The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Chemical Technology Limited.md

category	tags	alias	summary	start	end	location	relations	created	updated
Private Organization	Organization NewZealand Ethanol AlternativeFuels RCHorsch IdentityFraud	Chemical Technology Ltd	South Canterbury company, set up by the Christchurch lawyer John Rutherford, that built a whey-to-ethanol plant at Clandeboye with the American fugitive R.C. Horsch working under a stolen chemist's identity.	1981	2013	Clandeboye, Canterbury, New Zealand	type with reverse fn director_of Dorothy Verna Rutherford true 3	2026-09-23	2026-09-23

Chemical Technology Limited was a New Zealand company at Clandeboye, New Zealand, near Timaru in South Canterbury, New Zealand, set up by the Christchurch lawyer John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer) to work on byproducts of milk. From about 1980 to 1984 its plant for converting whey into ethanol fuel was built and run by R.C. Horsch, an American fugitive from a Philadelphia methamphetamine charge who was working under the stolen identity of Dr. Stanley Eugene Stokowski, a California chemist.¹²

Registration

The company, registered as Chemical Technology Ltd, company number 141090, was incorporated on May 26, 1981, with its registered office at Ibis House, 183 Hereford Street, Christchurch. The register lists two directors, John Gordon Rutherford and Dorothy Verna Rutherford, who shared a Christchurch address; neither Horsch nor the name Stokowski appears among its officers. The register records the company as in receivership from its incorporation until December 17, 1984, and then as registered until it was removed from the register in November 2013.³

Whey ethanol was then an established New Zealand industry: the technology for fermenting deproteinated whey into ethyl alcohol was bought from Ireland by the Anchor Ethanol Company in the late 1970s and used at plants at Tirau and Reporoa.⁴

Stokowski

Rutherford told The Press in 1984 that he had contacted "Stokowski" "after reading American advertisements about new technology," and that the man was "brilliant and hard working" and "trained unskilled men in skills from welding to more complex tasks." Horsch had obtained the post with a forged Stanford University transcript in Stokowski's name.¹² A New Zealand government investigation into his admission to the country found that his papers included a transcript of a university degree, that the New Zealand Department of Immigration had been "under some pressure" from his "proposed employer" to "make an early decision," and that "checks were not made with the New Zealand Ministry of Energy and other Government departments." The real Stokowski later confirmed that the transcript was his.¹ The Philadelphia Daily News reported at Horsch's sentencing in April 1985 that while on the run he had "helped design and build an ethanol plant for the New Zealand government."⁵

In March 1984 Horsch returned from a trip to the United States carrying several passports and on March 17 left New Zealand on another passport, which police believed had been stolen in a burglary at Temuka. Rumors followed that he was a Soviet or Bulgarian spy or was sought by the Central Intelligence Agency. Rutherford told The Press that his partner might have had trouble in the United States "perhaps of the scale of being a draft dodger during the Vietnam War," dismissed the suggestion that he was a spy, and said of the company: "As far as I am concerned, it is business as usual."¹

Footnotes

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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 (incorporated May 26, 1981; status "In Receivership" May 26, 1981, to December 17, 1984; "Removed," updated November 3, 2013), accessed September 23, 2026. https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/141090 ↩︎

4. Hamilton, Ron. "The Manufacture of Ethanol from Whey," ed. Heather Wansbrough, Bioenergy Association of New Zealand, undated. https://www.bioenergy.org.nz/documents/resource/Reports/Manufacture-of-Ethanol-from-Whey-3H.pdf ↩︎

5. Smith, Jim. "Fugitive's Luck Runs Out With 4-Year Jail Sentence," Philadelphia Daily News, April 27, 1985, p. 8. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185948055/ ↩︎