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Titulo Original: EP. 66 - THE MURDER OF TANIA FURLAN [TRUE CRIME]
Canal Autor (Nome): True Crime Documentaries
Canal Autor (Link): https://www.youtube.com/@truecrimedocumentaries9885
Fonte do Video (Link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9kGh_7YugQ
Licenca: Este conteudo e reutilizado sob a Licenca Creative Commons Atribuicao 4.0 Internacional (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Note: The original content has not been modified. / O conteudo original foi mantido integralmente.
Canal Autor (Nome): True Crime Documentaries
Canal Autor (Link): https://www.youtube.com/@truecrimedocumentaries9885
Fonte do Video (Link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9kGh_7YugQ
Licenca: Este conteudo e reutilizado sob a Licenca Creative Commons Atribuicao 4.0 Internacional (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Note: The original content has not been modified. / O conteudo original foi mantido integralmente.
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TVTranscrição
00:00THE CITY IN BRAZIL
00:01THE CITY IN BRAZIL
00:02THE CITY IN BRAZIL
00:02THE CITY IN BRAZIL
00:1211 years ago, on the street in this state
00:13in a young girl
00:15He was killed when she answered me.
00:17the person who answered the person
00:20THE CITY IN BRAZIL
00:23THE CITY IN BRAZIL
00:25THE CITY IN BRAZIL
00:27FAMILY
00:27WIFE TO VICTOR
00:28And mother of Katrina, Sonya
00:31AND NEWBORN TIFFANY
00:343 MONTHS LATER
00:36THE POLICE CHARGED CHRISTOPHER JOHN LILLIS
00:38WITH HER MURDER
00:39THANKS LARGELY TO EVIDENCE SUPPLIED
00:41BY HIS FORMER FRIEND AND PRISONMATE
00:44TRAVIS BURNS
00:45WHO WAS GIVEN A NEW LIFE
00:47AND 30,000 DOLLARS
00:49AS A REWARD FOR HIS INFORMATION
00:52BUT THEN
00:532 YEARS LATER
00:56Travis Burns committed an almost identical crime
00:59when he beat Joanne McCarthy to death
01:02with a hammer.
01:05Was it just coincidence that two young mothers
01:08should be murdered in the same way?
01:12And did the police properly investigate Travis Burns?
01:35I've been commissioned to investigate a series of unsolved
01:38and puzzling New Zealand crimes,
01:40each of them chosen because of some larger issue of justice
01:44that affects all of us.
01:47Tonight's case raises some ethical issues
01:50that can occur right at the start of the process
01:53with the police investigation.
01:56This is the document the police didn't want you to see.
01:58It's part of their own internal inquiry
02:00into whether their investigation into Tanya's homicide was good enough.
02:04It took seven months
02:06and the use of the Official Information Act to obtain it.
02:09I'll let you know what it says a bit later.
02:11For the moment, let's go back and remind ourselves
02:14of the facts of the case as we think we know them.
02:20Our top story, the mysterious death of a woman
02:23and the disappearance of her six-week-old baby in Auckland tonight.
02:26Police blocked off the entrance to this Howick Street
02:29after a woman was found unconscious in a pool of blood in her home.
02:34Like most New Zealanders, I first heard of Tanya's death on the news.
02:39The young mother of three had been beaten to death
02:41at the front door of her suburban home.
02:43It was an attack so vicious that the police thought her killer might be insane.
02:50This is an intense, savage attack by a person
02:54who the psychiatrists that I've spoken to indicate
02:57that there is likely to be some mental decomposition.
03:00The murder weapon was believed to have been a hammer.
03:04This is the type of weapon.
03:06This is an engineer's ball-pen hammer.
03:08It's flat on one side, rounded on the other.
03:11The injuries caused to Tanya were caused by the rounded side.
03:16Initially, detectives thought Tanya had been murdered by a deranged woman,
03:20perhaps a patient in the hospital where Tanya had given birth just six weeks before.
03:26But those inquiries led nowhere.
03:30Then after three months of slow progress, a breakthrough.
03:34A member of the public walks into an Auckland police station
03:37with information that leads to the arrest of Christopher Lewis.
03:41At least that's the way 60 Minutes told it.
03:46The breakthrough in the investigation came at 13 weeks.
03:50A man walked into the Otahu police station saying Chris Lewis had boasted to him
03:55that he'd killed Tanya Furlan.
03:58The trouble is, that's not the way it happened.
04:01It wasn't any well-meaning citizen that dobed in Christopher Lewis,
04:05but his former cellmate, Travis Burns.
04:12Burns, a convicted thief and rapist, was back in Mount Eden jail having breached his parole.
