As New Zealanders woke up on New years day 1999, there were many nursing hangovers, many facing regrets about new years resolutions made the night before, but for one family in Ashburton, this day was the beginning of a nightmare which had started the evening before.
Kirsty Bentley a 15 yr. old from Ashburton, had not returned home from taking her dog ‘Abby’ for a walk the previous afternoon. Her mother Jill would look for her daughter that night, including a look down by the Ashburton River with no success.
On Jan 1st at 8am, an official search and rescue operation begins. Friends, family, and police search for the missing teenager.
At 10am, Kirsty’s dog ‘Abby’ was found tied to a tree in dense scrub beside the Ashburton River, close to Robillliard Park.
Underwear and a pair of boxers were also found nearby.
Searches continued and the media storm began. Kirsty’s story was all over the news.
January 17th, 1999, two men that were searching for cannabis plants came across Kirsty’s body near Camp Gully Creek, off Scenic Highway 72 approximately 40-50 kilometres from Ashburton.
Kirsty Marianne Bentley was born on 18 January 1983. She was the second child of her parents, Jill, and Sidney Bentley; she had an older brother John.
Kirsty grew up in Ashburton and as a teenager she attended Ashburton College and was well liked by her peers. Kirsty’s mum Jill described her as being an honest and compassionate teenager. Kirsty could be confident and direct with people she knew, but she could also be shy and reserved with people she didn’t know. Kirsty had a close-knit group of friends.
At the time of her murder she had begun dating a local boy from her school.
Ashburton Is a large town in the Canterbury Region. It sits on the east coast of the South Island of NZ. It is 85 kilometres south west of Christchurch. The Ashburton township has a population of around 20,000, with an additional 16,000 approx. living in the wider district.
On the 31st December ,1998, Kirsty went to the Ashburton library and met up with a friend, at about 10;30am. The two girls done some shopping and then they went to the local McDonald’s for lunch, which was around midday. Kirsty was excited that day, her boyfriend was coming over for dinner. Her mother Jill remembered the last time she’d seen her, earlier that day, as being happy and excited, there was no sign of anything being wrong.
Her friend’s sister dropped Kirsty at her home in around 2;30pm.
Kirsty’s brother John was home when she arrived, and he let her know that her boyfriend had rung and left a message for her. Kirsty returned his call, but he was not there so she left him a message to call her back. Records show that Kirsty made this call to her boyfriend at 2,38 pm
Kirsty decided to take her dog ‘Abbey’, a black lab for a walk. This was something she did regularly, so was not out of character. Her brother John did not hear his sister leave.
A neighbour witnessed Kirsty walking Abbey past his house at 3;05pm.
Kirsty’s boyfriend called her back at 4;30pm. John was still at the family home. John was listening to music in his bedroom. He said that he remembered that Kirsty had been gone for a while, but not worrying too much about it.
Kirsty’s mum Jill returned home after work around 5:15 pm and John informed his mum that Kirsty had not returned home from her walk. Jill felt something was wrong. Over the previous few months, she’d felt an unexplained dread that “somehow my little girl was at risk”. Jill called Kirsty’s boyfriend back to check if he had seen Kirsty, but he told her that he had not.
Jill noticed Abby’s dog lead was missing from the stool by the back door where Kirsty usually dropped it
Jill immediately walked the route that she thought Kirsty would have taken while walking Abbey to the Ashburton River. Not seeing Kirsty or Abbey, she returned home. John and Jill agreed to wait a little longer to see if Kirsty would return home. Just after 6pm, Kirsty’s father Sid arrived home from work and when he heard about Kirsty not returning home, he called police. Kirsty had left home only wearing light clothes — a black tank top with a white butterfly-patterned blue sarong and black Colorado shoes with white soles.
Police, family members and friends searched for Kirsty throughout the night but could not find any sign of Kirsty or her dog Abbey.
At 8am the next morning, the 1st of January the official search and rescue operation began. At 10am, searchers found Abbey, the family dog. Abbey was tied to a tree in a patch of dense scrub beside the Ashburton River, close to Robilliard Park. Searchers had been looking in that general area the previous night, but the dog was not found. Because of the dense foliage in the area, it was possible that Abbey was missed.
Abbey was tied to a tree with a lead. Strangely, Kirsty’s family believed that the lead was not the one that they used by the family to walk Abbey. It did not belong to them.
Not far away from where Abbey was found tied to a tree, two items of clothing were found. A pair of underwear and a pair of boxers that were later confirmed to belong to Kirsty.
