Convicted double-killer Russell John Tully has been linked to the unsolved 1998 murder of Ashburton schoolgirl Kirsty Bentley.
Tully's serving life imprisonment with minimum non-parole period of 27 years for shooting Leigh Cleveland and Peggy Noble at the Ashburton WINZ office in 2014.
The New Zealand Herald has learned he's a person of interest for detectives investigating the Kirsty Bentley murder.
Detective Inspector Greg Murton, who's leading the cold case investigation, has confirmed the 51-year-old falls into that category.
Kirsty Bentley was 15-years-old when she disappeared walking the family dog on the Ashburton riverbank on New Year's Eve.
Her badly-decomposed body was discovered two weeks later, more than 40 kilometres away in the Rakaia Gorge.
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