Colin Bouwer

On 18 September 2015, Bouwer was refused parole, and consequently had to serve at least another year. At his parole hearing, Bouwer changed his original defence, stating that his wife's death was assisted suicide, and that he had been advised against using this defence at his trial. Though he indicated his intention to apply for parole again the following year, his lawyer stated that his ill health prevented it. In late 2016, he petitioned Craig Foss, requesting that Foss intervene and cancel his deportation order, but Foss refused. In 2017, Bouwer was paroled and deported to South Africa..

Colin Bouwer was a South African-born doctor who rose to become Head of Psychiatry at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He spent 16 years in prison for the murder of his third wife Annette. His crime was dramatized in the TV movie Bloodlines, with Bouwer being portrayed by Mark Mitchinson. His son from a previous marriage was also convicted of an unrelated murder in 2003. His first wife was also convicted of helping their son cover up his crime.

The prosecution argued that Bouwer killed his wife to obtain her life insurance and presented over 150 witnesses. His sister-in-law revealed that he claimed New Zealand was an ideal place to commit the perfect murder. Bouwer claimed he had undergone treatment for cancer in a South African hospital; however the doctors he had claimed had operated on him testified that they had never met him. It was revealed also that Bouwer had told students that injecting someone between the toes with insulin was the perfect way to commit a murder. On 19 November 2001, the jury took less than two hours to find him guilty (at the time, one of the fastest murder verdicts in years) and he was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 13 years. The sentence was increased to 15 years following an appeal by the crown. Bouwer's appeal was denied. He has since been described as a psychopath.

Bouwer drugged his wife to simulate the symptoms of a tumour. He used a combination of sedatives and hypoglycaemia-inducing drugs obtained with forged prescriptions. Annette was subjected to months of medical tests, including an operation. She was declared dead on 5 January 2000.

Bouwer was born in 1950. He married his third wife Annette in 1981 and migrated to New Zealand with her and their children in 1997. He left South Africa shortly after being declared an "impaired" doctor by the South African Health Professions Council due to a pethidine addiction. He claimed he was a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and had been imprisoned for resisting apartheid, though these claims were later revealed to be untrue. After moving to New Zealand, he became the head of psychological medicine at Dunedin Hospital.