Over the next 16 days, police and volunteers including troops from The NZ Army, who were sent from the Burnham Military Camp, located in the region, searched the Ashburton area for Kirsty. Initially the search focused in and around the Ashburton township, but the searchers expanded their detailed search to include a much larger area of Canterbury.
On January 17th, two men were in the Camp Gully area of Rakaia, about 40 km away from Ashburton looking for cannabis plots. The two men came across a badly decomposed body lying in a patch of overgrown scrub. The body was lying at the bottom of a steep embankment ad it was covered in a thin layer of branches and leaves. The body was fully clothed except for underwear and was placed in a fetal position.
The clothing found with the body matched the clothing that Kirsty Bentley was reported to be wearing the day she went missing.
Police closed the scene and ordered a no-fly zone over the area as they conducted their investigation. They conducted an extensive scene examination over several days and took plaster casts of tire tracks in the area.
In NZ at that time, it was the middle of summer, this meant that Kirsty’s body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Her body was recovered from the scene and transported to Christchurch Hospital for a post-mortem. Three days later the body was formally identified through dental records as that of Kirsty Bentley. She was foundone day before her 16th birthday
The post-mortem revealed that Kirsty was killed by blunt force trauma to the right side of the back of her head. The blow or blows were inflicted with enough force to severely fracture her skull. The pathologist determined that she would have died shortly after the wound was inflicted. The pathologist believed that Kirsty was killed soon after she went missing, and that it was likely that she was placed in the Camp gully area the same night. He made these findings from an examination of her stomach contents and the state of her body.
Initially Police withheld her cause of death from the public.
The story became one of the most high-profile cases in NZ history. Who killed Kirsty Bentley became the story that everyone was talking about, a teenage girl slain in a quiet community like Ashburton was enough to dominate front pages and news bulletins for weeks.
On January 25,1999. A funeral was held for Kirsty at St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Ashburton, between 500 and 700 people attended.
SUSPECTS
Police stated that at times hundreds of individuals had been considered as suspects in Kirsty’s disappearance. At other times, the list of suspects had been as small as 20 people.
Unconfirmed sightings had Kirsty walking with two men near the river, but that sighting was never confirmed
Other witnesses later told of seeing a car with a blond girl “cowering” in the front seat, near where a green van was left abandoned, while other sightings were apparently ignored by police, reported the Ashburton Guardian.
Media reported early in the investigation that Kirsty’s father Sid and her brother John were suspects in the case. Both men continuously denied their involvement in Kirsty’s disappearance and death. John acknowledged that it was common sense that police should consider those close to Kirsty to be looked at by the police. Police confirmed that the two men were suspects in the investigation.
Police conducted a scene examination of the Bentley’s home at 165 South St.in the early stages of the investigation but found nothing of value.
Sid was unable to provide a strong alibi for that day. The family believed that whatever Sid had got up to that day, he was embarrassed to admit it, but they did not believe that he was involved in the murder of his daughter. The constant police attention on the family was difficult. At one stage their house was bugged, and Sid and John were being watched by police.
No evidence was ever found that suggested that Sid or John was involved.
A $50,000 reward offered in the months after her death was withdrawn a year later after failing to bring any new information.
Police asked the public for info about a green Commer Van, registration EP9888. The van was described as a 1961 model that had been set up as a camper. The van had a distinctive Comme badge attached to the front. The van was not registered with the NZTA. The van was either blue or a faded blue-green. The van was rare, as few as 2 matching its general description are believed to have ever been in NZ.
The van was originally bought to the attention of the police by a mechanic who had seen it in the area around the time of Kirsty’s disappearance. Because the van was so distinctive, he was able to recall detailed information. The van was also seen by other witnesses in the Ashburton area in the weeks prior to Kirsty’s disappearance and police also received reports of it being seen in the camp gully area.
Many people reported seeing the van to police, but all the sightings were discounted by police. No further leads on the camper were ever revealed, and it has never been found.
Police distributed fliers asking for info on a girl who was seen near the van on Chalmers avenue, which was close to where Kirsty disappeared. But despite repeated public requests by police, this girl never came forward, her identity and her connection to the suspicious van remain a mystery.
2010: British criminal profiler Chuck Burton claims the riverbank was not where Kirsty was killed. He says her body was left in a respectful way suggesting her body was dumped by someone who knew her. They most likely knew the area well, suggesting it was a local person.
Most startling of all though was his interpretation of the way the teenager had been found. He was convinced the killer had some kind of link with Kirsty, because of the way her body had been arranged.
