True Crime New Zealand (NZ)

The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association, better known simply as the RSA was first established in New Zealand on the 28th of April 1916 by veteran of the First World War Donald Simson. The RSA is a registered charity that raises money to “provide support and comfort for service men and women and their families”. In 1921, the RSA successfully campaigned for ANZAC Day (the 25th of April) to become a public holiday. However, there is one dark, horrifying moment in the history of the RSA, that would see the organisation the victim of one of the most cruel and depraved acts of violence in NZ’s history. This savage, vicious crime took place only seventeen days before Christmas in December 2001 and resulted in the longest prison sentence in the annals of New Zealand. The events of that day went down in history as The RSA Murders. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

Psychopathy is no longer a diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as of the third edition. Rather the diagnosis would be antisocial personality disorder with psychopathic traits. These psychopathic traits are characterised by “a lack of anxiety or fear and by a bold interpersonal style that may mask maladaptive behaviours”, e.g. not adjusting adequately or appropriately to certain environments or situations. Psychopathic traits are assessed using a variety of measurement tools, most famously Robert D. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R), brought to the mainstream by author Jon Ronson in his book The Psychopath Test. Dr Hare’s checklist is a list of 20 traits which the assessed is scored on a three-point scale, for example, item 6 is lack of remorse or guilt and the recipient is assessed, giving a grade of 0 for no match, 1 for a partial match or 2 for a good match. If someone scores above 30 on the checklist, they are considered to have psychopathic traits, for instance, serial killer/serial rapist Ted Bundy was evaluated at 39/40. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

WAIKINO. WAIKATO. 19th of October 1923. 10 am. The Headmaster of Waikino School Robert Theodore Reid was in the teacher's room, perhaps going over some reports, perhaps grading some papers. The classrooms were full of children, maybe learning English, a bit of maths, or even history and undoubtedly looking forward to the morning break only half an hour away.  The Headmaster Robert Reid had brought his dog Pax (a brown and white setter) with him to work, as he had done many times before. Pax spent the day in the school’s front yard, presumably sleeping most of the daylight away, as Pax seldom made a fuss. However, as the clock ticked over to 10.10 am, Pax began barking loudly. Curious about what had caught the canine’s attention, Robert arose from his desk and wandered through the entrance to the front door. He opened the door to see a man in his 50s, 6 feet tall, tanned and sporting a small moustache approaching the school. As the man got closer to the entrance he announced his hideous intentions to Headmaster Robert Reid, “I’m here for revenge!”. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

NEWLANDS. WELLINGTON. In the 1800s to early 1920s, there was another, more controversial, type of farming going on, baby farming. Baby farming is the historical practice of accepting custody of an infant or child in exchange for payment. This was usually due to the child being born ‘illegitimate’ (meaning the child was born outside of a marriage, also known as bastardy) and the social stigma that it carried on the mother.  Some baby farmers ‘adopted’ children for lump-sum payments, while others cared for infants for periodic payments. However, in the case of a lump-sum adoption, it was more profitable for the baby farmers if the child was no longer around, as the sum would not cover the care for the child for long. In these cases, the child was sometimes adopted out to other families, and in other cases, the child simply died due to unsanitary and subpar living conditions. However, finally and most sinister, occasionally the baby farmer would commit the most heinous of acts and murder the child; pocketing the adoption fee. These acts came to light most infamously when English serial killer and baby farmer Amelia Dyer dubbed the Ogress of Reading was officially tried and hanged in 1896 for intentionally killing six children for profit but it is estimated the real number of child deaths she was responsible for was closer to 400. New Zealand had its own baby farmer scandal late in the 1800s when Minnie Dean was tried and hanged for the murder of three children in 1895. However, in the early 1920s, baby farming became a topic of controversy once more within NZ as a new scandal gripped the public. With headlines splattered over the NZ Truth newspaper such as “The Newlands Horror”, “A Gruesome Discovery” and “The Massacre of the Innocents”, the public was enraptured yet horrified with what was being uncovered. The case would go on to become one of NZ’s most discussed and pondered tragedies of the 1920s. This is the story of The Newlands Baby Farmer. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

CHRISTCHURCH. CANTERBURY. Thursday. 25th of September 2008. Some time between 11 am and 12.30 pm. 32-year-old Jason Somerville is home alone at his house, 312 Wainoni Road, on the corner of Hampshire Street and Wainoni Road in the Christchurch suburb of Aranui, his wife Rebecca Chamberlain was out and about. “I was outside [chopping] some wood, came in to get a drink, someone was knocking at the front door. It was her…”. ‘Her’ was 28-year-old Tisha Lowry wearing a Chicago Bulls jacket and jeans who had just walked home from the nearby Bower Tavern. It would seem that Tisha had been to Jason’s house previously (she lived only two doors away with her grandfather), what she had come over for this day is unknown. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

22nd July 1981. The Springboks began the journey down the east coast of New Zealand and found their way to Gisborne. The Springboks were to play Poverty Bay (a small bay near Gisborne) for their first game in NZ. To enter Rugby Park (where the game was being played), spectators had to agree to be searched upon entry. Items such as banners, placards, flags, poles, fireworks, or “any article that might impede the match” were banned. As the game kicked off, over 300 anti-apartheid protesters marched across the neighbouring golf course to reach Rugby Park. A wire fence separated folk watching the game with barbed wire topping it and a line of police officers attempting to keep the peace. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

