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Clive Jenkins was a great hunter and fisherman, whom people considered kind and gentle.
He started drinking at 2 p.m. and at 7:38 p.m., Franz Josef’s garage was on fire.
Previously Clive Raymond Jenkins, a keen hunter and fisherman, had put his dogs in a vehicle with food and water, and placed five blanket-wrapped firearms, several of them antique, on a jet boat parked outside the garage. . He had already told his partner to pack up and leave.
Also, he kept $ 3,500 in Swiss currency and his friend’s plumbing tools in the boat, so they could find them later.
He also used a loader with a bucket to tow a bus without the front wheels out of the well he was using. The owner, Mike Charles, appeared and words were exchanged.
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Charles had seen Jenkins, described as temperamental but kind-hearted and helpful, like this before, and he left without making a fuss.
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Jenkins had his workshop and accommodation in the same building.
Later that night, Jenkins drove the loader around his garage and put the bucket on a wall that separated the workshop from his home, scaring a witness in the room. She caught the smell of diesel and gasoline and saw that the shop floor was shiny and wet.
The witness ran out of the house and called 111. While on the line, she saw the garage light up and burst into flames.
The details emerged in an investigation into the death of Jenkins, 40, on September 13, 2016, in Franz Josef, on the west coast. The investigation in Christchurch District Court before Coroner Marcus Elliot began Monday and continues Tuesday.
Joanne Carroll / Fairfax NZ
Franz Alpine Retreat manager Keith Hartley describes the fire scene inside a workshop in Franz Josef. (Video first published in September 2016)
Jenkins’ body was cremated in the fire and a shotgun was found near the body.
On call 111, made on September 13 at 7:38 pm, the witness, whose name is withheld, told police that Jenkins had gone “crazy.”
The court, assisted by attorney Sara Jamieson, heard that Jenkins had a contract with AA as a call operator and police had received a complaint that he had defrauded AA of about $ 30,000 by overestimating miles driven. He had known about the complaint for about eight weeks.
A witness said he heard him say that he calculated call distances and did not think AA would verify it.
The local council was chasing him for a construction that he claimed needed a permit.
The court was told that Jenkins was a heavy drinker but could function well. Five weeks before his death he disappeared and a friend found a note addressed to a colleague and his mother saying “I’m sorry.” Before his death, he drank more than usual.
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The scene of the fire in September 2016.
“He was trying to drink his troubles away,” said a witness.
Her former partner, Michelle May, told the hearing that she had started a relationship with Jenkins in 2008 and they had become business partners in a machine shop operation in Franz Josef.
He had spent a great deal of time working for an outdoor theater company in Switzerland and had a strong connection to Fox Glacier, even though his family was from Invercargill.
They built a large shed with houses at one end and a garage at the other. At the end of 2015, they decided to separate and divide the assets amicably.
She moved in 2016, but kept in touch with him to make sure he managed. He knew another woman had moved in with him in 2016, but he never mentioned her. He brought up the subject of AA but didn’t think he had done anything wrong.
They had talked the day she died when he called her at 7:20 pm and spoke for about 8 minutes. It looked flat and he said it didn’t feel right. When he left the business, he still owed about $ 230,000 on a mortgage, but it was manageable.
