David Tamihere says he will continue to fight his conviction for killing Swedish backpackers

Thursday, 11 July 2024

David Tamihere continues to claim his innocence after a court upheld his convictions for murdering two Swedish backpackers.

But Tamihere says it’s harder to cling on to hope that he will ever get justice.

The Court of Appeal insisted Tamihere was guilty of murdering Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Höglin in 1989, despite accepting some evidence should never have been heard at his trial, and the Crown was now on its third scenario as to how the crime was committed

However, the three judges said the case against Tamihere was still strong, and they were convinced beyond reasonable doubt he killed Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen.

However, in an interview with The Post, Tamihere is adamant he never met the backpackers, let alone murdered them, and new claims about how he did it are “ludicrous”.

“I never clapped eyes on them.”

Tamihere served more than 20 years in prison, and this is his second appeal.

After being knocked back at every step in the legal process, he still hopes he can get justice.

“You just live in hope that somewhere along the line, someone is going to look at it.

“But it’s getting harder to hold on to that.”

The latest rejection by the Court of Appeal on Thursday hadn’t surprised Tamihere.

“We were expecting it. It’s been that way since day one.

“The Court of Appeal seems to think their primary job is to protect the Crown case.

“It’s just the same old, same old, nothing changes.

The Crown’s admission on Wednesday there had been a miscarriage of justice in the Gail Maney and Stephen Stone case, was a sign that eventually, cases like his could be corrected, Tamihere said.

“You look at all the controversial cases that have been cleared up - it was only after the Crown had been dragged kicking and screaming back into the courtroom.

“They don’t do it voluntarily, and say, ‘There’s something dodgy about this, let’s have another crack.’”

Tamihere said even judges he’d spoken to have told him, “don’t give up, keep going.”

He is now considering his next steps.

The three judges accepted controversial jailhouse snitch evidence shouldn’t have been heard at Tamihere’s 1990 trial, but say there is enough other evidence to be sure he murdered the tourists.

This relates to a crucial identification by two trampers of Tamihere with a woman resembling Paakkonen; lies Tamihere told about his movements; claims he made about finding and breaking into the Swedes’ car; and his actions after they disappeared.

The judges say Tamihere murdered Höglin, then abducted Paakkonen, with the most likely motive being “for the purpose of sexual assault”.

The case has always been controversial, given there were no weapons, forensics, or crime scene, and Paakkonen’s body has never been found.

Tamihere has always insisted he never met the couple.

Höglin and Paakkonen had been holidaying in New Zealand for five months when they disappeared in April 1989.

At the time Tamihere, who had a previous conviction for manslaughter and had been on the run for two years after skipping bail while facing sentencing for a brutal rape, was living off the land in the Coromandel.

So when he discovered the Swedes’ car, full of camping gear at the start of a tramping track near Thames, on Coromandel’s west coast, Tamihere said he helped himself, and stole the Subaru.

Eventually, weeks after Paakkonen and Höglin were reported missing, sparking a massive search and Operation Stockholm headed by formidable detective John Hughes, information led police to Tamihere.

He was convicted of the murders in 1990.

But a year later Höglin’s body was found by hunters, 73km from where police said the murders took place and still wearing a watch police claimed Tamihere had stolen and given to his son.

Höglin had been stabbed and buried in a shallow grave.

Despite this, Tamihere’s first appeal was rejected and he eventually served 20 years in prison before being paroled in 2010.

However, in 2017, the case against Tamihere further unravelled when a private prosecution successfully proved one of the three jailhouse snitches, who claimed Tamihere confessed to them in prison, had lied.

Roberto Conchie Harris was convicted of eight counts of perjury for the evidence he gave at Tamihere’s trial.

Harris’s evidence had been crucial in bolstering a sighting by two trampers of a man and woman on a track above where the Swedes’ car had been parked.

So, in 2020, Tamihere’s case was referred back to the Court of Appeal with a hearing taking place in November 2023.

At this hearing, the Crown again changed its theory on where Tamihere had murdered the Swedes.

Now, they claimed he had killed Höglin near where his remains were found, in the Wentworth Valley, across the peninsula on the Coromandel’s east coast, an area Tamihere camped at and knew well.

