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David Harvey Crewe (20 October 1941 – c. 17 June 1970) and Jeannette Lenore Crewe (née Demler; 6 February 1940 – c. 17 June 1970) were a New Zealand farming couple who were shot to death in their home on or shortly after 17 June 1970. The killings led to an unsafe murder conviction and subsequent pardoning of another farmer who lived in the district, Arthur Allan Thomas. A Royal Commission to investigate the conviction found that, in a miscarriage of justice, police had fabricated evidence and placed it at the crime scene to convict Thomas. the murders remain unsolved.
Background Jeannette Lenore Demler was born in 1940 to farmer Lenard Demler and May Constance (née Chennells), known as Maisie. A second daughter, Heather, was born two years later. Earlier, in 1937, Len Demler had taken control of a farm in Pukekawa, a small affluent town on New Zealand’s North Island. Maisie was the daughter of the family that owned the farm next door. Next to that farm was another owned by Maisie’s brother, Howard Chennells. In 1950, Howard was killed in a tractor accident. In his will, he left his farm to Jeannette and Heather, then aged 10 and 8. He instructed that the farm should be managed by others until the girls were 25, with profits placed in a trust for them.
Jeannette was attending Pukekawa School when, in 1951, she met Arthur Allan Thomas. Thomas was a local boy, born in 1938 and one of nine children of Allan and Ivy Thomas. The following year, Allan Thomas withdrew his son from school to work on their farm. Thomas later confirmed that he had a crush on Jeannette and asked her out on several occasions, but received no encouragement and eventually gave up.
In 1958, Jeannette graduated from Auckland’s Ardmore Teachers College; by 1960, she was working at Mangatangi School, and living in the village of Maramarua, where she would occasionally run into her former schoolmate Thomas. Their interactions were cordial and brief.
In 1961, Jeannette left New Zealand for her “Big O.E.’’, a rite of passage for many New Zealanders, where they travel for an extended period of time. Jeannette's father gave Arthur her address in London, and Arthur sent her a letter and a gift of beads and stockings. Jeannette thanked him politely. In 1962, he sent her a brush and comb set. This time, she replied that she had a boyfriend.
In 1963, Jeannette returned to New Zealand and settled in the Manawatū District, where she met Harvey Crewe, a farmer from a farming family. Jeannette was now old enough to take over the farm she had inherited. Harvey bought out her sister’s share. The two married in the Auckland suburb of Epsom on 18 June 1966. That same day, they moved into their farm, next to that of her parents.
Of the Crewes’ relationship, a friend said: “They had a real appreciation of each other... A well-suited, wonderfully happy, strong and mature couple, completely capable of working out life in a harmonious, positive manner. Both intelligent, witty, fun to be with if they knew you well, otherwise reserved... [they] could be described as a very private couple.”
By coincidence, Arthur Thomas returned to Pukekawa that same month, having married Vivien (née Carter), a typist from Farnham, England, two years previously. He had been working for a crop-dusting company but had accepted his father's offer to lease the family farm, which was 15km from the Crewe farm. In July 1967, the Crewe home was burgled. Rather than take valuables, the thief took inexpensive items, including a brush and comb set.
In December 1968, Jeannette gave birth to a daughter, Rochelle. While she was in hospital, Harvey returned home to find their house ablaze. Clothing had been set on fire in the bedroom, and much of the house was lost; how the fire started was never ascertained. On 28 May 1969, there was a second unexplained fire; this time, the Crewes lost their barn and 800 bales of hay.
In 1962, Len Demler had been found guilty of tax evasion and fined £9540. To pay the fine, he sold half of his farm to Maisie.Beyond Reasonable doubt?, (2014) David Yallop On 26 February 1970, Maisie died of a brain tumour. In her will, she excluded her daughter, Heather, leaving Jeannette Crewe with 75% of the Demler farm. In return, Len Demler changed his will, leaving Heather his remaining 25% share.Justice Denied: Extraordinary miscarriages of justice, James Morton 2015 The situation had caused tension in the family and, on 16 June 1970, the Crewes went to dinner at Demler’s home. Jeannette had also inherited her mother’s car, a Morris 1100, which she said she intended to sell to pay inheritance tax. The dinner was an acrimonious occasion.
Disappearance and discovery On 17 June, the day after the dinner, the Crewes attended the local cattle stock sale. Harvey bought a bull, and the couple was seen leaving the sale at approximately 3:00 p.m. At 4:45 p.m., two farmers saw the Crewe car about 7km from the farmhouse and saw a man, whom they assumed was Harvey Crewe, off in the distance herding sheep. At 7:00 p.m., the stock agent called Harvey to arrange delivery of the bull; no one answered the phone.
On 22 June, the stock agent called again, then went to the farm. When no one answered the door, he called Demler. A driver for a company scheduled to pick up sheep from the Crewe farm arrived at 12:35 and received no answer. He also called Demler, who finally went to the farm. In the back door, Demler found the key in the lock. He went in and found blood on the kitchen floor and in the living room. He finally looked in the baby’s room, where he found Rochelle in a “distressed condition” and unable to stand. He left her there, went home and called the truck driver to cancel the sheep pick-up. He then went to the home of a neighbour, Owen Priest, and asked him to go to the Crewe farm with him, without mentioning the blood or the baby.
