Mark Lundy released from prison: First photos of convicted double killer out in the community

• Mark Lundy has been released from prison after serving more than 23 years for murder.
• Lundy maintains his innocence and plans to continue fighting to clear his name.
• His release includes strict conditions and a suppression order on his living arrangements.

Convicted double killer Mark Lundy is enjoying his first full day of freedom today after spending the past 23 years in prison for the murder of his wife and daughter.

Lundy, now aged 66, walked out of Tongariro Prison early yesterday morning.

Suppression orders prevent the publication of the location where he has been released.

But the Herald understands he is staying in a quiet street in an undisclosed North Island town.

The Herald spotted a bespectacled Lundy, wearing an oversized hoodie, trackpants and jandals, going for a drive with one of his supporters today.

Mark Lundy was spotted today after being released from prison yesterday. Photo / George Heard

Strict and extensive release conditions, imposed by the Parole Board who granted his release, mean that he cannot speak to the media.

Lundy has always maintained that someone else killed 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.

The Parole Board last month ruled that Lundy was ready to be released back into the community.

His release conditions include a ban on 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 home in Karamea Crescent, Palmerston North.

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.

Friend, supporter and brother-in-law Dave Jones last month told NZME that Lundy was overwhelmed by the Parole Board’s decision to release him.

“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.