No relief until Nicholas Pike's body found

A jury's verdict that Nicholas Pike was murdered despite no body being found has given hope to his family that they can finally "let go" even if they cannot say goodbye.

The years since March 11, 2002, when they last saw their 22-year-old son in Palmerston North, have been desperate and frustrating for Evelyn and Greg Pike.

Their search for information led them to their son's drug-world associates, including Stephen Thomas Hudson, 39, who was yesterday found guilty in the High Court at Wellington of murdering Mr Pike.

Evelyn Pike went to see Hudson in prison in June 2007 when he was already serving a 12-year jail term for other crimes.

"After meeting him I thought he could not have done this. He seemed quite genuine but that's how he operates and [his denial] was what I was wanting to hear."

Mrs Pike said she still found it very hard to accept her son was gone but sitting through more than four weeks of Hudson's trial was a turning point.

"It made us let go of Nicholas but we cannot say goodbye."

Greg Pike agrees it will not be over for them till a body is found.

"Maybe somebody knows and could let us know where he is," he said.

They remember their son as being not as bad as the drugs and other evidence at the trial made him appear. They saw signs he had been outgrowing his "bad-boy behaviour" before he disappeared.

Seeing Hudson smirking and smiling through the trial disconcerted the Pikes and made them think he had misled family who gave him an alibi for the time the Crown said he murdered Nicholas Pike near the Desert Road on March 18, 2002.

There was no animosity between the two families at court.

Hudson's birth mother Christina Billing stuck by the alibi even though the jury rejected it.

Ms Billing said she had believed that justice would be done even though Hudson had told her there was no justice in the law.

After the verdict he had turned to her in the back of the court with a shrug of the shoulders and a look of, "I told you so, Mum," she said.

Ms Billing said she was shellshocked that things had turned out the way they had.

Detective Sergeant Dave Clifford, who had signed up Nicholas Pike as a police informant in early 2002, headed the investigation into his disappearance and then arrested Hudson six years later.

He said the guilty verdict was not the end of the case.

"We won't stop trying to find Nick and bring him home," Mr Clifford said.

He did not rule out approaching Hudson in the future about finding the body.

The Crown said that Hudson's suspicion that Mr Pike was informing on him to the police, or jealousy over Mr Pike's friendship with a woman in whom Hudson was interested, or Mr Pike's inability to pay a drug debt may have led to the killing.

Hudson will be sentenced some time next year.

REWARD OF $50,000 UNCLAIMED

The $50,000 reward police offered for information leading to the body of Nicholas Pike or the conviction of anyone responsible for his disappearance or death remains unclaimed.

The High Court jury was told that though the offer made in February 2007 lapsed in July 2007, it was possible it could be revived.

A police spokesman said the final decision about who gets paid from a reward and how much, rests with the police commissioner.

If one is claimed in the Pike case the details may never be known.

Only two reward payments have been confirmed in the past two years and one was not police money. A private reward of $300,000 was offered – and an undisclosed amount paid – for information leading to the return of war medals stolen from the Waiouru army museum.

In the "Pumpkin" investigation into the murder of An An Liu, US$10,000 was paid.

Other reward information was withheld because releasing it could predjudice police work or a trial.

METICULOUS CHESS-PLAYING PLANNER SUFFERS GRAND DEFEAT

In the unpredictable, brutal world of crime and drug dealing, Stephen Hudson had a much firmer grip than Nicholas Pike.

People who saw them together described a master-servant relationship.

Hudson was the chess-playing planner and meticulous schemer who tried to improve his education while in prison.

Adopted out at birth by a teenage mother, Hudson contacted her in 1999 after sitting on the information for two years. His mother, Christina Billing, asked why. "I didn't think you would want to know me, I'm a real bad shit," he told her.

Ten minutes after his first visit to his birth family ended, the armed offenders squad arrived, marking the family's first contact with police over Hudson.

When they gave him an alibi for the time Mr Pike was supposed to have been killed, the police interest intensified to phone tapping and other surveillance.

