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Scott Watson

Samson said:
Worth a new thread. The pivotal very experienced water taxi driver's testimony is completely irreconcilable with the conviction...
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FTFY

I'm not much of a boatie, but even I know the difference between a 40 foot well maintained, blue and white ketch (two masted) with round portholes and intricate rope work, and an 18 foot homebuilt sloop (one mast) with square windows and in dire need of a paint job.
 
Samson said:
Worth a new thread. The pivotal water taxi driver's testimony is completely irreconcilable with the conviction...
Click to expand...

What if I told you that a convicted sex offender was at Furneaux that night? I know this for a fact. The guy is currently still in jail for rape of multiple women.

(Hardly worth another thread - better to change the title of this one to NZ Murders)
 
The Atheist said:
What if I told you that a convicted sex offender was at Furneaux that night? I know this for a fact. The guy is currently still in jail for rape of multiple women.

(Hardly worth another thread - better to change the title of this one to NZ Murders)
Click to expand...
Ah, we have a thread. My brother lived three doors down from Ben Smart in Blenheim, and worked as a boat broker. I was on the phone to him when he said the police were hoisting a boat from Waikawa bay, by his office. It's a sloop he said, but it's supposed to be a ketch.

He regards the most difficult evidence for Scott Watson to explain as being "evidence" Scott wiped the inside of the cassette tape cases. Who ever did that, except when attempting to remove traces of a party on the boat.
 
Did the ESR do a hair transplant?

"Perhaps there was a mix-up of the hairs at the ESR laboratory? ESR's record is not unblemished, and there was an unexplained 1cm-long cut in the plastic bag that contained hairs taken as reference samples from Olivia's bedroom. Perhaps the reference hairs from Olivia's hairbrush became the incriminating hairs supposedly found on the rug.

Finally, there is the possibility that the hairs were planted. Again, this has happened before an incriminating cartridge was famously planted in the Crewe murder case. And when the ESR scientist first examined the hairs, including hundreds of dark ones, she did not find the blonde ones. She found them only during a second inspection seven weeks later." link

The cut bag and the fact that this was a second inspection make it plausible that the hair evidence was planted by someone who wanted to help the conviction along. IIUC this kind of forensic fraud would be called noble-cause corruption. I don't know whether he is guilty or innocent, but I am inclined to say that this is a questionable conviction.
 
Then there is this photo

watsonaboardminacornelia.jpg


It was taken on the yacht Mina Cornelia around 9:30pm on the night of the disappearances. It shows Watson short-haired, clean shaven, and looking nothing like the person Guy Wallace (the water taxi driver) described to the police. He also looks nothing like the person described by bar staff at Furneaux Lodge, all of whom have said was a scruffy looking, unshaven man in his early 30's with long hair, thin build, about 174cm tall.
 
Samson said:
He regards the most difficult evidence for Scott Watson to explain as being "evidence" Scott wiped the inside of the cassette tape cases. Who ever did that, except when attempting to remove traces of a party on the boat.
Click to expand...


I used to do that when beer, wine or spirits got spilled on them during a party. I would remove the title slips, wash and dry the cases in warm soapy water, rinse them and let them dry before putting the slips and cassettes back in their cases. If you don't do that, you risk ruining the tapes.
 
Samson said:
Worth a new thread.
Click to expand...

With a little country like ours currently in the grip of Thomas/Lundy/Bain/Watson/McDonald/Tamihere/Rewa fever, a single thread on NZ murder mysteries would have been a better plan, but hey.

Chris_Halkides said:
"Perhaps there was a mix-up of the hairs at the ESR laboratory?
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Ah, the hair. Long since been my favourite piece of evidence.

All the experts called, and the one thing Watson needed was a gambler to explain that "30,000 : 1" odds of someone having the same hair type as Olivia.

Piece of cake. A gambler could easily explain to a jury that the odds of two people having identical hair at Furneaux Lodge were around 40%.

