Who Killed Scott Guy? Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Feilding and Manawatu communities.
    Scott’s body was released by police on the Monday following his murder and taken to his parents’ house ahead of the funeral. More than 1000 people packed out Feilding’s Anglican Church as his coffin arrived on the back of his ute, surrounded by friends in cowboy hats like Scott’s. His mates from Australia carried him into the church and his family, including Ewen Macdonald and Kylee’s sisters Jessica and Chanelle, carried him out. Jackaroo colleagues cracked whips in respect for their mate while Scott’s dog sat forlornly on the back of his ute.
    Scott’s death became a national crime and the hunt for his killer almost a national cause. Certain cases attract this extraordinary focus. In recent times, the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope from a New Year’s Eve party in the Marlborough Sounds, and the murder of teenager Kirsty Bentley exactly a year later in Ashburton, are two that transfixed New Zealand and drew enormous media attention. Equally, Scott Guy’s murder predictably sparked huge public anger and expectation—expectation that a culprit would be quickly found and harshly punished.
    Put in charge of meeting these demands was Detective Inspector Sue Schwalger. At 46 she was one of the country’s top female cops and the crime manager for the central North Island region. Of Samoan and German heritage, she had joined the police in 1983, but left when she had two children, and rejoined in 1991. After a stint in Counties Manukau’s badlands, the motorbike-loving grandmother with a traditional Samoan tattoo on her wrist was promoted to detective inspector in 2008.
    Assisting her during the investigation were more than 100 police officers, as well as whatever forensic or scientific experts she needed to analyse evidence, isolate a suspect and assemble a case against them. The investigation was dubbed Operation Yellow—not because that colour had any significance to the murder, it was just a name given to the inquiry by the police hierarchy.
    It would be difficult to overestimate the pressure that officers in charge of such high-profile investigations face—both professional and public. The longer the cases remain unsolved, the more questions are asked, the more public confidence in the investigators wanes. But for those expected to do a flawless and utterly thorough job in uncovering all the evidence, haste is an enemy, instant answers a fiction. As much as police would love cases to be cracked in a few days with compelling logic and irrefutable evidence, as they invariably seem to be on CSI , the reality is that investigations are often extended attrition exercises rather than smooth TV episodes with a silver-bullet solution at the end.
    So police began with the basics—who was Scott and was there anything in his background that would lead to him being murdered? All their investigations confirmed he was well liked, someone people wanted to be around, and someone who’d made strong friends wherever he went, from Masterton to Mount Isa.
    The only altercation they discovered was with a bouncer in Auckland around 2006, for which Scott was extremely remorseful. His vehicle had been stolen in 2007 but that was just random and the person responsible had an alibi for the time of the murder. There was absolutely no suggestion that either he or Kylee had been involved in extramarital affairs—in fact, everyone described them as a couple still truly in love.
    But what police were aware of from the beginning of their investigation were two attacks on Scott and Kylee’s property that had remained unsolved. The first was the arson of an old house Scott was shifting to make way for the construction of his new home at 293 Aorangi Road. The wooden homestead had stood on what was known as the McKinnon block for decades but Scott and Kylee decided it wasn’t worth doing up so it had been sold for $8000 to be relocated. In October 2008 it had been jacked up and placed on