Despite being unable to explain how exactly this fitted with Tamihere supposedly being seen by the trampers with Paakkonen on the other side of the Coromandel Peninsula, and the Swedes’ car being parked there, the Crown insisted the judges could be “positively sure of Mr Tamihere’s guilt”.

“Only Mr Tamihere knows how, and why, and where he killed Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Höglin. But only he can be the killer,” Crown lawyer Rebecca Thomson told the court.

One of Tamihere’s lawyers, James Carruthers, argued there was no evidence the Swedes had travelled to Wentworth Valley after they were last seen in Thames, nobody saw them there, and it contradicted plans they had outlined to another witness.

But in today’s Court of Appeal decision, the judges accept the new Crown theory that Tamihere must have met the couple at Wentworth Valley soon after they were last seen in Thames on April 7, 1989.

After murdering Höglin and disposing of his body, he then took Paakonen to the other side of the peninsula and up the track to Crosbies clearing.

This was where trampers John Cassidy and Theodore Knauf met a couple around 3pm on April 8. They later identified the man as Tamihere, and the woman as resembling Paakkonen.

The judges accept the trampers’ identification, despite acknowledging they both claimed Paakkonen was wearing makeup - something she didn’t do, and didn’t possess.

However, they point to several items the trampers described when they met the couple - a tomahawk, poncho, and hooped tent - being found at Tamihere’s home, which the judges described as “an extraordinary coincidence”.

Several other items belonging to the Swedes were found along the track to Crosbies Clearing.

The failure of anyone else to come forward saying they were the couple at Crosbies Clearing, despite extensive publicity, added weight to it being Tamihere and Paakkonen.

“Standing back, we are satisfied that Mr Tamihere’s identity as the man the trampers met at Crosbies Clearing, is proved beyond reasonable doubt.”

The judges also rejected Tamihere’s claim he broke into the Swedes’ car using a piece of number 8 wire, and found a key in the glove box.

The Swedes only had one key for the car, and Tamihere’s story of breaking into the car evolved over time.

His movements after stealing the car including spending time in Thames and driving around Coromandel with tourists, was “brazen” according to the judges, and showed he wasn’t worried, because he knew the car’s owners were dead and not coming to claim it.

“It evidences an understanding that he was free to do what he wanted with their property, at his leisure.”

The Court also rejected Tamihere’s claims about his movements at the time.

“We find that he did not make the journey he recounted at trial,” adding that the trip across the peninsula would have been “near-impossible”.

“We accept that the only explanation for this lie is that Mr Tamihere wanted to disguise his presence in the Wentworth Valley.”

Some of Tamihere’s lies were “probative of a guilty knowledge about what became of the couple”, the Court concluded.

Despite this being the Crown’s third theory as to how Tamihere murdered the couple, the judges said they did “not find this remarkable” in a case where so much was unclear and still unknown.

“The evidence overall satisfies us beyond reasonable doubt that it was Mr Tamihere who murdered Mr Höglin and Ms Paakkonen. In our view, the case against him is very strong.

“It does not rest wholly on the trampers’ identifications. Rather, it derives its strength from the combination of visual identification and circumstantial evidence from a number of sources, including his use of the couple’s key to gain access to their car, and his treatment of their property.

“It also rests, in part on his admissions when confronted with evidence he could not explain away, and his proven lies.”

Police welcomed the Court of Appeal’s judgment, saying it was “hugely validating for all staff who have worked on the investigations teams over the years”.

But assistant commissioner Paul Basham said there was one key piece of the puzzle still remaining - the whereabouts of Heidi Paakkonen’s body.

“David Tamihere is the one person who can help bring closure to Heidi’s family.

“Our message to him now remains the same as it has been for more than two decades: You know where Heidi’s body rests, and her family has suffered enough.

“Tell us where to find Heidi, and help give her family the closure they deserve.”

But Tamihere’s lawyer Murray Gibson told The Post he was deeply disappointed by the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

“The evidence is just so inconsistent with what happened. There’s very little evidence to support any contact between the couple, and David Tamihere, at any point.

“Thirty years later, they are saying that David Tamihere was on another coast, he was on the east coast, when he met the couple,” Gibson said.

“But there was never any suggestion the couple were going to the east coast - quite the contrary - they said they were going to walk on the west coast area out of Thames, and back to their car, which was found in the area.”

Gibson said it was likely they would ask for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.