The British Columbia Superior Court has issued a retrial for a former New Zealand councillor who has been charged with murdering his second wife to claim an insurance payout.
Peter Beckett, the ex-councillor of Napier City, was suspected of committing homicide to his second wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, seven years ago.
Ms. Beckett, a schoolteacher, perished on August 18, 2010, in what was originally reported as a boating accident and drowning on Upper Arrow Lake in Canada.
A year later after the incident, 60-year-old Peter Beckett was charged with murder. He was also charged with plotting to kill five potential trial witnesses – the parents of his late wife, a cousin, a lawyer, and a sergeant of the RCMP.
The Crown claims that Beckett murdered his wife to profit from inheritance insurance and their house.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict after seven days of deliberations. The case’s first trial ran from January to April last year.
Beckett claimed that the jury had been 11-1 in favor of acquittal after he had called the trail a “kangaroo court.”
Although a retrial had been scheduled to start this week, the court was expected to schedule a start date either this month or August,
NZ Herald News reported.
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