On Saturday morning, 7 December 1963, Eric Lewis called around to his property in Bassett Road, Remuera, Auckland, to collect the rent. He was not prepared for the scene that greeted him when he opened the door: his two tenants, George Walker and Kevin Speight, had been violently murdered days before.The machine-gun execution of Walker and Speight marked the beginning of a new, more sinister era of crime in New Zealand. The two men convicted of the killings - Ron Jorgensen and John...

It should be remembered as New Zealand's answer to Britain's Great Train Robbery: in the dead of the night, robbers broke into the Waterfront Industry Commission's offices and made off with an audacious loot equivalent to almost 1 million today.This 1956 heist, which eventually came to be known as the Waterfront Payroll Robbery, was executed with military precision and the robbers left nothing but a smoking office and an empty safe behind them.The crime was eventually pinne...

A Christchurch publican shot in a crowded pub, an Indian fruiterer beaten to death in Hawera and a trail of destruction left across Waikato and the Bay of Plenty by a multiple murderer - these are just some of the fascinating unsolved murders profiled in Shot in the Dark.While the ten cases profiled may sound like very modern crimes, they were all committed in the years between the First and Second World Wars.In Shot in the Dark, Scott Bainbridge reopens each case ...

In 1992, builders demolishing a Devonport home stumbled across a skeleton, triggering an investigation that sent shockwaves across the community. The remains belonged to a woman who had died in the 1930s, and whispers soon emerged of the deadly legacy of Nurse Elspeth Kerr. Now all but forgotten, a series of court trials gripped New Zealand in the early 1930s. Nurse Elspeth Kerr was formally accused of poisoning her husband, her foster daughter and an elderly resident at her Devonport nurs...

One Friday evening in October 1984, a security truck pulled into the car park of the Foodtown supermarket in the Auckland suburb of Birkenhead. It had already made a few stops at other supermarkets that day, so there was plenty of cash on board. A few minutes later, as the security guards emerged from the supermarket carrying the day's takings, a white van skidded to a halt, narrowly missing one of them. Three armed men piled out of the van, and within three minutes, they had stolen $294,5...

The Allied forces' actions in and around Monte Cassino in Italy remain some of the most controversial of the Second World War. Adolf Hitler described them as the battles that came closest to the bitter struggles on the Western Front.The name Cassino has become a touchstone for New Zealanders as a result of the crucial role played there by Kiwi forces, and the controversy surrounding the battles refuses to die down. This reappraisal of the battles brings new information about the ev...

For more than five decades, gangs have played a pivotal role in New Zealand crime life, beginning with the bodgies and widgies of the 1950s. Based on 10 years of gang research, this book chronicles the rise of the Hell's Angels and other bike gangs in the 1960s, the growth of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power in the 1970s, and organized crime during the last decade. With descriptions of such events as the Devil's Henchmen throwing Molotov cocktails at the Epitaph Riders in Christchurch's fir...

Scott Guy was a good man, a great dad, a salt-of-the-earth farmer who was gunned down at his front gate for no conceivable reason.His death enthralled us, partly because it was so inexplicable, but also because there were no obvious suspects. When police finally arrested someone, public fascination soared - because the person they claimed killed Scott Guy was his brother-in-law, colleague and former mate, Ewen Macdonald.While on the surface a hardworking husband and father ...

In 1939 a 21 year old joined the N.Z.R.A.F. as a reservist. When World War II was declared he was called up and sent to Woodburn training camp in Blenheim and taught to fly. In August 1940 he sailed from New Zealand for England and went to war. As the sea voyage progressed from holiday cruise to deadly dangerous, he kept a diary and then gave it to a steward to post home from LA.He was a foundation member of 485 NZ Spitfire Squadron. He watched his best friends die before his eyes,...

'I'm 39 years old, happily married and my womb has never been inhabited. I want a baby but not in that crazy, desperate way where I cringe whenever I see someone else with one, or I think nasty, evil thoughts about people who are pregnant, but a child of my own would complete my life and make my husband extremely happy.'Jay-Jay Feeney has been married to Dom Harvey since 2004. She always imagined they'd get married, have children, grow old. But so far, things haven't worke...

New Zealand's pre-eminent criminal barrister looks back on his remarkable life and times.In his time as a criminal defence lawyer in the New Zealand courts, the late Sir Peter Williams QC saw it all. From the days when abortion, homosexuality and even telling fortunes could see a person hauled before the courts, to sensational cases of wrongful imprisonment and police corruption, he witnessed the defining moments in the evolution of our modern judicial and penal systems.In t...

Among members of the outlaw motorcycle clubs, Caesar Campbell is a legend. Former sergeant-at-arms and chief enforcer for the Comancheros, Caesar became the founding member and sergeant-at-arms of the Australian chapter of the Bandidos. He epitomised bikie culture - unbeatable in a fight, brutal in the extreme, fearing no one and nothing, and loyal until death.This is Caesar's story, from his recruitment into the Comancheros, to the savage split within the club that led to the foun...