The Murder of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe
David Harvey Crewe and Jeannette Lenore Crewe were a New Zealand farming couple who were shot to death in their home around 17 June 1970. The murders led to the wrongful conviction and subsequent pardoning of another farmer who lived nearby, Arthur Allan Thomas. A Royal Commission set up to investigate the miscarriage of justice found that a detective had fabricated evidence and placed it at the scene of the crime. No person was ever charged with planting the evidence, and the murders remain unsolved.
Background
Jeannette Crewe's father, Lenard M. Demler, was fined £10,000 for tax evasion in 1962, and had been forced to sell a half share in his farm to his wife in order to meet the liability. Jeanette married her husband, David Harvey Crewe (known as Harvey), in Auckland in 1966.
In 1970, the Crewes and their 18-month-old daughter lived on their farm at Pukekawa, Lower Waikato. Jeannette was afraid to be in the house without her husband after bizarre burglary and arson attacks, including one in which clothes were set on fire in a bedroom. At the time of her death, Jeannette was about to receive her mother's half-share in the Demler farm, which adjoined the Crewes'. The bequest to Jeannette had come about after Jeannette's sister had been cut from their mother's will, and Demler had removed Jeannette as a beneficiary of his own will in retaliation although she had no role in the original matter. Jeannette's mother had then re-written her will to bequeath to Jeannette the half-share in Demler's farm that he lived on.
Crime
Harvey (28), and Jeannette (30), were found to be missing from their bloodstained farmhouse on 22 June 1970 by Demler (died 4 November 1992), who had been asked to look in on them by an alarmed neighbour because they had not answered the telephone for days. The Crewes' 18-month-old daughter Rochelle was distraught in her cot. Demler left her alone while he went on a farm errand. The Crewes had last been seen on 17 June, and milk, bread, and newspaper deliveries on the morning of 18 June had not been collected from the letterbox.
It was evident from the outset that something terrible had happened in the Crewe house.
Blood and bodily fluids stained the chair where Harvey usually sat and pooled on the carpet beneath and there was a long drag mark down the middle of the living room floor. The was also blood on the brickwork near the front steps and in the kitchen - on the linoleum floor, the cupboard doors, the hot water tap, on two saucepans.
Police knew they were looking at a homicide -but, with no trace of Harvey or Jeanette, it was hard to say whether it was a murder suicide, home invasion or something else.
The night of the murder Jeanette fed Rochelle and put her to bed, then served dinner - flounder, potatoes and peas. After eating Harvey then moved to his armchair and Jeanette to a sofa on his left. She was knitting - a jersey for her husband - when the killer confronted them.
Police believe Harvey was shot first from behind, by someone standing in the kitchen or just outside the open louvre window. The shot to the left side of his head, just above his ear, would have killed him instantly. The killer then advanced into the lounge.
"It is likely that Jeanette verbally challenged the offender in some way, possibly by screaming or shouting," police would later say. Jeanette was struck in the face and then at some point her head hit the front left corner of the hearth, which would have incapacitated her and left her lying prone on the carpet.
There, she was shot at close range in the right side of the head. The killer - or killers - then set about dragging the bodies out of front door, leaving Rochelle in her bedroom just metres from the exit.
The gory scene went unnoticed for five days despite a number of people coming and going from the Crewe property, including the delivery man and stock agents. As the search for the missing couple continued police spoke to neighbours, family, the community and people who thought they had seen the Crewes.
Neighbour Julie Priest - the wife of Owen who went to the house initially with Demler - told the cops she'd heard three gunshots on the 17th, probably after 8.30pm.
No medical opinion that an infant could survive without fluids for five days is supported by any verified case of such an occurrence. Although Rochelle had tissue loss, suggesting she had eaten little or nothing between 17 and 22 June, the degree to which she retained water during treatment indicated that she had not ingested fluids for at most 48 hours before she was found.
A witness Bruce Roddick told police that he had seen a woman unknown to him on the property on 19 June. This sighting has never been independently confirmed, nor has the woman ever been identified. This woman was observed to be in the Crewe house before the Crewes were reported missing. The Crewe baby Rochelle and the farm animals were fed by an unknown person.
The theory fast became that she was an accomplice to the killer and snuck back to the house to care for baby Rochelle.
Demler was the leading suspect due to his propinquity and failure to raise the alarm until prompted, apparent guilty knowledge that Rochelle did not require immediate medical attention, blood of Jeannette's type on his car seat, and a scratch on his neck. Police were also told that Demler probably had access to an unregistered .22 calibre weapon.
Demler's behaviour continued to raise suspicion; during police searches of the countryside for the Crewes, he shadowed on horseback without helping, and presciently suggested they would be found in water. However, the evidence against Demler was entirely circumstantial and he strongly denied any knowledge of what had happened to his daughter and her husband. He was also said to have an alibi for one of the arson incidents as he had been attending dinner with the Crewes when a fire was discovered.
Jeannette's body was found on 16 August, wrapped in a duvet bound with copper wire, in the Waikato River and her husband's body was retrieved upriver on 16 September. A car axle linked to a neighbouring farmer, Arthur Allan Thomas, had apparently been used to weigh down Harvey's body and was central to police theories about the case, although it did not justify a prosecution..
This is where the case takes a bizarre turn.
The axle used to weigh Harvey down was then identified as being a 1928 Nash Standard Six 420 series front axle that had formerly been fitted to a trailer made in 1959 and eventually on-sold to Thomas' father, Allan.
Police ascertained that in 1965 the axle was removed from the trailer in the course of upgrading it for Thomas himself.
The Nash axle was returned to Thomas' brother Richard, who took it back to the family farm on Mercer Rd, Pukekawa.
Thomas was spoken to repeatedly by police about the axle and his association with the Crewes.
However the axle remains a controversial piece of evdeicne becuase of how it was found and connected back to Thomas.
The next visit to the Thomas farm was made by Det Johnston and Det Parkes on 20 Oct 1970. Det Parkes said that he had earlier been instructed to pick up the Thomas rifle, and that he understood Det Johnston was concerned to pick up wire samples.
Insp Parkes gave evidence that they collected their wire samples and that Det Johnston then borrowed a spade and began foraging around on the tip. He said that, of three tips on the farm, Det Johnston was concerned to search only one. After only a few minutes, to use Insp Parkes' words, 'Det Johnston located 2 stub axles. One was probably partly uncovered, but the other was buried.' Insp Parkes said that Mr Johnston knew what they were, and seemed quite excited by his find.
He did not search the tip any further that day. Insp Parkes very fairly agreed that it was an extraordinary piece of luck that the 2 stub axles, which were to become such significant exhibits, just fell into Det Johnston’s hands. We can only agree, particularly having regard to the fact that he had already searched the tip 5 days before. We find the circumstances in which the stub axles were located peculiar in the extreme.
it is most unfortunate that Det Johnston is dead and was not able to give evidence before the Commission. We are very conscious, that, had he been here to give evidence, he may have been able to put forward a proper and innocent explanation of matters such as the finding of the stub axles from which the most serious of inferences can on the face of it be drawn.
The significance of the stub axles is that they matched either end of the axle recovered with Mr Crewe's body. On the right hand end, the stub axle had been removed by cutting the stub axle eye with the kingpin still in place, the kingpin remaining attached to the axle beam. The 2 halves of the eye, one on the stub axle and the other on the axle beam, matched exactly. On the left hand end, a weld on the upper part of the axle beam assembly matched a weld on the stub axle.
It follows that both stub axles found on Mr Thomas's tip had clearly been connected at one stage with the axle found on Mr Harvey Crewe's body. The inference which the Crown invited the jury to draw at the second trial was that both stub axles and the axle itself had been placed on the Thomas tip following their return to the farm after the conversion by Mr Rasmussen, and that the murderer had used the axle only to weight Mr Harvey Crewe's body, leaving the 2 stub axles on the tip to be found by the Police on 20 Oct 1970.
