Christopher John Lewis was a New Zealander who made a 1981 unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II. He planned later attempts at assassinating other British royal family members and was kept at arm's length from them by the authorities in New Zealand. In 1997, he was charged with the murder of Tania Furlan and the kidnapping of her daughter.
Early life
Lewis was born in Dunedin on 7 September 1964. He had a troubled life; his father was a cruel disciplinarian, and he was expelled from school after assaulting another child. He struggled at school and was unable to write or read until the age of eight. As a boy, he idolised Charles Manson. In his teens, he formed a would-be guerrilla army with two friends. The group stole weapons, sent a threatening letter to the police, and robbed a post office of $5,244.
Assassination attempts
On 14 October 1981, 17-year-old Lewis had been tracking the New Zealand tour of the royal family, who were to visit Otago Museum in Dunedin. Lewis concealed a.22 caliber rifle wrapped up in an old pair of jeans, and traveled by bicycle to the Adams Building, where he took up a position in a toilet cubicle. He fired through the window at the Queen as she was exiting a car. The shot did not impact near the Queen or anyone else, but a loud crack was heard; local police told journalists that the noise had been caused by a sign falling down. While Lewis did not have a proper vantage point nor sufficiently powerful rifle for his purposes, a 1997 report by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service notes that his intent was to kill the queen. Eight days after firing the shot, Lewis was arrested and charged with public possession of a firearm, and public discharging of a firearm. As the charges were read to him, Lewis responded "Only two charges, what? Shit ... Had the bullet hit her, would it be treason?" Lewis served three years in prison, with the last part in a psychiatric prison. The New Zealand Police covered up the story, charging him with possession of a firearm, but purposely keeping the event under wraps, concerned that it would create a negative image of New Zealand, and endanger future royal visits. According to police files, Lewis was being asked about an unrelated robbery, when he took police to the position where he had fired at the Queen and showed police the empty casings and the rifle. The facts of the attempt were classified, until released in February 2018 in response to a request from Fairfax Media. In 1983, when Charles, Prince of Wales, toured New Zealand with his wife Diana and their son William, Lewis unsuccessfully attempted to escape from a psychiatric ward.
Later life
Lewis was eventually released, and when a third royal visit occurred the government sent him to Great Barrier Island to keep him away from the royal family. He was later charged with the 1997 hammer murder of a young mother, Tania Furlan, and the kidnapping of her child. He electrocuted himself in Mount Eden Prison, Auckland while awaiting trial. A friend of Lewis, Travis Burns, who had implicated him in the Furlan crimes and received a reward for doing so, later confessed to the murder.
