David Tamihere will not face another trial over the deaths of Swedish backpackers Heidi Paakkonen and Sven Urban Höglin, bringing a major legal chapter in one of New Zealand’s longest-running and most controversial murder cases to a close.
The Crown told the High Court at Auckland on Wednesday that there was no longer sufficient evidence to proceed with another prosecution. Justice Simon Mount subsequently discharged Tamihere.
Tamihere was convicted in 1990 of murdering Paakkonen, 21, and Höglin, 23, after the couple disappeared on the Coromandel Peninsula in April 1989. He spent around 20 years in prison and has consistently maintained that he did not kill them.
The Supreme Court quashed both murder convictions in March this year and directed a retrial, while leaving the ultimate decision on whether to proceed with the Crown. The Court found a fundamental error at the original trial had made it unfair and said the Crown case had changed radically following later developments.
Central to that history was evidence from prison informant Robert Conchie Harris, who claimed Tamihere had admitted involvement in the killings. Harris was later convicted of perjury in relation to his evidence. The discovery of Höglin’s remains in 1991, around 70 kilometres from where the Crown originally alleged the killing occurred, also forced significant changes to the prosecution theory.
The decision not to proceed with a retrial means Tamihere, now decades removed from his original conviction, will not again be prosecuted for the murders on the evidence presently available.
Paakkonen’s remains have never been found.
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