What happened to 3-year-old Lachie Jones? - ATC International

Summary

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Australian True Crime - "What happened to 3-year-old Lachie Jones? - ATC International"

Podcast by Bravecasting | Aired: January 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the mysterious 2019 death of three-year-old Lachie Jones, whose body was found in an oxygenation pond near his home in Gore, New Zealand. While police quickly deemed it an accidental drowning, Lachie’s father, Paul Jones, has long contested the official verdict—prompting investigations by journalists Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner, hosts of the podcast Delve: The Boy in the Water. This episode features their insights into the case, the coroner’s recent inquest, and the impact of local police conduct on the search for answers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mystery of Lachie’s Death

• Timeline & Official Story:
  Lachie was discovered face up in a sewage pond, about 1.2 kilometers from his house. Police declared it an accidental drowning.
• Improbabilities & Anomalies:
  • Bonnie Sumner highlights improbable aspects:

    “He was found face up, which is highly unusual. No water in his lungs, highly unusual. The police dog found no scent... So just none of that sort of stacked up.” (01:01)

  • Paul Jones (Lachie’s father) expresses disbelief:

    “You’ll never in your wildest dreams... tell me or even imagine that he walked all that way with a full nappy at nine o’clock at night, barefoot... with no marks on his feet.” (01:37)

2. Family Background and Tensions

• Parents’ Relationship:
  • Paul Jones and Michelle Officer had a tumultuous past, including court orders.
  • At the time of Lachie’s disappearance, they were on better terms, though Michelle disputes the degree of reconciliation.

    “They were definitely talking. He’d stayed the night and the texts were kind of bordering on...flirtatious.” (05:16)

• Paul’s Perspective:

  “I know my son didn’t walk out there on Was dad, and I know what he was capable of.” (04:09)

• Contention Over Events:
  • Discrepancies between Michelle’s statements and those of others, plus unreliable testimony noted by the coroner.

3. The Night of Lachie’s Disappearance

• Michelle Officer’s Statement:
  • At ~9pm, she claims Lachie ran out with a soiled nappy. She chased him, stopped by a neighbor’s, but the neighbor did not see Lachie.
  • Search continued between her house, the friend’s place, and the playground.
  • Called emergency services at 9:36pm; Lachie was found around 11:15pm.
  • Lachie’s small police hat was found near his body. (05:34)

4. Theories, Eyewitnesses, and Coroner's Findings

• Improbable Stack-Up:
  • Bonnie Sumner:

    “All of these things are possible, but when you pile them up...they’re not probable.” (07:59)

• Drowning Evidence Questioned:
  • No water in the lungs—three international experts say this is not typical for drownings, contradicting the initial pathologist. (07:59)
• Coroner on Michelle Officer:
  • Unreliable as a witness, particularly on parenting routines, affecting the credibility of her timeline. (09:23)
• Uneven Police Work:
  • Early official conclusion of accidental drowning viewed as hasty.
  • Incomplete initial police investigation:
    • Key failures: not securing the scene, not collecting phone data, not interviewing all relevant witnesses, and mishandling the autopsy. (14:48, 16:50)
• Eyewitness Testimony:
  • Six supposed witnesses saw a toddler on the route, but no confirmation it was Lachie or details about his clothing; most statements taken after the fact. (19:14–21:25)

5. Investigative Podcasting’s Role

• Journalists’ Approach:
  • Melanie Reed on their journalistic duty:

    “Our job as journalists is really to ensure that we are putting these checks and balances in for the police and for... the establishment...” (13:29)

  • The team sought independent forensic pathologists. UK expert did not support the drowning thesis. (14:48)
• Interacting with the Community:
  • Many community members felt more comfortable coming to journalists than the police. (28:16)
  • Podcasting enabled an interactive, participatory investigation beyond traditional reporting. (29:37, 29:42)

6. Police and Institutional Response

• Coroner’s Sharp Critique:

  “It is difficult to escape the lingering impression that much of what occurred was a shambles which could and should have been avoided.” (18:00)

• Calls for Third Investigation:
  • Coroner ordered a third investigation, this time led by an experienced detective from outside the region. (18:09, 31:58)
  • Comment on broader issues in Southland and New Zealand policing:

    “If they’re not doing basic policing, you know, what have we got going on in this country...?” (30:15)

7. Ongoing Theories and Community Impact

• Rumours and Alternate Theories:
  • Theories circulated, including the possibility of earlier death or involvement of other household members and post-mortem staging.
  • Coroner ultimately finds “no evidence” implicating Michelle Officer or Lachie’s brother. (24:13–24:41)
  • Notable quote on senseless rumouring:

