Transcript: 63. Mystery in the Sounds (Part 2) | New Zealand

You are listening to: The Evidence Locker.

Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones. 

Please Note:

This is the second episode of a two-part case. We recommend you listen to our episode “New Zealand – Mystery in the Sounds (Part 1)” before listening to Part 2.

The Marlborough Sounds hold one of New Zealand’s biggest mysteries: what happened to Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the early hours of new year’s day?

Picton man, 27-year-old Scott Watson, was behind bars for two counts of murder. He was convicted even though no bodies were ever recovered, there was no crime scene and no murder weapon. But the presence of Olivia’s hair on a blanket from his yacht and some scratch marks on the hatch of his cabin was enough evidence to get him locked up for life.

Watson always proclaimed his innocence. Many people supported him and believe that his case is a huge miscarriage of justice. Over the years, more and more people came to believe that he was innocent and that police simply went after him, because they needed to close the case. 

But there is so much more to this case, that solely counted on eyewitness testimony. Memories faded, sometimes memories resurfaced. Twenty years after that fateful new year’s morning, new evidence came to light, that might have been the final piece in this haunting puzzle. Or was it?

>>Intro Music

Chris Watson, Scott’s dad is now in his eighties and in ill health. He has dedicated the past 20 years of his life as an advocate for his son’s innocence. They felt that Watson was already guilty in the eyes of the media, before he ever saw the inside of a courtroom. The rumours going around town made him out to be a class A villain.

Throughout the years, all of Scott Watson’s attempts at appeal have failed. In November 2000 – a jailhouse informant who originally testified that Watson had confessed to the murders in prison, came forward and said that he was threatened by gang members in jail and pressured to testify against Watson. He recanted his previous statements.

In 2003 – Watson’s defence team applied to the Privy Council, but they found no further grounds for appeal. Watson also applied for a royal pardon, but that too, was unsuccessful.

At his first chance of parole in 2015, Watson was denied when he tested positive for drugs. Psychological tests ruled him to be ‘a very high risk’ of committing violent acts if released from prison. His next parole hearing is to be in December 2020.

A poll commissioned by The Marlborough Mystery author Mike Kalaugher, yielded some interesting results. The first poll, taken in 2002, four years after the disappearance of Ben and Olivia showed that 59% of people believed Watson was guilty. In 2005, 44 % believed him to be guilty. In a 2016 poll only 23% of people believed that he had killed Ben and Olivia. 

Ben Smart’s parents, John and Mary always believed that Watson was guilty, because the uncertainty of NOT knowing what happened to their son, was too much to bear. Olivia’s dad, Gerald Hope, who has been the spokesman for both the Smart and Hope families throughout the years said:

“What we got was a conviction but we never got the truth. And that’s the part that still really rips me up. At the end of the day we’re no further ahead than we were on the first or second or third of January of 1998. It’s circumstantial evidence so you’re having to believe a story. And parts of that story are shallow — incredibly shallow. If you weave the whole story together and accept one version of it you have to go along with a rightful and justified conviction. But there are parts of it that just don’t gel… I’m not saying [Scott Watson] is not guilty. What I’m saying is let’s clear up the doubt.”

The case, the mystery of it and the doubt about Scott Watson’s guilt has captured the imagination of a nation. In 2012, a Blenheim man called Simon Hugh Bell became obsessed with proving that an Australian woman living in Blenheim was, in fact, Olivia Hope. He started stalking her and believed she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, because the man she lived with bore a resemblance to the identikit of the ‘mystery man’ from all those years ago. 

It was proved that the woman was 13 years older than Olivia would have been and she only moved to New Zealand long after Olivia vanished. She did not even know who Olivia Hope and Ben Smart were. Simon Hugh Bell was given a restraining order and told to stay away from the woman. He said that he was so convinced she was Olivia Hope, that only a DNA test would convince him otherwise. Olivia’s family is certain the woman is not Olivia, despite Bell’s insistence.

In 2016, Gerald Hope and Scott Watson finally met in a conversation recorded as an interview by New Zealand’s North and South magazine. Both of them were open to meeting before, but they were only given the green light by authorities 18 years after the incident. Hope felt that even though Watson was willing to speak openly, he did not address things that could have vindicated him. He said to Watson:

“Scott, please, I asked you at the beginning about honesty and things like that – now’s your chance, here I am, and I said at the start, convince me you’re innocent and I’ll back you. I said that a long time ago.”

