Convicted murderer David Tamihere. Photo: NZ Herald / Jason Oxenham
It has been 33 years since David Tamihere was convicted of the 1989 murders of Swedish tourists Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen.
Next week he will finally have his chance to try and clear his name after years of maintaining his innocence. He spoke to Ethan Griffiths about his upcoming appeal.
As a panel of judges considers the double murder convictions of David Tamihere next week, the man himself will be 670 kilometres away, mowing lawns.
Three decades after Tamihere was convicted of murdering Swedish couple Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen in the Coromandel, he is remarkably, almost inconceivably, relaxed about an opportunity he has fought so long to witness.
"I still don't agree with it, but you learn to live with it," Tamihere told NZME this week of his original guilty verdicts.
"We'll see how it goes".
Tamihere, who works as a cleaner and lawnmower at a West Auckland marae, has always professed his innocence.
He says he now lives a normal life but the journey to his quiet and uneventful existence has been far from simple.
His 1990 trial heard that he sexually abused both tourists before murdering them and dumping their bodies in the sea. The eventual convictions were based predominantly on circumstantial evidence and remain some of New Zealand's most controversial.
Questions about the case never leave Tamihere, who was eventually freed from prison on parole in 2010.
He says his fervent denials while he was behind bars were not the easy route to freedom. He believes he would have been granted parole earlier if he had accepted his conviction.
His battle has always been for what he says is the truth.
In 2020 he was granted the royal prerogative of mercy after evidence that contributed to his conviction was found to be false. His case was then referred back to the Court of Appeal, where his lawyer will appear in Wellington on Tuesday.
Swedish tourists Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen were killed in the Coromandel in 1989. Photo: Supplied
Thirty years in the making
In April 1989, engaged couple Höglin and Paakkonen were trekking through dense Coromandel bush, while David Wayne Tamihere was on the run from police.
Three years earlier he had raped and threatened a 47-year-old woman in her home for more than six hours. He pleaded guilty to that offence but had ignored his bail conditions and absconded to the bush, where he was living rough.
He had already had a prior conviction for manslaughter after hitting 23-year-old stripper Mary Barcham on the head with a rifle in 1972 when he was 18.
On 10 April 1989, Tamihere came across the Swedish couple's white Subaru, "loaded with gear" and parked near the start of a difficult hiking track. He stole the car - something he has always admitted.
Weeks later, after the Swedes' disappearance had sparked the largest land-based search in New Zealand history, Tamihere was linked to the car.
He was charged with their murders three months later, by which point he had already been sentenced on the earlier rape conviction he was evading at the time of the murders.
At his trial in November 1990, a jailhouse informant then known as "secret witness C" testified that Tamihere had admitted to the killings while in prison.
Witness C claimed Tamihere told him he had bashed Höglin with a piece of wood and dumped the couple's bodies at sea. Two other inmates also testified that Tamihere had made admissions.
The other key bit of evidence came from two trampers who claimed they saw Tamihere with a blonde woman who looked like Paakkonen at Crosbies Clearing.
But it was after Tamihere's conviction, despite the Crown having no bodies nor a murder weapon, that the case was turned on its head.
Two years to the day after Tamihere was charged, Höglin's body was found in a shallow grave by pig hunters near Whangamatā, more than 70km from where the Crown said the murders occurred.
It was not enough to convince the Court of Appeal or the Privy Council that Tamihere's case should be reheard. He spent 20 years behind bars.
The Crown's 1990 case had already been questioned by the discovery of Höglin's body but had its foundations shaken again when Witness C, unmasked as murderer Conchie Harris, was convicted of eight counts of perjury in 2017.
A jury found Harris had lied about Tamihere confessing to murder in prison, after jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor took a private prosecution.
Three years later, then governor-general Dame Patsy Reddy, on the advice of justice minister Andrew Little, granted Tamihere the royal prerogative of mercy, referring his case back to the Court of Appeal.
The appeal focuses on the location of Höglin's body and the discredited evidence from Harris.
NZME understands both these claims will be considered alongside the evidence of the trampers who claimed they saw Tamihere and Paakkonen in the bush.
The hearing is expected to take two days, starting on Tuesday.
David Tamihere now works as a cleaner and lawnmower at a West Auckland marae. Photo: NZ Herald / Jason Oxenham
'Shit happens'
These days, Tamihere lives in West Auckland with his wife. He is still asked about the case but his response is always the same: "We're still arguing the point, we'll see what happens."
His convictions undoubtedly sit uncomfortably with him but, after 33 years, his outlook is almost mellow.
He speaks quietly and softly, giving the impression he has come close to putting the convictions behind him. But he is not quite there.
"You can get all bitter and twisted about it, but all that does is end up in the nuthouse. You've got to get to a stage where, if you're gonna let it prey on your mind, you know insanity is on the other side of that door.
"Shit happens, and this happened, so we just keep going."
Tamihere hopes the appeal will result in a retrial.
"There's a lot of stuff, the grounds that our side are arguing, that should be put before a jury."
He believes he still has a lot of public support but knows many hold firm that he is guilty.
"In those days when it happened, it was really hard to say to people it wasn't necessarily right. A lot of people, as far as they were concerned, thought you were 80 percent guilty by just standing in the dock.
"During the court case, the Crown just has to hold that ground. You've got to flip it 180 degrees. It takes a seismic shift."
He says he has sympathy for the families of Höglin and Paakknonen, who grappled not only with their deaths but the ensuing controversy.
"It's not their fault. They're like everyone else, they took on board what they were told. Not knowing anything different, why would you think otherwise?"
He says he has "no clue" what happened to the couple.
"There's been all sorts of suggestions from different people, but for me it's dangerous to look at something and go, 'That looks like the best story.'
"I knew, somewhere along the line, something was going to come up. I was expecting them to find Heidi's body and that's still out there somewhere."
Ultimately, he says, this week is his chance to take on the system.
"Everyone likes to believe the police, the Crown and the system is all hunky dory. Life's not like that, it never was."
Timeline
- 1989: Paakkonen and Höglin disappear on the Coromandel Peninsula
- 1990: Tamihere is convicted of murdering the couple and sentenced to life imprisonment
- 1991: Höglin's remains are found near Whangamatā
- 1992: The Court of Appeal rejects Tamihere's appeal
- 1994: Tamihere denied leave to appeal to the Privy Council
- 1995: Witness C swears an affidavit retracting his evidence
- 1996: Witness C retracts his retraction
- 2010: Tamihere is released on parole
- 2016: A private prosecution alleges Witness C lied at Tamihere's trial
- 2017: Witness C is sentenced after being found guilty of perjury and not guilty of perverting the course of justice
- 2017: Witness C appeals the perjury convictions and sentence and fights to keep his identity hidden
- 2018: Witness C drops his appeal against the perjury convictions and is later revealed as Roberto Conchie Harris
- 2018: The High Court revokes suppression order for Witness B, another prison informant
- 2020: Justice Minister Andrew Little announces Tamihere's case is heading back to the Court of Appeal after a royal prerogative of mercy application
- 2023: Tamihere's case to be heard in Court of Appeal
This story was originally published by the New Zealand Herald.