    Coroner: “I do not think a natural reaction would be for her to pick up the phone and order a pizza with extra aioli.” (24:18)

• Unresolved Trauma:
  • Paul Jones remains resolute:

    “It’s Lockey’s time now. The police have had their chance... They’ve let my son down. But not anymore.” (34:22)

• Journalists’ Mission:
  • Melanie Reed:

    “We really did do this to highlight the systemic issues that can occur... the broader picture is with the police and their processes and the pathology...” (36:04)

• Ethical Reflections:
  • Both guests emphasize avoiding unhelpful speculation, focusing on institutional accountability and thorough investigation, for the public’s trust and future cases. (36:04, 38:12)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “No water in his lungs, highly unusual... The police dog found no scent.” – Bonnie Sumner (01:01)
• “He used to go to the swimming pool and sit on the edge because he knew he wasn’t allowed in the water until someone was with him. So why would he suddenly change his mentality?” – Paul Jones (04:09)
• “All of these things are possible, but when you pile them up... they’re not probable.” – Bonnie Sumner (07:59)
• “It is difficult to escape the lingering impression that much of what occurred was a shambles which could and should have been avoided.” – Coroner (18:00)
• “If they’re not doing basic policing... what have we got going on in this country?” – Bonnie Sumner (30:15)
• “We just think, as Bonnie said earlier, that the police investigation was shocking and that it needs to be investigated thoroughly.” – Melanie Reed (28:24)
• “I do not think a natural reaction would be for her to pick up the phone and order a pizza with extra aioli.” – Coroner (24:18)
• “We need to get the police to reinvestigate things. If they’re not going to do it, we’re going to have to force them to do it.” – Melanie Reed (28:24)
• “If something did happen to that little boy and there has been a third party involvement, other people know... the one thing that needs to be true is true.” – Bonnie Sumner (37:51)
• “I do not accept that the police investigations correctly outline what occurred that evening... the evidence does not support the propositions which the police presented as concluded fact.” – Coroner (38:12)

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Timestamped Key Segments

| Time | Segment Summary | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:04 | Introduction & case overview | | 01:01 | Initial improbabilities & father’s doubt | | 04:09 | Paul Jones on Lachie’s capabilities and routine | | 05:34 | Michelle Officer’s version of the night | | 07:59 | Journalists discuss pile-up of unlikely factors | | 09:23 | Coroner’s view on Michelle’s testimony | | 14:48 | Failures in police investigation revealed | | 18:00 | Coroner’s strong condemnation of police work | | 19:14 | Eyewitness testimonies called into question | | 24:13 | Coroner rules out involvement of Michelle & brother | | 28:16 | Community trusts journalists over police | | 30:15 | Structural issues with local policing discussed | | 31:58 | New detective to head third investigation | | 34:22 | Paul Jones’s ongoing sense of injustice | | 36:04 | Podcast’s mission—systemic accountability | | 38:12 | Coroner’s final word on police failings |

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Conclusion

This episode exposes the many unanswered questions and flawed assumptions surrounding the death of Lachie Jones, foregrounding the importance of rigorous journalism and institutional accountability. While the podcast refrains from positing a definitive alternative theory, the guests underline grave police failures—not just for this case but as a warning for future investigations. The unresolved pain of Lachie’s family and the ongoing quest for answers serve as a haunting backdrop to this exploration of grief, suspicion, and the need for reform.

Transcript

[Host]

On a warm evening in 2019, three year old New Zealand boy Lockie Jones was found deceased in an oxygenation pond about a kilometre from his house. Local police quickly declared it an accidental drowning, but the boy's father was unconvinced and remained so. He pursued the help of seasoned investigative journalists Melanie Reed and Bonnie Sumner. The show is called Delve the Boy in the Water and in the most recent season they took us, their listeners, inside the Coroner's court for a long awaited inquest. Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner join us to talk about the case. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created. The Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a Warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

[Bonnie Sumner]