At the farm, Demler stayed at the back door, leaving Priest to search the house alone. After searching the barn, Demler retrieved Rochelle and took her to a friend's home. Priest then went to his own home and called the police.
An investigation team, led by Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton, arrived at 5:00 p.m. The house was searched, fingerprinted, sampled and photographed. In the living room, brain tissue was found on Harvey’s armchair, and a bloody smear indicated that a body had been dragged from the living room. In the kitchen, blood was found on the floor, and watered-down blood was found on the cupboards.
The following day, Hutton heard from the doctor who examined Rochelle. Her skin tone indicated that she had lost 1-2 lbs., but the doctor concluded that someone had fed her 48 hours before she was discovered, or about three days after the death of her parents. A witness said that, on June 19th, he saw a fair-haired woman in a green Hillman car on the Crewe property. That woman has never been identified.
On the morning of August 16, 1970, two men were fishing downstream of the Tuakau Bridge, on New Zealand’s longest river, the Waikato. There, they found Jeannette's partially-submerged body, wrapped in a bedspread and curtain fabric, which were secured with copper wire."Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, and Scandals" by Professor Elizabeth A Murray
On September 16, 1970, 5km downstream from the bridge, police found Harvey's body. A vehicle axle had apparently weighed it down.
In both cases, Demler identified the remains. Both victims had been shot in the head with a .22 calibre rifle, with Jeannette sustaining the additional pre-mortem injury of a broken nose from being struck across the face with a blunt object. Her body was fully clothed, and there was no evidence of sexual assault.
Investigation Given Demler’s odd behaviour—leaving the baby behind, not participating in the search with Priest or with police, his reputation as an ill-tempered drinker, and his defensive attitude when questioned about his whereabouts on the relevant dates, he became the first suspect. His home was searched, and he was formally questioned. During that interview, Hutton told him, “I think you are the person who removed Harvey Crewe’s body from the Crewe household. In fact, I’m quite certain you’ve done this.” However, Demler had no apparent motive—he’d already bequeathed his share of the farm to his daughter Heather and, with Rochelle alive, could not inherit Jeannette’s share. He did have a scratch on his neck, but there was no physical evidence linking him to the murders.
While police collected .22 calibre rifles from properties within an 8km radius of the Crewe farm, Jeannette’s sister Heather, who was living in the USA, returned to take custody of Rochelle. Police had been told that Jeannette had previously been "pestered" by a local boy, and Heather told them it was Arthur Thomas.
On July 2nd, Detective John Hughes visited Arthur Thomas. Thomas was forthcoming about his previous contact with Jeannette and said he had been to the Crewe farm three years earlier to spread manure. He said he had not seen the Crewes for 9 months and that on the night of 17 June, he was at home. Hughes discovered that Thomas also owned a green Hillman car. The witness who had seen a similar car at the Crewe farm was positive that the woman driving it was not Vivien Thomas. There was no blood or evidence of bodies being transported in the vehicle. Hughes found that Thomas owned a .22 calibre rifle and seized it for testing.
The search of the Crewe farm continued, with police looking for lengths of copper wire and cartridge cases. None were found. What did turn up was the brush set that Thomas had sent Jeannette years earlier, meaning that the set stolen during the 1967 burglary was not the Thomas gift.
Police test-fired the 48 .22 calibre rifles collected. Two could not be excluded as the murder weapon; one belonging to the Eyre family and one belonging to Arthur Thomas. The bullets in the victims’ bodies were found to be stamped with the number 8, as were bullets found in Thomas's possession. On September 7th, the day of Jeannette’s funeral, police brought Thomas in for questioning. While there was no proof that Thomas's gun was used in the murders, a detective said, “Arthur, it was your rifle that was used to kill the Crewes. What do you say to that?” Arthur replied, “If you say it was my gun, it must have been, but I didn’t do it.”nzherald.co.nz New evidence claims in Crewe case 2 Aug, 2014
On September 19th, police determined that the axle used to weigh down Harvey’s body was the front axle of a 1928 Nash Standard Six 420 sedan. They were able to trace the part to a custom-built trailer sold in 1959 to Arthur’s father, Allan Thomas. On October 11th, police found wire at the Thomas farm that matched the wire used to attach the axle to Harvey’s body. On October 15th, Detective Len Johnston searched the garbage dumps on the Thomas farm for the rear axles to match the front axle found with Harvey Crewe’s body. Arthur Thomas helped in the search. The trailer was not on the property, and no axles were found. On October 20th, Johnston returned to search again. This time, he found both rear axles.
Detective Johnston developed the official police theory of the case. He noted that the Crewe’s kitchen had a louvred window which, on the night of the murders, was open. The kitchen led directly into the living room. Johnston posited that as Harvey was sitting in his armchair, the killer shot through the kitchen window and that the bullet hit him in the back of the head, killing him instantly. As the assailant entered the house, Jeannette, who was knitting on the sofa, would have jumped up and faced the killer. Johnston said that the killer struck her in the face, knocking her to the ground, and then shot her in the back of the head. Johnston's theory was that the killer removed the bodies through the front door; no explanation was offered for the blood in the kitchen or why the key to the house was in the lock.