New Zealand Probes What May Be First South Pole Murder
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Evidence of what police believe could be the first recorded murder at the South Pole was heard at an inquest in New Zealand yesterday. Rodney Marks, 32, an astrophysicist who died in 2000 at the Scott-Amundsen polar research station, may have been poisoned, police said.
The post mortem showed that he died from a heavy dose of methanol, but an initial inquest was adjourned in 2000. The inquest heard that Marks was a binge drinker who used alcohol to control mild Tourette’s syndrome, an inherited neurological disorder.
But a detective leading the probe, Senior Sergeant Grant Wormald, said his efforts were being thwarted by the National Science Foundation, an American-based agency that runs the research station. “I am not entirely satisfied that all relevant information and reports have been disclosed to the New Zealand police or the coroner,” he said.
