The hunt for the real killer
August 26th, 2010 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarThe Dom Post reports:
The lawyer of convicted killer John Barlow hopes renewed publicity about the case will uncover new evidence that could clear his client’s name. …
Barlow’s lawyer, Greg King, said if new evidence was uncovered he could go to the governor-general for a royal pardon or to have the case referred back to the Court of Appeal.
“I think what is absolutely clear from John is that this isn’t the end of it. He will continue his fight to clear his name.
John Barlow, just like OJ Simpson, will not rest until the real killer is found.
Related posts:
- The hunt for the killer
- Barlow still guilty
- HoS on Barlow’s release
- Barlow plans Privy Council appeal
August 26th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
He must have really impressed the parole board with his remorse and acceptance of responsibility for his crime!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vote:FFS.
August 26th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I feel for the Thomas family. Perhaps we could ask Gene or Eugene how they are feeling about Barlow having his freedom back so soon ……oh wait, we can’t. They are still dead aren’t they.
14 years for TWO cold blooded murders. No remorse from the convicted killer. Life is indeed cheap in NZ.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Yeah 14 years for taking a life seems almost … well worth it in some cases.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Probably needs to look in the mirror. Might find the culprit looking at him.
Vote:Heh
August 26th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
John Barlow must be wishing he was a sports presenter or a politician. A few hours of community service might have given him something to think about…..
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Maybe when Mark Lundy gets out the two of them could pool their resources, leaving no stone unturned in their determination to discover who really did commit these shocking crimes.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
It was probably one and the same woman PM. What’s the bets she’s also an islamicist?
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Oh – Mr Farrah – you’re a bit of a cynic…………….
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Barlow knows who did it. It was [deleted by DPF] and he tried to cover for him.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I wonder if he’s spoken with Joe Karam yet.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
A mirror will help with that quest.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
It was Robin Bain.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Now I understand when folk say they want to “find themselves”
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
My humble opinion on the guilt/innocence of this convicted murderer is…
…worth about as much of a damn as anyone else’s.
What a pointless thread.
Vote:Die thread, die.
August 26th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
RRM: What a pointless thread.
Die thread, die.
Yet you felt the need to grace us with opinion.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
@RRM – What a pointless blog.
Well said, RRM – and thank you!!!
To read the sort of facile, gratuitous nastiness posed in respect of this is pretty well sickening. It reflects only the sort of meanness of nature that one would expect from emotionally deprived souls.
Who knows what the real situation really was? Barlow could have been paroled long ago if he had “confessed” to the murders – but he didn’t – and the pressure on him to do so, in order to be released, must have been enormous. HIs wife’s and daughter’s support has been unwavering.
Yesterday, Danny Watson on NewstalkZB sought listeners’ opinions as to how Roger McClay’s community service sentence might be spent, and that inspired loads of the same sort of vicious drivel. Truly, one pictures the self-same attitudes here today as were displayed by the French women who knitted as aristocrats’ heads fell at the guillotine.
While some bloggers feel compelled to offer their pointless and rancid views in the belief that somehow others will think them smart, they only serve to make me feel ashamed of my fellow Kiwis.
DPF – the OJ Simpson tag was truly odious.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
The only thing that niggles me about the conviction is his wife. Its hard to believe that such an extraordinary woman could remain so loyal, if she thought for a moment he was the perp. Besides, didn’t she provide an alibi that he was with her at the time (or something like that??)
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Paul
From memory the parole board said he was a highly controlling person. That could explain it.
Anyway he admitted being there, seeing the bodies, it was his gun, and he removed the gun from the scene. Not much an alibi could do against that admission
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Paul… Maybe she did the crime and he took the blame for her. I’m sure I’ve seen this on TV a few times so it MUST be possible.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
It is not nastiness Positan — it is the desire to see justice. John Barlow admitted he was there at the time, admitted he saw the bodies, had a gun like the one that did the crime (a rare type of gun), went and dumped that gun and it seems was very angry about his business dealings with the two victims (hence a motive).
