Re-opening of New Zealand’s most baffling murder mystery?
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Categories: Cold Case News, Forensics, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved
Tags: Actual Innocence, Alibi, Ballistics, Crime Scene, Evidence, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, New Zealand, Pardon, Planting Evidence, Police, Police Misconduct, the Pukekawa Murders, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Wrongful Convictions
Pat Booth’s murder-suicide theory, first raised by Defence Counsel Paul Temm at the first Thomas trial in 1971, is not supported by the medical evidence.
The Final Chapter (Penguin NZ 2001) revealed for the first time that Jeanette’s brain matter had been found in the house, along with similar material from the head of her husband. This evidence was not disclosed at any time to the Defence, or the public, by the Police or Crown Prosecutor. In addition, Jeanette had six broken teeth, a broken jaw and her skull was cracked right round, due to a blow from a rifle butt. An examination of the original medical report by one of New Zealand’s most eminent forensic pathologists just before The Final Chapter was published in October 2001 revealed these facts. They had not been known until then, by the public or lawyers working for Arthur Thomas at least. The medical evidence now shows that Jeanette would not have lived more than minutes at most and thus her being the woman seen outside her house two days after the murders is an impossibility.
Pat Booth continues to ignore these medical certainties as a means of justifying the theory originally put up as a defence mechanism by the first Thomas lawyer Temm. But they have been conclusively refuted and one has to wonder about the motives for continuing to put forward a murder-suicide theory. All the Police involved in this 1970 inquiry say it was a double murder and their bosses say the Temm/Booth theory is hog-wash. That from Police who would love M/S to be an explanation for why they failed so miserably.