04:18The following reconstruction is based on his statement about what Lewis is supposed to have told him.
04:25As you know, in May of this year, I was given six months' parole
04:30and sent to the Wiper Area Trust Rehabilitation Center in Massey.
04:36I knew Chris Lewis from prison.
04:38I remember he turned up one day out of the blue.
04:41We went to the back of the office area and he started whispering to me.
04:45Did you hear about that Furlan chick that got murdered?
04:48Some mad bitch stole her baby.
04:50Yeah.
04:52That mad bitch was me, bro.
04:54What?
04:55Shhh.
04:56True, bro, true.
04:57True, true.
04:57So why did you do it?
04:59I needed money, man.
05:00I owe a couple of thousand bucks on the dojo.
05:03I thought I'd grab this chick and get her old man to pay.
05:06Her husband's the manager of the Big Fresh out of Glen Dowie.
05:09A lot of money they make on a Friday night, man.
05:11I thought he'd be able to pay no problem.
05:13Oh, so?
05:14What did you do?
05:15Well, go up to the house with this cardboard box, right?
05:19Yeah.
05:20Like I got a delivery.
05:22Hi, I've got a delivery for Victor Furlan.
05:25So how can I get a pen for the signature?
05:27I've lost mine.
05:28You haven't got a pen, I could borrow it.
05:29I'll just grab one.
05:30She goes and gets a pen.
05:32When she comes back, I'm ready for it.
05:37She starts fucking screaming, man.
05:39Thrashing about.
05:39Get her down on the ground.
05:40I thought I'd tie her up, shut her up.
05:42She's thrashing about.
05:44So I just grabbed this hammer that I brought with me.
05:46What kind of hammer?
05:47I was one of those engineer's hammers, you know.
05:49What are they calling them?
05:50Oh, fuck.
05:50Bullpen.
05:51Yeah, fucking bullpen, bro.
05:53Just shut up!
05:55I fucking hit her too hard, man.
05:58There's blood pissing out everywhere.
05:59So I knew I totally fucked it up.
06:01Yeah.
06:02So I just like hit her four or five more times, you know, just to finish it off.
06:08According to Burns, Lewis said that because the kidnapping plan had gone wrong, he took the baby instead.
06:15Go on and grab the baby that's there and fucking stick it in the cardboard box and chuck a ransom
06:21note on the ground and get the fuck out.
06:24And what did you do then?
06:25Oh, so I'm driving around, got this fucking kid in the car, right?
06:29Yeah.
06:29I was just thinking this is getting just way too hot, man.
06:35So, I dumped the baby outside this church.
06:38Best thing I could have ever fucking done.
06:39Throw the pecs right off the trail.
06:45Did he say what car he used?
06:47His girlfriend's Tredia.
06:49Without Burns' statement, it's unlikely that Lewis would ever have been a suspect.
06:53But once they had his name, it all seemed to fit.
06:56Because Lewis was known to them as a very dangerous man.
07:03At 17, he'd been arrested for Arson and using a shotgun to rob a post office near his school.
07:10That same year, he tried to assassinate the Queen during her visit to Dunedin, for which he was committed to
07:17Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital.
07:21Four years later, he was the subject of a national manhunt when he escaped from police custody.
07:27And just two weeks after Tanya's murder, he was caught on camera, robbing a bank in Auckland.
07:35So, when Travis Burns pointed the police in the direction of Christopher Lewis, they immediately traced him to his parents'
07:41house in Christchurch.
07:44Where they found him wearing a pair of shoes, the soles of which matched the shoe prints taken from the
07:49crime scene.
07:51It was enough evidence to arrest Lewis and charge him with Tanya's murder.
08:01The murder of Tanya Furlan is the tale of two killers, the psychotic Christopher Lewis and criminal career Travis Burns,
08:09who informed on Lewis and was later given $30,000 in a deal that was kept secret from the New
08:16Zealand public.
08:18But putting the morality of all of that to one side for a moment, just how reliable was his statement,
08:24given that Burns was a convicted thief and rapist who was still serving time in Mount Eden prison when he
08:30put a signature to this document.
08:32So, let's just go through some of the things that he said.
08:37The first thing Burns helped the police with was the motivation.
08:42He says that Lewis told him he'd gone to Bampton Rise that afternoon, not to take the baby, but to
08:48kidnap Tanya.
08:51He says that Lewis told him that he'd killed her, that he'd wanted to kidnap her to get the money
08:57from Big Fresh in Glenfield, because he knew the manager lived in this house.
09:01And, of course, the plan to get the Friday night takings tied in quite nicely with this, evidence of a
09:08ransom note found in Lewis's flat.
