The vexing case of controversial killer Stephen Hudson: Part one

Saturday, 9 November 2024

Stephen Hudson admits he’s done dreadful things. But he swears he didn’t kill Nicholas Pike, despite being convicted of murdering him. More than 20 years after Pike’s mysterious disappearance, as Hudson makes another bid for freedom, Mike White investigates why he continues to claim he’s innocent, and why the case remains so murky, and so controversial. This is part one of a two-part story.

In March 2002, Nicholas Pike simply disappeared.

He didn’t contact his parents, didn’t touch his bank accounts, and never came back for his dog, Mister, that he loved so much he had a tattoo of it on his back.

There’s virtually no doubt he’s dead, though his body has never been found.

Pike, 22, was a small-time drug dealer in Palmerston North.

At times, he hung around with Stephen Hudson, someone higher up the criminal hierarchy with a reputation for being unflinching and unsentimental.

Pike did jobs for Hudson ‒ drove him around, collected debts.

People said Pike was quiet. That he was under Hudson’s thumb. That he wasn’t cut out to be a gangster.

He made a good go at it, though. Did deals with gangs. Had guns hidden at his house. Used them on jobs.

But then Pike vanished. Gone. Without a whisper.

Well, there was whispering - about Stephen Hudson, and his silver Smith & Wesson - but nothing that could be proved.

And then, five years later, police knocked on Cindy Vrins’ door.

Natural Born Criminal

In October 2001, police raided a house in Ferguson St, Palmerston North.

Constable Robert Hutton had been in the house just a few minutes, when a phone in the lounge rang.

Hutton picked it up, said hello, and asked who was calling.

“Stephen f….n Hudson,” the voice on the phone replied. “What are you pigs doing in my house?”

That was Hudson all over. Brash, ballsy, bad.

Hudson says the cops absolutely hated him. He claims when they’d search his houses, they’d take the scanners he used to eavesdrop on police communications, and leave them in a sink of water, or rip out their electronic guts.

In his whole life, Hudson has probably worked less than a year. Crime and prison account for the rest of the 54-year-old’s existence.

And in that time, he’s threatened and bashed and robbed countless people. Badly affected the lives of many. Shown precious little remorse.

In many ways, Hudson is a case study of how a criminal is created, or evolves, via boys' homes and borstal boot camps.

He was born in a Wellington home for unwed mothers and adopted out.

Hudson’s first brush with the cops was when he was 13 and a friend went to the police station looking for a stolen bike and noticed a beautiful BMX among the lost property. When Hudson heard this, he walked in and claimed the flash bike was his.

He’d barely pedalled home when the cops came looking for him. So did his Dad, who gave him a hiding.

By 15, Hudson had dropped out of school “and just fell into a life of crime,” burgling shops and nicking cars.

In 1990, Hudson decided to use guns, and it all went horribly wrong.

Robbing a Palmerston North dairy, Hudson fired a shotgun he’d cut down, wounding a woman.

He was sentenced to six years’ jail, including his first stint in maximum security at Pāremoremo, after trying to escape from Wellington’s Mt Crawford prison. A tattoo on his arm salutes that “Pare’” lag from 1992-95 - inked honour for surviving the country’s toughest jail.

After five years, Hudson was released.

“And I just went back to doing what I was doing.”

Bad To The Bone

But by now he was a smarter criminal, and graduated to doing bigger burglaries.

He dealt cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, and manufactured cannabis oil.

He carried a handgun all the time.

“It’s just an argument-stopper.

“If people know that, if they’re coming to try and rob you, there’s a likelihood they’ll have a gun put in their face, then it’s a dissuader for them even coming in the first place. They’ll go elsewhere, where it’s an easier target.

“So it’s just a business tool, when you’re in that business.”

In 2001, Hudson started seeing a 17-year-old woman he became besotted with.

When he discovered she’d slept with another guy, he lured the man to a country road, ambushed him, and beat him with a hammer.

A few weeks later, Hudson arrived at his girlfriend’s flat to find her with another guy. This time, Hudson pulled a knife and stabbed the man.