But Watson could not quite manage to convince Gerald Hope. Hope still felt cheated, that even after speaking to Watson, he still had no clearer picture of what happened to his daughter and her friend.

But if Scott Watson is innocent, he would not have been able to shed light on any of the questions. In the interview he said that he is a simple man and not as eloquent as the well-educated Gerald Hope. He did not know what more to say, other than the facts that he knew to be true. 

One thing that bothered Gerald Hope, rightfully so, was a disturbing picture Watson drew when he was taken into custody in 1998. The picture was confiscated from his cell and released to the media in later years. It looked like a twisted treasure map of sorts with place names like ‘Hunting Ground’, ‘Slave Bitch’ which is just off Pleasure Bay. Then there is also a cluster of small homes, labelled ‘Smart House’, ‘Hope House’ and ‘Pope House’ – the two victims and the investigator. Although this did not prove anything, it was an unsettling portrait of what was on Scott Watson’s mind. Watson said it was therapeutic to vent his anger in a picture, against the people that were persecuting him.

Investigative journalist Ian Wishart followed the case, the trial and aftermath closely over the years and has written a couple of books on it too. At first, he firmly believed in Watson’s innocence, but after studying the entire casefile and every piece of evidence presented at the trial, he has concluded that Watson and the mystery man was the same person. 

Firstly, there was the physical likeness between the mystery man and Watson. Both dark haired men were around the same age. The photo taken of Scott Watson on that fateful New Year’s Eve does make him appear somewhat clean cut, sure. But it was taken from a great distance away and the photo was pretty grainy. If Watson had some stubble, it would not have been that obvious from the photo alone. Witnesses who saw him at Furneaux Lodge that night stated that he had stubble and he wasn’t as clean shaven as he appeared to have been on the photo.

In Guy Wallace’s statement of 1998, he described the mystery man:

“The guy that got on board with Olivia and Ben was a male, Caucasian, aged about 32 years. He was about 5’8” tall, wiry build. I think he may have had tattoos on his arms but I can’t be sure. His hair was a brownie colour, wavy and medium length. He had about two days growth on his face.”

Another witness, who said that Watson was trying to make a move on his girlfriend, described Watson’s appearance on the night, he said that he had ‘short dark wavy hair, down to his collar’ and that he had ‘a day or two’s growth on his face’. The witness also said that the man wore a denim shirt and dark blue jeans. 

Piecing together information from their conversation and the description of Watson’s clothing, It was concluded that this man WAS Watson. He told him about the boat that he built in his backyard and that he came from Picton, something Watson loved to boast about.

Also, one of Olli Perkins’ friends, who confronted Watson after he teased Olli about wearing his sister’s necklace, described Watson like this:

“…straight dark hair, real dark, brushed around, touch ears down onto collar, 25 years to 30 years, no moustache, stubble. He was wearing a light weight denim shirt, sleeves rolled loosely to below the elbow, tidy blue jeans, faded, cross trainers, fairly scuffed. Had tattoos on forearms or back of hand that were faded, I did not see what they were.”

Remember, Watson recalled the conversation with Olli Perkins and his friends, so this description is indisputably that of Scott Watson. It is not too different to the description of the mystery man. Is there a chance that everyone who testified about the mystery man, was actually referring to Watson all along?

In the years following his sentencing, people who advocated Watson’s innocence, played down his criminal past. It was made out to be irrelevant, like he was just going through a phase as a troubled teen. But the extent of it was bigger that people realised. He had no less than 48 convictions against him. At trial, his defence made it clear that only one of these convictions involved violence, that of the pub fight. And it was true, that he did stay out of trouble for many years before Ben and Olivia’s disappearance.

However, what did NOT come out at trial, was that Watson was known to be rather inappropriate when it came to women. Ian Wishart quotes one of Watson’s friends in his book Elementary – the friend said:

“I remember on one occasion we over sitting in my second boat at the Picton Marina and a tourist walked past. Scott said “Rape the bitch”. Another time a young girl walked past and he said “Show us your tits”. He yelled it out so she could hear. He actually said “Show us your tits, you slut… He was always saying things like that. He told me since that the way to make money was to make movies of raping women and killing them. He called them snuff movies. He was stoned when he said this.”

