Photo: Pool / John Kirk-Anderson
Convicted double-murderer Scott Watson is due to appear before the Parole Board again on Friday, in his latest bid to be released from prison.
Watson was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999 for murdering Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds after an 11-week trial involving about 500 witnesses.
Photo: NZ Police
The Blenheim friends, aged 21 and 17, were last seen stepping off a water taxi onto a stranger's yacht in the early hours of 1 January 1998 after a New Year's Eve party at Furneaux Lodge. Their bodies have never been found.
Watson, 54, had always maintained his innocence and had now spent more than 27 years behind bars.
It was now accepted that Hope and Smart died in circumstances that amounted to mur
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