This year the Herald’s award-winning newsroom produced a range of first-class journalism, including investigating the state of our mental health in the Great Minds series, how NZ can rebuild stronger post-Covid with The New New Zealand and how to minimise the impact of living in an Inflation Nation.
We also tackled our literacy crisis in our Reading Block series, while dogged investigative reporting by Kate McNamara resulted in an investigation into the awarding of contracts to businesses associated with family members of Cabinet minister Nanaia Mahuta.
This summer we’re bringing back some of the best-read Premium articles of 2022. Today we take a look at four compelling true crime cases.
Inside the cold case of missing Dunedin mum Tuitania Barclay
This month marks 20 years since young Dunedin mother Tuitania Barclay vanished without a trace. Police eventually came to believe she was killed, but a hefty reward and repeated searches have failed to yield an arrest or find the 28-year-old’s body. But has the heat been on the wrong man? George Block reports.
Matters have always moved slowly in the case of Tuitania Barclay.
The last confirmed sighting of the mother-of-three was at her suburban Dunedin property on September 17, 2002, when her landlord arrived to chase the rent.
Barclay lived with Bill Brown, father of two of her three children.Friends would go on to tell police their relationship was foundering and money was tight.
An envelope dated late September 2002 seemed to suggest she was cutting things off with Brown, reading “Here the ring back who wants to marry a mental b***h”.
She appeared to have taken nothing with her, leaving her car, clothes and other belongings behind.
After that final sighting it would be five months before Brown reported her missing, at the urging of concerned friends who did not believe she would walk out on the children she doted on.
This, along with other red flags such as the fact he wiped and then began using her phone and changed their dual parents benefit to a solo benefit, have cast Brown as a suspect.
The rise and fall of Ron Brierley: From corporate raider to criminal
Known for his daring corporate endeavours, love of cricket and collectables, a famed Kiwi businessman’s life achievements are now tarnished by exploiting society’s most vulnerable. Sam Hurley reports.
It’s said Ron Brierley’s first business was trading stamps while at Wellington College.
Later in life he was rumoured to have one of the largest stamp collections in the world and by the 1970s and 80s the man — known to some as “Lionheart” — was a household name in New Zealand and Australia for his boardroom feats.
His money and power grew. One in every 20 Kiwis once owned shares in his company RA Brierley Investments Ltd (BIL). A knighthood followed for services to business in 1988 and his net worth peaked at more than $200 million, making him one of New Zealand’s wealthiest people at the time.
But now the 84-year-old’s reputation is in tatters and his business achievements tainted as he faces more than a year behind bars.
He was arrested by Australian Border Force officers as he was about to board a flight to Fiji on December 17, 2019. His hand luggage was seized. Unbeknown to Brierley, an anonymous phone call had sparked a five-month police investigation into his activities.
Police said they found more than 200,000 images and 500 videos on Brierley’s laptop and electronic storage devices depicting child abuse material. In total, he was charged over 46,795 images found.
The spy who came in from the cold: Former KGB agent ‘poisoned’ in Auckland
A former KGB spy turned double agent claims he was poisoned on Auckland’s Queen St. Kurt Bayer reveals the incredible story of Boris Karpichkov.
On the morning of November 20, 2006, after his now ritualistic daily internet cafe visit, the most stunning aspect of Karpichkov’s remarkable story is said to have happened.
Wandering Auckland’s bustling Queen St, stopping to gaze in occasional shop windows and check if he was still being tailed, Karpichkov says he was suddenly attacked by a beggar. The ex-spy was kicked before his attacker shaped as if to punch his face. But instead of being struck, there was “some kind of dust-like substance coming out of his hand towards my face”.
The beggar, unable to grab the bag, gave up and walked away calmly.
Karpichkov staggered on. He believes he saw one man who had been following him that morning. After walking 50m-200m, he suddenly felt dizzy and almost lost consciousness.
Sweating, he sat and tried to compose himself. His upper body was sore. Around 20 minutes later, shaken and dazed, Karpichkov managed to walk home. He typed a letter to his lawyer describing the attack but that night went downhill again. Cold, feverish, shivering, acute upset stomach.
The symptoms persisted for the next few days before his gut stabilised. But a strange red rash soon spread across his chest. The dizzy spells returned. He started rapidly losing weight — between 25kg-30kg over the next two months. His body hair was falling out. Karpichkov was growing increasingly concerned, and although a GP visit that week offered no explanations, other than the doctor suggesting a “typical stomach flu” and not ordering any blood tests, the old spy started to suspect he had been poisoned.
Millionaire Mark Lyon’s life of addiction and deviancy - and his death
Mark Lyon was expecting to be released from prison by Christmas. Instead, he never again became a free man.
He died in July in Waikato Hospital after being brought from Tongariro Prison where he was serving a 15-year sentence for a range of drug and sex-related charges, including offences against girls as young as 14.
The Herald broke the news to the father of that girl and he said: “You’ve put a smile on my face that will be there all day.
“He is a totally evil man and I feel very, very happy he is now dead and was never released from prison and never felt freedom again.”
At 67, Lyon’s death is on the younger side of life expectancy for a wealthy Pākehā man. Given the abuse heaped upon his body, it’s a wonder he made it that far.