Death in the tropics: Peter Beckett dies in Central America, had been seeking love after murder conviction was overturned

• Peter Beckett has died in Central America, several years after starting a new life after his conviction for murdering his second wife was overturned.
• The Herald has been told by a friend of Beckett’s that he had been battling complications from a severe leg infection.
• Beckett had a stunning catamaran and was running cruises in Belize and Guatemala and looking for a fresh love in his life.

Peter Beckett - the man whose murder conviction was quashed on appeal after he was found guilty of killing his second wife – has died while living a nomadic lifestyle in Central America.

The NZ Herald has learned the former Napier City Councillor died in Rio Dulce, Guatemala, where he had travelled from his previous base in Belize.

A friend of Beckett’s told the Herald he had been living as a “bit of an outcast” in Central America when he met him.

Former Napier City Councillor Peter Beckett started a new life in Central America, living on a catamaran, after being freed in Canada after an earlier murder conviction.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson confirmed assistance was being provided “to the family of a New Zealander in Guatemala”, but declined to comment further for privacy reasons.

Beckett had previously been charged and convicted of first-degree murder after the death of his wife Laura Letts-Beckett – a 50-year-old Canadian school teacher – during a fishing trip in Canada in 2010.

Letts-Beckett drowned in the remote Shelter Bay on Upper Arrow Lake, inland northeast of Vancouver on August 18, 2010.

The death was initially believed to be accidental.

But the former Napier City Councillor was charged about a year later with murder.

Prosecutors alleged Beckett killed his second wife in a bid to gain financially.

A 2016 trial ended with a hung jury.

During that first trial, the jury heard from a cellmate of Beckett’s who claimed the New Zealand man provided him a list of names of people to kill including the police investigator, Letts-Beckett’s parents, a cousin and a lawyer.

Canadian woman Laura Letts-Beckett pictured with her New Zealand husband Peter Beckett who prosecutors claimed had murdered her. Photo / Supplied

“It developed to where I was to take out witnesses for him upon my release – and by take out, I mean kill witnesses,” the informant told jurors.

After the first case was ruled a mistrial, Beckett was tried again in 2017, found guilty of first-degree murder and handed a 25-year non-parole sentence.

But the conviction was overturned in 2020.

Peter Beckett pictured during his one-term stint as a councillor on the Napier City Council. Photo / Supplied

It followed submissions from his legal team citing improper submissions by the prosecutor and errors by the judge.

By that stage, Beckett had served more than nine years in jail, including the time awaiting trial.

Beckett’s new life in Central America – ‘an outcast’ searching for ‘another wife’

Beckett eventually left Canada after being freed from jail.

But New Zealand – where his first marriage took place and his now-adult children were born – did not call him home.

Instead, Beckett invested in a Leopard 47 Sailing Catamaran – which costs up to $785,000 new– and headed towards Central America.

In mid-2023 his travels took him to Honduras, a country with Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean coastlines.

The Central American country of Belize was home for Peter Beckett during his travels. Photo / 123RF

While there, he was hospitalised at Roatan with a badly broken leg.

Before departing Honduras, he posted on social media that his next destination would be Belize; on the eastern coast of Central America, with Caribbean Sea shorelines to the east and dense jungle to the west.

He wrote it was a business and pleasure trip on his catamaran.

“I’ll need some crew. Going to Charter for awhile. Belize gets 337 cruise ship visits, Gorgeous. Anyone interested?.”

He also posted it was time to find love.

“Thirteen years widowed. Time to find another Wife, to sail with.”

The catamaran which was home to former Napier City Councillor Peter Beckett in Central America for the past few years after he was acquitted of the alleged murder of his second wife in Canada. Photo / Supplied

It was a theme he echoed again later in 2023: “Finding a mature, genuine lady to sail with, around the Caribbean. This shouldn’t be difficult. Has the world gone completely crazy?”

Last April he wrote he had made it to his “retirement destination”, Rio Dulce, Guatemala, after 12 months of sailing around Central America.

And returning to New Zealand still wasn’t high on his priority list.

“Will I sail back to New Zealand?,” he posted.

“Not sure!! Maybe if I meet an adventurous girl. But it’s my favorite temperature here, at some time, everyday. 27°C.

A view inside Peter Beckett's catamaran in Central America.