A teenager also came forward and said that Watson tried to rape her at knife point in her apartment. It was only when she called for help and her roommates appeared, that Watson backed down. 

A friend of Watson’s also recalled that in the months leading up to Ben and Olivia’s disappearance, Watson wondered what it would be like to kill someone. He reportedly mused about this on more than one occasion. 

Watson maintained that these statements were taken out of context. He also said that he could not recall ever talking about killing someone. But in an interview with Watson, when he dismissed his behaviour on the night of the party, his disregard for women was evident. He said:

“I was pissed, so was everyone else. It was a New Year’s Eve party, in the middle of nowhere. But I definitely wasn’t the only drunk person there. I definitely wasn’t the only drunk person there saying ham-fisted comments to women about their tits and their arses. But at no stage was I running round like Zac Guildford with my clothes off.”

Of course, making disrespectful, sexually charged comments does not mean someone is a murderer, but his behaviour was noticed by many people at the party. And it was on par with the behaviour of ‘the mystery man’ as reported by other witnesses. Also remember the comment the man made on the dinghy, that Olivia was welcome to stay over on his yacht, but not Ben. 

Watson’s supporters refuse to believe that he was in anyway involved in the disappearance of Ben and Olivia. They continually fight to keep the case in the public eye and Chris Watson is always willing to talk to the press, because he feels that is son deserves to be defended. He still gets angry if he thinks about the smear campaign, instigated by police against his family in 1998. The fact that they bugged the Watson family home and phones meant that everything they said behind closed doors was public knowledge. 

However, Chris Watson says that the rumours did not have a lasting effect and he feels like he is supported by the Picton community in his quest to clear his son’s name. 

The case against Watson was circumstantial, no doubt about it. It lacked physical evidence, and the physical evidence they had, was questionable. The story of the scratch marks on the hatch was definitely a tactic to play on juror’s emotions. The mental image of Olivia scratching on the hatch, desperately trying to get out, stuck. In the end, most people agreed that they didn’t believe the story, but the damage was done. Instead of a black void about the fate of the teenager, the jury could imagine what her last hours were like.

The blonde hair was the only evidence placing Olivia Hope on Blade. And yes, it was strange that the first time they found the two long strands of hair, was on the exact day they received the hair samples from Olivia’s home. Was the evidence planted, or was it simply bad handling of evidence? The ESR technician had to admit that occasionally, when cutting open an envelope with evidence with scissors, one can inadvertently cut the plastic evidence bag inside.  

Ian Wishart also questions the fact if two long blonde hairs could have simply ‘slipped’ our of a plastic zip-lock bag and onto the blanket. The static charge between the plastic and the hair would surely have prevented hair from transferring so easily. To say that it came to be on the blanket straight from the evidence bag, was a long shot at best. Still, because they could not say if any hairs were missing from the bag, because officers didn’t count the hairs, this evidence is not reliable. It will always be tainted.

In searching Blade, police never found any traces of blood – or any other traces of DNA. There was the allegation that Watson had disposed of blood evidence, by cutting out two chunks of foam from the bed in the cabin, and then turning it over. Watson’s explanation was that he had burnt the one spot with a cigarette and cut out the burn mark. The other spot – a larger one – was where he had spilled chlorinated rubber paint. When it dried, it became hard, so he cut it out and turned it over because he didn’t want to sleep on the holes.

Wishart criticises other authors, who had written books supporting the theory that Watson is innocent. He believes that they edited information to make Watson look innocent, much like the allegation from Watson’s supporters against police for crafting eyewitness testimony to make Watson appear guilty.

Another point of contention is the fact that there was another yacht on Envdeavour Inlet that night that could fit the description of the mystery ketch. The Alliance was a two-masted ketch with blue paint and portholes. According to Wishart, police made the crucial error in their hand-drawn diagram of the boat positions on the bay, by putting Alliance in the wrong place. Photos show that Alliance was straight out to port from the jetty, not to the right. It’s actual position was where witnesses said the mystery ketch had been.

However, multiple witnesses saw a ketch that night, many of them said that they ALSO saw the Alliance and were confident that they did not confuse the one for the other. One witness was sure that the ketch was on one of the photographs she handed over to police. When she followed up, she was told that her photos had been misplaced – it was gone.

