‘I made it up.’ Top cop allegedly confessed to prominent NZer that he framed David Tamihere

Sunday, 26 November 2023

As David Tamihere’s conviction for murdering two Swedish tourists returns to court this week, allegations of a shock confession have surfaced, along with grisly revelations that body parts from one of the victims remained on display at a laboratory for more than 20 years. Mike White investigates.

Sir Bob Jones remembers tough-as-nails cop John Hughes well.

The high-profile businessman and property investor remembers how a young Hughes was New Zealand’s light-middleweight boxing champion three times from 1955-1957.

He can picture Hughes dancing and jabbing his way to victory in blue shorts at Wellington’s town hall, in times when national titles meant something.

And he remembers him more than 30 years later, when Hughes was a revered and feared detective inspector, and approached Jones at a function in Auckland in 1990.

Days before, a jury had convicted David Tamihere of murdering Swedish backpackers Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Höglin, after an investigation led by Hughes.

Jones and Hughes had known each other for decades, beginning with their mutual involvement in boxing, and Jones had followed Hughes’ progress through the ranks to become an almost mythologised detective who crims ran scared from.

That night, Jones says, he was on the dance floor, when Hughes spied him, marched up, and began poking him in the chest.

“And he said, ‘I nailed Tamihere’. And I said, ‘Well done Johnny.’

“And he said, ‘Well you listen to me’, and he was still jabbing me in the chest, and he said, ‘I nailed him by making up all the evidence, but I’m telling you, the bastard did it.’”

Tamihere’s conviction for murdering the Swedish couple remains one of the country’s most controversial cases, and on Tuesday returns to the Court of Appeal.

Höglin and Paakkonen had been touring New Zealand for five months, and by April 1989, had made it to Coromandel in their white Subaru.

Around lunchtime on Friday April 7, they had their hair cut in a Thames salon.

And then they disappeared, apart from unconfirmed sightings, and reports of their Subaru at the start of a tramping track, near Thames.

That’s where David Tamihere found it.

Tamihere had been on the run for more than two years after jumping bail while facing sentencing for raping a woman over six hours.

He’d been living off the land and sea, eating goats and ducks and eels and kahawai, and occasionally heading back to Auckland to see his family.

He had a previous conviction for manslaughter, and knew that when the cops caught up with him, he’d go down hard.

So when he discovered the Swedes’ car, full of camping gear, he says he decided to help himself, and nicked the Subaru.

Eventually, weeks after Paakkonen and Höglin were reported missing, sparking a massive search and Operation Stockholm headed by Hughes, information led police to Tamihere as the man who stole their car.

Five months later, he was charged with their murder, and found guilty the following year, despite there being no bodies, no forensics, no eyewitnesses to the killings, and no crime scene.

To reinforce his case, Hughes used three “jailhouse snitches” who claimed Tamihere confessed to them while in prison.

It was an entirely circumstantial case, and perhaps that’s why Hughes was celebrating, crowing to his old mate, as Sir Bob Jones insists he did, despite them having clashed over Hughes’ role in another controversial case, the wrongful conviction of Arthur Allan Thomas.

The following year, Hughes’ alleged confession to Jones seemed to be borne out, when Höglin’s body was discovered by hunters.

Not where police said the couple were murdered - but more than 70km away.

And compellingly, Höglin’s watch, which Hughes and prosecutors swore Tamihere had stripped from his victim and given to his son, was still on the body.

Despite this, the Court of Appeal rejected Tamihere’s appeal, and he served more than 20 years in prison.

But in 2017, prison lawyer Arthur Taylor and justice campaigner Mike Kalaugher took a private prosecution against one of the prison snitches used in Tamihere’s trial, accusing him of lying.

Roberto Conchie Harris, a notorious double murderer and recidivist police informant, had claimed Tamihere said he beat Urban Höglin about the head with a lump of wood, dumped his body at sea, and gave Höglin’s watch to his son - all of which were proved to be wrong after Höglin’s body was discovered.

Harris was convicted on all eight perjury charges, and died in prison in 2021.

