Mystery of Tania Furlan’s brutal murder
She opened the door to a delivery man. He asked for a pen, then bludgeoned her. Did police get the right man? Hamish McNeilly investigates.
Tania Furlan opened the door to a delivery man holding a cardboard box. The man asked for a pen, then pulled a hammer out of the box and bludgeoned the Auckland housewife to death.
The offender then fled the grisly scene with Furlan’s youngest child, 6-week-old Tiffany – later abandoning the infant at a church about 18 kilometres away from her family’s Howick home.
The 1996 crime stumped police for months, with officers investigating whether a woman who lost a baby was the possible perpetrator.
Police soon zeroed in on Christopher John Lewis, a known criminal with a rap sheet that included an assassination attempt on Queen Elizabeth II in Dunedin in 1981 and numerous bank robberies.
While extreme violence was not his usual MO, a former prison cellmate told police Lewis confessed to murdering Furlan. The informant, Travis Burns, had been at Paremoremo prison when Lewis was serving five years from 1987 for a string of robberies and burglaries.
Burns said Lewis, who was a self-proclaimed ninja and survival expert, needed money for a martial arts centre.
As part of the plot Lewis wanted to take Furlan hostage to extort money from her husband, Victor, who managed his local Big Fresh supermarket in Glenfield.
After taking baby Tiffany instead, and leaving a ransom note, he changed his mind, dropped the girl at the Royal Oak Baptist Church and returned to the house to retrieve the note.
‘‘He said he must have hit her too hard because the blood was p… ing out,’’ the informant said
‘‘He hit her another five times, because he knew he had f….. up.’’
The police case centred around a shoeprint of Reebok sneakers found at the scene, which matched a pair Lewis owned.
Lewis – who had by this time become a monk – and his partner were in Christchurch when police came for him.
He was wearing the distinctive Reeboks at the time.
He was eventually charged with murder and sent to Mt Eden Prison where he killed himself in 1997 while on remand awaiting trial. A prison guard found the 33-year-old in a ‘‘lifeless state in his cell’’.
In his memoir – published after his death – Lewis maintained he did not kill Furlan, but was framed by Burns, who police paid $30,000 to be an informant against Lewis.
Burns was later convicted of the murder of Joanna McCarthy.
The method was all too familiar.
He battered her to death in front of her two children in a flurry of hammer blows, kicks and punches at her Whangaparaoa home on November 12, 1998.
Lewis’ memoir read: ‘‘It is my hope that these words will reach the real victims of this savage crime – the husband and family of Tania Furlan. I hope to one day look you in the eye and say with infinite Truth that I did not commit this crime, nor ever would do such a thing’’. So is it a cold case, or case solved?
INVESTIGATION RE-OPENED
Four years after Furlan’s brutal killing, police confirmed they were re-opening the investigation into her death.
That was in 2000, and a dozen detectives worked on the case. A senior investigator travelled to Canberra, Australia in to update Furlan’s widower, Victor, on the case.
And then silence.
Stuff approached police for an update on the case, after The Snowman and the Queen series sparked renewed interest in Lewis’ life of crime and royal assassination attempt.
Counties Manukau police Detective Inspector Fa’amanuia Va’aelua said no evidence was found establishing Burns’ involvement.
Police made attempts to interview Burns, both directly and through his legal team, but he declined, Va’aelua said.
The team reviewing the Furlan case uncovered evidence that strengthened the case against Lewis, in particular, evidence around the alibi given by Lewis’ then-partner, he said.
Police now considered the case closed with no immediate plans to re-open it.
‘‘The claimed yoga class alibi for the afternoon of the murder was disproved via telephone records and a statement taken from his claimed alibi witness accepting that they were wrong and could no longer alibi him,’’ Va’aelua said.
But the woman said she stood by her original comments, and denied telling police she could not provide an alibi.
Her experience with the police during the investigation was ‘‘all manipulated’’, she said.
‘‘[It was] all weird . . . just geared to get the result they wanted.’’
Victor Furlan says he is aware of the similarities with the murder committed by Burns, but police assured him they had the right man in Lewis.
‘‘I don’t know any differently . . . I’m aware that another murder was committed in a very similar way,’’ Furlan said.
‘‘Obviously I can only go on based on what the police had told me, and which was in their minds at the time, they were sure he was their murderer.
‘‘So I went with that.’’
ALIBI WITNESS STANDS BY STATEMENT
Lewis’ former partner, who we have agreed not to name, said she would have taken the stand in Lewis’ defence.
The woman said she had no reason to protect Lewis, and maintains he drove her to a yoga class at the time police say Furlan was murdered.
’’Potentially he orchestrated it, but did he do it? I still don’t believe that,’’ she said in an interview in December.
‘‘I think that would have been beneath him to do something so stupid.’’
She believes police took the easy way out by saying the case was closed with no plans to re-open it. A copy of the police file has been requested and specifics over why the alibi was disproved have been asked for.
The response, from a spokeswoman, was that police had ‘‘nothing further to add’’.
The spokeswoman urged the witness to contact police with her concerns.
The witness continues to stand by her statements and is ‘‘not interested in what the police have to say’’.
THE KIDNAPPED BABY, TWO DECADES ON
More than two decades after her mother’s death, Tiffany Furlan is living in Australia.
Saying only that she is ‘‘doing well’’, she referred any questions to her father.
Victor Furlan said he believed his family did ‘‘extremely well’’ dealing with what happened.
In some ways the murder was the easiest for Tiffany because she was so young when her mother was killed, he said.
‘‘She has grown up to be a successful young lady, doing very well, got a great career and a great partner and it is all going well for her.’’
As for Burns, now 49, he last appeared before the New Zealand Parole Board in February 2017.
As well as McCarthy’s murder, the career criminal has convictions including for unlawful sexual connection, rape and aggravated wounding.
Assessed as being an undue risk to society, he was denied parole.
Burns would be seen again in February 2019.
❚ The Snowman and the Queen is a series looking at the life and crimes of Christopher John Lewis, a self-styled teen terrorist and trained ‘‘ninja’’ whose bizarre criminal antics kept police busy from his school days until his strange suicide in prison at age 33. Read the first chapter here.