22 Years Behind Bars for a Crime He Never Committed
How Teina Pora became a victim of New Zealand's justice system—and the real killer walked free for decades
Quick Facts
On March 23, 1992, Susan Burdett, a 39-year-old woman, was found raped and beaten to death in her Papatoetoe home in Auckland, New Zealand. Police launched an investigation into one of the city's most brutal crimes. Within a year, they believed they had their suspect: a teenager named Teina Pora.
Pora was initially arrested in March 1993 for an unrelated stolen vehicle offense. What followed would become a cautionary tale about the dangers of coercive police interrogations and the fragility of confessions obtained without legal representation.
During police questioning, the 16-year-old Pora made a series of inconsistent statements. Critically, these interrogations took place without a parent or lawyer present. Police treated these contradictory statements as a confession, despite the lack of any physical evidence, forensic data, or eyewitness testimony linking him to Burdett's murder. Even more damning: a DNA sample taken from Pora did not match the semen found at the crime scene.
None of this stopped the prosecution. On June 16, 1994, Pora was convicted of rape and murder. The jury deliberated for less than 90 minutes before returning a guilty verdict. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at just 16 years old.
**The First Crack in the Case**
In 1999, five years into his sentence, DNA technology provided the first real evidence in the case—and it devastated the Crown's case against Pora. The semen recovered from Susan Burdett's body was matched to Malcolm Rewa, a serial rapist. Pora's original conviction was quashed.
But justice did not follow immediately. Pora was retried in March 2000 on the same charges. Astonishingly, he was convicted again, despite the DNA evidence pointing elsewhere. The New Zealand Court of Appeal declined to hear his appeal in October 2000, and Pora remained behind bars.
