‘I was duped,’ says security guard
On Christmas Eve last year, Jennifer Valk was flush with cash.
She had given Lewis Robertson, a man she barely knew, the codes to two safes at The Warehouse in Richmond, near Nelson, where she worked as a security guard.
In the early hours of December 24, Robertson, 37, broke into the retail business, accessed an area known as the cash room and used the codes to steal more than $50,000.
Valk, 34, received $3000 for her part in the conspiracy.
Robertson left town that day and travelled south. In a bizarre turn of events, parts of his body began washing ashore on a North Canterbury beach about a fortnight later. Police do not believe his death is suspicious.
Nearly six months on, Valk’s life is in disarray.
She has no job, members of her family have turned their back on her and, after pleading guilty to a charge of burglary a fortnight ago, she is waiting to learn if she’s going to be sent to jail for a crime she now deeply regrets.
‘‘It’s wrecked my life,’’ she says, ‘‘I feel terrible.’’
Valk says she was ‘‘duped’’ and ‘‘manipulated’’ into handing over the safe codes to Robertson by a man she met on the online dating site Badoo in September last year.
She says that man, who can’t be identified for legal reasons, pocketed more than $19,000 from the burglary and she can’t understand why he hasn’t been charged.
‘‘It’s not fair. I’m wearing it all.’’
Valk says several weeks after she met the man on the dating site he travelled from Wellington to Nelson to see her because ‘‘we were going to get into a relationship’’.
The pair spent time living at her Richmond home, but it wasn’t the romance she had hoped for.
Valk wanted the man to be her partner, but the feeling wasn’t mutual, she says.
About a week before Christmas, Robertson showed up out of the blue at her home. She didn’t know him, but he said the man she’d met online was an associate of his.
In the days that followed, a plan was hatched to burgle The Warehouse.
Valk says Robertson’s associate promised her a relationship if she had handed over the safe codes. Proceeds from the crime would help fix her car, which he’d recently crashed, causing several thousand dollars worth of damage.
She says she felt intimidated by the two men.
‘‘I felt like I couldn’t say no.’’ In the hours after the burglary, Robertson’s associate drove Robertson to Blenheim before catching a ferry back to Wellington.
The man disputes Valk’s version of events.
He says he was aware of the burglary plan, but wanted no part in it and did not pocket any of the stolen money – other than some cash to pay for petrol for the trip to
Blenheim.
‘‘If I had $19,000, bro, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now – I’d probably be living it up.’’
Instead, he says he’s living week-to-week on the benefit.
Detective Inspector Mark Chenery said this week that police ‘‘continue to investigate the culpability of other parties involved in the burglary’’ and ‘‘positive lines of enquiry are still being followed’’.
He further.
After Robertson was dropped in Blenheim by his associate he declined to comment bought a Subaru sedan for $4000 and drove south along State Highway 1.
He was last seen on his own in Amberley on Christmas Day.
In the days that followed, locals started finding cash littered among the rocks and sand on nearby Leithfield Beach, about 40 kilometres north of Christchurch.
On January 6, a woman walking her dog at the northern end of the beach came upon what appeared to be the partial skeletal remains of a person at the high tide mark.
More body parts washed ashore in the days that followed.
Investigators eventually established, with the help of forensic testing, that the remains, and a Subaru sedan found abandoned several kilometres north at Amberley Beach, belonged to Robertson.
About $11,000 worth of banknotes stolen from The Warehouse, found in and around a bag on Leithfield Beach, were handed into the police by a good samaritan.
That’s the only money recovered from the burglary so far.
Some of the outstanding stolen cash is thought to have been pocketed by others who ventured to the beach to try their luck.
Police previously said they had carried out an extensive investigation into the circumstances surrounding Roberton’s death and there was nothing to suggest he was a victim of foul play.
It’s believed he entered the water on December 26, but it’s unclear where or why.
A coroner would determine how he died, they said.
Only 10 people knew the codes to the safes at The Warehouse, so police officers quickly zeroed in on Valk.
Security footage at the shop confirmed Robertson’s role in the burglary.
He and Valk were charged jointly with the crime, court documents show.
Valk will be sentenced in the Christchurch District Court later this month.