The Bassett Road machine-gun murders were the murders of two men with a .45 calibre Reising submachine gun on 7 December 1963, at 115 Bassett Road, in the Auckland suburb of Remuera in New Zealand. The crime received considerable media attention and captured the public imagination for many years. Although the weapon was set to single and not rapid-fire for the killings, word spread quickly of a "Chicago-style" gang murder previously unheard of in New Zealand. Crime Frederick George Walker, a 38-year-old commercial traveller, and Kevin James Speight, a 26-year-old seaman, were found shot several times with large calibre bullets at the Bassett Road house. The house was not solely a residential property but used as a "beerhouse", given that until the 9th of October 1967, New Zealand pubs were forced to close for the night at six o'clock, resulting in either hurried consumption of alcoholic beverages as the time neared, or else visits to a beerhouse to continue alcohol consumption. Given their quasi-criminal operation, many beerhouses were operated by criminal figures and their associates. At the time the murders occurred, Walker and Speight were believed to be illegally trading in liquor at their premises as a beerhouse. Although illegal, the beerhouses were regarded as a form of petty criminality and tolerated until referendums in New Zealand made it possible for licensed pubs to open past six o'clock and made beerhouses obsolete in 1968. During this illicit period, beerhouses served as a meeting place for beatnik modernist poets and musicians, figures from the boxing and rugby league sporting community, affluent community members who "slummed" with the underworld, drug addicts, alcoholics, borderline or criminal practitioners of gambling in New Zealand and hardened criminals. They also served as early distribution points for cannabis in New Zealand and other illegal recreational drugs during the 1940s and 1950s. Investigation and trial The scientific investigation identified the weapon used as possibly a .45 calibre machine gun. At that time, New Zealand's firearms control legislation was lax, as many returned military personnel had residual weapons from their Second World War service period. The foreign firearms trade was also served by lax border regulation of potentially offensive weapons. Two notable figures within New Zealand criminal underworld, John Gillies and Ronald Jorgensen, were arrested on 31 December 1963 and stood trial starting 24 February 1964. Although Jorgensen had been easily caught, Gillies had evaded arrest for several days.