“Mangoes, Melons, Papayas, and a huge range of tropical fruits and vegetables, not to mention, Lobster, Squid, Conch, Shrimps and Fish caught fresh for breakfast, while sipping the best coffee, on earth.

“Widowed now for 14 years, maybe it’s time to find a First, and LAST MATE. Who wants to share my Dream???”

He also posted on a social media page for yachties in the region, seeking a “soul and sailing mate”.

While Beckett’s social media suggested he was living his dream new life, a man who knew him in Belize told the Herald his existence wasn’t all tropical joy.

Peter Beckett is said to have died due to complications from a severe leg infection in Guatemala. Photo / 123RF

Part of that was down to coverage of the murder case in a documentary series broadcast around the world last year.

“He was alone here and seemed a bit sad the few times I met him,” the man said.

“There seemed to be a group of people that knew his history since his story was on Amazon Prime, which made him a bit of an outcast.

“But I liked him.”

The man said he understood Beckett died due to a badly infected leg which he had battled “for quite some time”.

“He was in Puerto Barrios [hospital] getting IV antibiotics. I thought he was staying in a hotel as far as I last knew, but apparently somebody had to get him off of his boat to get him to the hospital.”

How an ‘amazing love story’ ignited in Hawke’s Bay and ended tragically on a Canadian lake

Crown prosecutors allege Beckett deliberately pushed his wife off the boat the pair was on.

Letts-Beckett could not swim. The prosecutors alleged the former city councillor stood on the boat and watched his wife drown.

Beckett’s defence never changed; his wife had accidentally fallen overboard and he had done all he could to save her.

His legal team said that included jumping into the water in a bid to save her.

Peter Beckett pictured in latter years after he started a new life in Central America. Photo / Supplied

While prosecutors tried to portray Beckett as a cold-blooded killer, the one-term local body politician told media while in prison in Canada the couple’s relationship was an “amazing love story”.

The pair met when Letts-Beckett was holidaying in New Zealand, taking a ride on a tourism venture at Cape Kidnappers which Beckett operated.

“She brought me a banana skin,” he told KTW while locked up in Kamloops jail, in British Columbia, Canada.

“She asked me, ‘Where’s your garbage?’. I just kind of looked at her. In New Zealand, we say ‘rubbish’.”

Beckett said the pair hit it off immediately.

He later invited the Canadian tourist to his house to try some fresh paua.

“And, I thought, ‘What have you just done?’,” he said.

“We went to buy some salad stuff, and then right back to my house.

“I had some wine and whipped up some paua fritters on the barbie. We visited until 2.30 in the morning.”

Peter Beckett met his second wife when she was a Canadian tourist taking part a tourism trip with a company Beckett owned at Cape Kidnappers. Photo / NZME

The pair then travelled around the South Island for two weeks.

The couple spent the next two weeks together. Beckett took 10 days off work to travel.

“We just clicked,” he said. “It wasn’t a love-at-first-sight thing; it was more a meeting of the minds.

“I hate to use clichés, but it was soulmate stuff. I’d been married before, I’d had break-ups before, I’d fallen in love before - but this was different.

“It’s just an amazing love story.”

How the Beckett trial became a global TV hit

The tragic death of Letts-Beckett, the arrest, conviction and acquittal of Beckett became the subject of a three-part documentary series broadcast around the world.

In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery was broadcast in New Zealand in 2024.

Promotional material for the show said it aimed to look at unanswered questions about the case.

In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery is a Canadian docuseries by AJP Productions, produced by Pablo Salzman, Thomas Robins and Suze Hannagan, and directed by Trish Neufeld.

A view of Upper Arrow Lake where Laura Letts-Beckett drowned. Photo / Supplied

The show was told through the eyes of Beckett and featured exclusive interviews with his wife’s friends and family, as well as lawyers, forensic experts and police.

Ahead of its broadcast last year, Thomas Robins, Sky New Zealand originals head of commissioning and series executive producer, said major twists in the case were revealed throughout the series.

“Which may have viewers second-guessing what they thought they knew about the haunting real-life mystery,” Robins said.

“The series tells a complex story that blends human drama and legal intrigue, exploring Peter’s fierce legal battle and Laura’s family’s enduring suspicions around the case, and we think audiences will be just as intrigued by this compelling investigation as we have been.”

Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 33 years of newsroom experience.

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