Beyond the Darklands
Beyond the Darklands – "the place where the human condition fades into black … the place where shit comes to shovel”- Nigel Latta – Into the Darklands.
How do people become murderers? Are they born with some kind of rogue gene for evil? Or, has the life they’ve lead bought them down the wrong path and tipped them over the edge? What is it that makes a man a murderer?
In this gritty and engrossing documentary series, Forensic Psychologist, Nigel Latta, examines the lives of some of New Zealand’s worst murderers to answer these questions. This is an extraordinary series that takes you behind the headlines to the real stories. People who grew up with these murderers along with victims who have survived and the families of those who have not give highly emotional accounts of the kind of people these men were and what they were capable of. All, have been forever scarred by their association and their stories make for a gut wrenching journey into the darklands …
Clinical Psychologist, Nigel Latta has spent 16 years working with child sex offenders, rapists, murderers, arsonists and violent offenders. He has worked in prisons, and with offenders in the community. He is a specialist report writer for the High Court, District Court, Youth Court and Family Court, and lectures at the New Zealand Police College on advanced interviewing techniques with sex offenders, and youth offenders, and also teaches on the Intelligence analysis course.
PRODUCTION PROCESS
Making Beyond The Darklands was a challenging process. The subject matter is very sensitive and the main goal was to ensure that the content was treated respectfully and that the series did not revictimise the victimąs and families involved.
A key element of the approach was to go to the families for permission to tell the stories. Some turned us down, meaning that the subjects changed over time, but the first story into production was Paul Bailey.
Nigel and Producer John Bates combined efforts to track down the people to interview for the Paul Bailey story. This initial research and filming set the tone for the rest of the series.
From there a dedicated effort from a small team worked tirelessly to make the series. The arrival of researcher Eugene Carnachan gave us access to some of the toughest stories we covered. Eugene combined with John Bates, managed to find and interview almost 100 people who were willing to talk about their association with each of five other murderers.
Nigel viewed all the material and conducted his own research to make his analysis of the offenders, and after our Story Editor Karen Bates had selected material to be included in the documentary Nigel selected the pieces that he wished to use for his commentary.
While John and Karen wrote the accompanying narration co-Director Rupert McKenzie began work with Director of Photography, Mark Chamberlain on creating visuals to go with the story.
Composer, Tom Ludvigson wrote the music and the elements were all brought together in the edit suite by Rupert McKenzie and Editor Francis Glenday.
TV review: The dragging up of a murderer
By JANE BOWRON - The Dominion Post | Thursday, 31 January 2008
The screening of Real Crime: Beyond the Darklands (TV One, 9.30pm Wednesday) couldn't have been more timely for John Key's and Helen Clark's state of the nation speeches focusing on youth crime.
If anyone had doubts about boot camps for bad young buggers or parenting programmes before watching this excellent documentary they would have changed their minds after witnessing the very ghastly childhood and adolescence of murderer William Bell.
Media-friendly forensic psychologist Nigel Latta (Sensing Murder) believed that even without the appalling neglect and abuse dished out to him by his crap parents, Bell would still have killed.
This conclusion was at odds with the message of the documentary which so clearly pointed the blame for Bell's criminality at his rotten upbringing.
Cohorts of Bell's related how Bell's family home was a party house awash with drugs and alcohol where the parents were notorious for attacking each other, even running down the street wielding axes.
To say that Bell dragged himself up was an understatement as social and youth workers related how Bell would casually drop into conversation that he had been regularly sexually abused at a very young age by lovely extended whanau.
When money was short the teenage Bell was quite happy to prostitute himself, and in the words of one social worker, "thought it was choice". He must really be enjoying prison life then.
The testimony of Bell's headmasters painted him as a smiling, cherub-faced, loveable rogue blessed with a magic tongue who could talk his way out of any fix. Many who knew him spoke of his intelligence, even though school was largely attended only when the truant officer escorted him to the door.
By the time he graduated from youth court to adult court his social worker said his file was so thick she couldn't carry it.
Fascinated with the police, Bell was bold enough to go to a dry cleaner's and say he was there to pick up the uniform of a constable. The uniform was used to impersonate officers as he stopped cars and confiscated drugs from the intimidated occupants.