The maths to work out a pair in a chance of 1/30,000 is as follows: (reduced by factor of 100 for simplicity)

1/30 + 1/29 + 1/28 + 1/27 + 1/26 + 1/25 + 1/24 + 1/23 + 1/22 + 1/21 = 39.7%. On that basis, the chance of any one person having exactly the same hair as another person at the party was 39.7% likely. (The chances of two specific people having the same hair type are still 30,000 : 1, but selling the idea that there is a 40% of any person sharing hair type with someone else at the party is going to firmly lodge in jurors' minds.
_____________________________

The scuttlebutt I have on Watson - and I don't even know whether the crime existed, but someone may do - is that the cops had a hard on for Watson because they were convinced he'd raped a woman on an island in the sounds.
_____________________________

Something I forgot to include. The above-mentioned rapist - who was actively raping at the time of Ben & Olivia's murders - was also a Blenheim resident. If the cops hadn't had such a need for Watson, they may have looked at that bloke. One of his convictions relates to a rape on his boat in the Sounds, too.
 
One more piece of the puzzle - if Watson gets off I will propose this bloke to the cops as the real perpetrator.

The rapist I'm talking about had a strong predilection for young blondes, with a variety of ages in victim from early teens to early 20s and one as young as 9. All the victims I know for certain (4 of them) were slim blondes.
 
The Atheist said:
One more piece of the puzzle - if Watson gets off I will propose this bloke to the cops as the real perpetrator.

The rapist I'm talking about had a strong predilection for young blondes, with a variety of ages in victim from early teens to early 20s and one as young as 9. All the victims I know for certain (4 of them) were slim blondes.
Click to expand...
Before heading down that path, is there any evidence that this man was at Endeavour inlet, and associated with a ketch?
 
The Atheist said:
One more piece of the puzzle - if Watson gets off I will propose this bloke to the cops as the real perpetrator.

The rapist I'm talking about had a strong predilection for young blondes, with a variety of ages in victim from early teens to early 20s and one as young as 9. All the victims I know for certain (4 of them) were slim blondes.
Click to expand...


Thus bloke you are talking about wouldn't have a skipper's ticket by any chance?
 
Samson said:
Before heading down that path, is there any evidence that this man was at Endeavour inlet, and associated with a ketch?
Click to expand...

I thought I'd said he was at Furneaux that night, so yes, I am 100% certain he was there.

I doubt he was involved with a ketch, but he could easily have been aboard one as a guest.

The fact that they went to a ketch doesn't mean they were killed on it.
 
smartcooky said:
Thus bloke you are talking about wouldn't have a skipper's ticket by any chance?
Click to expand...

Probably not but oodles of experience on board a wide range of vessels. I'm pretty sure he had a 21 foot fizzboat there that night rafted to yachts.
 
The Atheist said:
Probably not but oodles of experience on board a wide range of vessels. I'm pretty sure he had a 21 foot fizzboat there that night rafted to yachts.
Click to expand...
That would have been easy to confirm. Did he look like the identikit picture prepared by Guy Wallace?
The fizz boat would be plausible, but it takes huge weight to securely sink bodies.
 
Judith Collins played God again

From wiki

In 2008 Watson wrote to the Governor-General of New Zealand, seeking a pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. Five years later in July 2013, Justice Minister Judith Collins announced that the governor-general had rejected application for mercy on her advice.[16]
 
The Atheist said:
1/30 + 1/29 + 1/28 + 1/27 + 1/26 + 1/25 + 1/24 + 1/23 + 1/22 + 1/21 = 39.7%. On that basis, the chance of any one person having exactly the same hair as another person at the party was 39.7% likely. (The chances of two specific people having the same hair type are still 30,000 : 1, but selling the idea that there is a 40% of any person sharing hair type with someone else at the party is going to firmly lodge in jurors' minds.
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That is somewhat similar to shared birthdays odds. People who don't understand the odds won't believe you when you tell them that the chances that among 40 randomly chosen people, the odds of having two people who share a birthday is near certainty.
 
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smartcooky said:
That is somewhat similar to shared birthdays odds. People who don't understand the odds won't believe you when you tell them that the chances that among 40 randomly chosen people, the odds of having two people who share a birthday is near certainty.
Click to expand...

That's exactly it.

Samson said:
That would have been easy to confirm. Did he look like the identikit picture prepared by Guy Wallace?
The fizz boat would be plausible, but it takes huge weight to securely sink bodies.
Click to expand...

The Identikit looks nothing like him, but as that's the mystery ketch owner, I wouldn't expect him to.

I'll check on the boat size - he had them up to 35', so it might not have been the 21.
 
The Atheist said:
That's exactly it.



The Identikit looks nothing like him, but as that's the mystery ketch owner, I wouldn't expect him to.

I'll check on the boat size - he had them up to 35', so it might not have been the 21.
Click to expand...
You are introducing a plausible suspect, which advances the case, but there must be a way for this suspect to disappear two live people in a short space of time, without the ketch owner being aware of anything, a man who was their host.
This doesn't fly without a narrative.
The argument that keeps all consistent is for Guy Wallace to lie like a flat fish. Drug deal complications have been cited, can you refute those rumours?
 
Samson said:
You are introducing a plausible suspect, which advances the case, but there must be a way for this suspect to disappear two live people in a short space of time, without the ketch owner being aware of anything, a man who was their host.
This doesn't fly without a narrative.
The argument that keeps all consistent is for Guy Wallace to lie like a flat fish. Drug deal complications have been cited, can you refute those rumours?
Click to expand...


Samson, have you ever been to the Marlborough Sounds?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/F...1s0x6d3ed38344327b2b:0x1a0e7cc4bf19ab57?hl=en

Disappearing a couple of bodies there would be quite easy. If they were murdered during the early hours of the morning on New Year's Day, the killer had plenty of time to do it under cover of darkness. Furneaux Lodge is only only about 7 km from the entrance to Endeavour Inlet and access to the rest of the Sounds, and only a further 15 km from the Cook Strait. Someone with extensive knowledge of boating in the Sounds to navigate it easily at night without lights. A small boat, a couple of hours, a couple of chains and an anchor is all you would need.
 
smartcooky said:
Samson, have you ever been to the Marlborough Sounds?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/F...1s0x6d3ed38344327b2b:0x1a0e7cc4bf19ab57?hl=en

Disappearing a couple of bodies there would be quite easy. If they were murdered during the early hours of the morning on New Year's Day, the killer had plenty of time to do it under cover of darkness. Furneaux Lodge is only only about 7 km from the entrance to Endeavour Inlet and access to the rest of the Sounds, and only a further 15 km from the Cook Strait. Someone with extensive knowledge of boating in the Sounds to navigate it easily at night without lights. A small boat, a couple of hours, a couple of chains and an anchor is all you would need.
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Yes I know the sounds well, including the inlet and location. But I am looking at this proposition as follows, unless I have it wrong.
1. Guy Wallace dropped the three at the ketch, one of whom was the owner.
2. They separated from the owner and ended on a fizz boat rafted to the ketch with their killer, and an engine was started with no one on the ketch noticing (the police would have found a witness to this surely), and were dumped.
3.There happened to be enough anchor weight on the fizz boat to weigh down two bodies, and here is a post that discusses this issue.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10452581&postcount=208

I realise strong currents are not relevant here, but you see the point. Having said that, Watson would also need the weight, but he had more time.
 
Samson said:
Yes I know the sounds well, including the inlet and location. But I am looking at this proposition as follows, unless I have it wrong.
1. Guy Wallace dropped the three at the ketch, one of whom was the owner.
2. They separated from the owner and ended on a fizz boat rafted to the ketch with their killer, and an engine was started with no one on the ketch noticing (the police would have found a witness to this surely), and were dumped.
3.There happened to be enough anchor weight on the fizz boat to weigh down two bodies, and here is a post that discusses this issue.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10452581&postcount=208

I realise strong currents are not relevant here, but you see the point. Having said that, Watson would also need the weight, but he had more time.
Click to expand...


