Wife convicted of man’s murder
‘‘My husband’s ashes arrived today and I’m sitting here staring at the box. My entire life is in that box. Who the f… gave someone the right to take that away from us?’’
These were the words of Alana Jane Bamber in October 2019 about two weeks after her husband, Tony Grant Waldron, was murdered as he slept in his bed on a farm in Rakaia.
Yesterday, Bamber was convicted of her husband’s murder alongside her cousin, convicted rapist Joshua Dylan Morris-Bamber, who was the camera operator at Waldron’s funeral in Twizel.
It took a jury in the High Court in Christchurch less than a day to find both Bamber and her cousin guilty of the murder.
When Bamber spoke to Stuff shortly after her husband’s death, she said she could think of three possible scenarios as to who had murdered her husband.
She did not elaborate on what those scenarios were.
She said she was nervous about talking to the media because ‘‘there’s a lot going on that you’re not aware of and making a statement could make it worse’’.
The situation was complicated, she said, ‘‘far more than you realise’’.
Days prior to Waldron’s murder, Bamber had left the family home after a police safety order was issued.
Bamber claimed Waldron had assaulted her in front of their children, throwing her ‘‘around the laundry’’ and punching her in the stomach.
Paramedics who treated her after the alleged assault could not find any visible injuries on her body.
A friend would later testify during the trial that Bamber told her she sustained a concussion, separated ribs, a cracked back and was urinating blood after the alleged assault.
But the friend did not see any of these injuries when she saw Bamber a day later.
A 111 call from Bamber on September 14, 2019 was played to the jury, in which she said she’d been assaulted by Waldron in front of their children.
She told friends she feared for her life.
It was difficult to ascertain how much truth, if any, there was to Bamber’s domestic violence claims.
According to the Crown, it was exactly these claims that were the catalyst for Morris-Bamber driving out to Waldron’s house on the morning of September 18, 2019 and beating him to death with a blunt weapon as he slept.
Bamber had manipulated her cousin into thinking Waldron was a domestic abuser and harnessed his anger at being rejected by a longtime crush, the Crown said.
It can now also be revealed that Morris-Bamber had a prior conviction for rape, which the jury was not allowed to know to avoid prejudice against him in his trial.
Bamber had sent Morris-Bamber her husband’s address so that he could ‘‘let some anger out’’ – Morris-Bamber said as much when he asked for the address, the Crown said.
Bamber sent the address to her cousin not once, but twice. The pair deleted their messages, but a screenshot remained on Morris-Bamber’s phone and was later found by police.
When interviewed by police, Morris-Bamber repeatedly denied ever being in Rakaia on the night of Waldron’s death. During his second interview, after being confronted with a range of evidence placing him outside Waldron’s home, he conceded he had been there.
Morris-Bamber’s cellphone was tracked passing through several locations south of Christchurch towards and then in Rakaia, and his phone placed him directly outside Waldron’s home just before 1am.
CCTV footage of him and his car tracked him along the same journey at various points on the way to Rakaia and back, and he had searched for Waldron’s address on Google Maps along the way.
After again denying he went to Rakaia, Detective Scott Genet put the evidence before him in his second police interview, to which Morris-Bamber muttered: ‘‘It is what it is.’’ Morris-Bamber went inside Waldron’s rural home late at night – a home he had been inside 24 hours prior to pick up items for Bamber – made his way to the bedroom and struck Waldron with significant force at least three times to the head with a blunt object while he slept.
An expert later said up to seven blows could have been inflicted.
For Morris-Bamber’s defence, the sticking points in the Crown case were clear.
He had no logical motive to kill Waldron having not seen or spoken to him in years, and there was no forensic evidence found on him, his car or home that linked him to the murder.
The weapon he was accused of hiding near the Rakaia River, which the Crown said he returned to and re-hid inland two days after the murder, was never found.
Despite this, the jury could not accept that Morris-Bamber travelled over 45 minutes to Waldron’s home late on the night he died just to ‘‘talk to him’’ as he claimed.
Although it was Morris-Bamber who delivered the fatal blows to Waldron’s skull, ear and neck, it was Bamber who orchestrated the murder of her husband, said the Crown.
Following the alleged domestic violence incident four days before Waldron died, Bamber embarked on a campaign to garner sympathy from anyone who would listen, painting her husband as an abuser and her as the innocent victim.
She preyed upon the anger of her cousin Morris-Bamber and manipulated him for her own use.
Bamber knew Morris-Bamber had a short temper, a disposition for violence, and had been having relationship problems of his own.
She sent him the address twice and aided him in committing a serious assault, the Crown said.
This was evident by a text she sent to Isak Morris-Bamber, Joshua’s brother and the only person who attempted to stop him that night. She told him ‘‘better one life than two’’ and to return home or ‘‘you will get hurt too’’.
It was accepted that Bamber sent her estranged husband’s address to her cousin. The disputed fact was why.
Her lawyer Kerry Cook said she could not have known why her cousin wanted the address, and any suggestions in texts that she knew a serious assault would occur were ‘‘melodramatic exaggeration’’ from his client, something she was known for.
Cook called her the ‘‘Karen of the country’’. There was no evidence of a meeting between the cousins prior to Morris-Bamber travelling to Rakaia, Cook said.
But even if there was, why would Morris-Bamber commit a murder as revenge for illtreatment of a cousin with whom he hardly had a relationship?
It was agreed by all parties that the cousins hated each other. Morris-Bamber didn’t trust Bamber, and the pair had cut each other off after a family-related falling out in 2017.
But according to the Crown, there were two key motives.
Morris-Bamber requested the address after being rejected by his longtime crush – a colleague he had an intimate relationship with for some time.
He wanted to ‘‘let some anger out’’ and Waldron’s alleged domestic abuse provided some justification for a seemingly worthy recipient.
Morris-Bamber was also desperate to prevent the possibility that Bamber and her daughters would have to move in with him.
The Crown said he went as far as to kill to ensure he didn’t have to live with her.
For the jury, these motives were enough of a foundation for the evidence that proved their guilt. The pair will be sentenced on December 14.