Christine Hindson's daughter, MarlaThompson (left), and her sister Megannan. Photo: Open Justice / NZME
A man who strangled his ex-partner to death before dumping her body inside a wooden chest and nailing it shut says he doesn't want to be released from jail.
"A life for a life," Lewis Blackburn told the New Zealand Parole Board on Tuesday as he asked them to stand him down from being considered for early release from prison for another five years.
"I want to stay in jail. I killed someone."
Blackburn murdered his ex-partner Christine Hindson, after she ended their three-year relationship in September 2005.
Two days after she ended the relationship, he turned up at the 45-year-old's Christchurch home in the early hours of the morning, made his way into her bedroom and grabbed her by the throat, before strangling her to death.
Blackburn then put her body in a wooden chest and nailed it shut, before trying unsuccessfully to bury it in his backyard. He then put the chest in his car and drove around the city for two days looking for a suitable place to bury it.
Three days after the murder, Blackburn drove the car to a suburban Ferrymead walking track, dragged the chest into an area of long grass and left it there.
A week later Blackburn confessed his crime to another former partner and was arrested by police the following day, admitting the killing and helping them find the body.
He was 48 years old when he was sentenced in 2006 to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years.
Nearly 20 years on, and a decade after he became eligible for early release from prison, Blackburn said he still thinks about his victim every day.
"It's non-stop," he said.
"I'm in no hurry to get out, put it that way."
Blackburn said his primary reason for wanting to remain in prison was the strain his yearly parole hearings would likely be having on Hindson's family and they should be given a break.
"I'm trying to have compassion for Christine's family," he said.
"Year after year, it just seems too much for them."
Ironically, it was his lack of compassion at the time that was one of the hardest parts of Hindson's murder for her family to come to terms with.
Her daughter, Marla McKenzie, told the court at Blackburn's sentencing in 2006 that she recalled him asking during the search for her mother how she was faring. She realised now her mother's body must at that stage have been in his car just metres from where they were talking.
"For one week Lewis led us to believe she had just gone away somewhere and not to worry," McKenzie said.
"I don't ever want him released."
If Blackburn had confessed earlier, McKenzie said, it could have saved the family's "torment and heartbreak" in being unable to view Hindson's body after it was recovered because of its state of decomposition.
Now, their welfare is at the forefront of his mind, he told the board.
"I've said it right through, a life for a life," he said.
"There's just reports on reports, it's just a waste of time.
"It's not like I've been out shoplifting. I killed someone."
Blackburn asked to be stood down from parole hearings for five years, which the board didn't have the power to approve. The maximum stand-down period it can order is two years.
The board asked Blackburn to work with a psychogeriatrician, begin to work on a risk management plan and to start thinking about where he might be able to live if he was released.
He will be seen again in July next year.
*This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald
