In 1954 Christchurch woman Honorah Parker was murdered while on a walk in the Port Hills.  The culprits? Her daughter Pauline, 15 and best friend Juliet Hulme, 16.  With “animal ferocity” they hit her over and over again with a brick inside a stocking. Police would later say the 46-year-old had been “battered to pieces”. After a controversial trial, the teens were found guilty of murder - a jury rejecting their claims of insanity. In this episode of A Moment In Crime host Anna Leask looks...

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 was her killer's explanation? In this episode of A Moment In Crime host Anna Leask - a senior...

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 - were scrutinised by police and the public.  George Gwaze was then charged with sexually...

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 sign of Jane, no clues to what happened to her or who was responsible.  In remains were...

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 hear from others who escaped multiple times including Dean Wickliffe, and, about why inmates go...

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 “bizarre and depraved” abuse which only ended when she became pregnant to him - not for the first...

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 will hear from the judge who sentenced the terrorist in 2020 and from those closest to the...

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 resolve with multiple trial dates - one delayed, one aborted and the case then moved to the...

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 resolve with multiple trial dates - one delayed, one aborted and the case then moved to the...

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 the arts world. But behind the money and resplendence, Wallace was a serial sex offender who...

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 Crime this month, but listen as she talks to The Front Page's Damien Venuto about the case.  See...

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 finally got the man responsible.  For more on this case click the links below. Dead man's last...

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 him - and that he never meant to harm any of the victims. However a jury found him guilty of...

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 of A Moment In Crime host and senior journalist Anna Leask goes back to the day Karen died,...

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 injected Niethe with methamphetamine on March 30, 2003, causing her death. Twenty years on from...

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 of Carmen. Three months later Callaghan was arrested and the brutal and macabre details of...

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 most shocking cases of murder, manslaughter and even some mercy killings carried out by...

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 a confession from him on October 14, 2014, where he admitted to strangling Pakeeza with the...

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 Brown stabbed Hemmings in the chest and the father-of-three died soon after. Brown was later...

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. In this episode of A Moment In Crime I'll tell you why - and how - Prakash killed Val, and what...

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 community. But instead of going to the address in Auckland he made his way to the airport...

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 dense scrub almost 50km away.  To date, no one has been arrested for her murder and police...

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. If there is a case you want to hear more about email [email protected] READ MORE ON THE...

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 Hall was not the person who killed Easton. He maintained his innocence for almost four...