Memorial to Tanya Burr, 1981-2002

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star   

Part Two (of Three)

I don't really know what I believe about religion and spirituality. I can't imagine never seeing Tanya again. I can't even really imagine that she is dead. I certainly can't comprehend that almost two years have passed since I last saw her. As matters resulting from the investigation and courtcase continue to roll on, it keeps the matter 'alive' and I do not forget. I do not even want to forget and I certainly do wish to have the loose ends sorted - as I feel I must do this for Tanya's sake. 

She absolutely would not have wanted people who perhaps slacked off, feeling free to just forget their roles in her death or in the subsequent shambles. Lessons are all that are left to be learnt from Tanya's death - and Tanya would very much want them taught. There are times since Tanya's death that had she been alive, she'd have stormed out in disgust! Those close to Tanya will certainly know that side of her - the stroppy side!

I 're-live' Tanya's last moments with her and visualise how she fought. I do this of course having witnessed her cat Puffball's post-traumatic stress panic attacks many times since that night - and having also read the autopsy report. I know that once she realised what was happening, the terrified little girl in her would have cringed away and died. She asked her killer what he was doing to her - as he stabbed her! I wonder what he repplied.

I know too that for all her headstrong ways, she ran to Mum when she needed help - but that time I wasn't there. Her male neighbour obliviously watching TV a mere several metres away through a concrete block wall, was perhaps even the reason she was killed so quickly - before she could cry for help.

I think of that little baby - my first grandchild - who will never be born. It is easy to know what stage of development he would be at, as Tanya's little cousin Tommi Brandon Burr was born within days of when that little boy (who we had previously named Brendon) would have been due. So Tommi also lost a playmate - and the gifts Tanya brought back from overseas for her future cousin are all he will now have to remember them by. [Since writing this, Tommi has gained a little sister, born in winter 2004. Her name is Alina Jeanine Burr, after Tanya Jeanine. By coincidence, both first names are also of Russian origin. Aline has also received her own little gift, bought in Paris, to remember Tanya by.]

I wonder how Tanya would have been as a mother. Would she have been the scarily impatient terror she was a young teen? Or would she have been the nauseatingly devoted 'Mum' her cats remembered? (well Puffball, as Phoebe can be a bit naughty and sometimes drove her nuts!!!!) The one who missed her cats so much that she wanted to phone them from Norway! She wasn't exactly maternal in her outlook, but neither was I at her age.

I think about what I was doing as she was dying. And the following morning when her body was found. I think about Murphy the farm dog crashing full speed into my car in Hiwinui Road several hours before Tanya's death - and the subsequent 'Murphy's Law' jokes shared when I was oblivious to Tanya being dead. When I had safely dropped off my brother and his new wife [now parents of Tommi and Alina] just a few kilometres earlier, after their return from Norway, I had felt such relief that now all eight members of our family were safely home. The collision with Murphy when returning home from my brother's, was about the only glitch to that. Or so I thought at the time.

I think about my Monday morning spent getting the newly pregnant Jasmine the kitten speyed (against Tanya's wishes) and getting my car's driver's side door operational again so I wouldn't keep clambering in and out of the passenger door. It was while at the panelbeaters' that morning, that I learned about how Murphy's owners, the Stewart family, had several months earlier suffered the tragic loss of a 16-year-old farmworker under an overturned farm quad-bike. 

I later learned from Mr Stewart that the quad-bike accompanying Murphy that afternoon was possibly (or probably) the one that killed this young boy. The quad-bike, driven by Mr Stewart's son, had stopped as normal to allow my car to pass. Murphy, however, had not even noticed my car until the last second, by which time he had no chance to stop. I had spent the whole time thereafter worrying about poor bruised (but very lucky) Murphy - while totally oblivious to the fact that my child was dead. I was intending to ring them on the Monday evening and to make sure he was okay - but instead the following night the guyy who had been with Murphy recognised me on TV, while I was being interviewed about Tanya's death.

Later that week, as it happens, the Stewarts' relative, Jean Thompson, co-conducted Tanya's funeral. Another relative of theirs is now better known as part-owner of Shrek the sheep. For that matter, I once wrote up the history of their Danish shared ancestors for a book - but that's another story!!!

I wonder why I didn't click on the link on the NZ Herald website that would have told me in an instant that Tanya was dead - three hours before the police arrived? Was Tanya here in spirit protecting me? I constantly wonder at what my reaction would have been had I looked at it. I couldn't have rung the house phone - as the police had wandered off with the receiver. I couldn't have rung her cellphone - as its battery had run out after I'd charged it three days previously. 

I would probably have rung the Rotorua police phone number on the NZ Herald webpage and abused the hell out of the poor receptionist in the course of my trauma (because I'd not been told previously). I later spoke to her several times over subsequent weeks, and she was a nice lady, so yelling at her would have been a nasty thing to do to her. 

I eventually got the cellphone back with the police evidence over a year later, having recharged its simcard in the meantime to avoid it expiring. I wished to keep her phone number for sentiment's sake and Kieran now uses it - in another cellphone that we actually have an operator's manual for. 

Tanya's cellphone was a different breed to mine and I couldn't work it. So as a last resort I took it to the Vodaphone shop to ask them if they could make sense of it. I had just texted it from my cellphone so was expecting that message. However, to my total surprise, just after my message arrived, another followed it. The message was from Anita, and it read: "where r u". In the middle of the shop I suddenly started crying with shock. 

Anita had sent Tanya this text message at about 8:30am on Monday 16 September 2002 after the police answered the phone at Tanya's flat. However, as the aforementioned battery had run down in the meantime, it hadn't got through. The text message had therefore been sitting there waiting to be downloaded for about fourteen months. We (Anita and I) had previously checked through the landline, and with great fear, for any answerphone messages, but there had been none. However, we had not given a thought to any text messages. I apologised to the Vodaphone guy about my little outburst and he was very sympathetic. I had already told him the history of the phone fortunately.