09:12From indentations on a page of that notebook, the police recovered the words written in Lewis's own hand.
09:18If you followed, you never see wife. Eat alone. She dies. When you get money, you will get a wife. 36
09:27Hours later, no ring pigs.
09:31OK. Well, Burns goes on to state that Lewis told him how he got into the house posing as a
09:37delivery man.
09:39Hi, I've got a delivery for Victor Furlan.
09:43He had a hammer in a cardboard box, and when he got inside the house, he asked for a pen.
09:51You haven't got a pen I could borrow, do you? Sure. I'll just grab one. Thanks.
09:54She went away for a pen and then came back, and that's when it happened.
10:01Then he says that Lewis put the baby in the same cardboard box.
10:10OK, well, here's the thing that puzzles me. If the intention's to kidnap Tanya and not the baby, then why
10:17does Lewis turn up with such a big box to hide such a small hammer?
10:23And it has to be a big box, doesn't it? Because Burns says that Lewis told him he put the
10:29baby in it.
10:31It's odd, isn't it? Odder still is what Burns says that Lewis does with the ransom note.
10:38He said he left it by Tanya's body, but then came back to it and got it half an hour
10:44later when he realized it was useless.
10:47Now, Lewis is a criminal career. He knows the least time you spend at a crime scene, the most chance
10:54there is a chance of success.
10:56Would he really risk coming back to the Furlan house just for the note?
11:02And here's another curious thing. Burns says Lewis told him that he'd used a ball-peen hammer.
11:09Now, that's a very precise description. Wouldn't Lewis have just said he used a hammer?
11:15Why specifically use the words ball-peen? Or could it be that Burns had seen the Crime Watch program of
11:23a couple of weeks before,
11:25when Detective Inspector John Manning used those very words to describe what he thought might be the murder weapon?
11:32This is the type of weapon that we believe is likely to be used. This is an engineer's ball-peen
11:38hammer.
11:39It's flat on one side, rounded on the other.
11:43Well, okay. Let's imagine kidnapping was the motive.
11:49Isn't that a crime that's usually committed by more than one person?
11:53One person to handle the victim, the other to drive the car?
11:57Of course, Lewis might have been able to do it if he'd tied Tanya up.
12:00And that, of course, is what Burns said happened.
12:02But there's no forensic evidence to show that Tanya was ever tied up.
12:08So what are we to believe about what Burns said?
12:13Certainly one piece of evidence did seem to put Lewis at the scene of the crime.
12:17A shoe print from a unique pair of running shoes, which he owned.
12:23It was perhaps the strongest link that the police had connecting Lewis to Tanya's murder,
12:28as one of the detectives explained on a 60 Minutes programme.
12:32That one's from the scene, and that's Lewis's right shoe.
12:39The forensic scientist who did the work on that shoe print has agreed to talk to me.
12:44He's in private practice now, but he used to work here at the ESR.
12:47His name's Marnix Kaldeman.
12:51Alex, tell me about the crime scene.
12:54Well, initially we could see that there were some bloodied shoe prints on the floor.
12:58So we had a look at the shoe prints, and we knew that there were police and ambulance officers in
13:02attendance.
13:03We requested all of their shoes.
13:05We could identify which ones had blood, and we could compare them straight away with the shoe prints in blood,
13:11which were on the various floor tiles.
13:14Now, Mrs Ferland had cleaned the tiles that morning, and that helped you, didn't it?
13:18Yes, it did.
13:19We later found out that she was a very meticulous person,
13:23and she cleaned the tiled floors in the whole house every day.
13:28So we knew we were dealing with just the shoe prints on that day.
13:33Tanya had mopped the foyer in the late morning, and a couple of hours later,
13:38a friend popped in for a cup of tea and a chat.
13:43Then sometime between 4.30 and 4.45, Lewis came to the door with his bogus delivery.
13:54All the other shoe prints came from the ambulance and police staff attending the scene.
13:59We went through every single tile, because every single one was photographed,
14:04and compared to all the shoes that we were aware of had been present that day,
14:09we eliminated the whole lot except for one.
14:12There was one shoe print we couldn't eliminate,
14:14and that was a Reebok Ashkrak, size 11.5, 12.
14:19It turned out that this print matched a shoe that Lewis was wearing on the day that he was arrested.
14:25When you compare the two shoes, you go for a number of features.
14:30So effectively, like here, we have seven marks,
14:32and by comparing it you could say,
14:34what is the chance you're going to get that mark in exactly that space,
14:39with exactly that shape, on this size shoe in New Zealand?
14:45This is clear as a bell.
14:46So on the evidence of the shoe prints, the police concluded that Lewis, and only Lewis,
14:52had committed Tanya's murder.
