The bodies of British billionaire Mike Lynch and three others aboard the Bayesian when it sank earlier this week have been found, according to CNN.
The deceased include Lynch, his lawyer, Christopher Morvillo, Morvillo’s wife, Neda, Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas.
Lynch’s daughter, Hannah, is still missing, CNN reported.
According to The New York Times, the Bayesian, Lynch’s superyacht, set sail to celebrate Lynch’s legal freedom.
He was acquitted of fraud charges in the U.S. earlier this summer, which stemmed from the tech company Hewlett-Packard’s claim that he inflated the value of a company which he sold them for $11 billion. The charges could have sent Lynch to prison, had he been convicted.
Lynch’s co-defendant in the case, Stephen Chamberlain, also died over the weekend, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Chamberlain was reportedly hit by a car while out for a run near his house in the British village of Stretham. Some skeptics have wondered if the two deaths are connected, even though it would be impossible to intentionally cause the violent storm that factored into the yacht tragedy.
The storm of a lifetime
On Sunday night, the “strongest winds locals said they had ever felt,” according to The New York Times, tore through the coast of Porticello, Italy, capsizing the Bayesian.
Lynch’s wife and 14 other passengers escaped the wreck on a lifeboat, but several passengers went missing. CNN reported that the wind caused the ship’s mast to break, quickly causing the captain to lose control.
“It drives me insane,” Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company that made the Bayesian, told The New York Times. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”
Costantino went on to say that the mast was the second-tallest in the world in the aluminum variety, and that the boat could have sailed at a 75-degree angle without having any problems. He wonders if some of the hatch doors had been open at the time, allowing water into the hull and causing it to sink.
The Italian Coast Guard is still searching for the remaining missing body.
