Spurred to action

Diligent police work and observant takeaway staff snared a callous killer.

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15th January, 2011

Crime

No one knew Hemi Reha was violent until the night in 1983 he decided to kill a stranger by cutting his throat with spurs. Reha's mother later said that despite her son's kind-hearted demeanour, something in him was not quite right - "something you wanted to take out and throw away". Reha, 19 and four years unemployed, was drinking in the Hutt Park Hotel with his sister Esther Solvoll and her boyfriend, Paul Manihera, when he decided on a course of action that would end the life of young storeman Mark Harkin. Harkin was found face-down on a muddy bank of the Hutt River - beaten, ...

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