News

Shedding light in the Darklands

By JANE CLIFTON - The Dominion Post

OPINION: It's hard to imagine a more useful and engrossing programme than Beyond the Darklands, TV One on Tuesdays.

Not only is it world-class in production terms, with skilful winding-in of docu-drama, but it helps viewers to understand the most bewildering question about some of our most horrific crimes: why? Even with all that has been written and broadcast about Mark Lundy's axe murder of his wife and young daughter, nothing till this week's programme has been able fully to background how this man came to do something so dreadful and then summon the sang froid to live it up afterwards, masquerading as the grieving widower when he remembered.

Obviously, the how and the why are inside the brain of the particular criminal, but it takes some explanation for the lay person, which is where psychologist Nigel Latta is so invaluable. Unlike a lot of professionals, he doesn't hedge his answers about, or trouble with sensitivities toward, the criminal.

He has the self-assertive bluntness to spell out how these individuals come to be so evil. And this programme has developed the pull to get friends and family to talk frankly and in detail about their experiences with the criminal, which makes Latta the envy of journalists.

Using interviews with the Lundys' relatives and circle of friends, alongside Latta's insights, the programme chronicled a long history of narcissism, exhibitionism, inappropriate behaviour, alcohol abuse and grandiosity. Finally, you could understand how his poor wife, Christine, who had struggled to curb his excesses and sometimes thwart them, had to be got rid of, according to the warped moral compass Lundy had developed for himself.

The final straw was her opposition to his totally unrealistic vineyard ambitions. As Latta describes it, her killing was pointedly vicious, with repeated axe blows that obliterated her face. Daughter Amber, a convenience killing, was killed more matter-of-factly with blows to the back of the neck. Christine had become his enemy, Amber a mere encumbrance.

Latta says the seeds of Lundy's evil were probably germinated by his being bullied at school, experiences attested to by an old schoolfriend. Overweight and not schoolyard cool, Lundy was regularly humiliated. One of his seemingly healthy coping mechanisms, taking part in stage productions where his size made him an asset for daggy character roles, may in fact have contributed to his self-seeking behaviour.

His booze-fuelled grandiosity grew steadily over the years but, despite the life and soul act, he was curiously emotionally disconnected, even from his own daughter. Christine's one successful pregnancy was a long time coming, yet she had to scurry around protecting Lundy from the affront of baby Amber's crying and gurgling.

Though he established and ran a business, this too only fed his fantasist tendencies. He fancied himself a budding tycoon, nurturing unrealistic ambitions that rocketed after the murders, when he planned an ostentatious luxury home.

The extent of his self-delusion was underlined by his attempt to establish the apparent theft of Christine's jewellery box as proof of a robbery-murder committed by a stranger. It was a paltry prize for a burglar to resort to double murder over, and no straight-out burglar would mutilate an inconveniently present householder so violently. But in Lundy's mind, no-one could possibly suspect him.

Though there has been much debate about the correctness of the jury decision to convict Lundy, owing to controversy about the timings of events the night of the murder, no- one seeing this programme can be left with much doubt. For the first time, it's possible to imagine the horror, during the six months before his arrest, of Christine's and Amber's friends and relations as they realised the awful likelihood that the ostentatiously grieving Lundy was the killer.

Like the best of real life crime stories, this left the viewer much sadder but much better informed.