Relief at cold case murder charges

A woman thought to be the last person to see Angela Blackmoore alive says she was ‘‘shocked and relieved’’ to learn two people had been charged with the young mother’s murder.

Blackmoore, 21, was 10 weeks pregnant when she was stabbed 39 times in her home in the east Christchurch suburb of Wainoni on August 17, 1995.

Her two-year-old son was found asleep in bed unharmed at the Vancouver Cres property.

Police plumbed the depths of the city’s underworld hunting those responsible for the brutal killing.

However, it wasn’t until they offered a $100,000 reward, sparked by a Stuff investigation – The Homicide Report – in May, that they got the breakthrough.

A 47-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man were charged with Blackmoore’s murder on Friday night.

The pair were granted interim name suppression when they appeared in Christchurch District Court the next morning.

They were remanded

in

Angela Blackmoore

custody without plea and scheduled to reappear in the High Court on November 14.

Kerry Little, 46, now a teacher aide who lives near Whangarei, delivered a pizza to Blackmoore’s home about 9pm on the day she was murdered. Police believe she was the last person, other than the killer or killers, to see her alive.

Little has long doubted whether the woman who came to the door and paid for the pizza was Blackmoore because she didn’t recognise her in photographs police showed her the next morning.

She hoped the arrests would bring Blackmoore’s family some closure. ‘‘I was pretty emotional,’’ she said of learning of the developments in the case.

Little said the killing had always troubled her. She followed news reports keenly and often checked for updates on the internet. ‘‘Nothing was brought up about it, there were no clues and it was so quiet for so long.’’

Despite that, she never lost hope someone would be arrested.

Retired detective Lance Corcoran, who had a lead role in the investigation into Blackmoore’s death for several years, said he was pleased there had been a breakthrough.

‘‘It came quite out of the blue.’’ Corcoran, who retired in 1999 after 36 years as a police officer, said he’d watched the case with interest and met investigators earlier in the year.

‘‘They [the accused pair] have got name suppression so we don’t know who they are but it will be interesting to see if they were suspects when I was investigating.’’

On Saturday, Detective Sergeant Todd Hamilton, officer in charge of the homicide investigation, dubbed Operation Vancouver, announced the arrests and said the investigation into Blackmoore’s murder remained ongoing.

Crowds flocked to the Diwali Festival celebrations in Cathedral Square on Saturday.