Twenty years after Kevin Harmer was jailed for murdering his wife after setting her car alight, he maintains what happened that day was nothing more than an accident and hopes the Criminal Case Review Commission will clear his name. Sam Sherwood reports.
Kevin Harmer and his wife, Jill Thomas, appeared from the outside to be a loving, respected couple who worked hard on their farm near Dunsandel.
Harmer, 45, was well-known in the community and worked full-time for the Selwyn District Council in Leeston as regulatory manager. Thomas, who had been diagnosed as being in the early stages of multiple sclerosis (MS), was a former schoolteacher who looked after the farm alongside Harmer. The couple were also finalising a book on Perendale sheep.
On October 4, 1999, Thomas died after a fiery car explosion at their property. Initially, police believed her death was the result of an accident caused by the ignition of flames after petrol had leaked from a container which had been standing in the well of the passenger’s seat.
However, just over one year later, after obtaining evidence from an internationally renowned expert in fire investigations, police charged Harmer with murder.
Inquiries revealed Harmer had been visiting a $1600-a-night escort from Wellington he’d met a few months before Thomas’ death. After one evening when they went to the ballet together, Thomas sent the woman, who has permanent name suppression but who has been referred to in court documents as Ms C, some flowers with a message on a card indicating affection. Ms C would later say that at that time she viewed the relationship as solely professional.
Harmer’s motive, police alleged, was that he had developed an “infatuation” with Ms C, and that he killed Thomas to have a relationship with her without losing the farm if they had a divorce.
Nearly three years after her death, Harmer was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to life imprisonment with a 14-year minimum non-parole period.
Harmer appeared before the Parole Board for the first time in August 2016. The board said his behaviour in prison had been “exemplary”, and his ongoing risk of violent reoffending was low.
The board said while Harmer blamed himself for his wife’s death, he did not accept he was properly convicted of her murder, and maintained her death was the result of a terrible accident.
He was released on parole, with several special conditions which were to last five years, including not to communicate with media, without prior written approval of his probation officer.
Nearly seven years on from his release, Harmer, in an exclusive interview, told the Herald on Sunday he had taken his case to the Criminal Case Review Commission in the hopes of clearing his name.
He says the Crown theory he murdered his wife to avoid losing their farm was “bullshit”, and that he did not kill his wife, calling her death “an accident”.
“There was a vapour explosion in the cab of the Land Rover and my wife was trapped in the vehicle, was caught in the vehicle, and then died,” he says.
“The police said that I lit it, but I never carried matches, I never had a lighter, so how did I light it?”
He describes himself as a “caring, gentle person, probably a pacifist because I don’t believe in violence at all”.
He takes issue with several factors, including the key Crown expert and the police investigation.
“It was very poorly investigated and anything that proved my innocence was destroyed.”
The fire
Twenty-three years on from his wife’s death, Harmer tells the Herald on Sunday the events of that day are “well implanted” in his memory.
“It’s always there”, he says.
According to his statement to the police, Harmer left work early in the afternoon on October 4, 1999, and visited the local service centre.
He filled his Toyota Hilux Utility with diesel as well as a 20-litre container of diesel, a 20-litre container of petrol and a 10-litre container of petrol.
The diesel, he said, was for the farm tractor. The larger container of petrol was for the Land Rover. The screw top lid was a bit loose, and it used to smell “in the back” when it was full of petrol. The 10-litre container was for the lawnmower.
Harmer then went to the publishers in Christchurch and dropped off the proofs of the book.
When he arrived home, about 5pm, the Land Rover was parked in a lane beside the farmhouse, and he parked nearby.
He took some bags of mash from his vehicle to the back deck of the Land Rover. Because there was a “lot of stuff” on the deck, he put the 20-litre diesel container on the passenger’s seat of the Land Rover and the 20-litre petrol container in the well of that seat, both standing up.
Harmer said he then put the red petrol container on the ground and Thomas picked it up and put it on the deck. Harmer then drove the Land Rover to the implement shed, unloading the mash and taking it to the fowl house. He did not unload the fuel containers.
About 6.50pm, after the couple had dinner, they went outside to sort the ewes and lambs on the farm. It was lambing season, and Thomas didn’t have time during the day to attend to them.
The pair walked to the implement shed before Thomas backed the Land Rover out of the shed and Harmer jumped over a fence and started walking through the paddocks to meet up with her on a farm road.
He told police he “never even thought about the fuel in the cab”.