Therefore he is either the most unlucky man in New Zealand or he is the murderer. Unfortunately it has become standard operating procedure to never confess to a murder in the hope that some misguided zealot (such as a Joe Karam) will come to your rescue.
John Barlow is a convicted murderer. He killed two men in cold blood. The anger of most right minded New Zealanders is righteous anger towards the murderer and at a justice system that allows this man to go free after serving only 14 years in jail. His victims will never see the light of day again. To my mind that is not just. To my mind people like John Barlow should either receive capital punishment or else serve life imprisonment (that is for the term of their natural life). That to my mind is justice.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Scott, my axe to grind was with the tenor of the comments which were unnecessarily nasty by any standard. Barlow has served the sentence imposed on him by the court that found him guilty – not proved him guilty – and he opted to stay in prison far longer than he needed to than if he’d “confessed” to those crimes. He’s paid what the state has exacted.
Yes, his actions were utterly stupid and he was a fool to have carried them out – no argument whatsoever – but surely, the story that one of the Thomases had borrowed the gun, if true, lends a most questionable face to the case. Were the Thomases afraid of someone else? It could well have been so.
Desire for justice is all very well, however you must first be 100% right. Righteous anger too, should be applied righteously – but after two trials and seemingly stunted evidence from the FBI in the third, my opinion as to what was “proved” is apparently far more circumspect than your own.
No matter, I respect whatever view you wish to hold. It was the gratuitous nastiness of uninformed idiots that offended me.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
DARN how many trials was there till the posecution got the result it wanted 3 i think???? remember when you look in a mirror the smart ?????police one day might want to stitch you up for something, YOU ARE THEIR SUSPECT and they will roll the evidence around you to get the conviction in anything you do (RE THE CHEMIST IN THE LATEST ROBBERY deciding if the 68 yo chemist should be charged for the crims death TOSSERS). In between drink driving ,lying about car crashes LYING LYING and bonking young females ETC ETC our police are not saints they just wear a blue uniform with a small patch on the front ,not a large one on the back.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Positan
Nasty is putting a bullet into the head of humans after you have incapacitated them, thats really fucking nasty.
Unless you worked on this enquiry you only have an opinion and as we know opinions are like arseholes everyone has one
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
My recollections, and having attended a substantial part of the third trial, leave me still convinced that a good verdict was achieved.
Vote:J B with his confident air, solid honest image and the loyalty of his family, presented a very credible picture of an innocent man. He must still be absolutely gutted that the tip receipt was found in his car, the compactor having been out of service and the police finding his pistol.
What a simply ghastly job that would have been, sorting through all that garbage. Uugh.
August 26th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
“that found him guilty – not proved him guilty –”
Positan
Are you suggesting that the standard for criminal convictions ought to be proof beyond “any” doubt as distinct from the current “reasonable” doubt standard?
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
There are good reasons for the perpetrator maintaining his innocence (even at risk of not getting parole), same for their family. It enables the perp to retain support, and allows the family to sustain that support. Admission of guilt raises all sorts of moral dilemmas; the family are more likely to abandon him rather than face the truth – that the man is a murderer. The extended Bain family were faced with a grim choice; support David and condemn Robin or vice versa; they opted for Robin and left David to ‘swing’.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Pauleastbay – like so many have done here, you’ve taken established facts and arranged “what therefore must have happened” – thus reaching the result you desire. Sadly, you also don’t read what’s been written because nowhere did I offer any sort of opinion as to the case itself. As I’ve said, I’m curious at the fact of Barlow maintaining his innocence, when by “confessing” he’d have been released much earlier. Check it out – if your interest really extends further than your observation on arseholes, you might apologise.
Other than having wished to express my disgust at the loathsome depth of some of the assumptions put forward, I’ve no answer whatsoever to the case or to the inconsistencies it presented. I wasn’t there, I didn’t know any of the players and I was nowhere near the action – but my ability to rationalise both non-emotively and unemotionally seems to be a more rare quality than I’d previously ever thought to consider.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
@thedavincimode “Are you suggesting that the standard for criminal convictions ought to be proof beyond “any” doubt as distinct from the current “reasonable” doubt standard?”