Fleeing Palmerston North, Hudson went on the run, hiding out around the North Island.

And it was in Tauranga Hudson met Cindy Vrins, maybe at a New Year’s party, nobody seems too sure.

She was 18, and friends of people Hudson stayed with, and they crossed paths socially a few times over the following months.

Early on Friday March 15 2002, Vrins was in her car with Nick Pike, who she’d met previously, when it was pulled over by Tauranga police. Knowing Pike’s connection, an officer inquired about Stephen Hudson.

This is the last corroborated sighting of Pike.

On March 25, Pike didn’t appear at court for drugs charges he was facing, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

But there was no sign of him, and in June 2002, police began an investigation into his disappearance, believing he’d been murdered.

More specifically, they believed Stephen Hudson had killed him.

By this time, police had caught Hudson, and he was in prison for the hammer attack and stabbing.

When officers visited him about Pike’s whereabouts, Hudson refused to talk with them, as he always did, and walked out.

It was left to Detective Sergeant Dave Clifford to doggedly continue investigating Pike’s fate over the following years, supported by Pike’s family who went public about their son’s disappearance.

Nearing the fifth anniversary of Pike’s disappearance, Clifford convinced the Police Commissioner to offer a $50,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Pike’s murderer.

Armed with details of this, letters from Pike’s family and himself, and other material, Clifford and Detective Marie Lamberth knocked on Cindy Vrins’ Tauranga door on March 14 2007, to see if she would help with their investigation.

After initial indecision, Vrins agreed to make a statement.

What she told them was remarkable.

She Said

This is what Cindy Vrins told police over three days of making a statement.

When police stopped them on the morning of March 15 2002 in Mt Maunganui, and asked Pike about Stephen Hudson’s whereabouts, Vrins felt she had to warn Hudson the cops suspected he was in Tauranga, even though she later confirmed she “barely knew” Hudson.

Vrins claims when she finally contacted Hudson, he agreed he needed to get out of town. She had been wanting to go to Auckland to look for work, and Hudson said she could come with him and Pike.

After two nights there, Vrins says the trio left Auckland on Monday March 18, headed for Palmerston North.

As Hudson drove along the Desert Rd, he suddenly pulled over, told Vrins to get out, said he’d be back soon, and sped off down a side road with Pike.

Vrins sat by the road for between 10-15 minutes before Hudson returned alone, saying he’d left Pike to tend a cannabis plot.

Hudson and Vrins continued south, and stayed the night near Ashhurst, where they slept together for the first time.

The next morning, Hudson told Vrins she had to find somewhere else to stay, as he had things to do. Vrins stayed with a former boyfriend, before returning to Ashhurst the following day, where Hudson was waiting.

Over the following weeks, they continued their relationship, and made several more trips to Auckland.

On May 13, Hudson’s stint on the lam came to an end, when police surrounded the Tauranga house where he was staying.

Vrins continued to support Hudson while he was in prison, collected money, and hid gun parts for him, and several times refused to speak with police about what she knew of Nick Pike’s disappearance.

Then, on December 14 2002, Hudson and another inmate placed dummies in their beds, cut through prison bars with a smuggled blade, threw blankets over a 4m razor-wire fence, climbed over it, and escaped to freedom.

When Vrins joined him in Wellington, she challenged Hudson, suggesting he’d killed Pike. Hudson denied it.

He followed Vrins back to Tauranga, but on January 15 2003, 25 police officers surrounded the Papamoa house he was in, and recaptured him.

He’s been in prison ever since.

He Said

This is what Stephen Hudson says happened.

Yes, he met Cindy Vrins a few times in Tauranga, but hardly knew her at the time she claims Pike went missing.

“We’d had a couple of conversations. That’s it.”

Hudson says he wasn’t even in Tauranga when Pike was pulled over by cops on March 15 2002, but was in Manawatū and Wairarapa around this time. Vrins later contacted him, and said she wanted to come down and see him.

“I’m happy,” recalls Hudson, “I think I’m going to get laid.”

