Mark Lundy
5 May 2015
Who can forget the news bulletins across New Zealand on the 30th of August 200, when it broke that a young mum and her seven year-old daughter had been bludgeoned to death, presumably by a maniac, given the alluded-to violence evident at the scene.
As time went on, our collective horror grew in incremental steps.
First were the revelations about the manner of death - chopped up at the head, splattering brain, blood and bone as the attacker hacked his way into his victims.
The fact that blood and human remains were splattered so far and so widely that the attacker left a silhouette on the wall behind him as he hacked.
That poor little Amber had obviously been awoken by the attack and was coming to her mother's room when she stood face-to-face with her blood-drenched attacker, machete or tomahawk dripping blood right in front of her. We felt the little girl's confusion and hoped it was only confusion she felt as the first blow landed rather than terror at her upcoming fate.
Then came the facts about the father.
Away on a business trip, seemingly with a perfect alibi, spending time having sex with a prostitute as his family were being attacked. Mark Lundy, a huge blubber of lard at the time, seen best hanging from the shoulders of his supporters at the twin funerals, was the most repulsive person New Zealand has probably ever seen.
Making matters worse and turning him guilty in the eyes of the public was his obvious acting, where he would suddenly find his legs once the cameras were no longer rolling and he was no longer observed.
His guilt was so plain to everyone that the tension was becoming palpable. How did he manage to leave no clues? How did he do the trip in time? He just took out extra insurance on his wife, for god's sake! Hang the man, already. I was certainly one of those baying for the blood of this most despicable man.
It was with a sigh of national relief that Lundy was finally arrested and charged with two counts of murder.
His trial was the show for everyone, with all of the gory details being paraded before both the jury and a long list of avid readers. How he drove skilfully to Palmy and back in a short space of time, changing the time on the computer, then jogging back to his car dressed as a woman.
Convicted, locked away for twenty years. Seems far too short when he cut his daughter's life by maybe 100 years and that he would be out as a relatively young man, only in his early sixties.
Then came the appeals and finally a trip to the House of Lords and the Privy Council.
Interestingly, the Privy Council for that case contained our own Sian Elias, one of the finest and fairest legal minds New Zealand has ever produced.
As well now know, the Privy Council threw out the convictions and the charges were made afresh, with the trial followed.
We now know a lot more about this case than was true before the second trial, and much of it is an indictment on both our police and the justice system of New Zealand.
To start with the facts, and it is facts that we convict criminals on. Remember, the onus is on the Crown to present evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant did commit the crimes.
To that end, the crown's physical evidence was:
1 The fact that undigested meals were found in both Christine and Amber. In Trial 1, this was used to prove that the murder was committed prior to 11 pm as the contents of a meal cannot be distinguished after short time limits. For the second trial, the Crown now stated that meals can retain their form for up to 14 hours, allowing a window of opportunity throughout the night.
2 The fact that Lundy could not have physically committed the murders in the evening of 29 August. In the first trial, they claimed it was possible, when that was so incorrect they had to change their tune in Mk 2 to say that the murders were done after midnight.
3 Matter found on Lundy's shirt was human brain remains. Obviously, since people's brains don't drop bits off, it could only have come from his wife, whose brains had been exposed and been splattered in the house, and over the offender.
4 Christine's life insurance had just been increased.
The jury has ignored the facts that:
Item 1 is wrong. The chances of one person with abnormal digestion retaining a meal in an identifiable state are remote; the chances of both victims being in that state are well beyond reasonable doubt. For the murders to have been committed in the early hours of 30 August, Christine and Amber would need to have been eating hot chips at midnight.
On a school night, when Amber's usual bedtime was 8:30 pm.
It is conceivable Amber awoke during the night and mum gave her a comfort feed, but the chances of their being chips left over from the McDonald's meal purchased at 6:30 pm is highly unlikely.
There is an enormous scientific consensus that food cannot retain its original texture and shape after more than three hours in digestive acids, and Dr Pang - for the prosecution - seems to be the only one who believes the scenario. Quite how a doctor can swear something is true in one trial then swear it's wrong at another trial with exactly the same evidence must mean that his testimony is unbelievable, if not outright perjury.
Item 2 raises several red flags. There is sufficient time for Lundy to have travelled to Palmerston North and back after he left the prostitute and before he spoke to the motel owner early in the morning, but only just.
That would leave him minimal time for cleaning, and the crown's evidence shows that the perpetrator must have undergone a massive clean-up afterwards. Given the time constraints, Lundy could not have burnt the clothing and could not have adequately disposed of the weapon.
Also, doing the crime then would give him a high chance of someone seeing him arrive back at the motel at 5-6 am on 30 August. Staying at a motel would give the highest chance of being observed at that time, so would be an unlikely time to choose to arrive back.