Except that the ketch, its owner and those on board have never been found, so we have no way of knowing what went on on the ketch, if anything.

Guy Wallace said the man that offered Ben and Olivia a bed for the night on his ketch had not shaved or combed his hair. He said that the man seemed only interested in offering Olivia a berth for the night and not her companion, saying the man gestured towards Olivia saying “you can come”, and then gesturing towards her companion, saying “but you can’t”. Wallace said he had a funny feeling about the encounter but the two young people assured him they would be fine.
 
smartcooky said:
Except that the ketch, its owner and those on board have never been found, so we have no way of knowing what went on on the ketch, if anything.

Guy Wallace said the man that offered Ben and Olivia a bed for the night on his ketch had not shaved or combed his hair. He said that the man seemed only interested in offering Olivia a berth for the night and not her companion, saying the man gestured towards Olivia saying “you can come”, and then gesturing towards her companion, saying “but you can’t”. Wallace said he had a funny feeling about the encounter but the two young people assured him they would be fine.
Click to expand...
Ok, atheist suggested his serial rapist did not resemble the indentikit of the ketch owner, so it seems your best suspect is the ketch owner. I clearly remember Pope mapped out the boats, and eliminated the presence of a ketch.
Were there reliable witnesses to the presence of a ketch? And how could Pope get it so wrong?
 
Samson said:
You are introducing a plausible suspect, which advances the case, but there must be a way for this suspect to disappear two live people in a short space of time, without the ketch owner being aware of anything, a man who was their host.
This doesn't fly without a narrative.
The argument that keeps all consistent is for Guy Wallace to lie like a flat fish. Drug deal complications have been cited, can you refute those rumours?
Click to expand...

Given that we know exactly nothing after the time they were dropped at the ketch, the chances of someone else being involved are fairly good, especially since the ketch was never seen again.

I don't buy the difficulty in disposing of the bodies. I don't know anything about Wallace or rumours of drugs, but the guy currently in jail was found guilty of stupefying girls and women with drugs before he raped them in some of his convictions.
 
The Atheist said:
Given that we know exactly nothing after the time they were dropped at the ketch, the chances of someone else being involved are fairly good, especially since the ketch was never seen again.

I don't buy the difficulty in disposing of the bodies. I don't know anything about Wallace or rumours of drugs, but the guy currently in jail was found guilty of stupefying girls and women with drugs before he raped them in some of his convictions.
Click to expand...

Your suspect is AS, yes? If so, he would have been 49 at the time Ben and Olivia disappeared. IIRC, he often tried to make himself look younger than he really was.
 
Samson said:
1. Guy Wallace dropped the three at the ketch, one of whom was the owner.
Click to expand...
All that we know is that one of the three people that Wallace dropped off at the ketch claimed to be the owner. We do not know if that person was, in fact, the owner, or even if he was in any way actually connected to the ketch.
Samson said:
2. They separated from the owner and ended on a fizz boat rafted to the ketch with their killer, and an engine was started with no one on the ketch noticing (the police would have found a witness to this surely), and were dumped.
Click to expand...
Given that no one has identified the ketch we have no idea if anyone noticed an engine starting; in fact we do not even know if there was anyone on board to hear an engine start.
 
Samson said:
Ok, atheist suggested his serial rapist did not resemble the indentikit of the ketch owner, so it seems your best suspect is the ketch owner. I clearly remember Pope mapped out the boats, and eliminated the presence of a ketch.
Were there reliable witnesses to the presence of a ketch?
Click to expand...

Yes. Dozens of witnesses said they saw the mystery ketch, and their descriptions of it are so strikingly similar that they must surely all have been seeing the same yacht.

Then there is this...

