Source: Radio New Zealand
David Tamihere in 2017. RNZ
The Supreme Court will tomorrow release its decision on David Tamihere’s last attempt to clear his name, 36 years after his double murder conviction.
Tamihere was found guilty in 1990 of murdering Swedish tourists Urban Höglin, 23, and Heidi Paakkonen, 21, in the Coromandel in a case that shocked the world.
Höglin’s body was found in 1991, Paakkonen’s never was.
Tamihere appealed to the Supreme Court last year, arguing the Court of Appeal should have quashed his convictions in 2025 when it found there had been a miscarriage of justice. Instead, the appeal court had said the convictions should remain.
Tamihere has been out of prison since 2010 but has been on a renewed quest to have his convictions overturned since a prosecution witness, prison informant Roberto Conchie Harris, was found guilty of perjury in relation to the case in 2017.
In 2024, the Court of Appeal judges said despite the miscarriage of justice, there was enough other evidence that meant they remained convinced beyond reasonable doubt Tamihere was guilty.
Last year, when Tamihere and his legal team appealed that decision, they argued the 1990 trial was “fundamentally defective” and argued the crown case was now different to the one it advanced then.
Crown lawyers countered that the case at trial still stood – even without Harris’s evidence, and the only reasonable conclusion to draw from the facts was that Tamihere was guilty.
There were some irregularities in the original trial but none of them reached the standard of making it an unfair trial, they said during the hearing.
They said if the Supreme Court did quash the convictions, the Crown would seek a retrial.
But the defence said a retrial would be almost untenable after more than 35 years. Some key witnesses had died.
Höglin and Paakkonen were last seen in Thames in 1989. They had been tramping on the Coromandel Peninsula.
Tamihere had been living in the bush in the area, having been on the run from police for about three years for an earlier rape.
In evidence presented in the original case, Tamihere had admitted stealing the Swedish couple’s car and selling their goods, but denied ever having met them.
Two trampers said they saw Tamihere in a bush clearing sitting with a woman fitting Paakkonen’s description and wearing a distinctive poncho later found in Tamihere’s home.
In the original trial, the now discredited Harris said Tamihere told him he had killed and sexually assaulted the couple and taken Höglin’s watch.
Höglin’s body was discovered the following year, in the Wentworth Valley, almost 70 kilometres away from where trampers said they saw Tamihere, and there was evidence he had been killed close by. Höglin’s watch was still on his wrist.
Tamihere maintains he did not kill the couple.
The court will release its decision tomorrow afternoon.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
