Twice convicted double murderer Mark Lundy to be released from prison on parole

Mark Lundy will be released from prison in May. Composite photo / Mark Mitchell

Double murderer Mark Lundy will be released from prison next month, despite holding firm to the position that he never killed his wife and daughter.

Lundy has spent more than 23 years behind bars for the murder of his wife Christine and his 7-year-old daughter Amber, who were found hacked to death in their Palmerston North home 25 years ago with what is believed to have been an axe or tomahawk.

The now 66-year-old has always maintained someone else killed his family. 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.

Now, following his third appearance before the New Zealand Parole Board, Lundy is due to be released from prison next month.

This doesn’t mean that he’s free, rather he’s subject to an extensive list of release conditions and if he breaks them he can be hauled back behind the wire.

Friend, supporter and brother-in-law Dave Jones told NZME Lundy was overwhelmed with the result.

“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.”

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 he is being released.

The Lundy Family, R-L; Christine, Mark, Amber. Photo / Supplied.

The CRCC has the power to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.

“The fight to prove his innocence will continue,” Jones said, but for now they were just focused on getting him settled outside the wire.

Christine’s sister-in-law, Maria Norrelle, told NZME she felt “resigned” about the pending release.

“It’s been a long time, he had to come out at some point,” she said.

“He’s coming out into a world that has changed considerably … it’s not much of a future for him.”

‘Elephant in the room’

Lundy was first convicted in 2002, even though the murder weapon has never been found.

At his first trial, the Crown argued that he travelled from Wellington, where he was on a business trip, 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 supported after the funeral of his wife Christine and daughter Amber in 2000. 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.

Lundy was found guilty a second time after this trial and has remained behind bars since, with bids in 2017 to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court failing.

In 2022 his minimum period of non-parole expired, meaning Lundy became eligible for early release from prison.

However, because he maintained his innocence, he butted heads with Parole Board members who questioned how they were meant to assess a safety plan for release from prison if his argument was that he wasn’t any risk in the first place, because he didn’t murder his wife and child.

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.”

The principle of the Parole Board is “undue risk” and its primary function is to determine if a prisoner is going to cause further harm to the community.

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Burton said Lundy had been assessed by a psychologist as at low risk of reoffending, and factors like denial of guilt were built into the way they came up with that finding.

“His risk is already assessed as low. It doesn’t get lower than low,” she said.

Mark Lundy in the dock on day three of his retrial in the High Court at Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“He is very ready to go, and the evidence supports this … even in the circumstance of the denial.”

‘I’m not a violent or abusive person’

Some of what the board questioned Lundy on yesterday was suppressed, but he spoke frankly about his use of alcohol and its effect on his and Christine’s relationship.

Lundy said that he drank to fit in with the various theatre groups and sporting clubs he was a part of, but didn’t drink every night.

“I have never had that sort of relationship with alcohol, but when we did drink it did quite often get out of hand,” he said.

“That was a long time ago, I’m 66 years old now. I’m just not interested in that anymore.”

Amber Lundy was 7 when she was murdered. Photo / Supplied

Other than alcohol, Lundy maintained the pair were in a “very good, loving relationship”.

“There’s always little niggles in any relationship but there’s nothing major,” he told the board.

“If I have too much alcohol I was … I could be embarrassing. Alcohol affected different people differently, if I drink too much I fall asleep.

“I’m not a violent or abusive person.”

The board also asked Lundy about financial pressure, which he was under at the time Christine and Amber died, having increased their life insurance policies in the weeks prior to their deaths.

Lundy said Christine looked after their finances and kept him fully informed about what was going on.

Mark Lundy. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“Financial stress can always be a problem and that is something I will need to look at when I get out.”

One of Lundy’s conditions upon release will be that he can’t initiate contact with the media, and he’s forbidden to use social media, including dating sites, as well as pornography.

“I’ve never had any experience with social media, I do know that the internet is dangerous,” he said.

“Anything that I post on there is there forever and can be used and abused to my detriment, and that scares the hell out of me.”

Lundy was also asked how he would approach any future romantic relationships.

“I cannot remember the last time I invited a woman out … it’s not something I know how to do. So, it’s not something I’ll be looking for.”

However, he stressed that any woman who did enter into a relationship with him would likely already be well aware of who he was, and his convictions.

He anticipated his biggest challenge upon release would be “just living and existing” in a world that had moved on so drastically in terms of technology.

Among Lundy’s other release conditions are restrictions about where in the country he can go; specifically he’s not to enter Manawatū, which would prevent him from visiting his family’s grave.

Lundy will also be subject to a curfew and is not to have any contact with any of the registered victims, who are mostly Christine’s surviving family members.

Lundy is not allowed to give any media interviews.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.