Lundy murders

Christine Marie Lundy, 38, and her 7-year-old daughter Amber Grace Lundy were murdered in Palmerston North, New Zealand, on 29 or 30 August 2000. Mark Edward Lundy (then age 43), Christine's husband and Amber's father, was arrested and charged with the murders in February 2001.^[1] In 2002 he was convicted of the murders after a six-week trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years. Lundy maintained he was innocent and took his case to the Court of Appeal; the appeal was rejected and the court increased his non-parole period to 20 years.^[2]

In June 2013 Lundy appealed to the Privy Council in Britain.^[3] In its decision, announced four months later, the Council focussed on three main points: the reliability of evidence surrounding the time of death, the accuracy of the testing of brain tissue given the state of the samples and an alternative explanation for the alleged tampering of the family computer.^[4] The Council ruled the convictions "unsafe" and ordered a re-trial.^[5] Lundy served nearly thirteen years in prison but after the Privy Council decision was temporarily freed on bail.^[6]

The retrial was held in early 2015. Lundy was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment once again.^[7]

Background

Mark and Christine Lundy met at a Scouts and Guides gang show when Christine was still in her teens. Mark was three years older. They married in 1983, and their only child, Amber, was born 10 years later.^[8] The couple were part of a group that held wine tastings in each other's homes and had a wide circle of friends.^[9] One witness said Christine had wanted her husband to give up drinking for three months.^[10]

Lundy started his working life as a builder and joiner; once he got together with Christine, they set up a business selling kitchen sinks and tapware.^[11] Christine did the paperwork and other jobs for the business, and Lundy made fortnightly sales trips to Wellington to visit kitchen suppliers.^[12] At the time of the murders, they had been together for 18 years^[13] and the kitchen business had on-going debts of about $100,000.^[14]

In regard to Lundy's character, witnesses at the retrial "almost all agreed he was an affectionate husband and adoring father", although it was also revealed he had been to prostitutes on a few occasions, including on the night that Christine and Amber were killed.^[15] At the retrial, statements by Christine Lundy's late mother, Helen Weggery, and Mark Lundy's late father, Bill, were read out. This indicated they were both frequent visitors to the Lundy home and believed the couple were 'well matched and loved each other'.^[16]

In 1999, the Lundys tried to buy two blocks of land in Hawkes Bay, at a cost of $2 million, which they intended to turn into a vineyard. Lundy was looking for other investors to help make the purchase and registered a prospectus to raise money.^[17] As part of their commitments, they owed $140,000 of penalty interest on the deal to buy the land due to missing settlement deadlines.^[18] On one parcel of land, on which the Lundys had missed two deadlines, the final settlement was due on August 30, 2000, the day that the bodies of Christine and Amber were found.^[19] Forensic accountant, Reginald Murphy, testified (at the retrial) that at the time of the murders, the Lundys had $439,000 in commitments but "no assets of any consequence" and were effectively insolvent.

The murders

On the morning of Tuesday, 29 August 2000, Lundy drove to Wellington on one of his regular business trips. He checked into a motel in Petone at around 5:00 pm. Records show his wife or daughter called him on his cell phone in Petone to say they were going to McDonald's for dinner. Receipts showed they purchased dinner at 5.43pm.^[20] The time of death was estimated by pathologist James Pang to be about 7pm. He concluded the deaths occurred an hour and 10 minutes after they ate basing his opinion on the relatively undigested state of Christine and Amber's stomach contents.^[21]

Lundy made a cell phone call from Petone to a business partner of his Hawke's Bay wine-making venture at 8.28 pm.^[20] The computer at the Lundy home was switched off at 10:52 pm.^[22] Witnesses, including a next door neighbour, described seeing lights on in the Lundy house about 11pm (but they were off the next morning when Christine's brother came round to the house.) At 11:30 pm, Lundy called an escort service in Petone and the escort was driven to his motel.^[23] Afterwards, she called the agency and at 12.48am was picked up by a driver.^[24]

Christine's brother went to the house at about 9:00 the following morning after Lundy called and asked him to check on Christine who was not answering her phone. The brother broke into the house and found the bodies of Christine and Amber bludgeoned to death. Christine's body was on her bed; Amber's was on the floor in the doorway of Christine's bedroom.^[25] Both had died of head injuries caused by multiple blows from what was determined to be a tomahawk-like weapon or small axe.^[26] No weapon was found. A rear window had been tampered with and had Christine's blood on it. A jewellery box was later determined to be missing.

