Crime Junkie - MURDERED: The Lundys Part 1

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

When a woman and her young daughter are found brutally murdered in their home, the investigation leads to the person who was supposed to have loved them more than anyone else in the world. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-the-lundys-part-one 

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And did you guys all say, and I'm Brit with me? Oh my God, have you seen that all over the internet too? All over Twitter. I love it so much. Yeah, apparently it's like a whole thing where everyone's like, says it along with you, which I didn't even realize on this end of things. And I love it so much. It's my favorite thing. I think it's what I love about this show

and what I wanted it to be when we started it, right? That like, no matter who you are, Amy, Michael, Nina, whatever. We're all Brits. Yeah, for an hour every Monday, you guys are all Brits. And I think it's amazing. I love our little Crime Junkie nation. And our nation is getting really, really big. Our nation is global and we actually have a global case today outside of the U.S. Because today I want to tell you about a story that on the surface seems to have all the elements of an open and shut case.

When a woman and her young daughter are found brutally murdered in their home, the focus eventually turns to the person who is supposed to have loved them more than anyone else in the world. But even after police uncover a steady trail of sex, money, and lies, questions remain. And to this day, some feel that they have never been properly answered. This is the story of Christine and Amber Lundy. On the morning of August 30th, 2000, in Palmerston North, which is on New Zealand's North Island, a man named Glenn Wegery is getting ready to go over to his older sister, Christine Lundy's house. Glenn is self-employed with his own trucking business,

and he's actually going over to Christine's house to pick up these tax papers that she's been helping him with. You see, Christine is actually in business herself. Her and her husband Mark sell kitchen sinks and like benches and stuff. And she keeps the book for like this whole operation. So she's like the perfect person for Glenn to turn to about financial stuff. Oh, totally. My sister runs the books for my family. Oh, yeah.

And I always go to her for like tax questions. Help me, please. It's like that from Friday. She's like, help me, I'm poor. Literally. So Glenn calls over to the house to make sure that she's still okay with him coming over like they planned. But when Christine doesn't pick up the phone, he decides to just kind of head over anyways. Like he lives close by.

She knows he like is going to be there. Maybe she's just like busy or doing something. And he gets there sometime around 9am. Now Glenn doesn't use the front door. Instead, he goes around to the back like he usually does. And again, this is totally like I thought about your house too. I don't think I ever used your front door in my entire life. Yeah.

No one does. Everyone goes to the back. Totally normal. So this back door actually goes directly through the conservatory, which for like a brief second, my American brain was like, what is a conservatory? Yeah. But then my baby crime junkie memories came flooding back. And I was like, Mr. Green in the conservatory with a knife.

So my fellow clue playing junkies will know it's like a sunroom basically what we would call here in the US. I mean, I would also like to point out that we are in over three years of crime junkie. And we've never talked about how we played clue all the time. It's a staple. And I won never. I'm pretty good at it. You always beat me. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I know. Anyways, so according to News Hub New Zealand, Glenn notices the sliding door is open. And not like, just like a little crack open, like a two to three foot gap. But, you know, he's just kind of like whatever, you know, she's got a kid. She's coming and going. Maybe she left it open and he goes into the house. So he doesn't find it weird that there's just a completely open door there. Not at all.

No, it doesn't sound like it. At least from the research that I found, he just kind of goes inside. Whatever is going on in his head, though, Glenn calls out a hello when he gets inside the house. And even though she's expecting him there, Christine doesn't answer. At first, Glenn thinks maybe she didn't hear him, maybe she's back in like their home office and doesn't know he's there yet. But when he calls out again and there's still no answer, the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand up. So with this strange feeling growing stronger, Glenn goes further into the house, planning to go into Christine's office. But once he gets into the hallway, he sees something that makes his heart stop in his chest.

There, face down in the doorway to Christine and Mark's bedroom is Glenn's seven-year-old niece, Amber. She is lying motionless in a pool of blood and the back of her head has been split open. Oh my God. Glenn rushes to the phone to call for help, telling the operator that he is calling to report a murder. Like, there's no question about what this is. But Glenn's nightmare isn't over because while he's on the phone and checking Amber's pulse, he finally gets close enough to see inside the bedroom where his sister, Christine, is lying naked in her bed, face up, motionless, also with blood everywhere. While Glenn is waiting for the first responders to arrive, Christine's best friend, this woman named Karen, actually comes over.

And she comes over all the time to go for these like normal walks with Christine. And so she's just stopping by as part of her routine. Now, Glenn tries to tell her, like, listen, you don't want to come inside. Like, you don't want to see what's happening. You don't want to see your best friend like that. But Karen goes in anyway, only to be confronted with the same awful scene. The two of them sit huddled together in the dining room until police and ambulances arrive. And when they do, they take over this scene.

They lock it down. This is a crime scene now. Just a few minutes after, this would be right around 9.20 in the morning, the phone rings. Now, Karen answers the phone. And on the other line is Christine's husband, Mark, who's away on a business trip in Patoni. Patoni is about two hours or so to the south of where they live. And, you know, when he's calling at this time, he has no idea what's happened. With coaching from police, Karen tells the hardest lie of her life that Christine can't come to the phone right now.

But she'll call him back as soon as she can. Why did the police tell her to lie to him? You know, I honestly don't know. It kind of feels a little weird to me. My gut is that they didn't want him learning that from her. Like, I would imagine, you know, he's obviously so close to the family. We know that they always look at spouses or family members. And I'm wondering if they wanted to, like, see his reaction, right?

Like, are you surprised? Are you? But I don't know when they were planning on telling him because the guy's far away. Like, someone, what's weird to me is why they didn't say, like, oh, she can't come to the phone. When are you going to be back? Where you should head back now. But he was, like, planned to be back, like, later that day, I think. So I don't, that was a long way of me saying, I have no idea.