I think of the wierd set of circumstances surrounding the abandonment of Tanya's car - the thing that forced her killer into the open - and in front of the security cameras. Did she remain 'with her car' after her death? 

Given its performance over the next six months (until its computer was replaced), some of us certainly wondered. Although it had supposedly run out of fuel, and even had the fuel light going for some time, it started immediately at the police station and drove a kilometre to the nearest petrol station. No-one mentioned the fuel light glowing after it was recovered and I have never seen it glowing despite running it low a few times. The police advised that they did not put petrol into it. 

However, stray electrical responses were not unknown thereafter. As well as refusing to restart when hot over subsequent months (until it refused to start altogether and the elusive fault was finally traced), its stereo also regularly played up. This included it stopping and refusing to restart one day when I was parked at her grave playing the song that was played as her coffin was carried out from her funeral service. Then as I drove out the cemetery gates it had suddenly started again by itself.

On Christmas Day 2002, Kieran and I visited Tanya's grave and then headed for Dannevirke to spend time with Anita and her family as we had over many previous Christmases. Taking Tanya's car was a special part of this. Within a few minutes of leaving the cemetery, I noticed that the tailgate light was on - even though the tailgate hadn't been opened for two days. I stopped and checked it, but the tailgate was secure and yet the light remained on. It only went out when I opened and re-closed the tailgate. I decided and the others felt the same - that this was Tanya's way of saying that she was pleased that we were going to Dannevirke again, just as she would have wished to do.

Perhaps the tailgate light can be explained by the rear-ending the Integra had received two days previously? Maybe it just took a while to show up? However, this was only days after the first High Court appearance by Tanya's killer - and the first time the Integra had been back to Rotorua since we brought it back for the funeral. And there was no electrical involvement in the procession of incidents that accompanied our drive to Rotorua. First a boulder had landed on the newly painted bonnet near Dannevirke. Then two hours later a passing vehicle showered newly laid pebbles all over the bonnet, chipping off even more paint, while also seriously damaging (but not breaking) the windscreen. 

It was possible through this strange pair of events to feel that the car was afraid to continue the re-enactment of its final drive with Tanya three months previously. This was compounded several days later when, while driving the one kilometre between the insurance company's office and the panelbeater who was to assess the damage (not our usual panelbeater), a youth crashed his car into the back of the Integra when we were stopped at the lights. A few minutes later, the car's radio suddenly stopped again. My first reaction was that - because of the radio stopping - that I must be suspicious of the rear-ending incident.

In all three cases, the culprit (two vehicles and a roading contractor) proved to be breaking the road rules. The bonnet was resprayed, the windscreen was replaced and the rear-ending was repaired by my insurance company without charge against me - even though the flash-looking 1994 car this youth was driving had proven to have been deregistered a couple of years previously and all the details he gave were false. Luckily I recorded the correct rego number though. Luckily also I'd made a point of telling this kid the car was haunted and a series of other stuff (just in case) - and hopefully the story will 'haunt' him in the future.

Then of course there is the issue of the way the car was found by the Taupo community cop as he drove on the open road past the service station where it had been abandoned during the night - about eight hours previously. He had caasually waved to the staff there as he drove by, while listening to the police radio describing some red Honda Integra that was missing from Rotorua. Suddenly he spotted it and abruptly pulled up - causing the service station staff to assume he simply wanted to tell them something. However, in perhaps a matter of five or so seconds - while the car was being described to him and while he was waving at the service station staff - he had somehow spotted it in the car paark. Perhaps 'someone' really wanted that car found in a very big hurry. Tanya would certainly have wanted it found.

For my part, these things, especially the ones leading to damage to the car, began to scare me, as they potentially risked our lives. The car felt like it was jumping out in front of every illegal situation it could find. When talking at the cemetery to the widow of the aforementioned murdered policeman, Duncan Taylor, and explaining these wierd things, I suddenly got the urge to turn to the car and to tell it to 'stop' doing that, and to leave finding illegal things to the appropriate people. For a start it was costing me too much. It has never had an accident since, although it worries me sometimes in ways that I never think about with my more sedate Corona.

After that, I had taken it home and parked it in the shed to learn its lesson for a month. Soon after that, and after another several weeks in the shed, I had gone to get it and found the windows entirely fogged up and the entire interior covered in very bad mould. The carpets were soaking wet. I first thought this incredible amount of mould must be a response to the chemicals the police had used in it to find any blood and/or fingerprints. However, eventually it transpired that the repairs to the rear-ending had opened up the previous repairs to Tanya's 2001 crash, and that the tyre-well was full of water. 

Even now there is still a small leak in the back left corner. The panelbeater and I now wonder (?)  if we are being punished for the time it took to repair the car in 2001. We were in fact waiting for Tanya to be able to sit her 'Restricted Licence' - so I wouldn't have to contend with her crashing it again while driving outside her licence conditions. 

I can't imagine ever selling the car. Burrs tend not to do that, and this car has too much associated with it. I believe that Tanya would want it kept - and certainly she would not want it sold to someone who then trashed it. I couldn't stand seeing the car my daughter died for, rusting away in the hands of someone to whom it was 'just a car'.

I took the car to Rotorua, without incident, for the sentencing - as somehow it seemed appropriate. However, at the last moment I got the urge to leave it safely at the motel, instead of taking it to the courthouse. Other times it has also gone to family or special occasions where its presence also felt appropriate - and special. It also gets general use as required. Its a car after all.

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