Obviously a frustrated thespian (imagine this character at drama school), Bell ripped off the elderly by impersonating a staff member in two old people's homes.
But what was so blood-curdling was the account of a service station attendant who had been viciously attacked by Bell with a police baton.
One can only imagine this man's shattered nerves and life after not only being beaten by Bell but also – and this is really sick – pursued to the hospital where he was awaiting treatment for a head wound.
A man in a wheelchair wheeled over to him with a cheery "gidday bro" and offered to buy him coffee.
When the unsuspecting service station attendant related details of his attack to the man in the wheelchair and mentioned that he thought he had been attacked with a police baton, but couldn't get his head around an off-duty cop doing the attack, the man – who was actually Bell – assured him that indeed it was a police baton.
Bell was addicted to high risk, violence and brazen acts without thought for consequence. Latta labelled him a psychopath incapable of empathy.
He had beaten his mother, locked girlfriends in closets and at the age of eight had been caught driving a converted car. He had enterprisingly attached wooden blocks to the accelerator and brake pedals so they were in reach.
The recent wave of murders and stabbings suggests that Bell, described in this documentary as a one-man crime wave, is not alone and that there is a tsunami of fearless ferals in the community itching for a fight.
Pity the poor social workers and teachers who have to cope with and be accountable for the lives of miscreants like Bell when the parents party on and don't bat an eyelid when their kids miss school and get into trouble.
They say it takes a village to raise a child but actually the buck stops at the parent. With the village now under attack, perhaps it's time for the scum who breed scum to get kicked out of the village.
Now there's an army of Bells born and bred to stand over us and laugh as we beg for our lives. They can't all be psychopaths. Someone made them that way. It's only a matter of time before there will be a licence not to breed, but to parent. Bring it on.
TV Review: Shedding Light in the Darklands
By Jane Clifton - The Dominion Post : Thursday 25th February
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.
Episode Summaries
Series 1
Episode 1 - William Bell
Wednesday 30 January 2008
William Bell was born in Mangere in 1978. Both his parents had gang connections and neighbours have described the household as the real Once Were Warriors. Bell was a precocious offender from the age of 8 and by the time he was in his twenties he was serving a 5 year sentence for the vicious aggravated robbery of a service station. Bell was on parole in 2001 when he carried out his violent attack on 4 people at Mt Wellington, Panmure RSA. He killed Wayne Johnson, Mary Hobson and Bill Absolum. He left Susan Couch for dead.
Episode 2 - Jules Mikus
Wednesday 6 February 2008
Jules Mikus was born in Wellington in 1958. His parents came to New Zealand as Hungarian Refugees and Mikus’s father would later be convicted of rape and accused of several sex offences against young girls. Mikus even claimed that he’d been abused between the ages of 5 and 12. Jules Mikus served time for an attempted rape of a young Naenae girl and then, in 1987 he raped and Murdered Teresa Cormack in Napier. Because of errors in the police investigation, it took 14 years to bring him to justice and Mikus but in 2002 he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Episode 3 - Paul Bailey
Wednesday 13 February 2008
Paul Bailey was born in the English Midlands and was problem to his family from the beginning. As he grew older he became a thief and a drug addict who surrounded himself with younger people he could control. In the small town of Ettrick in Central Otago, he repeatedly raped a 12 year old girl, but went undetected until the attempted rape of an older woman in 1991. While out on bail for the latter offence he abducted 15 year old Kylie Smith in Owaka, South Otago. She was brutally raped and then shot in the back of the head as she was dressing.
Episode 4 - Terry Clark
Wednesday 20 February 2008
Terry Clark wanted to be a gangster and, by the end of his short career he had caused dozens of deaths and amassed a major fortune from drug dealing. His story is one of a bad boy gone worse – as a boy he was cruel and manipulative and, as a man, he extended his repertoire to include torture and murder. In 1980 he was convicted of the murder of his former partner, Martyn Johnstone and sentenced to life imprisonment in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. He died mysteriously 2 years later.