Okay, okay. Now at the scene, even the police are shocked at the viciousness of these murders as they start to process the scene. Based on Amber's position in the doorway of her parents' bedroom, their first thought is that maybe she had come in, saw what was happening to her mom, saw Christine being attacked, and then she probably was, like, trying to flee, trying to escape when the killer went after her. So she wasn't necessarily a target. We don't know if the killer would have gone after her afterwards,

but likely she stumbled onto something she wasn't supposed to see. So when you said earlier that she was laying in the doorway, is she, like, laying like she's coming out of the room, like, like feet in the room, torso in the hallway then? Exactly. Even though Christine and Amber have pretty clearly been bludgeoned to death, there's no sign of a possible murder weapon during the initial searches, and they won't have a better idea of what killed them until they get the autopsy results back.

During the early searches inside the Lundy House, police find a couple of important clues. So first, they find a window in the conservatory that has this broken latch, like it's been forced open, and there, on that same window, is this, like, bloody smear, which they don't know who the blood belongs to. Is it Christine? Is it Amber? Is it someone else's? But they know it's important, right?

Now, they also find in the house a McDonald's receipt that is time-stamped for 5.43 p.m. the night before. Okay, so Marcus do home the same day. Do we know when he, like, found out, or did he just come home from his business trip, like, normal, except the police are treating his entire house like a crime scene? So what I found from the investigator episode about this case is that, okay, so remember he calls, and Karen's like,

hey, she just can't come to the phone, she'll call you back. And that's at, like, 9.20. Well, by 11.40 that morning, when Christine still hasn't called him back, he starts getting a little nervous, like, you know, it's been a couple of hours now, you should have called me, what's going on. So he calls up one of his friends, this guy named Stuart, and he asks Stuart to go check on Christine and make sure everything's okay. So his buddy goes over to the house,

and his buddy's the one that finds the house, like, swarming with police. And Stuart, not police, actually calls Mark back and tells him, like, hey, you need to get your butt back here right now. So because of that call, Mark hurries back home, and he is back there by, like, 1.15. He's stopped by police, like, trying to get into the house, and they're like, listen, we can't let you in. This is a crime scene.

So that's kind of how he discovers what happened to his family. Now, I don't know exactly what his first real interaction with police looked like, because when I went diving for more information from the earliest days of the investigation, like, I was looking for stuff right after the murders. I was actually shocked at how little I could really find. Now, part of that might be due to the fact that this was happening really, like, right before newspapers were digitized. I'm also in the U.S.

There's some sites I don't have access to. Stuff could have been suppressed by law. Like, I don't know. But, like, there is this weird, like, silence period that I don't know how things were unfolding in, like, the day or two right after the bodies were found. Right, right. But I think it's kind of telling about the case,

because the same way we have a blind spot looking back on the case, the public really had a blind spot in the early days of the investigation. I mean, they knew something really terrible had happened in that home, but they didn't know the motive. They didn't know how the investigation was progressing, or even if police had any kind of persons of interest or suspects. I mean, they were kind of left to wait for bits of information to come out one tiny bit at a time to tell them whether this was targeted

or if they should all be fearing for their own safety, if this was just random. Oh, wow. Now, from what I can tell, the earliest article that came out about the case, at least in the archives that I can access here in the U.S., is from the New Zealand Herald on September 3rd, so four days after Amber and Christine were found. This is when the public learns that they both died from what police call, quote, violent and severe head injuries.

This article said that they also had to be identified by, quote, forensic means instead of a visual ID. Like, that's how bad it was. Oh, my God. And police tell the public in this article, like, they don't know what caused the Lundy's injuries yet, but they're asking the public to keep a lookout for clues, which is a little bit vague.

Yeah, like, what kind of clues? That's nothing. Anything could be a clue. Right. You just might not know it. Now, from what I can find, Paul is also the first time people learn that Mark was saved from the attack because he wasn't home.

And police are talking to him to see if he can help shed some light on why this happened or, you know, who could have wanted to do something like this? Like I said, this was a vicious attack. And they really turn to Mark for these answers. They're saying there's got to be a motive. What would inspire such a brutal heart-wrenching crime? Police really believe at the time that if they can find the motive,

that will lead them to their killer. While police are intentionally vague in the media about what they think might have led to Amber and Christine's murders, one week into the investigation, they do go public with what they're thinking isn't the motive behind the crimes, if that makes sense. And this is when the media coverage really starts to pick up. According to Paul Yandel and Allison Horwood's reporting

for the New Zealand Herald, based on their initial report from the pathologist, police do not think that this was a sexually motivated crime. So neither of them had been sexually assaulted? The piece doesn't explicitly say that, but that is the impression that they're giving at this point in time. However, they do make it known that they now think the murder weapon is something heavy with a sharp edge and possibly a handle.

And they make a very bold assertion that is heard by everyone. They're not considering Mark Lundy a suspect. By the time Amber and Christine are laid to rest, just over a week after they died, it feels like the whole city is grieving along with Mark. The funeral itself is just heartbreaking with speeches from Christine's friends and Amber's primary school teachers.

According to John O'Galluska's reporting for Stuff New Zealand, Mark spends the service just sobbing loudly. And by the time it's over, Mark is so overcome with emotion that he literally collapses and actually has to be carried out of there. Now, since the media from all over the area is covering the funeral, they document the whole thing. And there is this one picture of Mark that goes kind of viral before going viral was a thing.

