Description: Is he dead or alive??

Did Bassett Rd machine-gun murderer Ron Jorgensen really die in a car crash – or is he living it up in Australia?

Assume that, in 1984, Kaikoura was the most boring town in New Zealand. It is for this reason, it is said, that convicted murderer Ron Jorgensen faked his own death and escaped for the excitements of Sydney.

Back to New Zealand’s closed-on-Sunday past, when bootleg booze was a big part of Auckland’s criminal underground. It is thought that the two men murdered by Jorgensen and John Gillies at a house in Bassett Rd, Remuera, in 1963, were sly groggers. The killings and subsequent trial were a sensation not just because of our low murder rate at that time, but because the dead men, Frederick Walker and Kevin Speight, were riddled with bullets from a .45 calibre machine gun – the first time such a weapon had been used in a crime in New Zealand.

Jorgensens car was found at the bottom of a cliff at Kaikoura, but whether Jorgensen drowned, was killed, or took a slow boat to Australia remains unknown. There have been sightings of him, including three in Western Australia and one in Kumu in 2000.

Ironically, it won’t matter if he is found – the arrest warrant issued for Jorgensen in 1984 was for a breach of his parole, and it was withdrawn in 1999.

But just for the record is he alive or is he dead?

Ron, if you are out there contact this site and solve the mystery once and for all