Trial 2002

After a police investigation of six months, Lundy was arrested and charged with their murders. The trial took place in the High Court in Palmerston North.^[27]

Prosecution case

The Crown called more than 130 witnesses.^[28] They contended that Lundy killed his wife for her life insurance money because of financial pressures, and then killed his daughter because she was a witness. They said that after talking to his wife and daughter on the phone from Petone, Lundy got in his car and drove back to Palmerston North, bludgeoned his wife and daughter to death, changed his clothes, got rid of the evidence, altered the time on the family computer, ran back to his car wearing a blonde wig and then drove back to his motel in Petone at high speed.^[29] The Crown alleged Lundy changed the time clock on his home computer so it would look like it was turned off at 10.52pm.^[30]

No weapon and no blood stained clothes were ever found and no blood was found in Lundy's car.^[31] However, paint found in the hair of the victims was said by the prosecution to match the paint Lundy used to mark the tools in his toolshed.^[32] An ESR scientist who was called to testify said the paint samples were contaminated and no chemical analysis of the paint was done to prove the flecks 'matched'.^[29]

The prosecution also alleged that a speck of tissue found on one of Lundy's polo shirts two months after the murders^[29] was brain tissue; the shirt was found along with other clothes and miscellaneous items on the back seat of his car. Although New Zealand pathologists could not identify it as Christine's brain tissue, a pathologist from Texas, Rodney Miller, said it was. Miller used a technique known as immunohistochemistry, a technique he had previously tested on a chicken, to identify the human tissue as brain matter.^[33] The prosecution argued the only way this brain tissue could have got on the shirt was if Lundy himself was the murderer. However, the prosecution failed to disclose a report by neuropathologist, Dr Heng Teoh, questioning the reliability of the 'brain tissue'^[34] and other experts subsequently cast doubt on Rodney Miller's conclusions.^[35]

The Crown also relied on a witness who claimed she had seen Lundy in Palmerston North at the time of the crime. Margaret Dance was a 60-year-old woman, who said at the trial she had "psychic powers and a photographic memory". She lived about 500 metres from the Lundy home and said she had seen a man wearing a blond wig who 'appeared to be trying to look like a woman' running on the street at about 7:15 pm. She also said she saw seven other people outside a takeaway shop in the area. Nobody else, including the seven people she described, saw anyone running in the area that night.^[36]

Defence case

The defence called three witnesses including Lundy himself, who emphatically denied killing his wife and daughter. He says that evening he drove to the Petone foreshore where he read a book, before heading back to the motel. Once there, he said he watched TV while drinking rum. Around 11.30pm he called an escort agency and spent the next hour with a prostitute who came to the motel.^[37]

Lundy's cell phone records proved he used his phone in Petone at 5:43 pm and at 8:28 pm. A key defence argument was that he could not possibly have made the round trip of 300km from Petone to Palmerston North and back in less than three hours during peak hour traffic - in addition to committing the murders, disposing of the murder weapon and blood stained clothes and changing the time on the family computer.^[38] The defence pointed out that there was blood and tissue splattered everywhere including on the walls, the bed and the floor around the bodies but not on his car, his glasses, his wedding ring, or his shoes or other clothes which were "all tested for blood or other tissue and absolutely nothing was found".

In regard to the 'minute specks of tissue' found on the polo shirt two months later, the defence said Christine's DNA might have got there if she gave him a hug or put away his shirt.^[29]

Verdict

The jury deliberated for seven hours before finding Lundy guilty of the murder of his wife and child.^[26] He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years, including time already served.

Court of Appeal

In 2002, Lundy took his case to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that the verdict was unreasonable and not supported by the evidence.^[39] His appeal was not only unsuccessful, the Court increased his non-parole period from 17 years to 20 years. The judges felt that 17 years was insufficient recognition of "the need for very strong denunciation of the killing of Amber as well as that of Mrs Lundy."^[2]

Concerns about conviction

Support of Geoff Levick

Geoff Levick, ran a campaign to have Lundy's conviction overturned for 13 years after reading a story in the New Zealand Herald about Joe Jessup in January, 2003.^[40] Jessup, a friend of Lundy's, was disturbed that five people considered suspects by police at the time were never investigated to the point that they were eliminated as suspects. He became the first to campaign on Lundy's behalf.^[41] The story caught Levick's interest, and marked the beginning of a lengthy campaign.

