Appeal to begin in infamous case of murdered Swedish backpackers

Convicted murderer David Tamihere will have appeal heard next week. Photo: NZME

It’s been 33 years since David Tamihere was convicted of the 1989 murders of Swedish tourists Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen. Next week he will finally have his chance to try and clear his name after years of maintaining his innocence. He spoke to Ethan Griffiths about his upcoming appeal.

As a panel of judges considers the double murder convictions of David Tamihere next week, the man himself will be 670 kilometres away, mowing lawns.

Three decades after Tamihere was convicted of murdering Swedish couple Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen in the Coromandel, he is remarkably, almost inconceivably, relaxed about an opportunity he’s fought so long to witness.

"I still don’t agree with it, but you learn to live with it," Tamihere told NZME this week of his original guilty verdicts. "We’ll see how it goes".

Tamihere, who works as a cleaner and lawnmower at a West Auckland marae, has always professed his innocence.

He says he now lives a normal life but the journey to his quiet and uneventful existence has been far from simple.

His 1990 trial heard that he sexually abused both tourists before murdering them and dumping their bodies in the sea. The eventual convictions were based predominantly on circumstantial evidence and remain some of New Zealand’s most controversial.

Questions about the case never leave Tamihere, who was eventually freed from prison on parole in 2010.

He says his fervent denials while he was behind bars weren’t the easy route to freedom. He believes he would have been granted parole earlier if he’d accepted his conviction.

His battle has always been for what he says is the truth.

In 2020 he was granted the royal prerogative of mercy after evidence that contributed to his conviction was found to be false. His case was then referred back to the Court of Appeal, where his lawyer will appear in Wellington on Tuesday.

Thirty years in the making

In April 1989, engaged couple Hoglin and Paakkonen were trekking through dense Coromandel bush, while David Wayne Tamihere was on the run from police.

Three years earlier he had raped and threatened a 47-year-old woman in her home for more than six hours. He pleaded guilty to that offence but had ignored his bail conditions and absconded to the bush, where he was living rough.

He’d already had a prior conviction for manslaughter after hitting 23-year-old stripper Mary Barcham on the head with a rifle in 1972 when he was 18.

On April 10, 1989, Tamihere came across the Swedish couple’s white Subaru, "loaded with gear" and parked near the start of a difficult hiking track. He stole the car – something he has always admitted.

Swedish tourists Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen were on a trek in the Coromandel.

Weeks later, after the Swedes’ disappearance had sparked the largest land-based search in New Zealand history, Tamihere was linked to the car.

He was charged with their murders three months later, by which point he had already been sentenced on the earlier rape conviction he was evading at the time of the murders.

At his trial in November 1990, a jailhouse informant then known as "secret witness C" testified that Tamihere had admitted to the killings while in prison. Witness C claimed Tamihere told him he’d bashed Hoglin with a piece of wood and dumped the couple’s bodies at sea. Two other inmates also testified that Tamihere had made admissions.

The other key bit of evidence came from two trampers who claimed they saw Tamihere with a blonde woman who looked like Paakkonen at Crosbies Clearing.

But it was after Tamihere’s conviction, despite the Crown having no bodies nor a murder weapon, that the case was turned on its head.

Two years to the day after Tamihere was charged, Hoglin’s body was found in a shallow grave by pig hunters near Whangamatā, more than 70km from where the Crown said the murders occurred.

It wasn’t enough to convince the Court of Appeal or the Privy Council that Tamihere’s case should be reheard. He spent 20 years behind bars.

The Crown’s 1990 case had already been questioned by the discovery of Hoglin’s body but had its foundations shaken again when Witness C, unmasked as murderer Conchie Harris, was convicted of eight counts of perjury in 2017.

A jury found Harris had lied about Tamihere confessing to murder in prison, after jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor took a private prosecution.

Three years later, then governor-general Dame Patsy Reddy, on the advice of justice minister Andrew Little, granted Tamihere the royal prerogative of mercy, referring his case back to the Court of Appeal.

The appeal focuses on the location of Hoglin’s body and the discredited evidence from Harris.

David Tamihere (centre) was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1990. Photo: Rhys Palmer

NZME understands both these claims will be considered alongside the evidence of the trampers who claimed they saw Tamihere and Paakkonen in the bush.

The hearing is expected to take two days, starting on Tuesday.

‘Shit happens’

These days, Tamihere lives in West Auckland with his wife. He’s still asked about the case but his response is always the same: "We’re still arguing the point, we’ll see what happens."

His convictions undoubtedly sit uncomfortably with him but, after 33 years, his outlook is almost mellow.

He speaks quietly and softly, giving the impression he has come close to putting the convictions behind him. But he’s not quite there.

"You can get all bitter and twisted about it, but all that does is end up in the nuthouse. You’ve got to get to a stage where, if you’re gonna let it prey on your mind, you know insanity is on the other side of that door.

"Shit happens, and this happened, so we just keep going."

Tamihere hopes the appeal will result in a retrial. "There’s a lot of stuff, the grounds that our side are arguing, that should be put before a jury."

He believes he still has a lot of public support but knows many hold firm that he is guilty.

"In those days when it happened, it was really hard to say to people it wasn’t necessarily right. A lot of people, as far as they were concerned, thought you were 80 per cent guilty by just standing in the dock.

"During the court case, the Crown just has to hold that ground. You’ve got to flip it 180 degrees. It takes a seismic shift."

David Tamihere now works as a cleaner and lawnmower at a West Auckland marae. Photo: NZME

He says he has sympathy for the families of Hoglin and Paakknonen, who grappled not only with their deaths but the ensuing controversy.

"It’s not their fault. They’re like everyone else, they took on board what they were told. Not knowing anything different, why would you think otherwise?"

He says he has "no clue" what happened to the couple.

"There’s been all sorts of suggestions from different people, but for me it’s dangerous to look at something and go, ‘That looks like the best story.’

"I knew, somewhere along the line, something was going to come up. I was expecting them to find Heidi’s body and that’s still out there somewhere."

Ultimately, he says, this week is his chance to take on the system.

"Everyone likes to believe the police, the Crown and the system is all hunky dory. Life’s not like that, it never was."