Episode 5 - Taffy Hotene
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Taffy Hotene was born in Murupara in 1970, but was brought up in a chaotic and abusive foster home in Mangere. By the age of 16 Hotene was being arrested for attempted rape and when he got out of prison he immediately offended again with a series of brutal attacks on women in Wanganui. Hotene was sentenced to 12 years for these attack and, only seven weeks after being released on parole in 2001, he raped and murdered Auckland journalist, Kylie Jones in a frenzied attack in a Glen Innes park.
Episode 6 - Bruce Howse
Wednesday 5 March 2008
Bruce Howse was born in 1963, and brought up in the small Hawkes Bay town of Dannevirke. He was the youngest of six children in a very dysfunctional family and he started thieving at an early age. He had children to two partners and he was known to abuse both the children and their mothers. On the 4th December 2001 he murdered Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson in the sleepout at their Masterton home.
Series 2
Episode 1 - Steven Williams
Wednesday 18 February 2009
When six-year-old Coral Burrows went missing on September 9, 2003, the nation stopped. For 10 days, people flocked to Featherston from all around New Zealand to search for the little girl who had failed to return from school.
The truth, when it was revealed, was dreadful. Coral had been bludgeoned to death by one of the few people she should have been able to trust, her stepfather Steven Williams. He then stuffed her in a sack and threw her in a clump of toi toi. Williams blamed his brutality on the drug P, claiming he’d spent the three nights before Coral’s disappearance continuously smoking methamphetamine. However, as Beyond the Darklands reveals, the reality is far more complicated and sinister than that.
Forensic psychologist Nigel Latta has uncovered the story of an extraordinarily complex man who on the one hand could work his way into respectable households, but who on the other would then self-destruct, inflicting pain and devastation on those around him.
On the way, he accrued nearly 90 convictions, many of them for extreme violence. “We thought he was totally trustworthy when it came to the children, not with himself but with the children,” says Coral’s uncle, Karl Cremen. “And he seemed to respect my sister and her wishes.” “But behind this façade raged a man furious with himself and his past,” says Latta. “He refused to deal with the tragedies of his upbringing and instead ultimately unleashed his anger on a six-year-old girl.
Beyond the Darklands delves into the secrets of Williams’ life, gaining exclusive access to family, friends and partners to reveal exactly how he evolved into a murderer.
Producer/director Mary Durham says the Darklands team found it a confronting episode to pull together. “Steve Williams was an angry, violent man who inflicted inestimable damage on so many people,” she says. “The tragedy is he could have been so much more - if only he had chosen to.” Williams was sentenced to 17 years without parole.
Episode 2 - Bernard McGrath
Wednesday 25 February 2009
Bernard McGrath was born in Christchurch and entered the Australasian Catholic Order of St John of God as an eighteen year-old. In Sydney he underwent religious training and qualified as a teacher. In 1974 Brother McGrath returned to New Zealand to teach at the Order’s school for special needs boys, Marylands School, in Christchurch. However soon after he began working at Marylands, he started sexually abusing the boys in his care.
Clinical Psychologist Error! Contact not defined. examines why Brother Bernard McGrath started abusing children, how he managed to silence his victims for, and how he continued to abuse for over two decades.
Incredibly, McGrath is one of a group of Brothers of the Order of St John who have been accused of abusing boys. The programme interviewed Sydney Child Psychologist Dr Michelle Mulvihill (an ex-Catholic Nun), an insider, who worked for the Order when sexual abuse allegations emerged in the late 1990s. Michelle reveals how McGrath would have been able to keep offending for so long.
Beyond the Darklands talked to victims who have never talked to the media before; men who tell a story of betrayal on a massive scale, and whose lives have been shattered because of their time in McGrath’s care.
Producer/Director Peter Bell comment: “ the bravery of the men we interviewed was astounding – none of them wanted to hide their identity. They just wanted their story to be told after years of feeling like they have been ignored. When you see them reliving their past it is hard not to be affected”.
One of his victims Sean Herbert described the impact of McGrath’s abuse: “He’s just betrayed a lot of peoples trust. Not just for a length of his time, on this planet, but for people who have got to still get to live the rest of their lives.”