It's about a little boy who was found face up in a sewage pond and the police said that he had drowned. He left home, apparently, according to the police, and went 1.2 ks down the road over the fence and he was found face up, which is highly unusual. No water in his lungs, highly unusual. The police dog found no scent, so it became a kind of pretty intriguing tale. What happened with us is that we just kept getting called by the little boy's father who's saying, look, something doesn't stack up here. I don't believe he's. You'll never in your wildest dreams, you know, be able to tell me or even imagine that he walked all that way with a full nappy at nine o' clock at night, barefoot by the way, and with no marks on his feet. So just none of that sort of stacked up. And so every which way he turned, he was to close down. The police said, no, you know, get on with your life. The pathologist did it with a drowning. And so he basically almost sort of bordered on harassing me. Yeah, he decided I was the journalist, he wanted to do it and then he just rang at me repeatedly until one there was a period where I was down in Southland covering another story. And look, you know, essentially I thought, look, I'm just gonna go and see this guy. So it was one of those situations where I kind of turned up and he took me on this walk. It was just this incredibly gray, cold day. I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life. And I grew up in a cold climate and we sort of did this kind of miserable wander through the mist from the little boy's house, Lockie, where he'd been living all the way out over the gate, through the pickles, up the bank, da, da, da. All the way down into them for ages. And it was just like, wow, this doesn't stack.

[Paul Jones]

Just in close to the bank here.

[Bonnie Sumner]

He was found and you were here that night.

[Paul Jones]

I actually didn't see where he was found, but they put a stick out here where he was located.

[Host]

Having read the recent inquest findings, the coroner's findings, a lot of people have successfully disputed the father's ideas about what may have happened. A lot of other people's ideas. There's a lot of rumours. It's one of those stories, isn't it, where a lot of people have weighed in and said, oh, the body was cold when they found it. I think it was in a freezer. I think that he was killed earlier in the day. There's lots of wild rumors around the place. If we can go back to the relationship between Lockie's parents, because I think that's key in our understanding how this has become so contentious when the police have sort of said, well, it's Occam's razor, really. It's pretty simple. What can you tell us about Michelle, Officer Locky's mum, and Paul Jones, his dad, and where they were at when this happened?

[Bonnie Sumner]

Well, Paul is a bit of a rough diamond, let's put it that way. Or he's like a likable rogue.

[Paul Jones]

I know my son didn't walk out there on Was dad, and I know what he was capable of. And not running out of a House at 9 o' clock at night and jumping over some fence and jumping a bloody pond was not what he was capable of. He used to go to the swimming pool and sit on the edge because he knew he wasn't allowed in the water until someone was with him. So why would he suddenly change his mentality?

[Bonnie Sumner]

I think they'd had a bit of a tumultuous relationship and there had been a court hearing where he was accused of being abusive and he wasn't allowed near the house, et cetera. He wasn't allowed to see Lockie, but that had all been revoked at the time, so things had brought out. And at the time, he'd stayed two nights at the house and they were planning to go to Dunedin, which was a few hours away, to stay the weekend in the motel, so. So by all accounts, that looked like things were kind of improving.

[Host]

Well, he says that they were actually working on reconciling, doesn't he? She. Michelle disputes that, says, no, that was never the case, but at least they were Talking.

[Bonnie Sumner]

They were definitely talking. He'd stayed the night and the text between each other were kind of bordering on, kind of bit flirtatious as well. So I don't think at the time when Lockie disappeared that it wasn't a hostile situation between them, put it that way.

[Michelle Officer]

According to her police statement, this is what Locky's mother says happened at around 9pm she'd looked at her clock. Lockie ran out of the house. He had a soiled nappy. She caught up with him at her friend's house. The friend said she never actually saw him, but while they were talking, he ran off again. Both women returned to the mother's house before heading to the playground. They returned to look again around the mother's place and then at the friends. The women went along the street towards the river, speaking to people along the way. Before going down Grasslands Road. The mother says she climbed over a wooden fence beside the gate and went up on the bank looking for a bright yellow vest. At 9:36 she called 111. It was roughly half an hour that he'd been gone. At 11.15pm, around two hours since he'd gone missing, an officer and his police dog found Lachie floating in the water. There was no chance of reviving him. His little replica police had was a few metres from his body.

[Host]

It does come across to me and I've come in at the very, not the end of the story, but very late stage story that it appears that it's at least possible that this terrible tragedy has happened and that Lockie's dad Paul is looking to blame somebody and is perhaps chasing shadows.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Well, I think the difficulty with the case is that there are so many things that are improbable. Okay, did he walk? 1.2 K. Yes, it's possible, but it's not probable.

[Host]

But also in the inquest it was suggested that it wasn't that far, for one thing, that it was about 800 or 900 metres. If he went into the pond at the north end, that kids do that. And I must admit, when I was reading that evidence from his kinder teacher and other people just sort of saying, look, you know, yeah, a toddler can run that far if he takes the mind to it. I kept thinking about the fact that my daughter stuffed a battery up a nose when she was two and a half. And after that I thought, okay, there's no rules here. These kids can do weird shit.

