David Tamihere’s murder convictions sensationally quashed, after 35 years, in Swedish backpacker case
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
David Tamihere’s convictions for murdering Swedish backpackers Heidi Paakkonen and Sven Urban Höglin have been quashed in a stunning decision by the Supreme Court.
Tamihere has fought to prove his innocence for more than 35 years but been knocked back at almost every step, including a Court of Appeal decision in 2024 that found he remained guilty of the 1989 murders.
But in a powerful rebuke to the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed Tamihere’s convictions, because a jailhouse snitch’s lies at Tamihere’s trial made it fundamentally unfair and because the Crown theory of the murders has now changed so radically, with much of it relying on evidence never put before a jury.
The court has ordered Tamihere face another trial, though it is up to Auckland’s Crown Solicitor, Alysha McClintock, to decide if this will proceed, given the potential difficulties relitigating such a historical case.
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Swedish tourists Paakkonen, 21, and Höglin, 23, were last seen in Thames on Friday April 7, 1989.
Tamihere, who was on the run from police and living in the Coromandel bush at the time, admitted stealing the couple’s car and some of their possessions, but insisted he didn’t meet or kill them.
Despite no bodies being found, the police theory was that Tamihere kidnapped and murdered the Swedes on a walking track near Thames that leads to a hilltop location called Crosbies Clearing.
To support this, police and the Crown relied on controversial eyewitness identifications by two trampers who said they saw Tamihere and a woman resembling Paakkonen at Crosbies Clearing on April 8.
At Tamihere’s trial, the Crown also used three jailhouse snitches who claimed Tamihere confessed he’d murdered the Swedes, while he was in prison awaiting trial.
But a year after Tamihere was convicted, Höglin’s body was discovered nowhere near Crosbies Clearing, more than 70km away on the other side of the Coromandel peninsula, near Wentworth Valley.
Moreover, the watch police claimed Tamihere had stolen from Höglin and given to his son was still on Höglin’s body. Forensic evidence suggested Höglin had been killed close to where his partially concealed body was found ‒ not near Crosbies Clearing.
Despite this, the Court of Appeal rejected Tamihere’s first appeal, in 1992.
But in 2017, in a private prosecution by jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor and justice campaigner Mike Kalaugher, one of the prison snitches, Roberto Conchie Harris, was shown to have lied in his evidence and was convicted of perjury.
Harris’ testimony had been crucial as it supported the trampers’ contentious identifications of Tamihere and Paakkonen at Crosbies Clearing.
Following this, Tamihere was granted a second Court of Appeal hearing, and in 2024 the court accepted Harris’ perjured evidence had caused a miscarriage of justice.
But the three judges ‒ Christine French, Forrest Miller, and David Collins ‒ said it didn’t mean the trial was unfair, and ruled there was sufficient other evidence that convinced them Tamihere was guilty.
This was despite the Crown coming up with a new and very different theory at the Court of Appeal hearing about how Tamihere supposedly killed the Swedes, which attempted to answer how Höglin’s body was found on the Coromandel’s east coast, not near the west coast where police had previously claimed he was killed.
However, the Supreme Court has overturned this decision, saying the Court of Appeal judges were wrong on several grounds.
It is a remarkable development in one of the country’s most controversial murder cases, and sets the scene for Tamihere, now 72, to have another day in court to defend himself.
In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court’s five judges ‒ Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann, Susan Glazebrook, Ellen France, Joe Williams, and Stephen Kos ‒ said the Court of Appeal was wrong to conclude Harris’ perjury didn’t make Tamihere’s trial unfair.
Moreover, the Court of Appeal should not have used “the proviso” which allows a court to rule that despite mistakes in a trial, the defendant is still guilty on the basis of the other evidence.
The Supreme Court said the proviso wasn’t available to be used, because by allowing Harris’ perjured evidence, which was “concocted to secure convictions”, the trial had gone awry and been rendered unfair.
In addition, the new Crown theory of the case was so different to the one Tamihere had been convicted on in 1990, there had been no chance for Tamihere to challenge the Crown’s new evidence, the Supreme Court said.
“In saying the proviso is available here, the Crown is arguing for the convictions to be upheld on the basis of a case which was never tested at all.”
This “radical recasting” of the Crown scenario after more than 35 years now involved alleged offending at “multiple locations, across a different, significantly larger geographical area, and over many hours. There are now also two likely crime scenes,” the Supreme Court said in its judgment.
“We emphasise that there are simply too many questions on the Crown’s new theory of the case, which have not been tested, for an appellate court to reach a conclusion about guilt.”
However, the Supreme Court said this didn’t mean a jury couldn’t find Tamihere guilty on the new scenario, and left it to the Crown to decide if it wanted to put Tamihere on trial again.
Tamihere declined to comment. However, he previously told The Post he wanted another day in court to prove his innocence.
But his lawyers have argued against a retrial, citing the length of time since the events; the fact some witnesses, including one of the trampers have died; that no investigation was done at the time based on the new Crown theory and Wentworth Valley locations; and that Tamihere had already served his sentence, spending 20 years in prison.
Tamihere’s lawyer, Murray Gibson, said: “We are delighted with the decision, but we have no further comment.”
Crown Law said the decision whether to retry Tamihere would take into account many factors.
It added that police had notified the victims’ families of the court’s decision at the weekend.
In a statement, police said they acknowledged the Supreme Court judgment.
Assistant Commissioner Investigations Corrie Parnell said investigators had been “unwavering in their commitment to finding answers for Sven and Heidi’s families, and that will not change”.
While Höglin’s body was located in 1991, Paakkonen’s body has never been found.
Parnell said as recently as 2024, police conducted a search of land near Mataora Bay, south of Whangamatā, following reports a skeleton had been found on the property 20 years earlier but nothing of interest was located.
“Police will now take time to consider the judgment in its entirety before determining next steps,” Parnell said, adding it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage.
The Post understands that Tamihere’s parole conditions, which have remained in place until now because he was sentenced to life imprisonment, have now been revoked following the quashing of his convictions. However, because he may have to stand trial again, questions of whether bail conditions are applied will have to be considered.