Wednesday 8 June 2022 04:19 PM Joanna Ingham, who boarded a Malaysian ship and swam through crocodile-infested ... trends now
A mother-of-two whose body was mysteriously found inside a run-down motel once stowed away on a ship before jumping into shark and crocodile-infested waters after being caught by the captain.
The body of Joanne Ingham, 43, was discovered by police at the Harbour City Motor Inn on Webb Street in Wellington on Tuesday.
Detectives described her death as 'unexplained' and have launched an investigation.
Joanne had a tumultuous life before her tragic death, making world news in 1997 when she and her twin-sister Sarah, then both 18, snuck aboard the 178m Malaysian container ship Bunga Terasek.
Joanne Ingham (pictured right) with her twin sister Sarah during an interview about how they snuck onboard a ship
Joanne Ingham (r) leaves the Takapuna District Court on her birthday, after seeing her twin sister Sarah, sentanced to 14 days in jail on charges of driving while disqualified and supplying false information
Sarah had met and fell in love with sailor Ja'afar bin Mohamed Zan, who was 27 at the time, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Ja'afar was a crew member of the ship Bunga, which had docked in Tauranga. He managed to convince a crew mate to smuggle the two girls on to the ship and put them in adjoining cabins.
The ship then set sail away from the dock, heading across the Tasman Sea, with the sisters smuggled on board.
The pair were given food and water by Ja'afar and were able to enjoy the fresh air and sights of the open sea when he let them out of their cabins at night.
But it wasn't long before Sarah and Joanne were found by the ship's captain and locked in the cook's quarters. The captain said the pair would be taken to customs once the ship landed in Australia.
Sarah, Joanne and Ja'afar devised a plan to jump off the ship and swim to shore once the Bunga Terasek got close enough to land.
On the night of April 20, Ja'afar knocked on the window of the cook's quarter and told the sisters it was time to escape, believing they were within swimming distance to the shore.
They took one bag with them containing clothes, food, insect repellant, knives, lifejackets, and four lifebuoys, before jumping off the ship.
The sisters snuck aboard the 178m Malaysian container ship Bunga Terasek (pictured)
arah and Joanne Ingham are led to holding cells at Otahuhu Court on their arrival in Auckland from Brisbane in 1997
Ja'afar cautioned the pair to hold their lifejackets at their sides when they jumped so they didn't break their necks or fall under the ship and get torn up by the propeller.
They jumped into the water and began floating past Princess Charlotte Bay as they swam their way towards Cairns.
'All I can remember is hitting the water, then being under the water for, I dunno, 30 seconds or something like that, and then coming up and the ship was way gone,' Sarah later said in an interview.
Unbeknownst to the trio, they
