KEY POINTS:
Graeme Burton has extensive connections to the criminal underground and is understood to have links to the Nomads, a Horowhenua-based gang known for violence and with connections to the Auckland chapter of the Headhunters.
It was these networks which saw Burton, together with fellow inmates Darren Crowley, Matthew
Thompson and Arthur Taylor, execute an audacious escape from Auckland Prison in 1998, with a well-laid plan to slip out through a shower-block window using a spanner they had smuggled in. A hole in the fence, believed to have been cut by an accomplice, was their final step to short-lived freedom.
The four had a litany of violent crimes to their name: two were murderers, two career burglars. Taylor, the ringleader, was serving time for bank robbery and has been described as one of the most dangerous and cunning criminals in the country, while Crowley, 26 at the time of the escape, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 for stabbing Daniel Fleming to death at a New Year's party. Thompson was serving an 11 1/2 year sentence for bank robberies.
The four were all linked to the Nomads and Taylor and Crowley were also connected to the Mongrel Mob.
Once out, the party of four picked up lethal weapons, including a .303 hunting rifle and ammunition, food, alcohol and clothes they had ordered earlier through the prison phone and library computer system.
They stayed at Muriwai camping ground, west of Auckland, before heading to the Coromandel. With tip-offs from their network of underground criminals as to where to hide out, they managed to evade police for 12 days in dense bush on the Coromandel Peninsula
While on the loose, the fugitives broke into the $2.75 million Tairua mansion of American millionaire Roger Flowers, and lived the high life, quaffing vintage wines and stealing Flowers' top-quality suits. Their unfamiliarity with such fine surroundings showed - they left bottles of red wine to chill in the fridge and could not get the high-tech electronics in the bathrooms to work, meaning the toilets went unflushed. They were not stupid though - the men lay hoax booby traps when they left the house.
Ringleader Arthur Taylor was found first, lying under bushes in the Coromandel peninsula. He told police officers he was "cold and had a gutsful". Burton, Crowley and Thompson were caught days later.
But Burton's latest behaviour has come as a surprise to family friend Glenys Buchanan, who said when she last saw Burton in August, he told her he was determined to get back on the straight and narrow. He had been accepted into polytechnic, to study to be a personal trainer.
An ex-Golden Gloves champion and "built like a gerry-built brick shit-house", Burton had maintained his weightlifting in jail and was keenly interested in fitness.
But Buchanan says Burton's size often caused him problems he did not invite.
"His mother always told him not to fight because of his size, it would always be his fault. He's no pansy, but he was always very gentle with me. I never had any problems with him."
Buchanan, who was best friends with Burton's adoptive mother Shirley when Burton was growing up in Lower Hutt, said Burton was an artistic boy who loved drawing and made birthday cards for his mother. He didn't even steal loose change or smoke as a child, but when he was about 15 he got mixed up with drugs and a bad crowd and started stealing cars and committing other minor crimes.
Worried he would end up in prison for something worse his family sought help from police but were told there was nothing they could do, says Buchanan.
Buchanan went to the station with Burton's mother the day after he murdered Andersen and said he was so "out of it" he didn't even know what he'd done.
He told Buchanan he thought he'd hurt a bouncer.