Some people think it's heartbreaking to see this guy just so absolutely overwhelmed by grief. Other people think that it's kind of an act and over the top. And here, Brad, I'm going to show you this picture, which is, again, like synonymous with the case. Yeah, I mean, it's this middle-aged guy, he's wearing dark sunglasses, and he's kind of got his arms over a person on each side

kind of keeping him propped up. They're literally carrying him. Yeah. I mean, this man is literally burying his family, and he winds up getting mocked for being, you know, too upset about it or something. I feel like if he was not upset enough, then we'd be having this exact same conversation

just in reverse, right? Exactly. I think this is something that we kind of hammered home with people before. So if he wasn't grieving and sobbing and hanging on people, and he was stoic, he'd be too stoic. And this is where, like, everyone kind of sees what they want to see. But this is by far one of the most enduring images from the whole case. Now, after the funeral, as September continues

and the investigation approaches its one-month anniversary, police come out and announce something interesting. And this is really the first new piece of information the community has gotten since the murders first occurred. Police tell the public that Christine Lundy's jewelry box was missing from the house. Okay, wait. So is robbery suddenly, like, the motive?

It's not, actually, because according to more of Allison Horwood's reporting in the New Zealand Herald, it's the only thing that was missing from the Lundy house. Yeah. There's nothing to indicate even that Christine had super valuable jewelry either. So I think what they're putting out, like, they're putting it out to the public to even see if the public has any idea why it could have been taken,

because there really is no good explanation for it, at least not yet anyway. The investigation continues throughout September without any sign of either the jewelry box or the murder weapon, which authorities believe is key to this case. They think if they can find these items, it might give them more of an idea who their killer is. Now, as they keep looking,

their search radius expands and expands out to the river that runs along the southern part of the city. Police even send out multiple dive teams to the river, but every single search they do turns up empty. As time goes on without any arrests, the rumor mill in this little town starts working overtime. Everyone wants to know who's responsible, and they're all bursting with theories.

Even Mark, the grieving father and husband, is getting some hard side-eye, even though police said not a suspect, not a suspect. The gossip and speculation is becoming so overwhelming that by November of 2000, police have to again come out and publicly say that they view Mark as a victim in this whole situation. And so at that point, everyone in town is left to wonder,

well, if not Mark, then who? So what about Glenn? Since he found the bodies, I have to think that he'd be somewhere in this mix-up, right? So police aren't really talking about Glenn at this point. You know, I'm sure he was interviewed. There may have been some speculation about him in the early days, but again, going off newspapers at the time,

no one really had like a ton of questions about him. So I would imagine he was looked into as the brother, as someone who found both of them, but he wasn't a key person of interest, at least in the public's perspective, and police weren't saying that he was in the early days. According to TVNZ One News, by the end of the year,

the investigation is known as Operation Winter, and it is the biggest murder investigation in the history of Palmerston North, with a team of 40 officers spending thousands of hours and thousands of dollars trying to find the person who committed this heinous crime. And then, on February 23rd, 2001, out of nowhere, police drop a bombshell.

They announce that they've arrested Mark Lundy for the murders of his wife and daughter. But I thought you just said they were considering him a victim in all of this too. Plus, he was out of town for business on the day they died, right? Yeah, I don't know if they were spinning a different story for the public, if somewhere along the way they changed their minds.

But yes, so he has always maintained that he was out of town when this happened. There's no way he could have done it. And while police say that they can place him in Patoni, where he says he was away on business, like, you know, parts of his phone work is actually do put him there. There is several hours of Mark's time that night

that apparently are unaccounted for, time that they believe Mark used to drive back to his home, slaughter his family, and then drive back to establish an alibi. At the time of Mark's arrest, police estimate that they've got around 90% of the forensics analyzed, and they're expecting the rest back within two weeks.

So without knowing just what those forensics are, everyone is pretty much just left, like, jaw dropped. Like, what the heck just happened? How on earth did police even get to Mark when just a couple of months ago they were basically coming to his defense? I mean, yeah, I have all the questions about this too. Like, first, what kind of forensics do police even have

that, you know, change their mind completely about Mark? The police don't give any specifics, like, at this point, but the media does give out a little bit more detail that the public hasn't heard before. Like, remember how I told you Amber and Christine had to be identified forensically? Yeah. So according to TVNZ One News,

the injuries were so bad that police had to use their dental records to definitively ID them. And that same article also mentions that law enforcement now believe the murder weapon was a tomahawk or a small axe. Which would fit right in with what they had said before about the weapon being heavy and sharp and possibly having a handle. Yeah, but still at this point,

they can't actually find the murder weapon. So police don't know for sure, this is just a theory. And police haven't found Christine's jewelry box either or the clothes Mark was allegedly wearing the night of the killings. So while they obviously feel like they have a strong enough case to move forward without these things because they arrested him, the police also turned to the public for help asking for anyone who saw Mark's car that night

or saw anything to come forward. As I'm sure you can imagine, right from the very minute this hits the news, Mark's arrest is a media firestorm. All the public sympathy he had is completely erased. And that picture that I showed you, the one that has become so infamous of him at the funeral, is just eviscerated. I mean, you name it, it's out there.

The name calling, the rage, the how dare he put on such an act that mocks Amber and Christine's memory. Literally, any awful thing to say about Mark, it has been said. The backlash is vicious. And it only gets worse as summer turns into winter in the southern hemisphere. And as everyone waits to learn if Mark Lundy will actually stand trial. Just after five months after his arrest, with the one year anniversary of the murders coming up,

deposition hearings for Mark start on July 15, 2001. Now, this isn't a deposition like we think of here in the States, which is like, you know, you have these like meetings before you go to trial. Rather, as I understand it, it's closer to what we might call like a grand jury hearing or like a pretrial hearing. According to the New Zealand Herald, the crown prosecution is basically going to lay out their case

in front of two justices of the peace. And they're the ones who will make the decision about whether or not Mark will actually go to like a real trial. Now, it feels like all of New Zealand is on tender hooks waiting to hear all of the details. And once the crown prosecution starts laying out their case, everyone is just totally shocked by what they hear. The crown confirms that Christine died naked in her bed

and that she was probably asleep when the attacks started and then woke up to just unimaginable tear. Again, there's nothing about sexual assault. So I'm wondering if she just slept naked, like if that was part of it for her or I mean, again, we've seen cases right where the person couldn't perform or I don't know what no one ever gave like a real explanation as to why she was naked if she wasn't sexually assaulted.