No less than 52 witnesses made police statements, saying that they saw a ketch in Endeavour Inlet and in the Marlborough Sounds in the first week of January 1998. All the descriptions made mention of the same details: copper portholes, two masts and decorative rope work. The ketch arrived late in the afternoon of December 31st and left at daybreak on New Year’s day. 

The Maritime Research Group (or MRG) took it upon themselves to solve the mystery surrounding the ketch. They were able to trace a route with a vessel of the exact description from Tonga, to New Caledonia and eventually the Marlborough Sounds. They were even able to identify the skipper who sailed the yacht – although it did not belong to him. In an informative series, called ‘The Mystery Ketch’, they say that he was a local man and for privacy purposes, they referred to him as CS in their investigation.

Their investigation, made up from eyewitness testimony, wharf registrations and radio communication evidence, place CS and the Ketch at Furneaux Lodge on New Year’s eve. CS had taken one man onboard – another local man – to crew the journey. They were able to identify the man to be Michael Scott Wallace, a career criminal with a history of violent crimes and links to the drug trade. A photo of him resembles the original composite sketch made by police, shortly after New Year’s eve.

The MRG’s investigation followed sightings of the ketch in the days following the disappearance. Many people remembered the ketch, as they were sailing enthusiasts with an appreciation for beautiful boats. The ketch stood out with its brass portholes and ornate ropes. 

Most witnesses said that they saw three people on the ketch: a young man and woman with a slightly older man in his thirties. The young couple were seated and did not use their arms to wave or to stop the woman’s hair from blowing – it seemed like they were tied up.

There was a report of two boys at a camping ground in The Sounds playing with walkie talkies. They had a small base station. As they skipped through the channels, they heard a woman’s voice, saying ‘SOS – Help us’. Then a man started talking, saying ‘Blue…’ But they were cut off. The last words were that of the woman, saying ‘it’s too late…’ The kids’ mother was able to verify their testimony. The boys remembered the call sign ‘Mad Dog’ being used by the female voice.

The Wanganui Coast Guard confirmed that a girl using the call sign ‘Mad Dog’ signalled for help that day, but they were not able to determine the location. ‘Mad Dog’ was the confirmed call sign used by skipper CS during his journey on the vessel the MRG identified as the mystery ketch. 

So if the female voice was Olivia’s, using the call sign was a way of linking their message to a particular boat and my implication, a specific person. She must have heard CS using the call sign, but being inexperienced in radio operation, they used the wrong channel to broadcast their SOS.

Another interesting fact uncovered by the MRG, was that Olivia’s school friend who saw her in Picton after New Year’s eve, was confused about the date when she saw Olivia. Police were convinced it must have been before Ben and Olivia disappeared, but the friend was able to confirm that it was later, she was unsure what the exact date was, so in investigators’ eyes she wasn’t very reliable. The girl was certain that she saw Olivia at Picton on Saturday the 3th of January looking stressed and asking for help. Initially it was reported that she saw Olivia at the wharf. In actual fact, she saw her NEAR the wharf, with a group of rough looking men who were ushering Olivia and a young man into a room at the Federal Hotel, less than 100 yards off the wharf. Eventually, the witness was able to confirm the date, because she remembered telling her mother about the incident the following day. Her mother had been away and only returned January the 4th, because she had to be back at work on Monday the 5th. The MRG investigation found information proving that a number of out-of-town gang members were staying in the Federal Hotel at the same time.

The MRG also investigated eyewitness testimony of John and Keren Futter who saw a Marlborough runabout at Tennyson Inlet. The runabout initially had with five people on it, but when they saw it again, coming out of a small deserted bay, the two young passengers fitting Ben and Olivia’s description were NOT in the back. 

Astonishingly, the MRG were able to find a grainy photo taken of a Marlborough runabout taken on the same day. They asked NASA for help to enhance the quality and were able to see a young blonde woman sitting in the back in a position like her hands were tied behind her back. 

Despite the compelling evidence, police maintained that the ketch did not exist. They said that the media created a frenzy by calling it ‘The Mystery Ketch’. None of the eyewitness reports were followed up on and witnesses were made to feel like they had it all wrong. 

