Memorial to Tanya Burr, killed 15 September 2002

12/15 Hilda Street, Rotorua - 28 December 2001 - 15 September 2002

12/15 Hilda Street is about where the 'H' is in Hilda Street (circled above) and on the left side of the road. The night John Wharekura killed Tanya, he had been kicked out of a friend's flat in Pererika Street, which can be seen at the top left corner of this map. This is a distance (we drove it to find this out) of about 6kms one way.

The young woman at the flat who kicked him out, showed him on a map how to get to the flats in Hilda St., as he had relatives living at 8/15 Hilda Street (the right-most window in the photo below). So he made the about 20 minute walk to the flats, but found his relatives were not there. He then evidently decided to steal Tanya's car, so walked 20 minutes back to Pererika Street to get a carving knife, told the people he was going to steal a car and "do some hits" (steal more stuff) and then walked 20 minutes back to Tanya's flat - where he approached her for the first time. 

Evidently stealing cars etc. was perfectly acceptable behaviour to these people - and killing the occasional owner presumably is also acceptable. These people did not turn him in, though they must have realised a girl had been killed at those flats that night, her car having also been stolen. They were also not charged with anything - such as letting someone take their carving knife and depart for the express purpose of stealing a car and other things.

All this while, so the story goes, Wharekura had no idea who the person/people attached to the car actually were. He had identified the correct flat from the numbers painted in the car spaces on the tarseal (despite being illiterate as someone pointed out). The flats each have two car parks, and in the photo below, the white car (mine) is parked in Tanya's park, while Tanya's car (just before bringing it home to PN on 18 September 2002 after receiving it back from the police) is in the park for flat 11/15 Hilda St. - directly outside Tanya's door. Tanya's second carpark is at the far end of the row nosed up to the wall. So one flat with "12" on it had the Integra in it, while the other (Cate's) was empty. From this, presumably, he concluded the car's owner was supposedly 'alone'. And presumably without young kids sleeping upstairs at that hour of night.

Of course, he then walked a forty minute round trip to get the knife and supposedly was yet to encounter the person he proposed to steal the car from, for the first time. He is 5 ft 7ins tall, and skinny (2 ins taller than Tanya). If the 'complete strangers' thing is to be believed, then how did he know the car's owner would be (a) alone and (b) would be unable to fight him off. The owner could have been a guy and much tougher than he was, for all he knew - if he didn't in fact recognise the car and recall it from Ngongotaha as belonging to a young woman.

I firmly believe that Wharekura recognised Tanya's car by the distinctive undercoat patch on its back bumper (see the bottom photos), and that this made him chose this car with all the personal investment that stealing it would entail - before he ever laid eyes on Tanya, who he says he did not know. 

It was this undercoat patch that I recognised at Dannevirke the day before Tanya was killed. Also, I can't imagine that it was anything other than this patch that caused the cop who found the car the day after Tanya's death, to see it back view while driving at rural speeds, waving to the local garage staff and listening to the report seeking Tanya's car coming over his radio.

If I could recognise this car, while driving along the road, from this patch on the Saturday and then the Taupo cop on the Monday, odds are Wharekura could have too.

So my remaining major questions are then, why chose this particular car and why go to that much trouble to steal it? Its passenger side was entirely in red undercoat, and its back bumper was obviously in need of a paint. Why chose it and not some less distinctive car that required less effort (than killing someone) to steal?

Furthermore, and whether directly related to Tanya's death or not, why was a pretty, doubtless well-groomed as usual, quite eye-catching young blonde girl aged 20, not automatically challenged off a jury for a gang drugs trial - especially when she is not a local (and so doesn't recognise names or places to know she is placing her life in danger - such as by living in Ngongotaha in the first place), lives in Heartland gang country, and works directly opposite the courthouse?

Cleaning up the flat prior to removing the carpets to burn them at Reporoa

The undercoat patch - (above) Friday 13 September 2001 at Palmerston North, where the car had spent the previous month, and (below) three days later where it was found at Tauranga-Taupo Challenge Service Station on Monday 16 September 2001.