Fugitive ‘ninja’ hid under bus for 200km
What do you grab when fleeing police? A supply bag, $20,000 and your pet kitten. Hamish McNeilly explains.
Christopher John Lewis steps into the hot bath, takes a sip of brandy and lights a cigar. On the television in his motel room is a news report of a large police manhunt for the fugitive.
The problem for police is they are searching on the West Coast, but Lewis is in Wellington, watching the drama unfold. A week earlier, the 23-year-old had grabbed his pet kitten and the $20,000 in cash he robbed from a Christchurch bank and gone on the run.
Armed police and an Iroquois helicopter comb rugged Buller Gorge bush looking for Lewis, but he escapes by using his ninja skills to wedge himself into the underside of a bus for 200km to flee the area. Now, as he savours his drink and his criminal success in equal parts, he has another destination in mind: Australia.
THE PRINCE
By the time Lewis finds himself holed up in a Wellington motel in May 1987, the young man has already been jailed three times.
His longest stint was more than three years in custody for a crime spree in 1981, which ended with the then-17-year-old firing a shot at Queen Elizabeth II during her Dunedin visit that year.
Lewis narrowly escaped a treason charge for the assassination plot – instead police charged him with possession of a firearm in a public place and discharging a firearm, adding to the other 15 charges he admitted to, including aggravated robbery, arson and burglary.
Lewis served the first year of his sentence in an Invercargill youth detention centre.
He was later given an extra three months inside, after an hourlong prison break (he made a run for it while bringing in milk containers from outside the wire) which landed him in solitary confinement for weeks.
In 1983 he was transferred to Lake Alice psychiatric hospital, near Whanganui, where he planned another attack on the Royal family.
After he tried to overpower a guard with a knife, staff found in Lewis’ room detailed plans to murder Prince Charles, who was at the time touring New Zealand with his then-wife Princess Diana and their young son, William.
That prompted justice officials to try to have Lewis committed under the Mental Health Act. One letter between government departments noted Lewis could ‘‘be a real danger to others’’.
Regardless, the bid failed and Lewis spent the latter part of his sentence in Otago psychiatric hospital Cherry Farm, before returning to Dunedin to live with his parents. Lewis remained on the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) watch list.
After serving more time for burglary (including that of his former primary school) in 1985, Lewis was in his 20s and ready to make headlines again: It was time to put his ninjutsu training into practise.
THE RUN
The former boy burglar appeared to be going straight. Now living in Christchurch, the 23-year-old had a partner, regularly attended church, and had set-up his own ninja dojo.
But his new civilian life did not last.
‘‘Robbery was the only area of crime that I felt fitted my disposition,’’ he wrote in his memoir.
First, he hit a Christchurch BNZ bank and three post offices – two in Dunedin – netting about $20,000. Armed with a fake pistol and a ninja sword, he eluded police and headed for the West Coast.
Posing as a writer, he rented a small flat in Westport, where he hunkered down for the next six weeks with his adopted kitten, Tiger.
Running out of cash, he returned to Christchurch to rob another bank. In a stolen Ford Telstar, Lewis fled back to the Westport flat. But three days in and with police hot on his trail, Lewis packed his belongings and put Tiger in the front seat of the Ford, planning to drive to Dunedin and then fly to Auckland.
He was soon being followed by police, and after a high-speed pursuit in torrential rain through the Buller Gorge, Lewis deliberately drove off the road, plunging 10 metres into dense bush and coming to a stop metres from the flooded Buller River. Grabbing a radio, provisions and $20,000 cash, he abandoned Tiger and went bush.
‘Ninja skills may benefit fugitive’, The Dominion Post reported on May 5, 1987.
Dozens of police, including the Armed Offender Squad and an Iroquois helicopter scoured the gorge.
Police told media the chance of Lewis surviving was ‘‘very slim’’ given the cold and wet conditions, but noted a diary found in his crashed car showed he previously survived in the bush for days on end.
That was thanks to his ninja skills, Lewis wrote in his memoir.
He’d first learnt the martial art Tae Kwon Do as a 14-year-old, but was drawn to the art of the ninja under the tutelage of the so-called Master Leong.
His martial arts training showed him ‘‘how to injure, or even kill someone with my bare hands’’.
He eventually ran his own ‘‘terrorism’’ courses in Christchurch under the guise of a Ninjutsu class, telling students he was a black belt, first dan.
According to reports in the Christchurch Press from his time on the run, lessons included using darts, knives and spikes, poisons, world politics and bush survival.
He expected students to run hundreds of kilometres crosscountry, tread water for three hours, swim 5km by breast-stroke and swim under 30 logs.
‘‘He professes to be a ninja, but it is highly doubtful,’’ a martial arts expert told the newspaper.
‘‘There is no governing body. If you wanted to start a ninjutsu school you could call yourself a ninja.’’
Trained ninja or not, Lewis remained at large following his daring plunge in the Buller Gorge.
After a week evading police in the bush, he came to a road where he spied an empty bus he hoped would take him south to Greymouth.
Placing his cash-filled backpack under the bus, he nestled on some pipes to make his escape. Unfortunately for Lewis, the bus travelled 100km to Karamea, and he was forced to return to Westport the same way.
Lewis then walked along railway tracks and at the Inangahua Junction he hitched a ride to Blenheim and flew to Wellington the next day.
After securing passage to Melbourne by boat in a month’s time, Lewis flew to Auckland and stayed in a bedsit to await departure.
After a tip-off, he was finally captured at gunpoint by police while buying a Mini.
He pleaded guilty to eight robberies and burglaries and was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ jail.
Considered a security risk, Lewis was sent to the toughest prison in the country – Paremoremo – where he found enlightenment.
THE BUDDHIST
Monks visit the young criminal who once tried to kill the Queen, and he writes to The Truth newspaper in 1989 about his ‘‘newfound enlightenment’’ in prison.
The self-styled terrorist has converted to Buddhism and is working on his rehabilitation. He writes that he regrets his offending and asks that prisoners who ‘‘show initiative to clean up their life’’ are let go.
Five years into his sentence, he is released on parole.
It takes just four weeks before he is back inside following another bank robbery.
Freed again in 1995, Lewis and his then-partner move to Karekare, a small coastal settlement west of Auckland, to practise yoga and start a business selling herbal medicine for dogs.
He finds a studio in an old warehouse on Auckland’s North Shore and starts teaching the Korean martial art Hapkido, and later Ninjutsu.
But in a year, he will be awaiting trial again.
This time the stakes are higher than ever: he is accused of murdering an Auckland housewife.
Lewis maintained he was framed for murder by a former cellmate dubbed ‘Jimmy the Weasel’, who was paid $30,000 by police for his information.
Did Lewis really bludgeon 27-year-old Tania Furlan to death in her own home? How did his shoe print end up at the murder scene?
And how did the young criminal manage to take his own life while under prison watch?
❚ The Snowman and the Queen is a five-part Stuff series looking at the life and crimes of Christopher John Lewis, a selfstyled 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 final chapter tomorrow.