Last updated 17:41, April 26 2018
NEWSHUB
Roberto Conchi Harris - also known as Witness C - pictured at his High Court trial in 2017.
Roberto Conchie Harris was convicted of lying at the 1990 trial last year.
One of the secret jailhouse witnesses who gave evidence in David Tamihere's 1990 double murder trial has finally been unmasked by the courts. Tommy Livingston reveals the criminal history of Roberto Conchie Harris, the perjurer.
Last year, one of the darker creatures involved in New Zealand's justice system crawled out into the fluorescent lights of the High Court in Auckland.
The shadowy figure known for decades only as Witness C was brought to the dock facing a raft of perjury charges for making up evidence at David Tamihere's 1990 double murder trial.
Witness C had said Tamihere confessed to him in prison that he'd killed the Swedish couple Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Hoglin after sexually violating them both.
He was one of three jailhouse informants to give evidence against Tamihere at his trial, all claiming he had made a range of confessions to them while sharing time behind bars.
The men, who were all granted name suppression, were simply known to the public as A, B, and C - their identities hidden.
Each told largely contradicting stories about how Tamihere confessed he had killed the couple in heinous and gruesome ways. Their evidence was so detailed, one juror was sick.
Tamihere was famously convicted for the crimes. He served a 20-year term, but has always professed his innocence.
Roberto Conchi Harris - also known as Witness C - pictured at his High Court trial in 2017.
Following the trial, the secret witnesses were all but forgotten - until Witness C came forward with a bombshell revelation.
In 1995, he signed an affidavit stating everything he said at trial was a lie, and claimed he only gave evidence after striking a deal with police which would get him early bail and $10,000.
Witness C detailed how top officer Detective Inspector John Hughes promised the benefits, and while he did get bailed, he never got the money.
In 1996, still under the guise of Witness C, he gave an interview to broadcaster Paul Holmes explaining again how he recanted on his evidence after he felt sorry for getting an innocent man locked up.
"What can I say, no words can make up for it. I am terribly sorry the whole thing took place and I hope this whole thing will rectify his innocence," he told Holmes.
In 2007, he also penned a letter to Tamihere confirming for a third time he had lied at trial after striking a deal with police.
That all changed last year when Paremoremo inmate Arthur Taylor brought a private prosecution against Witness C for perjury at Tamihere's trial.
Witness C changed his tune, saying he told the truth at trial, and only recanted his evidence after being threatened numerous times following Tamihere's conviction.
In August 2017, a jury sat for two weeks at his perjury trial listening to the names of Paakkonen, Hoglin and Tamihere bandied once again around a courtroom. It was as if 1990 was playing out all over again.
David Tamihere served twenty years in prison for the murder of the Swedish couple.
Witness C was found guilty of lying about his evidence, convicted and sentenced.
Following his conviction, Stuff, along with other media organisations, asked the court to finally remove the suppression orders and allow Witness C to be named.
After another six months of legal maneuvering the veil of secrecy was finally lifted and Roberto Conchie Harris could be named - double murderer, sex offender, secret witness and now perjurer.
He is once more serving time in prison for his conviction of perjury.
During last year's trial he appeared in the dock in a grey prison-issue suit and sneakers, he could have passed as a boxing coach. A hip injury sustained in a controversial incident many years ago still gives him trouble.
He is a big man, bald, ageing and affable. He chatted about late night television, politics and prison. He showed a sense of humour, told inappropriate jokes and performed a series of slick card tricks.
"I have a very infamous and colourful history that I am not proud of," he told me in a moment of self reflection.
"I'm not professing to be a saint, but I ran off the rails when young, and over time lost control of circumstances that surrounded my life."
'JUST LIKE EATING ICE CREAM'
In the heat of the February sun, Leslie Pye's body lay near the water tank. Washing hung on the line, with a breeze flapping through the sheets. It was 1983, and as her three children walked home from school, up the gravel driveway and through the white picket gate, they found her bloodied body with a tea towel in her hand.
Near the water tank, not far away, lay the children's stepfather, Martin Crossley. He too was dead.
Rob Pye was only eight when he found his mother - he's now 43, and can still recall that day with clarity.
Heidi Paakkonen pictured at the Auckland Zoo prior to her death.
"We saw the car was in the garage. We called out but there was no answer. I looked around the place and found mum lying down with blood around her. That freaked us out. We went around the other side of the shed and saw Martin," he said.
"We panicked a little bit. We tried ringing the neighbours but we couldn't get hold of the people we wanted to. We ran straight back up our driveway, as we were getting to the road we waved our arms. Our neighbours were driving past and saw us."
Eighty-three police slowly started piecing together how the couple who had recently found love were killed. The murders made headlines as the police inched around the house hunting for clues.
It didn't take long to narrow down their search.
Harris, 35, had lived with the couple up until three weeks before their deaths with his 17-year-old partner, Julie-Ann Anderson. From day one, he denied he had played a part in the killing - he even called the police following the murders, feigning concern about what had happened.