According to Harmer’s version of events, Thomas drove the Land Rover out to Selwyn Lake Rd, along the road and back on to the farm through a gate.
Once they met up again, Harmer got on to the deck of the Land Rover as Thomas drove it slowly around the paddocks. They stopped several times so Harmer could get off to check electric fences and picked up a few dead lambs which were put on the deck.
After about 40 minutes they arrived at the “lambing motels”. According to Harmer, Thomas turned off the engine and got out of the vehicle for about two or three minutes.
Harmer told police he walked away from the Land Rover towards the next gate. He heard the door of the Land Rover close as Thomas got back into it. Harmer was about 15m away when he heard a muffled “boom” which he described as similar to when you light a gas barbecue. He turned towards the vehicle and saw the cab full of flames.
He ran back to it and opened the driver’s door. He said “quite a flow of diesel” dripped on to his trousers because the container had flipped over.
Thomas was in the driver’s seat but lying towards the passenger’s seat. Harmer was unable to get to her because the flames were coming out the door towards him.
He said the heat was intense, with a lot of black smoke. The cab was also full of flames. He believed he left the driver’s door open and ran around the front of the vehicle to the passenger’s door and opened it, but the flames immediately came out at him. He said he tried to put his left hand inside the cab to get to his wife, but flames caught his sleeve and his hand got burned.
Believing there was no way he would extinguish the blaze, he ran about 500m to the farmhouse and called 111. He was transferred to the Dunsandel Fire Brigade.
“I just asked for them to send me the fire brigade … I can remember the lady that I called telling me to sit down and take some deep breaths because I’d run 500 odd metres back to the house,” Harmer told the Herald on Sunday.
He grabbed a fire extinguisher from the garage wall, got into his Hilux and drove back to the Land Rover.
When he got back there, a local livestock dealer, who had seen the burning vehicle as he drove along Selwyn Lake Rd, was also there.
The dealer told police that as he began walking towards the Land Rover there was “a large bang and the flames accelerated”. He said the flames were originally confined to the cab but spread to the deck of the vehicle and the surrounding grass. Both doors of the vehicle were shut, he said. There was later some uncertainty over whether the doors were fully closed or on the first latch.
Harmer tried battling the blaze with his fire extinguisher to no avail.
About 20 minutes after he called emergency services a fire engine arrived. An ambulance also turned up and Harmer was eventually taken to Christchurch Hospital.
The fire was burning intensely in the passenger’s footwell, with a hose having to be played down into that area off and on for several minutes.
The chassis of the Land Rover eventually collapsed at the point where the deck met the cab.
One of the firemen found an undamaged yellow and black plastic cap bearing the Scepter brand on the ground quite close to the Land Rover. The cap would have fitted the 10L red plastic petrol container.
Harmer’s lawyers would later say the cap may have belonged to people who had been doing work on the farm a few days earlier. However, in his video interview, Harmer said he had lost a similar cap.
Police put a tent over the vehicle that evening to secure the scene. Thomas’ body was removed from the scene the next day as forensic staff examined the scene.
On the floor of the passenger’s footwell was a piece of black plastic with some blue plastic attached. This was part of the base of the 20L petrol container which had melted in the fire and become attached to the remains of the blue plastic cover of a tape measure which had been lying on the floor of the passenger footwell.
A piece of red plastic, identified as belonging to the side wall of the 10-litre container, was found on the ground outside the vehicle near the driver’s door. At trial there was debate over whether the container had been in that position, lying on its side, throughout the fire or whether it may have been dislodged from the deck of the vehicle by spray from the fire hose, or may have fallen when the deck partially collapsed.
Only one soil sample was taken from underneath the Land Rover. No traces of petrol or diesel were found in it. The Crown’s key witness, fire expert Dr John De Haan, agreed at trial it would have been better practice to have taken more samples, particularly from beneath the doors of the vehicle.
One of Harmer’s neighbours asked for permission to harrow the scene of the fire so he would not have to see it when he returned home from the hospital.
At that stage police believed Harmer’s account of events and agreed to let the neighbour do it the next day, essentially ending any chance of finding further evidence at the scene.
Harmer’s clothes were forensically examined, with diesel found on his trousers, but no petrol. There was “practically no fire damage” to his clothing.
Pathologist Dr Martin Sage examined Thomas’ body. He found no evidence of injury other than caused by the fire, but because of the severity of the incineration of her body, he could not exclude that possibility.
