Malcolm Rewa - the man found guilty of one the country’s most infamous killings - will today have his bid to overturn the conviction heard in the Court of Appeal.

Rewa was convicted in 2019 of the 1992 murder of Susan Burdett in her south Auckland home.

It was his third trial for the murder charge, having already been convicted of Burdett’s rape.

Before the trial, the Court of Appeal allowed the Crown to use 20 of Rewa’s previous rape convictions to display a pattern of offending.

Rewa’s two previous trials in 1998 resulted in both juries being unable to reach a verdict on the murder charge.

Rewa is appealing the murder conviction, claiming that the jury that convicted him was biased, and had predetermined their verdict.

Rewa’s appeal was due to be heard in early 2020, but was delayed by the Court of Appeal due to issues around his lawyer’s fitness to represent him, and whether Rewa consented to his lawyer acting for him.

Teina Pora

The case also led to one of New Zealand’s great injustices - the prosecution and imprisonment of Teina Pora.

Pora was just 17 years old when he was arrested before twice being wrongly convicted of murdering Burdett.

He spent 22 years in prison, and his conviction was quashed by the Privy Council in London during 2015. He has received a government apology and $3.5 million in compensation.

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Teina Pora spent 22 years in jail after being wrongly convicted of murdering Susan Burdett. Photo / Michael Craig

The trial

A 1998 stay of the murder charge against Rewa was lifted in 2017, allowing a third trial to proceed.

During his trial, Rewa claimed he was in a secret sexual relationship with Burdett - which he said explained his semen being found at the crime scene.

Chief High Court judge Justice Geoffrey Venning, who presided over the trial, has said the claim was “a further injustice and indignity on Ms Burdett and her memory”.

Rewa also accused Burdett’s son Dallas McKay of the murder and said a possible motive might have been the $250,000 he inherited from his mum’s life insurance policy.

The attack on Burdett, Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes said at trial, displayed all the hallmarks of a typical Rewa crime.

Several of his rape victims had their legs crossed or dangling over the bed, their eyes blindfolded, and top half covered.

Susan Burdett. Photo / Supplied

Burdett was found lying naked on her bed, her upper half covered with a blood-soaked blue duvet after she was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, while her legs were crossed and hanging over the side of the bed.

Kayes said Rewa had entered through a window at Burdett’s South Auckland home and surprised the 39-year-old as she prepared for bed - a style of attack he was known for.

Rewa was sentenced to life imprisonment for Burdett’s murder, to be served concurrently with his existing 22-year preventive detention sentence for his rapes.