Levick used to own a business in the area and visited clients in Petone and Palmerston North, near the Lundy home. He drove the route taken by Lundy dozens of times and says it always took him about two hours. When he heard how quickly Lundy was alleged to have done the trip, he simply didn’t believe it. Lundy would have had only three hours to make the return journey from Petone to Palmerston North, a round trip of approximately 290 km (180 mi), kill his wife and daughter, change his clothes and dispose of evidence.^[29] In order to make it back to Petone by 8.28 pm, Lundy would have had to drive to Palmerston North in rush hour traffic at an average speed of around 117 km/h (the maximum open road speed limit in New Zealand is 100 km/h),^[29] commit the crimes, and make the return journey back to Petone at an average speed of 120 km/h.^[29]

Levick speculates that a creditor of Lundy's paid someone to go to the house to "teach him a lesson", but Lundy was not there and matters "got out of hand".^[42] At the retrial in 2015, the Lundys' former cleaner, Rowena Collett, said she saw a white car with three people in it drive slowly past the Lundy's house two days before the murders. One of them, a woman, was staring down the Lundy's driveway and "she thought the woman was being nosey".^[43] Seven unidentified fingerprints and a palm print were also found around the house – but this information was not given to the jury at the first trial.^[29]

2012 documentary

In 2012, documentary film maker, Bryan Bruce made an episode examining the Lundy case as part of his series The Investigator. Like others, Bruce concluded that Lundy could not possibly have made the return trip in three hours,^[44][45] but he thought Lundy could have made the trip and committed the crimes later that night, returning to Petone in the early hours of the morning.^[45] The prosecution presented this scenario as their version of what happened at Lundy's retrial in 2015.

Appeal to Privy Council

Ten years went by while Lundy's small group of supporters, led by Geoff Levick, "continued working behind the scenes".^[46] Legal aid was not available and there were difficulties funding an appeal. In 2009, North & South magazine published the results of an investigation into the case by journalist Mike White. White went through all the research and documentation that Levick had accumulated over 13 years, interviewed pathologists and others about brain tissue, and the digestion of stomach contents, and produced an 18 page analysis titled The Lundy murders: what the jury didn't hear.

The article eventually helped persuade David Hislop QC to take the case to the Privy Council.^[47] Later that year, Lundy's legal team announced an appeal was "imminent" but it was not until three years later, in November 2012, that an application was made to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council seeking permission to appeal his convictions.

'Revelation' of undisclosed document

A few days before the appeal, and 11 years after he was found guilty, a report by a New Zealand neuropathologist, Dr Heng Teoh, questioning the reliability of the 'brain tissue' was given to Lundy's legal team. Police had failed to disclose the report to his defence lawyers, or to the court, at the time of the trial,^[48] a strategy known as noble cause corruption. One of the law lords described the discovery of this document as a "revelation".^[49] In the end, the Privy Council decided the science used to identify the speck of tissue found on Mark Lundy's polo shirt was controversial and there was reason to doubt its accuracy.^[50] At the retrial in 2015, the Crown acknowledged they got the timing wrong and argued the murders occurred at least eight hours later - in the middle of the night.

Other issues before the Council included the time of shutdown of Christine's computer, and the examination of stomach contents used to determine the time of death.^[51] Mr Lundy's legal team submitted that examination of stomach content to determine time of death was internationally discredited as bad science.^[52]

Decision

The hearing which included Chief Justice of New Zealand Dame Sian Elias began on 17 June 2013. The Privy Council announced its decision in October 2013, declaring Lundy's convictions "unsafe" in light of the new evidence, quashed the convictions and ordered a retrial.^[53]

Release on bail

After his convictions were quashed, Lundy applied for bail. In his decision to grant bail, Mr Justice Young noted that "Mr Lundy has no history of offending other than the two murder convictions which are now quashed." He went on to say: "Mr Lundy is entitled to the presumption of innocence. He is back to the stage where he is charged and the Crown has not proved a case of murder against him."^[54]

Retrial 2015

The time of death

The retrial began in February 2015 and on the first day, the Crown led by Phillip Morgan Q.C took a different approach to the case. They said they now believed that Lundy drove up to Palmerston North after spending an hour with a prostitute (who left his motel at 12.48am), and killed his wife and daughter in the early hours of 30 August. Pathologist James Pang said it was impossible to pinpoint the exact time of death and so Amber and Christine Lundy could have died at any time within a 14 hour period before the bodies were discovered at about 9.00am the following morning.^[55] Defence counsel, Ross Burns, said the Crown's introductory statement was "an affirmation that Lundy had been wrongly convicted in the first trial".^[56] Mr Burns also said there was fresh evidence implicating someone other than Lundy.