As far as time of death, the crown believes that Amber and Christine had an early night and went to bed around 7 p.m. The headboard on Christine's bed was covered in cuts and notches from whatever the murder weapon was, suggesting even more blows than what struck her. According to Murderpedia, the crown prosecution tells the court that Christine was hit

at least nine or 10 times in the head with most of the blows landing on her forehead and her face. And one of the wounds went eight centimeters deep. That's just over three inches. Oh my God. Christine's hands and forearms were also riddled with defensive wounds. Like she had cuts and bruises, even fractures from lifting her hands and trying to protect her face.

Like she was fighting and little Amber suffered from at least seven blows believed to be from the same weapon. According to another piece in the New Zealand Herald, based on how Amber's body was positioned in the doorway of her parents' bedroom, it confirms what everyone was kind of thinking and even what police's theory was,

is that Amber was not the planned target. They believe that she heard some kind of disturbance coming from her mom's room, came to check on her mom and then tried to run away when she saw her mom being attacked only to be killed before she could even get into the hallway. Now, a piece of new information is that the prosecution announces that the blood smear on that broken window

actually belongs to Christine Lundy. So it's not some unknown perps like they had originally theorized it could have been. So what this means to them is that it could have only gotten there after she died. They never put that blood smear there. It was the same person who killed her. So basically what they're putting forward

is this looks kind of staged. Like in their theory to these two judges, they're saying, okay, he smeared some blood, broke the latch to make it look like someone broke in or left. And this is where they also explained the jewelry box that no one could, right? Like she didn't have super expensive jewelry. Nothing else was taken. Why take the jewelry box?

Their theory is that Mark took it and took the box to like stage a robbery. So it was kind of like setting up for it, right? Yes. Okay. So obviously we know how they died, but is there any sort of time of death that's ever been talked about?

Yeah. So at the deposition itself, a lot of what the medical examiner said, this guy named Dr. Peng, actually gets suppressed by the court. But the public does learn that Amber and Christine died sometime between 7 and 7.15 PM on August 29th. And a lot of this, again, it's suppressed,

but what you end up finding out is that a lot of this has to do with that McDonald's that they had Virginia that night, that receipt that they had found. As the deposition hearing continues, more and more revelations about the forensic evidence police have against Mark start coming to light. According to the New Zealand Herald, both Amber and Christine had paint in their hair

and paint that they say looks similar to what Mark used to paint the tools in his garage. And to be clear and just to reiterate, they still haven't actually found a weapon yet. Yeah. And as far as I can tell, it's not like there's a missing axe, but they do have Mark's other painted tools

to test chips against to see if they're a match. So again, for the first time, this is when the public is getting a better look at some of the forensic evidence they have against Mark. And we arrest him out of nowhere. But what we also get in this deposition for the first time is a glimpse at the rest of the prosecution's case, including a witness.

As TVNZ One News reported, one of Lundy's neighbors, this woman named Margaret Dance, lives about 500 meters away from their house. And she tells the court that on the night of the murders, she was driving to choir practice at about 7.15 p.m. when she saw something strange. She sees this blue car parked near her house.

Now, Margaret says she saw someone out jogging. Now, this in itself isn't weird at all, but according to Margaret, this jogger was a large man who was disguised in a long-blonde curly wig. And she says he was wearing a tracksuit over top of a business suit and tie. And she said, as this man's running, he looks afraid.

He looks like he's running away from something. So it's not like a guy on a jog. It's a weird situation. Yeah. And according to the prosecution's theory, so that car that she saw and this man that she sees, they're thinking that this man is Mark Lundy and he's running away from the crime scene to his car

to get back to his hotel in Petone to establish his alibi. Here's like a little thing to note, though. So Margaret, she also testifies that she's psychic, but she's very careful to clarify that she didn't use any of her psychic abilities to give her evidence to the police or give her story to the police. She basically says, like, all me, no powers needed.

Okay. So is there anything to back up this sighting? Like, anybody else see this guy? Did they find a wig in Mark's possessions at all? No. So no one else saw this guy. Mark didn't have a wig, at least not one that they could find.

But this is one of the things that police, like, continue to search for. Now, when putting together a timeline, this timeline of this case is so important. So we know from Christine's phone records that she talked to Mark at 5.30, at which point his cell phone pings do put him in Petone. So the crown saying that, basically,

what happens is right after this call, he, like, hauls but home as soon as it ends. And that's, like, the only way that he could be the man that Margaret saw that night. But they're saying it is possible. And one of the other things they bring up is I guess Mark would normally call Amber when he was on business trips,

like, every night to say good night. Now, he does this call at 5.30, and then he doesn't call back any later at bedtime or, like, at any point in the evening. So the crown saying, like, hey, you're breaking from routine. We've got these sightings. Like, if you were at your hotel, why wouldn't you call her kind of thing?

Right, right. I mean, but to be fair, if Amber and Christine did truly have an early night, maybe he'd talk to Amber briefly at that 5.30 call, like, knowing she was going to go to bed soon. So it's totally a possibility. But as far as I can tell, it's not something he or the defense ever claimed

during the deposition. So, like, this is one of those things where there truly seems to be, like, a missing bedtime call, or at least a breach from their normal routine. Mm-hmm. As the deposition hearings continue, another one of the public's biggest questions around this whole case finally looks like

it might have an answer. It's that motive piece. So ever since Mark's arrest, everyone has been dying to know what could have not just led police to him. We've got the forensic evidence, whatever. But what could have made him do such a terrible thing if he, in fact, did?