We have had the benefit of considerably more evidence on the axle than was put before the jury at the second trial. We have been particularly fortunate in obtaining the expert evidence of Professor NA Mowbray. In our view, the inference which the Crown sought to draw at the second trial is not justified when one considers the whole of the evidence which is now available. We take this view because of the following factors:
The circumstances in which the stub axles were found are so peculiar as to call for an explanation. This the Police are unable to provide, because of Mr Johnston's death. We expressly do not make a finding of impropriety or even suggest that one is appropriate, but we do say that an explanation is called for in the light of the following matters:
Det Johnston was first shown the tip on 13 Oct by Mr AA Thomas, who told him that motor vehicle parts were dumped there. Mr Thomas would in our view not have been so open about the matter, and so co-operative with the Police, had he been the murderer and had taken the axle from the tip a few months earlier.
Det Johnston searched the tip for trailer parts on 15 Oct 1970 without finding the stub axles.
The stub axles fell into Det Johnston's hands on 20 Oct 1970 with extraordinary ease.
(d) No witness was able to identify the axle itself as the axle which Mr Shirtcliffe put into the trailer which he built. The following matters suggest that it was perhaps not the same axle:
Mr Shirtcliffe has consistently denied welding the axle. If the axle found on the Crewe body is the one on which he had worked, then the tie rod which he bolted on to it must have been welded at a later stage. Mr Whyte denies of course that any welding was done while he owned the trailer and Mr Thomas says that only the left hand studs were welded. If the axle did come from the Thomas trailer therefore, it would appear that welding work was carried out after it was removed from the trailer. Such work implies further use of the axle after it left Mr Thomas's possession, and is consistent with the further wear on the right hand stub axle which we have already mentioned.
Furthermore, welding has also been carried out at either end of the axle beam, to affix it to the stub axles on either side. It would appear that this welding, also, was not carried out while the trailer was in the possession of Mr Shirtcliffe, Mr Whyte, or Mr Thomas. To summarise the matter, this evidence suggests either that the axle beam and the 2 stub axles were used by some person after they left Mr Thomas's possession, or alternatively that neither the axle nor the right stub came from the trailer which Mr Thomas owned.
Mr RA Closey, a vintage motor cycle enthusiast, gave evidence of searching the Thomas farm in company with a group of likeminded persons about 3 months prior to the time the murders occurred, namely in March 1970. Despite searching the tip area closely, they located nothing but model 'T' parts. They did not use a spade and so did not investigate what may have been under the surface of the tips. We have evidence from Mr Parkes, however, that at least 1 of the stub axles was partly visible in Oct. The Closey evidence is not conclusive, but does tend to suggest that the axles and stub axles were not on the tip in March 1970. This confirms Peter Thomas's statement.
Investigation and trials
Both victims had been shot to death with a .22 calibre firearm; Jeannette had broken facial bones from being struck with a blunt instrument. Demler had been considered the main suspect, but the brutality of the assault on Jeannette, and the lead investigator's belief that she had been raped, led to doubts that he was involved. On the basis that the murderer might have used a legitimately held gun, police collected and test fired sixty-four registered .22 firearms, 3% of the total recorded as held in the Pukekawa area. A forensic report on 19 August stated that, of the sixty-four, neither Thomas' rifle nor one owned by the Eyre family could be eliminated as the possible murder weapon, but there was insufficient evidence pointing to one or the other. Although police suggested to Thomas during an interview that his rifle was used to kill the Crewes, the gun was returned to him on 8 September. On 27 October, the garden at the Crewe house was searched for a third time and a spent cartridge case was found, apparently still lying where the murderer had left it. The case carried marks which showed that it had been ejected from Thomas' rifle. In November, Thomas was arrested and charged.
Despite his wife and cousin giving him a strong alibi for 17 June, Thomas was sent for trial on a charge of murdering the Crewes. The prosecution suggested Thomas's wife, Vivien, had been the woman seen at the Crewes' house, although she was not charged. The witness was certain Vivien Thomas, whom he knew, was not the woman who he saw. The prosecution said that the motive for the murders was that Thomas had been obsessed with Jeannette, an accusation for which they provided very little evidence. A witness who did give testimony supporting the prosecution's contention that Jeannette had been pestered by Thomas was Demler; he was cross examined about why he had not mentioned such obviously relevant information before the court had begun sitting. Thomas was found guilty of the murders in a 1971 trial, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. He was tried again in 1973 and convicted. Supporters of Thomas started a campaign to bring to public attention that the key evidence against him had serious anomalies.
Arthur Allan Thomas
Arthur Allan Thomas is a New Zealand man who was granted a Royal Pardon and compensation after being wrongfully convicted of the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in June 1970. Thomas was married and farming a property in the Pukekawa district, south of Auckland before the case. Following the revelation that the crucial evidence against him had been faked, Thomas was pardoned and awarded NZ$950,000 in compensation for his 9 years in prison and loss of earnings.
Campaign to overturn the convictions
There were numerous inconsistencies in the evidence, which led to an outcry among elements in the farming community and among relatives of Thomas and his wife, Vivien Thomas. That led to the formation of the Arthur Thomas Retrial Committee.
The report by a retired judge, Sir George MacGregor, which rejected the appeal for a retrial, was also riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies. However, a report on that by journalist Terry Bell, then deputy editor of the Auckland Star Saturday edition, was rejected for publication on the grounds that "it is not the role of the newspapers to attempt to try the courts". Bell then resigned and produced the booklet Bitter Hill, which is the English meaning of Pukekawa, outlining inconsistencies in the prosecution's case and the theory advanced by the retrial committee. It provided the impetus for a national campaign that eventually led to a controversial retrial where the jury was housed incommunicado with police in a local hotel. Thomas was again convicted.
Pat Booth, the assistant editor of the Auckland Star, attended the retrial and became concerned. As part of the campaign for a pardon, Booth wrote a book, Trial by Ambush. That was followed by another campaigning book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by British investigative author David Yallop, which was subsequently made into a film of the same name.
Thomas received a pardon, and a Royal Commission report explicitly stated that detectives had used ammunition and a rifle taken from his farm to fabricate false evidence against him. A 2014 police review of the case acknowledged police misconduct was probably the explanation for the key evidence against Thomas: a spent cartridge case.
Royal Commission of inquiry
A Royal Commission of Inquiry was established, headed by retired New South Wales Justice Robert Taylor. It declared Thomas to have been wrongfully charged and convicted and found that among other improprieties, police had planted a .22 rifle cartridge case in the garden of the house in which the murders were committed. The case was found four months and ten days after the area had already been subjected to one of the most intensive police searches ever undertaken. The cartridge case was said to have come from a rifle belonging to Thomas. However, the police tested only 64 rifles in an area where this weapon was common and found that two, including the one belonging to Thomas – could have fired the cartridge case found in the garden. That was the link to the deaths of the Crewes although it was later admitted that the case was "clean" and uncorroded when it was found. As such, the condition of the case was inconsistent with having lain in the garden, exposed to weather and dirt for more than four months.
No action against police officers
The commission report said: "Mr Hutton and Mr [Len] Johnston planted the shell case... and they did so to manufacture evidence that Mr Thomas' rifle had been used for the killings." The Solicitor-General recommended against prosecuting the officers because of insufficient evidence. An independent review of the 2014 police review by David PH Jones QC, released on 30 July 2014, concluded "In my view, there was sufficient evidence for a prosecution to have been taken against Bruce Hutton based on the available material".
Subsequent events
In 2009 Arthur Allan Thomas travelled to Christchurch to support David Bain, who also had criminal convictions against him overturned. In 2010 he collaborated with investigative journalist Ian Wishart on the book Arthur Allan Thomas, where for the first time he gave his perspective on his life, from before the murders to the present.
The two detectives who planted the shell that helped convict Thomas are now dead. Johnston died in 1978. Bruce Hutton, 83, died in Middlemore Hospital in April 2013. At Hutton's funeral, Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush praised Mr Hutton and said he was known for having "integrity beyond reproach". An editorial in the New Zealand Herald said: "that was clearly absurd. It was also an unthinking or calculated insult to Mr Thomas, who spent nine years in prison before being pardoned". Thomas, then age 75, responded by saying the police were engaged in "a blatant cover up". A police review of the original investigation, at a cost of $400,000 to New Zealand taxpayers, released in July 2014, cleared all other suspects and implied that Arthur Thomas remained a police suspect. The independent review by David PH Jones QC concluded that "It does not appear that there was any real inquiry by the 1970 investigation team into any persons other than Arthur Thomas".
