Seaside town grieves for loss of innocence

MT MAUNGANUI - It is nearly 10 years since a young English tourist was raped and strangled just below the summit of Mt Maunganui.

But Monica Cantwell has not been forgotten.

A memorial plaque on the Mount is kept fresh with flowers by residents.

Across the world, in the Surrey village of Lingfield where Monica grew up with three sisters and two brothers, a trust nourishes her memory.

Backed by the Cantwell family and their community, the Monica Cantwell Trust runs a halfway house for young adults with epilepsy and learning difficulties.

There are plans to open a second house soon.

"It is something positive out of the tragedy of Monica's death," said her mother, Rosemary Cantwell, whose large, closeknit family still grieve.

"Time doesn't heal, but you learn to cope."

November through to February is the hardest time each year, she says.

Monica was killed on November 20, 1989, a week into a short visit to New Zealand.

She was due to return home that December in time for Christmas and would have celebrated her 25th birthday in January 1990.

Monica left home in February 1989 to go backpacking in Australia.

"She is always in our minds. We have a special Mass for her every anniversary," said Mrs Cantwell, who refuses to dwell on thoughts of her daughter's murderer.

Charles John Coulam, a 20-year-old Auckland storeman, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the killing after pleading guilty in December 1989.

He is expected to be eligible for parole soon.

Detective Carl Purcell, based at the Mt Maunganui police station, was the arresting officer.

He has never shaken off his disquiet at Coulam's reaction throughout interviews and a step-by-step videotaped reconstruction of events on the Mount.

"It was almost matter-of-fact. There was no emotion or real remorse. He was a hard guy to figure out."

Coulam conceived the attack in advance, selecting a victim at random, and Detective Purcell said Monica Cantwell just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Adopted into the family of an Auckland lawyer, Charlie Coulam had a privileged upbringing and was educated at King's College.

Before travelling down to Mt Maunganui, he told friends he had something planned which involved rape and death.

When he returned to Auckland two days after Monica Cantwell's semi-naked body was found dumped in thick bush off the Mount's walking track, they asked him if he did it.

"He just smiled and never said anything," said Detective Purcell.

The Surrey secretary's death came seven months after a Swedish couple, Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen, disappeared while tramping on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Her murder shocked locals, especially Maori to whom Mt Maunganui, or Mauo, is sacred.

Before Cantwell family members took her body home to England, a service was held "to send her soul back to her creator," recalled the chairman of the Tauranga Moana District Maori Council, Tipi Faulkner.

Still hurting about what happened, he said the murder had left a lasting stigma.

According to Detective Purcell, it "ushered out Mt Maunganui's age of innocence."

Not long linked to Tauranga City by the harbour bridge, the once-safe and secure little village "grew up and joined the real world."