Jeannette Crewe's father, Lenard M. Demler, was fined £10,000 for tax evasion in 1962, and had been forced to sell a half share in his farm to his wife in order to meet the liability.

[2][1] Harvey (aged 28) and Jeannette (30) were found to be missing from their bloodstained farmhouse on 22 June 1970 by Demler (died 4 November 1992), who had been asked to look in on them by an alarmed neighbour because they had not answered the telephone for days.

[1] Although Rochelle had tissue loss, suggesting she had eaten little or nothing between 17 and 22 June, the degree to which she retained water during treatment indicated that she had not ingested fluids for at most 48 hours before she was found.

[3]: 92 [3]: 14  Demler was the leading suspect due to his propinquity and failure to raise the alarm until prompted, apparent guilty knowledge that Rochelle did not require immediate medical attention, blood of Jeannette's type on his car seat, and a scratch on his neck.

Demler's behaviour continued to raise suspicion; during police searches of the countryside for the Crewes, he shadowed on horseback without helping and presciently suggested they would be found in water.

[3]: 14  A car axle linked to a neighbouring farmer, Arthur Allan Thomas, had apparently been used to weigh down Harvey's body and was central to police theories about the case, although it did not justify a prosecution.

[3]: 96 [2] A forensic report on 19 August stated that, of the sixty-four, neither Thomas' rifle nor one owned by the Eyre family could be eliminated as the possible murder weapon, but there was insufficient evidence pointing to one or the other.

[2] A witness who did give testimony supporting the prosecution's contention that Jeannette had been pestered by Thomas was Demler; he was cross-examined about why he had not mentioned such obviously relevant information before the court had begun sitting.

Campaigners said forensic work by Dr Jim Sprott had shown that the cartridge case had been planted at the scene and that its method of construction identified it as being from a batch that could not have contained the number 8 bullets recovered from the victims.

[3]: 53 [6] Following David Yallop's book about the case, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, Thomas was pardoned by Governor-General Keith Holyoake on the recommendation of Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.

[10] Despite the Commission describing the conduct of Hutton and Johnston as an "unspeakable outrage", the New Zealand Police never laid charges against any officer involved in the investigation and prosecution of Thomas.