After some days together, they headed to Auckland, and repeated this trip several times over the following weeks.

But Hudson insists there was never any trip to Auckland with Pike and Vrins. Ever.

There was never any time they were driving down the Desert Rd together. There was no dropping Vrins at the side of the highway. No driving off with Pike, only to return alone.

Vrins’ story of Pike’s disappearance is simply a concoction, a fiction, Hudson insists.

As is the perception that Pike was his lackey, his “bitch” as some referred to him, who Hudson employed to do his drudgery and drug work.

Nick Pike was his own man, Hudson says, doing his own things, and sometimes they helped each other out. Simple as that.

“It wasn’t an employee, or slave-master situation. If there was any activity that was making money, then both parties were benefiting from it.”

And Hudson insists they weren’t together all the time, as some suggest.

In fact, Hudson says the last time he saw Pike was in late January 2002.

The pair had rented a house at Ngongotahā, near Rotorua, with the idea of growing cannabis indoors, but police found out about it

Hudson got tipped off as police prepared to raid the house, walked out the front door with his dog, Bud, and could soon hear tear gas canisters being fired in the distance, smashing nearly every window in the house.

Hudson carried on past the empty police station, bought a pie, and fed it to Bud.

The Desert Road

That raid led to Pike being arrested for cannabis found at the Ngongotahā house.

On January 25 2002, Detective Sergeant Clifford visited him, and says Pike indicated he wanted to free himself from Hudson, who was still on the run.

Clifford convinced Pike to help police find Hudson, signed him up as an informant, and gave him phone cards and petrol vouchers.

But whatever information Clifford hoped to gain from Pike, never eventuated.

In mid-February, Pike began a panel beating course in Palmerston North, only to drop out less than three weeks later, telling his tutor there was more money to be made dealing drugs.

At this stage, Clifford figured Pike had reneged on his promise to help track down Hudson, and gone back to his old ways and mates.

But when Pike didn’t surface, Clifford suspected he was dealing with a murder - and that Stephen Hudson was responsible.

The fifth anniversary of Pike’s disappearance gave Clifford a final shot at solving the crime, and the key to it was Cindy Vrins.

After Vrins recounted her story, telling how she last saw Pike on the Desert Rd being driven off looking scared, and Hudson returning looking “evil“, Clifford was even more convinced Hudson was their man.

The day after Vrins finished her statement, Clifford followed her along the Desert Rd until she stopped and said, here, this is where Hudson told me to get out, this is where I sat and waited for him.

But Vrins’ story took its first hit minutes later.

Clifford and another officer went up the side road she’d indicated, only to find a gate, 300m from the Desert Rd. After talking with an Army officer they met, they quickly realised this couldn’t have been the road where Hudson took Pike, and supposedly killed him.

Nevertheless, police spent two weeks searching the site for Pike’s body, finding nothing.

So, despite Vrins saying in her statement the side road was “nearer to the Waiouru end” of the Desert Rd, police took her back to the area to search for other options.

Vrins then identified two other possible side roads, which she had driven past on the first trip, and were further away from Waiouru, but she now said might be the intersections she waited at.

Police searched each site for five days, again finding nothing.

Clifford soon came across other inconsistencies when trying to confirm Vrins’ story.

She couldn’t identify the motel they supposedly stayed at in Auckland on the crucial trip. Or the bars they went to. Or be sure about a park Vrins said they visited.

There was no independent verification of the trip - no CCTV footage, or witness identification, or cellphone data.

There was a shop receipt from the store Vrins said she bought black pants from, but it was a cash sale, so couldn’t be directly linked to Vrins. Moreover, the time of the sale didn’t match Vrins’ timeline of her movements.

Clifford remained undeterred.

On March 2 2008, Hudson, now serving a six-year sentence for the stabbing and hammer-attack charges, was called into a room at Rimutaka Prison where Clifford was waiting for him.

Clifford said he wanted to talk about Pike’s disappearance. Hudson replied he had nothing to say.

So Clifford read Hudson his rights, and shortly after 2pm, arrested him for the murder of Nicholas Pike.

Nick The Nark?

Police never doubted Stephen Hudson was responsible for Nick Pike’s disappearance.

At Hudson’s trial, Clifford was asked by one of Hudson’s lawyers how many suspects he had for the death of Nicholas Pike.

Dave Clifford: “One.”

Steve Winter: “It’s always been your position?”

Clifford: “Absolutely.”

Winter: “I’ll just put this once: Do you think, in reaching that conclusion, you’ve been at all tunnel-visioned about Mr Hudson?”

Clifford: “No I don’t.”

Winter: “You’ve explored all other possible suspects?”

Clifford: “I’ve only had one suspect.”

However, evidence emerged that Pike had previously disappeared to hide from people he was frightened of, sometimes for months.

In 1998 he fled to Tauranga to escape people he owed money to. “He was petrified. He was shaking,” his mother, Evelyn Pike, told the court at Hudson’s trial.

In late 1999, Nick told her he “was in serious trouble, owed some nasty people money, and he was scared for his life.” This time, he went to Hamilton, to get away from someone called Rob.

A friend gave evidence that Pike once disappeared for six months, and later confided he’d been selling cannabis for the Nomads gang, and owed them lots of money.

As a judge later politely described it, “Mr Pike mixed in a not very satisfactory social milieu.”

Police believed there were three reasons Hudson murdered Pike.

Firstly, Pike owed Hudson money for drugs. But most witnesses suggested this was a few hundred dollars, and Hudson denies Pike owed him anything.

Secondly, they claimed Hudson was possessive of Vrins and jealous of her friendship with Pike. But Vrins had met Pike only a few times. And Vrins and Hudson hardly knew each other, and weren’t in a relationship at that stage.

And thirdly, police say Hudson learnt Pike was a police informant, and had to get rid of him. This seems the most plausible potential motive.

However, Hudson thinks Pike was stringing Clifford along by promising to help police find Hudson, in the hope of getting a lenient sentence on his own drugs charges. If Pike had wanted to dob him in, there were many opportunities, which he never took up, Hudson says.

But even if Hudson knew Pike had spoken to police, why would he murder Pike virtually in front of Vrins?

For such a cautious and experienced criminal, someone the Crown insisted was calculated and meticulous, it seems extraordinary Hudson would take the risk that Vrins could at any time tell police what happened, and implicate Hudson.

Police, fairly, point out Hudson had attacked other people when witnesses were present, including girlfriends.

But to involve an 18-year-old he scarcely knew, seems beyond reckless.

But maybe Hudson was reckless. Maybe he thought everyone was in his thrall, and the Smith & Wesson tucked in the band of his jeans was sufficient to silence them.

Maybe he didn’t count on the police being so determined.

And maybe he didn’t think Vrins would ever have a change of heart about the life she’d led, and the man she’d loved.

Revenge Of The Snitch

The fact it was almost a year after Vrins unburdened herself and accused Hudson, before police arrested him, indicates a solid and careful investigation.

But in that year, police had been unable to find Pike’s body anywhere Vrins had indicated; or a crime scene; or a weapon (other than suggest it was the pistol Hudson regularly carried); or any witnesses who specifically corroborated Vrins’ story; or anything linking Hudson to the crime forensically; or anything electronic, such as phone data, placing Hudson in the locations Vrins claimed he was from March 15-18 2002.

But by the time of Hudson’s trial in late 2009, police had amassed a group of powerful witnesses: nine criminals who claimed Hudson confessed to them while in prison that he’d murdered Nick Pike.

The first two came forward after police posted the $50,000 reward in 2007.

The remainder emerged after Clifford actively sought out prisoners prepared to finger Hudson.

From an initial list of 1800 prisoners who’d been in jail with Hudson since 2002, police settled on 300, who were approached for information.

Clifford and other officers visited nearly every North Island prison, some in the South Island, and also the homes of paroled prisoners. Everyone was given what was essentially an information pack about the case, including details of the reward, copies of magazine articles about Pike’s disappearance, and a letter from Clifford.

