New Zealand's Supreme Court has overturned the 1990 murder convictions of David Tamihere for killing Swedish tourists Sven Urban Höglin and Heidi Birgitta Paakkonen, ruling the trial was "unfair" and evidence was "concocted to secure convictions."
The decision, reported by the New Zealand Herald, brings to an end one of New Zealand's most controversial criminal cases—36 years after the couple disappeared in the Coromandel Peninsula.
The timeline is staggering: The Swedish tourists vanished in April 1989. Tamihere was convicted in December 1990. Höglin's remains were discovered in October 1991—70 kilometers from the prosecution's proposed crime scene, fundamentally undermining the Crown's theory of the case. Tamihere served 20 years before parole in 2010.
The key problem: Prison informant Roberto Conchie Harris gave testimony that was later proven to be perjury when he was convicted of that offence in 2017. The Supreme Court found Harris's false testimony provided "material support" for identification evidence that was already weak.
But it gets worse. After Höglin's body was found far from the alleged crime scene, the Crown's theory changed dramatically—involving multiple locations and scenarios that had never been tested before a jury. The Supreme Court described this as a "radically different" case that should have triggered a retrial, but never did.
The justice system failed at multiple points. A key witness lied under oath. Physical evidence contradicted the prosecution theory. The case evolved after conviction without proper legal process. And spent two decades in prison for murders he maintained he didn't commit.
