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The case of a missing prostitute and her fugitive boyfriend has finally been closed this week - 10 years after the couple disappeared on the Manukau Harbour, sparking rumours they had faked their own deaths.
Hud Grimm Miller and Chloe Summerley were last seen on October 16, 1998 making their way towards the entrance of the choppy harbour in a new 5m fibreglass boat.
Six hours later their modified Breeze Craft was found floating in the channel, but despite days of searching their bodies were never found.
Their disappearance grabbed headlines with stories about everything from their unusual sex lives to theories they had faked their deaths or that Miller - who was wanted in Wales for an assault on a former partner - had murdered Summerley before fleeing overseas.
This week Auckland coroner Murray Jamieson officially dismissed those theories when he ruled the couple, who were both 32, drowned following a boating mishap.
The ruling was based on the evidence of police who said there were two possible scenarios. One involved the couple faking their deaths, the other that they were maritime novices who came to grief when they ventured to sea in appalling conditions.
"I think eventually [Miller] was of the belief that he could successfully make his way to Australia by boat," Detective Senior Sergeant Albie Alexander told the Weekend Herald. "However, his inexperience in the ways of boating and general seamanship would have gone some way towards their demise."
Mr Alexander said there was a lot of speculation about what might have happened to them. Police found nothing to support those theories - or other allegations about the couple who reportedly had bizarre backgrounds that included kinky sex, sadism and animal abuse.
One man who knew the couple said there are too many things that just don't add up. "My gut feeling is that they are still alive because of the letter that she wrote to her mother saying they were going to Australia," said Kaitaia man Milan Yerkovich who sold the couple part of his land.
"I felt very sorry for her because they left all their belongings and books. One night they just up and left in the middle of the night."
When he later sorted through those belongings he found numerous books about the Australian outback and unusual diary entries. "She was quite a nice person from what I saw of her but he ... was very strange. I couldn't fathom him out and didn't want to have much to do with him."
Summerley - who came from Britain to New Zealand in 1997 - bought Mr Yerkovich's section. While she worked in Auckland massage parlours Miller lived on the land which was later found to have several containers of urine stored on it - reportedly for organic farming.
Reports from the time described Miller as Summerley's pimp. He was also a male escort, stripper and had been an extra on the TV show Hercules. He used a number of aliases including Luke Miller and Shane Armstrong and arrived in New Zealand in 1997 on a visitors permit which expired in February 1998.
He is believed to have an ex-wife and child in Australia.
The coroner's findings will sent to the couple's families in England.