Computer evidence

Evidence by computer experts also contradicted testimony given at the first trial suggesting that Lundy had manipulated the time at which the family computer had been turned off. A former police electronics expert, Maarten Kleintjes, and FBI contractor, Troy Kelly, both said there was no evidence the computer had been tampered with.^[57] Kleintjes agreed that if Christine Lundy had turned off the computer at 10.52pm, it was not possible that her husband had killed her at 7pm.^[58]

The possible motive

Questions were also raised in the retrial about the Crown's theory on Lundy's possible motive. In the first trial the prosecution claimed the Lundys had recently increased their life insurance and Mark then killed his wife to claim the insurance and pay off debts. In the second trial, the court was told that a proposed increase in the Lundys' life insurance policy was initiated not by Mark Lundy but by insurance broker, Bruce Parsons, as part of a regular review. The increase was to be from $200,000 to $1 million each, but the Lundys thought that was too much, and agreed to $500,000. However, the new policy was not in place at the time of Christine Lundy's death.^[59]

The paint flecks

The defence led by David Hislop Q.C (an English barrister originally from New Zealand) began presenting its case on 2 March, 2015. Their first witness was British forensic expert, Gillian Leak, who challenged the prosecution case about paint flecks found in Christine Lundy's hair. She said she would have managed the risk of contamination very differently from the way ESR forensic scientists approached the crime scene,^[60] described practices employed by officers examining Mark Lundy's car as "unusual"^[61] and suggested the police may have inadvertently introduced contamination.

ESR scientist, Bjorn Sutherland, conceded that paint flecks found on and around Christine Lundy's body could have come from somewhere other than the murder weapon. The court heard that two people, Christine's brother and an ambulance officer, went near Amber's body before the police turned up.^[62] On the 19th day of the trial, police photographer Sergeant Robin Walker admitted he sometimes left and re-entered the Lundys' house without changing his protective gear.^[63]

DNA evidence

A significant focus at the retrial was on the nature of the stains on Lundy's polo shirt. Early in the trial, the defence challenged Ross Grantham, the detective in charge of the police investigation before Lundy's first trial. Grantham acknowledged that New Zealand pathologist Dr Heng Teoh told him, "A man could not be convicted on the strength of one glass slide - they were too degenerative and should remain a mystery."^[64]

Later on in the trial, American pathologists called by the prosecution testified the tissue in the stains was central nervous system tissue. Manchester-based neuropathologist, Dr Daniel du Plessis, agreed the sample contained central nervous system tissue but also said he was unable to tell if the tissue came from a human or an animal, or what gender the origin of the tissue was. Dr Colin Smith, a UK-based pathologist called by the defence, confirmed that central nervous system tissue is allowed in meat products in New Zealand.^[65] Earlier in the trial the jury was told that police found a wrapper for a beef and chilli pie in Lundy's car raising the possibility that the DNA testing done by the pathologists had been conducted on "the spilled remains of a meat pie".^[66]

The court also heard evidence via video link from German scientist Marielle Vennemann. She made wide-ranging criticisms of scientific evidence presented by the Crown especially the work done at the Netherlands Forensic Institute where scientists tried to identify the origin of central nervous system tissue. Vennemann said the tests used at the Dutch laboratory were not yet reliable enough to provide conclusive results for forensic purposes. She also criticised the standards and steps taken to avoid contamination in the American laboratory where the samples were originally processed in 2001.^[67]

Other DNA evidence presented at the trial concerned new tests conducted in 2014, in which DNA of two unknown men was found under the fingernails of both Christine and Amber.^[68]

Alternative suspects

It was revealed that at the time the murders occurred, a man with mental health problems was temporarily regarded as a suspect. Police had to get a court order to obtain his medical file from MidCentral Health which showed he had been under the care of mental health services since 1998. The man, who has name suppression, has convictions for violence including wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He lived in the same Palmerston North suburb as the Lundys and was believed to dislike Christine Lundy. At the first trial, police believed the murders occurred at about 7.00pm, at which point the man had an alibi. The prosecution is now saying the murders occurred in the early hours of the following morning.^[69]