[Bonnie Sumner]

That's exactly right. But what we've got is a pylon of improbable sort of propositions, I suppose, like they're all possible, but when you pile them up, they're possible, but they're not probable. That's why I think the story's been quite intriguing for people, because you have to accept all of those things that he was found face up, that he had no water in his lungs, that the dog found no scent, that he went 1.2 ks with a full nappy, no marks on his feet. Now, you can. You can write off all of those things, like individually, but collectively, it's pretty interesting when you stack them all up. I mean, I personally have a problem. He's got no water in his lungs. So I think that that's my difficulty. There's not a drowning expert in the world that will tell you that CPR will mean that the water comes, is expelled from the lungs. The quote, the pathologist who was brought in for the Crown, he said it would be. It makes sense, doesn't it? There is no literature, but it makes sense, doesn't it, that the water would be expelled from the lungs. Now, we've since engaged three international drowning experts that say that is simply not correct.

[Host]

I think also perhaps what maybe muddies the water and creates this Swiss cheese effect that you're talking about, that would have to work out perfectly for the Crown's case to make sense. What adds to that is Michelle, Officer Lockie's mum's evidence, which again, the coroner said was unreliable. He stopped short of saying she was lying about everything, but he said in particular, he found her evidence around her parenting unreliable. He felt as though she was ashamed of elements of her parenting, embarrassed, and so gave answers that were inaccurate because she thought it was what you were meant to do, for example. Oh, yes. Locky had a very strict routine. We had dinner at 6pm every night and he was in bed at 7:30pm And. And her eldest son disputed that. Her older son disputed all of that. So then the coroner said, well, it makes it hard then to know how accurate her evidence is around the night, doesn't it? Around what time she realised he was missing and how long he was unsupervised and all of those things.

[Bonnie Sumner]

I mean, that's what he found. Having listened to her on the stand for a couple of days now, we haven't had the privilege, I suppose, of being able to interview her. So it was pretty interesting for us as well, because we've repeatedly asked her to participate and she's refused. And so it was pretty interesting for us, being in that coroner's hearing. Hearing how she responded to some of the allegations and to the coroner's questions and indeed Paul Jones, her ex's lawyer, how she responded to him, which wasn't particularly favorable.

[Paul Jones' Lawyer]

We're going to talk to Paul Jones, the father of Lockie, now your lawyer. He asked Lachlan's mother, your former partner Michelle Officer, and her two older sons that they were involved potentially in the killing of the boy and storing his body in a freezer before dumping it and devising fake alibis as well as neglecting her son. Now, those propositions were put to Michelle Officer and her two sons, your then two stepsons at the time. Is that where you want the police to continue to focus their next inquiry if they do launch a third?

[Bonnie Sumner]

Yeah.

[Host]

Cause she says that she. It was a normal night around the place, long, long day. She's trying to change Locky's nappy at about 9ish, I think, or maybe just before 9, he's doing again something toddlers do, which turns it into a game, which is very frustrating for parents trying to just get it done. So she abandons the nappy change, she leaves him at the table watching YouTube and she goes to help her older son Jonathan with his weights. When she comes back to the kitchen, she realises he's gone and she sees him out the kitchen window running down the street. She knows it's his high vis vest that everyone talks about, his little vest. So part of, again, part of the weird stuff that has to happen is that Locky has to figure out how to open the door to get out, which apparently he'd never done before. And then when she catches up with him down the street, by the way, she decides to drop in on a neighbour down the street. The neighbour never actually spotted Locky in the kitchen while they were chatting, all of that. But again, you have to wonder, so how much of this unlikely scenario is actually down to inaccuracies in Michelle office's telling of how the night played out? Like, is it possible she left the door open because it was really hot? She said she left the front gate open because she went to buy pizzas. Is it possible she left him unattended for a while as all possible? Yeah, yeah.

[Bonnie Sumner]

I mean, that's why I guess people find the story so compelling because all of these things are, is that possible? Is that likely? Could that have happened? Could this have happened?

[Host]

And it's what invites theories, isn't it?

[Bonnie Sumner]

Indeed.

[Melanie Reed]

And I mean also what invites theories is, and this is the reason we really did this case in the first place. Was because police really made such a rash conclusion that he had drowned. I mean, it was almost immediate, really. And, you know, our job as journalists is really to ensure that we are putting these checks and balances in for the police and for, for, for the establishment, essentially. And so what we discovered was that the police case was very substandard and that's really where we came in.

