Special investigation: Kokoda Track couple’s story unravels
IT WAS a story written to shock and awe.
A harrowing tale of a former British reality TV star and his glamorous American girlfriend held up at knifepoint, robbed, bleeding and left for dead by “cannibalistic” tribesmen in the wilds of Papua New Guinea’s Kokoda Track.
In an interview with British newspaper The Sun the couple claimed spear-totting assailants — so primitive they spoke only in grunts — frogmarched them into the jungle where, according to statements made to the police, the 31-year-old American woman, Michele Clemens, was cut and raped, while her terrified boyfriend Matthew Iovane could do nothing but look on.
“We were about an hour into the walk when a tribesman appeared ahead of us and another behind us,” Iovane told The Sun, claiming one of the men wore a mask fashioned from feathers and vines.
“They looked very scary in native costumes and what looked like warpaint and came closer before circling around us.
“They tore up my T-shirt to blindfold me and the awful thought crossed my mind that we could be on the menu. They were totally feral and we were at their mercy. I thought we’d vanish into the jungle and never be seen again.”