The police saw through it and he was arrested. He initially denied he had killed the pair, but later fessed up during his trial.
The summer's day had unfolded with Harris wanting to sort out some bad blood. He was Crossley's cousin, and a rift had formed between them due to drugs. Earlier in the morning, Harris asked friend Neville Herbert to help him get a gun.
The pair, along with Anderson went to the Northland property under the pretence of collecting some belongings Harris had left at the house, and to also shoot turkeys.
They arrived just after lunch, with Harris leaving the gun outside. He then persuaded Crossley to come outside to look for turkeys to shoot.
Harris pictured walking into the High Court in Auckland during the 1980s.
He confronted Crossley, they argued and "said something to him, like, 'Oh you f.... turkey', and then I shot him in the back of the head, he fell forward onto the footpath," Harris later recalled.
He then walked back to the house reloading the gun. Harris called out to Pye, who was inside washing the dishes.
"When she came out she asked what I wanted. I said, 'Come here, I want to show you something'."
"When she went to walk past me I shot her in the back of the head. She didn't see Martin."
He later remarked to Anderson killing the two was "just like eating ice cream".
A week after the three shots rang through the Titoki hills, near Whangarei, mourners packed the local St John Baptist church. People overflowed into the churchyard.
Pye's three kids, including 8-year-old Robert stood staring into their mother's grave. Father McHale presided over the service and committed both their bodies to God.
A Māori woman wailed as they were lowered into the ground.
FROM HARRIS TO WITNESS C
Months on from the funeral, knowing a life sentence hung over his head, Harris made a bid to get beyond the walls of Mt Eden Prison in Auckland.
An escape plot was planned with three other inmates. They decided they would scale the outer wall in the dead of the night, the day before Harris' trial was due to start then wait for one of their girlfriends to come and pick them up.
Police got wind of the escape, and hid outside the jail in dump bins, on top of rooftops and in cars.
But as the escapees hid, and the policeman lay in wait, the girlfriend slept in. According to reports at the time, night turned to day and the men became nervous.
Carol Pye, who was killed by Roberto Conchie Harris in 1983.
The police officers were also getting weary, and thinking the escape attempt wasn't going ahead they went to leave. It was at that point, the four prisoners decided to jump off the wall regardless.
Three ran off, but Harris was left on the ground broken and bruised. He had shattered his hip and ankle. His High Court trial was pushed back, and when he eventually made it to court, he limped in.
Three years later, news emerged ACC had paid Harris almost $20,000 compensation for the injuries he sustained.
To add insult to injury, the Pye children had only been given $500 each for their mother's death.
The newspapers lapped it up, politicians were cantankerous and the public fuming. Harris offered to give some of the money to Pye's children, but it never eventuated.
The children of Carol Pye at her graveside. Pye was murdered by Roberto Conchie Harris.
For a while, it seemed like headlines followed Harris wherever he went. But soon, he would disappear from the news stands and retreat into the darkness.
His vanishing began when he met a man on remand for stealing a car belonging to a missing Swedish couple.
'IT WAS A DONE DEAL'
Harris and David Tamihere met in the late 1980s in Paremoremo Prison. Tamihere was awaiting trial for the murders, Harris was already serving time.
The pair shared a cell, and at times, Tamihere would talk about the missing couple, Harris said.
"We started working out together.. We built up an association, quite a significant one," Harris mentioned at his recent trial.
Rob Pye still remembers the day he found his mother's body.
"I didn't mention at all [the Swedish couple], at first. He mentioned it. I think the conversation, from memory, came from the big map he had up on his cell wall of the Coromandel area."
"I can recall him commenting the silly buggers were looking in the wrong place," he said.
Eventually, according to Harris, Tamihere went on to tell him he came across Hoglin and Paakkonen in a picnic area.
"From there, he told me he had taken the Swedish guy, Mr Hoglin, under the pretence of showing him the Coromandel Peninsula area."
"He said at some stage he had knocked the guy off. He said he had disposed of the body out at sea, which of course I found out later on wasn't true. He said at some stage he had sexually molested the guy, " he said.
Newspaper clippings from the time Harris went to trial.
Harris said Tamihere recalled to him he had inflicted a three-day ordeal of sexual abuse on Paakkonen before killing her.
"He had Heidi for three or four days. He had committed all sorts of sexual debauchery you could think of."
"I was disgusted. I am no saint, but I was disgusted."
It was Harris who said Tamihere had taken Hoglin's watch and later given it to his son. He also said Tamihere had recounted the moment two trampers came across him while he was with Paakkonen.
"He said Heidi was that terrified that she didn't say anything."
Tamihere had admitted to stealing the car, but he was adamant to police that he never met the couple. Police did not have the Swedes' bodies at the time of the trial and proving the murder charges, based on circumstantial evidence was going to be tough for the prosecution.