Guy Wallace who always stood by his statement, that the yacht he delivered Ben and Olivia to was a ketch and NOT a sloop. Back in 1998, he said that the only similarity between the two yachts were the fact that they floated, that was it. He also said that Watson was NOT the mystery man, despite his court testimony that Watson, in the photo where he half-blinked, could likely have been the mystery man. After the trial, Wallace retracted this statement and maintained that Watson and the mystery man were two separate people.

He was backed up by the testimonies of Hayden Morrisey and Sarah Dyer who were also on the dingy. When Hayden saw on TV that police were taking Watson’s sloop in for examination, he said that he was certain they had the wrong boat. He remembered reaching up to secure the dinghy so Ben, Olivia and the mystery man could climb aboard. In a recreation of this moment, Morrisey and Wallace were asked to use the Furneaux Lodge dingy up to the side of a ketch and also up to the side of a sloop. It was obvious that next to the sloop, they did NOT have to reach up as Morrisey remembered doing. 

Both men also recalled the conversation in the dinghy. The mystery man told Ben and Olivia that there was a lot of space for them to crash on his yacht. Watson would not have said this, because anyone could see there was no space. On the dinghy ride, Ben asked the man if he owned the boat and he replied that he didn’t, he was only crewing it. Which brings it back to Michael Scott Wallace, who was reportedly crewing with the man in charge of the ketch, the man referred to as CS by the Maritime Research Group.

In one of the greatest twists in this case, during a radio interview on the twentieth anniversary of Ben and Olivia’s disappearance in January 2018, Guy Wallace made a statement that swung the case the other way again. 

His statement came together in an interview with journalist Tim Dower. Wallace was simply asked by the journalist if he ever saw Scott Watson at the party that night. That is when he remembered that he saw him in the beer tent on the front lawn of Furneaux Lodge. 

This is significant, because back in 1998, Wallace told police that he saw the mystery man in the beer tent near the beer fridge just after midnight. The man kept his pub pet (that’s a plastic container that holds about 2-4 pints of beer) in the fridge and had written his name on it, but Wallace could not remember what the name was. Staff did not typically allow this, but the man did not bother anyone, so they allowed him to keep his pub pet in the fridge. Wallace testified that the man who kept his beer in the fridge, was the same man who got onto his dinghy – the mystery man. 

In statements from 1998, the security guard on duty in the beer tent, identified this man as Scott Watson. In one single moment, twenty years after the fact, Scott Watson and the mystery man were linked with the implication that they were one and the same man.

This new evidence turned the whole case on its head. There seem to be as many reasons proving Watson’s guilt as there are proving his innocence. If Scott Watson is indeed innocent, he is also a victim in this case. And if he didn’t have anything to do with Ben and Olivia’s disappearance, who took them? And why?

And what then of all the eyewitnesses who were convinced that they saw the ketch in the days following the disappearance? The witnesses were unrelated and nobody had anything to gain making statements. At the time, Watson was not under suspicion yet, the case was wide open.

It is true, Scott Watson was definitely not making a good impression that night. He was crude and aggressive, but he was also very drunk. Would he have been able to concoct a murder plot, kill two people and dispose of their bodies so effectively that they have never been found, after more than 12 hours of heavy drinking? Also, stepping onto his sloop that was rafted up with two other yachts would not have gone unnoticed. If he had called out for a water-taxi or jumped in the water to swim back to shore, one of the 11 other people on the Mina Cornelia and the Bianco would have heard something. 

In this case it’s hard to believe what’s what. Over the years, journalists, authors and armchair detectives alike have searched for the truth. There are arguments for Scott Watson’s guilt and other theories supporting his innocence. There are two broad scenarios of what could have happened that night. 

In scenario A Watson arrived back on Blade after his altercation with Olli Perkins, taking a ride on Don Anderson’s water-taxi – as the only passenger. This was later that 2am, closer to 3. Watson said that he was drunk and he didn’t have a watch, so an exact time would only ever have been a guess. Watson tried to wake people up to keep the party going, but nobody was interested. Everyone on the chartered yacht was asleep and they did not check the time, so it could have been any time after midnight, really. And NOT before as some sources suggest, because they were still all awake to see in the new year.

In scenario A, once Watson realised the party was over, he climbed back onto Blade, made himself something to eat and then went to bed. He woke up with the sun and left for Erie Bay around 6:30. A couple of weeks later he found himself entangled at the centre of one of New Zealand’s most controversial cases. He was wrongfully convicted and is serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. 

