HEAT OF THE NIGHT PRODUCER: PETER STEVENS REPORTER: RICHARD LANGSTON Karen Intro: Cliff Cameron was a great kiwi buccaneer running a small airline, taking tourists into the heart of Africa. He had a beautiful wife and two lovely children. But his life began unravelling, his marriage disintegrated. Then, one night, he died, a bullet in his head. His wife Kerstin said it was suicide and the police agreed. But Cliff's family couldn't believe it. And they launched their own investigation. As a result, Kerstin Cameron is on trial. And she could be hanged for murder. Her family are fighting to save their daughter's life; his family fighting to save their son's reputation. RICHARD (V/O): This was the Africa he'd dreamed of, the Africa of the big game hunt, the challenge of the wilds. For ten years Tanzania was home, and at 40 Cliff Cameron, former Waikato farm boy had the look of a good Kiwi bloke on a great adventure. That’s one version. The other is, he was a man hiding a deep despair, his life unravelling amidst drink, debt, violence and guns. In July 1998 he was killed by a single bullet to the head, and ever since there's been a fight to prove the truth. Was it murder or suicide? Local police said it was suicide. DON CAMERON: Knowing Cliff we just couldn’t believe that. RICHARD (V/O): Cliff’s parents, Lynn and Don Cameron. LYNN CAMERON: He loved life and he worked hard. I’d been talking to him just a few days before and he was happy, busy, he had plans for his future. DON CAMERON: To take an easy way out is just absolutely out of character. RICHARD (V/O): So strong was their belief they hired private investigator Stu Morgan to go to Africa, and nearly three years later Cliff Cameron’s former wife is on trial for his murder. German Kerstin Cameron could hang if she’s found guilty. In the German media she’s portrayed as a woman wronged. In a hidden camera interview in a Tanzanian jail she says she’s innocent. KERSTIN CAMERON (Translated): I didn’t have anything to do with the murder of my husband... I knew very well that they didn't have any evidence unless they were going to fabricate something. But I couldn't see who would do that, and I just couldn't imagine that they would go so far. RICHARD (V/O): Her father Gerhard Loesser is campaigning to save his daughter's life. GERHARD LOESSER (Translated): There is no evidence of her having killed her husband. GERMAN REPORTER (Translated): Have any of the witnesses made statements against her? GERHARD LOESSER: No GERMAN REPORTER: Not a single one? GERHARD LOESSER: Yes, the statement of a night guard. He said Kerstin went away during the night to get the police. But later, one and a half years later, he changed his statement and said that Kerstin told him in Swahili, "I have just killed my husband. I have just killed my husband." RICHARD (V/O): Also in the balance is the future of the Cameron's two children, Tell and Lachlan who are now living in Germany, the youngest victims in a case that’s attracted international media attention with claims of police corruption, political interference, and smear campaigns. DON CAMERON: It was a question of knowing the truth. We wanted to get to the bottom of the truth. LYNN CAMERON: We wanted the truth for Cliff. I mean that, we've lost him, we can’t bring him back, but we want to know really what happened to him that night and I think it’s important for his little boys that they know what happened to their father. STU MORGAN: Initially I considered that it probably was a suicide. I know that family’s grieve in these sorts of situations, but it was quite clear from a very early stage there were some aggravating features in this situation. RICHARD: Clearly it’s either suicide or murder? STU MORGAN: There’s no doubt in my mind at all, it's murder. Cliff did not shoot himself. RICHARD (V/O): Within a few weeks of the death Cliff Cameron's father and brother, former All Black Lachlan Cameron went to Tanzania for a memorial service, and to ask questions. Kerstin Cameron's behaviour in the days following the shooting made the family suspicious. They say she told them different stories about how Cliff had died. DON CAMERON: It was supposed to have been an accident, he was getting a revolver from a cupboard or something. STU MORGAN: The ex-wife had mentioned to a member of the family that she was in the shower when she heard the gunshot. She then switched her story the same day and said she was lying face down on the bed when the shot was fired. KERSTIN CAMERON (At Service): Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. RICHARD (V/O): It's not in dispute that Kerstin Cameron was the only other person in the room when the gun went off and that their troubled four year marriage was over long before that shot. They'd been living apart for six months. LYNN CAMERON: Cliff had tried to make it work but it just didn’t work and they separated in January ’98. But he was concerned for his children. He wanted his children to have a happy upbringing like he had had and if it wasn’t going to work well he, you know they separated and