Speaker 1: Kilda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. On the
Speaker 2: twenty ninth of January twenty nineteen, three year old Gore
Speaker 2: toddler Lockey Jones was found dead in an oxidation pond
Speaker 2: a little over a kilometer away from his mother's home.
Speaker 2: Two police investigations concluded Lockey drowned, but his father, Paul Jones,
Speaker 2: does not accept these findings and believes he was murdered.
Speaker 2: Ahead of the second phase of a coronial inquest into
Speaker 2: Locke's death, his mother, Michelle Officer, has spoken for the
Speaker 2: first time to The Herald's Ben tom Set about her
Speaker 2: side of the story. Today on the Front Page, Ben
Speaker 2: tom Set joins us to digest asked that interview and
Speaker 2: how this case has evolved.
Speaker 1: Ben, can we start with the.
Speaker 2: Established facts of that night and twenty nineteen. What have
Speaker 2: police concluded happened to Locke Jones?
Speaker 3: So, two police investigations have found that Lockie Jones died
Speaker 3: by drowning in the Council oxidation pond and Gore on
Speaker 3: that night. Police have concluded that Locke did walk to
Speaker 3: the pond. His body was found one point two kilometers
Speaker 3: from his home, which is walking distance from his mother's home.
Speaker 3: His body was discovered face up underwater in the oxidation
Speaker 3: pond by a police dog handler. He was unable to
Speaker 3: be revived when he was pulled from the water, and
Speaker 3: the subsequent investigation year found that Lockie had drowned. They
Speaker 3: followed it up with another investigation ruling the same conclusion.
Speaker 4: The toddler was found dead in a council oxidation pond
Speaker 4: five years ago, about a kilometer from his school home.
Speaker 4: The general pathologist to conducted the little boy's autopsy since
Speaker 4: he was told it wasn't a suspicious death, so conducted
Speaker 4: a general autopsy and didn't look for signs of foul play.
Speaker 2: So Paul Jones, his father, has vocally disputed this version
Speaker 2: of events, right to the point that you noted in
Speaker 2: one article he was the driving force behind this inquest
Speaker 2: we're talking about today.
Speaker 1: What is he argued.
Speaker 3: So Paul has long disputed the two police investigations, and
Speaker 3: he's been arguing that his son was murdered. During the inquest,
Speaker 3: allegations were flat out leveled at the mother of Lockie Jones,
Speaker 3: Paul's expartner and Michelle's other sons, and basically Paul believes
Speaker 3: that either Lockie's mother or his brothers somehow had a
Speaker 3: role to play in his death.
Speaker 1: How older is brothers at the time?
Speaker 3: Johnny Officer who was living with Michelle and Lockey at
Speaker 3: the time, he was sixteen years old. He's now twenty one,
Speaker 3: and Cameron he was nineteen at the time.
Speaker 2: You were at the first stage of the coronial inquest
Speaker 2: earlier this year for the Herald.
Speaker 1: What is the purpose of this inquest?
Speaker 3: The purpose of the inquest is to establish the facts
Speaker 3: and the timeline leading up to Locke's death and how
Speaker 3: exactly he died. So now basically just trying to establish
Speaker 3: a factual timeline and the actual facts of how Locke died.
Speaker 5: He's no logic to it all. If he wanted to
Speaker 5: jump and he would to jump in at the first
Speaker 5: poond to walk through all that rap terrain, preckles, thistles, stones,
Speaker 5: it was sheepshitt where it would have been all over speed.
Speaker 5: We went out there the next day. He had cupped
Speaker 5: some marks on our feet or bites in that and
Speaker 5: yet he arrived at the funeral home of Purple perfect condition.
Speaker 5: Not one mark on him. How does that add up?
Speaker 5: There's no forensics done and that the whole thing was
Speaker 5: shut down that night should have never been shut down.
Speaker 5: The police didn't do their job. He has experienced people there,
Speaker 5: They knew what their job was. They haven't done it,
Speaker 5: and I want to know why.
Speaker 2: That inquest, it revealed a confused chain of command amongst
Speaker 2: police at the scene.
Speaker 1: What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3: So during the initial investigation, there was some confusion amongst
Speaker 3: the responding officers about who was in charge. To put
Speaker 3: it plainly, it seems like they were ill equipped for
Speaker 3: the immediate investigation on the night and formal chain command
Speaker 3: was not established. Two of the responding officers both believed
Speaker 3: the other to be in charge, and.
Speaker 2: The pathologist who performed Locke's autopsy was also questioned as
Speaker 2: a part of that.
Speaker 1: Hey, what was their testimony?
Speaker 3: So he had name Suppression. The pathologists who conducted the
Speaker 3: autopsy had named Suppression. But they did talk about examining
Speaker 3: Lockie's body and the days after he was found dead,
Speaker 3: and his pathologist report has been criticized by senior pathologists.
Speaker 3: They did note that conducting pathology reports on children was
Speaker 3: not their general criteria, but because the autopsy was conducted
Speaker 3: in for cargol. Circumstances led to this particular pathologists conducting
Speaker 3: the autopsy, and they said they went into the autopsy
Speaker 3: on the assumption that Locke had been drowned, because that
Speaker 3: had been noted on the police report. So his lung
Speaker 3: were not checked for water, but they were a weighed
Speaker 3: and his head was not opened up, so it was
Speaker 3: not established whether there had been any damage to Locke's
Speaker 3: head or anything like that. But the weight of his lungs,
Speaker 3: there is some dispute about the weight of his lungs
Speaker 3: not being in line with the weight that would be
Speaker 3: expected if Lockie had drowned.