14:53That foot, that's the right foot planted.
14:56It blows to the back of the head, I think.
15:01Certainly on the face of it, the shoe print does seem to put Lewis at the scene of the crime.
15:06The only trouble is, he had an alibi, which would have made it very difficult for him to be there.
15:11He said he was taking his girlfriend to yoga, and picking her son up from school.
15:17Bye.
15:20And his girlfriend, whose real name I can't tell you because she still has name suppression,
15:26gave the police a statement, verifying that what Lewis had said was true.
15:31Did he pick you up from yoga every Friday?
15:35Every Friday.
15:38What about Friday the 26th of July?
15:41Yes.
15:43In a book he wrote in prison, Lewis further claimed that he was set up for Tanya's murder by her
15:49real killer,
15:50who he called Jimmy the Weasel, but whose real name was Travis Burns.
15:57Now I don't buy into that claim, but it's important, because this is where the saga all begins.
16:03And the truth of it may well have been resolved at Lewis's trial.
16:08But we'll never know.
16:10For behind the walls of Mount Eden, Lewis's mind was deteriorating.
16:16In the early hours of the 23rd of September 1997, he shaved his head and wrote a suicide note.
16:23I have not done any of these crimes.
16:29I am looking forward to peace of mind.
16:33I am tired of feeling no joy, the pain and disappointment.
16:41One day you will understand.
16:45With all my love for you, Chris.
16:51Moments later, he ended his life.
17:05With Lewis dead, there could be no trial.
17:07So the question of who killed Tanya Furlan was moved from the High Court to the Coroner's Court.
17:13Which on the 27th of November 1997, found that Christopher Lewis had acted on his own when he murdered Tanya
17:20Furlan.
17:23Now I don't have any great sympathy for Christopher Lewis, but I do have to say that the fact that
17:28the Crown was allowed to present its argument that he'd murdered Tanya Furlan when Lewis wasn't represented by counsel, is
17:35In my view, simply unfair.
17:38That's the way it was.
17:40And in the same month, Burns was paid $30,000 for his help, and the case was closed.
17:48Or so everyone thought, until a year later, Travis Burns walked into a suburban home in Whangaparoa and hammered a
17:58young mother to death.
18:01Travis Burns murdered Joanne McCarthy in front of two toddlers, and then made sure she was dead by drowning her
18:08in her own bath.
18:19It was immediately apparent to detectives that Joanne McCarthy had done her best to fight off her attacker.
18:25At her autopsy, they discovered she'd scratched her killer, collecting his DNA under the fingernails of her left hand.
18:34And when the forensic scientists checked their database of known offenders, they found it matched a sample they had from
18:41the convicted rapist, Travis Burns.
18:45I mean, is this sort of DNA stuff checked and double checked and triple checked and all that sort of
18:50thing?
18:53I'm satisfied that it's your DNA on the advice that's been taken. I've taken from the experts involved.
19:04So what does this mean? Are you going to arrest me? You have to.
19:09Yeah, you'll be arrested, Travis.
19:11So now we seem to have two killers.
19:14Lewis, who said he was bent in by Burns for hammering a young mother to death.
19:19And Burns, the informant, who did exactly the same crime a year later.
19:25It's more wonder the police felt under some obligation to re-examine the way they had conducted the Furlan investigation.
19:32Which is why Detective Superintendent Nick Perry ended up writing this, his internal review of the investigation into the Furlan
19:40homicide.
19:41But before we get to that, let's take our own look at what Christopher Lewis said happened.
19:48The unique footprints left by a pair of Reebok shoes was arguably the strongest piece of crown evidence that put
19:55Christopher Lewis at the scene of the crime.
19:58Without a doubt, they were made by the shoes that Lewis was wearing on the day that he was arrested.
20:04But a shoe print is not a fingerprint.
20:07In his book, Lewis claims that he was set up by Travis Burns, who stole his shoes and wore them
20:14to the murder scene.
20:15It was only after he was arrested, he said, that he realized this must have been what happened.
20:22Yeah, right.
20:24But let's imagine for a moment that Burns does steal Lewis's shoes.
20:28He's living in a halfway house run by the Waiparera Trust.
20:32It's a way out here on Highway 16.
20:34It's 40 kilometers from the Furlan home.
20:37How can he get to the scene of the crime?
20:41Well, Lewis has an answer to that in his book, too.
20:44He said he slowly burns his little bed Daihatsu so he could go out and look after their marijuana plot.
20:51Burns, however, denied he'd borrowed the car.
20:54At Lewis's deposition hearing, he said he'd only moved it once and as a favor.
