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Friend of Mike Zhao-Beckenridge believes missing 11yo tried to contact him using Minecraft, court hears

Warning: This story discusses suicide and may be distressing for some readers. 

A friend of Mike Zhao-Beckenridge thought the missing 11-year-old had tried to make contact with him over the computer game Minecraft. 

But a detective told a coronial hearing into whether the boy and his stepfather are missing or dead, that he was mistaken. 

Mike Zhao-Beckenridge used to speak to his friends over the computer game Minecraft. So when his friend got a request from someone eight months after he'd disappeared, he thought it was Mike. 

Detective Jeremy Dix read Mike's friend's statement to the coroner's court on Wednesday. 

"I believe this person asking for me was Mike. No one else knew that game name," Mike's friend said in his statement. 

"The person wasn't there for very long, I tried to contact back in group chat using direct message to that username but he had gone." 

But following an investigation, police say Mike's friend was mistaken.

"I believe that it is possible that the contact, if in fact occurred, has been by another user and in his hope that it was Mike, has believed it was Mike who had contacted him," detective Dix told the court. 

But Mike's family, who believe he is still alive, disagreed. 

"We think there is a very strong possibility that it was Mike reaching out," private investigator Mark Templeman told the court.

Mike's friend said the person asking for him had a long and unusual username as if someone had swiped their hand on the keyboard. The family believes that John may be to blame. 

A psychologist, who we can't identify, told the hearing John Beckenridge was controlling. He would have felt angry and humiliated when he lost custody of Mike. 

"He was used to winning I think. He also had a personality style that if he didn't win he would do something drastic," the psychologist said. 

The court heard John's state of mind was consistent with murder-suicide. 

"An act of spite is to actually leave people behind never knowing what really happened," the psychologist said. 

But Mike's mother Fiona Lu said in her affidavit, which was read to the court, John was not suicidal. She believed he had the skills and ability to survive. 

She said she misses her son and thinks about him every day and believes he will eventually return to her.  

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