Lloyds investigate missing American

Press, 29 December 1986, Page 3

Lloyds investigate

missing American

NICK BROWN,

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney An American, reported missing and presumed drowned after falling from the Cook Strait ferry Arahura is the subject of an investigation into an alleged SUS2.B million insurance fraud. There have been several reported sightings of Mr Milton Harris, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, since his disappearance from the ferry on May 24 last year. The latest was in Alice Springs after he had bought a car from a dealer in Mildura, in Victoria, with a $2OOO cheque which bounced, over the name of Milton A. Wilson, according to Australian reports. Investigators for Lloyds insurers have circulated photos of Mr Harris to the Australian police. A report in the Sydney “Sunday Telegraph” quotes the Wellington Coroner, Mr Alec Prothero, as saying he would raise the case with the Solicitor-General, Mr Paul Neazor, Q.C. "I’m asking him to look into the matter again in the light of additional information received since it was originally reported,” the “Sunday Telegraph” quotes Mr Prothero as saying.

The newspaper said Mr Harris was married with two children.

Halfway across Cook Strait on May 24, a passenger, Nicholas Dibble, told the crew that he had just seen a man fall over the railing of the upper deck. He presumed it was the same man he had seen earlier vomiting on the deck, the report said.

Illuminated life preservers were tossed into the sea and crewmen, later joined by the police, scanned the water to no avail. When Captain Donald Andrews assembled the passengers on deck, all were accounted for except Mr Harris, aged 42, of Baton Rouge.

When Mr Harris left on a tour of Australia and New Zealand he was covered by two Lloyds policies for a total of SUSI.BB million in the event of accidental death. He also had three life policies with American insurers which his family had collected on.

Quoting Lloyds’ sources, the “Sunday Telegraph” says Mr Harris was an experienced scuba diver who, four days before his fall from the Arahura, tumbled off a ferry between Cape Jervis, South Australia, and Kangaroo Island. On that occasion he was rescued by a passenger, the Rev. John Dunkley,

who noted in an affidavit that Mr Harris did not seem pleased about being saved. Another witness noticed Mr Harris remove what looked like a diver’s weightbelt and a large backpack after the rescue. Lloyds claim that Mr Harris, whose father owns a confectionery company and brother is a Houston stockbroker, carried an extraordinary amount of life insurance for a man of modest financial means. His tax returns for the 15 years to 1985 showed an average joint income of $9500 a year. But the lawyer for Mr Harris, Mr David Frohn, accused Lloyds of attempting to avoid paying what they owe a widow and two children. “A fellow fell off a ferry and that’s about it,” he is quoted as saying. “All the rest Of it is just there to confuse people.” The case is likely to go before a United States District Court judge in Baton Rouge in April. The “Sunday Telegraph” also quotes Sergeant Bailey Bass, of the Wellington police, as saying, “On the facts we have now I’d say it was an 85 per cent chance” Mr Harris was dead because of the drop from the upper deck and the low water temperature.