This collapse of yet another plank in the police investigation of Tamihere, has, six years later, led to the case being reconsidered in the Court of Appeal.

Sir Bob Jones says John Hughes was incredibly strong-willed, and fabled for visiting his boxing skills on uncooperative suspects.

“He hated crime. He was just very fervent about fighting criminality, and he was upset that lawyers got them off.”

Jones believes Hughes cut corners and fitted evidence to convict those he was convinced were guilty - like Tamihere and Thomas.

“But Johnny was a very honest man - he would never come into the category of framing someone for the sake of it, like Teina Pora - that was just disgraceful.”

A magazine profile of Hughes during Operation Stockholm described him as, “totally fearless. Totally ruthless. The first man over the wall with a gun.”

“I want results,” Hughes told the writer. “I’m not interested in failure or excuses.”

But alongside legend and success, came scrutiny and sanction of Hughes’ actions.

The Royal Commission into Arthur Allan Thomas’s wrongful conviction found crucial evidence from Hughes, which linked Thomas with the victims, was “wrong”.

An internal inquiry into Hughes’ heavy-handed investigation of a firebombing targeting his house was followed by a transfer to Hamilton for several years.

Hughes also faced accusations he fabricated a suspect’s confession, though never faced charges over it.

Arthur Taylor, whose prosecution of Conchie Harris reopened Tamihere’s case, says Hughes’ nickname was “The Gardener”.

“Because he did more planting than your average professional gardener out there.”

Despite not knowing Tamihere, once Taylor learnt Harris was giving jailhouse evidence, he knew the case must be dodgy.

“Everyone in Pare (Pāremoremo Prison) knew Conchie was an inveterate liar and gambler, and would say anything to further his end. He was a scumbag of the worst kind.

“He’s the very last person David would make any confession to, because he would have been well aware of his reputation.”

Taylor had his own run-in with Hughes, early in his prolific criminal career, after being picked up selling stolen jewellery in Auckland, having travelled up from Wellington.

“I wasn’t being very forthcoming, and then the door flies open and this nuggety ratbag comes running over to me and starts punching me about the head.”

After being informed by two other detectives that this was the fearsome John Hughes, Taylor says, the door flew open again and Hughes rushed back in.

“And he starts smacking me about the head with a f…ing great big telephone book - and those Auckland telephone books weren’t bloody light.”

Eventually, Hughes told Taylor that if he ever returned to Auckland he’d regret it, “and I’d be getting more than a f…ing telephone book over my head.”

Hughes then ordered Taylor be put on a train back to Wellington.

Ross Meurant worked closely with Hughes for many years, and says Hughes’ motto was: “We run this town.”

A cop for 21 years, known for his role in police’s Red Squad during the 1981 Springbok Tour, and later an MP, Meurant says Hughes was a dynamic leader and extremely motivational.

“Of all the police officers in the country, he would be the most outstanding.

“On occasions, courts have decided he may have overstepped the mark, but I can’t say that, because I don’t have the evidence.”

However, Meurant left the police in 1987, questioning whether elite elements had effectively become a law unto themselves, with evidence being fabricated, and corruption excused.

John Hughes died in 2006.

Wellington’s Court of Appeal has never been a happy place for David Tamihere.

It was here in 1990 that evidence from two trampers claiming they saw Tamihere with a blonde woman was allowed to be used at his trial, even though trial judge David Tompkins had originally ruled it so tainted by unacceptable police actions, it was inadmissible.

And it was here, two years later, the court insisted the discovery of Höglin’s body far from where police indicated it would be, with his watch still on, was effectively irrelevant, as they rejected Tamihere’s appeal.

Tamihere’s lawyer at that 1992 appeal, Christopher Ruthe, says it was “one of the most appalling judgments of the Court of Appeal you’ll ever come across.”

Ruthe believes the case was “tarred with a strong political brush”, as the country sought to recover from the disgrace of the Swedes’ murders.

“I had a very, very strong sense that David Tamihere was a brilliant fall guy. He’d had a previous conviction for rape, and for our international image, it was good to have a guy like this locked up.

