‘An open wound’: How failures in David Tamihere’s case led to lasting pain, and called our justice system into question
Friday, 3 April 2026
This week’s quashing of David Tamihere’s convictions for murdering two Swedish tourists in 1989 has brought one of New Zealand’s most troubling cases back into the spotlight. But for some, as Mike White reports, the case’s tragic impacts never disappeared.
On August 20 last year, Murray Gibson rose from his chair, tweaked his robes, and delivered the final arguments for his client in front of five Supreme Court judges.
That client was David Tamihere, who had been convicted 35 years previously of murdering Swedish tourists Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Höglin in the Coromandel.
Tamihere had always insisted he never met the couple: Sure, he stole their car and pawned some of their gear, but he wasn’t their murderer.
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For three days, Gibson and colleague James Carruthers had argued why this was true, and why Tamihere was the victim of an unfair trial and wrongful conviction.
As he concluded, Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann noted it was both the first time Gibson had appeared before the country’s highest court, and the last, given he was retiring.
“It’s appropriate that on behalf of the judiciary, I thank you for your service to the profession and to the law,” she said.
Gibson shuffled, looked down, graciously thanked Winkelmann and took his seat.
And that was meant to be the last moment of Gibson’s stellar career that began when he was admitted to the bar 50 years ago, and included helping prove David Dougherty’s innocence, and his long-standing defence of Tamihere.
Despite his practising certificate having a while to run, Gibson was clear his time was done.
But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court released its judgment in Tamihere’s case, and in a stunning decision, quashed his convictions and ordered a retrial, agreeing with Gibson that the use of a jailhouse snitch at Tamihere’s 1990 trial made it unfair, and a radically new Crown theory of the case needed to be put before a jury.
Gibson had an appointment when the decision was released to him and still hadn’t read it fully later that day as he did his shopping.
But he knew enough.
He knew Tamihere’s controversial convictions had been overturned.
And he knew his retirement needed to be postponed: If there was going to be another trial, he was going to be there in Tamihere’s corner.
Operation Stockholm
Around 17,000km away in Stockholm, Love Lyssarides was on his way to catch an early flight when news broke that Tamihere’s convictions had been thrown out.
The foreign correspondent for Sweden’s public radio service had just returned from Beirut, where he’d been covering Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the skies there filled with smoke and explosions.
But the news from peaceful New Zealand was all Lyssarides wanted to know on Tuesday.
In 2023, Lyssarides, his wife, and baby spent four months in New Zealand. During that time, he investigated the disappearance of his countryfolk, Höglin and Paakkonen, travelling throughout the country, and tramping to the location police say Paakkonen was last seen at.
His conclusion after this was that the Crown case against Tamihere was terribly flawed, and simply didn’t make sense.
Lyssarides’ podcast about the case, The Swedes, has been one of the most-listened to in his country, downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.
And he knew when he heard the Supreme Court’s decision that the historical case would again be front-page news in Sweden.
When Paakkonen, 21, and Höglin, 23, vanished, they were doing what so many young Swedes did at the time, Lyssarides explains.
“Swedish people are just like Kiwis. We come from a small country, and when you graduate from high school, everyone’s dream is to travel the world and explore things. It’s a part of our culture, basically.
“And this happened at a time when backpacking was an innocent thing - it was like a peace and love hippy thing - you bought a van and you travelled around New Zealand, and nobody thought anything could happen.
“But when this happened, it really got into the collective consciousness of the Swedes, because everyone realised, this could have been your daughter, this could have been your son.”
For that reason, people in Sweden still clearly remember the case, colloquially known as “The Backpacker Murders”. And they struggle to understand how it could have dragged on for 37 years, and was now effectively back where it started, Lyssarides says.
“They just feel like there’s something fishy with all of this.
“There’s also frustration that if he’s not the one, then it means the people that did this to our citizens are free.
“Someone did it, and someone hasn’t been convicted for it, and that’s a failure.”
Lyssarides says if the police had done a proper job during the original investigation, we wouldn’t be where we are.
“Because it’s so obvious, for anyone who’s studied this case, that there are so many things that just don’t add up.”
Lyssarides retraced the steps of Paakkonen and Höglin, walked the same muddy trails and small town pavements they did, talked to the same people they did, and followed the same leads as Detective Inspector John Hughes, the formidable but controversial head of Operation Stockholm.
“And we just know that John Hughes’ idea of what happened, it just doesn’t make sense at all.”
When Lyssarides was reviewing files and documents from the 90s, “you just wanted to jump back in time and go, ‘Hey guys, just stop, stop messing this up’.
“These guys in the New Zealand police, I don’t know if they were too ambitious, or if it was about personal prestige, but they were just constantly, time after time, messing it up.”
Bearing the burden
Two hundred kilometres north of Stockholm, English phrases and New Zealand memories roll around in Håkan Bokull’s head.
On April 10 1989, Bokull and a friend arrived in Thames, checked in to the Sunkist Lodge backpackers, and began looking for transport to visit the rest of the Coromandel peninsula.
But the mail van didn’t stop where they wanted to go, and they needed more people to make it worthwhile hiring the lodge’s car.
“And then we found David, at the pool table. And he was so talkative. We played pool, and he was such good fun.”
Tamihere had also checked in to the backpackers that day, under the pseudonym Pat Kelly. For three years, he’d been on the run from police over other charges, and been largely living off the land in Coromandel’s bush.
But that day, he’d arrived in Thames in Paakkonen and Höglin’s stolen white Subaru with its distinctive bullbars, later explaining to police he’d found it parked at the bottom of the Tararu Track, a 9km trail near Thames leading to the tops and a place called Crosbies Clearing.
