Informant in Blackmoore cold case not paid full reward

The secret informant whose tip-off led to Angela Blackmoore's killers being caught received significantly less than the $100,000 reward offered by police.

Stuff understands the person, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was paid about half the signposted money, despite their information proving crucial in solving the infamous cold case.

Blackmoore, 21, was nine weeks pregnant when she was bludgeoned and stabbed in her home in Vancouver Cres, Christchurch in 1995.

More than two decades later, in May 2019, police offered a reward of up to $100,000 for "material evidence which leads to the identity and conviction of any person or persons responsible for the murder".

"The Commissioner of Police will determine the amount of the reward and will apportion it if there is more than one claimant," the reward notice said.

In 2019, police offered a $100,000 reward for information about the 1995 murder of Christchurch woman Angela Blackmoore.

Amongst the dozens of tips police received in the weeks that followed was one from a person who said that in 1995 they were told a man called Jeremy Powell had killed Blackmoore for $5000, and that his girlfriend was with him. The murder was an organised hit over drugs, the informant said.

Powell's girlfriend at the time was Rebecca Wright, who later became known as Rebecca Wright-Meldrum.

On 25 October, 2019, detectives interviewed the pair one after the other.

Wright-Meldrum said she knew nothing about the killing, but Powell confessed, saying he'd knocked Blackmoore down with a bat then stabbed her in the head with a bowie knife.

Wright-Meldrum was with him, he said, and cleaned up afterwards/helped dispose of evidence. Powell claimed debt collector David Hawken ordered the hit, and offered to pay the pair $10,000. He said Hawken apparently stood to gain financially from Blackmoore's death via either property or a life insurance policy.

In February 2020, Powell pleaded guilty to murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years.

Wright-Meldrum and Hawken denied involvement.

But on Friday, at the conclusion of a month-long trial in which Powell was the Crown's star witness, the pair were found guilty by a jury.

In 2021, police refused to say how much of the $100,000 reward had been paid out to the informant who provided the breakthrough because the case was still before the courts and "release would be likely to prejudice the maintenance of the law, including the prevention, investigation and detection of offences and the right to a fair trial".

Stuff complained to the Ombudsman, arguing the need for transparency given the potentially large amount of public money involved.

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier ruled in the police's favour.

However, during Hawken's and Wright-Meldrum's trial, it emerged that only part of the reward had been paid to the informant, who was referred to as Witness X.

Stuff understands they received about $50,000.

Mike Bush was the police commissioner when the reward was offered, but was replaced by Andy Coster in April 2020. At that time, police told Stuff payment of the reward was "currently being considered, however it may be several weeks before the matter is finalised".

In September of that year, police said none of the reward had been paid out. The following month, a spokesperson said: "Should any payment be made we will not be able to comment for legal reasons."

Police were unable to respond when approached by Stuff this week, saying the relevant staff were unavailable.

At the time, the $100,000 reward in the Blackmoore case was the largest the police had offered for information that led to the conviction of a killer.

Since then, the same hefty bounty has been put up in other unsolved homicides, such as Kirsty Bentley, Simon Bevers and Ronald Allison.

Hawken and Wright-Meldrum are scheduled for sentencing on 19 April, 2024.

- This story was first published by Stuff