And the answer is unfortunately so simple. Money. You see, at the time of Christine and Amber's deaths, Mark Lundy owed money. He owed a lot of money. Define a lot of money. Like, $2 million, a lot of money. Oh.

Yeah. According to Ann Marie May's reporting for Radio New Zealand, Mark was already in debt when he agreed to spend that $2 million on some property to develop a vineyard. And on the night of the murders, his phone records show a phone call from an associate in this vineyard operation who was calling him

because creditors were starting to hound them. Like, Mark's financial situation was dire. And since Christine did the books for their kitchen business, like, she knew every single detail about just how bad the situation was. So that's enough to majorly strain even the best relationship, right? Yeah.

And as the court hears during these depositions, Mark might have had a way to get into some quick cash. As it turns out, shortly before Christine Lundy was murdered, she and Mark increased their life insurance policies. Oh. Never a good sign. Yeah.

According to Murderpedia, their coverage went up over twice the amount that they previously had. So their coverage went from $205,000 each to $500,000 each. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we find out they tried to get up to $1 million each,

but Mark's health issues, like, I guess he had prediabetes, high cholesterol, that prevented them from getting a higher limit. Now, obviously, $500,000, it's not going to get rid of his debt, but that is enough to at least ease the burden, right? At least for a little while, get, like, the creditors temporarily off your back,

buy you some time. Even without this money stuff, Mark and Christine's relationship wasn't even the best one to begin with. As the Crown prosecution tells the court, when he was being questioned by police during the early phases of the investigation, Mark actually told police that their marriage was happy

and that they were a very loving couple with shared interests. They, like, loved their local theater community and scout groups, blah, blah, blah. But Mark also admitted that the physical side of their relationship had all but dried up, that they rarely had sex anymore and that Christine was really more of a business partner

than a spouse at this point. And we are learning all of this in the depositions because Mark is kind of having to explain why, on the night of the murders, he hired a sex worker. Oh, yeah. So according to the New Zealand Herald, Mark told police that the sex worker arrived at his motel room

after 11 p.m. and was picked up after 1 a.m. And he acknowledged to police that he's hired sex workers in the past when he's gone on other business trips. So basically what the Crown is saying is, like, it's one thing after another. I mean, he's trying to use this as an alibi, but they're saying, hey, your alibi is proof that, like, we don't think you love your wife.

You had money problems. You guys weren't intimate anymore. You're clearly seeing another one. Your alibi basically just became your motive. Exactly. So can we go back for a second? The prosecution is saying that Mark killed his family between 7 and 7.15 that evening.

And that he was also back at his motel by 11 in time for the sex worker. Yeah, exactly. So basically, they're saying that he set up alibis on either end. Like, he thought this was going to be unbreakable because he's calling them at 5. I mean, again, that's a long time for a drive that you can make. I don't know why the sex worker at 11

would necessarily be an alibi, but we know for sure he's back at his motel by 11. Okay. So we got this super precarious financial situation. We have infidelity. We have Mark's inconsistent statements that him and Christine had this great marriage. None of that looks good, right?

But it's also not enough to prove one murder, let alone two. And Mark's own defense team points to this. And they note that police apparently still have a list of 20 suspects that they haven't eliminated. But Mark is the one who's being arrested. Wait, so they're that confident that Mark is their guy that they didn't even cross off almost two dozen people? Like, that seems really odd.

I will never understand this. I'm a podcaster, obviously not a detective, but one of the things I've heard over and over from detectives that I've talked to is, like, you have to close every door until there's one open. Otherwise, they always say, like, your fear is that you get eviscerated when it goes to trial. Like, to their defense point here, how can you say it's him

when you can't rule out anyone else? But it's not up to the public. It's not up to the investigators. At this point, it's up to the two justices of the piece to look at the evidence and decide. And remember, there is still a ton of stuff that's been redacted and suppressed. So there's a lot that they know

that the public and the press don't know as they go to decide. Is Mark Lundy going to be tried for murder? On July 19, 2001, after four days of hearings, the justices of the piece in Palmerston North District Court rule that Mark Lundy will stand trial for the murder of his wife and daughter. By the time the trial starts in February 2002,

New Zealand's fascination with this case is an absolute fever pitch. And it feels like the whole country is hanging on every word. Right away when the trial starts, the crown prosecution picks up right where it left off at the depositions. And one of the people that they call at trial is Mark's own brother, Craig Lundy.

Craig also questions why Mark didn't call home that night to say goodnight to Amber, since as Craig testifies, this was a normal thing that he always did. As they probe even deeper into Mark's possible motive, a fuller picture of the Lundy's finances starts to emerge. So we know from the depositions that Mark was in some serious money trouble,

but at trial, witness after witness after witness takes the stand and testifies that the Lundy's were looking at straight up bankruptcy. Mark was six months behind on his payments. And as the New Zealand Herald reported, the situation kept getting bleaker and bleaker as interest charges erased any headway that they made. You're not even gonna believe this.

I feel like anyone who's been in even the smallest amount of credit card debt knows it's like the interest that you can never get out from under. At one point, they were having to pay an extra $600 a day in just straight interest payments. That's not even on the principle of it all. Oh, my God, that makes me so anxious just thinking about it. I won't be able to sleep tonight

just imagining that happening to anybody. Are we throw up? That'd be horrible. Yeah, so you can kind of feel this pressure that they're saying was bearing down on this family. Yeah, and we've talked before about how money is literally proven to be one of the biggest stress factors in any relationship.

But this is on another level. Next level, for sure. Yeah, so you can... I think, again, what they're trying to paint is how desperate Mark could have been. And one of the things that they talk about in trial is that shortly before the murder, so on August 28, this is the day before,

Mark learned that he only had two days to come up with all his money that he owed, making that $500,000 look better and better by the minute. Okay, but like you said before, he owes $2 million. Like $500,000 is a drop in the bucket. But where do you come up with $2 million, right? Like, again, if their theory is correct, I think the thinking is just like, it's something.

