Memorial to Tanya Burr, killed 15 September 2002

4 Operiana Street, Ngongotaha (adjoining Rotorua) 30 August 2001-30 December 2001

When Tanya moved to 4 Operiana Street, Ngongotaha, Anita and her partner Nick moved to 47A Ranginui Street, Ngongotaha, which is directly above Operiana Street as shown on the map above (about where the 'g' is in the word "Ranginui" I think). The two are linked by a small street called Arnold Street, and a small walking bridge across the Waitehi River (in fact a stream). This would be about a five minute walk, and the two regularly walked or drove between each other's houses. Anita's brother James also boarded with Tanya at Operiana Street.

The previous occupant of Anita's house was John Wharekura's half-brother, whose surname is Tamai. Anita discovered this when her car broke down some time before Tanya's death. When she said where she lived, the garage refused to come near the house to attend to the problem. She had to convince them that she was not in any way associated with the previous occupants. 

Tanya's car, distinctive due to the crash repairs, was a regular visitor to Anita's house, even after Tanya moved to Hilda Street. When she visited, she left her car on the roadside, as she didn't like Anita's narrow driveway. While Tanya was overseas, Anita regularly drove to Tanya's flat to check the flat on Tanya's behalf, and to make sure the cats were being properly cared for. So there was a great deal of ongoing interaction between the two homes. In fact, the Integra almost stayed at Anita's house while Tanya was overseas.

When Anita learned the identity of Tanya's killer, she was horrified, as she realised that not only did a number of members of his immediate family live in very close proximity to her home, but also one of them was the previous occupant of her house - which is a back section. What she had heard about them, whether true or not, included her own aforementioned experience with her car. The overall situation suddenly became extremely traumatic - at least in the minds of those perceiving themselves as perhaps being potential future victims. After all, the reason for the killing was (and remains) unknown.

As a direct result, they immediately began making arrangements to leave the house, and then Rotorua itself. At that point the landlady finally admitted knowing who the previous occupants were.

In 2003, the Telecom White Pages website shows people with John Wharekura's paternal surname of Tamai, and maternal surname of Wharekura, living in Wikaraka Street (somewhere behind Tanya's former house), Camellia Drive (near Anita's former house) and Parawai Street. These are only the ones who have telephones listed, and another paternal half-brother is understood to live in Okona Street. 

It appears that at the time Tanya was living in Operiana Street, John Wharekura was living with his father, within a few hundred metres of her home (if not closer given the Wikaraka Street address). It seems more likely than less likely that he would have seen her distinctive car, either parked at home or driving to and from work - or at his half-brother's former home by then occupied by Anita. 

Tanya also regularly caught the bus between Ngongotaha and Rotorua while her car was away for ten weeks for repairs after the crash (and to reduce the likelihood that she crashed it when driving outside her licence again), allowing another easy point of contact. It seems unlikely that she would have given him a second look (his being just another 15-16-y-o kid), and perhaps that factor was influential. What I believe is that it is highly unlikely that Wharekura had (a) never seen the car before, or (b) that he wasn't perfectly well aware that a young woman owned it when he supposedly chanced across it in Hilda Street on 15 September 2002.

4 Operiana Street, Ngongotaha - a lovely warm little two-bedroomed house noted for having bolts on the outside of the interior doors, instead of inside as is normal. We wondered if previous occupants locked people inside the various rooms. This oddity helped make Tanya less comfortable with the house, along with a sense of isolation and insecurity she increasingly felt while living there. The huge section didn't help either - and neither did the big sudden drop down from the footpath into the driveway.

Tanya setting up her spacious kitchen at 4 Operiana Street, on 4 September 2001.

Tanya took over the Hilda Street flat on 28 December 2001 and relinquished the Operiana Street flat two days later. During the four months she lived at Operiana Street, she served the jury of a Mongrel Mob drugs trial (approx. 7-8 November 2001) which found someone guilty of selling drugs to an undercover cop. She knew nothing of jury service when the letter arrived, and I had to explain it to her. On the first (?) day of her week of jury call-ups (6 November) she ended up on TV3's (?) 6pm News, shown sitting on the courthouse steps in the background as someone from another trial was interviewed.

She told Anita that in fact she was the only juror to give this guy the benefit of the doubt - at least initially as it was pointless. Then she told me that he was "as guilty as sin because he'd sold the drugs to the undercover cop" and that "he should have saved everyone the trouble and just pleaded guilty in the first place."

A couple of weeks later, she noticed Mongrel Mob members hanging about the outside tables on the footpath in front of the cafe where she was working - Cafe Bacchus directly opposite the Rotorua Courthouse - and presumably they were not actually buying anything. She thought they looked like people who had been in the courtroom during the trial and felt that they had recognised her. I don't know how much these ones might have resembled the earlier ones, and so don't know if she meant they just 'looked like' similar people - i.e. common garden variety gang members.

This 'hanging about ' occurred on more than one day, as she spoke to me about it at least two times. She became very paranoid and was afraid they would follow her back to her car (which I had returned to her on 23 November after the repairs), and then follow her home to her flat in Ngongotaha and see where she lived. I told her to go to the police if she felt worried about it, but she didn't. She didn't know if it was her imagination or if they really had recognised her.

Suddenly the Operiana Street flat had seemed too isolated for her comfort. At that point she decided to quickly dye her hair back to dark brown (from blonde) and began looking for a new flat closer to town. Thus she moved to Hilda Street where, 8½ months later, she was murdered by someone from Ngongotaha who had expressed a wish to join the Mongrel Mob the day before he killed her.