She’s the victim of one of New Zealand’s most enduring murder-mysteries – a troubled teenager drawn into a criminal underworld that no doubt resulted in her death. But to Judith Furlong, her daughter Jayne will always be remembered as a spirited little freckle-nosed girl who was constantly on the lookout for adventure.
“Jayne was full-on. She had no fear and lived her life without consequences,” recalls Judith, 66, talking to Woman’s Day at a Kingsland café near her her central Auckland home. Judith says she always knew Jayne wouldn’t have the chance to grow old. “She was too beautiful for this ugly world,” she tells. “In my mind, she will always be just a young girl.”
Even as a youngster, Jayne was a spirited girl – “full-on” and looking for adventure.
Jayne Furlong should have celebrated her 41st birthday this year. Instead, her lonely life was cut short at 17.
The love Judith feels for her daughter hasn’t dimmed over the past 23 years, but the pain of losing her slowly has. “The grieving process has been long and drawn out – bit by bit, it takes more and more life from me.”
The story of young Jayne’s abduction from the streets of Auckland and the discovery of her skeleton in sand dunes at Port Waikato nearly 20 years later has become the stuff of criminal folklore. Despite a police investigation spanning more than two decades, no-one has been arrested.
Judith believes several people know what happened to Jayne when she vanished from Karangahape Road, Auckland’s well-known late-night district, on the night of May 26, 1993. She believes the underworld her daughter courted is responsible for her death.
“Jayne was outspoken like me,” recalls Judith. “She saw a lot and she knew too much. I think she was someone who needed to be silenced.”
A runaway and a truant, Jayne dropped out of Penrose High School and began working as a prostitute at 15. Her days were spent sleeping, popping pills and drinking bourbon. Her nights were spent outside the old Rendells Department Store on K Road, looking for her next client. “Jayne turned night into day – and day into night,” says Judith.
But while the picture painted of Jayne was of a streetwise young woman, her diaries reveal a lonely girl who just wanted to be loved. Inside one diary – kept for years by Judith – is written, “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams lie, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”
Jayne with her mum at age nine.
Another entry a few days before she disappeared reads, “I’ve tried to be good and nice to everyone. I’ve never screwed anyone around, yet everyone dumps on me. Why can’t I be loved?”
Judith says it’s important for people to remember that Jayne was “more than just a prostitute”. She was a sister to her two brothers, now in their 40s, a daughter and a friend to many on the streets of Auckland.
One such friend was Natacha Hogan, known as “Twiggy”, who was raped and murdered in the cemetery on the corner of K Road three years after Jayne disappeared. Judith says her daughter was a bright young girl who was inexplicably drawn into a very adult world.
“Jayne was part of a group of teenagers who wanted to be part of a sinister world,” she explains. “They were just kids and they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.”
Mum’s heartbreak: Judith at Port Waikato, where Jayne’s remains were found in sand dunes in 2012.
Jayne was the youngest child of Judith and her late husband Michael Furlong. The marriage ended when Jayne was seven. Jayne was “non-stop” and first ran away from home when she was just four. “She disappeared, shimmied down the drainpipe. Away, even at that age.”
By the time her daughter was at school, the stress of bringing up her children on a benefit was too much for Judith. “I couldn’t do it any more. I needed a break.” She dropped Jayne and her middle brother at the Dingwall Trust, a care facility in Auckland. The eldest boy went to stay with family. Judith visited every week. The arrangement was meant to be short-term, tells Judith, but she then got a job in an office. “It sounds shocking, but I could only do so much. I treated it like boarding school.”
At age nine, Jayne moved into a foster home and then into another. She was sent to board at Whangarei Girls’ High School, where she was in a top class but driven by a wild streak. At 13, Jayne and a friend ran away, hitch-hiking with gang members back to Auckland. By the time she was 15, she had returned to live with Judith and was enrolled at Penrose High School. But by then, she was a truant and out of control. “She was wagging, dyeing her hair and being stupid,” says Judith.
One day, Jayne came home with a boyfriend, Dani Norsworthy. “I took one look at him and said, ‘Get rid of him,’” says Judith. “He had long dirty hair, only wore black and every part of him was tattooed.”
But Dani and Jayne had a lot in common and were soon inseparable. “They just clicked – they were both lost souls.”
Dani had been adopted into a middle-class Christian family and they enrolled him at Saint Kentigern College, but he didn’t last long and left home as a teenager. Soon, the couple’s life revolved around two things – sleeping and partying. Jayne worked nights as a prostitute – earning enough to keep them in bourbon, prescription pills and McDonald’s – and Dani loosely kept an eye on her.
Judith says her daughter denied she was working the streets, but she didn’t believe her. “I often went out looking on K Road, but I could never find her.”
By 17, Jayne was pregnant. “The pair of them were like children – they could barely look after themselves.”
Baby Aidan Norsworthy was born at Auckland’s National Women’s Hospital five months before Jayne disappeared. When he was three days old, Jayne left him in hospital and breezed back into her mother’s house.
“She said, ‘Hi, Mum, I’ve got a party to go to.’ It was like Alice in Wonderland – a life fuelled by drugs and alcohol.”
On May 27, 1993, Judith received a call from one of Jayne’s friends. “She hadn’t seen Jayne since 8.30pm the night before and she was worried. I said, ‘Oh, well, she’s done it before. It’s only been 24 hours. Let’s wait.’”
But by the Sunday night, Judith was panicked. She called the police and was told Dani had reported Jayne missing two days earlier. Judith says the past 23 years have been a long wait for justice. There have been developments – but each one comes with more unanswered questions.
Jayne and her boyfriend Dani just clicked.
In 2012, a woman walking a dog at windswept Sunset Beach south of Auckland discovered Jayne’s skull.
Just last year, Jayne’s diaries were crucial in a case against Wayne McGrath, who was imprisoned for the 1991 rape of one of her close friends. Judith says the murder has not only robbed her of a treasured daughter, but has also thrust her family into the public arena.
Judith has talked to various journalists over the years and still keeps in touch with a few from the ’90s. “It was my way of keeping the police accountable,” she explains. Jayne’s brothers – who do not want to be named – have found things difficult. “They are both doing well – good jobs, nice men. The life Jayne chose was not the path they took,” she tells.
Judith has kept in contact with some of Jayne’s friends over the years. Most, like her, lived a “wild” life.
Jayne’s partner Dani (left) and son Aidan lead the way as her casket is carried out of St George’s Anglican Church in Epsom, Auckland, 19 years after she disappeared.
“Some are dead, some are in their 40s and still doing the same thing – it’s called arrested development.”
She sees Dani occasionally and stays in contact with her grandson Aidan, who is now 23 and living with his grandparents in Tauranga. Judith doesn’t know who killed her daughter, but says Jayne moved in dangerous circles. “Jayne saw a lot and knew too much.”
Around the time of her disappearance, Jayne was involved in three serious court cases. She was a witness to a vicious assault in K Rd, a witness and a complainant in an incident involving a crossbow, and she was due to testify the day after she disappeared at the trial of Auckland businessman Stephen Collie. Collie was found guilty in 1993 of sexual offences against seven women, most of them prostitutes.
After so many years of waiting, Judith has accepted that she may go to her grave without seeing an arrest for her daughter’s murder. “What will be, will be. I’m no longer looking for closure,” she says. As a Christian, she takes comfort in the knowledge she will “see Jayne on the other side”.
Judith believes someone out there has kept an evil secret for 23 years and has no doubt suffered as a consequence. “You can’t get away with murder,” she says. “The punishment is lying awake on your own at night. It’s called a conscience.”