A younger David Tamihere appearing in the Auckland District Court following his arrest.
Tamihere recalls that all changed when secret witness A took to the stand. The three jailhouse informants were like mana from heaven for the Crown. Tamihere said he knew as soon as they gave their evidence, he would be found guilty.
"Halfway through the first guy's evidence, one of the jurors got sick. The evidence was that bad. I looked at the jury ... It was a done deal."
Harris was known from then on as Witness C. He was granted name suppression, and despite numerous appeals by others to have it overturned, he managed to maintain it.
Just nine years after he killed Crossley and Pye, and three years after he gave evidence, he was released, supported at his parole hearing by Detective Inspector John Hughes - the lead investigator in the case against Tamihere.
Hughes, who died in 2006, said Harris's claims of inducements were "absolute rubbish". He said he had attended the man's parole hearing but only told the hearing he gave evidence against Tamihere, "nothing more".
'DO THEY NOT KNOW HOW TO SPELL NOT GUILTY'
When he was brought back to court last year, Harris felt like his recent perjury case would go his way. There wasn't a huge amount of evidence against him, and he could easily explain away his recanting, he felt.
During the jury deliberations, he was brought into court due to the jury having a question about the evidence.
"What do you mean they've got a question?," Harris said to his lawyer. "Do they not know how to spell not guilty?"
His confidence was short lived. Hours later the jury returned with a guilty verdict. He limped out of the dock, flashing a glance at Tamihere sitting in the public gallery before he was whisked away.
From his cell, he shared his thoughts by writing me letters on a regular basis.
Swedish tourists Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen were murdered on the Coromandel. David Tamihere was accused and convicted of their murder although he proclaims his innocence.
"Any sentence will not have a significant impact on me, and will only be made concurrent with the life recall sentence I'm presently serving and have been since 2008 when I was sentenced to 27 months for an alleged indecent assault, " he later wrote.
"I come from a good family, and am very close to my family members, and immediate family. Though I have spent a considerable amount of time incarcerated, I have never allowed the effect of prison to destroy me as a person.
"Basically, I have always been a straight shooter, and call a spade a spade."
Harris has talked about his home near Pakiri Beach, north of Auckland. His whanau live there, and have done for years.
"Any groups can stay there for weekends, holidays etc, it's a beautiful place," he wrote.
It's doubtful he will ever have the chance to revisit Leigh Wharf and the marae close by.
Since his murder conviction, Harris has been paroled twice and recalled both times. After his initial release in 1995, he was recalled following a serious assault.
In 2008, he was charged with committing an indecent act on a young girl the same day he was released. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years and three months. A parole report released in 2012 labelled him as being at a high risk of reoffending.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW
Years on from the 1990 trial, those three men the Crown called to give evidence against Tamihere have continued to cause ripples.
Late last year, after his successful prosecution of Harris, Arthur Taylor filed documents in the High Court to have Secret Witness B's identity revealed.
B was killed some years ago in a motor vehicle accident.
In April, the High Court ruled his name suppression could also be lifted. If the Crown do not lodge an appeal by May, then his name will also be made public.
Jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor brought the private prosecution against Witness C.
The only secret witness not to face any recent legal action is Witness A. His current location - or whether he is even still alive - remains a mystery.
Documents obtained by Stuff show Witness A gave evidence in a number of high-profile murder and drugs trials in the late 1980s and early 1990s - including Tamihere's.
Witness A was charged with the manslaughter of his partner in the 1970s. In the mid 80s, he was released from prison and arrested shortly after for supplying heroin.
After being released after serving time for supplying, the man became involved in a major drug ring which focused on smuggling heroin into New Zealand.
The letters sent from prison to reporter Tommy Livingston.
When police arrested him, he struck a deal to help bring down the others involved in the syndicate.
Police then began to use the man as an informant, entrusting him to give evidence in some of the countries most contentious criminal trials.
The informant was involved in helping convict Wuti Wellington Waa and William Cullen of the murder of Auckland hotelier Rex Bell. Bell's case was the first time police paid out money for information on a crime.
Detective Inspector John Hughes who was in charge of the case against David Tamihere.
About $50,000 was paid for details on the murder, but it is unclear whether Witness A was the recipient of that money.
He also supplied information to police concerning alleged misconduct of prison officers at Invercargill Prison.
A number of high-profile and high-ranking police officers advocated on his behalf to have a shortened sentence and more protection in prison after he gave up the information.
Harris' perjury trial lifted the lid on strange world of secret witnesses. Even today, the police use jail house informants - both Mark Lundy and Scott Watson had 'snitches' give evidence against them at their trial.
Throughout the Western world, the reliability of jailhouse informants has continued to be called into question. Witness C's case will sit alongside those which have proven what can go wrong when inmates testify.
The story is far from over, but for now Arthur Taylor got his scalp, David Tamihere finally got a win and Harris was found guilty, again.
The long shadows of Paremoremo will hold him for a little while still.