Former police officer pleads guilty to murder
tuned to the frequency of the main Invercargill police communications channel.
Any identifying marks had been removed from the rifle, which was fitted with a silencer from one of his other rifles. The origin of the cutdown, single-shot, bolt-action rifle remains murky but it appears McLean bought it via the internet.
McLean He had set up a false alibi by arranging for the CCTV camera to record him being home at a particular time. He then left the house by a back way, to give the impression he had not left his property that evening. He then rode his bicycle to the industrial area where Verity was living.
Verity and Duggan began having an affair in December 2016, and McLean confronted his wife about his suspicions on April 5, 2017. The marriage had been rocky and Verity had had other affairs.
She told him she was leaving him for Duggan and moved into a flat at the back of a bleak building in Otepuni Ave, an industrial area about a five-minute drive from the McLean property. It belonged to Duggan’s friend Phil Brocks, a fencing contractor.
Between 6pm and 8pm on April 25, McLean arrived at the flat where Verity was alone and cooking a meal. Duggan was due home about 8pm. Verity had lit a fire in the log burner.
McLean overpowered her and bound her with the police-issue ties. Finally, he shot her as she sat tied and gagged on a couch. He then removed the ties and the gag and put the ties in the wood burner.
He could not, however, remove the 36 bruises on her body caused by a blunt instrument.
He then waited for Duggan, who arrived home from work at 8pm and parked his car.
As Duggan was walking away from his car, McLean appeared from behind Verity’s Holden Commodore and said ‘‘Garry’’. Then his plan fell apart.
After the shooting, his daughter’s boyfriend and his mother took him to the police station. On the way he told them he had ‘‘messed up’’ the family and his children would never talk to him again. He was taken to Southland Hospital and treated for a significant cut to his head. He has not provided a statement to police.
Ben and Verity McLean had been raising three children at the time of the shootings and had been long-time friends of Duggan and his wife Rachel. The families took trips away together. McLean had taken a few months off police work earlier in the this year and worked at the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter as a fireman. McLean and Duggan, a truck driver, also ran a firewood business from the McLeans’ 1.8-hectare section on the outskirts of Invercargill. Ben McLean’s mother, Mary Poulsen, lived next door on a 1ha block.
Friends say Verity was a bubbly, down-to-earth woman and a wonderful mother. She came from a well known Invercargill sporting family. Her father, Bob Barber, and his partner had an emotional meeting with McLean in prison a week after the shootings.
Their estranged son-in-law told them he was sorry. ‘‘She wouldn’t talk to me or have anything to do with me and I snapped.’’
Although they presented a wholesome image to the outside world, the McLeans’ marriage was rocky. One family friend called them a role model family, but others who knew them said the description was misleading.
McLean was a clever amateur engineer and had made much of the equipment for the firewood business himself. He had a bent for machinery and was keen on classic cars. An old Chevy and a Holden were gathering dust in his garage, awaiting restoration.
Friends say he was a hard worker, but had a habit of starting things and not finishing. The house in which he and his wife had lived was not a plush affair. He had built a large lean-to on the side of the doublestorey house.
As a police officer McLean was regarded as unflappable and hard to upset.
‘‘He was a very relaxed guy. When we heard about the shooting, it was like a bolt from the blue. He was the last person you would have expected to do something like this,’’ a police colleague, who did not want to be named, said.
‘‘He wasn’t aggressive and when we were out, it was very difficult to push his buttons.’’
Despite a placid exterior, McLean was not retiring when it came to the physical stuff of police work, the colleague said.
The flat in which Verity was killed was in the back of an old, roughcast warehouse-type building on Otepuni Ave. She had brought her chickens and they had the run of a muddy enclosure at the side of the building.
The flat looked out onto a large yard, containing stacks of timber, containers, sheds, piles of firewood and building equipment.
Surrounded by mainly truck wreckers and similar businesses, the area was deserted on the Tuesday night Ben McLean rode to the property. A railway track ran behind the yard and over the road was the Otepuni Stream and walkway. In many ways, the area was tailor-made for an unheard and unseen crime. But even the best plans come unstuck.
The Barber and McLean families said after court that the shootings were ‘‘not just another story’’.
‘‘It is real life and we have to live it on a daily basis,’’ they said in a statement. ‘‘This has been a very difficult year for us all and as Christmas approaches we are all going to find it a tough time, but will get through it together with the support of those around us.
‘‘We believe that Southlanders are decent, family-oriented people, who would understand our need for privacy and sensitivity, especially for the [McLeans’] children.’’