This episode also features interviews with two of the Police Officers who led the investigation into the abuse at Marylands School, which became New Zealand’s largest sexual abuse case. Shockingly, their investigation showed that of the 538 boys who had attended Marylands twenty percent complained of being sexually abused.
McGrath was sentenced to five years in 2006. He is currently on home detention in Christchurch. McGrath was also jailed in 1993 and 1997 for similar crimes.
Episode 3 - Ese Faleali'i
Wednesday 4 March 2009
Clinical Psychologist Nigel Latta explores the mind of Ese Faleali’i to discover how a seventeen year-old boy could execute two defenseless men in cold blood.
In March 2002 Ese Faleali’i robbed the Pizza Delivery Company in Pakuranga in Auckland. Marcus Doig’s boss had already handed over the night’s takings when, for no apparent reason Faleali’i shot Marcus in the back of the head.
A week later Faleali’i held up an ASB Bank. Teller John Vaughan obeyed all Faleali’i’s demands, when without warning or provocation Faleali’i leaned over the counter and shot John in the head. Detective Sergeant Gary Lendrum who worked on the homicides comments: “I find it very difficult to make any sense of it you know, where you’ve got fully compliant victims there's no reason whatsoever for them to have died”
Beyond the Darklands talks to Faleali’i’s schoolmates, teachers and workmates, who tell a story of a boy who never knew how to interact with others. Faleali’i was desperate to make friends, but would invariably alienate people by insulting them or stealing from them. Producer/Director Peter Bell says: “This is an intriguing look at the tragic decline of a sad, inadequate person who would do literally anything to win attention and friendship.”
Although he was a troubled teen into petty crime, nobody predicted that Faleali’i would become a cold-blooded murderer. So how did he come to be the gunman for a group of older men doing armed hold ups? And what did Faleali’i get out of belonging to such a gang? Simon Moore Crown Prosecutor says: “I think Ese Faleali’i always looked a bit broken, and I think it was that sort of broken quality which led him to do what it was that he did.”
It was Faleali’i’s mother who brought his murderous spree to an end when she called the police after recognising her son from a security camera photo in a newspaper.
Faleali’i was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 with a non-parole period of seventeen years. He will be thirty-five when he is eligible for parole
Episode 4 - Michael Curran
Wednesday 11 March 2009
Not only did he kill two people, he spent almost his entire life persecuting those around him. But he would only ever pick on people smaller than him.
Tauranga 24-year-old Natasha Hayden and toddler Aaliyah Morrissey were two such people. Curran strangled Natasha in 2005. Then, when he was on bail for killing her, he murdered his neighbour’s neighbour’s two-year-old, Aaliyah Morrissey.
Beyond the Darklands’ forensic psychologist Nigel Latta has worked with criminals for 18 years and describes Curran as one of the worst bullies he has come across.
“He was a nobody who had done nothing, achieved nothing and was nothing,” says Latta. “The only way that he could feel important was to pick on those around him.”
Curran’s path to those killings is a troubled one. Beyond the Darklands reveals his serious criminal offending started when he was just 14. He sexually attacked two little girls and a mentally disabled teenager.
He was married at 19 and continuing to inflict misery, degrading his wife, Donna, by carrying out open affairs and forcing her into group sex.
“Curran was constantly hunting for new women to prey on,” says Latta. “Sex, and acts of sexual humiliation were an integral part of maintaining what little self esteem he had. “
Beyond the Darklands explores Curran’s life by talking to those around him. The story that emerges is of a man of few, if any friends, who continually minimised and lied about his crimes and who treated women and children as disposable objects.
“The only thing he cared about was himself,” says Donna. “He will always see himself as being an innocent party who is periodically beaten upon, picked upon and he will never take responsiibity for anything that he’s done.”
Perhaps the true horror of Curran is reflected in the fatal injuries he inflicted on little Aaliyah. Doctors believed her pelvis had been stomped on and her head smashed against a solid object. There were over 33 separate bruises and cuts to her body … her retinas were torn … her bowel and labia were swollen She had suffered severe brain damage and her arm was broken.
Curran will serve 20 years six months for her murder before he is eligible for parole.