Such “jailhouse snitches” are internationally recognised as the most unreliable witnesses in any trial, but here, they were fundamental to the case against Hudson.

As is always the case, they are given name suppression by the court. But here is what we can say about them.

They included some of New Zealand’s worst murderers.

They included a prisoner who police had twice warned they believed had committed perjury and given false information in police murder investigations.

They included prisoners with hundreds of convictions for fraud and dishonesty.

They included someone who had never even been in the same prison as Hudson.

The evidence from the snitches didn’t match, and they contradicted each other.

Prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk said this showed what a skilful liar Hudson was - telling different stories of how and why and where he murdered Pike, in order to throw investigators off the trail.

As Hudson wrote to the Law Commission in 2023: “The Crown's case was that I was smart enough to kill Nick without leaving a single trace of forensic evidence, but stupid enough to confess to multiple individuals.”

At least four of the snitches received benefits for testifying, including police support at parole hearings.

At trial, some of them said they were speaking up to “make a difference”; “because it’s the right thing to do”; because “I have a moral obligation to come to court and tell what I know.”

But none had come forward before a $50,000 reward was dangled in front of them, or they were directly visited by police.

Hudson isn’t surprised so many snitches came forward, particularly when police actively sought prisoners to testify against him.

“There’s c…s that would send you down the road for a minimum 16-year life sentence for a couple of Big Macs, and not even think twice about it. Absolute pieces of s..t.”

Hudson says it’s idiotic to think he would admit to a crime he hadn’t even been charged with, to fellow prisoners he barely knew, sometimes allegedly bellowing confessions to inmates he couldn’t see.

But in the end, the jury at Hudson’s trial believed Vrins over Hudson, gave the lengthy lineup of jailhouse snitches credibility, and accepted Hudson had killed Pike somewhere a few minute’s drive off the Desert Rd.

Hudson saw the verdict coming.

After the jury’s decision, he turned to his mother, Christina Billing, in the back of the court, and simply shrugged his shoulders, before being led away.

Stand By Your Man

In 2010, Hudson was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of 16 years.

Justice Ron Young said the killing had been callous, and in cold blood.

“You have no remorse. You are, in my assessment, a very serious danger to the community. You have lived, effectively, a lawless life for 20 years, and your record for violent offending is frightening … the public are entitled to be protected from you.”

Hudson yelled back from the dock that the outcome was rubbish. “This is the New Zealand justice system for you - $50,000 gets you a conviction.”

He appealed his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled the Crown was entitled to use incentivised jailhouse snitches. Their honesty was a matter for the jury to decide, said the judges.

However, the reality is, the most crucial witness in Hudson’s case was always Cindy Vrins.

Without her explosive revelations about Nick Pike being driven away on the Desert Rd, there’s little doubt Stephen Hudson would never have been charged or convicted.

But what made her flip on her former boyfriend is contentious.

Any suspicion Vrins had that Hudson was a murderer didn’t deter her from continuing their relationship.

After Hudson was jailed for the assault charges, she visited him 63 times between May and August 2022, until barred from the prison.

She told police she wrote to Hudson in early 2003 breaking off their relationship.

But The Post has viewed numerous letters Hudson claims Vrins sent to him in prison that appear to be written between March and August 2003. (Vrins didn’t respond when asked about these letters.)

All are supportive, affectionate (“I love and miss you so much. xxx”, “I hope u luv me az much az u say u do and nobody else baby”), with Vrins hinting at a future together after Hudson is released.

Vrins frequently writes that she has sent Hudson money, talks of her own convictions, and often adds F*T*P (F..k The Police) to her letters.

The last letter appears to have been sent on August 24 2003.

She concludes: “And no, I haven’t got another man. Not into the relationship buzz at the moment. Love U heaps babe.”

On September 25 2003 Vrins married Tauranga man Scott Dawson, in Tauranga’s registry office.

Part Two of The Vexing Case of Stephen Hudson will appear in the Sunday Star-Times tomorrow.