It will buy me time. It'll be a band-aid, at least, yeah. Yeah, to figure out the rest. When Mark Lundy takes the stand, he continues to strenuously deny having anything to do with the murders while the Crown keeps poking hole after hole in his alibi. And as the trial continues,

the public fascination doesn't decrease at all. Because finally, all of the gaps in this tragic story start getting filled in. And the biggest one is really around the timeline of everything. So according to the Crown prosecution, everything started off totally normal that day. Amber went to school, Christine went to work,

Christine's phone records show an eight-minute call to Mark at about 5.30 p.m. And again, that is the call that we know he was at his hotel for. Also, it's already public knowledge that they got McDonald's for dinner that night. Remember, police found the receipt was actually in their kitchen,

it was time-stamped for 5.43 p.m. And we know that Amber and Christine got one chicken burger, one filet of fish, a nine-piece chicken McNuggets, two orders of fries, and two apple pies. Then we know that at 6.56 p.m., Christine gets a phone call from a woman in her wine club. Wait, so we know that she was alive and at home at 6.56 p.m.

But do we know, like, what her mood was like on the call? Like, was there anything worrisome or concerning about the call? So according to the Investigator episode about this case, the call is only 17 seconds long. And all they'll say about it is that Christine seems kind of testy. Now, this is the last time anyone heard from her.

And I, like, you have all the questions about this call. Yeah. But we just know that it was short, not super cheerful. So I kind of wonder if it's one of those, like, hey, can't talk now, like, you know, I'll just give you a call tomorrow. Especially if they're, like, getting ready for bed, stuff like that.

Yeah. But the one thing they do say is police didn't find anything from that call to indicate that Christine thought that she was in any kind of danger at 6.56 p.m. Okay. By 7.15 p.m., though, the crown says she is dead at that point. So a pretty small window of time.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy, remember his name's Dr. Peng, he already took the stand during the deposition hearings. But he is called to testify in court. And this time, his testimony isn't suppressed. So we learn a lot more. He tells the jury how he used Amber and Christine's stomach contents to figure out their time of death.

He says that based on his findings of how full their stomachs were and how the food didn't look like it had been well digested at all, and the fact that they didn't have what Dr. Peng calls a, quote, gastric smell, which I guess is like a particular, like, vomit smell, you know? He thinks that because of all of that,

that they had to have died not too long after they ate their meal. And, you know, when he's telling the court this, he cites an expert named Bernard Knight in his testimony to basically, like, back up his claims and basically to, like, prove his point that he got to this, like, small window. As part of the defense, though,

Mark's legal team tries to cast some doubt on the time of death pointing to how the family's home computer actually wasn't turned off until 1056, maybe 1052, depending on what source you're reading, the night of the murders. That's almost four hours after Amber and Christine were alleged to have died.

Yeah. And this is at a time when the crown and the investigators, everyone, no one's disagreeing about where Mark is at 1052, 1056, whatever. We know he's like, we know exactly where he is. Yeah, we know he's back at his motel. Yeah, no one's disputing that. Now, to combat this, the crown prosecution

calls up the head of the police's electronic crime laboratory and this guy says that Mark tampered with the computer, that he was trying to form his own alibi and that he did something to make it look like the computer was turned off later when really it happened closer to the time of the murders. There's a little bit of ping-pong going on about this computer stuff because, you know,

then Mark's team gets up and they're saying, listen, he would have no idea how to do this. Like, he's terrible with computers, notoriously bad. Like, everyone knows this. You'd have to really have an understanding of, like, computer files and how to manipulate them. It's just not possible. So, but all we have is Mark and his team saying,

I'm bad and then you have a forensic expert saying, like, this is what was done. Now, one of the other things that Mark's defense team really drives home on is that really small time of death window. They say that it's proof that he couldn't be the killer since he would have had to, like you said, he's making this drive to the house. He has to kill his family, do whatever he's doing

on the computer, run to his car, drive back and they have 15 minutes to do this. So, to combat this, the crown calls a police officer to the stand who says that he actually tested how fast you can make the drive. And he said, yeah, you can totally do it. I could do it even faster if I was kind of, like, throwing caution to the wind and just, like, speeding,

which, you know, he's kind of insinuating someone who's, like, trying to make an alibi and kill their family would have done, like, if you're in a murder, you're not really caring about speed limits. But he gets up on the stand saying it's totally possible. Now, we also learned some new stuff about the car in this trial. So, we find out that the investigators believe that, like, a chunk of gas is missing from Mark's car.

I don't know exactly how they got to that. They had to do with mileage and, you know, they know where he last stopped for gas, but they're saying basically a ton of gas is missing. And they look at that and they say, aha, this is proof that you drove way more miles that night than you would have if you hadn't gone home and back. Now, originally, Mark said that the gas was stolen

from his car that night. What? Yeah, I don't know if, like, siphoning gas is something that happens in New Zealand a lot. It doesn't happen a ton here anymore. I know it used to be a big thing. But also, what are the odds? Someone steals your gas the same night

that your family is murdered? Yeah. So, they bring this up not only to say that it's fishy, but in court, it sounds like they're also saying, like, he specifically lied to us, though I wasn't able to find anywhere where they, like, proved beyond what, you know, reasonable doubt, our standard here, that it wasn't stolen.

So, we learned that that's what he told police during the investigation, this weird story about it getting stolen. But at some point, and this is why it looks so bad for him and why they use it at trial, at some point, he changes his story at trial. It's almost like he realizes how dumb it sounds. Like, someone stole your gas.

