22 weeks on came the knock of the law

By Eugene Bingham and Alison Horwood

Tousled from sleep and wearing only his underpants, Scott Watson uttered just two words when detectives arrived to arrest him: "About time."

Before the sun rose on June 15 last year, detectives swooped on the house in Rangiora where he was staying with his older brother, Tom, his wife, Trudy, and their three young children.

By the time the arresting officer, Detective Tom Fitzgerald, crossed the threshold, Watson was standing in the hallway, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Watson told police to "piss off" several times when asked to accompany them to the Rangiora police station to answer questions on his actions at Furneaux Lodge. He was then arrested and charged with the two murders.

Watson had stood out at that New Year's party of upward of 1500 people. "Talk to Watson, he was there," several people told police, recalling the aggro man in the blue denim shirt, high on rum and dope, who was trying it on with any woman who caught his eye.

On January 5, a lone constable made the first of many journeys up the Watson family driveway at 55A Hampden St, Picton, but Watson was out sailing with older sister, Sandy.

Two days later, like other boaties, the 26-year-old went to the police station to explain his movements on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

The following day, just after 6 pm, Watson went to a public phone box in Picton to call a man he knew at Eerie Bay to check that their stories matched on his arrival time in Tory Channel on New Year's Day. After hanging up, he went with Sandy to the station to make his first statement and have his photograph taken.

Water-taxi driver Guy Wallace had sketched a ketch at which he said he dropped off Ben and Olivia. It would take police five weeks to rule out the involvement of a two-masted boat. No one else remembered seeing the blue and white vessel, and it did not show up in video footage or photographs.

Although parts of his story changed each time he was interviewed, Mr Wallace was consistent about several things. He dropped the friends and the mystery man within a 300m radius of the jetty, and the boat he took them to was rafted on the port-side of three or four others.

After drawing up a chart of the 113 boats moored off Furneaux, police narrowed the possibility down to four rafted groups - and Watson's Blade was in the picture.

By January 12, Watson was due to turn up at the Picton police station at midday, but never showed. At 1 pm, Detective Fitzgerald went to Hampden St to collect him.

When interviewed, Watson was reluctant to sign his statement because it would "show him in a bad light." He was asked about his sleazy behaviour with women that night, but simply said: "I was just trying to score. What's wrong with that? It was New Year's Eve."

Police noted differences between his January 12 and January 8 statements. He said he had been wearing a grey jersey, but photographs would prove he was wearing a blue denim shirt, a white T-shirt and brown boots. The police would later execute a total of 10 search warrants in unsuccessful attempts to find the shirt.

Watson said he returned to Blade alone at 2 am and left at 7 am for Eerie Bay, Tory Channel, arriving about 10 am. Witnesses say he did not arrive at Eerie until 5 pm, and in between was seen acting suspiciously at several deep waterways in the Sounds.

The Blade was seized and a team of scientists and police scoured it for clues, plucking hairs from Watson's sleeping quarters, noting holes cut from the squabs and wipe marks on all hard surfaces.

Watson began to change his appearance. He had long hair, and wore jeans, but by mid-January he was wearing round glasses, had very short hair and was clean-shaven.

By early February, Watson and Sandy fled Picton and turned up at the house of his ex-girlfriend, staying for two days. Watson would return later that month alone to seek refuge, and during that time the woman asked him questions fed to her by detectives.

By March, forensic scientist Susan Vintiner was making her second trawl through about 400 hairs uplifted from Blade. She singled out two reddish-gold strands and by the end of the month would obtain a DNA profile from one which pointed to its coming from Olivia's head.

That month Watson's ex-girlfriend pointed out the 176 scratch marks on the inside of Blade's forward hatch.

Watson moved in briefly with his grandparents in Sefton, Southland. Then his parents smuggled him into the home of a long-time boating friend in the tiny Waikato town of Te Kauwhata, where for almost four months he lived in a humble weatherboard home in a dead-end dirt road.

The community, who knew through neighbourhood watch they were hosting someone "undesirable," rarely saw him.

Then came a turning point. Watson was charged with stealing a dinghy from Whangarei and made his first appearance in the Huntly District Court.

The charge allowed police to seek strict bail conditions. They knew Blade, which had been bugged with a listening device and handed back, was being readied for an overseas trip.

Early on April 7, 1998, Watson drove up to the Huntly courthouse on a Suzuki 800cc, parked outside the court and sauntered in the main door with his hands in his pockets and a smug smile on his face.

Two days after his court appearance, Susan Vintiner sent the DNA and her results to Sydney for further testing. On May 6, Australian scientists obtained a profile from one hair which meant it was likely to be from Olivia.

In late May, Watson moved to Rangiora, where he spent two weeks with brother Tom and his family. It all ended with a sharp knock at the door on June 15.