I think they actually got on better when they were separated. RICHARD (V/O): On the night of the shooting Cliff Cameron, who'd been drinking, had gone to their former family home to discuss business and family matters. There was an argument and police found him dead in the bedroom. Kerstin Cameron says he’d become depressed and overwhelmed by money problems and she says she heard him say, "Tell my father I tried." Then there was a shot. In his time in Tanzania Cliff Cameron had gone from a respected bush pilot to owning his own small air charter company, a farm he'd broken in from land himself, and interests in a goldmine. He did have debts of several hundred thousand dollars, but his parents had raised a loan for him. (I/V): Was he facing financial ruin? DON CAMERON: Absolutely not. His farm was a going concern, his flying was doing well. No it’s, that is a smearing of the waters again. It’s not true. RICHARD (V/O): There are conflicting stories about Cliff Cameron's mood on the day he died. Some staff at his airline office say he was happy but one employee claims he talked about suicide. GERMAN REPORTER: What exactly did he say? WOMAN: "I feel like blowing my *** brains out." I just looked at him, I didn’t take it more serious. RICHARD (V/O): But from the outset local police treated the death as suicide. STU MORGAN: Within eight hours of them turning up Cliff's body had been removed from the scene and within 18 hours of them turning up, he was on his way back to New Zealand so... RICHARD: That's unusual? STU MORGAN: Very unusual. They hadn't contained the scene at all, they hadn’t carried any forensic testing at all at the scene. They were told that it was a suicide, they didn’t really look into the situation at all. RICHARD: Is there any evidence bribes were paid? STU MORGAN: I have seen a receipt that dictates bribes that were paid to police officers that night, as well as mortuary assistants and doctors at the hospital where Cliff’s post mortem examination was initially carried out. RICHARD (V/O): The family was initially told by a Tanzanian doctor Cliff Cameron shot himself through the mouth, but a post mortem in New Zealand ordered by the family showed no such wound. But within a month, without any inquest, the death had been officially recorded in Tanzania as suicide, leaving it up to the family to prove otherwise. (I/V): It must have been enormously difficult taking on someone who was married to your son. DON CAMERON: It's a horrible situation. A horrible situation. There’s no problem once we were aware of the deficiencies or the non-truths, I’m afraid as far as I'm concerned it was all on, and I made that statement to one of them over there. If we found out that there was something wrong, that it would be all on. And I have no regrets about it at all. We just want the truth and if we've got to stand up and bear a problem, we will. RICHARD (V/O): Don Cameron set to work visiting the room where his son was shot. With him a New Zealand private investigator working for Stu Morgan. He did the basic scene examination they say police had failed to do. And soon enough they believed they had evidence Cliff Cameron could not have shot himself. STU MORGAN: It just leapt off the page basically. To me that's a staged position. RICHARD (V/O): The family obtained police photos showing Cliff Cameron after he was shot. STU MORGAN: The gun's been placed in his hand. There's no way if he’d shot himself that he could have held a semi-automatic in that way there. He would have dropped it. It would've dropped. The force is quite a powerful movement. RICHARD (V/O): Stu Morgan says there’s another vital fact. Once a semi automatic fires, it re-cocks and is ready to fire again. But this gun was uncocked. STU MORGAN: For it to be uncocked means that someone has made it safe. There is no way that Cliff made it safe after shooting himself. This is a very unnatural position and he's clearly been placed on the bed. DON CAMERON: That really raised alarm bells. A dead man can't uncock or put a revolver on safe, so somebody else has handled it. RICHARD (V/O): After three months of investigating, Stu Morgan believed there was enough evidence to bring a murder charge. They put their evidence to the Tanzanian police, enlisting the help of politicians and Foreign Affairs. But in Arusha, Northern Tanzania, the town where Cliff Cameron had lived, police could see no reason to re-open the case. But a New Zealand diplomat based in Africa ensured the file was put before Tanzania's top detective, and the case was re-opened. (I/V): There have also been accusations of political pressure. DON CAMERON: By us? Well that's quite simple to explain. We required stuff to go through to Dar Es Salaam. We didn't want to offend anybody. We consulted with the Wellington people through our member Bill Birch. I spoke to Bill Birch about it and told him what my problem was and asked if we could get assistance and they assisted us as a conduit in making contact with the Tanzanian police. They made no recommendations whatsoever, it was purely a