Mysterious circumstances surround the death of a 26-year-old girl who fell 14 stories to her death while allegedly trying to escape her violent Tinder date.
Warriena Wright, a New Zealander visiting Australia for a friend’s wedding, linked up with then 28-year-old Gable Tostee at a tourist center in Surfers Paradise, a resort town on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
The two, who had just met off Tinder that day, eventually made their way back to Tostee’s apartment. They began drinking, listening to music and before getting intimate, Wright allegedly sent two text messages to her sister–one calling Tostee “an Australian Sam Winchester,” likening him to the lead character from the show Supernatural. The second message she sent her sister was a selfie of her and her date, according to NY Mag. Soon after, she was dead.
https://twitter.com/Justestuff/status/543256323647746048
According to NY Mag,
In a recording from Tostee’s phone played in court today, the two drink and listen to music before the audio becomes violent: Wright starts hitting Tostee, who yells and at one point says, “That’s enough.” The music stops and she begins looking for her belongings, threatening Tostee and saying she’ll call the police. “I didn’t say you have to leave,” he reportedly replies. “I just said stop beating me up.”
Wright allegedly sounds increasingly fearful in the recording, while Tostee becomes angrier. After she threw decorative rocks and hit him with a telescope at some point, Tostee allegedly tried to choke her and then locked her out on his balcony, all while intimidating her: “You’re lucky I haven’t chucked you off my balcony you G– d— psycho bitch,” he says in the recording. “You’re not going to collect any belongings, you’re just going to walk out. … If you try to pull anything I’ll knock you out.”
A neighbor heard Wright cry, “No, no, no, please let me go home,” before she tried climbing down the balcony, according to court testimony. Wright fell and died after 2 a.m. that morning.
Court exhibit and reconstruction released to media at Gable Tostee's murder trial @NewshubNZ pic.twitter.com/kBrfIvaWuq
— sophie lowery (@sophielowery) October 10, 2016
Tostee’s attorney, however, claims that his client used “reasonable force” to protect himself, saying, “What happened in this case is nothing like murder or manslaughter — it doesn’t fit.”
Directly after the incident, Tostee allegedly tried contacting a lawyer before calling his father. She kept beating me up and whatever,” he told his dad. “I forced her out on to the balcony and I think she might have jumped off.”
Tostee is being charged with murder and can face life in prison if convicted.
[h/t NY Mag]