At the retrial, defence counsel David Hislop, QC, suggested Christine's brother, Glenn Weggery, had been having an improper relationship with Amber Lundy and accused him of the murders. He said that when police examined his car, blood was found inside the boot. Blood was also found near the driver's seat and on a towel in Weggery's truck.^[70] Traces of blood were also found in the bathroom of his house, on a pair of his underwear and a handkerchief in his house,^[71] which were an 83% match to Christine's DNA and an 88% match to Amber's.^[72][73]

Verdict

After deliberating for almost three days, the jury of seven men and five women unanimously found Lundy guilty of both murder charges. Mr Justice France re sentenced Lundy to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years.^[74]

Hearing on scientific evidence

After the guilty verdict was announced, it was revealed that Lundy's team had tried to have complex scientific evidence excluded from the trial. The evidence objected to was from the Netherlands Forensic Institute where tests were developed that were said to show central nervous system tissue. On the basis of newly developed tests, Dr Laetitia Sijen, concluded that tissue found on Lundy's shirt was more likely to be human than to come from common farm animals. Professor of molecular medicine Stephen Buston, from Angela Ruskin University in the UK, told the jury Dr Sijen did not follow written instructions when conducting tests on the sample and he "would be highly reluctant to accept the results of the [tests] because of the technique that has been applied."^[75]

The president of the Court of Appeal, justice Ellen France, agreed that the type of testing used by the prosecution lacked validation. The other two appeal judges decided there was a compelling argument to allow the jury to hear the evidence.^[76]

Appeal

On 28 April, Lundy's remaining lawyer, Julie-Anne Kincade, announced that the verdict would be appealed and the appeal would include questions raised about the validity of the scientific evidence presented at the trial.^[77]

Public perceptions

Of Mark Lundy

Mark Lundy is tall and used to be overweight. At the funeral held for Christine and Amber in 2000, he was seen on national television wearing dark glasses and holding on to friends for support. The way he behaved was judged by some as 'acting'. Psychologist Nigel Latta, who profiled Lundy in his TV series, Beyond the Darklands said: "His performance at the funeral was ridiculous. It struck people at the time." Latta even suggested it was "behavioural evidence" indicating Lundy's guilt.^[78] After he was found guilty at the first trial, Lundy was referred to in a magazine article as a "big fat filthy bastard".^[79]

New Zealand Herald journalist, Steve Braunias, is convinced that Lundy's demeanour and behaviour played a significant part in the outcome of both trials. Writing about the retrial he said: "The science in his favour was strong, and various assorted evidential circumstances further pointed to his innocence." But he points out the one thing the jury wanted to see again was a video made of Lundy during the original police interview in 2000. "Once again, he was being damned for the way he behaved. It was the funeral all over again."^[80] An article in LawFuel published shortly after the second guilty verdict also focussed entirely on Lundy's acting ability rather than analysing the evidence.^[81]

Of police

Political commentator, Bryce Edwards, pointed out that legal costs of Lundy's prosecutions cost the taxpayer $5 million and the case should "shake our faith in the justice system". In a critical analysis of police tactics he goes on to say that "regardless of the guilt or innocence of Lundy, David Bain and Teina Pora, the fact their original convictions were unsafe means the police are failing the public." He says the police are eager to ensure convictions at any cost, especially in murder cases and there are signs the public view the police as being affected by 'noble cause corruption' or a 'corruption of zealousness'.^[82]

Lundy 500

In July 2009, Salient editor Jackson Wood courted controversy by announcing the "Lundy 500", an event whereby teams of vehicles would "travel from Petone to Palmerston North as convicted double murderer Mark Lundy did in 2000, before murdering wife Christine and daughter Amber, according to the prosecution at his 2002 trial." Participants were tasked with doing the trip in 68 minutes or less, the same time Lundy is alleged to have driven the distance.

Wood said the "event was designed to draw attention to some of the inconsistencies in the New Zealand legal system", and emphasised that he wasn't encouraging anyone to break the law.^[83] After criticism in the media,^[84][85] the event was cancelled. Wood apologised to the Lundy family and wrote that: "He acknowledged that their viewpoints were not adequately taken into account before the event was announced on Friday, and that there were other ways for this point to be communicated".^[86]

In 2013, a similar re-enactment of the travel involved in the Lundy case, dubbed the "Lundy Three Hundy" was proposed, and subsequently cancelled following criticism in the media.^[87]

See also

• Crime in New Zealand
• New Zealand Police
• David Bain
• Teina Pora

References

External links

• Beyond the Darklands - Mark Lundy - Series 3, Episode 4
• Lundy's Last Chance? Article in North & South magazine from 10 December 2012