She had been carried through thick thorn and placed on the ground, not thrown down a bank, and her body was placed in the foetal position. Her clothes had been laid on top of her body, respectfully covering her, he told TVNZ’s Sunday program. At the time, police confirmed the list of suspects had been narrowed to about 20 people, and still included Kirsty’s father, Sid, and brother, John. Both have admitted publicly that they were being treated as suspects but have always vehemently denied any involvement in Kirsty’s brutal murder.
In May 2014 Sid Bentley, 63, who was still living in Ashburton, said it was his dying wish to see his daughter’s killers caught.
He had cancer and other health problems and was unsure how long he had left. In 2015 Kirsty’s father Sid, died of oesophageal cancer, never knowing what happened to his daughter.
Kirsty’s ashes were buried in the back garden of the home by her father.
After his death, they were reunited with her mother, Jill Peachey
In 2015 John Bentley said he was concerned that because some believed his father was involved, people may now not bother to come forward with new information. I do worry that if the person the public ‘thinks’ did it has gone, then they might stop caring about the case and the truth might never come out. He said that although he had no proof, he did not see how his father could have been involved in his sister’s murder
After Sid’s death in 2015, there was some renewed public interest in the case. It is reported that an unidentified woman had come forward to say that she expected that her ex-boyfriend had been involved in the murder. The woman said she would now change her statement, if asked by police. A Christchurch woman, who could not be identified for legal reasons, said she and her ex-partner were interviewed several times following the teen’s death.
Her partner’s vehicle had been of interest to police at the time.
The man had been a suspect in the original investigation, and both him and his girlfriend had been interviewed by police and media at the time. According to an interview with the woman in 2015, she stated that her ex-boyfriend, while intoxicated, had admitted his involvement to her on several occasions. Police would not comment on the woman’s claim other than to say the man in question had been fully investigated. After Kirsty’s body was found in the Rakaia Gorge, 60 kilometres from Ashburton, the woman and her ex-partner moved out of the area.
The man later said he had moved to get away from police harassing him.
At the time police confirmed they had taken a DNA sample from his vehicle for testing.
The man’s ex-partner said she always had concerns regarding his involvement
On July 15, 2016, a Coroner’s Inquest began. The role of the Coroner is to determine the cause of death, time, date and how Kirsty died.
There were many reasons a coroner would consider investigating a cold case, one of those being to bring closure for a family.
The Coroner the latest Detective on Kirsty’s case about the investigation.
He asked the police investigator “where do police believe Kirsty died?”
The Detective replied, “we can’t be 100 per cent sure where the fatal blow was inflicted.”
He told the court over the past 17 years; hundreds of people have been interviewed.
There have been 140 people of interest but not all of those have been eliminated.
He told the coroner the homicide inquiry was still active.
Coroner Peter Ryan ruled Kirsty Bentley died on December 31, 1998 at an unknown location from a massive blow to the head.
He is satisfied the injuries were not the result of an accident.
He says the evidence shows they were clearly inflicted on Kirsty.
He extended his condolences to Kirsty’s family for their loss and the horrific way she died.
He says it is particularly hard the perpetrator hasn’t been brought to justice but commends the police on persevering with the investigation.
The homicide investigation is still active.
2017, police revealed that they were investigating a man called Russell John Tully in relation to Kirsty’s disappearance. Tully was a local man who murdered two staff members at the Ashburton Work and Income office in 2014. Tully had been known to camp in the area where Kirsty went missing. Tully strongly denied any involvement and in 2018 police confirmed that he was not in the area at the time and was not involved.
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In late 2018, almost 20years after Kirsty’s disappearance, police announced that there had been significant advances in DNA testing. Items of evidence including the dog lead and underwear had been submitted for further testing and they hoped this would lead to a break in the case. Testing has advanced since and the new techniques will be applied to the evidence from Operation Kirsty. Police say that advances in DNA technology have led to new tests being done to try to trace the killer. No information about the results of these tests has been released.
In 2018 police confirmed that they did not believe that Sid or John were involved in the crime.
Kirsty’s big brother John now lives in Australia. Jill, now lives in Invercargill with second husband ,she doesn’t have any theories on what happened to her daughter. And having no answers or any clues has been one of the toughest things to handle.
“But I think of the happy memories, not the day she died. I’ve been through very black years of grieving and don’t wish to return to that. If Kirsty’s name is mentioned I smile. She is the Kirsty I remember.
In 2001 , a book was released. It is called “Kirsty: Her Mother Writes With Love”it is written by Jill Bentley with author Tony Williams and tells the story of her 15 year old daughter’s life and death, the police investigation into her murder and the terrible aftermath experienced by her family.
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