Mark Lundy walked out of a North Island jail this morning after spending more than 23 years behind bars for the murder of his wife, Christine, and 7-year-old daughter Amber.
He took his fight against the conviction all the way to the Privy Council, which quashed the guilty verdict in 2013, only for him to be found guilty again in 2015 on retrial and sent back to prison.
His release is subject to an extensive list of release conditions, with a ban on contacting the media and using social media, including dating sites, as well as pornography.
There is also a suppression order that means it cannot be revealed just where he will live and who he will live with.
Mark Lundy being supported after the funeral of his wife Christine and daughter Amber in 2000. Photo / Mark Mitchell
On August 29, 2000, Lundy’s wife Christine, 38, and daughter Amber were butchered with an axe or tomahawk inside their Karamea Crescent, Palmerston North home.
Lundy was on a Wellington business trip at the time and has always maintained his innocence.
At his first trial, the Crown argued that he drove from Wellington back to Palmerston North to commit the murder and then travelled back to the capital, where his alibi maintained he was with a sex worker at the time.
An appeal to the Privy Council in 2013 based on the time of the victims’ deaths, the presence of organic tissue on Lundy’s shirt and the time Christine’s computer was turned off resulted in his convictions being overturned.
Mark Lundy during his murder trial at the Palmerston North High Court in 2002. Photo / Mark Mitchell
In his 2015 retrial, the window of the time of death was expanded to 14 hours, with the Crown instead alleging Lundy had returned home in the early hours of the morning to kill his family.
“I think he was hoping for the best and expecting the worst.”
He said Lundy also plans to continue his fight to clear his name.
“He’s got principles and he didn’t do this, so of course he’s going to stick to his guns.”
The Lundy family. Photo / NZME
Lundy has an application in with the Criminal Cases Review Commission and Jones said it would be much easier for him to meet with them and his lawyers now that he is being released.
At his hearing, one of Lundy’s lawyers, Ella Burton, addressed the “elephant in the room”: his professed innocence.
Burton said that while it might be “neater and more palatable” if Lundy had simply professed his guilt, it wasn’t a factor the board was required to consider.
“He should not be detained because of a lack of admission,” she said.
“Life does not mean life in New Zealand in terms of never being released.”
Kurt Bayer is NZ Herald South Island Head of News based in Christchurch. He is a senior journalist who joined the Herald in 2011.
