Leaked courtroom audio from a presumptive death hearing indicates what the final moments of the Maynard family may have been like before they were lost at sea during a tourist expedition off the coast of Alaska
Harrowing leaked audio from a presumptive death hearing reveals what may have transpired in the final moments of an entire family that was lost at sea after their tour boat capsized off the coast of Alaska in August.
Mary and David Maynard, 37 and 42, respectively, as well as their two sons, 11-year-old Colton and 7-year-old Brantley, are presumed dead after the aluminum tour boat carrying them and four others took on water off the coast of Homer, Alaska, then capsized.
The 28-foot vessel reportedly radioed for help, and another ship responded. But when it arrived, it was only able to rescue four people from the ship — the Maynards were nowhere to be found. The other four aboard were on a life raft, but the Maynards weren’t with them.
The family reportedly loves traveling and was doing what they loved when they disappeared ( Image: Facebook)
“They were just gone,” one survivor told a jury at the presumptive death hearing held on Sept. 19, KCEN-TV reported. “It had to have been, I mean, it was 10 minutes, maybe 10 minutes from us having fun to the boat — the boat rolled like this, tipped on its side, and then the engines went down and just the nose up.”
The tour boat’s captain went on to tell the jury that one of the engines sputtered when they were out on the water, and so he anchored, saw another fishing boat nearby and radioed for help.
The captain, who has not been identified, told the jury, according to the local outlet, “At one point, David asked me, got my attention, and he pointed to the back corner of the deck, where there was a drain hole for water that would come up, get on deck.” The captain continued, “He pointed to it, and he said, ‘Is that normal?’ And I said, ‘No.'”
The captain went on to say that he attempted to fire up the engine and pull the anchor after that, but it wouldn’t start. The last time he saw David was when he radioed the other ship for help. He said he didn’t know where the family went as they loaded up the life raft, since he was trying to get his own family onboard it.
The ship began to sink at a rapid rate, he said, and he tried to reach the window of the boat, but it was too late. He assumed that the Maynards hadn’t made it off the boat.
Minutes later, the Salty Sea, the nearby ship, came and rescued everyone, and the captain remembered telling the captain of the Salty Sea that there had been others on board. The authorities ended up looking for the Maynards for the next 30 hours, but no sign of the Texas family was ever found. The search included a helicopter, plane, cutter and two other vessels, it was reported.
The U.S. Coast Guard was also there, and it was aided by Alaska Wildlife Troopers and Good Samaritan teams, who brought steamboats. But the chances that the Maynards survived were already slim — the functional survival time for the family, according to the Coast Guard, was only just over 7 hours, while their cold survival time was just under 10 hours.
A six-person jury determined on Sept. 19 that the family died as a result of accidental drowning, but the Maynards’ family members are demanding answers.
Rhonda Rizzo, David’s aunt, told KCEN-TV in early September, “It’s very frustrating because we have no idea what happened. We have no idea what happened, and it’s, I mean, we’ve got multiple stories, but nothing definite, and it’s just frustrating.”
The last time she spoke to the family was the day they went missing, she said. Hours later, she got a call that the boat they had been traveling on capsized and the family had been lost at sea.
Colton, she said, had a “heart of gold.” Rizzo remembered him as a “beautiful child” who “loved everybody” and gave everyone a hug. Brantley was “a little spitfire,” she said, with a “personality” she compared to David’s. Both boys loved soccer and baseball, she said.
Mary worked as a travel nurse, while David usually stayed home with the children and ran a lawn care business. The family had been through hard times, she added, noting that Colton suffered from epilepsy for years before undergoing brain surgery in 2021. The Maynards enjoyed traveling and spending time with family and friends, she said, and they were doing what they loved when they went missing in Alaska.
