FORBIDDEN LOVE
Davina Murray had a promising career as a criminal lawyer ahead of her. Then she met one of New Zealand’s most horrific killers and rapists, Liam Reid, and her life took a very surprising turn.
Reid – who is serving a 23-year sentence for the rape and killing of deaf woman Emma Agnew, and the rape, attempted murder and robbery of a 21-yearold student nine days later – stole Davina’s heart.
‘I hate that I’m in love with him... if the courts say no, I wouldn’t care, but I’m scared to lose him,’ she wrote in a text to a friend. ‘He makes me laugh, he makes me think, he makes me cry, he makes me feel beautiful, he makes me sing.’
She then told a friend she had kissed Reid in a way she had never kissed anyone before. She texted: ‘He’s the best kisser I’ve ever kissed,’ and he was ‘seriously the best – it’s like he just gets me.’
The love affair has seen Davina arrested too, and in 2013, she was convicted of smuggling an iphone, cigarettes and a lighter to Reid. She was sentenced to community service and lost her legal career.
Undeterred, the pair were married in June inside New Zealand’s toughest jail. The best man was believed to be another convict – jailed for his role in a drug ring – and the event was catered and photographs were taken of the newlyweds.
‘I find that particular marriage absolutely distasteful, and I think most New Zealanders will,’ said Corrections Minister Louise Upston at the time.