Kelly Dennett - The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Jane Furlong

First edition published in 2018 by Awa Press,

Unit 1, Level 3, 11 Vivian Street, Wellington 6011, New Zealand.

ISBN 978-1-927249-49-9

Ebook formats

EPUB 978-1-927249-50-5

Mobi 978-1-927249-57-4

Copyright Kelly Dennett 2018

The right of Kelly Dennett to be identified as the author of this work in terms of Section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

Cover photograph courtesy of Judith Furlong

Author photograph courtesy of Emma Miller

Cover design by Greg Simpson

Typesetting by Tina Delceg

Editing by Mary Varnham and Jane Parkin

Ebook conversion 2019 by meBooks

Awa Press is an independent, wholly New Zealand-owned company.

Find more of our award-winning and notable books at awapress.com.

Kelly Dennett is a journalist at The Weekend Herald and Herald on Sunday in Auckland, New Zealand. She has also been senior crime and justice reporter at Fairfax Media, and a reporter for The Western Leader. She was the winner of the 2016 Surrey Hotel writers residency. This is her first book.

For Jane

Contents

I n 1993 Jane Furlong, a seventeen-year-old sex worker, disappeared without trace on a cold autumn night from a busy Auckland street throbbing with people. There were rumours that a sexually deviant businessman was responsible for her disappearance but no one was charged. Eventually the case went cold. Nearly twenty years later Janes body was found buried in sand dunes at a beach in Port Waikato, not far from my childhood home. Public interest in the case was reignited, but with no further leads it quickly died again.

The failure to apprehend a killer has not been for want of trying. Police detectives have travelled the country and the world searching for answers. They have waited years for loyalties to flag, for people to talk, for the murderer or murderers to be outed. They have been disappointed. As time wears on, details are forgotten and people pass away. But the case file remains open, and the police officer who heads the inquiry into Janes murder keeps her picture on the wall of his office.

I dont remember the exact moment that I learned about Jane Furlongs disappearance but the story has, in various degrees, come to consume me. For the past few years, it has plagued me. Its a case always hovering in the countrys collective consciousness. Every year it makes the list of the saddest, grisliest unsolved crimes, along with the murders of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe, who were shot in their Pukekawa farmhouse in 1970, and of thirteen-year-old Henderson schoolgirl Tracey Ann Patient, who was strangled and left in a patch of bush in the Waitakere Ranges in 1976.

At one stage the case attracted the attention of the producers of a television show, Sensing Murder, whose psychics tuned into the sound of construction noises in what they believed to be Aucklands CBD. Anyone whod read even a little about the case knew that a businessman in the concrete industry had been named in several news reports as a person of interest: Jane had been about to give evidence against him in a high-profile sex trial that was the talk of Auckland. Unfortunately for the psychics, the man had been in police custody at the time of Janes death.

Through my work as a court reporter I came to meet her mother Judith Furlong, and through this connection Janes best friend Amanda and her boyfriend Dani, among others. I became preoccupied with the fact Jane had long been seen as responsible for her own demise. This was clearly untrue, but the more I delved into the mystery of her death, the more I uncovered some of the murky characters in her life, I saw that Jane, a spirited young woman filled with love and vigour, was surrounded by dangerous people.

In this book I dont claim to have solved the crime, although the reader may draw their own conclusion. My research is not complete, nor is it infallible. A quarter of a century on, peoples memories have faded, their recall of facts changed. Some people have disappeared and could not be tracked down. Others didnt return my messages, or outright refused to speak to me. Frustratingly, people I interviewed often gave different accounts of the same event, or had conflicting interpretations of incidents and conversations.

Jane was an avid diary writer, and much of the material about her life has been derived from her diaries. Other sources have been newspaper reports, court records, radio broadcasts, and conversations and interviews with Janes mother and her friends, former and current police officers, and fellow journalists. What I present here is as accurate as possible. Having said that, every time Im privy to court cases unfolding in front of me I am reminded that there are two sides to every story, and somewhere in between lies the truth.

Kelly Dennett

December 2017

A uckland, New Zealand, May 26, 1993. The conservative National Partys Jim Bolger is prime minister. The trial of a Christchurch childcare worker, Peter Ellis, who has denied sexually abusing infants in his care, is making daily headlines. Seventeen-year-old Teina Pora has just been charged with murdering Susan Burdett, a thirty-nine-year-old woman who lived alone. Auckland is a city in progress. Houses are still considered affordable. Children play outside. Smartphones have not been invented.

Jane Furlong, her boyfriend Dani Norsworthy and her best friend Amanda Geraghty jump into taxi driver Chris Goods white Nissan Bluebird in the Auckland suburb of Penrose. Good is the teenage trios favourite taxi driver because he is willing to put cab fares on the tab. Hes also saved the girls from sticky situations with customers, and when its cold as it is on this late autumn night hell let them sit in the back of his car to warm up until hes called away to his next job. Amanda and Jane are sex workers, and have been working inner-city Karangahape Road, commonly known as K Road, for the better part of two years. Once compared to Londons Oxford Street in the early 1920s, the strip is a seedy area where dingy bars tout for business and sex workers line the streets.

On this night Good has picked up the group from the suburban house where Amanda lives with her mother. The young women are excited. Its Wednesday and they have plans to go out after work. Jane and Dani have been having problems. Jane has confided to Amanda several times that she thinks shell leave him, and tonight theyll meet some guys Amanda knows for a bit of fun behind Danis back. First, though, theyll earn money by working a few hours on the street.

Jane is carrying a duffel bag filled with clothes, and a small handbag she always has with her. Inside it is a pocket knife shes taken to keeping with her since a scary experience with a client the year before. Shes wearing a brown suede leather jacket with fringes on the arms, and high-heeled shoes with gold bows. Usually Jane wears all black. With her curly red hair and dark eyes often lined with black kohl, she looks striking despite her slight frame. Five feet tall, she rarely weighs more than forty-five kilograms. She is watching her figure, and meticulously notes her weight in her diary every few days.