21:00This is what he said.
21:03Question, did you pick the Daihatsu up from Douglas Road?
21:06Answer: Yes.
21:09Where did you drive it?
21:11Answer, back to the rehabilitation center.
21:14Apart from that occasion, how many other times did you drive the car?
21:19Burns says, just that once.
21:22But I don't believe that either.
21:24But it's interesting that Burns admits that A, he could get away from the halfway house to travel 40 kilometers
21:30or so to the other side of Auckland.
21:32And B, that he admits that he at least had access to Lewis's little red Daihatsu.
21:38Because when I was looking through some old Crimewatch programs, I found this.
21:42Home, it's a drive that would have taken about 20 to 30 minutes.
21:47Shortly before little Tiffany was found, a car was seen driving out of this parking area.
21:54It was a red three-door Japanese hatchback similar to this that turned left into Simon Street and headed towards
22:01the roundabout.
22:02It's important that police find the driver of that car.
22:07One thing we do know is that the driver of the red Japanese car couldn't have been Christopher Lewis.
22:14Because everyone agrees he was driving his girlfriend's Mitsubishi Tredia that day.
22:19I can't wait.
22:21All right.
22:22See you later.
22:23Bye.
22:24But could the driver of that red Japanese car that the Crimewatch program asked about have been Travis Burns and
22:31the red Daihatsu that he borrowed from Christopher Lewis?
22:40Well, one man who might be able to shed some light on that is lawyer David Jones.
22:45He was going to defend Lewis at trial.
22:51I understand you were going to present some evidence in court that it couldn't have been Christopher Lewis that dropped
22:56The baby off.
22:58That's correct. We had two witnesses who'd been interviewed by the police and we'd re-interviewed them and subpoenaed them
23:06to come to court to give evidence that a person had been seen in the very area where the baby
23:12had been found.
23:14Doing something in the garden and the description of that person was completely opposite to that of Mr Lewis.
23:21What was the description?
23:23A dark skinned person who was quite tall as I recalled, athletic and appeared to have quite muscular legs. The
23:35witness said they could actually see the muscles through the jeans.
23:39Travis Burns is a tall, athletic, dark-skinned man. But internal job sheets reveal the police believed it wasn't him
23:48and that the two Polynesian witnesses had mistaken a Pākehā member of the church for a tall Māori.
23:57So if it had gone to trial, the jury would have had to have considered the conflicting evidence that it
24:03might have been someone who looked like Travis Burns who left the baby at the church.
24:18In his book, Christopher Lewis says he met Travis Burns while he was serving time in Paremuruma prison. And for
24:25a time, they were good friends.
24:26Lewis was released in 1995. And about a year later, Burns got parole. Which is when, Lewis says, Travis Burns
24:36came to see him with a kidnapping plan.
24:40You, uh, interested in doing a job? Like what? Kidnapping.
24:47Fucking kidnapping? Are you crazy, man? There's never been a successful kidnapping in New Zealand.
24:54Oh, come on. But according to Lewis, he says he told Burns that he was going straight and he just
24:59wasn't interested.
25:01And later, he says, he remembered Burns ripping out a page of something that could have been a ransom note.
25:11Did that conversation ever take place? If it did, it's hard for me to imagine that Lewis ever said to
25:18Burns that he wasn't interested in kidnapping.
25:20Because the police collected a lot of anecdotal evidence completely suggesting the opposite.
25:26You see, Christopher Lewis believed he was a ninja.
25:32He imagined he was a martial arts expert. And in an industrial shed in Glenfield, he started his own dojo
25:38for other wannabe ninjas.
25:43He fantasized about having his own private army of ninjas.
25:47And some of his recruits testified that they'd attended a weekend camp where he'd taught them how to crawl through
25:53The grass, undetected.
25:56OK, grab one of these.
25:57He also taught them how to tie people up.
26:00All part of his bizarre plan to rob a bank on Waiheke Island.
26:05Do you have any problems? You sort them out.
26:08Come on. Faster.
26:11That's it. Move it.
26:13Get it in the water.
26:29OK, this is the place where Christopher Lewis had his dojo.
26:34By all accounts, it was a pretty sad little gym.
26:38And exponents of the ninja arts, well, they tell me it was a bit of a joke, really.
26:43But that didn't stop Lewis getting his followers.
26:45And one night after class, a guy called Andrew Collett had a conversation with Christopher Lewis and gave a statement
26:53to the police.
26:56You know, Andy, we need money to make this dojo really work.
27:00Yeah.
27:01I was thinking we could do some missions.
27:03Like what?
27:06What about a kidnapping?
27:09I know this guy, he's got heaps of money.