“It was one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice in New Zealand legal history.”

Ruthe says the experience left him shattered.

And while some will argue this week’s hearing will merely rip open scars for victims’ families and witnesses, Ruthe insists we can’t ignore new evidence, and have to ensure justice has been done in cases like Tamihere’s.

“I wish him all the luck. He thoroughly deserves it.”

David Tamihere won’t be in court watching proceedings.

What’s the point, he says. He isn’t required to speak, so he’ll be at home in Auckland, “plodding along, doing what I normally do”. Tamihere was paroled from prison in 2010 but his life sentence means he can be recalled at any time.

While Tamihere says it’s good his case has got back to court, after more than 30 years, he’s not getting his hopes up.

“Because I know how the system works. Their first job is to preserve the system, so it appears that it works well.”

He believes what Sir Bob Jones alleges is true: “There’s no two ways about it - the bulk of their case was manufactured.”

Police declined to comment on allegations Hughes admitted fabricating evidence to convict Tamihere.

Tamihere, who turned 70 in October, realises this is probably his last chance to clear his name.

“I just want a reasonable hearing.”

But what of the victims, 21-year-old Paakkonen, and her fiancé, Höglin, 23?

Paakkonen’s body has never been found.

Höglin’s remains were sent back to Sweden in 1991, and buried next to his father in Storfors, where the couple grew up.

But it has now been revealed not all of Höglin’s skeleton was returned.

Investigations by the Sunday Star-Times show Höglin’s cervical spine, the neck portion of his spinal column, remained in New Zealand, and was displayed at Auckland’s forensic pathology laboratory for more than 20 years.

Retired forensic pathologist Timothy Koelmeyer says examinations of Höglin’s skeleton revealed cuts to vertebrae, which he believes indicated an attempted decapitation.

Koelmeyer says he told John Hughes Höglin’s skeleton was packed up ready to be repatriated, but he was still examining the cervical spine.

“And next thing you know, the neck bones get left behind, and the rest of the skeleton goes off to Sweden.”

Koelmeyer says when he told Hughes what had happened, Hughes replied, “Leave it to me, Tim, I’ll sort it out.”

Hughes assured him Höglin’s family had consented to the neck bones staying in New Zealand.

Believing they might be evidence in the case at some stage, Koelmeyer mounted the seven vertebrae on an 18cm steel Steinmann pin, a rod used by surgeons treating bone fractures.

They were then displayed in a conference room, which doubled as a library at the forensic pathology laboratory, sitting in a glass cabinet beside books, bound journals, and several skulls Koelmeyer says were used for teaching.

Nothing identified the bones as Höglin’s, and Koelmeyer says it wasn’t his role to dispose of them.

It wasn’t until after Koelmeyer retired, and after more than 20 years on display, that action was taken to dispose of Höglin’s spine.

Documents obtained by the Star-Times under the Official Information Act show that in October 2014, police became aware Höglin’s vertebrae were still in Auckland’s mortuary, “and we need to have an awkward conversation with the family over what they want done with them.”

But the second-in-charge of Operation Stockholm, Bruce Raffan, told police Höglin’s family knew some bones had been kept in New Zealand.

“Personally, I would just destroy them if ESR [Institute of Environmental Science and Research] no longer wish to store them, or maybe give them to the Police Museum, who ended up with a number of exhibits from the case.”

In December 2014, Simon Stables from Auckland’s forensic pathology service asked police for a copy of the permission from Höglin’s family to keep the bones, before he cremated them, “unless police wanted to retain them for the police museum at the police college. Although this latter option may not be culturally appropriate in today’s environment.”

No other correspondence appears to have taken place at the time, and police emails from 2023 show they could find no record of permission from Höglin’s family.

But a spreadsheet from the forensic pathology department indicates the bones were sent to J Weir Funeral Directors two days before Christmas 2014.

The funeral home went into receivership five months later, leaving many urns of ashes unclaimed.

Te Toka Tumai Auckland, formerly the Auckland District Health Board, confirmed Höglin’s ashes weren’t returned to it.

Urban Höglin’s family declined to comment.