Crimes NZ

Deane Fuller-Sandys went missing on 21 August, 1989 after setting off to go fishing at the rough West Auckland beach Whatipu and for nearly a decade he was presumed drowned.

Deane Fuller-Sandys went missing on 21 August,1989 after setting off to go fishing at the rough West Auckland beach Whatipu and for nearly a decade he was presumed drowned.

In February 1997, police began investigating tips which led them to charge Auckland woman ...

David Dougherty was convicted for the rape and abduction of an 11 year old girl in 1993. But he wasn't guilty of the crime. Donna Chisholm was the journalist at the centre of the campaign to free him and have him compensated.

In 1993, David Dougherty was convicted of abducting and raping an 11-year-old girl in Auckland.

He spent more than three years in prison before being acquitted at a retrial in 1997, following fresh DNA evidence.

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Investigative journalist and presenter David Lomas began covering the Mr Asia drug ring case when he was a crime reporter at the Dominion newspaper in Wellington in 1978. He has followed the story ever since.

The Mr Asia drug ring imported large quantities of drugs into New Zealand and Australia through the 70s.

The drug ring, one of the largest New Zealand has ever seen, was led by Marty Johnstone, the original Mr Asia, and grew fro...

Olivia Hope and Ben Smart disappeared in the Marlborough Sounds in the early hours of New Year's Day in 1998. Investigative journalist and author, Mike White, has covered this case through all its twists and turns over two decades.

Ben Smart and Olivia Hope were last seen about 4am on January 1 1998 when they were dropped off to a yacht by a water taxi.

Ben and Olivia were planning to sleep on the chartered yacht Tamarack but found a...

The case that brought the word "bondage" to dinner tables around the nation. Renee Chignall was a teenage dominatrix who was tried three times for the murder of Peter Plumley-Walker in January 1989.

Peter Plumley-Walker died during a bondage session at the Remuera home of Renee Chignall and Neville Walker in January, 1989.

The couple dumped his body over the Huka Falls.

Renee Chignall was a teenage dominatrix who, along with her partn...

It's one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in New Zealand history. In 1984, a bomb went off on the Trades Hall in Wellington killing caretaker Ernie Abbott. Former Secretary Graeme Clark remembers that day and the confusion that followed.

On the 27th of March, 1984 at the Trades Hall in Wellington, caretaker Ernie Abbott bent over to pick up a suitcase left behind earlier in the day. It contained the equivalent of three sticks o...

In October 2016, a group of women gathered in West Auckland for a pamper party. It ended with the death of Carly Stewart. Defence lawyer, Marie Dyhrberg QC was involved in the case.

In October 2016, a group of women gathered in West Auckland for what was supposed to be a fun social event - a chance to do their nails, catch up with friends, and have a few drinks.

But the party took a bizarre and violent turn, when Anna Browne stabbed ...

15-year-old Canterbury teenager, Kirsty Bentley from Ashburton went missing after taking her dog for a walk on New Year's Eve in 1998 - her body was found just over two weeks later. Stuff journalists Blair Ensor and Martin van Beynen recently completed an investigative piece on the unsolved case.

It's one of the most high-profile cold cases in New Zealand's history - the murder of Canterbury teenager, Kirsty Bentley.

The 15...

In 1989, two Swedish tourists, Sven Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen, went missing in the Coromandel. Mr Höglin's body was discovered by pig hunters in 1991, but Ms Paakkonen has not been seen since.

David Tamihere spent 21 years in prison for the 1989 murders of Sven Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen.

The Swedish tourists and had gone tramping in bush near Thames in April. They were reported missing in May.

David Tamihere was convicte...

Canterbury plant scientist David Lloyd fell severely ill in suspicious circumstances in 1992. The ensuing investigation became known as the 'poisoned professor case'.

When Canterbury scientist David Lloyd fell ill in 1992, suspicious immediately fell on his former lover.

Dr Vicky Calder was arrested in 1994 and stood trial twice for attempted murder, or alternatively poisoning with intent.

Lady Deborah Chambers QC presented The Trial...

On a Sunday afternoon in Christchurch in 1996, scrap metal dealer John Reynolds failed to return home for lunch. Later that evening, his brother found the 55-year-old lying in a pool of blood at the scrap yard.

Fifty-five year old John Reynolds was discovered lying in a pool of blood at this scrap metal yard in 1996.

He had been hit repeatedly around the head with a blunt instrument.

More than two decades on, Mr Reynolds' killer ...

Six-year old Teresa Cormack went missing in 1987. Her body was found 10 days later. For 15 years her murder remained unsolved, until investigators got the breakthrough of the century.

In 1987, on the 19th of June, the body of Teresa Cormack was found half buried under a tree on Whirinaki Beach, in Hawke's Bay.

It took 15 years for find her killer.

She left for school, but never arrived in class.

Former detective Keith Price worke...

Coral-Ellen Burrows was reported missing on September 9th, 2003. She was six years old. Former detective John Gualter worked on the case, known as Operation Reef.

On September 9 2003, six-year-old Featherston girl Coral Ellen Burrows was reported missing. Police were alerted when her mother went to pick her up from school, and found out that she hadn't attended class that day.

Ten days later, Coral's stepfather Stephen Will...

In 2002, Mark Lundy was found guilty of killing his wife Christine and 7-year old daughter Amber, but investigative journalist Mike White has some questions about the prosecution's case.

Christine Lundy and her seven-year old daughter Amber were brutally killed in their own home in August, 2000.

Two years later, Mark Lundy, Christine's husband and Amber's father, was convicted of their murders.

Mark Lundy was in Wellington o...

The 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior is described as the first act of terrorism against New Zealand. An assault which claimed the life of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira.

On 10 July 1985 the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, was sunk at an Auckland wharf.

Two French agents planted two explosives on the ship while it was berthed at Marsden wharf, the second explosion killed Greenpeace photographer, Fernando Pereira.

Aut...

In 2002, an armed stranger snatched Baby Kahu from her stroller and held her for ransom for nine long days.

Wellington lawyer Donna Hall was walking her dog with two nieces and eight-month-old baby Kahu, when a stranger brandishing a gun grabbed the baby and drove off.

The next day the family was sent a ransom note demanding $3 million dollars.

For nine terrifying days the family had no idea where Baby Kahu was or if she was safe.

NZ ...

The details of the 1977 murder of Betty Benning were so bizarre, movie producer Philly De Lacey turned it into a black comedy.

In 1977 on a quiet Karori street, Alf Benning brutally murdered his wife Betty.

Her body parts were discovered buried beneath a freshly planted apple tree in the backyard. Alf had copies of books borrowed from the local library about getting away with murder.

The killing is the subject of the black comedy film...

The disappearance of Jane Furlong is a mystery that has gripped the nation for nearly thirty years.

In 1993, 17-year-old Jane Furlong disappeared from Auckland's Karangahape Road.

Nineteen years later her remains were found on a beach at Port Waikato. Her killer has never been brought to justice.

Stuff journalist Kelly Dennett wrote The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Jane Furlong, a book which won a Ngiao Marsh award for Best...

Philip Nisbet was found dead in his Christchurch home on May 4, 2009. Four years later his wife was found guilty of murder.

In 2013, Helen Milner was found guilty of drugging her husband in order to get the life insurance payout.

Four years earlier, she had convinced police her husband killed himself.

But Lee-Anne Cartier, the victim's sister, felt something was off and began her own investigation.

NZ Herald reporter Kurt Bayer fo...