27:12He'd take his grandson, he'd pay up for sure.
27:18What that conversation tells us is that Lewis knew that it took at least two people to do a kidnapping.
27:24One to drive the car and the other to handle the victim.
27:27So I wonder if Lewis recruited his old mate Travis Burns to help him out.
27:34Now initially it didn't seem that Burns could be involved because one, no forensic evidence puts him at the scene
27:41of the crime.
27:42And two, he seemed to have a perfect alibi.
27:45You see, the day that Tanya Furlan was murdered, Burns was on parole and living away out here at the
27:51end of Highway 16 in a halfway house run by the Waiparera Trust.
27:57According to official timesheets, Burns had been signed off by a guard as being present at the house at 4
28:03.45 on the afternoon that Tanya was murdered,
28:07and therefore couldn't have been at the crime scene.
28:12But, and now we come to it, the police internal review.
28:17It reveals that after Burns was arrested for murdering Joanne McCarthy,
28:22a second police team, led by Detective Superintendent Perry,
28:27found that there was, and I quote,
28:29an inconsistency in respect of Burns' alleged alibi.
28:35It turns out that the supervisor who signed Burns as being present
28:39didn't always fill in the timesheets with the inmate standing right in front of him.
28:43And because he'd seen Burns earlier that afternoon,
28:46he just ticked him off as being present at 4.45.
28:53It was only when the second inquiry team asked him to verify Burns' times
28:57that the error came to light.
29:00So Burns no longer has an alibi.
29:03But if he was involved in Tanya's murder,
29:05how did he get from the Trust House all the way to the Furlan House?
29:11Well, by car.
29:16Burns admitted at depositions that he was able to leave the rehabilitation house,
29:21and that he had access to Lewis' little red dihatsu.
29:26So in September of 1999, the police decided to time the journey from the Trust House
29:32to the Furlan home.
29:36Now the last time anyone actually remembered seeing Burns at the Trust was before 4 o'clock.
29:42So giving him the benefit of the doubt,
29:44the police set out to do their journey precisely at 4pm.
29:50The detectives who did the test drive in 1999 said that the motorway traffic was medium to heavy,
29:56with traffic being slowed at one point because of an accident.
30:01Still, they reported, they arrived at Bampton Rise at 4.40,
30:06which was within the timeframe.
30:08So, how am I doing?
30:1111 years and a lot more traffic later.
30:154.39.
30:17And we know that Tanya died somewhere between 4.30 and 5 o'clock,
30:21So it's possible.
30:22Burns could have got here in time.
30:25Then dropped baby Tiffany off at the Baptist Church
30:28before heading back to the Waiparera Trust where he's seen between 7 and 8 o'clock.
30:33It's possible.
30:36But that doesn't help Christopher Lewis,
30:39because believe it or not,
30:40the second inquiry team also discovered
30:43that he didn't have the alibi that he claimed to have either.
30:47A check of Lewis' phone records revealed that he was actually calling his girlfriend
30:51at the very time he said he was with her.
30:55Faced with this evidence,
30:57Lewis' former girlfriend changed her statement.
31:01Shit.
31:02I remember.
31:04He was late that night.
31:08So, Lewis doesn't have an alibi.
31:10And his shoe print is at the scene of the crime.
31:12He's talked to several people about kidnapping.
31:15And he's written a ransom note.
31:17So in my book, no question, he's definitely guilty.
31:21But what about Travis Burns?
31:23Well, again, no alibi.
31:27And he has access to Lewis' red Daihatsu car.
31:32And here's a curious thing.
31:34This is a copy of the blood test done by the ESR.
31:38It reveals that Tania's blood was on the carry cot
31:41that baby Tiffany was found in at the church.
31:44So that means that the baby was handled by someone
31:48who was in the hallway where Tania died.
31:51Right?
31:52And remember Burns reporting Lewis as saying that blood was pissing out everywhere?
31:57Well, the strange thing is that when they tested Lewis' Mitsubishi,
32:00the car that everyone agrees Lewis was driving that day,
32:04They don't find any blood.
32:06But when they luminol test the red Daihatsu, which Lewis said he'd lend Burns,
32:11Guess what?
32:13They get a positive reaction on the passenger seat and in the footwell
32:17to what might be blood.
32:21It's not conclusive, I know.
32:22There are no forensics to put Burns at the scene of the crime either.
32:26But I am curious about this.
32:29It's a photograph of the hallway where Tania died.
32:32And if you look closely at it, you'll see that the doormat's been moved.
32:37Now Lewis' shoe prints were made in soil, not blood.
32:40So the police concluded that Lewis moved the mat
32:43so that he could avoid stepping into the blood
32:45when he came back with the ransom note.
