Killings changed N.Z. crime 25 years ago
PA Auckland Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the jailing of two men who changed the face of New Zealand crime. On March 4, 1964, John Frederick Gillies, then aged 30, and Ronald John Jorgenson, aged 31, were jailed for life for New Zealand’s first gangland-style grudge killing — the Bassett Road machine-gun murders. The discovery of the bodies of George Frederick Walker, aged 36, and Kevin James Speight, aged 26, in the front room of a sly-grog house at 115 Bassett Road, Remuera, elevated Auckland to
the first division of crime, said the police and criminals at the time. Jorgenson was released on parole in ,February, 1983, but the intrigue continued when he disappeared from Kaikoura where as a condition of his parole he was to live with his father. It is believed he faked his death. A former school friend of Jorgensen reported he had seen him in Perth, West Australia, in 1986. Gillies, now known as Carl Bremner, was also paroled but recalled to serve the rest of his life sentence. He was paroled again in 1987. He now lives in Wellington.
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Press, 4 March 1989, Page 3
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191Killings changed N.Z. crime 25 years ago Press, 4 March 1989, Page 3
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