Memorial to Tanya Burr, 1981-2002

Aspects of Serious Youth Crime in New Zealand in September 2002

(Part Two)

The Taylor/Luff case - 2002

Although teenaged killers featured prominently in the media in the weeks before Tanya's death, the most prominent group - due to one being aged only 12 - had killed in 2001 (the Choy murder). Accordingly it was their sentencing that occurred in September 2002. 

However, the killing of Duncan Taylor had occurred only ten weeks before Tanya's death. This case was also surrounded by considerable publicity - naturally about the victim, but also very much on the circumstances of the killer.

Detective Constable Duncan Taylor (39), was shot dead in the line of duty at Taipo Road, Rongotea, near Palmerston North, on 5 July 2002. His killer was school boy Daniel Luff (17), whose motivation effectively was that he was very upset that his girlfriend had broken up with him. Luff also shot and wounded a female police officer at the same time. It then took the police some hours to extract him from the home of his girlfriend's parents - who for a time he also held hostage. This was a farming family and evidently people were of the opinion that Luff's former girlfriend could do much better for herself that to date Luff.

Taylor was the 26th police officer killed on duty in New Zealand since 1890. About 1,000 people attended his funeral in Palmerston North on 9 July 2002, including the Prime Minister and Governor General. (See his Obituary)

Although his guilt of the crime was never in doubt, Luff formally pleaded guilty to murder on 23 August 2002. His personal circumstances and very troubled family background were also well covered in the media as the various events occurred, including a plaque in memory of Taylor being unveiled at the Police College at Porirua on 26 August 2002. A year after Taylor's death, another plaque in his memory was also unveiled outside the Feilding Police Station.

Doubtless it was rather hard for anyone to actually miss the progression of this case in August 2002 - and the inevitable coverage of Luff in the media at that time - unless, like us, you were overseas. Even then I probably read about it online in the Palmerston North newspaper while in Norway.

We of course don't know if Wharekura watched TV, listened to the radio or read newspapers around this time, although certainly he saw his own photo in Rotorua's Daily Post a few days before he killed Tanya. He had been interviewed in the street about water fluoridisation! This happy smiling photo duly reappeared in the media in February 2003 after his name suppression was released.

Luff was duly sentenced to life imprisonment with a 17-year non-parole period on 18 September 2002, the same day Wharekura first appeared in court at Porirua to be charged with stealing Tanya's car (a 'holding charge' while they worked on the murder charge). Luff's crime was then described in detail in the NZ Herald on 21 September 2002.

As well as both killers having seemingly 'out-of-place' girlfriends from farms and who lived with their stereotypically 'nuclear families', the killers themselves had very dysfunctional families - and of course their own pictures in newspapers. In addition and in contrast to other youngsters sentenced around that time, Luff and Wharekura also found themselves confronted by a tough new law for such killers. 

It seems ironic that Wharekura's non-parole period was discounted by three years because of case law supposedly established in Luff's sentencing (relating to 'manifestly unjust') - given the similarities and that the two victims ended up buried only metres apart.

The NZ Herald duly published the following four days after Tanya was killed and the day after Luff was sentenced. It explains some of the background to the law concerned:

Luff tastes harsh new law