The findings indicated she did not inhale significant amounts of smoke and fumes in the fire. He said there were two alternative explanations - either she died from sudden and severe oxygen deprivation, or she was not breathing when the fire started, either because she was already dead or because she was “profoundly unconscious”.
The Land Rover was taken to a breakdown services garage after it was removed from the scene. The electrical wiring of the 25-year-old vehicle was examined in an attempt to discover a source of accidental ignition. No such source was found, but the possibility of electrical arcing could not be entirely excluded.
Wiring was retained along with some other items, but the vehicle was then allowed to be released to the insurance company and it was sold at auction. The police later retrieved some further items from the vehicle at the new owner’s premises. However, when they made further inquiries in June 2000 it had been destroyed.
The escort
Harmer first met Ms C on July 20, 1999, when she was working for a Wellington escort agency and she visited him at a hotel.
They met again on August 17 when she stayed with him overnight for about 12 hours. A third overnight visit occurred on September 18 when they went to the ballet together.
Three days after his wife’s death, Harmer called Ms C. She said he appeared to be very distressed, and she saw him again in Wellington about a week later. Ms C, who had trained as a nurse, said she was more of a nurse to him than an escort at that point.
The pair had four further bookings through the escort agency in 1999. Harmer purchased some jewellery for her, and in January 2000, he introduced her to one of his daughters.
Eventually, there were no further payments to the agency as the relationship had become “one of friendship and affection”.
Ms C eventually moved to Christchurch, and in April 2000 the pair got engaged.
Meanwhile, police were continuing to investigate Thomas’ death. The initial officer in charge of the investigation was transferred to another inquiry. The new case lead began to review the file in May, and further experts, including De Haan, were engaged.
Once De Haan’s report was received, Harmer was reinterviewed and then arrested on December 13, 2000.
The trial
A preliminary hearing took place between May 21 and June 7, 2001. An application was made to discharge Harmer due to alleged prejudice to the defence relating to several matters including the destruction of the scene, the release and destruction of the Land Rover and components or items within it, and the loss of witness notes and records including the 111 call recording.
Justice John Hansen was not satisfied that the “cumulative prejudice” was enough to render a fair trial impossible or give rise to a miscarriage of justice.
The trial began on February 18, 2002, but it was abandoned after three weeks when De Haan changed his opinion about the 20-litre petrol container.
The fire expert now believed the container was made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which was confirmed by testing.
He believed it would be 20 or 30 seconds before there was any hole in the base of an HDPE container which had flames burning directly on it. When a rupture occurred and petrol spilled out there would be an intense fire but not an explosion.
His second change was he also believed the petrol containers had been empty or nearly empty at the time of the fire.
His view was that when a plastic container containing a substantial quantity of petrol melted down, small amounts of petrol became trapped between the layers of melted plastic. He saw no signs of this in the black plastic and red plastic exhibits.
Judge Hansen was critical of how the police investigation had been conducted and De Haan and the failure of police to test the plastic exhibits at an earlier time.
He dismissed the jury and set a new trial date.
Harmer’s lawyers then applied for an application for a stay or discharge of the charges, arguing there was a “real likelihood of contamination of the trial process”, thereby meaning Harmer could not be guaranteed a fair trial.
Justice Bruce Robertson accepted there had been “some extraordinary lapses”, but said “one has to protect against a mere knee-jerk reaction, and one must have regard to the proportionality of what has occurred”.
He said it was the Crown’s onus to establish essential allegations, and that it appeared there would be “enormous scope for challenge of much of what had occurred”.
The second trial began on July 8, 2002.
A Court of Appeal ruling says the Crown’s case was that Harmer’s explanation of an accident could not be true.
“There were several implausible aspects of it and the fire could not have occurred in the way he described, and that, motivated by his infatuation for Ms C and the consequences of a divorce, he had rendered his wife unconscious (or possibly already killed her) before throwing petrol over her and throughout the Land Rover and setting it alight.”
The Crown said it was unlikely Thomas would have driven the Land Rover for about 40 minutes with a petrol container in the cab and even less likely she would have done so if the container was leaking petrol vapour, nor would she get back into the vehicle and try to start the engine with an “intolerable smell of petrol”.
The Crown also pointed to inconsistencies in Harmer’s statements, the discovery of the undamaged petrol cap at the scene, his “relatively minor” burns to one hand in comparison with his account of opening the doors and being confronted by flames, and the doors being closed when emergency services arrived.
De Haan said petrol spilling from a loose container cap would produce a concentration of vapour only in the immediate vicinity.
In his view, if a pool of petrol was evaporating and the vapour ignited, there would be a flashfire of insufficient duration to ignite any solid material and would be too brief to burn the exposed skin of someone in the driver’s seat.
“The fire would have flashed towards the open window and would then have flashed back to the source of the vapours and burned above the pool. While such a fire would be a life threat if anyone was exposed to it for long, it would be an escapable fire if the person was conscious.”
He said it would take from two to five minutes for the fire to engulf the cab.
However, a fire involving petrol being “splashed” around the interior of the vehicle would produce a “fireball of flames” low in soot and capable of draining the oxygen in the vehicle even with the windows open.
He also believed the melted petrol container outside the driver’s door had not been full of petrol. When a police officer peeled it off the ground there was unburned grass on the underside.
“Dr De Haan saw this, together with the finding of the undamaged cap, as a strong indication that petrol from this container was a source of the accelerant he believed had been used within the vehicle,” a Court of Appeal ruling said.
The defence said Harmer had told the truth when he gave his statement. Their expert, Dr Charles Fleischmann, said that in his opinion, based upon a computer model, the cause of the fire was consistent with the accidental ignition of petrol vapours collecting in the cab from leakage from the petrol container in the passenger’s footwell. He considered there may have been a low-pressure explosion followed by a fire developing so rapidly it was inescapable.
He said there would have been “considerable sloshing” of the petrol and diesel in their containers during the 40 minutes before the vehicle arrived at the lambing motels.
The low-pressure explosion would have travelled through the flammable mixture and exited at the open driver’s window. Hot gases and flames would be “thrust” in that direction, exposing Thomas to temperatures greater than 600 degrees Celsius.
Her ability to escape such a fire, he said, was “very low”.
“When the driver’s door and then the passenger’s door were opened by Mr Harmer - in the model this was assumed to occur 20 seconds and 40 seconds after the explosion - a new source of oxygen became available to the fire and the energy release rate would jump up and the temperature increase to over 1000 degrees Celsius. Rescue would not be possible.”
Fleischmann also said that while Thomas would have smelled petrol in the cab, she would have been aware of the containers sitting in the vehicle and thought that explained the smell, although she would not have thought it was normal.
The defence also said the Crown’s suggested motive was wrong.
“The relationship with Ms C had not developed on more than a professional basis until a couple of months after Ms Thomas’ death.”
It took the jury two days to find Harmer guilty of murdering his wife.
The appeal
Harmer took his case to the Court of Appeal, arguing there had been a miscarriage of justice and a breach of his rights under the New Zealand Bill of Rights, to be tried without undue delay.
Harmer’s legal team argued several grounds for a miscarriage of justice, including the “inadequate investigation” causing contamination of the scene, loss of evidence and delay in bringing the charge and De Haan’s evidence being given without a proper evidential base.
In his judgment, dated June 2003, Justice Peter Blanchard said “undoubtedly” there were deficiencies in the way in which the police investigation proceeded. He said there were two key reasons for this - that initially, police believed Harmer was telling the truth about what happened which led to the scene being harrowed and the Land Rover being sold.
Establishing that the fire was accidental would also have been a “very difficult exercise”, the judge said.
“Some contamination of the scene was inevitable when the firemen were engaged in extinguishing the fire. They could not be expected to pause and examine items on the ground while fighting it, nor could the police be expected to intervene.”
Harmer’s lawyer, Nigel Hampton, KC, said there were several factors which showed loss of evidence was prejudicial to the defence, including the failure to take more soil samples, the failure to examine the sideboard from the deck of the Land Rover and the remains of the deck itself to see if they showed residues of fuel, and the failure to protect and test the Scepter petrol cap.
Justice Blanchard said that in all instances it was “entirely a matter of speculation” whether the defence might have benefited if the items had been examined or if things had been done differently.
He added there were several matters which together “strongly suggested” an accidental fire could not have occurred in the way Harmer described and Thomas’ death was not accidental.
The factors included Harmer saying he intended to put the fuel containers in the implement shed when he had three opportunities to do so, but did not, and that Thomas was unlikely to have been prepared to begin to drive the Land Rover around the farm with full fuel containers in the cab.
He said it was “almost inconceivable” that after she had been out in the fresh air for two or three minutes she would have got back into a vehicle in which vapour had built up as she got back in and closed the door and then remained in the vehicle, “let alone tried to start the motor while there was an overpowering smell of petrol”.