Nothing of the sort. As I understand it, Barlow was found guilty through a combination of the questionability of his own actions, and some very questionable “expert” evidence rendered by the FBI. I’m as anxious as the next person to see the guilty appropriately punished, but I’m absolutely appalled at the prospect of any innocent person being punished for something they did not do – especially when they’re jailed for as long as Barlow has been.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
but my ability to rationalise both non-emotively and unemotionally seems to be a more rare quality than I’d previously ever thought to consider…
Positan
The above could quite easily have come from Barlow himself, arrogant and very self congratulatory.
Shelf praise on this level must make you feel pretty chipper heading off into the evening.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Trout, Yeah thats my conclusion also, but can some one provide a bit of back ground of the Thomas’s to give some perspective
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Pauleastbay – your ability to adduce complete irrelevancies and then extend them to nonsense levels, is both breathtaking and impressive. Why don’t you look back at the subject – and actually attempt to address those points I’ve already put to you?
As I said to Scott above, “I respect any view you wish to hold” – as I would do to you as well – which hardly conveys or implies arrogance. However, with your unnecessary introduction of “arseholes” my penchant for polite debate was somewhat tested – and as for “shelf praise” – well, it completely eludes me.
Looking back, any arrogance shown has been exclusively your own.
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
As I understand Thomas sen and his son ran an alternative lending operation where borrowers who couldnt go to a bank could access money at a little higher than bank rates of interest with interesting enforcement protocols as regards repayment.
Vote:My only involvement with them was when a “gentleman” who ran a dodgy trailer manufacturing and sales operation, mortgaged his elderly parents house, fell foul with repayments and my employer at the time received instructions to sell the property and render the olds homeless. We ran the auction in our office with the usual suspects present and the only difference were the coterie of hoods about 4 in number complete with shades dark suits with bulges where they carried their spare handkerchiefs (yeah right). This was the late 80s.
We did our contracted work, got paid and to all intents and purposes it was really no different to other forced sales we undertook at the time, apart from the significant and unusual extras in the shades who I presume were to ensure nothing untoward got in the way of a successful outcome for the lenders.
August 26th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Interesting point, Gravedodger. As I recall, all through the Barlow trials, nothing that was remotely discrediting to the Thomases or to their business was ever published or made public. How very peculiar indeed! Your comments convey a most questionable view of their business activities, together with a clear appreciation that their activities could indeed have realistically inspired some sort of fatal retribution from far more understandable sources than Barlow.
A most fascinating revelation. What sort of reception will it now be accorded … ???
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Having posted on this site under this and a previous alias I am probably one of the most right wing hang em high who have ever posted here.
But I learnt a lesson when I was in my late teens and that was Arthur Alan Thomas. Something just didnt add up even though my mates were all convinced he did it
Same with Barlow. When you set aside the high em high shoot the bastards mentality that I have and think very hard about it would I convict.
No. Apart from having at least several independent witnesses to the crime I need to be damn sure..
And thats why folks you want me on your jury when you are in the dock for murder.
I might save your skin and your soul
Think on this Never say never
Vote:August 26th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Wow..thanks gravedodger..that filled in the gaps!!
Vote:August 27th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
So what gravedodger essentially believes is no witnesses, no guilt. So as a crim, best thing for me to do is kill all the witnesses and I am home free if you are on the jury. Brilliant!
@ positan I knew the Thomases ran a loan shark business as a result of the trial – One of the motives suggested involved money issues between Barlow and the Thomases. Not sure how you missed it.
Vote:August 27th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
that should have been Lastman not gravedodger
Vote:August 28th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I met Barlow not that long before the murders took place. I did not think he was any kind of controlling person. I thought he was a very nice man with a very gentle , lovely sort of manner. Another friend who him a lot better than I did , simply could not believe that he had done it.
Vote: