacht trip to celebrate a recent legal victory.
Morvillo was one of Lynch’s U.S. lawyers in a fraud case involving the 2011 sale of Autonomy, a British search engine company, to Hewlett-Packard in an $11 billion deal that quickly soured amid allegations Lynch had falsified the company’s financial records to inflate its value. Lynch was acquitted of the charges in June. Morvillo had previously worked as a federal prosecutor who investigated the September 11 terror attacks, according to the New York Post.
Chief Prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio confirmed on Saturday, Aug. 24 that an investigation had been launched to examine each possible element of responsibility, including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision, and the yacht’s manufacturer.
James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, was the head of the crew aboard the 184-foot-long superyacht when it capsized after being hit by a tornadic waterspout during the storm.
Cutfield is currently under investigation for “negligent shipwreck and multiple counts of negligent homicide,” according to the Italian news agency ANSA.