In 1937, Nazi Germany began work on building the first and the largest concentration camp in Germany. Found eight kilometres north of the city of Weimar, the camp was able to incarcerate over 60,000 people. Opened in July 1938, the camp was dubbed Buchenwald. Buchenwald Concentration Camp was comprised of three distinct areas, the first area was dubbed the Special Compound, this included the administration offices, the Commandant’s Villa, and finally the Schutzstaffel (or, SS) Quarters. The SS was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror in Nazi Germany. Prisoners of the camp included Jewish people, political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, German military deserters, asocials (which included the homeless, alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, the unemployable and pacifists) and finally, prisoners of war. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

FOXTON. MANAWATU-WHANGANUI. In 1866, Te Awahou was renamed Foxton; named after Sir William Fox the second premier of New Zealand (Premier meaning head of government). Over the next century, Foxton established itself as a small industrial town. Its primary exports were flax, wool and timber; as well as its famous soft drink – Foxton Fizz.  However, as of the early 21st century, Foxton’s identity is in a state of flux. The once a bustling industry town has been forced to rebrand to something new. Many of the flax mills have been shut down; along with the Feltex carpet factory – forcing many Foxton residents into redundancy.  The town has attempted to rebrand as a tourist attraction. Cafes populate Foxton’s Main Street; and the town plays host to a Maori carving workshop, the Flax Stripper Museum, a Dutch windmill and Foxton Beach. As of 2021, Foxton is home to 3,330 people. However, even with its small population, Foxton has events she is ashamed of.  Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

At 3 pm on Christmas Eve 1953, a Thursday, the daily Express train No. 626, a KA 949 class steam locomotive, left the Wellington railway station en route to Auckland carrying 285 souls, some men, some women, some children, many families visiting relatives, or even folk returning home for the holidays armed with presents for their loved ones.  As the evening progressed, the train passed through Levin, Palmerston North, Feilding and Taihape. Nearing 10 pm, train No. 626 passed through the small military town of Waiouru, perhaps passengers looked out and observed the famous Waiouru Military Camp, home to many of NZ’s armed forces at the time. At 10.20 pm, train No. 626 passed the Tangiwai Railway Station, it was clocked at 64 kilometres per hour (or 40 miles per hour), below the maximum track speed of 80km/h (or 50mph). The train continued chugging along and began approaching the rail bridge that crosses the Whangaehu River. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, CANADA. A place distinguished for its politeness, Canada is a land with low crime rates and is considered to be one of the safest destinations in the world to live. However, as with all countries, Canada has its darkness, tales you wouldn’t want to put in a tourist pamphlet, events she is ashamed of. Today, as we touch down 13,000km northeast of Aotearoa in the great nation of Canada, we will investigate one such abhorrent tale. A story of a young man travelling on a bus, the routine trip that became a haunting nightmare, the tale of ‘Greyhound Bus 1170’. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.

On the 10th of July 2002, a team of five Wellington council workers were wandering through the Rimutaka forest, near Upper Hutt, laying 1080 poison bait for possums. The team eventually got around to the Tunnel Gully Recreation Area, a place named after its proximity to the historic Mangaroa Tunnel, a part of the Wairarapa Rail Line, that connected Wellington to Woodville, a small town of 1,600 found 25km east of Palmerston North. The team wandered off the bush track, laying more bait, when one of the workers came across something that caught his attention. The council worker noticed a disturbed patch of dirt about 10-20m off the track. At first glance, he believed it could be a grave. The worker crept in closer to get a better look, as he got closer, he observed the ‘disturbed’ dirt was a piece of wood with a small ponga fern on top. The worker told the NZ Herald on the 1st of May 2003, “It wasn't right. Why would a ponga tree be growing on top of a board?” The city council worker then called over one of his colleagues and together they cleared the debris off the wood. Hmmm, what is this? They thought. The two workers crouched down and lifted the wood. To their shock and amazement, the piece of wood was actually a trap door, when they peered inside they discovered a plywood bunker. The bunker was two metres long, one metre high and just over a metre wide and contained a bevy of supplies. These included a blanket, thirty three cans of drinks, fifty nine small chocolate bars, two bottles of Lindauer Special Reserve wine, Griffin's Krispie biscuits, cheese, mineral water, juice, nine bananas, twenty nine apples, and one, reportedly soggy toilet paper roll. The bunker also had a ‘primitive toilet’, which apparently amounted to a hole in the corner and a tube of supplied air which ventilated the structure, with instructions written on the wall, “OPERATE FAN… 10 MINUITES… EVERY HOUR… FOR CIRCULATION”. Most curious and disturbing, the plywood bunker contained a welcome message for a possible unwilling tenant. Scrawled on the wall to the right of the fan were the words: “WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME… MAX STAY 6 DAYS… WE WILL NOT HURT YOU”. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits. Visit https://www.facebook.com/TrueCrimeNewZealand/ and tell us what cold case you would solve to enter the draw to win a copy of Unsolved Case Files courtesy of Disney+.

The legend goes, sometime in the 1960s, a group of criminal youth appeared in front of a judge in Hastings, a city of 49,000 in the Hawke’s Bay region. The youth stood in front of the judge who berated them for their misdeeds, eventually calling them “nothing but a pack of mongrels”.  The term ‘mongrel’ originated to define a dog of unidentifiable mixed breed, but overtime the term had taken on different meanings. The term evolved to be used by some in a derogatory sense to refer to a person of mixed racial origin and finally ‘mongrel’ became a term used by some to refer to ‘mischievous delinquents’. This was the manner in which the judge delivered his ‘mongrel’ comments to the youth present. Far from rejecting the term, the men embraced the word and began to refer to their group as the Mongrels. By 1970, the Mongrels evolved into the Mongrel Mob gang. Visit www.truecrimenz.com for more information on this case including sources and credits.