Again, the night your family was murdered. Right. It kind of, like, abandons it, says it never happened. Like, it's really muddy to me. Like, I don't know if he acknowledges that he lied. I don't know if he said he forgot. But backpedaling at all is not a good look. Not at all.

And I don't think there ever is, like, a really good explanation he comes up with of why there's just all this gas missing. So, as the public goes on to learn there is this missing gasoline, but there's also missing time in Mark's side of things. According to the Investigator episode, Mark's story is that he checks into this motel at, like, 5 p.m.

He says that he gets changed, has dinner, buys a rum and coke, then settles down to watch some TV. Again, we know his phone records put him at the hotel, in that town, at 5.30 when Christine calls. They have this eight-minute call, 5.38. And the crown is alleging that once this is over, this is when he drives back home. Okay, but what do his phone records say about that?

Exactly. So, there is this weird gap where Mark's phone is turned off from 5.38 p.m., right when this call ends, until he makes a call at 8.28. Now, in that almost like three-hour time span, phone off completely unaccounted for. So, the phone was off or he just wasn't using it because there's a difference and...

I agree. So, neither one of them would ping, you know? I agree. So, the court records say, I'm going to quote it for you, quote, a lack of cell phone reception through the relevant site inside the motel, end quote. So, not 100% clear, but I'm taking the lack of reception as off-off.

Okay. Now, for his part, Mark's adamant that he was still in Petone and that at some point between the end of the call, Christine and like seven, he says he decides to like, take a book, go down to the beach and read, but no one can corroborate this story. And then he says at 8.28, which is when his phone records show that, you know, his phone's back on, he's making a call.

He says, yeah, I decided to make that call, you know, from my hotel room. And he's calling an associate. The associate's name has been suppressed by the court, so I can't tell you much about them. But I can tell you that Mark's call was about his other business venture, right, that vineyard, which he's like in like a complete mess of debt over.

Right, right. Now, there's a lot that Mark can't answer for, right? He can't explain why he turns his phone off for three hours. He can't explain why he has gas missing. But the one thing he says he does have an answer for, according to Paula Oliver's reporting in the New Zealand Herald, he says that call that's like missing the good night call to his daughter, he said, yeah, we normally talk,

but that's when they call me. So he's like, I don't normally call them. So if they didn't call me that night to say good night, it's not weird that I didn't call them. Yeah. But if you turned your phone off, then you aren't even like expecting a call. That's true.

So we've got a lot here. And, you know, it's all circumstantial up to this point, but even circumstantial or not, the Crown is confident in their case, but they don't want to take any chances. So remember back in the day when they like arrested, and I told you you had like 90% of the forensics were like done. Yeah.

Well, by the time we're at trial, all of the tests are done. And this is where we get the bombshell. For the very first time, the Crown announces that they've got forensic evidence to link Mark Lundy directly to the scene of the crime. Apparently there is a tiny sample of both Amber and Christine Lundy's DNA

taken from a polo shirt found in the back of Mark's car. Okay, but to play devil's advocate, this is a family and it's not like he was wearing it. It was just in the back of his car where Amber could be sitting at any given time. Christine could have just given him a hug when last time he wore the shirt. Right. They lived together.

It wouldn't take that much for DNA to be transferred to his shirt. I totally get that. And that is what Mark's defense team says as well. Except we're not talking about DNA from skin cells or like a strand of hair that falls off. According to Jessica Piszczko's reporting in D magazine, police found two tiny stains on Mark's shirt, one on the chest, one on the left sleeve.

Subsequent testing showed the stain on Mark's sleeve belonged to Christine and it is tissue from her central nervous system. So somehow a scrap of Christine's brain matter or her spinal cord made its way onto Mark's shirt. Oh my God. That's not something you get by hugging someone. Right.

And in addition, they're saying that the DNA they found from Amber is most likely from her blood. Okay, but how on earth can the defense like even begin to address that? It's bad, right? So Mark's defense team actually kind of brings up like the Arthur Allen Thomas scenario. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone

who hasn't heard our episode about Harvey and Jeanette Crue yet. But what I can say is in that story, police were accused of planting evidence to get the outcome that they wanted. And according to the investigator, remember this is happening in the same country. That case was a pretty popular defense in New Zealand ever since. But in the case of Mark Lundy,

they never found any evidence to say that the tissue was planted. So they kind of threw this out there as this like, you know, sometimes it happens, but we can't prove it happened here. Once the trial ends, the jury spends seven hours deliberating before they return their verdict. And on Wednesday, March 20th, 2002,

they find Mark Lundy guilty of murdering Amber and Christine Lundy. And a day later, he sentenced to life with a 17-year minimum period before he's eligible for parole. Now, on the surface, this whole tragedy seems over and done with now that justice has been done, right? But not everyone is convinced. And as the years go on after Mark's convicted,

more and more information starts coming to light. Things nobody ever heard before, including the jury who found Mark Lundy guilty of murder. And I promise everything that came out will make you think twice about everything we told you today. And it'll also make you wonder if the wrong man might have been convicted of a horrendous crime. We're going to tell you the entire other side of this story

and everything that could very well point to Mark's innocence next week, unless you're in our fan club, in which case Part 2 is available right now. If you are dying to listen to Part 2, just head over to our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com, click on the fan club link to join. You can also find the blog post for this episode there, where you can find all of the pictures and source material

that we talk about in today's case. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with the rest of this story, but in the meantime, stick around for prepped of the month. Okay, so this is a really, really special story that I get to tell, Ashley, because it's a story that I think affected all of us at Audio Chuck really, really hard and really recently.

And again, guys, I'm so sorry this is a sad story, but I thought it was really important to honor Lucy, the good girl whose mom Olivia is a member of the Audio Chuck team. So back in 2018, Olivia had just bought her first house and she was like, you know what, I'm ready to get a dog. She had been casually looking and her mom sent over a link from this website called Canines for Warriors and said, Olivia, I found your dog.