Speaker 2: During those three weeks, the lawyer for Paul Jones repeatedly
Speaker 2: insinuated that Lockie's mother, Michelle Officer, and her two older
Speaker 2: sons had a role to play in this death. Like
Speaker 2: you mentioned before, how did those examinations play out in
Speaker 2: the inquest?
Speaker 3: So, Paul Jones's lawyer, Max Simpkins, he held quite lengthy
Speaker 3: examinations of Michelle Officer, her sons and other witnesses. Michelle
Speaker 3: Officer's evidence went for two days and throughout those two days,
Speaker 3: Max did put it quite bluntly that well, he asked
Speaker 3: bluntly if Michelle had had a role in Locke's death.
Speaker 3: He asked her if Lockey was put in a freezer,
Speaker 3: what she denied, And he basically asked her several times
Speaker 3: and in multiple different ways, if she or her other
Speaker 3: sons had anything to do with Lockey's death. The same
Speaker 3: win for when her sons were on the stand, he
Speaker 3: asked them very bluntly if Lockey had died earlier that
Speaker 3: day and been put in a freezer while they figured
Speaker 3: out what to do with them, which they denied. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he put her multiple ways. He put multiple accusations and
Speaker 3: insinuations that Michelle or her sons had something to do
Speaker 3: with the death or were otherwise involved in the cover up.
Speaker 2: You spoke with Michelle recently in her first media interview
Speaker 2: in the five years since her son died. Given the
Speaker 2: media coverage this case has had that she has not
Speaker 2: participated in. How did this interview come about? Why did
Speaker 2: she want to speak now?
Speaker 3: So I have been in slight contact with Michelle for
Speaker 3: a little while now, speaking about the potential for an
Speaker 3: interview which she was really hesitant to partake, and she
Speaker 3: has said that she does have faith in the justice system,
Speaker 3: but despite the finding of the police investigations, it was
Speaker 3: becoming clear that the story almost has a life of
Speaker 3: its own, and she felt the need to speak out
Speaker 3: against the allegations that have continued to be propagated despite
Speaker 3: the official findings. So she was very reluctant, but essentially
Speaker 3: wanted to have people understand what she's been going through
Speaker 3: throughout these past five years.
Speaker 2: In Ben's piece, he wrote about how in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: Michelle Officer read in a local newspaper that a headstone
Speaker 2: unveiling ceremony had been scheduled for Locke's birthday. When she
Speaker 2: reached out to the local funeral home, she was advised
Speaker 2: to seek legal counsel. The headstone omitted any mention of
Speaker 2: Locke's mother or brothers. Here's a voice actor reading what
Speaker 2: Michelle told the Herald about that experience and what the
Speaker 2: last five years.
Speaker 1: Have been like for her.
Speaker 6: Me and my children went up to Lockey's grave that
Speaker 6: night after dark, because we knew no one would be there,
Speaker 6: because I didn't want to walk into an ambush of people.
Speaker 6: So we walked up to the site on his birthday
Speaker 6: and it was already there. It just destroyed us. I
Speaker 6: honestly thought we would have done a headstone together, father,
Speaker 6: mother and brothers. That's not where I go to remember
Speaker 6: Lockey because it brings back all those feelings and accusations.
Speaker 6: I'm still really grieving, and I've been accused of not
Speaker 6: grieving as a story. It keeps coming up in the
Speaker 6: media every few months. Just makes me feel sick with anxiety.
Speaker 6: It hasn't stopped for five and a half years. I
Speaker 6: just want to grieve in private. It's cruel and unfair.
Speaker 6: And the people making these judgments, how would they cope
Speaker 6: with it? Words can't express what you go through.
Speaker 1: How does she remember Locke?
Speaker 3: It's clear that she really loved Lockie. She remembers him
Speaker 3: as a very energetic, bubbly young boy. They had a
Speaker 3: lot of adventures together. They would go to the park,
Speaker 3: and she said several times that she loved being a mother.
Speaker 3: That was always her number one thing, to be a mother.
Speaker 3: And she finds it hard to draw back those memories
Speaker 3: of Lockie because of the pain associated with the loss
Speaker 3: and ben.
Speaker 2: The second part of the coronial inquest starts this week.
Speaker 1: What's expected to be covered.
Speaker 3: Now, so the next two weeks We're going to be
Speaker 3: hearing from expert witnesses, so that'll be some of the
Speaker 3: senior pathologists who earlier critiques the pathologists who conducted Locke's
Speaker 3: initial autopsy. We're going to be hearing from a retired
Speaker 3: American FBI agent former FBI agent who has also heavily
Speaker 3: criticized the police investigations. And we're going to be hearing
Speaker 3: from Locke's brother. Johnny is going to be reappearing during
Speaker 3: the second week to give evidence for a second time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Ben, That said, for this episode
Speaker 2: of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 2: stories and extensive news coverage at enzet Herald.
Speaker 1: Dot co dot nz.
Speaker 2: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills with sound
Speaker 2: engineer Patty Fox.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniel.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
Speaker 1: Another look behind the headlines.