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The Crewe murder mystery. Harvey and Jeanette Crewe On 17 June 1970 Harvey and Jeanette Crewe were killed in their Pukekawa farmhouse, and their bodies taken away. A woman was seen outside their house two days later. On the fifth day Jeanette's father notified police that he had found bloodstains on their lounge carpet and their 18-month-old daughter asleep in her cot, well fed and with recently changed nappies. Police suspicion focused first on Jeanette's father, Len Demler. He lived next door and frequently visited them. The farm he had managed all his life had been owned by his wife, who left it to Jeanette when she died. Then after three months' intensive search, the bodies were found in the Waikato River, weighed down by car axles. Bullets from a .22 rifle were found in their heads. The axles were traced back to an old car chassis on a farm belonging to Arthur Thomas, who had once courted Jeanette. Len Demler during the search And the bullets that had killed Harvey and Jeanette had been fired from a .22 that had six rifling grooves with a right-handed twist. Police inspector Bruce Hutton rounded up sixty-four .22 rifles from around the district. All of them had rifling with 5 grooves or a left-handed twist except the .22 of Arthur Thomas. Hutton, an incompetent bullying policeman of the old school, had already failed to solve his last two murder investigations, and so to ensure he got a conviction, and thus restore his reputation, he fired a bullet from Arthur Thomas's .22 rifle and planted the shell case in the garden outside the Crewe's house. He then sent a junior policeman to "search" the garden (for the third time in four months!). Thomas was arrested, and convicted because the firing pin markings on the shiny brass shell case matched the pattern on Thomas's rifle, despite evidence from forensic scientist Dr Jim Sprott that a brass shell case left for three wet winter months in that acidic soil would be discoloured. Inspector Hutton at Crewe farmhouse After a huge outcry from Arthur Thomas's Pukekawa neighbours there was a re-trial, but Hutton stacked the jury and manipulated other evidence to get another conviction. The lead bullets recovered from the bodies of Mr and Mrs Crewe were embossed with the number "8". In 1973 Dr Sprott was informed that older ICI .22 bullets with "8" marked on them were in shell cases that had "ICI" in smaller decorative letters, whilst newer shell cases with large plain lettering contained bullets marked "18" or "19." Old "8" bullet from Harvey's body New lettering on shell planted by Hutton But the shiny shell case fired from Thomas's rifle and found in the Crewe's garden had ICI in big simple letters. Therefore the more recently-made shell case from Thomas's rifle could not have fired the older bullets found in the Crewe's bodies. Dr Strott advertised for .22 cartridges and he was sent 26,000 from all over the country. Not one of them had a combination of "8" on the bullet and large plain ICI lettering on the shell case. Thomas spent nine years in jail before being pardoned by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. He returned home to Pukekawa on 17 December 1979. David Yallop's book "Beyond Reasonable Doubt," calls Hutton's investigation of Thomas 'one of the most crass, banal, amateur investigations ever undertaken in the country's history, a game where evidence was put in and taken out to serve one purpose: that Thomas be convicted.' Shortly after the second trial of Thomas, Detective Inspector Hutton was demoted to the uniformed branch, and he resigned from the police force not long afterwards. However Hutton was never prosecuted for his crime, although the Royal Commission of 1980 uncovered absolute proof of his guilt. Who killed Harvey and Jeanette Crewe? 1. Ian Wishart reckons that the murderer was Inspector Hutton's assistant, police sargeant Len Johnston. Yeah, right! 2. Was it Arthur Thomas? His motive - he had courted Jeanette, but she had married another man. The circumstantial evidence - his .22 rifle was the only one found in the neighbourhood with six right-handed riflings. However, one of the rifling ridges on Thomas's .22 was damaged and made a distinctive mark on a bullet, whilst none of the bullets from the bodies showed this distinctive mark. 3. Was it Len Demler? He had a powerful motive: The farm he had managed for 30 years belonged to his late wife. However, when she died, she did not leave the farm to him, but to Jeanette. He had the means: although he did not have a .22 rifle registered to his name, the Crewe household did. He also had plenty of opportunity, living nearby and frequently visiting the Crewe house. If any passerby had seen him there after the shootings, they would have noticed nothing unusual. But police could not make him confess, and they could not find the .22 he probably used.  If you think that was likely, sing... Was old Len the man who caused the harm? With his daughter dead he would own the farm       But he would not confess       And police could only guess The gun that proved his guilt had gone into      the cold and murky depths of the Waikato 4. Was it Jeanette Crewe? When Jeanette's body was examined, bruises were found on her face. Dr Sprott's theory was that her husband had beaten her up, and she grabbed the household .22 and shot him in a fit of rage, then shot herself. Len Demler knew there would be no life-insurance payout for suicide, so he disposed of the bodies, off the Tuakau Bridge and into the Waikato River, to make it look like a double murder.If you think that is more probable, sing... Harvey Crewe went crazy, bashed his wife She grabbed his gun and fired to save her life       But when she saw him dead       She turned the gun to her own head And Len Demler threw his daughter's crime into      the cold and murky depths of the Waikato             Songlist - Home This webpage put on the NZ Folksong website November, 2010, modified May 2018