Focus shifts in cold case
Cannabis and a local loner emerge as possible connections in Kirsty Bentley’s murder
Ashburton schoolgirl Kirsty Bentley’s killer might already have been spoken to by police, the Herald understands, as a $100,000 reward and possible immunity are offered to try to finally solve one of New Zealand’s highest-profile murder mysteries.
Hundreds of local men have been spoken to since the 15-year-old disappeared while walking her dog on New Year’s Eve 1998, including her ex-royal Navy sailor father Sid and older brother John, who were once considered the main suspects.
Now, after eight years on the sprawling cold case file, Detective Inspector Greg Murton of Canterbury CIB has developed a “stranger-type abduction” theory involving a loner killer who lived locally, who either smoked or grew cannabis, and knew the rugged Rakaia Gorge area where Bentley’s body was found 18 days after she went missing.
“That’s obviously just a scenario but one that makes sense to me,” he said.
Murton is convinced the initial scene at Ashburton River — where Bentley’s dog Abby was found tied to a tree and her underwear and boxer shorts in a nearby bush — was staged by the killer to throw police off his scent.
And he also believes that the coldblooded perpetrator lived nearby and remains one of the “30 to 40 prime persons of interest” who could’ve been spoken to by police during the initial investigation and who has not been ruled out.
“We often find in any inquiry like this, a big whodunnit where there is a massive amount of work done initially, that the offender will have been spoken to by police and there is nothing to prove or disprove their involvement at the time. There is a chance that has happened,” Murton said.
“There are endless numbers of these, where the person has been spoken to but there’s nothing to
I’m pretty comfortable that Sid
and John [Bentley] were not involved.
Detective Inspector Greg Murton
directly point towards them as being the offender and it can’t be taken any further at the time, and then something later comes up that proves they are involved,” Murton said.
Top international criminal profiler, retired British police inspector Chuck Burton has reviewed the Operation Kirsty file and agrees with the “stranger-type abduction” scenario, carried out by someone local.
It all but rules out anyone from the
Bentley family being involved.
“Obviously, the family were looked at quite closely — John and Sid, particularly in light of the change of story by Sid a year-and-a-half after the murder — but I’m pretty comfortable that Sid and John were not involved,” Murton said.
“I can never say 100 per cent that is the case, but my view is that it’s far more likely a stranger-type abduction.”
The $100,000 reward for “material information or evidence” that finally brings about a prosecution — nobody has ever been charged — has already had the police phones ringing.
Murton was sifting through “20-plus pieces of information” that came in from the public in less than 24 hours.
He hopes the reward offer, where immunity from prosecution may be considered for any accomplice — not the main offender — flushes out key information. Someone knows the truth, he said.
“It’s a significant amount of money for anyone,” Murton said. “Someone might have some information that they have been sitting on and they either don’t believe it’s true or they are too scared to come forward.
“But relationships change, circumstances change, people get older and more mature, and they think they’ll pass it on for what it’s worth, and then bingo, it turns out to be the bit we needed. That’s what we’re hoping for.”
Murton keeps Kirsty’s mother Jill Peachey up-to-date on the case. She welcomed the reward news, saying it was “great” but didn’t want to comment further. — NZ Herald