SOLVEDListenTe Aro, Wellington, New Zealand · 1990s
Murder of Jeff Whittington
Jeff Whittington, a 14-year-old from Wellington, New Zealand, was beaten to death in an anti-gay attack in May 1999, and two men were convicted of his murder.
What happened
Ben Smart, aged 21, and Olivia Hope, aged 17, were two young New Zealanders who disappeared in the early hours of 1 January 1998 after celebrating New Year's Eve at Furneaux Lodge, a remote waterfront venue in Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds. Hundreds of people attended the festivities. In the pre-dawn hours, having found their intended sleeping arrangements aboard a chartered yacht already full, the pair accepted an offer from a man travelling alone to sleep aboard his yacht. A water taxi carried the three of them across the inlet and dropped them at a vessel at around 4 a.m. That was the last confirmed sighting of Smart and Hope. Despite extensive searches of the water and surrounding land, their bodies have never been found.
Police reported the pair missing on 2 January 1998 and soon launched a homicide investigation. Attention turned to Scott Watson, a Picton resident, who was arrested and charged with the murders in June 1998. After an eleven-week trial, a jury found Watson guilty of murdering both Smart and Hope in September 1999. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years. Watson has consistently denied involvement and has maintained his innocence since his conviction.
The prosecution's case was largely circumstantial. It rested substantially on the identification of Watson by witnesses, on two hairs found on a blanket taken from Watson's sloop, Blade, that were linked to Olivia Hope, and on statements attributed to Watson. The conviction has been contested for many years. A central dispute concerns the description of the vessel to which the pair were taken: the water taxi operator initially described a two-masted wooden ketch, whereas Watson's boat was a single-masted steel sloop. Questions have also been raised about the photographic identification procedures used with witnesses and about the reliability and handling of the forensic hair evidence.
Watson pursued numerous challenges to his conviction. The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal in 2000, and the Privy Council declined to hear the case in 2003. Applications invoking the royal prerogative of mercy were made in later years. In 2020 the convictions were referred back to the Court of Appeal. Following a hearing, the Court of Appeal in September 2025 declined to quash the convictions, finding no miscarriage of justice. Watson has been repeatedly denied parole, in part because he continues to deny responsibility.
The case, widely known as the Sounds murders, remains one of New Zealand's most debated criminal cases. The conviction stands, but doubts about it continue to be raised publicly.
