Detectives reviewing the Crewe homicide case received fresh testimony from a world expert who told them the murdered couple's abandoned 18-month-old daughter, Rochelle, was fed in the five days before she was found in her cot.
The theory of a "mystery woman" who cared for Rochelle is an enduring part of the mystery of who killed Harvey and Jeannette Crewe on a winter's night in 1970.
The analysis of police evidence, released to the Herald under the Official Information Act, appeared to add weight to the theory -- but having received the fresh testimony, detectives then discounted it in favour of 44-year old medical evidence.
The detectives also discounted sightings of a "mystery woman" outside the Waikato farmhouse in the five days since the murders and the discovery of Rochelle, arguing the child had been left alone and without food since the murder of her parents.
The decision to discount Professor Carole Jenny's evidence, and the sightings, has brought the police focus back to a lone killer -- a man who was local, knew the Crewes and was somehow connected to the farm of Arthur Thomas, twice convicted then pardoned for the murders.
Detectives carrying out the review sought out Professor Jenny of Brown University School of Medicine in the United States in September 2012 to review all the medical evidence relating to Rochelle and whether she had been cared for in the time since her parents were killed.
The professor, a paediatric specialist considered a world expert on child abuse, told detectives she believed Rochelle had been fed.
She said there were particular symptoms, including an increased breathing rate, which would have been noticed by those caring for her after she was found.
But she told detectives one fact stood out. "The investigators described her cot mattress and bedding as very wet. A diaper found in her cot was also described as wet. When children are deprived of fluid, their urine output quickly decreases to almost nothing.
"This fact combined with the fact that no one noted the child to be breathing deep or fast leads me to conclude that the child was given food and/or drink between the time her parents died and the time she was found by her grandfather."
She said Rochelle could have survived but her condition was "clinically incompatible with complete starvation and lack of fluid for five days".
The analysis said Professor Jenny's findings were "more credible than those of the medical experts in the 1970s" and reflected her "vast experience working with abused and neglected children".
Despite the evidence, the review team relied on the experts of the 1970s, saying "she did not have the benefit of examining Rochelle personally".
The analysis said the lack of reported symptoms did not mean they did not exist, but might have meant doctors in the 1970s did not recognise them as indicating dehydration. They also found cooler temperatures as winter closed in during June 1970 "would have assisted Rochelle in surviving a prolonged period of deprivation".
The police review found the three pieces of evidence relied on by police originally could still be relied on to link the killer to the Thomas farm. The evidence was the Thomas rifle -- the likely murder weapon -- and the axle used to keep one of the bodies submerged in the river, along with the fencing wire used to secure the axle to the body.
By David Fisher of the New Zealand Herald