Rape and sexual assault trial
In late 2019 Thomas, then aged 81, faced one charge of rape and four of indecent assault against two women. He previously pleaded not guilty and elected trial by jury. His case was called at Manukau District Court, where he was excused from attending; Judge Charles Blackie lifted suppression orders that previously prevented the media from reporting anything about the case. On 15 December 2020 at Papakura District Court, Thomas's lawyers asked that the charges be dismissed. Judge John Bergseng suppressed argument details of the hearing out of fair trial interests.
The trial opened 14 June 2021 at Manukau District Court, with Aaron Perkins for the Crown and Marie Dyhrberg, QC, for the defence. Judge Jon Bergseng presided. Thomas was now aged 83. One complainant alleged she was raped and indecently assaulted; the other alleged she was indecently assaulted three times. Both witnesses said there were others present when some of the alleged offending took place. A third witness claimed Thomas had encouraged him to participate in the alleged acts. Full trial details were heavily suppressed. The Defence claimed the charges were fabricated and motivated by money. Thomas's former solicitor, Chris Reid, told the court he organised a legal meeting on behalf of Thomas with the complainants and their husbands. Among those present were Reid's cousin, Thomas's then-lawyer Peter Williams, and former prime minister David Lange. Reid testified that the complainants made demands for Thomas pay them money: "If he didn't, they were going to complain to the police about sexual abuse of one sort or another."
Reid said Williams told the complainants the meeting had to take place according to law, the threat could have constituted extortion, and recommended the complainants get independent legal advice. According to Reid, Lange also advised the complainants to go to the police. Three other witnesses testified for the Defence, including Thomas's second wife. Thomas himself did not testify. In her closing address, Dyhrberg called the man's testimony "the stuff of fantasy"; he himself could not rely upon his own memory. She said the two women had not told the truth, and "it's gotten out of control". In his closing address, Perkins said, “It is far-fetched in the extreme that two women would come along and commit perjury." In summing up, Judge Bergseng told the jury that each charge must be considered separately, with a focus on the evidence specific to each one. But caution was required because the passage of time meant memories of some witnesses may have faded, making it impossible to check some of the witnesses' testimony, and also causing Thomas to lose "the ability to call witnesses who could support his defence". The jury failed to reach a verdict and was discharged on 28 June 2021.
On 14 October 2021 Crown Prosecutor Charlie Piho told the Manukau District Court the Crown wished to continue with the prosecution. Judge Mina Wharepouri set a trial date for November 2022.
Campaign, pardon and Royal Commission
A campaign, led in part by Pat Booth of the Auckland Star, was largely responsible for getting Thomas released with a pardon. Campaigners said forensic work by Dr Jim Sprott had shown that the cartridge case had been planted at the scene and that its method of construction identified it as being from a batch that could not have contained the number 8 bullets recovered from the victims. Following David Yallop's book about the case, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Thomas was pardoned by Governor-General Keith Holyoake on the recommendation of Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. Thomas was released after serving nine years in prison. He was paid NZ$950,000 compensation for his time in jail and loss of the use of his farm.
A Royal Commission of Inquiry was ordered to review the wrongful conviction of Thomas and reported to the Governor-General in November 1980.
The Commissioners found that the spent cartridge case from Thomas' gun, Exhibit 350, had not been left by the murderer, but had been created weeks later by police using his impounded gun and ammunition, then planted at the Crewe farmhouse. The Commission's report implicated Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton and Detective Sergeant Lenrick Johnston in police misconduct, and found that the prosecution of Thomas for the murders had been unjustified. Despite the Commission describing the conduct of Hutton and Johnston as an "unspeakable outrage", the New Zealand Police never laid charges against any officer involved in the investigation and prosecution of Thomas. Johnston died in 1978. Hutton died in 2013. The case was made into the docu-drama feature film Beyond Reasonable Doubt in 1980.
There was however one final O-henry twist in this case that came completely out of nowhere and a second suspicious death took place.
One of New Zealand’s richest men has been named as a possible suspect in the 1970 Crewe murders that saw Pukekawa farmer Arthur Allan Thomas convicted but later pardoned for – and in another shock development the lead detective on the case has been implicated as the man who married – then murdered – the woman who fed baby Rochelle Crewe
Saturday’s New Zealand Herald carries the story of “a Scrooge” who gave his $122 million fortune to the Catholic Church because of a long-standing grudge against his stepchildren. What few knew is that the “Scrooge” in question – the late Harold Plumley – was once named as a potential suspect in the Crewe murders, and his brother-in-law was none other than Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton, the police officer who locked up Arthur Allan Thomas using planted evidence to get the conviction.
In a nutshell, the Plumley family had farmed land around Mangere for generations, but as a young man Harold Plumley ended up disinherited of virtually everything except a few paddocks left to him in East Tamaki by his mother, while his sister Mary Plumley inherited virtually all of the family estate.
Harold Plumley eked out a living in the Pukekawa district selling agricultural equipment to farmers. At the same time, his wealthy sister Mary was capturing the eye of married Otahuhu police officer Bruce Hutton.
Former colleagues of Harold Plumley approached Investigate magazine more than a decade ago with bombshell allegations that Plumley had been sexually rebuffed by a Pukekawa woman he referred to as “Gee-net”, and that he was going to “get her”.
That conversation took place some months BEFORE Jeannette and Harvey Crewe’s bloodstained home was found empty in June 1970 except for baby Rochelle in her cot.
As the witnesses tell the story, they speculate that Harold Plumley may have killed the Crewes but his strong sense of Catholic guilt wouldn’t allow him to kill the child. Instead, sister Mary Plumley was roped in to feed baby Rochelle – while she was dating Bruce Hutton.
Investigate magazine was contacted by an anonymous source who claimed they had some very interesting information to share on the condition that their identity remain confidential as they still feared of their life and repercussions
“I have had information since 1970 that I have been far too frightened to release. I made an effort to inform the Police in 1970 and spoke to a Sergeant Johnston (I shall never forget his name) and outlined what I knew about some people that should be interviewed. Imagine my surprise when he went right off the rails and told me that if I ever rang the Police with that information again or made any attempt to have it made known, then I would be the next bastard found in the river. Further, now he had my name and I was to shut my bloody mouth forever over this matter.
“Sergeant Johnston is now dead, however, with the information that I have I am still a threat because all of his buddies are not dead. The main threat is Bruce Hutton and what I believe I know about him could see him jailed for the rest of his miserable life.
“I approached Mr [John] Carter our local MP about 18 months ago [around the end of 2006 or start of 2007] and he has been made aware of a snippet of my information. It was enough for him to send me the name of a certain Police District Commander, however I will not devolve [sic, divulge] any information unless I am 100% assured that anything I disclose will be given absolute confidentiality and my name, etc, is to also be 100% confidential. Something I was not given by the Police Commander at the time.
“I still have genuine concerns for my safety.”
The witness says he came to know Plumley, and his blonde-haired sister, through their mutual work in the farming sector covering the greater South Auckland and North Waikato areas. At one of their meetings, the man named as a new person of interest in the Harvey and Jeannette Crewe homicide investigation confided “about how the farmers’ wives often made advances towards him when their husbands were out working on the farms when he called, and [he] seemed happy to be able to talk or boast about this.
“However, on one of my last visits, he was very agitated over some woman by the name I thought sounded like ‘Gee-net’ – he pronounced it as Gee-net – who was not happy with him for some unknown reason and had evidently threatened to tell her husband about that matter.
“This obviously had infuriated Plumley as he stated that a woman like her could ruin his business and his reputation, and if it became public it would cause further alienation of his relations (that I had already sensed were not great) between himself and his family, and he wouldn’t let that happen. Plumley went on to mention that he would finally ‘get her’ – I presumed from past discussions that he meant he would win her over. However, at this time it was no concern of mine and it appeared to me he was letting this matter consume him, and the rejection of his advances (whatever they may have been) were definitely not appreciated.”
The witness described Harold Plumley as a man quick to anger, with “a very vehement nature” and prone to “violent, verbal” outbursts – although surprisingly he never swore.
“Although he discussed his farm meetings and meeting farmers’ wives openly to me, I cannot recall him swearing and can’t remember him doing so during any of his conversations with me, and I thought that was rather odd at the time given the nature of his ramblings.”