32:48But it could be that it was a second person,
32:51someone helping Lewis who moved the mat so that he could stand on it
32:54and avoid leaving his footprints on the tiles?
32:58I'm not saying that Burns was definitely involved,
33:00but in my opinion, there were reasonable grounds to reinvestigate him.
33:06It was also the opinion Detective Superintendent Perry gave
33:09in his internal review.
33:12The document that took the police seven months to release to me
33:15under the Official Information Act.
33:17And here's what Detective Perry recommends.
33:22One, that the murder investigation of Tania Furlan be recommenced.
33:28Two, that this investigation focuses on Travis Burns
33:32as a suspect involved in the murder of Tania Furlan.
33:36So, have the police acted on their own recommendation?
33:40Have they reinvestigated Travis Burns?
33:43And if not, why not?
33:47It's time we put some of these questions to the police.
34:04The question of whether Travis Burns assisted Christopher Lewis
34:07in the murder of Tania Furlan
34:10has led me to police national headquarters
34:12and crime manager Detective Superintendent Wynne Vanderveld.
34:23What efforts were made to check the veracity
34:26What did Travis Burns say?
34:30Because Travis Burns brings with him a criminal history,
34:34for him to be a credible witness.
34:36The interrogation of what he was saying,
34:39knowing that he would be a witness in court, was thorough.
34:41You say, good, competent, hard-working detectives?
34:45Yep. All of them.
34:47Didn't check Christopher Lewis's telephone records?
34:49Node.
34:50Is that good enough?
34:53I mean, the bottom line is, in hindsight,
34:56yeah, no, it doesn't look good.
34:57At the time of the investigation, at best, an oversight.
35:04Didn't check Travis Burns's alibi?
35:06Well, I disagree with that.
35:09They did check Travis Burns's alibi.
35:10The information that they were given,
35:12they used as the foundation to base what they acted on.
35:17It was only afterwards when it was clearly interrogated
35:20and there was further information that indicated
35:22it may not have been as accurate as originally tabled.
35:26That raised the suspicion identified by Superintendent Perry.
35:30OK, so Burns says that Lewis told him
35:34He tied up Tanya Furlan.
35:36It's in his statement.
35:37But yet, there's no forensic evidence
35:39that Tanya was ever tied up,
35:42and indeed, when her body was found,
35:44It wasn't tied up.
35:46Did the officers ever ask Travis Burns
35:50About that area?
35:54I can't answer your question.
35:55I don't know the answer to that.
35:56But you might have expected that they might have.
35:59For sure.
35:59You know, he said she's tied up.
36:02And would you have expected your officers to go back and say,
36:05well, hang on Travis, you know, there's a couple of things here.
36:09If this is what Burns has been told by Lewis,
36:12then he can only repeat what he's been told by Lewis.
36:15He can't elaborate on it if he doesn't know the details
36:19other than what he's been told.
36:22Everyone agrees that Christopher Lewis was driving the Mitsubishi Treaty
36:26that day.
36:28Yes.
36:29It's in Burns' statement.
36:30Yes.
36:30There is blood, isn't there, on the cocoon?
36:34That's correct.
36:34And possibly the baby clothes?
36:36But what that indicates, isn't it,
36:38Whoever killed Tanya handled the cocoon?
36:44Yes.
36:45I mean, that seems pretty good.
36:47Blood transfer.
36:49Burns says that Lewis said to him
36:52that blood was pissing out everywhere.
36:54That's what he says in the statement.
36:57Yet there is no blood found in the Mitsubishi,
37:00in the car, that everybody says that Christopher Lewis was driving.
37:06If there's blood everywhere, if there's blood on the cocoon,
37:09you'd expect some blood in the car.
37:11Now, there may or may not be,
37:14but you would expect the warning bells to go off.
37:17Although Burns has said there's blood everywhere.
37:20No blood in the car.
37:21I wonder how much truth is to this thing here.
37:24But the first thing that would come to mind in relation to that
37:26is the question, and I don't know the answer to it,
37:30but there is the possibility that a vehicle other than
37:33the vehicle used by Christopher Lewis was used,
37:36which would account for why there was no blood in that particular car?
37:39In other words, if this was a planned intention for kidnapping or extortion,
37:44then he's actually stolen a car to commit that crime.
37:46At some stage during that day, he drove that car because he picked his girlfriend up on it.
37:51It's established that he's driving the Mitsubishi.
37:54So you're satisfied that Travis Burns was not involved in the murder of Tanya Phelan?
37:58I am satisfied that there is no evidence to date that connects Travis Burns with the Tanya Phelan homicide.
