Double life on the run or redeemed fugitive? After [28] years of “community service” Dennis “Lee” Lafferty contributed whilst in Australia as a model resident, I suppose we should be entitled to say “Who knew?” 

Dennis “Lee” Lafferty, the 75 year old crocodile cruise operator died in a fatal road accident in his ute losing control at a bend on the Mossman Daintree Road hitting a tree on Tuesday 27th May, 2015.

However it has since been revealed that Dennis “Lee” Lafferty 75 was otherwise known as Raymond Grady Stansel Jr. 78 in the Tarpon Springs, USA.

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As reported in the Tampa Bay Chronicle 19th June 2015:

“Death comes to everyone, even those — like Raymond Grady Stansel Jr. — who have been dead for 40 years. 

His first passing was by far the more newsworthy.  It was 1974, and Florida's state-wide grand jury had indicted Stansel for smuggling more than 12 tons of marijuana. Prosecutors described Stansel, then a 37-year-old fisherman and charter boat captain out of Tarpon Springs, as a "soldier of fortune.''  

When arrested that June, he had $25,000 in cash, receipts for two $25,000 Rolex watches, signed blank tourist visas that would allow him into Nicaragua at any time, unused checks on a Swiss bank account, flags from six countries and a passport indicating he had been in 12 [countries] in the preceding 30 days.  Stansel posted bail with a $500,000 cashier's check, surrendered his U.S. passport and left the Hillsborough County Jail to await a trial scheduled for Jan. 5, 1975, in Daytona Beach.  On the morning of Jan. 5, Stansel's attorney announced that he had disappeared in a scuba diving accident off Roatan, Honduras, on New Year's Eve. His body had not been recovered but airplanes were searching the shoreline.  Few believed the story. On the other hand, no one could find him.

In 1976, officials in Honduras reported capturing Stansel. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced he was in custody and sent officers to pick him up. All they found was an empty cell.

Years passed. Law enforcement officials heard stories that Stansel was smuggling drugs in Honduras, Panama or some other port in Central or South America. Pinellas sheriff's deputies said he was a frequent visitor to Tarpon Springs and St. Petersburg.

"It's like chasing a phantom,'' said Lt. Michael Hawkins, head of the Pinellas sheriff's vice unit in the 1980s. "But there is no doubt he's alive, and there is no doubt he frequents Pinellas County.

''As it turns out, Hawkins was half right.

Stansel was a poster boy for Florida's ascendancy in the 1970s as a prime destination for pot smugglers.

A key date, headline-wise, was March 5, 1973, with the seizure of nine tons of marijuana brought ashore on the Steinhatchee River in Dixie County. Officials arrested seven men from St. Petersburg Beach and Cortez. Only later did they learn that the nine tons was just half the load. The smugglers did not have enough trucks to get it all out of the area. In that era, smugglers, sometimes with the help of local officials, used semitrailer trucks to haul loads of marijuana from remote shores on the gulf to big cities.

Sometimes, the smugglers got caught.

David L. McGee, a Pensacola lawyer and for years the prosecutor in charge of a federal drug task force in North Florida, said a number of the accused would offer up sightings of Stansel in an effort to get their charges reduced.

"It was like sightings of Elvis or Big Foot,'' McGee said.  And about as accurate.

Stansel's disappearance was reported after a scuba diving trip. Janet Wood, a Key West resident who had become Stansel's girlfriend, and Pamela Hunt of Pittsburgh were with him in Honduras.

U.S. officials there said the women were with Stansel the night before at the home of an American in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. Officials said the women returned to the states but Wood said she did not return. She dropped out of sight, leaving law enforcement officials to speculate that she had joined Stansel on the run.

For once, their speculation was on target.”

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Now the 40 year mystery of the disappearance of Stansel aka Lafferty and Wood from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, is now brought to light.

Since the funeral of “Lafferty”, Wood has now come forward to tell the story of her ex-husband’s double life/fugitive life and how they both landed on the shores of TNQ stating Lafferty’s love of the Great Barrier Reef as their motive.

Stansel aka “Lafferty” met Wood 1973 in the Chart Room Bar in Key West.  A place frequented by an eclectic bunch of patrons from millionaires to bohemians.  A time and place when drug traffickers visited the Keys as a stopover on trips to Jamaica and Colombia.

Wood claims a family member had visited Australia in the 1920s or 30s and the blossoming romance between the pair saw an opportunity to start their new life together.

They began their voyage by sea in 1975 and set sail to Venezuela until Woods fell ill later finding out she was pregnant.  Sadly they lost the child, went ashore and eventually married in New Hebrides before  flying to a series of destinations, eventually settling in North Queensland.

After arriving in Australia, and assuming the name Lafferty, Stansel opened the Daintree River Cruise Centre in 1987 at which point Lafferty became known as a very well respected biologist and environmentalist by his peers. His reputation for making cast nets and his fishing techniques were second to none.  His past was completely hidden. For 40 years, he built a reputation as a gentleman, environmentalist and nature lover.

Wood describes their lifestyle in the tropics as low key while making an income which proved to be challenging for fear of being caught out. “I’m surprised no one ever came looking for him,” she said.

She claims that Lafferty kept things to himself for her protection and was a very calm man. His community praise his reputation as a professional in his field as a biologist and his service to the local and wider community and was well respected amongst dignitaries.  

Despite his double life and fugitive lifestyle, one could say, he was living the dream.

Who Stansel was, who he became and what he left behind can be juxtaposed as a double life on the run or redeemed fugitive. Some may feel that his punishment now fits his crime, but, given the [28] years of “community service ” Dennis “Lee” Lafferty has contributed whilst in Australia, should not this be his acquittal, should not this be his repayment to society?  Had a sentence behind bars been imposed, what legacy would remain?  Whilst on the one hand a trail of lies and deception were left behind in one community, a legacy of contribution and dedication has been left behind in another.