"Ketch seen leaving sounds: The media reports a charter boat operator who had seen the ketch leaving Queen Charlotte Sound on 2 January with people on board who could have been Ms Hope, Mr Smart and the mystery man. The Sunday Star Times quotes the operator, one Ted Walsh as saying, as he anchored off Cannibal Cove that day (2 January), he saw the ketch pass by, heading for the open sea. It was under motor with no sails. “What was distinctive was a young, blond-headed girl sitting in the cockpit at the back of the boat. A guy with very short hair was sitting beside her, very close,” he said. At the time of the sighting, Mr Walsh did not know the pair was missing. He said the two sitting so close together seemed strange and they did not return the waves from him and his passengers, which was ‘uncharacteristic of boaties.’ He say, however, there was no way he could say the pair was the missing couple.

http://www.crime.co.nz/c-files.aspx?ID=219

and this...

But almost 10 years later David and Rachel Arlidge say in 1998 a boat berthed beside them at an Auckland marina – a couple of months after the pair's disappearance – which matched the description of the mystery ketch it was reported today.

The couple said the ketch's skipper also told them he had been at Furneaux Lodge in Marlborough Sounds on New Year's Eve.

The Arlidges did not call police at the time as they thought the case had been dealt with. Years later they watched a documentary about the Sounds murders and an artist's impression of the mystery ketch jogged their memory.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/126059/New-doubt-over-Sounds-murder-conviction

And how could Pope get it so wrong?
Click to expand...

Tunnel vision and confirmation bias

We have seen a number of cases in NZ where the Police have focused early on a subject; decided that their prime suspect is guilty, then ignored or attempted to discredit (and in at least one case I know of, actively suppressed) exculpatory evidence.
 
smartcooky said:
Your suspect is AS, yes? If so, he would have been 49 at the time Ben and Olivia disappeared. IIRC, he often tried to make himself look younger than he really was.
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All the time - hair transplants, youthful clothes... you name it, he has a real fetish for it, right down to the Rod Stewart wig at his sentencing.

I can guarantee he wasn't driving a ketch, though.
 
The Atheist said:
All the time - hair transplants, youthful clothes... you name it, he has a real fetish for it, right down to the Rod Stewart wig at his sentencing.
Click to expand...

And AS was definitely at Furneaux Lodge on the night Ben and Olivia disappeared?

The Atheist said:
I can guarantee he wasn't driving a ketch, though.
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Could he have been a guest on it though; the bloke Guy Wallace saw and heard speaking the Ben and Olivia when he dropped them off on. Could he also have been the scruffy looking individual at the bar?
 
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There is prodigious and plausible detail in this lengthy treatise to suggest Watson is one of the reasonably short list of clearly innocent New Zealanders accused of heinous crimes.

http://trudyandtom.tripod.com/summary/summary.htm

This case should have cruised through to the privy council.

And another link.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/126059/New-doubt-over-Sounds-murder-conviction

And in fairness, for balance

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/scott-watson-evil-enough-kill-again-says-detective-5967939

exerpt

A mystery ketch identified by a key witness early in the investigation was located and inquiries found it was not in Endeavour Inlet when Hope and Smart disappeared, he said.

"There's nothing new that's come up since the presentation of that case - not a jolly sausage."

Watson was sexually motivated, Rae said. He lured the tired young couple on to his yacht with the offer of a berth for the night. When they were asleep he cast off and quietly motored away. Police never found a 15kg winch and a length of chain missing from Watson's boat. The pair's bodies were likely dumped overboard in a sleeping bag in Cook Strait, Rae said.
 
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Samson said:
And in fairness, for balance

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/scott-watson-evil-enough-kill-again-says-detective-5967939

exerpt

A mystery ketch identified by a key witness early in the investigation was located and inquiries found it was not in Endeavour Inlet when Hope and Smart disappeared
Click to expand...


This flies in the face of

1. the evidence given by Guy Wallace, the very experienced water taxi driver who swears to this day that he dropped Ben and Olivia off on a 40 ft well maintained ketch, not a crappy 26ft homebuilt sloop. In also ignored the evidence of others who were in the water taxi who also described the ketch. These include Hayden Morressey and Sarah Dyer, and another water-taxi driver Ted Walsh.

2. The evidence given by dozens of people who maintain they saw a ketch matching Guy Wallace's description at Endeavour inlet on the day of Ben and Olivia's disappearance.

