COLD CASE TWIST
New sightings of boy who vanished four years ago
Police have confirmed they have received multiple potential sightings of missing South Island schoolboy Mike Zhao-Beckenridge and his step-father John Beckenridge.
Wednesday marks the fourth anniversary since Beckenridge, who would now be 68, picked up his stepson from an Invercargill school — in the process breaking a court order — and vanished.
Mike would now be aged 15. Five days after the pair’s disappearance, a farmer spotted Mike and Beckenridge sleeping in their car. A day earlier there was a confirmed sighting of the pair at a service station in Tokanui, 55km east of Invercargill.
Beckenridge’s car was later found in the surf off the Southland coast, but there was no sign of their bodies in the 4WD, and speculation has been rife that the pair managed to evade capture in New Zealand and were in hiding overseas.
As the anniversary of the disappearance nears, police confirmed they had received potential sightings of the pair.
“There has been a number of reports of persons, of an elderly aged caucasian and a young Asian teenage boy both in New Zealand, the Gili Islands [in Indonesia] and other countries,” detective sergeant Dave Kennelly from the Invercargill police told the Herald on Sunday.
The police investigation into the disappearance had been “extensive”, with Kennelly saying although no bodies were found, police were in a position to hand over their file to the Coroner’s office in a matter of weeks.
A Coronial Services spokesperson said the “coroner’s inquiry is on hold until the police have completed their investigation”.
The Coroner’s office was unable to say how many deaths had been ruled on in recent years in cases where no body was found.
But they highlighted at least three — Margaret Kaye Stewart (who went missing in bush near Wellington in 2005 and was ruled dead in 2013), Richard Rustbatch (lost at sea in 2012 and ruled dead in 2013) and Robert Te Paewhenua Roberts (involved in a crash in 2004 and ruled dead in 2017).
Part of the Beckenridge police investigation had involved the monitoring of international gaming sites for any clues to the teenager’s whereabouts. Mike was a keen gamer.
Kennelly wouldn’t be drawn on anything that Interpol had uncovered from their international inquiries.
Beckenridge — a helicopter pilot — met Mike’s mother, Fiona Lu, while they were working in Afghanistan in 2006. Lu, who is from China, had moved to the war-torn country to work as a waitress, with her parents raising Mike.
The pair later moved to New Zealand where they were based in Queenstown. Their relationship broke down in 2014 shortly after Lu moved to Invercargill to begin a hairdressing course.
Lu told the Herald on Sunday last year she was adamant her son was alive.
“There is not a single day I don’t think of him. I love him deeply. And for my part I am sorry for what has happened,” she said.
At the time, her partner Peter Russell said he believed Beckenridge had “poisoned his stepson against his mum” and the pair plotted their elaborate disappearance.
A Herald on Sunday investigation last year revealed a woman claimed she saw the pair on Gili Air Island, Bali, on June 30, 2015 — more than three months after they disappeared.
The witness said the man appeared to be 60-63 years of age and wearing a brimmed suede hat.
The family’s desperate search for answers had earlier led them to employ private investigator Mark Templeman, who arranged a meeting with the witness, Lu and Russell in December 2016.
Lu recognised Beckenridge’s distinctive hat and the witness also noted a physical characteristic only Lu would have known about.
Templeman said every anniversary was difficult for Lu.
“Every time this comes up it is upsetting for the family. Fiona gets quite depressed.”