New testing fails to link Scott Watson to Marlborough Sounds murder victims
Sunday, 27 July 2025
For years, the conviction of Scott Watson for murdering Marlborough friends Olivia Hope and Ben Smart has largely hung on two controversial hairs. New DNA testing by police sought to conclusively prove Hope and Smart were killed on Watson’s yacht. It failed. Mike White reports.
New DNA testing of crucial evidence in the Marlborough Sounds murder mystery has shown no link between Scott Watson and the two people he was controversially convicted of killing.
The Sunday Star-Times has learnt that over the last year, police have twice tested hairs taken from Watson’s yacht, in an attempt to further connect him to Olivia Hope and Ben Smart, who went missing from a New Year’s party in 1998.
But in tests of 30 hairs, no DNA from Hope or Smart has been found.
However, one hair was shown to have come from a scientist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) who was involved with the recent testing, in a case of contamination within the laboratory.
Watson was convicted in 1999 of murdering Hope, 17, and Smart, 21, despite their bodies having never been found.
The Marlborough friends had been celebrating New Year’s at Furneaux Lodge, before getting on a water taxi around 4am, and accepting an offer of a place to sleep on a mystery man’s yacht.
Police claimed Watson was that mystery man, and he murdered the pair, then disposed of their bodies in Cook Strait.
Watson has always insisted he never met Hope and Smart, didn’t invite them on to his yacht, and didn’t kill them. His convictions remain among the most controversial in New Zealand’s history.
The police case relied heavily on two hairs supposedly found on a tiger-patterned blanket taken from the forward berth on Watson’s yacht, which were matched to Olivia Hope through DNA testing.
But the hairs and their handling proved controversial at Watson’s trial, and were central to his most recent appeal in June 2024.
Now, it has emerged police decided six months prior, in December 2023, to test more hairs from the 390 recovered from the “tiger blanket” in 1998, which have been kept in police custody.
The first batch - 19 hairs
In September last year, ESR (now known as PHF Science) began a first round of testing hairs for DNA matching Hope, Smart, Watson, or any other person.
Hairs from the tiger blanket were re-examined, and 19 were selected that had roots that could contain DNA.
Some hairs were tested with the more sensitive miniSTR analysis, used when insufficient DNA is present to allow full results to be obtained with standard testing.
Of the 19 tiger blanket hairs:
Watson couldn’t be excluded as the source of DNA in four samples, which the ESR scientist remarked wasn’t unexpected, given the blanket came from his yacht. The hairs could not have come from Hope or Smart.
One hair came from an unidentified female, who was not Olivia Hope.
One hair could not have come from Smart, Hope, or Watson.
One hair had insufficient information for a profile, but could not have come from Smart or Hope.
Another hair had even more limited DNA information but could not have come from Smart.
Testing on 10 other hairs obtained no DNA profile. The forensic scientist conducting the tests noted this wasn’t unusual, because if a hair had been shed naturally, it was past its growth phase, and therefore little or no cellular material was attached to the root.
The remaining hair tested by ESR was shown to belong to an ESR scientist involved in the recent processing of the tiger blanket hairs.
It is believed to have been an eyelash from the scientist who had earlier examined the hairs, not the scientist who conducted the actual DNA testing.
This “contamination event” was detected by ESR’s safety protocols, but will no doubt be embarrassing, given previous controversies and concerns involving ESR’s handling of hairs in Watson’s case.
A quality investigation was launched by ESR, but its successor, PHF Science, declined to comment on the contamination.
ESR also tested three “reference hairs” thought to be from Ben Smart, which police had taken from a pair of Smart’s long johns during their initial investigation.
Testing found:
One could have originated from Ben Smart.
One could not have come from Smart, but could possibly have come from a close relative.
- One was unable to provide any DNA profiling results.
The second batch - 11 hairs
Having not matched any of the initial 19 hairs with Hope or Smart, who police say were violently murdered on Watson’s 26’ (8m) yacht, police then asked for another 11 hairs from the tiger blanket to be tested.
All were analysed using the more sensitive miniSTR technique.
Scott Watson could not be excluded from five samples, but the DNA could not have come from Smart or Hope.
One hair could not have come from Watson, Hope or Smart.
A DNA profile was unable to be obtained from five other hairs.
No further DNA testing has been undertaken.
The mystery of the tiger blanket
The tiger blanket hairs have been controversial ever since the blanket was recovered from Watson’s yacht when it was seized by police on January 12, 1998, early in their investigation.
Nearly 400 hairs were lifted from the blanket, and on January 22, 1998, ESR scientist Susan Vintiner examined them for the first time, looking for any with roots that could contain DNA. She isolated 11, but none returned DNA profiles.
Vintiner was aware from newspaper photographs that Hope had long blonde hair, but didn’t see anything like this on her first examination.
However, on March 7, Vintiner returned to the tiger blanket hairs.
This time she found two blonde strands - one 15cm long, and the other 25cm long - that she hadn’t noticed previously among the mainly short and dark hairs.
Importantly, these hairs had roots that provided DNA profiles matching Olivia, or someone from her maternal bloodline, giving police the crucial breakthrough they needed to arrest Watson on June 15, 1998.
