Stranger likely raped and murdered Kirsty Bentley, detective in charge of investigation says

Teenager Kirsty Bentley was likely raped and murdered by a stranger who dragged her from the street while she was out walking her dog in Ashburton on New Year’s Eve in 1998, the officer in charge of the investigation into the notorious unsolved homicide says.

Detective Inspector Greg Murton believes the 15-year-old’s killer is a lone male who either smoked or grew cannabis and was living in the mid-Canterbury town at the time.

Murton revealed his theory about the case on Monday as police offered a $100,000 reward for information that leads to the identification and conviction of the person responsible for her murder.

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It signals a change of direction for the homicide inquiry, which for many years zeroed in on Kirsty’s father Sid and her brother John.

READ MORE:
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* Killer is still out here, says Bentley’s mum

“I’m not saying 100% they were not involved, but I’m saying they’re less likely to have been involved than a stranger-type abduction,” Murton said.

John Bentley told Stuff the case had taken a toll on him and his family, and he was “relieved on a personal level to not be considered the main suspect”.

“Someone might have seen or heard something but thought it irrelevant as their information may have had nothing to do with dad or I. Hopefully knowing that the focus of the inquiry has changed will encourage people to come forward.”

Kirsty left her family’s home in South St, Hampstead, with her dog, Abby, about 3pm on New Year’s Eve, 1998.

Her family reported her missing several hours later when she failed to return home.

The next morning, Abby was found tied to a tree in scrub by the Ashburton river near a track Kirsty was known to walk regularly. Kirsty’s underwear was on a bush nearby.

Two cannabis growers stumbled upon Kirsty’s body about 50 kilometres away in a Rakaia Gorge forestry block about two weeks later. She’d suffered a single blow to the back of the head.

More than 20 years after Kirsty was killed, the case remains one of the most perplexing New Zealand homicides with confoundingly little forensic evidence and numerous disputed theories.

Abby’s discovery is one of the most perplexing parts of the case. Why wasn’t she found the night of Kirsty’s disappearance as searchers scoured that area?

Murton has been reviewing the file and, like others before him, said he believes that scene was staged by the killer.

If Sid and John had a hand in Kirsty’s death, then they may have done it to take attention away from their home, and make it look like she’d been abducted.

The more likely scenario, Murton said, was that she was grabbed from the street by a stranger, and taken to a nearby home.

Unable to shoo Kirsty’s dog away, they’d then taken it down to the river and tied it up after dark – disposing of the underwear at the same time.

“I think [the killer] is someone on the walking route – that would be my most likely scenario… and there’s some good suspects there.”

Murton said police had evidence which showed that person was either a cannabis user or grower. He would not elaborate further, but said he was confident John Watts and Brendan Wanhalla, the cannabis growers who found her body in a small plantation of immature pine trees on the north side of the Rakaia Gorge on January 17, were not involved in the murder.

Sid and John became suspects, particularly after Sid changed his account of his movements on the day Kirsty disappeared.

John was the only one home when Kirsty is thought to have set off for her walk with the dog. He told police his sister never returned home.

Sid initially said he had driven to Christchurch to drop off a water blaster and get some tools on the day Kirsty vanished, after which he spent a couple of hours in Lyttelton before driving straight home.

However, he changed his story in October 2000, after apparently banging his head on a cupboard. The new version of events had him coming back from Christchurch about 2.30pm. He was within 30 seconds of his own home when he decided to drive to Wakanui Beach to get over a migraine.

Before Sid died of cancer in 2015, he told Murton he had been confused about where he was on the day Kirsty disappeared, and reverted to his original story.

Several police officers have headed the homicide investigation. Detective Superintendent Greg Williams, the manager of the National Organised Crime Group, handed the file to Murton, the Canterbury district crime manager, in 2014.

Williams’ theory was that Sid arrived home sometime shortly after 4pm on December 31, 1998, to find John had killed Kirsty, perhaps accidentally. Together they bundled her body into a tarpaulin, put her into Sid’s ute, and Sid drove to the Rakaia Gorge to carefully hide her body.

When Kirsty’s mother Jill arrived home about 5pm, John was there. Sid walked through the door about 6.15pm, and called police a short time later.

“Sid and John were legitimately looked at very closely for obvious reasons … and there are still questions remaining about Sid’s changing of his story,” Murton said.

Sid’s initial alibi was very detailed, and backed up by receipts and several people who told police they saw him in Lyttelton. If he was in Lyttelton, as they say he was, then there was no way he could have made it back to Ashburton in time to have been involved in the murder.

Witnesses who reported possible sightings of Sid at Hotel Ashburton, on the edge of town, about 4pm that day, came forward several weeks after Kirsty disappeared, and were unreliable, Murton said.

Sid’s “alcoholism and bad memory” could explain why he changed his version of events.

Murton said it would be a “highly unusual scenario” if John and Sid had colluded over Kirsty’s death.

A criminal profiler who previously looked at the case said he had never encountered a case where a parent had killed their daughter, removed her underwear and then disposed of the body.

There was a broad pool of suspects the investigation had looked at over the years, some of whom had not been not eliminated.

Depending on what the appeal for information yielded, Murton said he would probably start reviewing some of their statements, and alibis.

The Rakaia Gorge pine plantation where Kirsty’s body was placed in the foetal position and covered with sticks and bracken was “not a random spot you would just pick out of the blue”.

“If you get a guy who is a cannabis user, worked on a farm up at Rakaia Gorge, lived at Ashburton was at a loose end that day, his personal life had gone to shit … you’d look very closely at someone like that.”

The recent solving of cold cases, like the 1995 murder of Christchurch mother Angela Blackmoore, showed it was always possible for a secret someone had held for years to unravel, Murton said.

“Someone out there knows the truth. We urge them to do the right thing and finally come forward – if not for themselves, then for Kirsty and all those who loved her.”

News of the $100,000 reward was well received by Kirsty’s close friend Jasmine Richardson, who never formed a view about who might be responsible for the murder.

“I’m glad that they are looking at different avenues,” Richardson said. “I’m glad it hasn’t been forgotten.”

When Kirsty’s body was found at Rakaia Gorge, she was wearing a black tank top, a blue sarong with a white butterfly pattern and black Colorado shoes with white soles.

Her sarong was unpinned but covered her lower half. A scrunchie she used to tie her hair back with when walking, was on her wrist.

Pathology results suggested a time of death between 3.30pm and 7pm on the day she disappeared. Decomposition of the body made it impossible to tell if she’d been sexually assaulted.

Kirsty’s mother, Jill Peachey, declined to comment.

Anyone with information about the murder is asked to police via 105 and reference Operation Kirsty, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.