A former Dunedin detective is calling for a commission of inquiry into the disappearance of 1960s machine gun killer Ronald Jorgenson.
The convicted killer went missing more than 20 years ago, but now it is being claimed the New Zealand police helped fake his death.
Jorgenson is infamous for his role in the 1963 Basset Road machine gun murders in which two men were gunned down during a sly grog turf war.
While on parole 21 years later Jorgenson hit the headlines again when his car was found written off at the bottom of a cliff in Kaikoura. There was no sign of his body, but he was eventually declared dead.
But not everyone is convinced.
Former Dunedin detective Tom Lewis believes the accident was faked and that he had police help.
"One, the accident was obviously a jack-up and two, he had to have some help and that help came from the New Zealand police. I have people in the police that served in Christchurch who told me quite plainly that the whole thing was a jack-up," Lewis told TVNZ's Close Up programme.
Lewis believes Jorgenson may have been given a new job as an informant for police in Perth, Australia.
The former police officer is not the only one who believes Jorgenson didn't die at the bottom of the cliff.
Former Kaikoura telephone operator Jenny Low says more than a week after he disappeared she got a call from Sydney and heard Jorgenson speaking to an operator on the other end.
Then two years later old school friend Bill Mason spotted him in Perth. He was shocked by the police response.
"They told me that they had a fair idea he was there. To get him deported and bring a court case and bring all evidence against him would cost about a million dollars and they didn't have a million dollars, so they asked me to keep quiet," says Mason.
Tom Lewis
now believes there should be a Royal Commission of Inquiry into
Jorgenson's disappearance and he says he would be willing to give
evidence.