What supports this theory is the fact that so many reliable witnesses came forward, saying that they had seen a ketch. And the compelling statements of sightings of Olivia and Ben in the days following their disappearance… If police followed up on the information as soon as reports were made, it could possibly have led investigators to the whereabouts of Ben and Olivia, perhaps they could have been found alive. If not, perhaps information could have taken police to their bodies. 

Also, if police had followed up immediately and not months later, they could have found something to prove that the ketch was another type of boat, or that the people resembling Ben and Olivia were NOT them. Immediate action would have dispelled any uncertainty, either way. But to take down statements three months after the fact and NOT follow up on leads, even if there were over 50 calls made about the ketch… That was perhaps the biggest mistake police could have made in the course of the investigation. It broke the faith the public had in their police force.

If this is what happened, Keith Hunter, author of ‘Trial by Trickery’ believes that there WAS a ketch and the mystery man was someone who was involved in drug trafficking. He was after Olivia as he wanted a woman for the night, but took Ben too, as he realised Olivia would not go aboard the ketch without him. 

A theory emerged that they were dropped at the bay and taken through the bush to a road, where they were taken away by car. But what does this all mean? Were Ben and Olivia kidnapped by a drug running gang? If so – why? And if they were being held hostage – why did the group not ask for ransom money? Did the young couple see something that would incriminate the group? If so, did the gang want to get rid of them? Then, why transport them around for a week, when everyone in the country was looking for them?

In Scenario B, Watson went back to Blade, found everybody on the adjoining yachts to be asleep. So he freshened up and went back to shore. He had his own dinghy and could have taken himself to shore, but somehow  - in his drunken state – was able to do it so quietly that nobody woke up. Or he could have hitched a ride on a passing dinghy – remember, it was way past midnight and the party had been going since the previous afternoon. Many people were inebriated and  it was dark, it is possible someone gave him a ride without taking much notice. It is significant to note that nobody has ever come forward saying that they took Watson back to Furneaux lodge at that time.

To believe this scenario, one has to assume that he made it back to shore somehow. Between 2:30 and 3am, he bumped into Olli Perkins and his mates and made the comment about Olli’s necklace. When Watson realised he was striking out with all the girls in the group, he went back to the pier, hoping to catch a ride back to Blade. By this time he had changed his shirt and he was more dishevelled than before. Let’s say – for argument’s sake – there was a mystery man at the bar who drank bourbon and pestered female party-goers earlier that night – by the time Guy Wallace took his dinghy out on the water, Watson looked more like mystery man than he would have done earlier that night: scruffy hair, stubble and a different shirt to the one he was wearing on the photo.

If he got onto the dinghy with the group, HE was the man who offered Olivia and Ben a place to sleep. In this scenario, Guy Wallace and Hayden Morrisey could have mistaken the smaller sloop for a ketch with two masts, because it was rafted to two other yachts. 

What happened on the boat, remains a mystery. But none of the 11 people in the neighbouring yachts heard any noise that could have been connected with a killing. In this scenario, Watson left early in the morning, as he said he did, but he stopped en route to Erie Bay where eyewitnesses saw a man fitting his description on a yacht they identified as Blade, acting suspiciously. If this was Watson, it can be assumed that this is when and where he disposed of the bodies.

But Scott Watson denies ever stopping on the way to Erie Bay. Like so many other points, this case comes down to what people remembered and what people said. Either people’s memories have faded or perhaps Scott Watson is lying. Could there be false memories, created by piecing together information in the media and information that surfaced at Watson’s trial? It’s not impossible. 

None of the witnesses in the case could have gained anything by being untruthful. They believed what they saw and what they told police to be true. But sometimes the facts tell a different story. It is so confusing, with constant questions flowing as steady as the tides in the Sounds. 

Ultimately, the families of Ben and Olivia are still facing questions than answers. And they are left to imagine the worst. At first it was just a disappearance, then murder, then probably rape of Olivia too. But they do not have proof and nobody is talking.

These two well-loved young people celebrated a new year they never got to live. More than 20 years on, their loved ones still have no closure.

This monumental case shattered the faith many New Zealanders had in the police force and in the justice system. To date, nobody knows what happened to Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. Sadly, chances are, we’ll never know…

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