Episode 5 - Blue Poumako
Wednesday 18 March 2009
The murder of Reporoa farmer Beverley Bouma in 1998 shocked New Zealand. It was the first time the idea of “home invasion” seeped into the public consciousness. Suddenly no one was safe in their own homes – and everyone was asking: what sort of criminal would terrorize innocent victims and murder a defenseless woman in cold blood?
Beyond the Darklands clinical psychologist Nigel Latta probes the background of Poumako. It’s the story of someone who wanted to be a “big man”.
His Kaiangaroa primary teacher John Laing remembers Poumako as “a likeable sort of rogue”. But it wasn’t long before he started showing a darker side. He intimidated a teacher with a knife. By 11 he was climbing out of the house to go drinking. His family learned from a social worker he was already an alcoholic before his teenage years. Poumako was taken out of the family and spent time in a Hamilton boys’ home.
His criminal offending started with stealing cars but quickly progressed to “ghosting” (ripping off dope plantations in the forest around Kaiangaroa) and growing marijuana. He often led younger people into offending with him.
Detective Sergeant Chris McLeod recalls: “He was the leader, he had natural leadership talents – and just influencing those guys with his general dominance, the chest puffed out, just trying to be ‘the man’”.
As the Christmas of 1998 approached Poumako was about to commit the crime that would define him. With three younger mates – all drunk after a three-day bender - he went looking for a Reporoa farmhouse to knock over. The house he chose belonged to Henk and Beverley Bouma.
The detective who subsequently arrested Blue Poumako for Beverley’s murder - Graham Bell – explains the scene: “Here are two really nice people at home, going about their normal lives, and these bastards crash into their house and destroy everything.”
The transition from “rogue” to cold-blooded killer forms the theme Nigel Latta explores.
The director John Keir originally covered the Bouma inquiry back in 1998 for the documentary “Operation Bouma”. He wonders: “What turns a much loved little kid into an adult who had so little respect for other human beings that he could invade their home and shoot a woman who said ‘no’ to him?”
Episode 6 - Graeme Burton
Tuesday 26 January 2010
When Graeme Burton killed Karl Kuchenbecker in the hills above Wainuiomata there was a national outcry; Burton had been released from prison on parole for another murder just a few months before. Clinical Psychologist Nigel Latta explores Burton’s development as he began to exhibit psychotic behaviour, which eventually led to murder.
In Beyond the Darklands (TVNZ to insert the programme date, time and channel here), Clinical Psychologist Nigel Latta explores Burton’s development as he began to exhibit psychotic behaviour, which eventually led to murder.
Burton was just twenty-one when he stabbed Paul Anderson to death in May 1992 in Wellington. His prison term was marked by violence and drug abuse but after 2002, when he was first eligible for parole, Burton’s record was clean and in 2006 the Parole Board released him.
So how did this extremely brutal, dangerous man manage to contain his violent tendencies enough to convince the parole board he should be freed? One Corrections Officer talking about Burton prior to his parole in 2006 suggests that he didn’t, he was just very careful: “ I definitely think Graeme did not want to be caught doing anything that would subject his parole to being declined. Hence he had safety measures in place for that i.e. other people would perhaps do what he needed them to do. He is a predator at the end of the day when it comes to picking on weak links and being able to utilise other inmates for manipulation purposes”
For the first time Burton’s ex-girlfriend “Kate” has agreed to talk to the media. In Beyond the Darklands, she reveals how his mind works, the intrinsic pleasure he takes from hurting people and his delusional belief that he was some sort of master criminal. “He shouldn’t be in society there’s something not right with him, there’s some sort of part of him is broken because he doesn’t feel for people,” she says.
The programme features Burton’s friends, associates and the Correction Officers who guarded him, to build a picture of the man that Burton truly is.
Director Peter Bell says, “Some people we talked to have a real fear of this guy even though he still has more than twenty years to serve. But when you hear the stories about what he has done you can understand where that fear comes from.”
Graeme Burton is currently serving a life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of twenty-six years.
