Warming a cold case
Last week Stuff launched Heavy Metal, a podcast about the unsolved murder of John Reynolds, a 55-year-old killed in Christchurch in 1996.
It was a joint effort by Stuff journalists Blair Ensor and Martin van Beynen.
Here Van Beynen – whose first podcast was the international hit series Black Hands – explains why his new venture returns to the same question: whodunnit?
About the middle of last year, two men (names suppressed) in their late 50s stood in the dock in the Manukau District Court, probably as surprised as anyone.
They would have had every reason to think the matter that brought them to court had long been buried and forgotten.
They appeared, separately, charged with a murder and aggravated robbery from nearly 30 years ago.
The victim was Chris Bush, a 43-year-old pub manager who was fatally shot when his Red Fox Tavern in Maramarua, near Pukekohe, was held up in October 1987.
Police were understandably tight-lipped about the latest development, but said new information had led to a breakthrough in the case.
The possibility of a such a breakthrough is what drew fellow investigative journalist Blair Ensor and me to the John Reynolds murder, a cold case where an answer remains elusive after 22 years.
Such cases remind us why unsolved killings should disturb us – even if they are easy to forget. They suggest a very serious crime can be committed with the perpetrator walking away scot-free, perhaps to kill or maim again. They hang over the police and the victim’s family, leaving nagging questions unanswered. Reynolds, known to many as “John the Pom”, was a hardcase Christchurch scrap metal dealer who was found dead in his yard on Sunday, April 28, 1996.
He had been bludgeoned about the head with a heavy object, probably a metal bar or a piece of metal pipe, and left lying face down in a pool of blood on the concrete floor of his factory unit. As these things go, it was a simple murder, with the motive probably being robbery, it would prove a difficult case to crack. On a Sunday, the industrial area in which the scrapyard was located was deserted, but access was almost unlimited. It would have been easy for the killer or killers to have parked nearby and taken Reynolds by surprise, especially if he knew them as a previous supplier.
I remember the murder well (though my colleague Blair was still in primary school when Reynolds was killed). I was a relatively young reporter in Christchurch at the time and did some of the stories on the killing. That it would remain unsolved 22 years later, and that I would be revisiting it in podcast form, would have seemed unbelievable at the time.
Blair and I are both interested in cold cases, partly because they are the ultimate whodunnit. Journalists covering these cases have to be realistic, but cannot help harbouring a belief that their powers of deduction and fresh eyes will find the missing piece of the puzzle or pinpoint the significance of an overlooked lead.
Police also have the same idea and constantly review their cold cases and follow up new information.
The popular idea about cold cases is they can be solved only by scientific developments in areas such as DNA testing. These are cases like Auckland man Joseph Reekers, who was caught stealing a salami from a Pak ‘n Save in 2010. The arrest enabled police to take a DNA sample which led to them charging him with the horrific murder of Marie Jamieson, a hairdresser, whose naked body was found dumped behind a building in West Auckland in 2001. Reekers pleaded guilty and was sentenced to minimum parole period of 15 years in jail.
But many murders, shootings for instance, involve little interaction between victim and perpetrator and provide fewer opportunities for leaving behind incriminating biological clues. A quick beating with a heavy metal pipe falls into that category.
Research from the United States shows that fresh witnesses are more often the key to solving cold cases than developments in forensic science. Changes in relationships can prompt ex-partners or ex-friends to come forward with vital information. Someone who has harboured a secret for years may be unable to live with themselves any more.
The study shows that if the prime suspects can be identified in the investigation’s first 72 hours, a cold case has a better chance of being eventually resolved.
“UNTOLD MISERY”
The difficulty for police is keeping interest in a cold case alive. Repeated appeals for information and tugs at heartstrings can fall on deaf ears. It helps if the families of victims remind people of the impact of a pointless death. In one pithy phrase, John Reynolds’ younger sister, Frances Muir, talked to us about the “untold misery” caused by her brother’s death. She remembers Reynolds as a man who was “always looking for a bargain”. He was a good uncle to her sons.
With Heavy Metal, we have tried to show that families find it much more difficult to move on if the killer is not found. An answer is often more important than an arrest.
My partner in crime, Blair Ensor, deserves most of the credit for Heavy Metal. He drove the project with limitless energy and enthusiasm. For Blair, nothing was too difficult or too long ago. No detail was too
Journalists covering these cases cannot help harbouring a belief that their powers of deduction will find the missing piece of the puzzle.
insignificant and no interview subject too hard to find. Much of the work had to be squeezed in between his job as the chief news director in the Christchurch newsroom and his responsibilities as a new parent.
We could have chosen to focus on a number of major unsolved crimes, but the Reynolds murder – a well-known local mystery – seemed the ideal subject for a shorter crime podcast in the same vein as the more ambitious Black Hands podcast that I wrote last year. This case looked manageable and the police were keen to draw the public’s attention to the killing, which they still hope to solve.
The Reynolds murder lacks the attention-grabbing material of more high-profile murders, but it has many interesting details. Any murder is extraordinary in its own way. Intersecting lives and secrets are always exposed as the homicide investigation spreads out from the crime scene. That can never be dull.
My role was in writing the script, riding shotgun with Blair on some of the interviews and keeping his micro-management in check. After the 11-episode
Black Hands, Heavy Metal should have been a doddle… but it had its own challenges.
The Bain family murder in Dunedin in 1994 – subject of the Black Hands podcast – was the most examined and analysed case in New Zealand history. It sparked bitter controversy and endless speculation.
The Reynolds murder case never made it to trial. The evidence was sketchy. The suspects were hard to pin down and tended to get lost in the conjecture. Nevertheless, the question was the same. Whodunnit?
Last week I sat down with John Reynolds’ widow, now in her late 60s, who in the podcast is called Susan, because she doesn’t want her name used. Few people know her background and she takes a raft of daily precautions because she worries she might also be targeted one day.
With a police detective present, we listened to the podcast together. She kept a tissue in her hand and listened intently, writing thoughts in a notebook as we went through the podcast.
The podcast does not paint a uniformly flattering picture of her husband and she wondered if revealing some of his foibles might discourage people from coming forward. I assured her that people wouldn’t respond to a sugar-coated portrait and that her husband was a good man.
She said she had long ago let go of feelings of anger and hate, but she still wanted answers.
It might be a forlorn wish, but Blair and I sincerely hope the Heavy Metal podcast will bring Susan some certainty about knowing who killed her husband. To listen to the Heavy Metal podcast, go to stuff.co.nz and look for the Heavy Metal banner for instructions.
Anyone with information about the Reynolds case can contact the police on 0800 564 673, a dedicated number set up for the case. If you want to contact the Heavy Metal team, email heavymetal@stuff.co.nz