3. The evidence of Steven McClellan, an experienced boatie and Sounds resident, who saw the ketch on January 6, 1998 - five days after Smart and Hope were last seen - motoring out of Nydia Bay, not far from Furneaux Lodge. A man was stood near the stern of the ketch with his back turned to McClellan. He was of wiry build, and had shiny shoulder-length black hair - a similar description to the mystery man given by witnesses. A young woman stared at McClellan through a porthole window. Her hair was tied back and she wore glasses. McClellan said "in every photograph I had seen of Olivia Hope, she was dressed up like she was ready to go to town,"... but then a few months later I saw home video footage of Hope, aired on television, playing the piano ... "As soon as I saw her with hair tied back, no makeup or glasses, it just clicked. I knew it was her."
 
smartcooky said:
This flies in the face of

1. the evidence given by Guy Wallace, the very experienced water taxi driver who swears to this day that he dropped Ben and Olivia off on a 40 ft well maintained ketch, not a crappy 26ft homebuilt sloop. In also ignored the evidence of others who were in the water taxi who also described the ketch. These include Hayden Morressey and Sarah Dyer, and another water-taxi driver Ted Walsh.

2. The evidence given by dozens of people who maintain they saw a ketch matching Guy Wallace's description at Endeavour inlet on the day of Ben and Olivia's disappearance.

3. The evidence of Steven McClellan, an experienced boatie and Sounds resident, who saw the ketch on January 6, 1998 - five days after Smart and Hope were last seen - motoring out of Nydia Bay, not far from Furneaux Lodge. A man was stood near the stern of the ketch with his back turned to McClellan. He was of wiry build, and had shiny shoulder-length black hair - a similar description to the mystery man given by witnesses. A young woman stared at McClellan through a porthole window. Her hair was tied back and she wore glasses. McClellan said "in every photograph I had seen of Olivia Hope, she was dressed up like she was ready to go to town,"... but then a few months later I saw home video footage of Hope, aired on television, playing the piano ... "As soon as I saw her with hair tied back, no makeup or glasses, it just clicked. I knew it was her."
Click to expand...
Not sure about 3. This sounds like the swedish couple in the clearing saying nothing, and Nydia Bay is in Pelorus Sound.
But the rest is pretty challenging evidence. I never understood the case, but just assumed the cops got it right. No more though.

I just found this opinion piece by Brian Edwards where he discusses Watson and Lundy.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/reflec...dy-should-now-be-allowed-rest-peace-ck-136116

By chance I did read Bungay on murder many years ago, co-authored by Edwards
 
Samson said:
Not sure about 3. This sounds like the swedish couple in the clearing saying nothing, and Nydia Bay is in Pelorus Sound.
But the rest is pretty challenging evidence. I never understood the case, but just assumed the cops got it right. No more though.
Click to expand...

Well its not that far Samson.

We stayed at a bach in Nikau Bay for Christmas a few years ago, that is also in Pelorus Sound, not far from Nydia Bay, and went to Furnaeux Lodge for New years Eve. We left early on the morning of the 31st on a friend's motor yacht and were at Endeavour Inlet and Furneaux Lodge by mid afternoon. This sighting was five days later, plenty of time.
 
smartcooky said:
Well its not that far Samson.

We stayed at a bach in Nikau Bay for Christmas a few years ago, that is also in Pelorus Sound, not far from Nydia Bay, and went to Furnaeux Lodge for New years Eve. We left early on the morning of the 31st on a friend's motor yacht and were at Endeavour Inlet and Furneaux Lodge by mid afternoon. This sighting was five days later, plenty of time.
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Plenty of time alright, but I don't buy it. It sounds like the same ketch and owner, but not Olivia Hope unless she was locked up as a sex slave and Ben was long gone. Is that the theory?
 
Samson said:
Plenty of time alright, but I don't buy it. It sounds like the same ketch and owner, but not Olivia Hope unless she was locked up as a sex slave and Ben was long gone. Is that the theory?
Click to expand...