[Host]

If you'd like to talk to someone about abuse that's taken place in your life, no matter how long ago it happened, your GP is always a good place to start. If that's not going to work for you, you can contact 1-800-RESPECT on 1-800-737-732 or via their website, 1-800-RESPECT or you can call Lifeline's 24 hour phone counselling service on 1311 14.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Because if you go to the beginning of this case, you know, we arrived in town and the case was closed and we did an investigation. And, you know, because I'm a pretty old school journalist, you know, we were, when we were trained, we had to read detectives manuals and we kind of know what's meant to happen. And I've done years doing criminal cases, so, you know how it's all meant to roll. And so when it doesn't, it's like an alert system straight away. So when we first came to town, case closed. And so we did it, we did a big story saying, these are the things that haven't happened. The scene wasn't secured, the cell phone data wasn't collected. I'm just coming off the top of my head, the body was sent to the wrong pathologist, the interviews of key witnesses weren't done for months, et cetera, et cetera. And so then there was a new police investigation, or there was a. There was another police investigation, I should say. And then they did that and then that was closed. And that's when we secured the lung tissue sample slides of Lachi. And we actually thought, look, we're going outside of New Zealand. So we went to a forensic pathologist in the UK who said, look, there's not the pathological evidence to support this diagnosis of drowning. And so that then is when there was a, you know, the thing that followed that was the coroner's inquest. So it's been going on for quite some time. And look, we don't know what happened and, you know, there are lots of balls in the air, as everybody knows, and there are lots of rumors, as you say, but I think there's a couple of things for me, there's a couple of things that have always been concerning. One, he's got no water in his lungs. It's pretty hard to drown with no water in your lungs. And he's found faith up. And also, you know, the most concerning thing of all was the total ineptitude of the police. They haven't secured any CCTV footage, they haven't interviewed people.

[Host]

The autopsy was, was less than thorough, wasn't it? I mean, there was no check.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Well, the autopsy was not less than thorough, but autopsy was a disgrace, right?

[Host]

Yep.

[Bonnie Sumner]

It was sent to the wrong pathologist, so who was sent to a non forensic pathologist and then they did a half ass job, so to speak, and didn't do certain things that are required for just a general pathology. So then you have all these situations where you can't establish what happened because of the ineptitude of the establishment, meaning the police, the pathologist and so on.

[Host]

So we've got either drowning with uncommon characteristics being no water in the lungs, or any other possibilities we have no evidence about because of the lack of autopsy, because we don't know if there were head injuries. We don't know.

[Melanie Reed]

Yes.

[Bonnie Sumner]

And not getting the cell phone data, for example, not securing the scene, not fingerprinting, taking way too long to talk to key witnesses, not even interviewing people that worked around at those sewerage ponds. It was a fiasco, it was an absolute shambles. And we said that, you know, five years ago and the coroner has said that in his findings as well.

[Coroner]

Bluntly, it is difficult to escape the lingering impression that much of what occurred was a shambles which could and should have been avoided.

[Host]

Yeah, he's absolutely not held back when it comes to the police investigation. In fact, he's ordered a third investigation investigation, which is pretty extraordinary by Australian standards, I'm sure by New Zealand standards as well, to order the police to go back for a third time.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Yeah, well, that's why they meant to do it properly in the first place. But it is difficult to try and do another investigation when so much of the evidence has been lost. And that's why the story keeps going on and on, because there's a number of cases I've done that have. Had they done the job properly in the first place, the investigators, we wouldn't be having these debates about what happened because we would know, you know, the proper forensic autopsy would have been done. We'd know, you know, if there were tire tracks around the pond or if someone had, you know, other people had gone through the gate, if she was where she said she was because they would have got all the CCTV footage, but they did nothing. So it makes it extremely difficult.

[Host]

There were six witnesses who came forward and said that they saw little Locky running, charging down there in exactly the direction that Michelle Officer, his mum, said that he had, that he'd run from home down to these oxidation ponds, and they said that they saw him running by himself. What do you make of that?

[Melanie Reed]

Well, that's one of the biggest assumptions, I think, that is that has happened throughout this entire case, is that what actually happened is, you know, the police made the decision, based on this eyewitness evidence, that all of these people had seen a little child on the street at that time and that from that point onwards, that was the decision that was made. Well, these people saw him, so therefore that was him and therefore he went to the ponds exactly as was described. But actually, if you break it down and you look at each individual eyewitness, there is no one that said on the night that they saw a boy in a hiver's vest or a little child in a hiver's vest on the night before. Everyone in the neighborhood all started talking to each other about what they had seen, that this little boy, Locky, had gone missing, what he was wearing, what time it all happened.

[Host]

So.

