David Tamihere will have to wait another two months to find out whether he will be retried over the 1989 murder of two Swedish backpackers in Coromandel.
Tamihere appeared at the High Court in Auckland on Wednesday on the charges he was first convicted of in 1990 but which were quashed by the Supreme Court in March.
The Supreme Court said it was up to Crown prosecutors to decide whether to hold a trial again.
Crown prosecutor Alysha McClintock told the High Court on Wednedsay the Crown needed more time to decide whether it would try Tamihere again for the murder of Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen.
Tamihere's lawyer James Carruthers said with a trial potentially a year away, the defence team was in the dark about the case.
They were dealing with events that happened 37 years ago and did not know what evidence or witnesses the prosecution was relying on.
Justice Mathew Downs agreed to the extension requested by the prosecution but gave it a deadline.
It must make a decision by the end of September, and Tamihere will appear again in October.
Arriving at court, Tamihere, who is now in his 70s, said he was feeling good but did not know what to expect.
He has been out of jail since 2010 when he was released on parole.
When the convictions were quashed, he was freed but is still facing the two murder charges.
The background
Höglin, 23, and Paakkonen, 21, were last seen in Thames in 1989.
Their disappearance and the subsequent trial was one of the country's highest profile crimes.
Many aspects remain a mystery.
Höglin's body was found in 1991, after Tamihere had been convicted, but Paakkonen's body has never been found.
At the time the couple went missing, Tamihere had been living in the bush in the Coromandel for about three years, in hiding from police over a prior rape charge.
Much of the Crown's original case was circumstantial.
It included evidence that Tamihere had been seen driving around the Coromandel region in the couple's ute.
Tamihere admitted dumping or selling their possession but maintained he had never met them.
The Crown's case also relied on testimony from former inmate Robert Conchie Harris who said Tamihere told him he killed the Swedes. However Harris was convicted of perjury over evidence in 2017.
The appeals
Tamihere first appealed his convictions in 1992, after Höglin's body was found wearing a watch that a prosecution witness had initially said he had seen at Tamihere's house.
The body was also 70km away from where the Crown first suspected he had been killed.
That appeal was unsuccessful but the 2017 perjury conviction of Harris prompted a new round of appeals from Tamihere.
In 2024, the Court of Appeal declined to quash the convictions, saying despite the problems with some crown evidence, there was still enough to safely say Tamihere was guilty.
The Supreme Court released its decision in March that finally quashed the convictions.
It said Harris's evidence meant the trial was fundamentally unfair, and that there had been a "radical recasting" of the crown case since the original trial.
That effectively meant the case had never truly been tested by a jury.
The court said it was possible a jury would still find Tamihere guilty, but that could only be decided in a retrial.
Timeline
April 1989 - Heidi Birgitta Paakkonen and Sven Urban Höglin are last seen in Thames. Tamihere was on the run from police and living rough in the bush after pleading guilty to raping a woman three years earlier.
May 1989 - David Tamihere is arrested over an earlier rape. That same day, the couple are reported missing.
December 1990 - Tamihere is convicted of murdering the couple and sentenced to life imprisonment.
1991 - Höglin's body is found near Whangamatā.
1992 - The Court of Appeal rejects Tamihere's appeal.
1994 - Tamihere is denied leave to appeal to the Privy Council.
1995 - Witness C - later revealed as Roberto Conchie Harris - swears an affidavit retracting his evidence.
1996 - Harris retracts his retraction.
2010 - Tamihere is released on parole.
2016 - A private prosecution alleges Harris lied at Tamihere's trial.
2017 - Harris is sentenced after being found guilty of perjury and not guilty of perverting the course of justice.
2017 - Harris appeals the perjury convictions and sentence and fights to keep his identity hidden.
2018 - Harris drops his appeal against the perjury convictions.
2018 - The High Court revokes suppression order for Witness B, another prison informant.
2020 - Justice Minister Andrew Little announces Tamihere's case is going back to the Court of Appeal after a Royal Prerogative of Mercy is granted.
November 2023 - The Court of Appeal hears Tamihere's case.
July 2024 - The Court of Appeal declines to quash Tamihere's convictions.
December 2024 - The Supreme Court grants leave for the case to be heard there.
August 2025 - The case heads to the Supreme Court sitting in Auckland.
March 2026 - The Supreme Court quashes Tamihere's conviction and directs a retrial but leaves it up to the crown to decide whether or not to hold one.