Donna Hall with baby Kahu around the time of the kidnapping
A TV3 documentary has already launched a swell of social media interest and comments before it has even broadcast.
Pitched as a New Zealand Television Event by TV3 – Stolen: The Baby Kahu Story tells the story of the kidnapping of baby Kahu Durie. Reports circulating on Social Media site Facebook claim that the producers South Pacific Pictures refused to engage the parents Eddie Jurie and Donna Hall in the making of this documentary. There have been calls for people to boycott the documentary broadcast. If true it seems strange that the documentary was made with out the buy in of the family involved, causing them to go through the pain of reliving the event in a tv broadcast without their consent.
The promotion from TV3 reads:
Written by Tim Balme (Outrageous Fortune, The Almighty Johnsons, Brown Brothers), Stolen: The Baby Kahu Story, screening on Wednesday, July 28th at 8:30pm on TV3, tells the gripping true story of the 2002 kidnapping of baby Kahu Durie.
No missing persons case in recent New Zealand history gripped the nation more than the kidnapping of baby Kahu Durie. The adopted daughter of Maori High Court Judge, Justice Eddie Durie, and prominent lawyer, Donna Hall, Baby Kahu was snatched at gunpoint, sparking a massive police manhunt.
The nine days that follow the kidnapping were a gut-wrenching, agonising time for the family, and for the New Zealand public, as they watch, gripped by brave television appeals for the baby’s safe return.
Meanwhile, kidnapper Terence Traynor ruthlessly carried out what he believed was the perfect crime – a crime five years in the planning.
Following Donna Hall’s emotional public plea, a letter arrived containing polaroids of the baby, and a ransom demand for three million dollars – the biggest in New Zealand history.
“Stolen is going to be a reminder for a lot of people who were present and saw the TV coverage,” explains George Henare who portrays Eddie Durie in the telefeature.
Out of the public eye, the police, led by Detective Inspector Stuart Wildon, worked tirelessly, carrying out reconstructions of the crime and following up every possible lead – including hoax calls that claimed the baby was dead.
“It will be intriguing for viewers to go behind the scenes of the police investigation, and very moving to see the family’s experience,” Henare continues.
Slowly, but surely, the net closed on Traynor, eventually focusing on a secluded house in a small country town.
As Donna and Eddie, their extended family – and the New Zealand public – waited and hoped, Wildon and his team knew that one wrong step could have had devastating consequences.
Now, seven years later, director Britta Johnstone (Outrageous Fortune, Go Girls), is retelling this emotional story. Make sure not to miss it when Stolen: The Baby Kahu Story screens on Wednesday, July 28th at 8:30pm on 3
If this beautiful baby is back with Family… Then I think it would be better to make a Movie/Doco’ about the Kahu twins who still to this day lay in their graves and no one will ever be held accountable for their MURDERS!!! Shame on the NZ Justice system and Shame on their Parents for not protecting them, But for protecting the one/s who MURDERED them… sometimes I feel ashamed to be a KIWI!!! how many others do???????