More DNA testing delays David Tamihere murder appeal

Tuesday, 31 January 2023

Thirty years after being convicted of the murder of two Swedish tourists, Sven Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen, David Tamihere will have his case re-considered by the Court of Appeal for the second time (First published in April 2020)

DNA testing in America of hair samples has further delayed the long-awaited appeal by David Tamihere in the Swedish backpackers case.

Tamihere was convicted of murdering Heidi Paakkonen, 21, and her fiancé, Urban Hoglin, 23, in the Coromandel in April 1989.

He served 20 years in prison, but has always denied being guilty, and the case remains one of the country’s most controversial homicide investigations.

In April 2020, the Minister of Justice and Governor-General referred the case back to the Court of Appeal because of concerns about Tamihere’s conviction.

* David Tamihere to have Swedish tourist murder case reviewed again by Court of Appeal

* David Tamihere deserves the chance to clear his name

Swedish tourists Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen.

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However, nearly three years later, the case has yet to be heard, with Crown Law confirming mitochondrial DNA testing on hair samples is currently taking place at an American forensic laboratory.

The results of this testing will be released to the Crown and Tamihere’s legal team at the same time, with Tamihere’s appeal now scheduled to take place on July 12.

David Tamihere was convicted of murdering Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Hoglin in 1989, and sentenced to life in prison the following year.

Numerous other exhibits from the case, including clothing, have been recently re-tested using updated DNA techniques, given DNA analysis in criminal cases was in its infancy in 1989.

The current mitochondrial DNA testing compares DNA from a person’s maternal line.

Such testing was used in the Marlborough Sounds murder case to argue hairs found on a yacht owned by Scott Watson came from Olivia Hope, who had disappeared after a New Year’s party in 1998. Watson was later convicted of murdering Hope and her friend Ben Smart.

Notorious jailhouse snitch and murderer, Roberto Conchie Harris.

Crown Law, which oversees all prosecutions in New Zealand, has blamed Covid-19 lockdowns as being primarily responsible for delays in forensic testing in Tamihere’s case.

Tamihere, who had previously been convicted of manslaughter, was on the run from police, and living off the land in the Coromandel area in April 1989, after skipping bail on a rape charge.

Police argued Tamihere murdered Paakkonen and Hoglin near Crosbies Clearing, 12km northeast of Thames, stole Hoglin’s watch and gave it to his son, and took the couple’s car and possessions.

The case relied on evidence from two trampers who said they saw Tamihere, and three jailhouse snitches who claimed Tamihere confessed to the murders while in prison.

However, the police theory was seriously undermined a year after Tamihere was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, when Hoglin’s body was found in a shallow grave 73km away, on the other side of the Coromandel, near Whangamatā.

Not only had Hoglin not been beaten around the head, cut up and dumped at sea, as the prison snitches variously alleged, the watch Tamihere had supposedly given to his son was found on Hoglin’s body.

Despite this, the Court of Appeal dismissed Tamihere’s first appeal in 1992.

However, in 2017, in a private prosecution of one of the jailhouse snitches, Roberto Conchie Harris, a jury concluded Harris had lied about Tamihere confessing to him, and found him guilty on eight charges of perjury.

Harris, a double murderer and serial snitch, died in prison in 2021.

In the wake of Harris’ perjury conviction, Tamihere applied for the Royal prerogative of mercy – a last gasp request for another appeal.

His case was reviewed by retired High Court judge Sir Graham Panckhurst.

He found that Harris’ evidence had been used at trial to support the eyewitness identification of the trampers who claimed to have seen Tamihere with someone resembling Paakkonen near Crosbies Clearing.

But given Harris’ testimony had now been shown to be false, it raised potential doubts about the trampers’ identification, and Panckhurst recommended the case be reconsidered by the Court of Appeal.

Tamihere’s case was one of the last to be considered under the Royal prerogative of mercy, which has now been superseded by an independent agency looking at possible wrongful convictions, the Criminal Cases Review Commission.