Case #027 - Margery Hopegood

The 1992 murder of English tourist, Margery Hopegood, stunned the country. She was in New Zealand to discover her roots, but was stabbed to death in a Hamilton toilet block.

Margery Hopegood was born in New Zealand but had been adopted by a English family and raised there.

She had been back in New Zealand just four days when she was brutally murdered.

The murder was huge news and the people of Hamilton turned out in their hundreds to a memorial service for a woman none of them know.

Wellington playwright and actor Nicola Pauling has a strong family connection to Margery and turned the full story of her visit to New Zealand into a play called She Danced on a Friday.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details