{"id":18803,"date":"2026-10-28T05:58:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T16:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18803"},"modified":"2026-10-28T05:58:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T16:58:52","slug":"katrina-jefferies-cold-case-police-investigating-potential-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18803","title":{"rendered":"Katrina Jefferies cold case: Police investigating potential breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Police are investigating a potential breakthrough in relation to the 21-year-old cold case killing of Auckland woman Katrina Jefferies, RNZ can reveal. A never-before-seen police report into her death reveals that about a decade ago police recommended a suspect be charged with murder, but the Crown later found there was “insufficient evidence” to support the charge. National Crime Correspondent Sam Sherwood reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For 21 years, Katrina Jefferies’ family has waited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They have waited for answers, for an arrest, and for the person responsible for killing the 22-year-old mother to be held accountable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Twice police have offered rewards. Two years after her killing they offered $50,000 and then in 2019 police announced a $100,000 reward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2018, Detective Inspector Paul Borrell completed a review of the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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His report – obtained by RNZ – reveals police recommended a murder charge in 2015 and that a woman later made “completely fabricated and false” claims that she helped dispose of Jefferies’ body.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report says most homicides are “quickly solved with early breakthroughs”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Regrettably [Jefferies’ death] is not in this category and has involved a hard grind over the years to this point with a reality now being that it may well never be solved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“This is a reality that needs to be seriously and realistically considered before there is any embarking on any further reviews or elements of work.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RNZ can now reveal police are investigating a new potential breakthrough in the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Detective Inspector Scott Beard says the investigation is open and being worked on “as a result of information only recently received by police”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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All exhibits are also in the process of being reassessed, and it will be determined what if any further examination can be undertaken.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police are investigating a potential breakthrough in relation to the 21-year-old cold case killing of Auckland woman Katrina Jefferies, RNZ can reveal. A never-before-seen police report into her death reveals that about a decade ago police recommended a suspect be charged with murder, but the Crown later found there was “insufficient evidence” to support the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18805,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803\/revisions\/18805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}