Jinting Guo, 35, who was last seen in Tītahi Bay, north of Wellington in October 2023. Photo/ Supplied.
According to the findings released today, Guo arrived from China in 2022 to study and was completing a post-graduate course at Victoria University of Wellington.
He’d learned to dive after arriving in Wellington and loved to go when the weather permitted and his work schedule allowed.
The day before he disappeared, Guo visited the Dive Wellington store where he kept his gear.
While there, he spoke to the owner, telling her he planned to go for a dive over the next day or so, and assuring her he wouldn’t be diving alone. She later told police she thought he was a competent diver who had dive buddies.
When Guo didn’t return home that night, it didn’t initially raise suspicion because it was thought he was working, studying, or diving.
The next day, a member of the public found a dive bag on the Titahi Bay foreshore, which was handed in to police and later confirmed to belong to Guo. The day after that, Guo failed to turn up for the dive he’d booked with Dive Wellington.
Four days after he disappeared, Guo was reported missing, with the language barrier being given as the reason for the delay by the police.
According to the findings, it would have been highly unlikely for Guo to have survived for more than 20 hours adrift at sea.
Inside Guo’s unlocked car, police found a duffel bag containing a wetsuit, diving gloves, and diving knives, and a backpack containing several items, including a Dive Wellington towel and logbook.
Footage captured on the dashboard camera and later examined by police showed Guo arrived at the carpark alone. He got out of the car and never returned. The police said there was nothing untoward or suspicious involved.
The findings also stated that a search of Guo’s cellphone by police revealed nothing suspicious.
Wellington police appealed for sightings of Jinting Guo, or his car, while he was considered missing.
Subsequent searches by Surf Lifesaving, the Police National Dive Squad, and a drone operator turned up nothing. In January last year, the search was suspended.
Police said the most likely scenario was that Guo suffered a diving accident and became lost at sea.
In April, two divers found a tibia bone in 13m of water at Rocky Bay, Tītahi Bay, directly out from the carpark where Guo’s car was found. Police were notified.
The bone was determined to be human, and subsequent DNA testing found it was 30 million times more likely to have come from Guo than another individual in the New Zealand population.
In her findings, Coroner Schmidt-Cleave said that while she couldn’t be certain, it appeared Guo was diving alone.
She also couldn’t say with any certainty that a dive buddy might have prevented Guo’s death, but it served as a timely reminder to follow Water Safety New Zealand’s advice.
That included always diving with a buddy, constantly monitoring each other, and adopting a one-up, one-down system.
The coroner found Jinting Guo most likely drowned in accidental circumstances as a result of a mishap while free diving alone.
Apart from his tibia bone, Guo’s body remained missing and presumed irrecoverable.
Dive Wellington’s Dave Drane said he couldn’t comment on the circumstances around Guo’s death, because they didn’t know all the facts.
“The key message that we reinforce is that divers should not dive alone; they should always dive with a buddy,” he said.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.