Case #053 - Crooked Cop Michael Blowers

A suitcase was found floating in the Waitematā Harbour in 1966. Its contents kicked off an international manhunt and one of Aotearoa's biggest fraudsters. Joseph Sheehan BEM was a detective on the case.

Michael Blowers was a police officer, family man and pillar of the community. He was also stealing drugs from the police exhibit room and giving them to his mistress to sell. RNZ's Charlie Dreaver describes Blowers downfall.

True crime writer Scott Bainbridge takes us through the unsolved murder of pharmacist Arthur Blomfield, who was bludgeoned to death in his Auckland store, Mackay's Dispensary, in 1931.

Alan Hall spent nearly two decades in jail for the 1985 murder of Arthur Easton. In 2022 his convictions were quashed. Stuff journalist Mike White explains the flaws in the case against Hall and Geoff Hall talks about his brother's life after prison.

Stuff's senior crime reporter tells Jesse Mulligan about his ongoing hunt for one of Aotearoa's most prolific conmen.

Welcome back to Season 8 of Crimes NZ. In this episode, we hear about one of our country's most sensational trials - that of headhunters gang member Pedro Cleven.

It was a case that shocked the world. A 3-year-old abandoned in an Australian train station, her mother murdered in New Zealand and her father on the run in America.

In January 2008, Gil Elliott received the worst news possible. His 22-year-old daughter Sophie had been stabbed to death. He talks to Jesse Mulligan about those moments, the horror that followed and his fight for change.

The 1928 murder of Elsie Walker is one of New Zealand's oldest cold cases. She disappeared from the Bay of Plenty and her body was discovered by schoolboys, days later, in Auckland.

In 2009, Taito Phillip Field was convicted of bribery and corruption and sentenced to six years in prison. Lockwood Smith was an opposition MP and recalls keeping the pressure on in parliament, to ensure Field was held to account.