Police and family at odds over murdersuicide theory

CHRISTCHURCH: Mike ZhaoBeckenridge’s family believes his stepfather cared too much for him to kill him by driving them both off a cliff in 2015.

Mike and John Beckenridge disappeared in March 2015. Their car was found crashed at the bottom of a cliff in the Catlins in May that year.

A coroner’s hearing in the Christchurch District Court yesterday heard opposing views from police, who called on coroner Marcus Elliot to declare the pair dead, and the family who were adamant they were alive and in hiding overseas.

Mike’s family hired private investigator Mark Templeman to look into the case and he told the coroner they believed Mr Beckenridge (then 64) took steps to make it look like a murdersuicide to put people off their track.

He said this included text messages that were the last known contact with John Beckenridge.

‘‘Essentially, these texts are suicide notes and there are a number of them.

‘‘It is very hard to believe that he hasn’t text or sent a suicide note to his very best friend in that group of people.’’

Mr Templeman said the family believed the clifftop site the car went off was carefully chosen because Mr Beckenridge knew it would be very difficult to check for bodies in a car that crashed into the ocean at that spot.

The family believed Mr Beckenridge cared too much for Mike (then 11), to make him watch as his stepfather placed a stake to aim for as they went off the cliff, sent a series of farewell texts, then plummeted off the edge.

He said the family believed they got on an oceangoing yacht or some similar sort of transportation and left the country.

‘‘Mike’s mother Fiona Lu, now Russell, believes that when Mike is no longer under the influence of John Beckenridge he will reach out to her. And she further believes that John cared too much for Mike to hurt him.’’

Police counsel Deirdre Elsmore said police believed Mr Beckenridge’s ‘‘absolute white hatred and feelings of intense betrayal’’ for his exwife drove him to kill himself and Mike.

She said the police view was that Mr Beckenridge lacked the ability to successfully fake a murdersuicide and the pair were dead.

‘‘The evidence of the experts, the evidence of the scene, the evidence of this extensive police inquiry, supports a conclusion that John Beckenridge at the time of this disappearance lacked the funds, he lacked the support of associates, and the police would submit he also lacked the clarity of mind to plan an extremely difficult, complicated escape from the Catlins area.’’

Police also said Mr Beckenridge cared for his stepson but their view was his love, a belief the boy was suicidal, and Mr Beckenridge’s spiralling mental outlook led him to decide the best option was for the pair to die together. — RNZ