A convicted wife killer may have to pay out his former parents-in-law after judges ruled he should not benefit from his crime.
Kevin Lional Harmer, 53, was sentenced in 2002 to life imprisonment with a 14-year minimum non-parole period for killing his second wife.
He set fire to
a vehicle she was in at their Dunsandel farm in October 1999.
The High Court has now upheld a Family Court decision allowing the parents of Harmer's dead wife to sue for a share of the couple's relationship property.
Included is a substantial part of the proceeds from the Dunsandel farm Harmer sold for $1.2 million in August 2002, the month he was convicted for murdering his wife.
The decision has been released on condition Harmer's former wife and her parents are not named.
Justices Graham Pankhurst and John Fogarty found the Family Court judge was "correct to bring to bear the public interest against a killer benefiting from the death".
The justices also noted the "quite extraordinary behaviour" of Harmer in selling the Dunsandel property, buying another farm near Timaru, and relegating his wife's estate interest to a mortgage security.
Harmer knew part of the Dunsandel property proceeds belonged to his wife's estate, but had done nothing to pay the debt since his conviction, they said in their decision.
At his trial, Harmer was alleged to have murdered his wife either by incinerating her while she was unconscious, or burning her body in the farm Land Rover after killing her.
The prosecution claimed Harmer had become "hopelessly infatuated" with a Wellington prostitute he met on business trips in his former capacity as planning manager for the Selwyn District Council.
Harmer married the woman during his murder trial.
- NZPA
