Revelations about gun in Crewe case
A mystery gun linked to an initial suspect was seized by police in a secret line of inquiry in the double murder cold case. Eugene Bingham and Paula Penfold report.
A mystery gun linked to an initial suspect in the Crewe murders was seized by police in a secret line of inquiry in the double murder cold case.
The gun, the same calibre of weapon that killed the couple in their Pukekawa home in 1970, was taken out of the district before it was handed over to one of the country’s top detectives more than 40 years later.
But questions have been raised about police handling of the .22 rifle, and its whereabouts now is unknown.
Stuff Circuit has confirmed the firearm was collected by Detective Superintendent Andy Lovelock, who headed a review of the case between 2010 and 2014.
And while police have said all guns ballistically tested in recent years have been ruled out as the murder weapon, they refuse to answer specific questions about it.
‘‘Police will not provide further commentary on matters that relate to individuals who may have been spoken to in the course of the review for privacy reasons,’’ says a spokesperson.
For Des Thomas – who continues to campaign to have the case solved and is brother of Arthur Thomas, who was wrongly convicted of the murders – the explanation is not good enough.
‘‘It’s the secrecy about it all, eh? If they were honest and transparent we would have all these documents and things,’’ says Des Thomas.
The saga of what happened with the mystery gun is revealed in the Stuff Circuit podcast series, The District.
Another gun which police seized in 2016 is also discussed in the podcast, with one expert ‘‘dumbfounded’’ at how it was dealt with. The Crewes were killed with a .22 rifle before their bodies were dumped in the Waikato River. At the time, police asked for all .22 rifles within a radius of 10 kilometres to be handed in for testing, and in the end about 65 were examined.
But a woman who has carried out amateur investigations about the case, Lynette Stevens, has uncovered allegations that a gun said to have belonged to the original suspect, Len Demler, was taken out of the district.
It was given to a man who worked on a farm close to the Crewe farm. He and his wife now live in Northland. Stevens learned that the couple were hosting a party some time soon after the review began.
The former farm worker started talking about the gun at the party saying, ‘‘Oh, God, it could have been the one that killed the Crewes’’, says Stevens. A woman who was at the party knew Lovelock and told him about it.
‘‘And the next thing he raced up there in a big, black SUV… [and] he took the gun.’’
The wife of the farm worker confirmed Lovelock did collect the gun. They have not seen it again since. Even though this happened during the review period, it was not mentioned in the 328-page report when police released their findings.
Des Thomas says he was
stunned when he heard about what had gone on.
‘‘I’d never heard of [the gun] until Lynette Stevens told me about what she hunted up there.’’
He is also appalled about the handling of another .22 rifle which was recovered from a dam on a Pukekawa farm.
The gun had apparently been hidden in the dam for decades until it was uncovered by the farmer whose property it was on.
He handed it into the police, who noted how close his place was to the Crewe murder scene.
Police handed it back to him a year later saying it was of no interest – but when it was returned the barrel was cut in two.
An overseas firearms expert who is a distinguished member of the industry-leading association told Stuff Circuit he could not understand why it had been cut in half.
‘‘I’m dumbfounded I have to say.
‘‘I can’t imagine the circumstances why the police would take a rifle (potentially involved in a crime – at least until proven otherwise) and cut the barrel in two.’’
Police did not answer questions about why they had done it and would only say:
‘‘Police have submitted every weapon taken into Police possession for ballistics analysis. No weapon collected during the period of the Crewe review or thereafter has proved to be of interest to the investigation as a result of ballistic analysis.’’