Harmer’s injuries and the damage to his clothes were “in contradiction of his story”.
“If he had really attempted to rescue Ms Thomas, much greater injuries and damage and injuries could have been expected”.
It was also an “amazing coincidence” if an undamaged petrol cap fitting one of the containers just happened to be lying in the immediate vicinity of the Land Rover yet had nothing to do with the incident.
He said he had not been persuaded that taken together or cumulatively, the matters which had been traversed demonstrated that the jury’s verdict was “unreasonable”, nor had there been an error leading to a miscarriage of justice.
The appeal against conviction and sentence was dismissed.
In releasing Harmer on parole in 2016, the board said because of Harmer’s ongoing denial of his offending and assessed low risk, he had not engaged in any offence-focused treatment.
However, he had drawn up a “comprehensive safety plan”.
A psychologist who prepared a report for the board assessed Harmer’s ongoing risk of violent reoffending as low.
“She suggested that the person at greatest risk from him is likely to be an intimate partner and that the risk would present when his primary relationship ends or is likely to end.
“A credible relationship with informed supports, such as his probation officer, will be central to his long-term safe living in the community”.
Harmer had a “very large group of supporters”, the board said, both within the community he proposed returning to and throughout the country.
There was a progress hearing with Harmer in March 2017. His probation officer reported Harmer had complied with his standard and special conditions and had begun working with a psychologist.
Given his overall compliance and engagement with professionals, they saw no need to monitor him further.
Que sera sera
Harmer, who is still married to Ms C, told the Herald on Sunday the couple were “very well” and had a “very loving relationship”.
He maintains it was not until after his wife’s “accident”, that their relationship began, and says it was initially a “professional arrangement”.
“I was just in Wellington overnight and sought some company ... It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing that happened,” he said.
“It was just company when I was in Wellington, we went to the theatre and we went out to the movies, and that was it.”
The last 23 years had been “extremely difficult” he said.
“If I hadn’t had my faith, I don’t think I’d survive.”
He describes Thomas as a “gentle, caring person”, whose death left a huge gap in his life.
He still recalls what happened that day vividly, and says anniversaries and birthdays often bring it all back to him.
Opening the door of the vehicle and being met by a “wall of flames”, is the moment that sticks with him the most.
He first approached the CCRC more than two years ago and says he hasn’t heard from them for some time.
Asked what his message would be to anyone who doubted him, he said they should “look at the facts”.
“Everybody is entitled to their opinion and most people base it on what they read in the newspapers, and unfortunately that didn’t tell all the facts.”
He remains critical of the police investigation, which he says was “poorly” carried out.
He claimed De Haan, who has since died, “changed his evidence to suit whatever theory the police wanted him to follow”.
“He was the case”, he says when asked how crucial De Haan’s evidence was.
Harmer also doesn’t think he was given a fair trial, alleging he did not have a jury of his peers, because none of them was from the rural environment.
Asked about the Court of Appeal decision, Harmer said the comments were made by people who “didn’t understand what happens on a farm”.
He said he did plan to drop the fuel off, but because of pressures, such as proofreading the book, he didn’t do it.
He also contradicted the evidence about the injuries he suffered.
“So, they didn’t see me with what they considered to be severe sunburn on my face? My eyebrows and front of my hair singed off, both hands bandaged in hospital because they had radiation burns?”
He alleged there were “limited notes” by the people who saw him in the hospital.
“It didn’t portray the true picture,” he says.
He says he has “no idea” how the fire started.
“There was several things that were identified in there that could’ve caused a spark, that could’ve ignited the vapour.”
He says his appeal to the CCRC is not motivated by money, but rather a desire to clear his name.
If the CCRC were to find a case worth investigating, and a miscarriage of justice was found, he says his life would not change.
“We’ve put that behind us, you cannot undo the past. We just move on with our lives,” he says.
“We’ve left it to them, que sera sera … I’ve served my time, done my sentence. I’m now free and I’m on lifetime parole, that’s it.”
One of Thomas’ relatives declined to comment on the appeal when approached by the Herald on Sunday and said the family had moved on.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission, Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, confirmed to the Herald on Sunday an application had been received by Harmer for review of his conviction and sentence.
“Mr Harmer’s application is currently under investigation pursuant to section 25 of the Criminal Cases Review Commission Act 2019.
“Te Kāhui is generally prohibited from disclosing information about an applicant’s case. In this case, Mr Harmer has given his consent for Te Kāhui to share that his case is under investigation.”