A woman holidaying in Indonesia is adamant she saw missing boy Mike Zhao-Beckenridge and his stepfather three months after their mysterious disappearance and has described her frantic race across the island on a bike to alert police.
“I was 100 percent sure that it was John and Mike Beckenridge that I saw,” she told the court on Wednesday.
Swedish-born helicopter pilot John Beckenridge broke a court order and picked up his 11-year-old stepson from his Invercargill school on March 13, 2015.
However, Mike’s mother Fiona Lu is convinced her son is still alive and her former partner staged the pair’s death after she moved her son from Beckenridge’s Queenstown home to Invercargill with her new partner.
Now, Coroner Marcus Elliot is looking into the case at the Christchurch District Court to consider whether it is likely the pair are dead.
The hearing, which began on Monday, is expected to take two weeks and will hear evidence from witnesses, including someone who believes she spotted the pair overseas four months after their disappearance.
On Wednesday the woman, who cannot be identified, recounted holidaying with her friend in Gilli Air Island, which she described as a relaxed holiday destination attracting retired couples and young families.
On June 30, the woman was walking along the beach when she saw an older European man with a younger Asian boy walking towards her, in a “happy conversation”.
She immediately recognised the pair from media reports in New Zealand as missing people Beckenridge and Mike, stating several times she was “very confident” it was them while giving evidence.
The woman was interested in the Beckenridge case and had been checking her phone for updates in the media, stating the images of the pair were still fresh in her mind.
She said the man’s eyes were the same as pictures of Beckenridge’s, although they appeared more “friendly and relaxed” and the boy looked like he had put on a bit more weight.
She said they looked like a “unique pair” walking together, as it was a school day, so it was strange to see a child walking along the beach, noting that the boy also looked taller and a “bigger build” than most of the local children.
She went to a café to connect to wifi and called her father in New Zealand who contacted police. The next morning the woman woke up to missed calls from a New Zealand police officer who told her to contact local police.
The woman then described a frantic “race” to alert local police as she was leaving the island that day.
She hired a bike and rushed around the island until she found two men in uniform and told them what she had seen, an “interesting challenge” as they didn’t speak much English.
When the woman returned to New Zealand, she received an email from police thanking her for contacting them, but they were no closer to finding the pair. She was interviewed by private investigator Mark Templeman in March 2016, relaying what she had seen.
The woman said she was “amazed” at how long it took police to ask her for a formal statement in 2017.
“I have felt throughout that the police have not taken my sighting seriously otherwise they would have interviewed me in person. I was 100 percent sure that it was John and Mike Beckenridge that I saw.”
In court, the woman said she was now 85 percent certain it was the Beckenridges she saw, as they seemed “more relaxed” than the pictures.
Earlier today coroner Elliot addressed Lu’s partner Peter Russell, who was sat at the lawyer’s bench with private investigator Mark Templeman, acknowledging how difficult this process can be. He also thanked police and counsel for all their hard work on the case.
Lisa Preston KC, assisting the coroner, also raised the possibility of a “mutual suicide” given the tone of Mike’s emails to his father, mentioning self-harm if he could not be with him
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the court heard from Sergeant Frederick Shandley, who conducted a scene examination of Beckenridge’s Lake Hayes Estate home in Queenstown after he disappeared.
One thing that stood out to Shandley was how spotless the place was, both inside and out.
“It was a very tidy, very clean house. It was well-kept.”
Shandley said there were two fridge-freezers side by side in the kitchen, with one containing various medications under the name of “John Lundh”, one of Beckenridge’s aliases and Mike Beckenridge.
He also found bottles and snap-lock bags of water-purifying tablets.
As police continued their search, they were alerted to a reported sighting of the pair on March 19 at a campsite off Weir Rd on the Haldane Estuary roughly 14km from the cliff Beckenridge’s vehicle went off.
Swab testing and further examinations of the site revealed a plaster with Mike’s fingerprints on it as well as boot prints of a shoe belonging to Beckenridge, which would later wash ashore in the Curio Bay area.
On Monday Preston outlined the case.
She said Beckenridge met Mike’s mother Lu, who is from China, in 2006. Lu’s parents were raising Mike at the time.
The pair later moved with Mike to Queenstown. Their relationship broke down in 2014. Shortly after that, Lu moved to Invercargill.
In February 2015, the Queenstown Family Court made an order that Lu had care of Mike.
Mike was unhappy to be taken away from his stepfather and was secretly communicating with him by email, pleading for Beckenridge to come to take him away from his mother and her partner, Peter Russell.
Mike told Beckenridge he was misbehaving so he could be sent back to live with his stepfather. He also called the police on one occasion, saying his mother had assaulted him in the hope he would get sent back to Queenstown.
On March 20 Beckenridge’s friends began receiving “concerning” texts from him, stating the “Gestapo” was after him and Mike, and they would soon be getting on the “Midnight Express” for departure.
On March 22, items belonging to the Beckenridges, such as clothes and car parts, washed ashore in the Curio Bay area. Soon after Beckenridge’s vehicle was found at the bottom of the cliff in the water.
The Police National Dive Squad was able to dive on the wreckage of the vehicle on March 29 but it wasn’t until May 6 that the vehicle was able to be recovered. No bodies were ever found.
To date, police have had 60 suspected sightings of the Beckenridges or their vehicle, some of which have been deemed unlikely or eliminated.
Information about possible sightings continues to be reported from people in New Zealand and from New Zealanders who say they have had an encounter on holiday overseas.
The hearing before Coroner Elliot continues.
- By Emily Moorhouse
- Open Justice multimedia journalist, Christchurch
