John Beckenridge killed himself and stepson in 2015, coroner rules

Source: Radio New Zealand

John Beckenridge killed himself and his 11-year-old stepson in a vengeful act against his estranged wife, a coroner has ruled.

Coroner Marcus Elliot said the Queenstown man was angry, self-righteous and vengeful when he drove his car off a cliff in the Catlins in 2015.

Beckenridge and his stepson Mike Zhou-Beckenridge were last seen near Curio Bay in Southland in March 2015 and the 64-year-old’s car was later found in the sea at the bottom of a cliff.

Coroner Elliot, in a decision released on Wednesday, said the pair were not missing but had died in the crash in 2015.

It follows a coronial hearing in 2023, during which the boy’s mother Fiona Lu expressed doubt they had died and instead believed Beckenridge had staged their deaths and fled the country with her son.

The coroner did not intend to hold an inquest in the deaths but would instead issue in-chambers’ findings based on existing evidence.

The pair vanished after Beckenridge broke a court order and picked up Mike from school on 13 March 2015.

Beckenridge had been in a relationship with Lu since 2006 and they married in 2007.

They separated in 2013 and there was conflict over where Mike should live.

When police looked into the pair’s disappearance they determined the pair had died in a murder-suicide but Mike’s family are convinced they escaped overseas.

Coroner Elliot said he had looked at the theory but decided Beckenridge would have had to pull off the “perfect crime”.

That would have involved Beckenridge pretending to be increasingly angry, irrational and desperate and faking his dire financial situation, the coroner said.

“In short this theory requires Mr Beckenridge to have put on a convincing act, a complete sham, for months and even years portraying himself as someone other than who he really was,” he said.

However, he decided Beckenridge was fuelled by rage when he drove his car over the cliff, killing himself and Mike.

“Mr Beckenridge’s willingness to use Mike as a weapon against Ms Lu reveals a callous disregard for the harm he was causing Mike. He did everything he could to turn Mike against, and incite hatred of, his mother and [Lu’s new partner Peter] Russell,” Coroner Elliot said.

“The only conclusion one can draw from Mr Beckenridge’s indoctrination of Mike against his mother is that he was at least indifferent to the harm he was causing to Mike. He had become so vindictive towards Ms Lu and so self-obsessed and self-righteous that he was willing to harm Mike.”

Private detective Mark Templeman told the coroner, on behalf of Lu, that the pair had staged the crash and left the country.

Templeman claimed Beckenridge rigged a driverless vehicle to go off the cliff and left the country with Mike – probably by boat – travelling to a country or countries overseas and establishing new lives under new identities.

Part of the plan involved creating the impression Beckenridge could not afford to stage an escape from New Zealand, Templeman said.

However, he claimed Beckenridge had other funding options, including $11,400 in a Superannuation Fund in Sweden, which had not been investigated.

Beckenridge was born in Sweden and originally named Knut Lundh.

He lived in several countries as an adult and changed his name first to John Lundh and then John Beckenridge.

Templeman said Beckenridge set up the site at the top of the Cliff to create the illusion he had committed suicide.

Beckenridge was an experienced diver and sailor and was very familiar with the tide and currents, he said.

Beckenridge selected the spot so the car would submerge and be difficult to locate and reach, Templeman said.

The car is believed to have gone over the cliff on 20 March 2015 and debris was spotted two days later. But it could not be accessed by divers until 29 March due to the condition of the sea and the car was not recovered until early May.

Templeman said it would be dangerous to conclude Beckenridge and Mike were dead as all international monitoring would cease, which was exactly what Beckenridge wanted to happen.

But Coroner Elliot said the staging and escape theory was implausible.

“Mr Beckenridge’s actions illustrate that he either did not have or did not display the characteristics of the intelligent, resourceful, rational and well-prepared criminal which Ms Lu and Mr Russell believe him to be,” said Elliot.

The coroner also heard from Dr John Raine, Emeritus Doctor of Mechanical Engineering at Auckland University of Technology, who provided an independent report about the vehicle and clifftop scene.

Dr Raine said he did not think a driver could have left the vehicle as it was driven towards the edge and the only way the vehicle could have been launched off the cliff without a driver would be if it had been rigged to accelerate hard in a straight line towards its launch point.

When Dr Raine inspected the remains of the vehicle there was no sign of any fixtures to enable remote control and nothing was seen by the Police national dive squad.

It was “very, very improbable that a remote-controlled actuator system was used,” Dr Raine said.

Coroner Elliot said he had concluded Beckenridge and Mike were dead and their bodies lost at sea.

Mike was 11-years-old when he went missing and would now be 22 if he was alive.

Lu did not want to comment on the coroner’s decision. But at the hearing she said she thought about her son everyday and believed one day he would come back to her.

Detective Inspector Stu Harvey said the coroner had reached the same conclusion as police.

“We know this outcome will be difficult for members of Mike and John’s families, some of whom have held on to hope that the pair may still be alive. Our thoughts are with them today.”

Coroner Marcus Elliot said he now intended to open an inquiry into the pair’s death and would make findings using existing evidence.

He invited interested parties to make further submissions, including on whether an inquest should be held.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

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