So Olivia goes to the website and learns more about the program, which I had heard of, but I didn't really know what they did. And Olivia sent over this clip from the website that says, Canines for Warriors is the nation's largest provider of service dogs to military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and or military sexual trauma. Our program is unique, comprehensive, and proven thanks to research by Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine.

We provide each warrior with a service canine, equipment, training, certification, seminars, legal instructions, vet care, housing, home-cooked meals, unconditional love and listening, and a lifetime of wrap-around services. In essence, we don't just give our warriors a service dog, we give them the canines family. And this is a 100% free program for veterans. Literally on my notes, I said, Cue Waterworks right now.

Yeah, she had actually sent me a link to this earlier, and I was like, how did I not know about this? This is beautiful. It's an amazing program. I'm so excited to get involved, learn more about it. I'm obsessed. But Olivia gets this link from her mom, and she's like, I'm not a veteran.

I can't get a dog from these people, mom. Like, I can't take a dog from a warrior. Are you kidding me? And then she was reading more about it, and there are dogs who don't make it in the program. Specifically, a dog that was at that point in time named Zelda. She had been in the training program for a couple of months, but she was deemed unfit because she became too attached

to an antler boom toy. Oh my goodness. And she couldn't continue the training. So now the program was looking to give her a good home with a civilian. Olivia sends an email to the organization asking about available dogs, and she thought about sliding in like a little PS,

like, hey, Zelda's adorable, but she ended up deciding against it. And my favorite part of the story is when they responded, they were like, actually, we have a dog that we think is perfect for you. Have you looked at Zelda? Oh, meant to be. Oh, yes.

But the only hiccup was Zelda was in South Florida, and Olivia was all the way up here in Indianapolis. But her mom literally left the nail salon where she was in Florida to meet Zelda. Olivia's stepdad drove all through the night with Zelda from Florida to Indiana up to Olivia's new house. And they got there around midnight, and as soon as Zelda hopped out of the car,

she was officially renamed Lucy. But she came right up to Olivia, who was sitting in her driveway and put her head right on her shoulder. And Olivia said, from that moment on, she was a Velcro pup. And she actually described Lucy as one of those stuffed animals with the Velcro arms and legs that we had as kids,

that you just put around your neck and walk around with. You were really cool. Oh, my goodness. And you already know what's coming. But I did say that this was a sad story. And shortly after Olivia got Lucy, she had this little bump on her nose that kind of came and went. And Olivia always got it treated.

And Lucy never really seemed to be in any pain or discomfort. But this past November, a vet suggested getting some dental work and x-rays of the area. And by dental work, I mean they took out six teeth. And at this point, Lucy was only three years old. That's just young. That's something that should ever happen to a dog at such a young age. And, you know, they try to use antibiotics to treat the area,

but nothing really seemed to work. Lucy had developed an incredibly pervasive and mysterious bacteria infection that had been spreading rapidly for months. And it actually eroded a lot of the bone and muscle tissue from the left side of her face. And Olivia took Lucy to multiple different specialists. And her quality of life was just continuing to deteriorate.

And Olivia came to accept that the goodbye was going to be very soon. And Lucy crossed Rainbow Bridge on February 5th, 2021. Whereas we say here at Audio Check, Lucy had to move out. Yes, Lucy moved out on February 5th. And even though this feels so inexplicable, when I was talking to Olivia about this, she feels like she really has a special piece about her time with Lucy. And she said, as someone who is an assault survivor herself,

losing Lucy made Olivia realize that she learned so much from Lucy in their short time together. And even though this service dog dropout didn't make it as an official service dog, she saw Olivia through some of her darkest times. And her training, though it was short, and specializing in helping those with PTSD, it truly saved Olivia.

And she's become a stronger person and a more whole person in the past two years, all because of Lucy. And she also has developed a huge passion for service dogs and hopes to start training one herself soon. That's amazing. And I think this is really, really beautiful. Olivia told me something that a friend said about Lucy, that she was a sparkler.

She came in so bright and passionate, bringing so much joy and love to anyone and everyone. But like a sparkler, she just wasn't meant to shine for long. Oh, man. It isn't fair, but she made so many friends, and Olivia gave her the best life. Lucy fought hard and loved so much harder. And that's what Olivia hopes Lucy will always be remembered for.

You guys know we always do segments promoting organizations. I don't think I need to tell you, but we are supporting canines for warriors today. I am obsessed with this organization. They obviously changed Lucy's life, changed Olivia's life. I think they've changed my life now, honestly. I encourage everyone to check out their website. It is canineforwarriors.org.

And again, Olivia, thank you so much for letting us tell Lucy's story. It's a really, really, truly beautiful one. Yeah, we had audio check. Obviously, we're local to Indianapolis. So we sponsored a kennel for a year for a dog at the Indie Humane Society in Lucy's name. And I'm sure no one knows this unless you work for audio check. But one of the benefits we have at work is that on your work anniversary,

we give you a certain amount of money on behalf of audio check. We'll donate to any nonprofit of their choice. Again, we're obviously very big into advocacy work related to the crime space. A lot of what we do is related to the space that we work in, but it's also really important to us that people feel like they are making a difference in areas that are really important to them, whether or not. The causes that they support are also supported by us. Yeah, and so Olivia actually just got with us

and said that she wants her donation this year to be made to that organization. So later on this year on her work anniversary, we'll be making a big donation to Canine for Warriors. I love what they're doing. I think it is so special. So even if you can't donate, if you can check them out, if you're in South Florida, you want to volunteer, or you're looking for a dog who maybe just didn't cut it. Or I know we have a lot of listeners who are veterans themselves.

Again, had no idea this organization was out there, and I think they're doing something really special. Really, really special.