Levi Davis – Murdered At Sea?

A version of this article was first published in the July 2024 edition of Byline Times

It’s 06:32 on Sunday 30 October 2022. The Maltese cruise ship MSC Bellissima is a nautical mile from the entrance to the southern mouth of Barcelona’s commercial port, initiating its docking procedure.

In the darkness, a young British crew member is walking deck number five on the ship’s port side when something unexpected is illuminated on the surface in its lights.

Rising from the tidal swells, 15°C at that time of year, a voice with an English accent is screaming: “Help me, help me, help me.”

In the predawn gloom, maybe 30 metres away, is a man – he thinks – of around 30 years old. He can’t make out the colour of his skin. He can see he’s clothed but no more.

The crewman cries “man overboard” and, by 06:33, the Bellissima’s bridge is being alerted over its internal systems. Thirty seconds later, its Man Overboard alarm sounds.

At 171,598 tonnes and carrying up to 4,500 passengers, the Bellissima is too big to abort its manoeuvre into the kilometres-long rocky breakwaters that funnel craft into harbour.

The faster response is to call in the Catalan Coast Guard. At 06:34, the Bellissima broadcasts a satellite position for the man in distress. His location is close to a floating radio beacon for traffic using this central two-way channel into port, called the Sierra Buoy.

At 06:35, a life ring is thrown from the ship’s starboard rear quarter, catching the wake of the 316m vessel, as three more passengers report hearing yells from the water.

At 06:35:50, a Maritime Rescue boat arrives at the scene and is quickly followed by another, and then five more from the police and Civil Guard. A helicopter scrambles above, tracking the southbound current as it washes away from the Spanish landmass.

The wind speed is two to three knots – ‘light air’ strong enough to push small ripples across the sea’s surface. The search goes on for almost 12 hours but once a head count of those on the Bellissima and other ships in the area shows no one missing, it is called off at dusk.

Whoever was in the water – clothed, fighting for life, and fully four kilometres from the port’s public areas – had vanished in less than four minutes.

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A Case for Murder

When Levi first disappeared there was an initial flurry of media interest fuelled in part by the public speculations of a private investigator who’d volunteered to solve the mystery. Febrile headlines about alleged £100,000 drug debts unpaid and supposedly imminent arrests of shadowy third parties muddied the water early. But as each line of inquiry came to nothing, so public attention dwindled.

Byline Times has seen the official findings of the Catalan authorities. No evidence is recorded of a body washing up or being caught in nets, as experts suggest might have been expected after a couple of days or weeks. 

And beyond a very belated search by divers of the port breakwaters’ hidden areas in May 2023 and remote scans of the seabed and dykes of the nearby River Llobregat delta the following July, there appears to have been no further critical assessment of the sighting.

For example, nowhere in the findings is the obvious question posed as to how exactly Levi – as the Spanish police assume it was – could have possibly found himself at sea under these circumstances.

This newspaper has spoken to two maritime experts who agree Levi – who was a weak-to-average swimmer – simply could not have got out to the Sierra Buoy in the dark on his own.

“It would be practically impossible to swim out to this beacon from land under these circumstances,” said shipping commentator Peter Elson. 

“You’d lose your sense of direction almost immediately – in seconds. If you are not a great swimmer it would be a complete nightmare. Drinking too much seawater or getting run down by a ship is quite likely. Clothed, it would be even more difficult. It is therefore very unlikely that this person arrived at this location in the ocean without the involvement of a third party.”

Dr Emili Garcia Ladona, a senior researcher for Spain’s Institute of Marine Sciences agrees. He said: “In the dark, even with relatively calm conditions, with the maritime traffic, the sea agitation produced by such huge navigation vessels is enough to lead to confusion.

“It is not the same as swimming in a pool. People not trained to swim at sea will tire

faster, and under stress even faster still. Considering the temperature range in seawater at the end of October, hypothermia will set in quickly.

“Then there are the currents to fight against. From sea level, it would be hard to focus on a reference point like the Sierra Buoy or gauge its distance properly. Finally, the point where he was detected is in the middle of the traffic separation lines of one of the entrances to Barcelona harbour [which is a high traffic zone].”

These expert opinions raise questions about a key conclusion of the Catalan inquiry – that no evidence of criminality was discovered. Well-placed Mossos sources have confirmed that beyond the taking of interviews from cruise ship witnesses, the only other enquiries made were the physical sea and river searches conducted seven and nine months later respectively.

Julie Davis said: “From the description of the person crying for help, it’s clear they didn’t want to die. To me as a layperson, it is hard to see an innocent explanation.

“The fact they were abandoned in the water amounts in my mind to one of three things; either there was an accident and he fell in and someone didn’t report it and just left him there to die, or he was kidnapped and escaped from a vessel trying to save himself, or someone was trying to murder him.

“All three possibilities suggest crime. But the investigating authorities don’t seem to see that and I do not understand w