[Melanie Reed]

So all of the statements were taken the following day or later. Four of them were children, so two children and two young teens. And there was one of the young teens had been talked to by a police officer that night who did say that she saw 2m, which just means missing person on the corner of the two streets. She is the only one that's mentioned anything she doesn't mention. There's no mention of a Hiver's Best or that it's Lockie or anything like that.

[Host]

So I think when you're working from.

[Melanie Reed]

A point of view of the assumption that this is all correct and that there are no issues with eyewitness evidence, and we know that there is throughout the world, in lots of different cases, particularly criminal cases, then you sort of need to rewind a little bit and go, well, actually, is this accurate? I mean, one of the eyewitnesses said that he saw him five years later is when he said he saw them for the first time. It's the first time he told police.

[Host]

I mean, I find it hard, honestly, though, to take issue with even five eyewitnesses who reported within 24 hours that they saw a toddler, whether or not he was wearing high vis exactly where his mum says Locky was running. I mean, surely we have to give. Otherwise we're throwing out the entire idea of eyewitnesses. If we can't give some credibility to that.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Well, I think, look, there's issues with the eyewitnesses. Let's say that, you know, one was 6 and one was 11. One came forward years later even though he'd been spoken to the police, you know, three or four times. Look, there are issues with the eyewitnesses. There are issues in just about every which way you turn. We're not saying one way or the other that we think. We're not. We don't know if he just went out there on his own steam and down in the water and drown. We don't know that. But I think what we do know is that the assumption that he drowned was made far too quickly and without evidence. Yeah, and there's certainly a lot of anomalies. There's certainly a lot of weird things that have to just be weird and stack up. And I think the other thing is that, you know, you have to work on the basis that everybody's telling the truth. And I'm not convinced about that. So, I mean, Paul Jones will tell you until he's blue in the face and you can say, well, that's his. He's got an agenda, or whatever. But other people have said it as well that there's no way that she went with Lockie to the depot that afternoon.

[Host]

That was her workplace, by the way, that they both worked at, both parents worked at the same depot.

[Bonnie Sumner]

And that is why Paul Jones says, look, this is why I knew something was wrong because why are all these things being made up? That, I mean, this is his point of view. I mean, I knew something didn't stack up because why on earth would she need to say that she'd come to the depot with Lockie when she hadn't? Why on earth was she saying that I couldn't come around when I was. I was going to come around. Why did she come here at 4:00'?

[Michelle Officer]

Clock?

[Bonnie Sumner]

And that's, I think, was, you know, rightly or wrongly. And you can have whatever opinion you want about that, but I'm just explaining that that is one of the big reasons that that drove him to go. Something's not right here. Because he will say that there's no way that she came to that depot that day. And other people say that too.

[Host]

Well, that lends itself then to the theory that she killed her son Lockie sometime earlier in a fit of frustration, and then his body was dumped in the ponds. But there are a lot of. There's a lot of evidence to dispute that.

[Narrator/Voiceover]

The coroner concluded his mother, Michelle officer had nothing to do with his death.

[Coroner]

I accept that a morally moribund mother who accidentally killed her child in a momentary fit of violent exasperation might well panic and try to cover it up. But I do not think a natural reaction would be for her to pick up the phone and order a pizza with extra aioli.

[Narrator/Voiceover]

Similarly, his brother Cameron Scott cannot be placed at or near the scene.

[Coroner]

There is no evidence to suggest that Cameron was involved in the circumstances of Locky's disappearance.

[Narrator/Voiceover]

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[Melanie Reed]

What we've always said is, you know, we would hope that police start their investigations from the start as opposed to, you know, regurgitating others findings.

[Host]

How can they though?

[Melanie Reed]

Well, there's still quite a few elements that are missing that they haven't investigated as long as they go and get everything that they can get from this point on. You know, one of the big ones is the cell phone data. I mean, there's still plenty that they can get from that that they have never done across two investigations and a police review of those investigations. And I think if anyone who loses someone in mysterious circumstances like that, a loved one, you'd think that you would want to understand the circumstances of that death and especially just members of the public, you know, that we would want to be able to have faith in our institution that if that happened to us, that they would do a thorough job.

[Bonnie Sumner]

They could start with interviewing people that were at the house that night because a lot of them haven't been interviewed.

[Host]

Okay, so tell me about that. Because according to again the coroner's report, there were only two people, three people at the house that night. Lockie, the baby, Michelle, his mum, and Jonathon his brother.

[Bonnie Sumner]

After he was found, who turned up then?

[Host]

Who all was there?

[Bonnie Sumner]

There was a lot of people there.

[Host]

Okay. With the phone records having still not been investigated, that's one end of the technological problem here. Can you talk about the Facebook messenger issues?