contact thing. STU MORGAN: There's been no political interference whatsoever. The only orchestrated campaign that there has been, if there has been one at all, has been a campaign that her family have initiated through the media back down here, to put pressure on, I suspect, the politicians down here to stop things from happening. RICHARD (V/O): Police believed there was enough evidence of a cover-up, and in May last year, nearly two years after the shooting, Kerstin Cameron was charged with murder. GERMAN REPORTER (Translated): Did you regret later not going to Germany after the first signs of problems? KERSTIN CAMERON (Translated): No. I thought there was absolutely no point in that. If I left the country, surely they would say, "There you go! First signs of trouble and she has gone." RICHARD (V/O): In media reports since, Cliff Cameron's character has come under heavy attack. Kerstin's friends say he was a heavy drinker who got into fight, abused and frightened his wife, and fired guns in and around the house. DON CAMERON: Oh they have played with guns. This is one of their hobbies over there. It's crazy but I've seen it myself. They're having some whiskies and they opened another bottle and I went, "Hey what's going on here?" I said. And they were all grown men so all I could say was, "Okay you guys, take care, I'm heading behind a concrete wall", and went to bed. And they got it off their system and eventually came to bed. LYNN CAMERON: I think it’s all been embellished by people who wanted to try and blacken his character. I think that he had a wildness in his spirit but he was very level headed when, in things that were serious. I mean he's flown many people throughout Africa, Wilbur Smith, Anthony Hopkins, people, he’s mixed with a wide cross section of people and he had found a challenge there and that’s what he was working through. DON CAMERON: Cliff did play. He was a player but he had a terrific heart and was a hard worker. LYNN CAMERON: Cliff used to bring children that were injured, sick people, Tanzanian people that were right away in the outback, in the villages, bring them in to get medical treatment from the doctor, and he’d pay their medical expenses for them. STU MORGAN: I know of a situation where he was flying for the Save the Children Fund. He flew a plane into Somalia, it was kidnapped, the plane was hi-jacked. It was only through Cliff and his level-headedness, he was able to talk the civilian passengers off the plane without getting hurt, and he was kept hostage for several hours more before he was able to be released. That was the sort of guy Cliff was. RICHARD: Some people will think, "Mmm, I wonder if those parents are blind to their son's faults and they just can’t see them?” LYNN CAMERON: No we're realistic. I don't think that at all. I don’t think that can be substantiated really. DON CAMERON: It's as simple as this: you say as you see. And we see what we see. We know what other people are saying. We know on all angles. And there are a lot of people just sitting, waiting to see. But we’ve got no problems. RICHARD (V/O): Friends of Kerstin Cameron claim he had a split personality, kind and generous when sober, but violent and dangerous when drinking. He was also having an affair. (I/V): Why would Kerstin Cameron shoot her husband? STU MORGAN: I believe she was jealous. I believe jealousy was the motive. RICHARD: Jealous of what? STU MORGAN: Cliff had been having an affair with a woman that she knew. She had become aware of that and she has admitted that they argued about that, that night. RICHARD: What do you believe happened? STU MORGAN: I suspect that Kerstin's run down into the bedroom, has been followed down there by Cliff and I believe that the pistol was then placed to Cliff's head while he was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing that wall where the back splatter was found. RICHARD: How would she have got a gun that close to him without him stopping her? STU MORGAN: I don't believe that he was looking at her. I believe he was looking down towards the ground at the time the shot was fired. I don't think he really knew that she had the gun until such time as she placed it in front of his head. RICHARD: Do you believe Kerstin killed your son? DON CAMERON: Well the evidence would point that way. I mean I'm a factual person and the evidence points that way. RICHARD (V/O): But the defence has argued at the trial Cliff Cameron had lost control because of drink and debt and ended his own life. In two or three days the judge will rule whether Kerstin Cameron is guilty of killing her husband, and whether she should hang. DON CAMERON: We've had to bear the pain of it all the way. I've had good times over there, and I got on well with Kerstin. I respected Kerstin as Cliff's wife. That respect's gone now. The question is, if she's guilty, I'm afraid I feel that perhaps leniency maybe would be my wish, but I think we've got to face up to it. We've all got to face this still. Everybody's got to face this still. It's not very nice. I don't like it one bit.