Murders of Christine and Amber Lundy

Christine Marie Lundy, aged 38, and her seven-year-old daughter Amber Grace Lundy were killed at their family home in Palmerston North, New Zealand, on the night of 29-30 August 2000. Both died of head injuries caused by multiple blows from what investigators determined to be a tomahawk-like weapon or small axe, which was never recovered. The bodies were discovered on the morning of 30 August by Christine's brother, who had gone to the house about a business matter. A rear window had been tampered with, and a jewellery box was later found to be missing.

Christine's husband, Mark Edward Lundy, a travelling salesman, was staying at a motel in Petone, about 134 kilometres away, on a business trip when the deaths occurred. The couple had been married for 17 years and together ran a kitchen sink business that carried substantial debt. Days before the deaths, they had agreed to raise Christine's life insurance cover from NZ$200,000 to NZ$500,000, although the increased policy had not been formally issued. Police initially considered about 60 possible suspects before concentrating on Mark Lundy, and after a six-month investigation they arrested and charged him in February 2001.

At his 2002 High Court trial, the prosecution alleged that Lundy had driven from Petone to Palmerston North and back within roughly three hours to commit the killings, and relied heavily on a small spot of tissue on one of his shirts that a pathologist from Texas identified as Christine's brain tissue. The jury found him guilty of both murders, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period that was subsequently set at 20 years.

In October 2013 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council quashed the convictions, finding that disagreements among expert witnesses about the tissue evidence were too profound to resolve without a new trial. Lundy was retried in 2015 under a revised Crown theory that placed the killings in the early hours of 30 August, and he was again found guilty. The Court of Appeal later concluded that mRNA test evidence the jury had heard should not have been admitted, but dismissed his appeal in 2018. In December 2019 the Supreme Court of New Zealand dismissed a further appeal, stating that the other evidence established beyond reasonable doubt that he had murdered Christine and Amber Lundy.

Lundy has consistently maintained his innocence. Journalists and legal analysts have questioned the driving timeline, the handling of forensic material — including 21 hairs found under Christine's fingernails that were never analysed and were destroyed by police in December 2003 — and the reliability of the scientific evidence presented at trial. In 2022 New Zealand's Criminal Cases Review Commission agreed to examine the case. Lundy was granted parole and released on 7 May 2025 after serving 23 years in prison, subject to conditions, while the Commission's review continued.