[Bonnie Sumner]

Yeah. So a young girl who had grown up with the two brothers because her mother had been in a relationship with the boy's father. She had Facebook messages from the brother's friend saying that the brother had thrown him into the pond and described it. And she said that those messages happened at the time or soon after. And then she went back while the inquest was on and said to this individual, his name was Tyler, she said, do you remember when you said johnny threw Lockie into the pond, bro? And he said, yes, you told you.

[Melanie Reed]

Haha.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Yeah. So the messages were there so you could see them. So there was no question that he'd said this. So that kind of caused a bit of a Ferrari, because it meant that the police then went and sort of interviewed Johnny and said, did you say this? And he said, no. And then the Tyler guy said, no, I was just like taking the P or whatever, but all the messages are there. And then what we were trying to do with the phones, and we're still trying actually, is to get her original phone where these messages were sent to her at a much earlier point.

[Host]

But you're having trouble with Facebook and Meta, right?

[Bonnie Sumner]

Oh, yeah, big trouble, yeah. They know they're not very corrupt.

[Host]

No. Well, how long ago was it? A year or two, when they were very proud of their new encryption, messaging encryption, which law enforcement said all over the world, well, that's a disaster. And that's really good news for criminals.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Yeah. I think the other thing is that a lot of people come to us that wouldn't go to the police.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Bonnie Sumner]

So there's quite a few other aspects that we could investigate. And look, we have never said either which way what we think's happened here. We just think, as Bonnie said earlier, that the police investigation was shocking and that it needs to be investigated thoroughly. And I think that kind of like a long time ago, we just decided if we're going to do journalism, we need to do results journalism. So we need to get a result, but we need to get the police to reinvestigate things. If they're not going to do it, we're going to have to force them to do it. And that's what we've sort of done with quite a lot of our work. Like instead of just sort of standing outside and observing, we're now participating, I suppose, or being part of that investigation. And I think that's what's interesting about podcasting, is that we have a kind of quite an interactive audience and people listen who have been involved or know the family or were there and they will tend to come to us. But there's no one hell that they're going to go to the police. So we do, and we do now have a sort of interesting role. So we can work with the police on. On some of this, as long as we protect our sources.

[Melanie Reed]

Obviously, a little bit different to your 60 Minutes in 2020 days, Melanie.

[Host]

Yeah, but you're right, it is what we love about podcasts, and podcasts like yours in particular, the ongoing investigation, the in depth following along and getting results. And increasingly, podcasts like yours do get results in the real world, which feels good for those of us invested in them. What do you think is the problem with the police investigation here? Is it, is it. I mean, this is a small community, Gore. Right. Is it lack of experience, is it lack of training, is it resources? What would you suggest, change?

[Bonnie Sumner]

Well, as they just haven't done basic policing, so if they're not doing basic policing, you know, what have we got going on in this country if basic policing isn't being done? What I know is it is a Southland issue, if I can say that right now, which is the kind of area, and specifically to this case, and there are other cases, obviously, that I've worked on throughout the years where investigations have been substandard as well. And I think the interesting thing, probably for New Zealanders, is that this is probably the first time, at least in a podcast format, that they've actually been taken kind of every step about what didn't happen, what should have happened, right through to the Coroner's inquest, who also analyzes what did happen and then what should have happened. And I think we've also got no police complaints that have been dismissed. We've had senior police coming down, doing investigations on the investigation, which. Which says it's fine. And so then we've also got things like the Police Conduct Authority, where people are asking, well, if this is what the coroner finds when he has a good look at the situation or the investigation by the police, like that. It was as, to quote him, was a debacle. There are things like the Conduct Authority, are they fit the purpose?

[Host]

Who will conduct this third investigation then? Why should we have faith in another investigation by New Zealand police?

[Bonnie Sumner]

Well, look, that remains to be seen, but the start is he's from outer district, so that's a good start, because the second investigation was sort of done by a detective that was kind of from that area. So he's a detective from up north with, you know, over 30 years experience. So let's see how it goes.

[Host]

I know that you, you, you don't know Michelle, officer. You've tried to get to know her, but she's not interested in participating in the. In the investigation, your investigation or the podcast. But how is Paul Jones, Lockie's dad, holding up? This has been six years now, six years since his Son was found dead in a PO pond. You know, he's been able to work. How has it affected his life? He's, he's chasing down a better explanation for what happened.