As Denis Welch noted in his superb article, Lundy was a fat slob. Car uncleaned, covered in filth and filled with detritus. Yet, despite that, the police only uncovered the one spot - the one spot they claimed was brain tissue, but which is disputed by pretty well every other forensic scientist on the planet. How did such an unclean person manage such a superior clean-up that it took police three months to find a single, minute smear of matter?
Which brings us to point 3. According to all other forensic scientists, the spot could just as easily be - and is infinitely more likely to come - from a chop or leg of lamb. The RNA method that "proved" the matter was human brain fluid is not used in any other forensic laboratory and other countries would not allow the evidence to be presented, let alone stand.
Accordingly, there is no question there is reasonable doubt on the tissue evidence.
From there, we are left realising that the police do not actually have a case. They have a time window that Lundy could possibly have used, but trials - especially murder trials - require more than a possibility of guilt, indeed, more than a probability of guilt. The test is beyond reasonable doubt and all three of those pieces of crucial evidence do not pass the test.
Point 4 is pure nonsense. Given that his affairs would be investigated, it would be far too obvious a clue to leave when all the planning required for the actual murders had been absolutely meticulous. Not to mention that Lundy had boasted earlier the same week that he had increased his wife's life insurance.
What meticulous murderer would reveal his motive before the crime?
The jury ignored that.
So how did this happen? How did we get to a situation where physical evidence is ignored?
To understand that, it is necessary to go all the way back to the police's original investigation.
They looked at several suspects, but the one the liked from the start was the physically repulsive Mark Lundy. Their hopes rose exponentially when his behaviour around the time of the funeral became known to them and they became certain he was the culprit, based not on any evidence, but a gut feeling among the cops that he was hiding something.
To show how desperately the police wanted to get Lundy on trial was that during the first trial, they had a problem with the timing. At 7:30 in the evening, someone local would have seen Lundy's car arriving and the game would be over. At that stage, a psychic medium came forward and told of envisioning a fat man dressed as a woman running away, wearing a blonde wig.
Thus the legend of Lundy running to his car, parked quarter of a mile away, was born, and perpetuated all the way to the second trial, when it became apparent the first premise was wrong and had to be dropped.
The cops hardened their attitude to certainty at the famous police station interview that the jury returned to view again after they had retired at the end of the trial. Lundy did not admit guilt in the interview, but the jury became convinced that he was lying.
In other words, Lundy was convicted solely on his behaviour after the murders. No evidence exists that shows him to be the killer, so two juries have chosen to ignore the facts and base their decision on a form of mind-reading by video.
Who, other than Mark Lundy can possibly know how one would react when one's wife and child have been murdered in such hideous fashion?
I think it's simply a case that Lundy was numbed and felt he had to act a certain way. That has been his undoing, with both convictions resting firmly on his actions instead of the physical evidence.
Viewing the actual evidence, there is no chance Lundy could be convicted of this crime.
That does not say that Lundy is innocent, and he may well be guilty, but he could not be convicted, and the police should have realised this at the time and taken a much harder look for other evidence and suspects.
One of the reasons I felt from the start that Lundy was guilty was that in domestic murders, it is nearly always the husband.
However, there is another person who stands well over-represented in the murderer stakes - the person who discovers the victim.
That person was Glen Weggery, Christine Lundy's brother, and that's where things get interesting, because the cops discarded him, despite his not having an alibi, being the one who discovered the victims, and most importantly, has a history of sexual offending against children.
At the trial, the defence presented the facts that Weggery had been forbidden from ever babysitting his niece because he had an incident of sexual assault on a young girl in his past. Given that he admits spending an awful lot of time with his sister and niece, there is no doubt he would had the opportunity to commit sexual assault against little Amber. Christine has to go to the toilet occasionally, and what's to stop him then?
The defence theory was that Glen Weggery was about to be exposed as having molested Amber, and therefore killed the pair.
Now, one thing we know for sure is that paedophiles are never cured without castration. They just get more devious, and there is little chance Weggery had outgrown his illness and putting a young girl within arms' reach of a known paedophile is a recipe for trouble.
Why did the cops not lean on him?
Could it be as simple as Weggery being a relatively good-looking and fit man, against the physically-repulsive Mark Lundy?
Lundy's appearance counted against him so severely that his new, much-leaner, look was taken as an admission of guilt - the man realised he did not make a sympathetic defendant so lost weight deliberately to look better in court. That's how people have seen his weight loss. The lack of fast food in prisons isn't even considered.
Note that I have no dog in this fight - I don't have any particular regard for Mark Lundy and have no beef with Glen Weggery.
However, what I do stand for is justice, and I can think of no greater injustice than to have those nearest to one's heart murdered so violently by an unknown assailant, then being found guilty of the murder.
I fear that is where we are with this case and I await the appeal with great interest. Surely, New Zealand's best legal minds cannot failt to see the enormous holes in the prosecution case?
Copyright © Alan Charman