Ms Billing said their scrutiny was an eye-opener and giving evidence had been an ordeal for her family but she stuck by the alibi despite him yesterday being found guilty of murder.

Hudson told her he had nothing to do with Mr Pike's disappearance, which he repeated in a letter shown to The Dominion Post.

"I did not kill Nick Pike and had no reason to do so. I am not a law-abiding citizen and am therefore an easy victim of the system which in recent years has been slowly but surely turned by the likes of the Sensible Sentencing Trust into a vehicle for revenge and justice as a result has suffered."

By contrast, Mr Pike, 22, came from a stable family and had little talent for drug dealing. He often could not pay his debts or collect what he was owed.

In January 2002 he told police who arrested him on a minor drugs charge that he was scared of Hudson and did not know how to get out of his grip.

He agreed to steer police towards Hudson, who was then on the run for having hit one man in the mouth and head with a hammer and stabbed another in the back and arm. Both victims had slept with Hudson's former girlfriend.

Within two months Mr Pike had disappeared without giving police the information they needed to nab Hudson.

Finally arrested for Pike's murder close to the six-year anniversary of his disappearance, the long-haired Hudson who faced trial was a far different-looking man from the skinhead Pike had feared.

But even in court he was volatile, being warned for mouthing off at witnesses and not controlling his irritation with the proceedings.

Infamous for being on the run from the law, his suspected whereabouts left a trail of armed offenders squad callouts and tear gas.

Hudson had jumped from the dock in the Palmerston North courthouse in 1997 and in the search that followed police fired teargas into a local house, accidentally setting it on fire.

By 2002 Hudson was on the run again for the attacks on his romantic rivals.

Police thought they had a line on him in January 2002 and staked out a house near Rotorua. One officer spent more than 3 1/2 hours hiding in a macrocarpa hedge trying to confirm if Hudson was inside.

By the time armed police surrounded the house and fired in teargas, Hudson and his dog were gone, leaving behind equipment for making cannabis oil.

Another close shave followed near Tauranga before Hudson was finally caught in a city flat on May 13, 2002.

One witness described how Hudson reacted when he knew he was cornered, going white and then green.

"The whitest I have seen and the greenest I have seen anyone go," Luke Cairns said. "But there were about a dozen guns pointed at us so I am sure I was looking a bit green too."

By that time Mr Pike was probably dead about two months.

By December 2002, Hudson was briefly on the run again after escaping from Manawatu Prison using a smuggled blade to take out a window grille. He was captured, again in Tauranga, in January 2003.

The following September he was sentenced for the last of his convictions, topping up his term to 12 years.

On the fifth anniversary of Mr Pike's disappearance a fresh push was made for information about him – backed up with a $50,000 reward.

The foundation witness against Hudson was a former girlfriend who had refused to co-operate years earlier but had a change of heart and told police what she knew, in part to extract herself from suspected involvement in Pike's disappearance.

Cindy Vrins had been just 18 when, she said, Hudson had left her sitting by the side of the Desert Road on March 18, 2002, while Mr Pike and Hudson took a side trip.

Hudson returned alone 10-15 minutes later, saying Mr Pike had been left to tend some cannabis plants.

Hudson had ready resort to the handgun witnesses said he usually carried or kept nearby, putting it to Mr Pike's head seemingly for having cracked a joke that made people laugh, and another time waving it towards Mr Pike as other people might point a finger to emphasise a point.

By early 2002 Mr Pike was believed to owe Hudson money for drugs – one friend said $600, another said $3000.

One woman who knew both men said Mr Pike pulled a gun on her in a bid to collect an $80 drug debt for Hudson.

Mr Pike chose a double-barrelled shotgun from cloth-wrapped objects under boards in his father's garage.

Joanna Cook said she told him not to be so stupid. Ms Cook said she knew Mr Pike would not hurt her and he was only doing it because Hudson was pressuring him.

He warned her not to touch the gun because it was loaded. "It was just horrible that day. That is not Nick. That was not Nick."

Ms Cook said Mr Pike seemed stressed, tense and at one point "pissed off" about Hudson. "Nick said, I will kill him before he kills me. But obviously it was the other way around."

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