The way Tamihere tells it, he’d walked up the road, found the car, broken in, and stolen it, along with some of the Swedes’ gear.
A couple of nights at the Sunkist was a welcome break from living in a tent or bivvying in the bush.
At the end of the evening, Bokull says Tamihere offered to take them around the Coromandel the next day, if they paid for his room at the backpackers, and petrol.
So on April 11, Bokull, who was 20, and two other backpackers set off with Tamihere in the Subaru for a trip that included Hot Water Beach.
It was a nice day, Bokull remembers.
“He took us places and showed us places and told us stories about everything we saw.”
And then Bokull moved on, continuing his travels.
By the time he got to the US, news about Paakkonen and Höglin’s disappearance had broken, with their photos all over Swedish media.
During his monthly collect call to his mother, she asked Bokull if he’d seen the missing couple, noting that a postcard he sent from the Coromandel was posted around the time the couple vanished.
Bokull said he hadn’t met them, and he’d been the only Swede at the backpackers.
But when he arrived home, Bokull looked at all the newspaper clippings of the case his mother had kept, and immediately recognised the white Subaru as the one he’d taken a trip in.
“So I called the cops in Sweden, and said, ‘I know this guy’. I said, ‘I’ve been riding in this car’.
“Then it started. The cops called me from New Zealand 24 hours after that, and they came to Sweden and wanted me to come to the trial.”
So Bokull flew back to New Zealand for Tamihere’s trial, finding himself in the courtroom staring at the man he’d known as “Pat”.
Bokull, now 57, says the New Zealand police were fantastic, and he trusted them. And everything they told him about Tamihere’s case seemed to make sense.
“But I was in their world, I was in the police world. They showed me everything they wanted to show me. And I just told my story, of what I saw, what I witnessed.
“But I think at the time, they just wanted a short closure - close the case, do it.”
While at Tamihere’s trial, Bokull met Paakkonen and Höglin’s families.
“And I saw the grief in their eyes, and I just wanted to do the right thing.”
When he returned to Sweden, Bokull says he couldn’t just close the door on what had happened.
“You can’t. Where is Heidi? Where is Urban? I wasn’t there with them, but I bear the grief with the mothers and sisters.
“It’s been a part of my life. It’s changed my life.”
That sadness is something Bokull has borne for 35 years.
“Absolutely. All those years, all those years,” he says, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“I made a trip, and I got home. They didn’t. And I was so close, and that disturbs me.
“You get older, but it’s still there, it’s still there.”
Bokull says if he ever shifted from Sweden, he’d move to New Zealand. He loved the people, and, despite what happened, he has many wonderful memories of his time here: The hill above Picton with a view over the Marlborough Sounds was the most perfect place.
And Bokull says he has nothing against Tamihere.
“On the occasions I met him, he was not a murderer.
“He was a nice guy. Not my cup of tea, but he was a nice guy.
“The thing I want is, where is Heidi? Peace for the people, peace for the mind.”
Peace for Bokull too.
The man who started it all
Mike Kalaugher was recovering from eye surgery on Tuesday when news of the Supreme Court’s decision hit the headlines.
But he still managed to read the stories, and celebrate just a little.
It was Kalaugher, a justice campaigner, and prison lawyer Arthur Taylor, who in 2016 brought the private prosecution against Conchie Harris, one of three jailhouse snitches police used to bolster their case against Tamihere at his 1990 trial.
Harris had claimed that while they were in prison, Tamihere confessed to him that he murdered the Swedes. His evidence was crucial, because it backed up another contentious eyewitness identification of Tamihere and a woman who looked like Paakkonen.
But Harris had recanted his testimony after the trial, then recanted the recantation. He’d also written a letter to Tamihere apologising for lying at his trial. So they put him on trial.
Harris was convicted of eight counts of perjury, and sentenced to eight years in prison.
And with that, a fundamental foundation of the Crown case against Tamihere was knocked out, which has led to Tamihere’s convictions being overturned a decade later.
Without that challenge to Harris’ lies, Tamihere’s case would have continued languishing.
“I’m pleased that I did it, that’s for sure,” says Kalaugher, who has investigated numerous controversial cases, including those of Scott Watson and Stephen Hudson - cases also riddled with jailhouse snitches.
Everything takes so long, though, Kalaugher laments.
“Man, I’m 77 now. How old was I when I started with the Watson case? I think I was 50.”
But decisions like Tuesday’s gives him a shot in the arm to continue exposing wrongful convictions.
“There’s still a god, I’ve realised.”
‘Get it right’
Love Lyssarides believes the murder of his compatriots can still be solved - and must be solved.
“It feels like it’s not an impossible job to get the person who did it. But it’s been a bit of a f… up.
While Höglin’s remains were found in 1991, the fact no trace of Paakkonen has ever been discovered makes it even more important to uncover the truth, Lyssarides says.
“It’s such an open wound. Losing a child like that, you can’t even imagine the pain.
“And on top of that, having this going on for decades and we still haven’t found her body, we still don’t really know what happened. This is such a tragic story.
“You can’t leave these stones unturned. They really have to get to the bottom of this.”
Having talked to so many people affected by the case, Lyssarides knows how important it is for them to get closure.
“I love New Zealand, it’s a lovely country.
“But this is a story about two young people that lost their lives in your country.
“And if it has to take 30 more years, I think they should keep working on it, because they owe it to the families, to everyone involved, to get this right.”