The Scott Guy Murder

Scott Grahame Guy, 31, was a dairy farmer living near Feilding with his family. In the early morning of 8 July 2010, he was found dead near the driveway of his Aorangi Road property. Police launched a major homicide investigation that eventually led to the arrest and trial of his brother-in-law, Ewen Macdonald.

The homicide investigation

Police reconstructed the movements around the Guy farm, examined physical evidence and interviewed witnesses. In April 2011, Macdonald was charged with Guy's murder. The prosecution later alleged that tensions connected with the family farming operation provided a motive for the killing.

Macdonald denied murdering Guy. The defence argued that evidence of other wrongdoing by Macdonald did not prove that he had committed the homicide. Those separate offences were not a substitute for proof of murder.

The 2012 trial

After a month-long High Court trial in Wellington, the jury returned a not-guilty verdict on 3 July 2012. Police publicly accepted the verdict. Macdonald was later sentenced for unrelated offences to which he had pleaded guilty, but those convictions did not change his acquittal on the murder charge.

Because Macdonald was acquitted, he must not be described as Scott Guy's killer. The legally established position is that no person has been convicted of the homicide.

Coronial and later review

In 2013, the coroner declined to reopen an inquiry to determine who had killed Guy, explaining that determining criminal responsibility was not the role of the coronial process after the trial. The death nevertheless remained an unsolved homicide.

On the fifteenth anniversary of the murder in July 2025, RNZ reported that police had last reviewed the file in 2022 and taken no further action. Guy's parents said they still hoped reliable new information would eventually establish the truth.