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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...
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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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