However, Vintiner’s discovery of the two blonde hairs sparked questions when it was revealed that shortly before she found the 15cm and 25cm hairs among the tiger blanket sample, she had been examining reference hairs from Hope, taken from her bedroom, on the same work bench, wearing the same laboratory coat.
Further concerns there may have been accidental contamination of samples arose when it was acknowledged there was a mysterious 1cm slit in the bag containing Hope’s reference hairs.
Vintiner said the most likely explanation was that she had inadvertently cut the bag when using scissors to open the envelope it was in.
Frustratingly, the failure by police to record the number of reference hairs taken from Hope’s bedroom meant it couldn’t be checked whether any had gone missing and become mixed with the tiger blanket hairs.
At Watson’s Court of Appeal hearing last year, Vintiner said she wasn’t surprised she didn’t see the blonde hairs the first time she looked.
“It is actually difficult to see blonde hairs when they are in with 400 brown hairs. So no, I didn’t see them.”
She has previously described her first examination of the hairs as “cursory”, despite saying she was looking for any hairs with roots that could give a DNA profile.
Vintiner then admitted to the Court of Appeal that the initial search of the tiger blanket hairs was mainly conducted by a technician and not her, despite having indicated at Watson’s trial and in other material that she did the work. The technician made no notes about this.
Watson’s lawyer, Nick Chisnall KC, pointed out this meant two sets of eyes had actually looked at the hairs on January 22, 1998 without anyone seeing the crucial 15cm and 25cm blonde strands.
And the fact Vintiner didn’t document or mention the technician’s involvement until more than 25 years later meant the technician was never able to be called as a witness at Watson’s trial, Chisnall said.
Vintiner also said she didn’t believe she would have got hairs on her lab coat when examining the reference and tiger blanket hairs, and she would have noticed them if she had, despite Chisnall pointing out they would have been blonde hairs on white fabric.
Scott Watson has previously questioned how Vintiner didn’t see the hairs when she initially looked at them, if they had been there.
“She wouldn’t have missed them. There’s no way. Even a person without a magnifying glass in front of them, and a lab jacket on, and a pair of tweezers wouldn’t have missed them.
“And suddenly she’s told to go and look again, and suddenly, they are there.”
‘More evidence of innocence’
Watson’s father, Chris, says he knew nothing would be found during recent DNA testing, and it was further evidence Smart and Hope were never on his son’s yacht.
He asks how Smart could have been violently killed on the small yacht without losing any hairs or leaving any DNA.
“And do you think you could possibly haul two bodies into a sleeping bag, out of that hatch, and over the side, as police say happened, and leave no trace?
“Not a skerrick, not a scrape of skin on the corner of a table?”
Chris Watson notes police didn’t reveal their failed testing publicly, but was sure they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops if Hope or Smart’s DNA had been found.
“I’d hope the police and Crown would be embarrassed, but I bet they’re not.
Chris Watson questions why police have gone to such lengths to test more hairs from his son’s yacht when they already had a conviction, and wonders whether it was because there had been limited attempts to match hairs on the tiger blanket with Ben Smart.
ESR previously said Smart's hair was a relatively common colour, and likely not significantly different from many hairs on the blanket that could have come from Watson.
The reference hair sample from Smart wasn’t suitable for a hair comparison in 1998, and so the only realistic way any hairs from Smart could be located, if they were present, was by chance if they had viable roots for DNA testing.
This was one reason why ESR carried out recent DNA testing on the three hairs from Smart’s long johns, so that any hair proven to be from Smart, could then be compared visually with the tiger blanket hairs.
‘A painful loss’
Olivia Hope’s father, Gerald Hope, responded to the latest development in the long-running case, saying: “We were not anticipating confirmatory additional evidence from the recent testing. After 28 years, any new evidence would be a miracle and welcome.
“The fact remains that two young Marlborough people celebrating New Year’s Eve in a safe environment in the Marlborough Sounds did not return to their families.
“That loss is still painful and will remain with us always.”
Ben Smart’s mother, Mary, didn’t respond to an offer to comment.
Detective Superintendent Darryl Sweeney said forensic capability had developed since the time of Watson’s trial, when DNA testing was a newly-emerging technique in serious crime investigations.
To that end, police were always looking to see whether new techniques could help advance historic cases.
“Police, in consultation with all parties, have been reviewing and reassessing this matter, and hairs have been reassessed and tested - that work is ongoing.
“As a court process is ongoing, we are not in a position to comment further.”
Crown Law, which oversees court appeals, and at last year’s hearing argued Watson’s appeal should be rejected, said: “We have kept Mr Watson’s counsel appraised of any steps since December 2023, and beyond our communications with counsel, the Crown has nothing further to add.”
Watson’s lawyer Kerry Cook was approached but replied, “It is entirely inappropriate that I comment on a matter that is awaiting judgment.”
Watson has now spent 27 years in prison.
Originally sentenced to life imprisonment with a 17-year non-parole period, he has been denied parole four times. His last parole hearing, in March, had to be abandoned because the Parole Board ran out of time.
The Court of Appeal has yet to release its judgment on Watson’s latest appeal, 13 months after the hearing.
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