Murder of Mellory Manning

Do you ever wonder about the stories this river could tell? On the morning of December 19, 2008, a kayaker found Mellory Manning’s body in the Avon River here in Christchurch. She was 27 when she was murdered on December 18th.

Mellory, whose birth name was Ngatai Lynette Manning, had a difficult life. She was born in Nelson in 1981. Her biological father left when she and her siblings were young, and they grew up with a stepfather described as "horrible." She left school at 14 after being in foster care and started using drugs. By 15, she was working as a prostitute and had spent time in prison.

Her older sister, Jasmine, who was in witness protection and had lost contact with Mellory, died by suicide in July 2008. After this, Mellory tried to change her life. She stopped prostituting, joined a methadone treatment program to get off opioids, and looked into studying art at a polytechnic. She moved in with her mother, and she and her partner were planning to have a child.

But Mellory was poor and unemployed, and she wanted to buy Christmas presents for her family. So, she decided to return to street prostitution for just one night. On December 18, 2008, she hitchhiked from Riccarton to central Christchurch. She was picked up from Manchester Street, her usual spot, and later dropped back there by a client around 9:30 PM. She had another client until 10:20 PM, and the last sighting of her by another prostitute was around 10:35 PM. Her cell phone data showed she received a text from a client at 10:41 PM. In the hours before her death, she had taken methadone, benzodiazepines, and cannabis.

She was presumably taken to a property in Avonside and killed by stabbing, strangling, and being beaten with a metal pole.

Four years later, in March 2012, Mauha Huatahi Fawcett, then 24, was charged with her abduction and murder. Police acknowledged more people were involved. Fawcett, a gang prospect with fetal alcohol syndrome, had been interviewed by police eleven times over four years. They lied to him, told him not to talk to a lawyer, and pressured him into a false confession.

He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2014, but his conviction was quashed in 2017 when it was determined he was cognitively impaired and coerced. The police then offered a reward for information, but no one else has ever been charged.