The witness said he paid no further attention to the man’s exploits, until Jeannette and Harvey Crewe were found to have been murdered at their farm in June 1970, a little while later.
“However, I was more than surprised to learn that Arthur Allan Thomas had been charged with the murders. I had met briefly with Mr Thomas on two occasions, once…in Warkworth when I visited a neighbour of his [father’s] and once when I called at his farm… On each of these meetings, although brief, I found Mr Thomas to be an extremely polite and quietly spoken man, and if anything a little naïve, but in no way would I have ever expected him to be a man capable of murder.
“As the information started to roll in over this case it was public knowledge that a blonde woman was seen at the Crewe’s house, and it was openly reported that she had possibly been the person who fed the baby Rochelle.
“Who was she? This has been one of the most-asked questions and one of the conundrums of this most infamous murder mystery. The 18 month old baby was found in her cot at the Crewe’s farm, and there was evidence that she had been fed and had had her nappies changed during that time.
“Harold Plumley’s comment to me about a woman named Gee-net threatening to tell her husband about some matter…came chillingly back to me, especially due to the fact I had seen [his] previous violent verbal outbursts.”
The man’s sister, a woman who doted on her brother despite his status as “black sheep” of the family, was fair haired. The witness, who knew her personally as well, has exceptionally good reason to believe the woman agreed to help her brother after the fact, because of the shame it would bring to their prominent family name. He believes the sister was undoubtedly the woman who fed baby Rochelle Crewe, and who has never been identified by police, at least publicly.
“Having thought about this matter,” the witness said, “I then phoned the police. I asked to speak to the senior officer in charge…and I relayed my suspicions to him and the names I had.
“Instead of showing any interest, I was shouted at over the phone – told ‘never to ring the f**king police again about this matter, and if you do you’ll be the next f**king person to be found in the river!’.
“I was also told that the police knew who the murderer was and to ‘butt out completely, or else!’.
Because of this the witness claimed he was shit scared to say or do anything more. Which is why it took him 38 years to come forward with the information.
Now we come to the second very suspicious death that has never been properly explained or investigated.
Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton married Mary Plumley, the woman the witness speculates fed baby Rochelle, putting him within a heartbeat of the Plumley family millions if she died.
Serendipitously, on 15 February 1985, that moment arrived.
Mary and Bruce Hutton were visiting close friends in Whitianga, one of whom was her doctor. Mary advised she was going inside to wash sea salt out of her hair.
A while later, Bruce Hutton told the inquest, the doctor’s wife, Anne Kellaway, found 53 year old Mary naked and unresponsive, curled up in a bath with only 1 ½ inches (4cm) of water in it. The plug was in, the tap was turned off.
Who runs a 4cm deep bath to wash their hair? It’s a question that has never been credibly answered.
Bruce Hutton told the coroner, “Gavin and I ran inside and found Mary curled up in the bath. We got her out and Gavin started external massage and I did the mouth to mouth. It was no use as she had already gone.”
Her family doctor – Gavin Kellaway – pointedly provided absolutely no evidence to the coroner’s inquest beyond his signature on the 15/2/85 death certificate where he stated he had last seen Mary alive at 14.20 that afternoon and she was in “good health”. There was no witness statement corroborating Hutton’s version of events, describing the scene they found or the resuscitation efforts. Nothing. Nor was there a witness statement from Ann Kellaway – purportedly the woman who discovered the body.
Which to me is bizarre you have all the witnesses who were there at the time this women died under extremely bizarre and mysterious circumstances and there are no statements made?
Perhaps his evidential silence was deliberate, given what we now know. Better to say nothing than lie on oath. And after all, who could Kellaway have turned to? The Police? Bruce Hutton was “the Police” – a man so revered that police commissioner Mike Bush was still singing Hutton’s praises at his 2013 funeral.
A Waikato Hospital pathologist was the only medic to testify, ruling Mary had suffered a heart attack, loss of consciousness and drowned, even though the autopsy found no water in the lungs to corroborate the “drowning” in an inch of water claim.
Again, who climbs into a 4cm deep bath, turns off the tap, assumes the foetal position, THEN drowns, simultaneously causing a myocardial ischaemic event, yet without inhaling water?
The autopsy found “no external evidence of violence or external injury”. That’s odd, because if a naked woman was genuinely standing in an inch of bath water and keeled over with a heart attack you would expect the falling body to collide with taps or the side of the bath on the way down. Yet there was not a mark on her.
Bruce Hutton was the sole heir of Mary’s fortune – around $10 million in today’s money.
One man who wasn’t buying the death by drowning claim was Harold Plumley
“He killed her,” he claimed, “to get his hands on the money..he manipulated the Will, he was only after her coin”.
Intriguingly, the majority of bath electrocutions leave no visible marks, and pathologists have difficulty distinguishing them from ordinary heart attacks.
Yet inexplicably, the implausibility of “drowning” in 4cm of water, even though the lungs were found to be “dry”, doesn’t seem to have crossed the mind of the pathologist examining Mary Hutton’s body. Nor does the heart damage she found that is now regarded as a biomarker of electrocution.
But then again, they didn’t know as much back in 1985 and neither the family doctor whose home the tragedy occurred at, nor Mary’s former police officer husband, mentioned anything about a hairdryer or a heater being found in the bath, so the pathologist had no reason to suspect foul play.
Why wasn’t there a police investigation? Well maybe there was. Arthur Allan Thomas’ brother Des stated in 2008 that a Pukekohe man who he knew had contacted him at one point to tell him Bruce Hutton had killed Mary Plumley Hutton:
“He rang me up once and told me that Hutton had thrown an electric heater in her bath…this fella that told me, he’s got cops that he’s friendly with and they told him.”
Des Thomas says he told TVNZ’s Sunday programme of the Hutton allegations but nothing eventuated.
In a 2008 phone interview, Harold Plumley stated that he and Bruce Hutton had “antagonism” toward each other caused by Hutton’s relationship with Mary, and he believed that was why police had never questioned him about the Crewe murders.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it, didn’t know them, although I did drive past their farm every day at the time – still do occasionally – because of my work as a farm consultant.” In a later phone interview, despite initially saying he didn’t know them, Plumley would emphatically describe Harvey Crewe as “just a bum…no money..a pipsqueak cattle agent who married into money”, and when asked if the Crewe farm was dairy or dry stock, his answer was instant: “dry stock”.
But Plumley’s next revelation was earthshattering. “I know what led to Mary and Hutton going away to that break in Whitianga – our father told me after her death.
“He said that four days beforehand, Mary came to him and said ‘I’m very worried’. Dad explained that she and Hutton had been really rowing. Father said she told him ‘it’s got to end! It’s got to end, and when I come back I’m going to the lawyers. I’ve got to get rid of him, I’ve got to get him out!’ That is absolutely clear cut, that I’ve given you, gospel truth,” Plumley told Investigate.
So here’s the lie of the land: days before her mysterious “drowning” in just over one inch of bathwater, wealthy heiress Mary Plumley Hutton told her father she was planning to divorce former Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton.
She never got to see her lawyer, and she never survived the weekend getaway where she planned to thrash things out.
Which I find extremely interesting that she died under such odd circumstances and its not prolly looked into. The money motive is what strikes me as being the reason she died because had she divorced him he would have lost the money but if she dies and its ruled anything other than murder or manslaughter he’d get the money no questions asked provided he wasn’t accused or suspected in her murder.
Plumley says he tried to talk to Mary’s Fijian maid Miriana after the death, but found himself hauled in for questioning by Otahuhu CIB for “harassment”.
“I really gave [Det] Mitford Burgess a lashing in front of the whole CIB,” Plumley recalled, “but that’s what happened – Hutton found out I was asking questions and suddenly the police were investigating me”.
Again being a cop and one that was highly respected gave Hutton an advantage. This is why I believe he was never poly looked into becuase no one wanted to think top cop was a killer or thought he would be capable of being one.
Plumley got the last laugh, however. While Hutton inherited Mary Plumley’s estate (worth around $10m in today’s money) left to her by her father, Harold Plumley’s paddock in Ormiston Rd East Tamaki, given him by his mother, was sold to Lion Breweries for $66 million in 2007 as the site of its NZ headquarters. By the time he died in 2016, Plumley’s fortune had ballooned to $122 million which he bequeathed to the Catholic church in NZ’s biggest ever charitable donation.
Do I believe Harold Plumley killed the Crewes? Although Plumley’s former colleague believed it, and Plumley knew more about the Crewes than he originally let on, there’s insufficient evidence.
As for Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton, the top cop who conspired to plant evidence to gain a conviction in the Crewe murders, the man of whom police bosses famously remarked at his 2013 funeral “his integrity is beyond reproach” – a new stain now clouds his legacy: did he murder his own wife to seize her fortune?
Status of the case
In 2014 an official police review of the investigation into the homicides, at a cost of $400,000 to New Zealand taxpayers, said that evidence available in the murder of the Crewes was insufficient for any new prosecution. The review acknowledged that a key prosecution exhibit in the trials had been fabricated by detectives, but did not appear to accept that they could have been on the wrong track; the review implied that the Crewes' daughter had not ingested any fluids between 17 and 22 June, and said a witness had been mistaken in thinking he had seen a woman on the farm during that period. The review did however rule out Demler having been the killer. Rochelle Crewe expressed satisfaction that a police review of evidence had cleared her deceased grandfather of involvement in the murders. The case remains unsolved.
The Crewe murders continue to divide the district into two feuding camps without apparent closure. Pukekawa water supply contractor, Des Thomas, brother of Arthur, continues to investigate for the murders a local man, "farmer X". The release in July 2014 of a police report on the murders cleared suspects the late Len Demler (father of Jeannette) and his second wife after the murders, Norma Demler. The report implied Arthur Thomas remains a suspect to the police. The police report also said the cartridge case that incriminated Arthur Thomas may have been "fabricated evidence". The murder house is still occupied.
In 2010 Rochelle Crewe, then in her 40s, contacted police and raised concerns about the initial investigation, asking what if any further investigative action had been taken after Thomas was pardoned to identify the person who gunned down her parents.
She also demanded answers around why evidence-planting cops Hutton and Johnston had not been prosecuted.
In 2014, after almost four years of work, the review team released their final report to the public.
They said no new evidence had come to light to implicate any specific person as being responsible for the double murder, or provided a basis for initiating further inquiries.
Though the review team could not pin the blame on anyone, they said the killer was someone who had access to items from the Thomas farm and they were firm on the fact that Thomas' firearm was most likely to have fired the fatal bullets.
But a re-investigation was "not warranted”.
Police also acknowledged shortcomings in the murder investigation and, for the first time, admitted that officers fabricated evidence against Thomas.
Though they felt the 1970 police investigation team did a lot of things correctly, it was also conceded there were numerous balls dropped, including failing to corroborate some alibis, follow up on vehicle sightings, secure crime scene exhibits and evidence and investigate people of interest connected to the Thomas farm.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Harvey_and_Jeannette_Crewe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukekawa#The_Eyre_Murder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Allan_Thomas
http://netk.net.au/NewZealand/Thomas8.asp
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/7881051/the-woman-who-fed-the-baby-crewe-murders
https://investigatemagazine.co.nz/173611/shock-new-twist-in-crewe-murders-cold-case-was-top-cop-bruce-hutton-a-killer/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crewe-cold-case-fifty-years-and-no-answers-in-infamous-pukekawa-whodunnit/WR65KZTZY4XDCUF23WOVYPA3Y4/
https://investigatemagazine.co.nz/173611/shock-new-twist-in-crewe-murders-cold-case-was-top-cop-bruce-hutton-a-killer/
it is most unfortunate that Det Johnston is dead and was not able to give evidence before the Commission. We are very conscious, that, had he been here to give evidence, he may have been able to put forward a proper and innocent explanation of matters such as the finding of the stub axles from which the most serious of inferences can on the face of it be drawn.
The significance of the stub axles is that they matched either end of the axle recovered with Mr Crewe's body. On the right hand end, the stub axle had been removed by cutting the stub axle eye with the kingpin still in place, the kingpin remaining attached to the axle beam. The 2 halves of the eye, one on the stub axle and the other on the axle beam, matched exactly. On the left hand end, a weld on the upper part of the axle beam assembly matched a weld on the stub axle.
It follows that both stub axles found on Mr Thomas's tip had clearly been connected at one stage with the axle found on Mr Harvey Crewe's body. The inference which the Crown invited the jury to draw at the second trial was that both stub axles and the axle itself had been placed on the Thomas tip following their return to the farm after the conversion by Mr Rasmussen, and that the murderer had used the axle only to weight Mr Harvey Crewe's body, leaving the 2 stub axles on the tip to be found by the Police on 20 Oct 1970.
We have had the benefit of considerably more evidence on the axle than was put before the jury at the second trial. We have been particularly fortunate in obtaining the expert evidence of Professor NA Mowbray. In our view, the inference which the Crown sought to draw at the second trial is not justified when one considers the whole of the evidence which is now available. We take this view because of the following factors:
The circumstances in which the stub axles were found are so peculiar as to call for an explanation. This the Police are unable to provide, because of Mr Johnston's death. We expressly do not make a finding of impropriety or even suggest that one is appropriate, but we do say that an explanation is called for in the light of the following matters:
Det Johnston was first shown the tip on 13 Oct by Mr AA Thomas, who told him that motor vehicle parts were dumped there. Mr Thomas would in our view not have been so open about the matter, and so co-operative with the Police, had he been the murderer and had taken the axle from the tip a few months earlier.
Det Johnston searched the tip for trailer parts on 15 Oct 1970 without finding the stub axles.
The stub axles fell into Det Johnston's hands on 20 Oct 1970 with extraordinary ease.
(d) No witness was able to identify the axle itself as the axle which Mr Shirtcliffe put into the trailer which he built. The following matters suggest that it was perhaps not the same axle:
Mr Shirtcliffe has consistently denied welding the axle. If the axle found on the Crewe body is the one on which he had worked, then the tie rod which he bolted on to it must have been welded at a later stage. Mr Whyte denies of course that any welding was done while he owned the trailer and Mr Thomas says that only the left hand studs were welded. If the axle did come from the Thomas trailer therefore, it would appear that welding work was carried out after it was removed from the trailer. Such work implies further use of the axle after it left Mr Thomas's possession, and is consistent with the further wear on the right hand stub axle which we have already mentioned.
Furthermore, welding has also been carried out at either end of the axle beam, to affix it to the stub axles on either side. It would appear that this welding, also, was not carried out while the trailer was in the possession of Mr Shirtcliffe, Mr Whyte, or Mr Thomas. To summarise the matter, this evidence suggests either that the axle beam and the 2 stub axles were used by some person after they left Mr Thomas's possession, or alternatively that neither the axle nor the right stub came from the trailer which Mr Thomas owned.
Mr RA Closey, a vintage motor cycle enthusiast, gave evidence of searching the Thomas farm in company with a group of likeminded persons about 3 months prior to the time the murders occurred, namely in March 1970. Despite searching the tip area closely, they located nothing but model 'T' parts. They did not use a spade and so did not investigate what may have been under the surface of the tips. We have evidence from Mr Parkes, however, that at least 1 of the stub axles was partly visible in Oct. The Closey evidence is not conclusive, but does tend to suggest that the axles and stub axles were not on the tip in March 1970. This confirms Peter Thomas's statement.
Investigation and trials
Both victims had been shot to death with a .22 calibre firearm; Jeannette had broken facial bones from being struck with a blunt instrument. Demler had been considered the main suspect, but the brutality of the assault on Jeannette, and the lead investigator's belief that she had been raped, led to doubts that he was involved. On the basis that the murderer might have used a legitimately held gun, police collected and test fired sixty-four registered .22 firearms, 3% of the total recorded as held in the Pukekawa area. A forensic report on 19 August stated that, of the sixty-four, neither Thomas' rifle nor one owned by the Eyre family could be eliminated as the possible murder weapon, but there was insufficient evidence pointing to one or the other. Although police suggested to Thomas during an interview that his rifle was used to kill the Crewes, the gun was returned to him on 8 September. On 27 October, the garden at the Crewe house was searched for a third time and a spent cartridge case was found, apparently still lying where the murderer had left it. The case carried marks which showed that it had been ejected from Thomas' rifle. In November, Thomas was arrested and charged.
Despite his wife and cousin giving him a strong alibi for 17 June, Thomas was sent for trial on a charge of murdering the Crewes. The prosecution suggested Thomas's wife, Vivien, had been the woman seen at the Crewes' house, although she was not charged. The witness was certain Vivien Thomas, whom he knew, was not the woman who he saw. The prosecution said that the motive for the murders was that Thomas had been obsessed with Jeannette, an accusation for which they provided very little evidence. A witness who did give testimony supporting the prosecution's contention that Jeannette had been pestered by Thomas was Demler; he was cross examined about why he had not mentioned such obviously relevant information before the court had begun sitting. Thomas was found guilty of the murders in a 1971 trial, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. He was tried again in 1973 and convicted. Supporters of Thomas started a campaign to bring to public attention that the key evidence against him had serious anomalies.
Arthur Allan Thomas
Arthur Allan Thomas is a New Zealand man who was granted a Royal Pardon and compensation after being wrongfully convicted of the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in June 1970. Thomas was married and farming a property in the Pukekawa district, south of Auckland before the case. Following the revelation that the crucial evidence against him had been faked, Thomas was pardoned and awarded NZ$950,000 in compensation for his 9 years in prison and loss of earnings.
Campaign to overturn the convictions
There were numerous inconsistencies in the evidence, which led to an outcry among elements in the farming community and among relatives of Thomas and his wife, Vivien Thomas. That led to the formation of the Arthur Thomas Retrial Committee.
The report by a retired judge, Sir George MacGregor, which rejected the appeal for a retrial, was also riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies. However, a report on that by journalist Terry Bell, then deputy editor of the Auckland Star Saturday edition, was rejected for publication on the grounds that "it is not the role of the newspapers to attempt to try the courts". Bell then resigned and produced the booklet Bitter Hill, which is the English meaning of Pukekawa, outlining inconsistencies in the prosecution's case and the theory advanced by the retrial committee. It provided the impetus for a national campaign that eventually led to a controversial retrial where the jury was housed incommunicado with police in a local hotel. Thomas was again convicted.
Pat Booth, the assistant editor of the Auckland Star, attended the retrial and became concerned. As part of the campaign for a pardon, Booth wrote a book, Trial by Ambush. That was followed by another campaigning book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by British investigative author David Yallop, which was subsequently made into a film of the same name.
Thomas received a pardon, and a Royal Commission report explicitly stated that detectives had used ammunition and a rifle taken from his farm to fabricate false evidence against him. A 2014 police review of the case acknowledged police misconduct was probably the explanation for the key evidence against Thomas: a spent cartridge case.
Royal Commission of inquiry
A Royal Commission of Inquiry was established, headed by retired New South Wales Justice Robert Taylor. It declared Thomas to have been wrongfully charged and convicted and found that among other improprieties, police had planted a .22 rifle cartridge case in the garden of the house in which the murders were committed. The case was found four months and ten days after the area had already been subjected to one of the most intensive police searches ever undertaken. The cartridge case was said to have come from a rifle belonging to Thomas. However, the police tested only 64 rifles in an area where this weapon was common and found that two, including the one belonging to Thomas – could have fired the cartridge case found in the garden. That was the link to the deaths of the Crewes although it was later admitted that the case was "clean" and uncorroded when it was found. As such, the condition of the case was inconsistent with having lain in the garden, exposed to weather and dirt for more than four months.
No action against police officers
The commission report said: "Mr Hutton and Mr [Len] Johnston planted the shell case... and they did so to manufacture evidence that Mr Thomas' rifle had been used for the killings." The Solicitor-General recommended against prosecuting the officers because of insufficient evidence. An independent review of the 2014 police review by David PH Jones QC, released on 30 July 2014, concluded "In my view, there was sufficient evidence for a prosecution to have been taken against Bruce Hutton based on the available material".
Subsequent events
In 2009 Arthur Allan Thomas travelled to Christchurch to support David Bain, who also had criminal convictions against him overturned. In 2010 he collaborated with investigative journalist Ian Wishart on the book Arthur Allan Thomas, where for the first time he gave his perspective on his life, from before the murders to the present.
The two detectives who planted the shell that helped convict Thomas are now dead. Johnston died in 1978. Bruce Hutton, 83, died in Middlemore Hospital in April 2013. At Hutton's funeral, Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush praised Mr Hutton and said he was known for having "integrity beyond reproach". An editorial in the New Zealand Herald said: "that was clearly absurd. It was also an unthinking or calculated insult to Mr Thomas, who spent nine years in prison before being pardoned". Thomas, then age 75, responded by saying the police were engaged in "a blatant cover up". A police review of the original investigation, at a cost of $400,000 to New Zealand taxpayers, released in July 2014, cleared all other suspects and implied that Arthur Thomas remained a police suspect. The independent review by David PH Jones QC concluded that "It does not appear that there was any real inquiry by the 1970 investigation team into any persons other than Arthur Thomas".
Rape and sexual assault trial
In late 2019 Thomas, then aged 81, faced one charge of rape and four of indecent assault against two women. He previously pleaded not guilty and elected trial by jury. His case was called at Manukau District Court, where he was excused from attending; Judge Charles Blackie lifted suppression orders that previously prevented the media from reporting anything about the case. On 15 December 2020 at Papakura District Court, Thomas's lawyers asked that the charges be dismissed. Judge John Bergseng suppressed argument details of the hearing out of fair trial interests.
The trial opened 14 June 2021 at Manukau District Court, with Aaron Perkins for the Crown and Marie Dyhrberg, QC, for the defence. Judge Jon Bergseng presided. Thomas was now aged 83. One complainant alleged she was raped and indecently assaulted; the other alleged she was indecently assaulted three times. Both witnesses said there were others present when some of the alleged offending took place. A third witness claimed Thomas had encouraged him to participate in the alleged acts. Full trial details were heavily suppressed. The Defence claimed the charges were fabricated and motivated by money. Thomas's former solicitor, Chris Reid, told the court he organised a legal meeting on behalf of Thomas with the complainants and their husbands. Among those present were Reid's cousin, Thomas's then-lawyer Peter Williams, and former prime minister David Lange. Reid testified that the complainants made demands for Thomas pay them money: "If he didn't, they were going to complain to the police about sexual abuse of one sort or another."
Reid said Williams told the complainants the meeting had to take place according to law, the threat could have constituted extortion, and recommended the complainants get independent legal advice. According to Reid, Lange also advised the complainants to go to the police. Three other witnesses testified for the Defence, including Thomas's second wife. Thomas himself did not testify. In her closing address, Dyhrberg called the man's testimony "the stuff of fantasy"; he himself could not rely upon his own memory. She said the two women had not told the truth, and "it's gotten out of control". In his closing address, Perkins said, “It is far-fetched in the extreme that two women would come along and commit perjury." In summing up, Judge Bergseng told the jury that each charge must be considered separately, with a focus on the evidence specific to each one. But caution was required because the passage of time meant memories of some witnesses may have faded, making it impossible to check some of the witnesses' testimony, and also causing Thomas to lose "the ability to call witnesses who could support his defence". The jury failed to reach a verdict and was discharged on 28 June 2021.
On 14 October 2021 Crown Prosecutor Charlie Piho told the Manukau District Court the Crown wished to continue with the prosecution. Judge Mina Wharepouri set a trial date for November 2022.
Campaign, pardon and Royal Commission
A campaign, led in part by Pat Booth of the Auckland Star, was largely responsible for getting Thomas released with a pardon. Campaigners said forensic work by Dr Jim Sprott had shown that the cartridge case had been planted at the scene and that its method of construction identified it as being from a batch that could not have contained the number 8 bullets recovered from the victims. Following David Yallop's book about the case, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Thomas was pardoned by Governor-General Keith Holyoake on the recommendation of Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. Thomas was released after serving nine years in prison. He was paid NZ$950,000 compensation for his time in jail and loss of the use of his farm.
A Royal Commission of Inquiry was ordered to review the wrongful conviction of Thomas and reported to the Governor-General in November 1980.
The Commissioners found that the spent cartridge case from Thomas' gun, Exhibit 350, had not been left by the murderer, but had been created weeks later by police using his impounded gun and ammunition, then planted at the Crewe farmhouse. The Commission's report implicated Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton and Detective Sergeant Lenrick Johnston in police misconduct, and found that the prosecution of Thomas for the murders had been unjustified. Despite the Commission describing the conduct of Hutton and Johnston as an "unspeakable outrage", the New Zealand Police never laid charges against any officer involved in the investigation and prosecution of Thomas. Johnston died in 1978. Hutton died in 2013. The case was made into the docu-drama feature film Beyond Reasonable Doubt in 1980.
There was however one final O-henry twist in this case that came completely out of nowhere and a second suspicious death took place.
One of New Zealand’s richest men has been named as a possible suspect in the 1970 Crewe murders that saw Pukekawa farmer Arthur Allan Thomas convicted but later pardoned for – and in another shock development the lead detective on the case has been implicated as the man who married – then murdered – the woman who fed baby Rochelle Crewe
Saturday’s New Zealand Herald carries the story of “a Scrooge” who gave his $122 million fortune to the Catholic Church because of a long-standing grudge against his stepchildren. What few knew is that the “Scrooge” in question – the late Harold Plumley – was once named as a potential suspect in the Crewe murders, and his brother-in-law was none other than Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton, the police officer who locked up Arthur Allan Thomas using planted evidence to get the conviction.
In a nutshell, the Plumley family had farmed land around Mangere for generations, but as a young man Harold Plumley ended up disinherited of virtually everything except a few paddocks left to him in East Tamaki by his mother, while his sister Mary Plumley inherited virtually all of the family estate.
Harold Plumley eked out a living in the Pukekawa district selling agricultural equipment to farmers. At the same time, his wealthy sister Mary was capturing the eye of married Otahuhu police officer Bruce Hutton.
Former colleagues of Harold Plumley approached Investigate magazine more than a decade ago with bombshell allegations that Plumley had been sexually rebuffed by a Pukekawa woman he referred to as “Gee-net”, and that he was going to “get her”.
That conversation took place some months BEFORE Jeannette and Harvey Crewe’s bloodstained home was found empty in June 1970 except for baby Rochelle in her cot.
As the witnesses tell the story, they speculate that Harold Plumley may have killed the Crewes but his strong sense of Catholic guilt wouldn’t allow him to kill the child. Instead, sister Mary Plumley was roped in to feed baby Rochelle – while she was dating Bruce Hutton.
Investigate magazine was contacted by an anonymous source who claimed they had some very interesting information to share on the condition that their identity remain confidential as they still feared of their life and repercussions
“I have had information since 1970 that I have been far too frightened to release. I made an effort to inform the Police in 1970 and spoke to a Sergeant Johnston (I shall never forget his name) and outlined what I knew about some people that should be interviewed. Imagine my surprise when he went right off the rails and told me that if I ever rang the Police with that information again or made any attempt to have it made known, then I would be the next bastard found in the river. Further, now he had my name and I was to shut my bloody mouth forever over this matter.
“Sergeant Johnston is now dead, however, with the information that I have I am still a threat because all of his buddies are not dead. The main threat is Bruce Hutton and what I believe I know about him could see him jailed for the rest of his miserable life.
“I approached Mr [John] Carter our local MP about 18 months ago [around the end of 2006 or start of 2007] and he has been made aware of a snippet of my information. It was enough for him to send me the name of a certain Police District Commander, however I will not devolve [sic, divulge] any information unless I am 100% assured that anything I disclose will be given absolute confidentiality and my name, etc, is to also be 100% confidential. Something I was not given by the Police Commander at the time.
“I still have genuine concerns for my safety.”
The witness says he came to know Plumley, and his blonde-haired sister, through their mutual work in the farming sector covering the greater South Auckland and North Waikato areas. At one of their meetings, the man named as a new person of interest in the Harvey and Jeannette Crewe homicide investigation confided “about how the farmers’ wives often made advances towards him when their husbands were out working on the farms when he called, and [he] seemed happy to be able to talk or boast about this.
“However, on one of my last visits, he was very agitated over some woman by the name I thought sounded like ‘Gee-net’ – he pronounced it as Gee-net – who was not happy with him for some unknown reason and had evidently threatened to tell her husband about that matter.
“This obviously had infuriated Plumley as he stated that a woman like her could ruin his business and his reputation, and if it became public it would cause further alienation of his relations (that I had already sensed were not great) between himself and his family, and he wouldn’t let that happen. Plumley went on to mention that he would finally ‘get her’ – I presumed from past discussions that he meant he would win her over. However, at this time it was no concern of mine and it appeared to me he was letting this matter consume him, and the rejection of his advances (whatever they may have been) were definitely not appreciated.”
The witness described Harold Plumley as a man quick to anger, with “a very vehement nature” and prone to “violent, verbal” outbursts – although surprisingly he never swore.
“Although he discussed his farm meetings and meeting farmers’ wives openly to me, I cannot recall him swearing and can’t remember him doing so during any of his conversations with me, and I thought that was rather odd at the time given the nature of his ramblings.”
The witness said he paid no further attention to the man’s exploits, until Jeannette and Harvey Crewe were found to have been murdered at their farm in June 1970, a little while later.
“However, I was more than surprised to learn that Arthur Allan Thomas had been charged with the murders. I had met briefly with Mr Thomas on two occasions, once…in Warkworth when I visited a neighbour of his [father’s] and once when I called at his farm… On each of these meetings, although brief, I found Mr Thomas to be an extremely polite and quietly spoken man, and if anything a little naïve, but in no way would I have ever expected him to be a man capable of murder.
“As the information started to roll in over this case it was public knowledge that a blonde woman was seen at the Crewe’s house, and it was openly reported that she had possibly been the person who fed the baby Rochelle.
“Who was she? This has been one of the most-asked questions and one of the conundrums of this most infamous murder mystery. The 18 month old baby was found in her cot at the Crewe’s farm, and there was evidence that she had been fed and had had her nappies changed during that time.
“Harold Plumley’s comment to me about a woman named Gee-net threatening to tell her husband about some matter…came chillingly back to me, especially due to the fact I had seen [his] previous violent verbal outbursts.”
The man’s sister, a woman who doted on her brother despite his status as “black sheep” of the family, was fair haired. The witness, who knew her personally as well, has exceptionally good reason to believe the woman agreed to help her brother after the fact, because of the shame it would bring to their prominent family name. He believes the sister was undoubtedly the woman who fed baby Rochelle Crewe, and who has never been identified by police, at least publicly.
“Having thought about this matter,” the witness said, “I then phoned the police. I asked to speak to the senior officer in charge…and I relayed my suspicions to him and the names I had.
“Instead of showing any interest, I was shouted at over the phone – told ‘never to ring the f**king police again about this matter, and if you do you’ll be the next f**king person to be found in the river!’.
“I was also told that the police knew who the murderer was and to ‘butt out completely, or else!’.
Because of this the witness claimed he was shit scared to say or do anything more. Which is why it took him 38 years to come forward with the information.
Now we come to the second very suspicious death that has never been properly explained or investigated.
Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton married Mary Plumley, the woman the witness speculates fed baby Rochelle, putting him within a heartbeat of the Plumley family millions if she died.
Serendipitously, on 15 February 1985, that moment arrived.
Mary and Bruce Hutton were visiting close friends in Whitianga, one of whom was her doctor. Mary advised she was going inside to wash sea salt out of her hair.
A while later, Bruce Hutton told the inquest, the doctor’s wife, Anne Kellaway, found 53 year old Mary naked and unresponsive, curled up in a bath with only 1 ½ inches (4cm) of water in it. The plug was in, the tap was turned off.
Who runs a 4cm deep bath to wash their hair? It’s a question that has never been credibly answered.
Bruce Hutton told the coroner, “Gavin and I ran inside and found Mary curled up in the bath. We got her out and Gavin started external massage and I did the mouth to mouth. It was no use as she had already gone.”
Her family doctor – Gavin Kellaway – pointedly provided absolutely no evidence to the coroner’s inquest beyond his signature on the 15/2/85 death certificate where he stated he had last seen Mary alive at 14.20 that afternoon and she was in “good health”. There was no witness statement corroborating Hutton’s version of events, describing the scene they found or the resuscitation efforts. Nothing. Nor was there a witness statement from Ann Kellaway – purportedly the woman who discovered the body.
Which to me is bizarre you have all the witnesses who were there at the time this women died under extremely bizarre and mysterious circumstances and there are no statements made?
