Four days before the murders, the Lundys increased their life insurance on the advice of their insurance broker. However, the policy documents had not been issued so the increase was not valid at the time of Christine death.
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The prosecution's case was also based on a speck of body tissue found on one of Lundy's polo shirts; 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 did. The prosecution argued the only way this brain tissue could have got on the shirt was if Lundy himself was the murderer.
Later reports and tests by other experts cast doubt upon the identification of the material as brain tissue. No weapon was ever found, but paint found in the hair of victims matched the paint Lundy used to mark the tools in his toolshed. The prosecution called more than Crown witnesses.
The defence called three witnesses including Lundy himself, who emphatically denied killing his wife and daughter. A key defence argument was that Lundy could not possibly have made the round trip from Wellington to Palmerston North and back in three hours, [23] pointing out that Lundy's phone records prove that his phone was in Petone at pm and at pm.
Regarding the brain tissue evidence, the defence noted that there was blood and tissue splattered everywhere including on the walls, the bed and the floor around the bodies but "his car, glasses, wedding ring, shoes and other clothes were all tested for blood or other tissue and absolutely nothing was found"; [24] they said contamination could account for the tissue found on Lundy's shirt.
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The jury deliberated for seven hours before finding Lundy guilty of the murder of his wife and child. Lundy's brother Craig, who gave evidence at the trial, publicly stated that he believed Lundy was guilty, while his sister and brother-in-law claimed his innocence.
Lundy unsuccessfully appealed to the Court of Appeal in , [26] and the appeal resulted in his non-parole period being increased from 17 years to 20 years. In November , Lundy applied to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council seeking permission to appeal his murder convictions. The appeal was based on three issues: the time of death, the time of shutdown of Christine's computer, and the presence of brain tissue on Lundy's shirt.
It concluded that Lundy's convictions were "unsafe" in light of new evidence that had been presented.
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In Lundy was tried a second time. The defence was led by David Hislop QC. The Crown made significant changes to the prosecution case against Lundy following the ruling of the Privy Council. They no longer claimed that Lundy made a km round trip from Petone to Palmerston North in less than three hours to commit the murders. Instead, they argued Lundy drove up to Palmerston North in the middle of the night after he had been with the prostitute.
The jury also heard about scientific tests which were conducted on tissue found on one of Lundy's shirts. The Crown claimed the stains were brain or spinal cord matter from Christine while the defence argued they could have been stains from a meat pie. The prosecution claimed the tests proved the tissue was human. The jury deliberated for over sixteen hours after which, on 1 April, Lundy was again found guilty. It ruled that the Crown evidence about RNA the alleged presence of brain tissue on Lundy's shirt and similar to DNA in the retrial was inadmissible but decided the appeal should be dismissed "on the basis that no substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred.
Tēnā koutou katoa
Lundy was found guilty in the second trial after the results of two different tests, immunohistochemistry [IHC] and mRNA, conducted on tissue found on one of his shirts were presented to the jury. On 20 December , the Supreme Court of New Zealand dismissed Lundy's appeal [40] , stating in its concluding paragraph that "The other evidence establishes beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Lundy murdered Christine and Amber Lundy.
Geoff Levick, who runs a campaign to have Lundy's convictions overturned, believed Lundy was innocent largely based on the time needed to travel from Petone to Lundy's house and return. He speculated that a creditor of Lundy paid someone to go to Lundy's house to "teach him a lesson", but Lundy was not there and matters "got out of hand". In , documentary film maker, Bryan Bruce made an episode examining the Lundy case as part of his series The Investigator.
Like others, Bruce believed that Lundy could not possibly have made the return trip in three hours, [42] [43] 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. In July , Salient editor Jackson Wood courted controversy by announcing the "Lundy ", an event whereby teams of vehicles would "travel from Petone to Palmerston North as convicted double murderer Mark Lundy did in , before murdering wife Christine and daughter Amber, according to the prosecution at his trial.
Wood argued that 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. 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". A similar re-enactment of the travel involved in the Lundy case, dubbed the "Lundy Three Hundy" was proposed in by Nic Miller.
It was likewise criticised in the media, with Mathew Grocott writing that "this event should not go ahead and if those involved have any human decency then it won't go ahead. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 18 May The New Zealand Herald. If you do not know the year of the birth, death, civil union, marriage or name change, you can pay for help. Help with searching historical records. Back to top. Unless indicated otherwise, all content on Govt. Search Govt.
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