A Moment In Crime

In 2011 Dean Richard Mulligan was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend Marice McGregor.  Marice was reported missing by her family in April 2010 and it emerged she had not been seen or heard from in the 10 days before they approached police.  For weeks police searched and appealed for information - as did Marice's family.  What happened to Marice? How did she die? And what...

George Gwaze was tried and acquitted in 2008 and 2012 after the death of his adopted daughter 10-year-old Charlene Makaza. Charlene was rushed to hospital in a terrible state in January 2007 and died after her little body effectively shut down due to massive infection - doctors and experts unable to do anything to save her.  Her family - who had moved to New Zealand from Zimbabwe for a better life...

Jane Furlong was 17 when she went missing from Auckland's Karangahape Rd in May 1993. Her partner Dani Norsworthy reported her missing two days after she was last seen. She was a new mum and a part time sex worker and while she'd had a troubled and turbulent life, was doing her best to carve out a future for herself.  For almost two decades - despite extensive police investigations - there was no...

In this episode of A Moment In Crime - the last for 2023 - senior journalist Anna Leask looks back at some of the country’s most brazen prison escapes, and speaks to one of the most high-profile escapees in history. Arthur Taylor spent almost a month on the run with two murderers and a robber after masterminding an escape from New Zealand’s toughest prison at Paremoremo near Auckland. You’ll also...

In 2000 Ronald Van Der Plaat became one of the country’s most infamous sex offenders when he was jailed for a litany of horrific abuse against his daughter spanning 23 years. He started raping, sexually violating and indecently assaulting his daughter Tanjas when she was just 9 when the family were living in Vanuatu. For the next 23 years, he would keep her as a sex slave, subjecting her to “bizar...

This episode of A Moment In Crime is a follow-up from the very first episode I produced about the Christchurch terror attack.  As the Coronial inquest into the mass murder begins, it's important to remember what happened and who was responsible. It's important to remember who was killed, wounded and impacted. And it's important to understand the inquest.  In this episode of A Moment In Crime you w...

A Moment In Crime - The Patron - looks back at the life and crimes of disgraced knight and serial sex attacker James Hay Wallace. Behind his money, philanthropy and resplendence, Wallace was a serial sex offender who lured men to his mansion on the premise of discussing funding proposals or helping with projects or careers and abused them when they least expected it.  Wallace’s case took years to...

A Moment In Crime - The Patron - looks back at the life and crimes of disgraced knight and serial sex attacker James Hay Wallace. Behind his money, philanthropy and resplendence, Wallace was a serial sex offender who lured men to his mansion on the premise of discussing funding proposals or helping with projects or careers and abused them when they least expected it.  Wallace’s case took years to...

A Moment In Crime is presenting a three part episode - The Patron - which looks back at the life and crimes of disgraced knight and serial sex attacker James Hay Wallace. Until his spectacular fall from grace, the Auckland rich lister was considered one of the biggest supporters of New Zealand film and art. Wallace was respected, revered and his help, guidance and money was sought after by many in...

In September 2021, Lauren Dickason killed her three daughters, six year old Liane, and two year old twins Maya and Karla, shortly after the family moved to Timaru from South Africa. For the last five weeks, Anna has been covering the trial, which this week saw a guilty verdict delivered on all three charges. As the trial has taken up a lot of Anna's time, there's no new episode of A Moment in Crim...

In 2011 an incomplete skeleton was found at a derelict property in Auckland by a demolition crew tasked with dismantling the buildings on site.  It took police months to work out who the remains belonged to - and then they had to work out who had killed the young man, and why.  In this episode of A Moment In Crime,  journalist and host Anna Leask looks back at the grisly case and how the police fi...

On May 5 2007 Lipine Sila murdered Hannah Rossiter and Jane Young and caused grievous bodily harm to eight other teens when he drove his car through a crowd outside a party in the Christchurch suburb of Edgeware.  The collision took place after Sila and his brother had been involved in fights at the gathering. Sila claimed he was scared for his life and was trying to get away from people attacking...

In January 2008 Scottish woman Karen Aim was beaten to death while she was visiting Taupō on a trip around New Zealand. The 26-year-old was murdered in the street by a local teenager who had been vandalising a nearby school with a baseball bat. He then used the weapon to murder the innocent woman. Jahche Broughton was jailed for life and has been denied parole a number of times.  In this episode o...

March 30 marks the 20th anniversary of Waikato mother-of-three Sara Niethe's disappearance. Her body has never been found despite her boyfriend Mark Pakenham admitting he killed her. Pakenham was charged with her murder in 2011 but before his case went to trial he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter. He has always refused to tell police where Niethe’s body is, but admitted he inject...

Warning: this episode contains graphic descriptions of murder and the disposal of a body and is suitable for a mature audience only.  In 2010 Auckland woman Carmen Thomas was reported missing by her ex-partner Brad Callaghan. He told police she had failed to pick up their little boy as per their shared custody arrangement and he was worried. Police launched an investigation but there was no sign o...

Police figures show between mid-2012 and 2022, about 280 people were convicted of murder in Aotearoa. Of those, 9.5 per cent of offenders - 26 in total - were women. A further 47 women were convicted of manslaughter, 27 per cent of the 271 total offenders in that category. n the latest episode of A Moment In Crime senior crime and justice reporter Anna Leask looks back at some of New Zealand’s mos...

For nearly eight years Auckland woman Pakeeza Yusuf and her 3-yeard-old daughter, Juwairiyah “Jojo” Kalim, lay covered by stone and mud on Auckland’s North Shore. They were murdered as they slept in late 2006 but for many years nobody knew about their grisly fate. A decade later in 2016, Kamal Gyanendra Reddy was found guilty of their murder by a jury. A six-month undercover police operation drew...

In September 2008 New Zealanders were shocked by the killing of a man who stepped in to help a woman in danger in central Auckland. Austin Hemmings, 44, was fatally stabbed when he intervened in a confrontation as he left work.  The good Samaritan was simply trying to help a woman who was in clear distress and who had called out for help after a man confronted her and threatened her.  Pauesi Leofa...

Christchurch caregiver Valerie May Heaney, 64, was found dead in the hallway of her Bromley home on April 4 2022.  Initially, police said her death was unexplained but after a post-mortem examination, it became clear something violent and horrific had happened to Val.  Elliot Ajay Prakash, 43, was later charged with her murder. He was a boarder at Heaney's home and the pair were sometimes lovers....

When Phillip John Smith left a Waikato prison on approved temporary leave in 2014 no one suspected that within days he would be leading authorities on an international man hunt. Smith, also known as Phillip John Traynor, was meant to spend his time outside the wire at an address in Auckland with a sponsor. The leave was part of a plan to reintegrate the convicted killer and sex offender back into...

The 1998 murder of the Ashburton schoolgirl remains one of New Zealand's most high-profile cold cases. Kirsty disappeared on December 31, 1998, while walking the family dog Abby on the banks of the Ashburton River. The day after Kirsty went missing, the family's dog Abby was found tied to a tree near the river, and the teen's underwear was nearby. Her body was found two weeks later, hidden in dens...

In 2013 Auckland couple Glenys Stanton and Trevor Waite were gunned down in bed together at his home in Opaheke south of the city.  Their killer was John Mowatt, an ex of Stanton who spiralled out of control when she ended their relationship. Mowatt killed himself at Woodhill Forest north of Auckland days after the double murder. The crime, later dubbed 'the bedroom murders' shocked the country. I...

In October 1985 Arthur Easton was murdered in his Papakura family home. Easton and his two teenage sons were attacked by a bayonet-wielding home invader. The 52-year-old postal worker was stabbed in his liver during the frenzied attack and died of blood loss after emergency services arrived on the scene. Alan Hall was convicted of murder in 1986 and spent 19 years in prison for the crime. However...

This episode contains strong language. In 2001 Bruce Thomas Howse murdered his stepdaughters Olympia Jetson and Saliel Aplin as they lay in their beds at their Masterton home. The girls - aged just 11 and 12 - had suffered years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Howse and despite their cries for help, it never came. Today A Moment In Crime is about the tragic deaths of the young sisters...

In January 2020 Rena Joyce walked into a Christchurch police station and made a startling confession.  She told officers she had killed her partner Martin Berry and that his body was buried in the compost heap at his home.  Following a trial in March 2022 Joyce - who had previous convictions for assaulting her partner - was found guilty of murdering Berry and in May she was sentenced to...