Fascinating details of life during search for missing Swedes

It was a search that gripped late 80s New Zealand society; a beautiful, fair-haired missing couple far from home, the army called in, cyclonic conditions and all set against the verdant Coromandel range.

Ultimately, Operation Stockholm, the codename given to the 1989 search operation for missing Swedish tourists Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen, would be unsuccessful and by 1991 Höglin’s body would be located, and testimony from a jailhouse snitch used to convict David Tamihere would be contradicted.

In many ways the fate of the young couple on the cusp of marriage is no clearer than on the April day 34 years ago that they went missing.

Despite the search failing to materialise a serious suspect, some of the intimate details of the searchers’ daily routine are themselves a revealing glimpse into an operation that had the country on the edge of their seats.

Earlier this year the Waikato Times published a feature about Swedish podcaster and journalist Love Lyssarides’ months-long expedition to New Zealand to document the case for a Swedish audience.

Later in the year Tamihere will appeal his conviction for a final time after being granted the royal prerogative of mercy.

A long career in the New Zealand police organising searches for missing parties led then inspector Graeme McColl to head the operation on the ground as Stockholm’s search controller.

Then based in Rotorua, McColl relocated to the hills above Thames to coordinate and run the search, which he says amounted to over 20,000 hours of searching.

Crosbies Clearing is now the location of an eponymous hut.
CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF / WAIKATO TIMES

From a possible last known location at Crosbies Clearing, searchers fanned out across the hills hoping to discover a break in the case.

McColl recalls that many of the searchers were volunteers who would drop milking cups and tools to head into the hills to search for two people with whom they had no association.

“Farmers joined our search teams. They would get up in the dark, milk the cows, join our team, search all day, then go home to milk again in the dark before finally getting clean and fed before doing it all again. Great human beings! One day one of our regular farmers stayed away for some reason. He couldn't join in that day, but he did own a Pitt's Special aerobatic plane, and took the time to fly up the cliff as a team waited to catch the chopper! A spectacular show that cheered worn spirits!“

All searches are tailored to the terrain and the characteristics of the missing party, McColl explains.

“The search pattern was for close contact searching, searches one metre apart keeping in a straight line for a set distance into the bush from the side of the tracks. Initially 80 searchers in a line was tried.”

This was too slow and unwieldy, so teams were then put in groups of no more than 8 and this achieved far more and was quicker as well. One of the team, usually a police member was appointed as supervisor to record the searching done and to ensure lines were kept.

Because of the Coromandel Ranges’ vertiginous geography, much of the heavy lifting required for the search was provided by helicopters.

“Specialist assistance was needed right from the start, initially local helicopters including one from Auckland were used to ferry personnel and supplies into the search area to enable the best use to be made of the searching times. A local pilot was excellent in locating landing sites from his knowledge of the area.”

An unidentified Huntly mine rescue member searching an abandoned shaft.
GRAEME MCCOLL / STUFF

The conditions of the range were difficult even for those who had flown commercial flights in the Papuan highlands, remembers McColl.

“Another pilot used was back in New Zealand for a few weeks from his work in Papua New Guinea (PNG), the difference for him was wind, none in PNG, plenty around Thames.”

The hills around Thames also contained countless and often uncharted mineshafts, a legacy of the area’s gold rush. In order to discount the possibility the pair had tumbled into a shaft, local expertise was called upon.

Rescue crews from the Huntly collieries in the mid-Waikato, which in the late 80s was home to several underground drifts, were tasked with searching the abandoned shafts.

“A specialist mines rescue team from the Huntly coal mines were engaged for this work. They found these shafts were mainly off the established tracks, many of the ceilings were unstable and many were full of water. Still they managed a comprehensive search,” McColl says.

Although the work of volunteers was appreciated, it was soon apparent that a search of the scale and public interest of Stockholm would require more resources.

Swedish journalist Love Lyssarides at Crosbies Clearing earlier in the year.
CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF / WAIKATO TIMES

“From the early searches it became obvious that SAR volunteers could not be expected to provide the resources required to completely cover the areas required. A request was made and 50 soldiers of 161 Battalion from the Papakura Military Camp were deployed. They arrived on a day when the Coromandel was experiencing strong wind and heavy rain, probably similar to the storms experienced in recent years.”

“The attitude of these soldiers was demonstrated by the reluctance to leave when they were rotated out and a new group arrived.”

The story ran concurrently to a period of inclement weather across the country brought about by Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle. Tracks were rendered streamways, roads were buckled and infrastructure across the North Island was left dismantled by slips and flooding.

In a piece of historical coincidence, at the time Paakkonen and Höglin went missing the Coromandel Peninsula had only a year earlier been in the throes of Cyclone Bola. This left many of the tracks looking similar to how they would have when the story was published.

One of the TV sets arranged so the Bledisloe Cup match wouldn’t be missed.
GRAEME MCCOLL / STUFF

Weather played a role in the search for the Swedes too, McColl says.

“Weather was a major factor during the search by the army team, it rained as it does so well in the Thames area, and their camp was in the bush with mud everywhere. The tracks they were using were at the least calf deep in mud.”

They had two sets of uniform, a wet one for day use and a dry one for night. Their work ethics were amazing and a credit to their battalion. One soldier found a rubber band 400 yards off the track, such was the intensity of the search.”

Sometimes it appears as if New Zealand’s equivalent to the lunar calendar is based on rugby fixtures and weather events rather than moon phases.

That was no different in 1989.

“One Saturday of the search there was an afternoon Bledisloe Cup rugby game between the All Blacks and Wallabies. These were the days before paid TV sport and night games. Discussions took place and a Thames retailer made available a TV set, the army provided a generator and the Police SAR entertainment fund provided refreshments. The magic of old ribbon TV aerials meant that there was reasonable reception,” McColl recalls.