| Could John Beckenridge and his abducted stepson Mike Zhao-Beckenridge really still be alive? |
IT reads like a classic Bond thriller.
A former chopper pilot, a mystery figure with multiple identities and who has worked in war-torn Afghanistan, abducts the stepson the courts have banned him seeing.
They go on the run, evading capture, until he seemingly kills himself and the young boy when he deliberately drives off a cliff and plunges into the sea.
The twist in this thriller is there is a suggestion they both could still be alive.
John Beckenridge was angry and upset when his marriage suddenly ended and his wife took her son Mike Zhao-Beckenridge, 11, away with her.
The couple had been living in a million-dollar home in Queenstown, the New Zealand adventure tourism resort, until their marriage abruptly ended last year.
Beckenridge was born in Switzerland but had Australian citizenship after working as a commercial helicopter pilot here.
He is also known as John Lundh, Knut Goran Roland Lundh, and John Bradford.
He’d worked in some of the world’s most turbulent areas — including Afghanistan, but quit that job after a colleague was killed when one of their company aircraft was shot down.
When he and his wife, who is originally from China, split she obtained a Family Court order that prevented John from having any contact with his son, although there was no suggestion of any abuse, reported TVNZ.
For months, Beckenridge seethed about the forced separation.
Friends have spoken of Mike’s desire to be reunited with his stepfather, and insist he was in contact with Beckenridge after the separation.
One friend told The New Zealand Herald that “Mike wanted John to go and get him”.
“Everything John did was for Michael. They did everything together, camping, biking, mucking around. He didn’t have another life apart from Michael.”
On March 13 this year, a Friday, Beckenridge drove two hours from his home to the southern NZ city of Invercargill where Mike was at school.
He abducted him during the lunch break. Within hours a missing persons report had been filed and alerts were placed on both the boy and his father.
ON THE RUN
Over the next week there was a combination of confirmed and unconfirmed sightings of the pair. It has been determined they spent time in the Catlins area of New Zealand, close to Invercargill where the abduction occurred.
It’s believed they stayed at campsites and also in their car. The final known contact though came via a text message to Mike’s mother and also to friends.
The exact wording hasn’t been disclosed but police have confirmed it was a farewell-style message. Police pinpointed the location it was sent from by zeroing in on mobile phone towers and discovered tyre tracks leading to a cliff face from 100m away.
Specialist teams used an underwater camera to check if anything lay beneath the water.
The wreck of a car was submerged in the wild seas but it was still several days before conditions eased enough for it to be recovered.
When a crane lifted the wreck from the sea it confirmed everyone’s worst fears. It was the dark blue Volkswagen Touareg they’d been hunting for.
But there were no bodies inside and police could not conclusively say if there had been anyone in there when the car went over the cliff.
It’s possible they were inside and their bodies were lost at sea. But then it’s just as possible they were not.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Police have essentially hedged their bets about what they believe happened to the pair.
At different times, in carefully-worded statements, they have said they don’t believe the two ever left the Catlins area, the southernmost part of New Zealand.
But what that actually means is there is just no evidence of the two leaving the area. There have been numerous sightings since the car went over the cliff, although each one has been ruled out.
In a statement to news.com.au, police confirmed the case was still officially being treated as a missing persons case, rather than a potential homicide.
A police spokesman said: “Our staff have continued to work with the Wellington Interpol Office since Mike and John went missing. This work includes the liaison with overseas agencies, however the details of the specific agencies and interactions remain part of the investigation.”
However, he refused to provide specifics or say if there had been any sightings of the pair in Australia — or what involvement authorities here have had.
“All the evidence police currently holds does not put Mike and John out of the Catlins area since they disappeared,” the spokesman said.
It’s not just the lack of bodies that have troubled those who knew Beckenridge. Several sources are adamant he would never have harmed Mike and was intelligent enough to have faked the accident to make it appear as though they were dead.
One friend has told media that Beckenridge was cunning and intelligent enough to make the crash look as though both he and Mike were killed, while experts believe it is possible to get out of NZ undetected.
In June, acting Southland area commander Inspector Kelvin Lloyd told The Southland Times officers were constantly reviewing the file, but had referred it to the Coroner.
He told the paper there was no evidence to suggest the pair were overseas or in the community, — but police were “keeping an open mind” about whether they were actually dead.
But with no more sightings police cannot chase leads that aren’t there and are compiling information for the coroner, who will eventually hold an inquest.
To muddy the waters further, someone using one of the fake names entered Papua New Guinea in the weeks before the abduction.
The person arrived on a cruise ship from Brisbane and was travelling on an Australian passport under the name John Locke, reports the Herald. But authorities have said that “John Locke” never left PNG making him essentially an overstayer.
So the man with many names, who supposedly would never harm the stepson he adored, is missing — presumed dead — after killing them both in a spectacular crash.
But if those closest to John Beckenridge are to be believed the crash was more than just a tragic murder-suicide, it was an elaborate mission to fake two deaths, with the final chapter in this mystery still to be told.
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