This was published 7 years ago
60 Minutes: Gable Tostee 'didn't hear' Warriena Wright's final scream
By Drew Creighton
Gable Tostee maintains he did not hear Warriena Wright's final scream as she fell to her death after a night of moonshine, sex and fighting.
Tostee appeared on Channel Nine's 60 Minutes program on Sunday for a paid tell-all interview widely tipped to have earned Mr Tostee a fee of up to $150,000 to air his side of the story.
Wright fell to her death from Tostee's Surfers Paradise 14th floor apartment balcony in 2014 and he had since been acquitted of her murder.
The case caught the attention of the state as the 'Tinder date gone wrong' and for numerous interesting details such as the fact he recorded the whole encounter on his phone.
60 minutes aired a paid tell-all interview with Gable Tostee.Credit: 60 Minutes
60 minutes journalist Liam Bartlett interviewed Tostee for the program at one point asking him why he had not gone out on the balcony to see what had happened.
Tostee said he was worried someone would see him looking over the balcony and it may have looked suspicious.
"Instinctively, I knew that if I ran out there and somebody saw me looking over the edge and she had actually fallen all the way, it would look like, you know, it would not look good," Tostee said.
"It would look like I had forced her over or something.
Liam Bartlett interviews Gable Tostee for a 60 Minutes special.Credit: 60 Minutes
"Of course I was worried about her. I was absolutely terrified at what had just happened to her. But, you know.
"Well, whatever had happened out there, had happened. And, looking over the edge, you know, it doesn't help anybody. There's no purpose to it. "
Gable Tostee's lawyer Nick Dore tells 60 Minutes of the importance of the recording.Credit: 60 Minutes
Tostee also maintains he did not hear her scream, which can be heard on his phone's recording.
"I didn't hear it with my own ears, no. I only realised that there was a faint scream that my phone audio picked up.
I knew that if I ran out there and somebody saw me looking over the edge and she had actually fallen all the way, it would look like, you know, it would not look good.
Gable Tostee
"All I saw was her on the other side of the rail for a fleeting moment, and then… And then she was gone."
After sharing a six pack, the two started drinking vodka that Tostee had in his apartment.
"It was actually homemade vodka. You can call it moonshine, yeah," Tostee said.
Tostee had been recording the night for 40 minutes when the mood changed.
Balcony closer than front door: Tostee
He said Warriena had lost her phone and he thought she was blaming him for it, 25 minutes later she was pelting him with small rocks.
Bartlett questioned why Tostee put her on the balcony instead of out the front door, he said hindsight could only answer that question.
"When you have to desperately get someone away from you and separate the two of you and try and de-escalate an altercation, it doesn't come into the equation that that person is going to climb off a balcony and fall 14 floors to their death." Tostee said.
"It was a lot, lot closer to the balcony door, and it was wide open, and it was the logical option at the time."
Tostee said the not guilty verdict in his latest court case, after two years in and out of court, was a relief.
"They took their time but, um, you know, at the end of the day, they made the right decision," he said.
"It doesn't matter how innocent a person is. There's absolutely no comfort in being on trial for murder."
Tostee's Lawyer Nick Dore said even though it was a double-edged sword he was confident it was the tape that would prove him innocent.
"Once you actually heard the tape in its entirety, we were confident that we would be able to satisfy the requirements, yes," Dore said.
"I think it worked more in Mr Tostee's favour than it did in the prosecution's favour, in the sense there was an accurate reflection as to what occurred that night.
"If you had actually heard someone give that description, or if Mr Tostee had given evidence without that tape, and explained what had occurred in that apartment for the hour and 46 minutes before.
"It would have been unbelievable."