38:07At what stage did you decide to pay $30,000 to Travis Burns?
38:11Well, I can indicate to you that that was paid to him November of 1997.
38:16So it was paid to him 12 months after he first came to police.
38:22It was paid to him after he had given evidence at the deposition hearing of Lewis.
38:27And it was given after Lewis had committed suicide.
38:32And so there was no further evidential role in relation to this for Travis Burns.
38:37Was money discussed at the time that he gave his statement?
38:42My understanding is no, it wasn't.
38:44Money never got mentioned in relation to this throughout the inquiry
38:48until after all matters had been concluded.
38:52What other assistance was he given?
38:55He certainly was put on to a witness protection program prior to him giving evidence
39:02and being addressed with in relation to the giving of evidence against Lewis.
39:07Had he found a place to live?
39:08Yes.
39:09On the Fongaparoa Peninsula?
39:11Some 20 odd minutes driving distance from the location of the McCarthy home, yes.
39:18We know that Travis Burns is a violent man, was a violent man at the time.
39:23He'd served time for violent crimes.
39:28Snuff.
39:30Aggravated robbery.
39:32Was he at any stage considered to be a threat to the public?
39:36He had served his criminal sentences for the crimes that he had committed.
39:42When he came forward in relation to this,
39:44it went completely against the codes that he had lived by.
39:47To give evidence against a fellow colleague, for wanting a better term,
39:50was completely against his code.
39:52From those who dealt with Burns, who I've spoken to,
39:55they actually saw this as the turning point in Burns' life.
39:59An opportunity for him to change his ways and basically put the past behind him and move forward.
40:04None more so than those people were shattered by the subsequent homicide.
40:13And do you still pay convicted criminals large amounts of money to inform others?
40:19Yes.
40:20Why?
40:22Where we've got situations where there's no other evidence available or where we can intercede in organized criminal activity, for
40:32instance,
40:33then that information to bring crime to a close or to be able to intercede on crime is valuable information.
40:40And to that end, I mean, there's a number of motivators for why people come forwards, but certainly financial gain
40:46is one of them.
40:48But you would also agree that the kind of people we're talking about, there are people who would say anything
40:53you like for $30,000.
40:58What you're inferring here is, did Travis Burns get paid $30,000 for false testimony?
41:04And again, all I can say is, Travis Burns' statement and the evidence that he offered was open to scrutiny
41:13both by police and by defense counsel and the court through the deposition hearing.
41:17That all took place before any money was put on the table.
41:21So what have you learned out of this inquiry?
41:25I guess the detailed interrogation of alibi evidence was something that was learned.
41:34The degree of blood from a scene such as this one were lessons that were learned.
41:40So there were a number of lessons learned as a result of that inquiry.
41:44But payment to criminals, to inform on other criminals, is something that you are quite comfortable with?
41:54I mean, the bottom line is yes, I am.
41:58I mean, it should be identified that post this inquiry, and I'm just looking at the date, in 2002,
42:08the police, together with the Ministry of Justice and Crown Law, sat down and looked at the whole issue around
42:14the issuing of rewards for information around homicides,
42:19and the payment to people for that reward information, or for information that leads to the seizure.
42:25Were defense lawyers invited to that conversation?
42:29In this particular case, no they weren't, but having said that, there were a number of, again, recommendations that were
42:36highlighted from it.
42:38It needs to be identified that sometimes we have to work with the criminal element to actually solve cases.
42:45If we don't, they remain unsolved, and I think in the case of families of victims, the thought that we
42:54compensate offenders,
42:56but are able to identify who the offender is that's been involved in the crime, is an acceptable one.
43:04For the juries and for the veracity of what's being tabled, that's for the court to decide.
43:17So, who killed Tanya Phelan?
43:21Well, Christopher Lewis, definitely.
43:23But was Travis Burns involved?
43:25I don't know.
43:27And the reason I don't know is because, in my opinion,
43:30both Burns' alibi and his statement were far too readily accepted at the time of the inquiry.
43:36And while the police say they've learned lessons from their investigation into Tanya's death,
43:41I do wonder how much they've learned from the murder of Joanne McCarthy.
43:47Because frankly, if the police still think it was okay to pay a large amount of money
43:52to a man who was convicted of aggravated robbery, home invasion and rape,
43:56and to give him a completely new identity so that he was free to collect a benefit
44:01and get a new passport and a driving license,
44:04if they can't see that to give all of that to Travis Burns was wrong,
44:09then I think we have a genuine reason to be concerned for our safety.
44:14For if paying criminals to inform is still the official police policy,
44:18then how do we know that they have not secretly assisted some other Travis Burns to live amongst us?
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