An elderly man says he is being treated as the prime suspect in the decades-old cold case killing of David Robinson.

The body of Robinson, 25, was found on a remote West Coast beach near the small town of Ross on 29 December 1998.

Local pensioner Mark Walsh, 84, told RNZ he fears police are “trying to frame me for a murder I didn’t have anything to do with”.

He says police have got a statement from him, carried out a forensic search of an old school hall beside his home and seized his .22 calibre rifles. He says he’s “completely innocent,” and will not be engaging with police any further.

Walsh said there was “no doubt” police thought he was responsible for Robinson’s death.

“We’re old age pensioners who aren’t breaking any laws, and never have. We just mind our own business up until now.”

Walsh said he was “absolutely worried sick” over the ordeal.

“I’m 84 years old. I couldn’t sleep at night for weeks after what they’ve done to me, and nor could my wife. It’s upset both of us terribly.”

He said he now had nothing further to say to police.

Police believe Robinson was shot with a .22 calibre firearm about 10 days before his body was found.

In February, police announced they had reopened the decades-old investigation into Robinson’s death. This included speaking to people in the Kakapotahi area.

The remaining couple still living in the area from 1998 are Mark Walsh and his wife Jill.

Speaking with RNZ, Walsh said detectives spoke with the couple when the case reopened, and then returned a few weeks later asking if they could make a statement.

“I thought, well that’s funny. That’s usually a person who’s a suspect who makes a statement, but anyway Jill and I had nothing to hide, so we went ahead and made statements.”

Following the statements, Walsh’s brother visited the couple from the North Island. While he was there they decided they would get rid of some belongings from inside an old school house bordering his property that a neighbour was going to pull down.

“We were starting to clear the carpet out, and I was burning what I could of it and one of the other neighbours wanted the floorboards he was taking, he was down there removing them,” he said.

While they were clearing out the building, police turned up with a forensics team.

“[They said] Oh no, no. Stop, stop. We want to do forensic tests on that’.”

Walsh said if police had called him in advance and told them they wanted to test inside the building, he would not have started clearing it out.

“They weren’t very happy about what had happened… but it was their fault. They could have told us, instead of storming in,” Walsh said.

A few weeks later, about five police officers “stormed” Walsh’s house and went through all the couple’s belongings.

“They said ‘we want your .22 rifles’. So I let them have them, and away they went.”

Walsh said that after the search, he received a call from Greymouth police asking him to visit the station for a video recording.

“I said ‘no, I’m not talking to you about anything anymore, ever it’s over’. That didn’t impress them one little bit.”

Walsh said he was “completely innocent”.

“I’ve never even seen that bloke that got murdered. How could I kill him if I’ve never seen him? He was down on the beach, and we’re up here. If he had been walking around here… he would’ve stick [sic] out like balls on a bulldog. We never saw him.”

He said two women had told police they heard a “bang go off” while they were at a meeting near his property at the time Robinson was murdered. He said the women “wouldn’t know what they had for breakfast yesterday”, and questioned how they would be able to recall something from 26 years ago.

“It’s pointless saying I didn’t do it, because that’s the last thing they’re going to believe, isn’t it?” he said.

“Every criminal says that whether they’ve done it or not, so it’s a stupid thing to say.”

Asked if it may be a bad look for him to not engage with police any further, he said he believed anything he did or did not say was “going to look bad”.

“They’re trying to make a case against me. It wouldn’t make any difference whether I talked to them or not. They tried to build a case against me, and all not talking to them is going to do is slow them down,” he said.

“I tried to help them as much as I could. And look what happened. They shit on me for it.”

Asked if there was any possibility that something might have happened that he could not recall, Walsh replied: “After what’s been happening I’ve gone over the whole thing in my mind, and I have had a few ideas, but I just can’t repeat them.”

Pressed further he said: “I’m not going to say anymore about it.

“I’ve told the police everything that I know.”

He said his only crime he had committed “is that I still live here”.

“I haven’t done anything. I’ve had nothing to do with it. The only thing I’ve had to do was talking to the police, and I made a big mistake doing that.”

He had a message for police.

“Start looking for some real criminals and stop interfering with ordinary people who are minding their own business.”

In response to Walsh’s comments, a police spokesperson said as the investigation into this matter was ongoing, police were unable to comment further.

Detective Inspector Geoff Baber earlier said the reopening of the investigation had resulted in new leads, including a new sighting.

A witness had told police they had seen Robinson on a street corner at the northern end of Bold Head Road near Kakapotahi, the day before he died.

That person also reported seeing Robinson in the passenger seat of a green four-wheel drive around the same time.

He said the sighting occurred just before a gunshot was reported to have been heard by several people in the Kakapotahi settlement, in mid-December.

“Nobody has been able to tell us who fired that shot and what the shot was fired for, so the timing of it is significant for us and then obviously the way and manner in which David was killed just adds to the puzzle, which unfortunately there are still pieces missing.”

Baber said the investigation had already been progressed further than it had previously.

Robinson’s mother was being kept up to date with the investigation, and was involved in the process.

“David lived an itinerant lifestyle and didn’t have a lot of contact with family… but they still want to have answers, just as much as we do and talking to the community it is quite clear they still want the answers too.”

He was confident the case could be solved.

“There are people who know what happened, they are either involved with the killing or have heard some things… and I would very much like those people to come forward and talk to police and let us know what happened.

“It is very important for the community as a whole, it’s a big question mark over that part of Westland and we’d like to shut the book on it if we can.”

Since the investigation was reopened police had received a number of firearms from individuals who owned them in the Kakapotahi area at the time.

They were now conducting forensic examinations on these firearms to rule out those not used in his murder.

Anybody who may have information that could help the police investigation has been asked to email them through the cold case form on the police website, or call 105 and reference the case number 231129/2221.

rnz