Perhaps his evidential silence was deliberate, given what we now know. Better to say nothing than lie on oath. And after all, who could Kellaway have turned to? The Police? Bruce Hutton was “the Police” – a man so revered that police commissioner Mike Bush was still singing Hutton’s praises at his 2013 funeral.
A Waikato Hospital pathologist was the only medic to testify, ruling Mary had suffered a heart attack, loss of consciousness and drowned, even though the autopsy found no water in the lungs to corroborate the “drowning” in an inch of water claim.
Again, who climbs into a 4cm deep bath, turns off the tap, assumes the foetal position, THEN drowns, simultaneously causing a myocardial ischaemic event, yet without inhaling water?
The autopsy found “no external evidence of violence or external injury”. That’s odd, because if a naked woman was genuinely standing in an inch of bath water and keeled over with a heart attack you would expect the falling body to collide with taps or the side of the bath on the way down. Yet there was not a mark on her.
Bruce Hutton was the sole heir of Mary’s fortune – around $10 million in today’s money.
One man who wasn’t buying the death by drowning claim was Harold Plumley
“He killed her,” he claimed, “to get his hands on the money..he manipulated the Will, he was only after her coin”.
Intriguingly, the majority of bath electrocutions leave no visible marks, and pathologists have difficulty distinguishing them from ordinary heart attacks.
Yet inexplicably, the implausibility of “drowning” in 4cm of water, even though the lungs were found to be “dry”, doesn’t seem to have crossed the mind of the pathologist examining Mary Hutton’s body. Nor does the heart damage she found that is now regarded as a biomarker of electrocution.
But then again, they didn’t know as much back in 1985 and neither the family doctor whose home the tragedy occurred at, nor Mary’s former police officer husband, mentioned anything about a hairdryer or a heater being found in the bath, so the pathologist had no reason to suspect foul play.
Why wasn’t there a police investigation? Well maybe there was. Arthur Allan Thomas’ brother Des stated in 2008 that a Pukekohe man who he knew had contacted him at one point to tell him Bruce Hutton had killed Mary Plumley Hutton:
“He rang me up once and told me that Hutton had thrown an electric heater in her bath…this fella that told me, he’s got cops that he’s friendly with and they told him.”
Des Thomas says he told TVNZ’s Sunday programme of the Hutton allegations but nothing eventuated.
In a 2008 phone interview, Harold Plumley stated that he and Bruce Hutton had “antagonism” toward each other caused by Hutton’s relationship with Mary, and he believed that was why police had never questioned him about the Crewe murders.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it, didn’t know them, although I did drive past their farm every day at the time – still do occasionally – because of my work as a farm consultant.” In a later phone interview, despite initially saying he didn’t know them, Plumley would emphatically describe Harvey Crewe as “just a bum…no money..a pipsqueak cattle agent who married into money”, and when asked if the Crewe farm was dairy or dry stock, his answer was instant: “dry stock”.
But Plumley’s next revelation was earthshattering. “I know what led to Mary and Hutton going away to that break in Whitianga – our father told me after her death.
“He said that four days beforehand, Mary came to him and said ‘I’m very worried’. Dad explained that she and Hutton had been really rowing. Father said she told him ‘it’s got to end! It’s got to end, and when I come back I’m going to the lawyers. I’ve got to get rid of him, I’ve got to get him out!’ That is absolutely clear cut, that I’ve given you, gospel truth,” Plumley told Investigate.
So here’s the lie of the land: days before her mysterious “drowning” in just over one inch of bathwater, wealthy heiress Mary Plumley Hutton told her father she was planning to divorce former Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton.
She never got to see her lawyer, and she never survived the weekend getaway where she planned to thrash things out.
Which I find extremely interesting that she died under such odd circumstances and its not prolly looked into. The money motive is what strikes me as being the reason she died because had she divorced him he would have lost the money but if she dies and its ruled anything other than murder or manslaughter he’d get the money no questions asked provided he wasn’t accused or suspected in her murder.
Plumley says he tried to talk to Mary’s Fijian maid Miriana after the death, but found himself hauled in for questioning by Otahuhu CIB for “harassment”.
“I really gave [Det] Mitford Burgess a lashing in front of the whole CIB,” Plumley recalled, “but that’s what happened – Hutton found out I was asking questions and suddenly the police were investigating me”.
Again being a cop and one that was highly respected gave Hutton an advantage. This is why I believe he was never poly looked into becuase no one wanted to think top cop was a killer or thought he would be capable of being one.
Plumley got the last laugh, however. While Hutton inherited Mary Plumley’s estate (worth around $10m in today’s money) left to her by her father, Harold Plumley’s paddock in Ormiston Rd East Tamaki, given him by his mother, was sold to Lion Breweries for $66 million in 2007 as the site of its NZ headquarters. By the time he died in 2016, Plumley’s fortune had ballooned to $122 million which he bequeathed to the Catholic church in NZ’s biggest ever charitable donation.
Do I believe Harold Plumley killed the Crewes? Although Plumley’s former colleague believed it, and Plumley knew more about the Crewes than he originally let on, there’s insufficient evidence.
As for Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton, the top cop who conspired to plant evidence to gain a conviction in the Crewe murders, the man of whom police bosses famously remarked at his 2013 funeral “his integrity is beyond reproach” – a new stain now clouds his legacy: did he murder his own wife to seize her fortune?
Status of the case
In 2014 an official police review of the investigation into the homicides, at a cost of $400,000 to New Zealand taxpayers, said that evidence available in the murder of the Crewes was insufficient for any new prosecution. The review acknowledged that a key prosecution exhibit in the trials had been fabricated by detectives, but did not appear to accept that they could have been on the wrong track; the review implied that the Crewes' daughter had not ingested any fluids between 17 and 22 June, and said a witness had been mistaken in thinking he had seen a woman on the farm during that period. The review did however rule out Demler having been the killer. Rochelle Crewe expressed satisfaction that a police review of evidence had cleared her deceased grandfather of involvement in the murders. The case remains unsolved.
The Crewe murders continue to divide the district into two feuding camps without apparent closure. Pukekawa water supply contractor, Des Thomas, brother of Arthur, continues to investigate for the murders a local man, "farmer X". The release in July 2014 of a police report on the murders cleared suspects the late Len Demler (father of Jeannette) and his second wife after the murders, Norma Demler. The report implied Arthur Thomas remains a suspect to the police. The police report also said the cartridge case that incriminated Arthur Thomas may have been "fabricated evidence". The murder house is still occupied.
In 2010 Rochelle Crewe, then in her 40s, contacted police and raised concerns about the initial investigation, asking what if any further investigative action had been taken after Thomas was pardoned to identify the person who gunned down her parents.
She also demanded answers around why evidence-planting cops Hutton and Johnston had not been prosecuted.
In 2014, after almost four years of work, the review team released their final report to the public.
They said no new evidence had come to light to implicate any specific person as being responsible for the double murder, or provided a basis for initiating further inquiries.
Though the review team could not pin the blame on anyone, they said the killer was someone who had access to items from the Thomas farm and they were firm on the fact that Thomas' firearm was most likely to have fired the fatal bullets.
But a re-investigation was "not warranted”.
Police also acknowledged shortcomings in the murder investigation and, for the first time, admitted that officers fabricated evidence against Thomas.
Though they felt the 1970 police investigation team did a lot of things correctly, it was also conceded there were numerous balls dropped, including failing to corroborate some alibis, follow up on vehicle sightings, secure crime scene exhibits and evidence and investigate people of interest connected to the Thomas farm.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Harvey_and_Jeannette_Crewe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukekawa#The_Eyre_Murder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Allan_Thomas
http://netk.net.au/NewZealand/Thomas8.asp
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/7881051/the-woman-who-fed-the-baby-crewe-murders
https://investigatemagazine.co.nz/173611/shock-new-twist-in-crewe-murders-cold-case-was-top-cop-bruce-hutton-a-killer/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crewe-cold-case-fifty-years-and-no-answers-in-infamous-pukekawa-whodunnit/WR65KZTZY4XDCUF23WOVYPA3Y4/
https://investigatemagazine.co.nz/173611/shock-new-twist-in-crewe-murders-cold-case-was-top-cop-bruce-hutton-a-killer/
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