Widow of Darcy Te Hira, beaten to death in a prison kitchen in 1985, still has questions

By Mike Wesley-Smith

The widow of Darcy Te Hira, who was murdered in Mt Eden prison in 1985, has spoken publicly for the first time about her loss and the questions she still has about his death.

"I want answers," she says.

Suzanne Young was just 19 when she first met Te Hira (whom she refers to by his other name - Tony) at an Auckland pub in 1983.

"It was just like, his eyes, his everything. I thought, Wow. Yeah. Oh my god, it was like, yeah, it was love at first sight, six months down the track we were married".

Young has opened up about her relationship with Te Hira for RNZ's podcast Nark, which investigates Te Hira's death and the conviction of Ross Appelgren for his murder.

Police and prosecutors said Appelgren, angered at being ripped off by Te Hira over a drug-rip off, bashed him to death in the Mt Eden Prison kitchen with a large wooden paddle. The prosecution case relied principally on another inmate's account that he witnessed Appelgren attack Te Hira.

Until his death in January 2013, Appelgren maintained he was innocent, saying he was not in the kitchen when Te Hira was attacked. As revealed in Nark, Appelgren's widow Julie has launched a new legal effort to overturn her husband's conviction.

Young believes Appelgren murdered her husband, but she doesn't think she's had the whole story.

"It's affected me mentally for a long time… I keep saying it doesn't, but it does. I suppose, again, at my age back then. I was young, naive, in love… I would like answers at the end of the day. I suppose just to give me peace of mind, of what really happened."

'He just treated me so well'

Forty years on, she is happy to finally have the chance to explain who Te Hira really was, that he was more than just an inmate who was killed in Mt Eden Prison, and to express her concerns about his death.

"He just treated me so well. Very family-orientated. Just very caring."

Young still remembers the first time her working-class parents were introduced to Te Hira, a man who had spent years in and out of prison.

"Mum took one look and thought, holy sh**. Yeah, I could see the look on Mum's face.

But it didn't last.

"He was so good to Mum and Dad. Got on so well with them."

Their new life together was abruptly interrupted when Te Hira was arrested and imprisoned for six months on historic theft and burglary offences in September 1984. He was sent to Mt Eden Prison to serve the sentence that would ultimately claim his life.

'So happy that he was going to be home'

Young visited Te Hira in prison and was looking forward to his release in January 1985, a date that would coincide with their first wedding anniversary.

Young still remembers the last phone call she had with Te Hira: "He just sounded so happy that he was going to be home".

But he never made it home, because on the morning of 6 January 1985, Te Hira was found convulsing in a chair in the lunchroom off the Mt Eden Prison Kitchen.

According to prison incident reports, revealed for the first time in Nark, staff initially believed Te Hira had experienced an epileptic seizure. Te Hira was rushed to the Auckland hospital.

It was only when Young arrived a short time later, that she was told her husband had experienced a blunt force trauma to his head.

'They knew damn well, what had happened'

Given those injuries, Young still doesn't accept what prison authorities told her - that staff had believed Te Hira had only experienced a seizure. "Why would they say that to me? When they knew damn well, what had happened?"

Some of the staff who attended to Te Hira did not report seeing any blood or obvious injuries on him. Nor did the ambulance crew who transported him to hospital.

However on Nark a former prison guard, among those first on the scene, has described what he saw as Te Hira was wheeled to the ambulance: "His head was swollen, and his eyes were grotesquely protruding from his face."

The guard, who did not want to be identified, said his immediate thought was that Te Hira had "been struck around the head, very hard, with some firm or solid object".

That accords with the recollections of other former Mt Eden guards who were interviewed for the podcast. Former guard Mark Anthony says, "yes it was an assault. It was never ever thought of as anything else".

Delays in notifying police, crime scene cleaned

The confusion over Te Hira's injuries came at a cost. Nark reports for the first time that it took six hours for police to be notified about the assault. In the intervening period the crime scene in the kitchen was cleaned up by an inmate, resulting in the potential loss of crucial forensic evidence.

Anthony is "absolutely gobsmacked. The delay, that's unbelievable".

Young says she was never told about this by police or prison officials. She said the revelations confirmed her original instinct she was never told the full story about her husband's murder.

"At this point in time, I'm so angry. Really angry about the whole debacle of the whole thing. I was absolutely nothing to them".

However, the handling of Te Hira's attack is defended by former Chief Prison Officer Errol Dyer. Dyer was not at the prison when Te Hira was assaulted, but assisted police with the ensuing investigation.

He says the on-duty prison officers were reliable and honest, not people inclined to cover anything up.

Given the initial belief that Te Hira had experienced a seizure, Dyer said he would have expected the kitchen area to be thoroughly cleaned before the next meal was served. Police were called as soon as they knew Te Hira had been assaulted.

The Department of Justice that was responsible for Mt Eden Prison no longer exists. The Department of Corrections which now runs New Zealand prisons said in a statement:

"Firstly, we wish to note that the death of a loved one while in prison is difficult and our condolences go to the family and friends of Darcy Te Hira.

"Due to the passage of time, and the loss of institutional knowledge and staff, and our reliance on the archived records that are still held…Corrections is unable to provide comment and respond to Ms Young's concerns and assertions."

For Young, all these years later the pain of losing her husband still lingers. "As I tell people, it never goes away." However she's grateful to have now had a chance to speak as part of the investigation. " I've been able to,  express how I feel. Finally, somebody can actually hear my side."

Follow and Listen to the Nark podcast at rnz.co.nz/nark or wherever you get your podcasts.

• If you have any information on the Appelgren case/Te Hira murder, please email nark@rnz.co.nz.