‘Below Deck’ Alum Captain Lee Rosbach on the Shocking Murders & Mysteries of ‘Deadly Waters’

Q&A
Who better to host a series revisiting crimes off land than Captain Lee Rosbach? The new Oxygen series Deadly Waters with Captain Lee brings the popular Below Deck star aboard to host as homicide investigations on rivers, lakes, and open seas. Victims’ families, experts, and law enforcement explore shocking cases, which range from murders on a charter boat to a floating dead body to devious discoveries that Mother Nature didn’t do. Maybe it was pirates?
One constant throughout each episode is things are never totally what they seem. Clues lead to the truth, and perpetrators tend to find their way to the surface one way or another. Here Captain Lee opens up about taking the plunge into the uncharted waters of true crime.
How did the opportunity come about?
Captain Lee Rosbach: I was approached with the concept and asked if I would collaborate. I’ve never done anything with true crime before, but I’ve done a lot with water. A lot of the stories that they were concentrating on were stories I’d heard about and knew happened because the yachting community is very small. When something good, bad, or indifferent happens out there, it doesn’t take long for the word to get around. I thought, “Gosh, what a way to come back. Still involved with the water, and we’ll throw in a new twist.”
The premiere centers on a 2007 case where the “Joe Cool” charter boat was discovered abandoned before it made its way from Miami to Bimini. It’s discovered there was foul play and murders committed.
Almost every one of the crimes is extremely disturbing because they are so horrific. I remember reading about this one. The boating community really got involved in it on a personal level. Anyone who had anything that floated was out there trying to locate this particular boat. These aren’t trained law enforcement personnel. Just the fact the extra eyes out there contributed to helping solve the crime. Horrific crime. It’s just terrible. It’s someone’s family and friends. They are no longer with us. It delves into how that affects people. The yachting community is as close as it is., it seems to affect them more than just reading about a murder that was committed in New York. The yachting community is just different.
For these family members, do you think in a lot of ways that it’s a way to honor their loved ones?
That they weren’t just another number. They weren’t just a statistic. It gives people a view into how it affects their loved ones. That makes such a difference when you are telling a story as far as the human element goes.
A lot of these cases involve trying to attribute things to Mother Nature. How does that play out this season?
It seems the obvious way. if you’re going to commit a violent crime at sea and have a corpse to get rid of, you sink it. But everything that gets sunk doesn’t necessarily stay at the bottom. There are a lot of factors that come into play. Body composition causes gases to form in the body and all of a sudden up it comes. There is currents that are involved. Tides, where you thought you may have dropped the body in very deep water, now the tides and currents have changed and it’s not so deep. Those are some of the things that people without a nautical background don’t take into consideration and it contributes to their undoing.
It seems to be the common thread we are going to see this season.
It will be a lot. It’s also the fact that law enforcement has such intricate knowledge of the tides, the currents, and what happens, especially in a particular area they may be concentrating on. They know what the tides do, currents do. They know if they think a body has been dropped, they can formulate an idea of where it may pop up. That means so much to the family that they didn’t lose them to the sea forever. They can find some closure. It means a lot to law enforcement agencies. They are out there in some nasty weather when everyone is sitting back at the dock. They are out there doing things that need to be done to try to get this thing solved. They are putting their lives on the line, so all of them Marine Patrol, Coast Guard, the Navy, all of them play such an integral part and don’t get anywhere near the recognition they deserve.
Have you experienced these types of crimes or pirates during your time out at sea?
You would find some islanders that would borrow your tender until it ran out of gas. You may find it beached somewhere and out of fuel. “We didn’t steal it. We just borrowed it,” they’d say. That’s as close I’ve come. Nobody considered any of these people pirates of any sort. There are some interesting stories come up in this series where people are trying their hardest to do something and get away with it. Then all of a sudden things turn.
As far as true crime, are you a fan?
Law & Order, I’m a huge fan. I’m one of those armchair guys. Where I think I got something figured out and all of a sudden out of nowhere comes something where it’s like, “I didn’t see that coming.” We have a lot of that in this series. It’s very intriguing. It gives us armchair sleuths something to think about. I do like the crime shows. But nothing is better than the true stories. There are no truer words. You can’t make that sh*t up. You just can’t.
Speaking of being an armchair guy, how is it watching Below Deck from the viewer’s perspective? What kind of job do you think they did this season in your absence?
I think they are still having what I call the honeymoon period. They are adjusting because Captain Kerry Titheradge has an obvious role to fill that I’m sure he didn’t expect to put on his lap. It’s a big job. Going from one of the spinoffs to the original show carries a certain amount of responsibility with it that I think he is dealing with rather well. He certainly had his hands full with the crew. I’m just shaking my head. I’m like, “No, that can’t be.” I feel sorry for him because he has had a full plate.
Deadly Waters with Captain Lee premiere, June 1, 9/8c, Oxygen