The mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Steve Irwin’s “death tape” has been answered after questions re-emerged on the anniversary of his passing earlier this month. Irwin died after he was stung by a stingray while filming the series Ocean’s Deadliest off the Great Barrier Reef in 2006. The incident was captured on camera and purportedly shows the moment the ray mistakes Irwin for a predatory shark and punctures him through his heart. Irwin is believed to pull the stingray’s barb from his chest, but shortly afterward he loses consciousness and dies over Batt Reef, off the coast of Port Douglas. At the time of his death there was much speculation over whether the footage would air because Irwin “tells his camera crew to always be filming,” Tommy Donovan, Irwin’s biographer, said at the time. But it turns out the footage will never see the light of day, according to Irwin’s manager, John Stainton, who told the Daily Mail Australia that the only footage of the incident was destroyed after it was reviewed by police. “I remember seeing it in the police rooms in Cairns,” Stainton said. “It was something that none of the family—nobody—wanted to see. It was not pleasant.” Despite rumors there are multiple versions of the tape, Stainton insisted “everything was destroyed... There was only one copy, the original tape—no other copies were made.”