No reason why it couldn't have been. This would be a valid theory of the crime. Olivia Hope was/is a very attractive young woman, and white slavery is not exactly uncommon...

Perhaps I reading too much into this exchange...

"Wallace said the man that offered Ben and Olivia a bed for the night on his ketch had not shaved or combed his hair. He said that the man seemed only interested in offering Olivia a berth for the night and not her companion, saying the man gestured towards Olivia saying “you can come”, and then gesturing towards her companion, saying “but you can’t”.
 
smartcooky said:
No reason why it couldn't have been. This would be a valid theory of the crime. Olivia Hope was/is a very attractive young woman, and white slavery is not exactly uncommon...

Perhaps I reading too much into this exchange...

"Wallace said the man that offered Ben and Olivia a bed for the night on his ketch had not shaved or combed his hair. He said that the man seemed only interested in offering Olivia a berth for the night and not her companion, saying the man gestured towards Olivia saying “you can come”, and then gesturing towards her companion, saying “but you can’t”.
Click to expand...

It sure has internal consistency, but hell it's way out there as a theory. However, something happened. Seargent Rae mentioned a 15kg winch and chain missing from Watson's boat. Do you know anything about that. 15kg might do it if temporarily, but hopeless in the medium term.
 
Samson said:
It sure has internal consistency, but hell it's way out there as a theory. However, something happened. Seargent Rae mentioned a 15kg winch and chain missing from Watson's boat. Do you know anything about that. 15kg might do it if temporarily, but hopeless in the medium term.
Click to expand...

That would depend how much chain was also missing "a length of chain" could be bloody heavy. But hell, if I was accused of murder hand was asked to account for every missing tool or piece of equipment I had ever owned, I would be in serious trouble.
 
smartcooky said:
That would depend how much chain was also missing "a length of chain" could be bloody heavy. But hell, if I was accused of murder hand was asked to account for every missing tool or piece of equipment I had ever owned, I would be in serious trouble.
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But I never heard of it before. It is almost as though the anchor winch was missing. Surely not. What unattached 15kg winch is regarded as inventory on a sloop. Rae is covering his backside somehow, but of course we were not in court to hear 10,000 pages of testimony.
 
I have to admit that a lot of this case has perturbed me from the beginning.

I think that Watson's defence thought that they had shown enough doubt on the evidence given by the prosecution that they didn't have to do anything when it came to the defence's turn, and I think that cost them dearly.

We also know that well after Ben and Olivia headed out to the Mystery Ketch, that a second water taxi driver took a man matching Watson's description very closely to a sloop that was moored with other boats and hade the name of a weapon (Watson's boat was the Blade.)

People on the boat Watson arrived at reported him getting on board, asking if they wanted to party and then when they didn't answer, heading to his own boat. Yet they didn't hear anyone else with him.

Watson's boat was completely different to the one Ben and Olivia was supposed to have boards (Different number of masts, colour, size, shape, and portholes.)

Speed testing showed that Watson's boat could not have made the Journey from the claimed sighting in Cook Strait to home in the time required, even in the best circumstances.

The boat sighted in Cook Strait had an aluminium dinghy, Watson's had a wooden one.

The whole hair thing has been a bugbear too. The claim that the 'only' way they could have gotten there was by Olivia being on the boat is garbage. Hair is, for want of a better word, grabby. Olivia should have easily sat in a chair, deposited the hair on the chair, later to be sat on by Watson who had the hair transfer to him, and then via him deposit on his boat. This isn't far fetch, in fact I have had it happen to me, where a friend's hair ended up in my bed though she'd never at that point even visited my home.

Further more, the nail marks on the hatch, which were claimed to have been Olivia's (without more evidence than just a claim), had an innocent explanation, and while the prosecution's version of how they were make required long nails, Olivia played the piano and routinely kept her nails short.

This is one case that really does need another look, and I have thought so since before the conviction. Don't get me wrong, I think that Watson is a thoroughly unlikable person and probably would have ended up in Jail anyway for something else, but I don't believe he killed Ben and Olivia.
 
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