Series 3
Episode 1 - Antonie Dixon
Tuesday 2 February 2010
The nation was captivated when Tony Dixon turned up in court sporting a pudding bowl haircut and pulling strange faces in an attempt to look mad. During a P fuelled rampage in 2003 Dixon attacked two women friends with a samurai sword and left them fighting for their lives; and then shot and killed a total stranger, James Te Aute. Dixon had a disturbing childhood, marked by fundamentalist religion, physical and sexual abuse. He was a strange personality mix: a career criminal, violent and paranoid but he was also clever, charming and charismatic. However, when Dixon started taking large amounts of methamphetamine all the worse aspects of his personality rose to the surface.
Episode 2 - Tracy Goodman
Tuesday 9 February 2010
Tracy Goodman is one of the most complex criminals in New Zealand. Brought up with abuse and neglect, Goodman went on to treat others the same way. She abandoned all five of her children and beat and abused her partners. A serial burglar with drug issues, Goodman habitually robbed the elderly. One of them was Marton pensioner Mona Morriss. When the 83-year-old caught Goodman rifling through her house, Mona confronted her. Goodman reacted the way she knew how, beating then stabbing Mona to death.
Episode 3 - Daniel Moore
Tuesday 16 February 2010
When a handless corpse washed up on Wellington’s south coast media speculation was rife. Who was this and what had they done to deserve such a fate? A few days later a suave, handsome twenty – one year old called Daniel Moore was arrested for the murder of Tony Stanlake. Moore’s friends and family were shocked. They new he grew and sold marijuana but they never suspected he could be a murderer. However, as Beyond the Darkland’s discovers the killing of his business partner Tony Stanlake was just the final step in Moore’s elaborate fantasy to become a big time mafia style don, surrounded by women, drugs and money.
Episode 4 - Mark Lundy
Tuesday 23 February 2010
One of the most enduring, infamous images in television history is that of Mark Lundy, seemingly near collapse, wailing at his wife and daughter’s funeral. But his performance was nothing less than that – an act. On the surface Lundy was an ordinary, if obese, kitchen sink salesman. But underneath lay a far more sinister persona. An enormous drinker with sexual issues, Lundy secretly harboured dreams of making millions. But standing in the way of the glamorous lifestyle he longed for, was his wife Christine and seven-year-old daughter Amber. On a cold winter’s night in 2000, Lundy took an axe to both of them, butchering the two people he supposedly loved the most.
Episode 5 - Bert Potter
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Bert Potter became New Zealand’s best known cult leader – and as Nigel Latta reveals “the public face of Centrepoint may have been the search for some kind of clichéd enlightenment but Bert Potter’s real agenda was as ugly as it was self serving”. How did this former vacuum cleaner salesman become New Zealand’s master manipulator? In New Zealand in 1978 Bert Potter and a group of followers set up the Centrepoint community in Albany just north of Auckland. Beyond the Darklands investigates the way Bert Potter was able to manipulate people to his own ends. How could parents allow their own children to become Bert Potter’s playthings? Nigel Latta explains that “it was easy for him to build his cult at Centrepoint because these people wanted to be in a cult. They wanted a guru. Through careful manipulation and psychological bullying he created a toxic environment in which he was able to prey on the vulnerable at will”.
Episode 6 - Travis Burns
Tuesday 9 March 2010
When Joanne McCarthy answered a knock at the door of her Whangaparoa home in November 1998, she had no way of knowing about the hell that was about to be unleashed. Standing on her doorstep was Travis Burns, a violent intruder rapist. Burns lunged at Joanne with a hammer, pursuing her through her home. The young mother of one had no chance. Burns mercilessly bashed Joanne to death in front of her 11-month-old baby and a friend’s child. Her blood was spattered throughout the house and all over the children. There was no motive for this most callous of murders. Joanne did not know Burns and most likely had never laid eyes on him before. But it’s probable he’d spied her some months previously, when he was living around the corner. This random, brutal crime terrified residents of what had been, up until then, a quiet Auckland seaside suburb. But there was to be justice for Joanne. She’d fought bravely, scratching Burns’ chest, getting his skin and DNA under her fingernails. On Beyond the Darklands, Nigel Latta looks into the life of Travis Burns to try and understand what drove him to such an horrific act against someone so innocent and undeserving.
