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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer).md

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+---
+category: "Crime & Abuse Networks"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - NewZealand
+  - Lawyer
+  - RCHorsch
+alias:
+  - John Rutherford
+  - John Gordon Rutherford
+summary: "Christchurch lawyer who set up Chemical Technology Limited and brought the American fugitive R.C. Horsch, posing as the chemist Stanley Stokowski, to New Zealand to build a whey-ethanol plant."
+location: "Christchurch, New Zealand"
+relations:
+  - type: founded
+    with: "[[Chemical Technology Limited]]"
+    fn: 1
+  - type: director_of
+    with: "[[Chemical Technology Limited]]"
+    fn: 3
+  - type: partner_of
+    with: "[[R.C. Horsch]]"
+    role: "business partner"
+    fn: 1
+created: 2026-09-23
+updated: 2026-09-23
+---
+
+John Gordon Rutherford was a [[Christchurch]] lawyer who set up [[Chemical Technology Limited]], a company at [[Clandeboye, New Zealand|Clandeboye]] near [[Timaru]] working on byproducts of milk, with a man he knew as Dr. Stanley Stokowski, an American chemist. "Stokowski" was [[R.C. Horsch]], a fugitive from a [[Philadelphia]] methamphetamine charge who had taken the identity of a real [[California]] chemist and who arrived in [[Canterbury, New Zealand|Canterbury]] in about 1980.[^1][^2]
+
+### Stokowski
+
+The company was incorporated on May 26, 1981, with Rutherford and [[Dorothy Verna Rutherford]], who shared his Christchurch address, as its directors, and its registered office at Ibis House, 183 Hereford Street, Christchurch.[^3]
+
+
+Rutherford told *[[The Press]]* in 1984 that he had contacted Stokowski "after reading American advertisements about new technology." A later [[New Zealand]] government investigation found that the [[New Zealand Department of Immigration|Department of Immigration]] had been "under some pressure" from the man's "proposed employer" to "make an early decision" on his application.[^1]
+
+After Horsch left New Zealand on March 17, 1984, on a passport that police believed had been stolen in a burglary at [[Temuka]], Rutherford described him to *The Press* as "brilliant and hard working," "a brilliant chap" who "knew what he was about," and "a particularly smart fellow, a real toiler and an excellent family man." He conceded that his partner might have been living under a false identity and, according to the paper, believed that he "had had some sort of trouble in the [[United States]]; perhaps of the scale of being a draft dodger during the [[Vietnam War]]," while dismissing any suggestion that he was a spy. He said he had not heard from Horsch since his departure and that his business had not suffered: "As far as I am concerned, it is business as usual."[^1]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Leask, Anna. "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 23, 2026 (quoting *The Press* of 1984 and the New Zealand immigration investigation report). https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3GIXFEHHBFY6RY/
+[^2]: "How a pornographer's violent fantasies blurred fact and fiction as cops searched Olney house for missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 2, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-philadelphia-missing-women-history-20260802.html
+[^3]: New Zealand Companies Office, Companies Register, "Chemical Technology Ltd," company number 141090, accessed September 23, 2026. https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/141090