‘Borrowed time’: Peter Beckett’s final days in Central America

Talking from her base in Vancouver, Donna Turko, KC, said her former client had been battling ill health for some time.

“That man was living on borrowed time,” she told the Herald.

“But he lived his life to [the] fullest despite the immense stress that surrounded his every step.”

Beckett was twice tried for first-degree murder over the death of 50-year-old Laura Letts-Beckett. The teacher had drowned in Canada while on a fishing trip on a lake with Beckett; the pair were the only two people on the small boat.

Letts-Beckett couldn’t swim and wasn’t wearing a life jacket.

The first trial in 2016 ended in a hung jury. A second trial a year later saw him found guilty and handed a 25-year non-parole sentence.

But the conviction was overturned in late 2020 after submissions from his legal team citing improper submissions by the prosecutor and errors by the judge.

Prosecutors tried to have the ruling overturned and sought a third trial, a legal move which the Supreme Court of Canada refused.

The prosecution had alleged Beckett murdered Letts-Beckett for financial gain, including access to her teaching pension and an updated life insurance policy. During the trials, he was also portrayed as an abusive husband.

Once Beckett was a free man, he could legally claim both the life insurance payout – which producers of an Amazon Prime documentary series into the case were told was valued at up to $817,000 – and his late wife’s pension, an annual sum of $46,700.

He never returned to live in New Zealand, where he had served a term as a councillor on the Napier City Council and operated a popular Hawke’s Bay tourist attraction.

Instead, Beckett invested in an upmarket Leopard 47 Sailing Catamaran – which when new cost up to $785,000 – and headed towards Central America.

The ship was to be his home as he travelled in the last years of his life around Central America, and also a vessel to be used for business purposes; later offering charters in the waters of Belize and Guatemala.

It also turned out to be the ship which an ailing Beckett was helped from this month and rushed to hospital in Rio Dulce – a popular destination in Central America for sailboats and launches – where he later died.

Beckett had proudly chronicled online some of his journeys around Central America by boat since 2023.

It was his dream “retirement destination”, he wrote.

But that dream turned into a nightmare on the night of February 8 when an SOS was raised in a social media chat channel for boaties in the Rio Dulce area.

Beckett was gravely ill and needed to be rushed to a hospital immediately.

The alarm was first raised by a local cleaner who had travelled to Beckett’s catamaran where it was anchored in the river that runs through Rio Dulce.

An English yachtie saw the messages and was one of the first on the scene after the alert.

He told the Herald he didn’t hesitate in jumping into his dinghy, finding the catamaran in the hours of darkness and offering whatever help he could.

A local doctor was injecting Beckett with painkillers and the very ill Kiwi asked the good Samaritan to rub his arms to comfort him.

“He was very glad to have me there as I could speak his language and comfort him,” the man said.

“He was scared – I could see it in his eyes – but I tried to tell him everything would be okay.”

The man said the pair had never met before.

The English yachtie, the cleaner and four volunteer firefighters who later arrived managed to get Beckett off his catamaran and on to a small launch.

Awaiting them on the shoreline was an ambulance that rushed Beckett to a $1000-a-night hospital.

He was later transferred to a second larger hospital, where he died.

“I was honoured to help,” the man said. “I’m just so sad about the outcome.”

Last year Beckett wrote about how he had been battling issues relating to a leg he had previously broken on his travels through the tropics.

A man who knew Beckett – and a second person who spent time with him in Central America – told the Herald this week that a bad infection was one of the reasons he was rushed to hospital in Rio Dulce from his catamaran.

A friend in Central America said he had been battling an infection “for quite some time”.

Another yachtie from Britain said Beckett had earlier been given a “letter of authority” to operate the vessel and the yachtie had taken “guardianship” of it until it could safely be given to the dead man’s family.

He had taken the steps to prevent it from being “stripped down”.

The man told the Herald that some of Beckett’s children were set to arrive in Guatemala over the weekend (NZT). The boat and other belongings would then be handed to his offspring.

He added that once Beckett’s daughters arrived, “my part in all this will be over”.

Beckett updated friends and family on his travels on his precious catamaran – which he described as “my four-bedroom floating home” – via social media.

He wrote he was “living the dream”.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing in the 12 months sailing around Central America until he reached Rio Dulce; a location he would describe as his “retirement destination”.

He was hospitalised in Roatan Hospital, Honduras, after breaking a leg in August 2023.

When he was released from hospital, he wrote that his next destination was the nearby Central American nation of Belize.

He planned to find some crew and charter out his catamaran in Belize, a coastal country that receives more than 300 cruise ship visits a year.

“Gorgeous, anyone interested,” he posted.

He also became a member of the Caribbean Sailors and Cruisers group.

A man who got to know Beckett during his travels also told the Herald this week how Beckett seemed a “bit sad”, and was also “a bit of an outcast” after the broadcast last year of Amazon Prime’s three-part documentary series into Letts-Beckett’s death.

In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery was broadcast around the world, including in New Zealand.

By April 2024, Beckett – who wrote that he was “ageing graciously” – and his catamaran had made it to Rio Dulce.

He started offering cruise excursions on his vessel, including snorkelling, sailing, fishing partying and sunset trips.

After his first marriage in Napier ended in divorce, and his second in the tragic death of Letts-Beckett, the former Napier City councillor posted that now he was in his “retirement destination”.

He also wrote that he was ready for a new relationship.

“Widowed now for 14 years, maybe it’s time to find a First, and LAST MATE. Who wants to share my Dream???”

In another post to social media, he wrote: “Time to find another Wife, to sail with.”

He also posted on a social media page for yachties in the region that he was seeking a “soul and sailing mate”.

Beckett never did find his forever love.

His death certificate prepared at Rio Dulce Hospital – and seen by the Herald this week – listed him as being single.

Laura Letts-Beckett drowned in the remote Shelter Bay on Upper Arrow Lake, inland northeast of Vancouver on August 18, 2010.

Crown prosecutors alleged Beckett deliberately pushed his wife off the boat the pair were on. They also claimed the former New Zealand local body politician stood on the boat and watched his wife drown.

Beckett’s defence never changed; his wife had accidentally fallen from the small boat and he had done all he could to save her.

Beckett always denied any wrongdoing towards the woman he shared an “amazing love story” with; that includes saying he jumped into the water in a bid to save Letts-Beckett.

Unable to stay under the surface of the lake, he claimed he headed to shore and got a rock that would help him stay underwater and rescue his wife.

His first post on his social media account on October 21, 2021 – almost a year after being freed from a prison cell – was a smiling portrait of him and his widow.

In an interview featured in In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery, Beckett spoke of his love for his second wife and again stated his innocence.

“I heard the splash. I realised Laura wasn’t there, but I couldn’t save her,” he said.

“It was the worst day of my life.

“I did not kill Laura. I loved that girl, and she loved me. The biggest miscarriage of justice I think in the world.”

The pair met when Letts-Beckett was holidaying in New Zealand, taking a ride on a tourism venture at Cape Kidnappers which Beckett operated.

He said in an earlier interview with Canadian media outlet KTW that the pair hit it off immediately.

Beckett later travelled to Canada and the couple married.

“It wasn’t a love-at-first-sight thing; it was more a meeting of the minds,” he said.

“I hate to use cliches, but it was soulmate stuff. I’d been married before, I’d had break-ups before, I’d fallen in love before – but this was different.”

“It’s just an amazing love story.”

Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 33 years of newsroom experience.

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