[Bonnie Sumner]

He's quite up and down as was explained to me recently by him and his, as his sidekick Karen Maguire. You know, you have these incredible highs and then you hit these incredible lows and I think he's worn out, I think he's broke from paying lawyers. He continues to work on that career run. He has huge support in that town because people just want to know what happened. He's definitely pretty high and pretty low in terms of like, you know, one moment there's a kind of okay, there's a new investigation, so that's fantastic. But then he's like, oh God, what if they do the same old thing? So he's pretty tired but he's not giving up because he is totally convinced that something other than a drowning happened to his son.

[Host]

Yeah, I can understand how you couldn't give up if you genuinely believed that.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Yeah. And I think there are a few reasons for him to believe that. I know that I've sort of said to him, look, you know, there are, there are people that say to me look, Paul probably just needs to, you know, put it down and move on. And he's got really cross and said, well you know, I have to sit and watch everyone, you know, I should be taking Locky to rugby practice and I should be picking him up from school and everybody else is doing that and you know, the best I've got is to go and visit the cemetery. So you know, go to hell basically when, when that's suggested. And so I don't there's any way he's going to be giving up.

[Paul Jones]

It's Lockey's time now. The police have had their chance of let Locky down. He's a three year old wee boy. They've let my son down. But not anymore.

[Host]

He had a contentious or just a bad relationship with Michelle Officer's older sons Cameron and Jonathan who were teenagers. So I'm not suggesting that they were involved in Lockie's death but I guess when they were Lockie was living in the house with his ex partner and the two sons that he didn't get along with who were teenagers and then he died and his dad doesn't think there's been a reasonable explanation as to why or how I can understand his passion.

[Bonnie Sumner]

Well, I think that, you know, Paul Jones would say that he did have some good times with those kids. The older boys. But, I mean, obviously that's just what he's saying. So he would say, look, I, I, I did, you know, I used to take them to rugby, I used to support them. But I think, you know, that it was fairly tumultuous by the end there. And I don't think Paul's any angel.

[Host]

No, but at the end of the day, it's a pretty normal family. You know, it's just one of those horrible things that's happened to pretty normal people. And reading people's testimony, I can't help but kind of empathize, sympathise with everyone. And I think I probably would bullshit a bit about my parenting skills if I were in this situation. You know, I think, I think we all want. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do it enough to the school about what time they go to bed and things like that. You know, there's a lot of shame around single motherhood, around motherhood, around parenting. And certainly when something terrible has happened to your baby, there's a lot of blame and a lot of shame.

[Melanie Reed]

You know, the ethics around doing true crime, you know, we, we really did do this to highlight the systemic issues that can occur. It is about Lockie and Lockie's death, but it is also the broader picture is with the police and their processes and the pathology and, you know, what we've tried to do with the boy in the water is this is what happens when you really take a forensic look. You're not doing a news story, you're actually taking a forensic look about systemic issues in the hopes that they don't get repeated for other people in the future.

[Host]

Which is why it's so great that you got an inquest, I think. Cause as I said, that's the role of the Coroner's Court as well. Were you happy with the inquest? Do you think it went far enough?

[Melanie Reed]

Yeah, I think there were very successful parts to it. You know, there were some really sharp lawyers in that court and there were also some moments that were pretty questionable. But look, the whole idea of even being invited to be in the inquest and to bring listeners into the inquest every day was, I think, quite exceptional as well. So people could really hear what actually happens during an inquest. And I mean, I don't know what the laws are like in Australia, but I know, you know, having listened to, like, Teachers Pet and Lady Vanishes and things like that, you know, you're not taken inside the court. You're getting actors to read the parts. You're, you know, making Commentary, things like that. So to actually be brought inside the courtroom every single day and then to have to do that turnaround every single night, it was pretty full on times. You know, to be able to do that was really phenomenal.

[Bonnie Sumner]

If something did happen to that little boy and there has been a third party involvement, other people know, we have this sort of saying in what we do. Some of the old producers I work with, you know, the one thing that needs to be true is true and it's like, if there was something sinister that happened, there are other people that know.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Melanie Reed]

I mean, I think the coroner put it quite well when he said, I do not accept that the police investigations correctly outline what occurred that evening. Indeed, I have found in many instances that the evidence does not support the propositions which the police presented as concluded fact. So that's what he said in his inquest findings. And so, you know, you just have to hope that the referral to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, the pathologist to the Medical Council and of course to the police for a third investigation, that we might get somewhere a bit further than we have right now.

[Host]

Thank you to our guests, Melanie Reed and Bonnie Sumner. Their podcast Delve the Boy in the Water is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org AU. Indigenous Australians can contact 13 Yarn on 139276 or 13yarn.org A.

[Bonnie Sumner]

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders.

[Coroner]

Past, present and those emerging.