The 33-year-old had been in the country for less than two weeks and was due to return to Australia two days later. His girlfriend managed to escape, running two kilometres in the dark to raise the alarm.

News of the death spread fast, and to Sean’s family in Victoria, Australia, including his sister Emmeline, a leading senior constable with the Victorian Police.

When two of her colleagues knocked on her door, Sean’s body was still inside the van that his killer had taken off in, and neither had been found.

Emmeline, a cop for 17 years, knows that explaining the death of a loved one to a family is a challenging and necessary part of the job, “but no amount of training can prepare someone for having to do it to their own family”, she says. “It was horrifying because I couldn’t even place where he was. I kept asking how they knew he was dead if they hadn’t found him yet.”

Emmeline flew to Auckland and headed to Raglan, where Sean had been killed. “By the time we landed in New Zealand, they had found the van dumped with Sean’s body inside, and I just wanted to see him.”

Meanwhile, The Police Association of Victoria (TPAV) had liaised with the New Zealand Police Association, which organised a hire car and accommodation for Emmeline as she tried to learn more about what happened.

Waikato District had an investigation team on the case – Detective Inspector Graham Pitkethley, Detective Sergeant Rene Rakete and Detective Senior Sergeant Ross Patterson – who became her point of contact.

While the motive for Sean’s murder was hard to fathom, the subsequent manhunt was comparatively straightforward. Sean’s killer showed up at an address not far from where he dumped the van, 80 kilometres away in Hamilton. The arrest was made within 18 hours of the murder and nine hours after Sean’s body was found.

Detective Inspector Pitkethley says empathy was a focus for the investigation team. “Our victim liaison team kept the family informed of progress. Every member of the team who met the family and the victim ensured that they were as comfortable as they could be in such tragic circumstances. It was important for the team to show that New Zealand was a welcoming and safe place.”

Over the following months, and in the lead-up to the Covid-19 pandemic, Emmeline returned to New Zealand four times to be in court to represent Sean and her family through various stages of the criminal case against 24-year-old Mark Garson.

The burden of following the case, keeping her family updated with progress, grieving for her brother, working to settle his estate and also working as a police officer took a toll.

“I remember I was on the van one shift and I got called out to a dead body. It wasn’t particularly traumatic for me, but I just had nothing left for the family involved and I remember walking into my sergeant’s office and saying, ‘I’ve got nothing for this job, I’ve got nothing for the public and I’ve got nothing for my colleagues either; it’s not fair on anyone, I just need you to put me in an office somewhere for a bit’, and he said that wasn’t a problem.”

She followed subsequent court hearings via phone link. She planned to return to New Zealand and quarantine before the trial, due to be held in November last year. But in October 2020, Garson changed his plea to guilty and Emmeline made it back to New Zealand for his sentencing – 15½ years’ non-parole.

For Waikato Police, the successful prosecution and sentence ended their duty to Sean and his family, but not their commitment, Emmeline says. “New Zealand is a very cultural and spiritual place.
The crime scene examiner was a really lovely man and he said there was some of Sean’s blood from the crime scene that he didn’t want to just wash down a drain.

“He asked my permission to wash it into the sea nearby because he lived in the mountains just behind where Sean died, and it had deeply impacted him. That was very nice of him and Sean was treated with complete dignity by them, as were we.”

Before Sean’s body was flown home to Australia, a service was held in Auckland, where kaumātua from Raglan presented his girlfriend and siblings with greenstone taonga to reflect the remorse of the community.

Detective Inspector Pitkethley and a member of the victim liaison team travelled to Australia for Sean’s funeral. In another gesture, Detective Sergeant Rakete asked his father, who lives in Australia, to lay flowers for Sean on his behalf.

“I will always remain in contact with those people, even if it’s just a Christmas card once a year. They will always be connected to my family and to me,” Emmeline says.
– Story supplied by The Police Association of Victoria Journal, with additional material from NZ Police.