Sean McKinnon murder: Accused killer 'single, broke’ before attack
The man charged with murdering Victorian surfer and carpenter Sean McKinnon in New Zealand had lost his job and was behaving erratically, it has been revealed, as police seek to reconstruct the events surrounding the killing.
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New Zealand Police are still hunting for the murder weapon used to shoot and kill 33-year-old Victorian man Sean McKinnon in a remote surf beach car park last Friday morning.
Police are also still gathering forensic evidence and attempting to reconstruct the events surrounding the murder.
“The firearm used in the shooting has not yet been recovered, and locating it remains a priority,” police said in a media statement.
The investigating police are also asking any motorists who may have seen hitchhikers in the area where the alleged killer was arrested.
“As part of our ongoing inquiries, Police are looking for anyone who may have seen any hitchhikers in the Gordonton — Whitikahu area during daylight hours on Friday.
“Particularly, if any motorists that travelled this route on Friday have dashcam footage.”
As the investigation continues, it’s been revealed that the 23-year-old New Zealand man charged with Mr McKinnon’s murder was behaving erratically in the weeks before the attack.
A rap music-loving, motorcycle-riding young man, he lost his job two weeks earlier at a haulage company and had not been home in a week.
His social media posts told of a man starting 2019, single, broke and feeling sorry for himself.
The man, originally from Te Aroha, appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Saturday and was remanded in custody to appear in the Hamilton High Court in August 27 with his name and identifying details suppressed.
He has posted a string of photos of himself putting his middle finger up and separately a message on one of his Facebook pages Saying “F--- the World”.
Although associates said he had some mental health issues, and had some rough times, those who knew him were genuinely shocked at the news he could be allegedly responsible for killing Mr McKinnon.
But no one seems to know what he was doing in the dead of night in the remote Te Toto Gorge car park about 80 kilometres from where he was boarding.
Mr McKinnon and his fiancée, midwife Bianca Buckley, had been asleep in their hired camper van in a remote car park south of Auckland, when they were woken by the man asking for help.
Accused killer in court over Aussie’s murder in NZ
A local resident who helped Ms Buckley after she escaped told the media the man had said he wanted their van to get back to the town of Hamilton.
The resident said the man had allegedly smashed the window of the van with the butt of his gun and put the gun through the window and shot Mr McKinnon twice.
He then pushed Ms Buckley out of the van allowing her to take some clothes and telling her he would not kill her.
She hid until the gunman had driven off and then ran for her life to residents about two kilometres away.
New Zealand police launched a massive manhunt for the gunman and at 11pm on Friday night armed officers surrounded a cabin in Tauhei, a rural area outside the city of Hamilton.
The police had been alerted by residents in the area who had seen a man walking strangely and attempting to hitchhike.
Nicki Quinn, who runs the Morrinsville Community Facebook page, has said her partner and another couple of friends were about to call the police when the man approached them and said he was trying to find his brother’s farm.
They said he was acting weird and did not seem to know the address. While he was talking with them, he was fiddling with something under his jacket.
Police found him some hours later hiding in an empty farm worker’s cabin and arrested him.
Mr McKinnon’s grieving siblings attended the court hearing yesterday and said they will stay in Hamilton until Mr McKinnon’s body is released so they can take him to be buried in the town where he grew up, Nirranda in southwest Victoria.
Mr McKinnon was in New Zealand on a surfing holiday with his fiancée who was working in Auckland as a midwife.
He had been working as a carpenter at Stephen Little Construction in Hobart.
Hutchinson Builders site manager Mark Mackney told the media his workers on site were sad.
“He was an extremely likeable man and will be surely missed by his workmates here in Tasmania.
“We will inform the full site on Monday morning of this sad loss and pay our respect with a minute’s silence.”
Mr McKinnon’s siblings travelled to New Zealand after being told of the murder of their brother in the early hours of Friday morning.
The heartbroken older sisters and brother of Mr McKinnon yesterday spoke of their love for their “wonderful” brother, describing him as a real character who loved to travel the world, surf and eat vegan food.
Emmeline, a Victorian policewoman, Mary and Lachlan McKinnon gathered outside Hamilton District Court, their faces etched with grief as they told the media how difficult it was to tell their mother Sean had been killed.
“He was my mother’s favourite,” Ms McKinnon said.
“We all loved him very deeply. I was devastated to hear that his life had been taken from him,” she said.
“We are glad that he was not too far from home.”
Stuff.co.nz reports that the accused man’s flatmate said he knew his mate “wasn’t all right”, but he didn’t know just how close to the edge he was.
“He helped me out of a kind of a bad place … I just can’t understand — if he’s done this — what this is,” the friend said following the court appearance of the accused on Saturday.
The flatmate last saw his friend a few days before the killing, and once news broke that a man had been shot, he began to worry.
“I couldn’t get hold of him … I was hoping it wasn’t him.
“I feel like I failed, really. That’s how I feel.”
When asked how Ms Buckley was faring, Ms McKinnon said she was amazingly resilient and strong. “I cannot begin to understand what she is going through. Bianca is amazingly resilient and strong.
“She comes from good strong Irish stock,” she said.
Ms Buckley has been “obviously shocked and traumatised”, Detective Inspector Graham Pitkethley said.
“She is thankful that an arrest within a 24-hour period has occurred and we’re working with her and her family, and we’ll continue to be in touch with her around her welfare,” he said.
She said the last time she saw her brother he had come to her work and she was helping him with his documents to get another passport.
“He loved to travel, he intermittently came home. He was terrible at keeping his phone, wallet, passport and sunglasses,” she said.
“Oddly enough I said a goodbye to him, that I would say if I knew I wasn’t seeing him again.”
Mr McKinnon grew up around Warrnambool in southwest Victoria. Friend Julian Smith told AAP Mr McKinnon loved to surf big waves along the Victorian coast.
“He was a loveable, knockabout Aussie guy, loved his surfing,” Mr Smith said.
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